Publications

Barriers dominate discussion of trans healthcare, so this Canadian study asks instead what goes right. Researchers conducted 33 longform interviews with trans people, using 29 in the final sample, and analyzed them in NVivo with a thematic approach combining inductive and deductive coding. Four provider characteristics stood out: being a member of the LGBTQ community, being knowledgeable and willing to learn about trans health, being transparent and empowering patients in medical decisions, and being sensitive and validating of gender identity. Two patient attributes also mattered: self-advocacy and connection to supportive trans communities, online and in person.

Oral health is central to overall wellbeing, and two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (2SLGBTQ+) communities have reported poorer outcomes. This scoping review searched six databases worldwide for evidence on 2SLGBTQ+ oral health, unmet dental needs, service use, and the risk factors behind them. Only ten studies met the criteria, five from India, four from the United States, and one from Brazil. Two reported worse oral health among transgender than cisgender people, while two found similar rates of dental service use. Reported risks included affordability, income, discrimination, and misgendering in clinical settings. The authors stress that the literature remains strikingly sparse.

Peer support from transgender and gender-diverse people who have used services themselves is increasingly valued, but rarely studied systematically. This article reanalyses qualitative data from virtual, semi-structured interviews with 35 transgender and gender-diverse people in two Canadian cities who had sought, received, or provided peer support, using an abductive grounded theory approach informed by critical resilience and intersectional scholarship. The analysis suggests peers strengthen gender-affirming care by validating diverse bodies and experiences in health decisions, building networks of safety, support, and advocacy beyond formal services, and opening space to challenge and reshape health systems. The authors use this to argue for community-driven gender-affirming care.

Peer researchers, hired for their lived experience, are increasingly common, but their own perspectives are seldom examined. This participatory qualitative project interviewed 34 people who had worked as peer researchers across four intersecting communities: mental health service users, consumers and survivors; people who use drugs; racialized people; and trans and non-binary people. Many described racism, transphobia, ableism, and classism from colleagues and institutions, alongside pressure to perform academic professionalism while representing communities their workplaces disparaged. Participants resisted in various ways, sometimes allowing themselves to be tokenized in hopes of community benefit, and were harmed again when those benefits never arrived.

Epidemics land unevenly, and COVID-19 was no exception. Engage-COVID-19, a mixed methods study in Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal, included two rounds of qualitative interviews between November 2020 and October 2021 with 93 gay, bisexual, queer and other men who have sex with men. Fifty-nine identified as Black, Indigenous or a Person of Colour, and they described repeated discrimination during the pandemic. Participants did not report discrimination tied to sexual identity, but racism shaped how they were treated within sexual networks. East Asian and Black participants most often reported verbal harassment in public and online, including for wearing masks.