LGBT Status Research Articles

EXPERIENCE OF LGBT PATIENTS AND FAMILY WITH HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE

This study examines the degree to which hospice and palliative care staff observe or perceive inadequate, disrespectful, or abusive care to LGBT patients and family members. A cross-sectional study using an online survey completed by 865 providers, including social workers, physicians, nurses, and chaplains. Among respondents, 55% reported that LGB patients were more likely to experience discrimination at their institution than non-LGB patients; 24% observed discriminatory care; 65% reported that transgender patients were more likely than non-transgender patients to experience discrimination; 20% observed discrimination to transgender patients; 14% observed the spouse/partner of LGBT patients having their treatment decisions disregarded or minimized; and 13% observed the spouse/partner being treated disrespectfully. Findings reported also include: institutional non-discrimination policy, staff training, intake procedures, and comfort in assessing LGBT status. Implications for future research, policy, and practice will be presented.

GAY AND GRAY IX: TURNING RED, WHITE AND BLUE: HOW A HISTORY OF MILITARY SEXUAL TRAUMA IMPACTS THE LIVES OF OLDER LGBT VETERANS: Session 111

As the general population of older adults in the US continues to rapidly increase so is the population of older Veterans who belong to a gender or sexual minority. A subset of these older LGBT veterans experienced victimization while serving in the military inspired by their LGBT status some of these veterans even now are still experiencing the consequences of this trauma. The overarching goal of this session is to help mental health providers provide the best care possible for older veterans who were traumatized during their period of military service as a result of being LGBT. The session will cover the following areas: the history of LGBT individuals serving in the US Military, the scientific literature on PTSD in later life, three clinical vignettes of older veterans being treated for military sexual trauma and the potentially helpful clinical services currently available through the VA for older military sexual trauma survivors.

Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Behavioral Norms in the Labor Market

The author examines bias and behavioral norms based on sex and sexual orientation in the labor market. Using an online laboratory setting, participants were asked to evaluate résumés that were manipulated on sex, perceived LGBT status, and use of traditionally masculine or feminine adjectives. Findings show that male participants penalized résumés that included an LGBT activity, and the penalty was slightly stronger for male résumés. Additionally, men evaluated non-LGBT women who used feminine adjectives more positively than when they used masculine adjectives. Résumés of women with the LGBT activity and men were both immune to this effect. This outcome suggests that perceived-heterosexual women are discouraged from masculine behavior that would be rewarded in the labor market, whereas perceived-LGBT women are not. Men who had the strongest reaction to perceived-heterosexual women using masculine adjectives also had the strongest negative reaction to résumés with an LGBT activity. This pattern suggests that male decision makers are biased in ways that harm LGBT men, LGBT women, and heterosexual women in the labor market.

Incorporating LGBT Health in an Undergraduate Medical Education Curriculum Through the Construct of Social Determinants of Health.

The AAMC has provided a resource to medical schools for implementing curricular change in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) health education. However, studies have identified that many health professionals who do not feel comfortable in their ability to provide quality care for LGBT patients do not perform complete sexual histories routinely and/or harbor bias towards these patients or their sexual practices. This situation underscores the continued need for further education on this topic. Based on a needs assessment survey of medical students and faculty, we developed a 1-hour didactic lecture to provide instruction on how social determinants of health impact the care of LGBT patients. Students were not required to have any prerequisite knowledge for the session. A content expert in LGBT health taught the lecture using Microsoft PowerPoint in a traditional medical school lecture hall. The lecture was given to 180 third-year medical students. A total of 63 students (35%) responded to the retrospective pre- and postlecture survey. After the didactic lecture, students reported a statistically significant change in their knowledge of the lecture objectives. The didactic lecture was able to increase students' knowledge of how social determinants impact the health of LGBT patients. The lecture can be incorporated into a longitudinal curriculum on LGBT health. Additional work and research are needed on increasing comfort in faculty teaching.

“Openness through Sound”: Dualcasting on Irish LGBT Radio

This article explores how Ireland’s first LGBT radio station, Open FM, attempted to offer LGBT radio in a heteronormative media landscape. It uses semi-structured interviews with two of the stations founders as well as posts from online LGBT message bulletin boards to argue how Open FM ultimately became ambivalent about its LGBT status and adopted a dualcasting strategy. Despite its ambitions to be a community-led radio station for Ireland's LGBT community, the dualcasting strategy of the station framed many of its endeavors between the mainstream standards of radio broadcasting and the community of interest that their licence claimed to serve.

