Like other Swiss urban centers, Lausanne has a high foreign population which includes a significant number of recent arrivals making use of the health care system. When medical specialists and migrants meet in this context, they often have little knowledge of the sociolinguistic and sociocultural systems used by their interlocutor. Recourse to a translator seems to be the only solution enabling the two parties to achieve mutual understanding. Traditionally, this third person is one of the patient's relatives or acquaintances. Due to the problematic nature of this practice, a group of Lausanne health care providers initiated a pluridisciplinary action-research. The major objective of this study was to advocate the introduction of professional Cultural Mediators/Interpreters (CMIs) and to measure the effects of this change on the representations made by the persons involved: patients, health care providers and CMIs. Data were collected in focus groups and interviews and subjected to qualitative analysis. The investigation of linguistic and social representations has revealed diverging views regarding the role of participants' gender in translated medical consultations. There seems to be a general consensus as to the existence of taboos linked to gender roles, whereas there are significant differences in opinion on the importance of choosing the health care provider and the translator/ress according to the patient's gender. Further analysis of this controversy reveals that underlying the question of gender, the place of a new group of actors (CMIs) in the medical field is being negotiated. Grasping the stakes of the discourses on gender of translators/resses implies considering them in their broader context because the hierarchy of this field rests on principles other than solely gender domination.