LGBTQI+: concepts and definitions in health environment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25752/psi.19092Keywords:
Orientação sexual; Saúde sexual; Comportamento sexual; Identidade de género; Expressão de género.Abstract
Background: The World Health Organization and the medical community have become more aware of the health issues and needs of the minority sexual and gender groups, mainly the lesbian, gay, bisexual, “trans” (transgender or transsexuals), queer and intersexual communities (LGBTQI).
Aims: The aim of this article is to review the terminology applied to distinguish between the various gender and sexual orientations and other relevant concepts with focus on its clinical impact.
Methods and Materials: Review of literature through the biomedical database Pubmed using the following keywords: gender identity, gender variance, transgender, sexual orientation, transsexualism. The LGBTQI terminology and concepts were researched in websites and journals of associations/organizations oriented for these communities.
Results: Gender identity is a person’s internal sense of being masculine, feminine, or another gender and influences gender expression, which results from behaviour, self-expression, appearance and cultural context. Sexual orientation relates to the emotional and/or sexual attraction which may lead to the establishment of relationships, either sexual or emotional, which is determined by three dimensions: sexual attraction, behaviour and identity.
Discussion: Some studies showed that LGBTQI patients may seek less health care, particularly due to their apprehensiveness of being marginalized. Some gender and sexual minorities have relevant health needs, in particular those related to their sexual risk and surgical/medical sexual reassignment.
Conclusion: Gender and sexual orientation are social determinants which need to be distinguished and explored in the healthcare setting. Clinicians should be aware and recognise potential health issues related to these gender and sexual minorities and intervene accordingly.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Articles are published under the license CC-BY-3.0 by Creative Commons, in full open-access, without any cost or fees of any kind to the author or the reader. In this scheme, the authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, allowing the free sharing of work, provided it is correctly attributed the authorship and initial publication in this journal. Readers and end-users are allowed to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship. The authors are permitted to take on additional contracts separately for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (eg, post it to an institutional repository or as a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to publish and distribute their work online (eg, in institutional repositories or on their website) as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as increase the impact and citation of published work.
