By Katie Brenneman
The LGBTQ+ community has faced discrimination for decades, especially in healthcare settings. A recent survey from KFF shows that up to 41 percent of queer individuals are more likely to receive unfair or disrespectful treatment at the doctor’s office compared to their straight counterparts. Younger LGBTQ+ individuals, queer BIPOC patients, and those who report lower incomes are the most likely to experience discrimination.
The consequences of this discrimination are severe. When LGBTQ+ people do not receive the care they need, they are more likely to experience negative consequences, such as a decline in health and fear and anxiety around seeking help or treatment altogether.
This also contributes to higher rates of mental health issues among the LGBTQ+ community. The same survey from KFF shows that queer adults report higher rates of anxiety and depression as a result of their negative and discriminatory experiences.
While there have been steps taken to call out homophobia and discrimination on a national level, the problem is that, even if the majority of people see it as wrong, there is still a lot of hate, discrimination, and stigma that exists within the healthcare setting.
This is why it is vital that more healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, start advocating for the LGBTQ+ community. This not only means having more allies in the doctor’s office but also having more queer nurses who can better connect and relate to LGBTQ+ patients.
Disproportionate Care and Treatment of LGBTQ+ People in the South
The health disparities among the LGBTQ+ community in the South continue to be a problem for several reasons, with the primary challenges being stigma and discrimination, unethical policies, and even a greater presence of the military in the South.
Stigma and Discrimination
Anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies are founded on things like homophobia, demonizing rhetoric, general discrimination, and pseudoscience that portray the LGBTQ+ community as a threat to society and public health. This creates a stigma surrounding queer people that is often carried throughout healthcare settings, which then, in turn, creates a barrier to accessing much-needed care.
Unfortunately, these stigmas and discriminatory attitudes and behaviors are often worse in the South. A study conducted by Vanderbilt University shows that, despite LGBTQ+ southerners being proud of their identity, they still experience disproportionate treatment in various environments, including work, school, and healthcare settings.
Numerous other studies show how excessive discrimination and stigma are among the most pervasive barriers to healthcare for LGBTQ+ individuals. These stigmas essentially give healthcare workers the supposed reasoning to deny treatment to queer patients and to treat them unequally.
For example, a common stigma is that LGBTQ+ people are responsible for their poor health because their sexual relations contribute to them contracting diseases and infections, such as HIV. This stigma is even worse for queer BIPOC individuals. But who a person loves and how they engage in sex should have no impact on their access to care or how they are treated in healthcare settings.
Queerphobic Policies
Another challenge for LGBTQ+ Southerners is that many southern states are notorious for pushing anti-LGBTQ+ policies that perpetuate stigma and discrimination. For example, numerous states have proposed anti-gay laws in recent years that ban classroom instruction and language related to the queer community, such as the “don’t say gay” laws.
While these laws don’t directly impact healthcare, they do continue to uphold negative ideas and stereotypes about LGBTQ individuals, which can lead to further discrimination in healthcare settings, especially for queer youth.
There are, of course, laws that do directly impact access to healthcare for queer individuals, such as the bans on trans youth medical care, which are sweeping across the South. Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and more are taking steps to ban or restrict medical care for transgender youth.
Other policies and laws include giving healthcare providers a “license to discriminate.” South Carolina, for example, recently became the seventh state in 2022 to allow healthcare workers to decline to serve LGBTQ+ patients if doing so would violate their religious beliefs. Other states with similar policies include Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Ohio, and Tennessee.
Unfortunately, right-wing politicians continue to spread disinformation, which helps further their cause to effectively alienate the LGBTQ+ community and make it impossible for them to receive the care and support they need.
LGBTQ+ Service Members
Another interesting way that LGBTQ+ individuals are disproportionately affected in the South is due to a higher military presence.
Many reports and findings have shown that military service can negatively impact a person’s health, such as an increased risk of depression, insomnia, substance abuse, infectious diseases, and chemical exposure. So just imagine how these negative impacts might be worse for LGBTQ+ service members who notoriously experience healthcare discrimination.
Southern states are overrepresented in military recruitment. This increases the likelihood of there being more LGBTQ+ individuals recruited in the South, and there has been a long history of queer individuals being abused and discriminated against in the military.
This further highlights the need for more queer nurses and healthcare allies in the South, especially in military settings where LGBTQ+ service members are more likely to suffer negative health conditions and be discriminated against.
How LGBTQ+ Nurses Can Help
With the LGBTQ+ community being disproportionately impacted by stigma and discrimination in the South, there must be more trans- and queer-inclusive healthcare services. While a major part of achieving this requires fixing systemic problems by changing policies, there is a lot that ally and queer nurses can do to fight for change from the inside.
For example, nurses can address stigma in the LGBTQ+ community by spreading education and awareness about HIV and challenging stereotypes. They can promote open conversations with patients and their colleagues about sexual health and support for queer patients. Nurses can also lead community initiatives, such as support groups for LGBTQ+ individuals seeking care.
Training and education are also important to help nurses be better allies and support systems for LGBTQ+ populations in the South. Nurses already require foundational skills to be good at their jobs, such as good communication, compassion, and empathy, which are even more important when addressing the needs of LGBTQ+ patients.
However, to truly address the disparities, training, and education should go beyond the norm to help nurses be better advocates. This means addressing curriculum and training gaps concerning LGBTQ+ topics and information, researching new insights and approaches, and being up-to-date on the latest LGBTQ+ terms.
Nurses must also make a conscious effort to be inclusive, respectful, and supportive in their everyday practices when dealing with both colleagues and patients. There are also many organizations that nurses can join to learn and provide support to the community, including:
- LGBT HealthLink
- HealthHIV
- The Gay & Lesbian Medical Association
- The Trevor Project
- The Human Rights Campaign Foundation
These organizations provide support in various ways, including advocating for healthcare equality, promoting education, supporting legislative initiatives, aiding in support for people with HIV, and providing opportunities to collaborate.
Nurses are key to helping drive change in southern healthcare settings to make these spaces more inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community. Because queer individuals are disproportionately affected in the South due to excessive stigma, discrimination, and unethical policies, we need more nurses who are allies and queer-identified to help overcome these barriers.
Again, this is not to say that the burden of affecting change should fall entirely on the shoulders of southern nurses. However, because they are already on the inside, it is easier for them to start pushing for changes that can help move things in the right direction. By working to create more safe spaces for LGBTQ+ communities, nurses have the power to make a difference and be the catalysts needed to improve human rights issues for future generations.
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