Intersectional Advocacy: Federal Strategies For the LGBT and Other Minority Communities

This presentation will focus on advocacy strategies that positively impact multiple communities that face health disparities and will begin with a discussion of what foundation must be built in order to effectively address such disparities. While organizations typically divide federal advocacy efforts along population groups, effective strategies can be developed that impact multiple minority communities. For example, efforts focused on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities can also impact racial and ethnic groups that suffer from health disparities. Non-traditional strategies will be highlighted, such as increasing survey sample size and working to change definitions that hinder populations' access to federal programs and services. The presentation will also explore how current federal programs are rarely set up to address the overlapping disparities that many LGBT people face.

Beginning with a discussion of the lack of a federally-supported research base for many disparity communities, this presentation will identify steps necessary to begin to address inequity in research, health status, healthcare access, and health outcomes for minority populations and will then explain how such advocacy can build coalitions and trust between LGBT organizations and researchers and organizations and researchers dedicated to examining health disparities in people of color. In addition, this presentation will include a discussion of how LGBT people of color must also be represented in such work, particularly in research.

The presentation will focus on the following key points of impact: Healthy People 2020; the federal definitions of family, spouse, and dependent; the upcoming IOM report on LGBT health; healthcare reform; and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).