Pembe Caretta

Pembe Caretta

Privacy Leakage in Event-based Social Networks

Event-based social networks (EBSNs) are increasingly popular since they provide platforms on which online and offline activities are combined. Despite the increasing interest in EBSNs, little research has paid attention to the privacy issues coming from the unique features of EBSNs; the on-site information of users is highly relevant to real lives. In this paper, we try to investigate privacy leakages in Meetup, one of the most popular EBSN service. More specifically, we answer what private information can be inferred from the site's publicly available data. To this end, we conduct a measurement study by crawling webpages from Meetup containing 240K groups, 8.9M users, 27M group affiliations and 78M topical interests. By analyzing the dataset, we find that LGBT status of users, which is one of the most sensitive privacy information, can be predicted with 93% accuracy. Finally we discuss the cause of the privacy leakage on EBSNs and its possible ensuing damages.

Peer attitudes toward LGBT-identified university students as mediated by demographic factors

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to measure university student attitudes toward their LGBT peers across a range of demographic factors. We surveyed 416 undergraduates at a midsize Midwestern American public university to measure attitudes toward LGBT people. Results from a general Attitudes scale and two subscales, Morality and Friendship, were analyzed across gender, age, ethnicity, LGBT status, and years spent at the university. Results were also broken out into attitudes about LGB vs. transgender people, and attitudes about gay or bisexual men vs. lesbian or bisexual women. We found that female gender, LGBT identification, age, and number of years spent at the university were associated with more positive attitudes about LGBT people. We did not find any association between ethnicity and attitudes. We also found that attitudes toward gay or bisexual men were less positive than attitudes toward lesbian or bisexual women, and that attitudes toward transgender individuals were less positive than attitudes toward LGB people. These results suggest that anti-bias campus trainings may be most effective when tailored for males, younger students, and non-LGBT students. Trainings should also focus on transgender issues, as this is a population about which many students have negative attitudes.

Helping Your Facility Adjust to a Rainbow World

Helping Your Facility Adjust to a Rainbow World

Broadening participation and RESPECT

In computing and STEM fields, broadening participation is both a matter of driving creativity and innovation and a matter of equity. It is critical that we, as the CS education community, improve inclusion of diverse people, especially those from underrepresented populations. Globally, underrepresentation differs regionally and culturally by gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic advantage, physical, mental, and cognitive ability, and LGBT status. Lest we think that this is a minority-only issue, consider developing countries or the poor of every nation, where computing could help build the economy, health, education, and financial systems.

Being out at school: the implications for school victimization and young adult adjustment.

Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adolescents disclose their sexual and/or gender identities to peers at school. Disclosure of LGBT status is linked with positive psychosocial adjustment for adults; however, for adolescents, "coming out" has been linked to school victimization, which in turn is associated with negative adjustment. This study investigates the associations among adolescent disclosure of LGBT status to others at school, school victimization, and young adult psychosocial adjustment using a sample of 245 LGBT young adults (aged 21-25 years, living in California). After accounting for the association between school victimization and later adjustment, being out at high school was associated with positive psychosocial adjustment in young adulthood. Results have significant implications for training of school-based health and mental health providers, education and guidance for parents and caregivers, fostering positive development of LGBT youth, and developing informed school policies and educational practices.

