It’s Pride Month! Every June, communities across the U.S. and around the world come together to celebrate, honor, and uplift LGBTQ2SIA+ people and their families. Let’s keep building a world where these communities are seen, valued, and understood.
Visibility is important because it leads to improvements in safety and health. When we see representation across various sectors, it leads to destigmatization and societal change.
At Those Nerdy Girls, health equity isn’t a seasonal focus – it’s core to what we do year-round. The health disparities facing LGBTQ2SIA+ communities are well-documented, underaddressed, and directly connected to structural inequity. So today, we want to dig into what those disparities look like, why they exist, and what the evidence says.
For many of us, this isn’t only about the data. Some members of our team live this personally as LGBTQ+ people, or through the people we love. And as public health scientists and clinicians, we aim to shed light on information gaps, especially when those gaps can lead to health problems for communities or individuals.
Here are some of the health issues people from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer & Questioning, Two Spirit, Intersex, Agender, and Asexual (LGBTQ2SIA+) and Same Gender Loving (SGL) communities face.
In 2016, the National Institutes of Health designated sexual and gender minorities(SGMs) as a population experiencing health disparities, as “mounting evidence indicates that SGM populations have less access to health care and higher burdens of certain diseases, such as depression, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. But the extent and causes of health disparities are not fully understood, and research on how to close these gaps is lacking. **Note – the original webpage has been removed by the current administration, however here is an archived link with the original content. **
Folks from the LGBTQ2SIA+ communities experience health disparities compared to their non-Queer peers in the following areas:
🔹Heart Disease
🔹Breast and Cervical Cancers
🔹Violence
🔹Mental Health Conditions
🔹Substance Use Disorders
🔹Sexually Transmitted Infections
🔹Eating and Body Image Disorders
Why do these disparities exist? – Because of structural and societal inequities.
For example, for many LGBTQ2SIA+ folks:
🔹Healthcare is not equally accessible. Sometimes care is available, but people avoid it due to previous discrimination or fear of discrimination.
🔹Medical professionals aren’t always trained on these groups’ unique healthcare needs.
🔹In some areas, laws prevent some folks from accessing care.
🔹Many treatments and recommendations for health are based on evidence from research that didn’t include or account for differences among folks from these communities.
🔹Systemic oppression and the daily experiences of bullying, discrimination, violence, and prejudice can lead directly or indirectly to some of the above-mentioned health problems. (This experience has been called “weathering” and originally was used by Dr. Arline T. Geronimus to describe the effects of systemic racism and classism)
How big a problem is this? How many people might be facing these problems?
According to a Gallup poll in 2024, estimates of folks who identify under the LGBTQ+ umbrella range are around 8%. Around a whopping 20% (more than 1 in 5) among US Gen Zers identify as part of the LGBTQ+! (See U.S. data here)
In some areas (both globally and including many places in the U.S.), numbers may be undercounts because of unsafe societal or legal contexts for folks who identify as part of a LGBTQ2SIA+ community. But even as possible undercounts, these numbers are a clear indicator that there are more LGBTQ2SIA+ folks in all communities, sectors, and fields than we may realize. They are our neighbors, our friends, our family members, and our colleagues.
And for those who are in places or contexts where they *are* safe enough to exist as themselves, they still face alarming barriers to health care and have higher risks of poor health outcomes.
Today, let’s put that in context by sharing a bit of the civil rights journey. In sharing and understanding the history that has sculpted and shaped our current environment, filled with growing worldwide Pride celebrations, we hope to deepen our grasp on why current public health initiatives matter, especially ones that address historical and pervasive societal inequities, and how even individual or local achievements move us toward a safer, healthier existence for all.
So now for a lil’ history!
Pride is celebrated in June to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising that began on June 28, 1969, in response to the routine violence by local police against customers of Stonewall Inn and other gay bars in New York City. Protests lasted a full week. On the first anniversary of the uprising, marches for Queer rights occurred in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. On the 30th Anniversary, June became Pride Month in the U.S. by a Presidential Proclamation. The Stonewall Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places that same year. In 2024, Pride is celebrated worldwide (although the month may differ in different locations).
The global picture on LGBTQ+ rights is complicated. Progress has been real in many places, and painful reversals have happened in others. We wanted to highlight some of the advances you might not have heard about, because they deserve to be seen:
🏳️⚧️ 1951 – Roberta Cowell is the first known British trans woman to undergo reassignment surgery and have her birth certificate changed.
🏳️🌈 1967 – In the UK, the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalizes sex between two men over 21 and ‘in private’ (but only in England. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, men having sex with men remained illegal until the early 80s!)
🏳️🌈 1972 – The first Pride event takes place in London – 2000 participants take part.
🏳️🌈 1983 – Simon Nkoli forms the Saturday Group, the first public, black LGBTQ+ group in Africa.
🏳️🌈 1988 – Denmark becomes the first country in the world to give legal recognition to same-sex partnerships.
🏳️🌈 1992 – World Health Organisation declassifies same-sex attraction as a mental illness.
🏳️🌈 1996 – South Africa becomes the first country in the world to provide constitutional protection to LGBTQ+ people. In Africa, between 2012 and 2020, São Tomé and Príncipe, Lesotho (2012), Mozambique (2015), Seychelles (2016), Gabon (2020), Angola (2021), and all decriminalized same-sex relations through a locally driven legislative processes.
🏳️⚧️ 2004 – The UK passes the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It allows people to legally change their gender from male to female or vice versa.
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️2007 – Nepal introduces constitutional protections for gender minorities and has been working toward marriage recognition.
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ 2011 – after legalizing gay marriage, Argentina becomes the first country in the world to allow anyone to change the gender assigned at birth through a process known as gender self-identification. Also in South America, between 2013 and 2021, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile all legalize same-sex marriage.
🏳️🌈 2013 – England and Wales pass the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act.
⚧️ 2015 – Sweden adds the gender-neutral pronoun “hen” to its official dictionary. Way to go, Sweden!
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ 2015 – The Royal Vauxhall Tavern becomes the first ever building in the UK to be given a special listing status based on its LGBT history – this is the UK version of the Stonewall Inn, a much-loved iconic meeting place for all things queer and wonderful!
🏳️🌈2018 – India’s Supreme Court decriminalizes homosexuality, striking down a colonial-era law.
🏳️🌈 2019 – Taiwan legalizes same-sex marriage, the first in Asia.
🏳️🌈2023/24 – Mauritius (2023) and Namibia (2024) decriminalize same-sex relationships through successful legal challenges through their courts.
The question is: what can we do to address and reduce injustices that LGBTQ2SIA+ individuals and communities face, and how can you help as readers?
As a start, we can be open, aware, and curious – even if we don’t “get” someone else’s sexual orientation or gender identity, being inclusive and non-judgmental is a huge step in making everyone feel accepted and safe. We are all humans after all, and thrive on connection and love and having protections in place for our basic needs.
What are other ways you can have an impact on these disparities in your own communities? Comment below.
And, if you would like to learn more about the science behind sexual orientation and gender identity, see our posts on these subjects in the resource list below.
Stay safe, stay curious, stay connected,
🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️Those Nerdy Girls &+
Resources:
Here are some posts on this topic from Those Nerdy Girls:
What’s the difference between sex and gender?
What does the science say about gender identity?
Isn’t boy vs. girl just a simple matter of different sex chromosomes (XX vs. XY) and body parts?
Intimate Partner Violence in the LGBTQ+ community
Information on puberty blockers
Link to Original Facebook Post
Note – this post was updated by the authors from the original version first published June 24, 2024.
