Amidst a growth of research and health interventions to support 2S/LGBTQ+ people in recent decades, work to support the health of Two-Spirit, lesbian, bisexual, trans, and queer women, as well as gender-diverse people (2S/LBTQ+) has been under-addressed. In part, this reflects a dearth of resources for women’s health research, as well as the dominant role in which the HIV/AIDS epidemic has played in catalysing work in the broader 2S/LGBTQ+ health sector.
Despite limited resources, 2S/LBTQ+ women and gender-diverse people have continued to lead significant work to understand and respond to related health inequities. For example recent reports by Egale Canada and the Quebec Lesbian Network provide key insights in the Canadian Canadian context, shedding light on systemic and structural barriers, cultural norms, and gaps in Canadian policy frameworks that impact health and healthcare access for queer women and gender-diverse people. As broader 2S/LGBTQ+ health work progresses in Canada, there is a need to dedicate more attention and resources to understand and respond to the unique, intersecting contexts in which 2S/LBTQ+ women and gender-diverse people experience misogyny, lesophobia, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia, and their resulting access and experiences in healthcare. Doing so will require purposeful inclusion of queer and trans people in work on women’s health, as well as a “femming” of work in the broader 2S/LGBTQ+ health sector.
This primer offers an introductory, high-level summary of factors that influence health and healthcare access among 2S/LBTQ+ women and gender diverse people in Canada. Findings are drawn from available literature, as well as data from CBRC’s 2022 Our Health survey.
url="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/cbrc/pages/3205/attachments/original/1715972961/LBTQ__Health_and_Access_to_Care.pdf?1715972961