An inclusive rights-based foreign policy for health

30 years ago the disease now known as AIDS transfixed suffering and death on gay communities. The spread of AIDS transformed an entire generation, forging powerful connections between gay activists and their health professionals.1 AIDS activists reached beyond the picket lines to set up entirely new drug approval processes at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). At the same time, AIDS physicians adopted the cause of advocacy in ways hitherto unthinkable. Although the synergy between human rights and health continues to this day, these partial gains reveal an unfinished project. We define inclusive rights as civil, social, and health rights independent of sexual orientation or gender.2 Yet violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals remain the norm in many regions.3 In 2012, 78 nations worldwide had laws discriminating against LGBT individuals.2 This harsh environment discourages LGBT individuals from seeking health services, disclosing sexual behaviours, reporting sexual violence, and, ultimately, from receiving antiretroviral therapy for those HIV-infected LGBT in need of treatment.4 In 2011, in recognition of the importance of an inclusive rights-based foreign policy, US President Barack Obama issued a memorandum that raised LGBT rights to the status of a foreign policy priority. Obama declared: “The struggle to end discrimination against LGBT persons is a global challenge, and one that is central to the United States commitment to promoting human rights. I am deeply concerned by the violence and discrimination targeting LGBT persons around the world whether it is passing laws that criminalize LGBT status, beating citizens simply for joining peaceful LGBT pride celebrations, or killing men, women, and children for their perceived sexual orientation. That is why I declared before heads of state gathered at the United Nations, ‘no country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere.’”5 An inclusive rights-based foreign policy can improve the health and wellbeing of LGBT communities by several mechanisms. First, worldwide support for LGBT individuals’ human rights nurtures an environment that is conducive to stable, healthy same-sex partnerships. An analysis based on WHO data showed that after European nations introduced same-sex partnership laws, syphilis rates decreased by 43%.6 Second, an inclusive rights-based foreign policy decreases barriers for HIV-infected LGBT individuals to receive antiretroviral therapy. Finally, an inclusive foreign policy prioritises the safety of LGBT individuals. LGBT individuals have been murdered in many countries because of sexual orientation or gender identity. This inclusive foreign policy agenda has also elicited criticism, especially from local leaders. Religious practices that condemn homosexuality, entrenched heterosexual family norms, and widespread public disapproval in many regions7 challenge the expansion of an inclusive foreign policy in different parts of the world. Potential exists for conflict between religious groups and organisations supporting inclusive policies; however, faith leaders have also become powerful advocates for HIV prevention.7 This advocacy could be extended explicitly to include LGBT rights. Working in partnership with local religious organisations and other multisectoral partners will be crucial to the success of comprehensive initiatives in HIV control. Another common criticism against an inclusive foreign policy is the belief that paternalistic global forces misunderstand local cultures; yet the persistence and momentum of LGBT community-based organisations in the harshest environments cannot be ignored. Homosexuality is not a political ideology; rather, it is woven into the fabric of humanity. The UN Human Rights Council has unequivocally stated that LGBT rights are human rights.8 An inclusive foreign policy is gaining traction and could generate considerable health benefits. Although an inclusive foreign policy has advanced most rapidly in high-income nations where discrimination and violence are less common, 29 US states9 and 12 European countries2 still have laws that discriminate against homosexual individuals. Advancement of LGBT rights is about embracing health and wellness for all, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender.

Gender-nonconforming lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth: School victimization and young adult psychosocial adjustment.

Past research documents that both adolescent gender nonconformity and the experience of school victimization are associated with high rates of negative psychosocial adjustment. Using data from the Family Acceptance Project’s young adult survey, we examined associations among retrospective reports of adolescent gender nonconformity and adolescent school victimization due to perceived or actual lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) status, along with current reports of life satisfaction and depression. The participants included 245 LGBT young adults ranging in age from 21 to 25 years. Using structural equation modeling, we found that victimization due to perceived or actual LGBT status fully mediates the association between adolescent gender nonconformity and young adult psychosocial adjustment (i.e., life satisfaction and depression). Implications are addressed, including specific strategies that schools can implement to provide safer environments for gender-nonconforming LGBT students.

Interview with Leonard Harvey, MD, MBA.

William Byne: Access to care is a major contributor to LGBT health disparities, and adequate health insurance is a vital component of access. We would like for you to address several issues for our readers pertaining to insurance for sexual orientation and gender identity minority individuals. These include the impact of the Affordable Care Act— its provisions already in place—and those on preexisting conditions that will go into effect in 2014. We would also appreciate your views on coverage of same sex couples, gender transition services, and issues raised by recent proposals to systematically query and record LGBT status in electronic health records. Given your experience as a healthcare provider, your leading role in LGBT health advocacy through the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), together with your role as medical director for a major insurance company, you are uniquely qualified to address these issues.

