LGBT health
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Inconsistent access to healthcare represents a barrier to transgender patients receiving hormone therapy through a licensed provider. Inability to access care leads many transgender people to buy hormones from unlicensed sources and transition without medical supervision. Little is known about the factors predisposing people to rely on this method of transition. It is critical to understand what leads to non-prescribed hormone use to better support safe medical transitions for transgender people. ⋯ Non-prescribed HRT in transwomen is a common and poorly characterized phenomenon. Increasing access to healthcare (with culturally-competent, affordable, and accessible providers) is crucial to assuring trans people are able to have safe, consistent access to the hormones they need.
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Syndemics, or the co-occurrence and interaction of health problems, have been examined extensively among young men who have sex with men, but their existence remain unexamined, to our knowledge, among sexual-minority (i.e., lesbian, gay, and bisexual) women. Thus, we investigated if syndemics were present among young sexual-minority women, and if sexual-orientation discrimination was an independent variable of syndemic production. ⋯ Syndemics appear to be present and associated with sexual-orientation discrimination among young sexual-minority women. Interventions aimed at reducing discrimination or increasing healthy coping may help reduce substance use, depressive symptoms, and sexual risk behaviors in this population.
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The San Francisco Bay Area attracts people from all over the country due to the perception of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) acceptance and affirmation. African-American transgender women are severely marginalized across society and as such have many unmet health and social service needs. This study sought to quantitatively assess unmet needs among African-American transgender women with a history of sex work by comparing residents of Oakland versus San Francisco. ⋯ These findings demonstrate the enormity of African-American transgender women's needs within the Bay Area. Greater resources are needed for social service provision targeting this marginalized group of people, particularly in Oakland.
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Sexual orientation and gender identity (SO/GI) are not systematically recorded at time of death, limiting identification of mortality disparities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. LGBT populations are thought to have elevated risk of suicide based on high rates of reported lifetime suicide attempts. Lack of data on suicide deaths, however, hinders understanding of the prevalence and patterns of suicide among LGBT populations and development of targeted interventions and prevention programs. This report describes recent efforts to address this knowledge gap by systematically collecting SO/GI information in the investigation of suicide and other violent deaths.