Healthcare and The LGBT Community

Healthcare And The LGBT Community

LGBT topics in medicine are those that relate to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people's health issues and access to health services. According to the US Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), besides HIV/AIDS, issues related to LGBT health include breast and cervical cancer, hepatitis, mental health, substance abuse, tobacco use, depression, access to care for transgender persons, issues surrounding marriage and family recognition, conversion therapy, and refusal clause legislation, and laws that are intended to "immunize health care professionals from liability for discriminating against persons of whom they disapprove."

Studies show that LGBT people experience health issues and barriers related to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity or expression. Many avoid or delay care or receive inappropriate or inferior care because of perceived or real homophobia or transphobia, and discrimination by health care providers and institutions., in other words reason is negative personal experience, the assumption or expectation of negative experience based on knowing of history of such experience in other LGBT people, or both.

It is often pointed that the reason of this is heterosexism in medical care and research:

"Heterosexism can be purposeful (decreased funding or support of research projects that focus on sexual orientation) or unconscious (demographic questions on intake forms that ask the respondent to rate herself or himself as married, divorced, or single). These forms of discrimination limit medical research and negatively impact the health care of LGB individuals. This disparity is particularly extreme for lesbian women (compared to homosexual men) because they have a double minority status, and experience oppression for being both female and homosexual."

Especially with lesbian patients they may be discriminated in three ways:

1. homophobic attitudes
2. heterosexist judgements and behaviour
3. general sexism - with focusing primarily male health concerns and services; assigning subordinate to that of men health roles for women, as for service providers and service recipients