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7: LGBTQ+ Health and Wellness

  • Page ID
    240434
    • Thomas Lawrence Long, Christine Rodriguez, Marianne Snyder, & Ryan J. Watson
    • Rio Hondo College

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    Learning Objectives

    Upon completion of this chapter, students will be able to do the following:

    • Summarize the history of nonnormative genders and sexualities, including homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender identity, as well as queer identity and activism.
    • Describe the connections between identities and embodied experiences.
    • Describe intersectionality from an LGBTQ+ perspective.
    • Analyze how key social institutions shape, define, and enforce structures of inequality.

    • 7.1: LGBTQ+ Health and Wellness - Overview
      This section discusses LGBTQ+ health and wellness, emphasizing access to care, affirming providers, and self‑efficacy. The Institute of Medicine frames health through minority stress, life‑course, intersectionality, and social ecology. Historically, medicine pathologized queer identities, coining terms like homosexual and bisexual. Later research, such as Kinsey’s scale, revealed sexual fluidity, while distrust of medical institutions spurred self‑care movements and LGBTQ+ health clinics.
    • 7.2: Medicine and the History of Transgender Care
      This section discusses the visibility of transgender health through Christine Jorgensen’s transition and Johns Hopkins’ early gender‑affirming surgery program. It examines LGBTQ+ vulnerabilities across the lifespan, highlighting minority stress and intersectionality as key frameworks for understanding health disparities. This section discusses disease prevention and health promotion, emphasizing family support, school and community resources, and HIV prevention strategies like PrEP.
    • 7.3: Therapeutic Options for Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Patients
      This section discusses therapeutic options for transgender and gender‑nonconforming patients, emphasizing individualized, collaborative, and multidisciplinary care. It outlines choices such as gender expression changes, psychotherapy, hormone therapy, surgeries, and peer support. It also addresses challenges of coming out, minority stress, and microaggressions. Finally, this section discusses the importance of self‑advocacy and being informed health care consumers.
    • 7.4: Health Care Providers
      This section discusses gaps in LGBTQ+ health education among medical and nursing programs, noting limited training hours. It highlights resources like the Human Rights Campaign’s Healthcare Equality Index, GLMA directories, and Fenway Institute tools to locate affirming providers. It also talks about disclosure choices, and attention to specific LGBTQ+ health risks, emphasizing prevention, advocacy, and culturally inclusive, patient‑centered care for wellness and equity.
    • 7.5: Research Resources
    • 7.6: Glossary
    • 7.7: Footnotes
    • 7.8: Deep Dive - Books and Film
    • 7.9: Care to the Trans- and Gender Non-Conforming Identified Patient Video Transcription

    Thumbnail image attribution:

    Anna Weingart, American LGBT rights activist and nonprofit founder, holding a sign that reads "You are not alone" in a blurred background outside the Texas State Capitol. Photo taken in 2014.


    This page titled 7: LGBTQ+ Health and Wellness is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Thomas Lawrence Long, Christine Rodriguez, Marianne Snyder, Ryan J. Watson, & Ryan J. Watson.