The current health stat of lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr people of all rac, ethnici, ag, and social backgrounds n be unrstood only cultural and historil ntext. To provi this ntext, this chapter reviews basic fns and ncepts ncerng genr inty, genr exprsn, and sexual orientatn; summariz key historil events that have shaped ntemporary LGBT culture and muni; scrib the mography of LGBT people the Uned Stat; and exam barriers to accsg health re for LGBT people. The chapter then prents a discsn of the se of HIV/AIDS as relat to several important them of this report. The fal sectn summariz key fdgs and rearch opportuni.
Contents:
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
* history of lgbt health *
5 percent -- alt wh gay men and HIV/AIDS, particularly on ways to rce HIV emphasis on gay men isn't entirely surprisg bee the HIV/AIDS epimic, more than anythg else, shed a spotlight and directed limed rourc at gay men's health and the dispari that ntribute to their risk for HIV.
Mayer, a Harvard profsor and medil rearch director of the Fenway Instute, said Fenway was able to foc more rourc on women's health and the medil challeng of an agg they uld work to velop terventns aimed at unterg the harmful upstream psychosocial impacts of anti-gay stigma -- such as prsn and substance abe -- that n ntribute to harmful downstream behavr such as unsafe sex or not adherg to HIV treatment. Mor, PhD, a medil profsor, chief of the preventn science divisn and director of the Center for AIDS Preventn Studi at the Universy of California-San Francis, poted out that before the AIDS epimic, the primary issu -- for health rearchers and polil activists alike -- were promotg self-teem, lookg at how people pe wh beg gay and proud, and fightg back agast the stigma and discrimatn associated wh sexual orientatn. Although sexual attractns and behavrs are generally unrstood as rangg along a ntuum om exclively heterosexual to exclively homosexual (Ksey et al., 1948, 1953), sexual orientatn is often discsed acrdg to three ma tegori, pecially when is fed terms of inty: (1) heterosexualy (for dividuals who intify as, for example, “straight” or whose sexual or romantic attractns and behavrs foc exclively or maly on members of the other sex); (2) homosexualy (for dividuals who intify as, for example, “gay, ” “lbian, ” or “homosexual” or whose attractns and behavrs foc exclively or maly on members of the same sex); and (3) bisexualy (for dividuals who intify as, for example, “bisexual” or whose sexual or romantic attractns and behavrs are directed at members of both sex to a signifint gree).
Overall, lbians appear to display greater variabily than gay men the age at which they rell reachg var velopmental “ton, ” such as awarens of same-sex attractns, experience of same-sex fantasi, and first pursu of same-sex sexual ntact (for a review, see Diamond, 2008). Data om a 2005 natnal probabily sample reveal that gay men (n = 241) relled regnizg their homosexual orientatn at a signifintly earlier average age than lbians (n = 152) or bisexual women (n = 159), while the average age for bisexual men (n = 110) was between that of women and gay men (Herek et al., 2010), pared wh that of men, women's sexualy may be more likely to be shaped and altered by cultural, social, and suatnal fluenc over time (Bmeister, 2000). Another study, nducted Hoton, Texas, wh a nonprobabily sample of 1, 494 black, Lato, Asian, and whe men and women, found that nrdance rat between sexual behavr and inty varied across racial and ethnic groups (Ross et al., 2003) data dite that black men who have sex wh men are ls likely than whe men who have sex wh men to self-intify as gay (Chu et al., 1992; Doll et al., 1992; Goldbm et al., 1998; Kramer et al., 1980; McKirnan et al., 1995, 2001; Montgomery et al., 2003; O'Leary et al., 2007; Torian et al., 2002) and are more likely to engage sexual behavr wh both mal and femal (Flor et al., 2009).