Put the Town on Notice: School District Liability and LGBT Bullying Notification Laws

Congress could mitigate the problem of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) student bullying by requiring that teachers and school officials report all bullying incidents to their school district administrators. Many school districts are not aware of the prevalence of LGBT bullying and the extent to which each school protects, or fails to protect, its LGBT students compared to other harassed students. LGBT students often encounter difficulty demonstrating that their school district has a policy or custom of deliberate indifference toward their equal treatment when a school does not equally protect an LGBT student from peer-to-peer bullying because of the student's LGBT status. This Note proposes a federal notification law requiring teachers and school officials to report incidents of bullying to school district administrators. This requirement would enable LGBT students and their allies to pressure school districts for equal protection and to litigate if unequal treatment persists. A notification law would provide a basis for such action because it would create direct evidence that the school district was aware of the problem-an essential element in an equal protection cause of action.

Gender-nonconforming lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth: School victimization and young adult psychosocial adjustment.

Past research documents that both adolescent gender nonconformity and the experience of school victimization are associated with high rates of negative psychosocial adjustment. Using data from the Family Acceptance Project's young adult survey, we examined associations among retrospective reports of adolescent gender nonconformity and adolescent school victimization due to perceived or actual lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) status, along with current reports of life satisfaction and depression. The participants included 245 LGBT young adults ranging in age from 21 to 25 years. Using structural equation modeling, we found that victimization due to perceived or actual LGBT status fully mediates the association between adolescent gender nonconformity and young adult psychosocial adjustment (i.e., life satisfaction and depression). Implications are addressed, including specific strategies that schools can implement to provide safer environments for gender-nonconforming LGBT students.

Perceived Sibling Relationships of Sexual Minority Youth

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of sexual minority youth and their siblings. The participants were 56 lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals ranging in age from 18 to 24 years, who reported information about a total of 107 siblings. Respondents completed a demographic data questionnaire as well as adapted versions of the Sibling Closeness Scale (SCS) and the Sibling Approval of Sexual Behavior Scale (SASBS) to describe their relationship with each of their siblings. Analyses examined birth order and gender in relation to outness to siblings as well as sibling closeness and approval. Results provide information about disclosure of LGBT status to siblings, elements of closeness and acceptance in sibling relationships of sexual minority youth, and the significance of gender and birth order in these sibling relationships.

Introduction to Lesbian Geographies

This chapter highlights the homonational politics, meaning the assemblage of sexuality and citizenship as an analytic category stemming from the intertwining of state, capitalism and sexuality. It refers to the gendered politics of absence as a reification of lesbian, bisexual and transgender exclusion, experienced by activists as a divestment of their power and voice. The creation of a strong, positive and glamorous visibility through the renovated Gay-Center reflected well on the LGBT community and improved the LGBT position and status in Tel Aviv. Homonationalism has enabled the dispossession of the activist's access to leadership positions and political presence as influential LGBT activists. The derivative concept of republican citizenship is a process of participation in active debate and decision-making processes specifically linking military service and the state. Israel is a militaristic society in which masculinity plays a focal role in the construction of identities that reproduce participation in and belonging to the state.

Brief Reports: Unequal Treatment: Mental Health Care for Sexual and Gender Minority Groups in a Rural State

Brief Reports: Unequal Treatment: Mental Health Care for Sexual and Gender Minority Groups in a Rural State

Pragmatic Help Seeking: How Sexual and Gender Minority Groups Access Mental Health Care in a Rural State

This qualitative study examined how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in rural areas of the poor and multiethnic state of New Mexico access secular (professional and lay) and sacred (indigenous and Christian) mental health care resources. In-depth, semistructured interviews were used to document the help-seeking processes of 38 rural LGBT people. Obtaining assistance was complicated by the ideal of self-reliance and the view of mental illness as a sign of weakness. Financial considerations and a lack of and community-based LGBT social networks also exerted substantial influence on help seeking. Many LGBT people would strategically remain silent about their sexuality or gender status and rely on their family ties to access the range of secular and sacred resources that are most commonly available in medically underserved rural communities. Although persons from sexual and gender minority groups often experience positive outcomes as a result of help seeking, some LGBT people remain vulnerable to anti-LGBT sentiments that persist within secular and sacred sectors of rural health care systems.