Many transgender men face discrimination in U.S. health care settings, according to a new study.

About 42 percent of female-to-male transgender adults reported verbal harassment, physical assault or denial of equal treatment in a doctor's office or hospital, the researchers report.

"Over a third of participants in the study were blatantly mistreated when they tried to get healthcare," said Deirdre Shires of Wayne State University in Detroit.

She and co-author Kim Jaffee write in the journal Health and Social Work that past research found transgender people often face discrimination or harassment in various areas of life, including health care.

The little research that does exists tends to focus on male-to-female transgender people, they write. For this study, they focused instead on female-to-male people.

Their data came from a 2008-2009 survey of 1,711 female-to-male transgender people from the U.S. and its territories. Most were ages 25 to 44.

Over three quarters lived full-time as their nonbirth gender. A similar proportion reported some type of medical gender transition.

Asked about experiences in doctors' offices or hospitals, 28 percent said they'd been denied equal treatment, about 32 percent reported verbal harassment, and about 1 percent reported physical assaults.

Shires emphasized that it's not clear who discriminated against the participants. Additionally, she said, the results may not apply to the entire transgender community.

One researcher not involved with the study told Reuters Health by email that she wasn't surprised by the findings.

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Transgender people face discrimination in health care