#21: Dispatches from GLMA (Part 1)
Note: because this is a special collaboration with GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality, we deviated from our usual format. No community voices on this episode!
SHOW NOTES
This is a weird episode format!
You are correct. We’re ~branching out~ this season!
This episode Is a summary of highlights from GLMA: Healthcare Professionals Advancing LBGTQ+ Equality’s October 2024 conference in Charlotte, North Carolina
You’ll be hearing us (Gaby, RIchard, Sam) talk about the parts of the conference (research presentations, plenary sessions) we thought were most relevant to you, our listeners!
Resources, resources…
To learn more about GLMA check out their website.
To learn more about the Lesbian Health Fund and current and prior research, check out their website.
GLMA’s Healthcare Provider Directory (you can access it for free, or join the directory as a provider!)
If you are a health professional interested in free continuing medical education credits offered through GLMA, you can check out those at this link.
A roundup of research we liked
Differences in physical activity in sexual minority women.
What it was:
A study that put activity monitors on various participants.
Ultimately found that bisexual women were more physically active than self-identified lesbians.
Why it matters:
We know that queer women tend to live in larger bodies as compared to cishet women .
This study starts to get at the “why” by thinking about how the relevance of the “male” (or heterosexist) gaze may relate to body image ideals.
More on this soon, in an upcoming episode during season 3!
Accutane & top surgery
What it was: a review and appraisal of available literature on the relationship between accutane (AKA isotretinoin, an oral acne medication) and wound healing after surgery.
Why it matters:
There’s a rumor out there that accutane use (common for some folks who experience acne on T!) can impact scar healing after top surgery.
But in reality, the evidence is sparse, and the little that exists suggests that we shouldn’t worry about this!
P.S. If you want to rock your top surgery scars - we love this and here for it!
Breast milk!
What it is:
A talk at GLMA that talked about a hormonal protocol to induce lactation (or breast milk production) in trans women
This is a modified protocol from one that’s been used in cis women
Why it matters:
This offers an important route for transfeminine folks who want to lactate for parent-child bonding!
(Though it’s unlikely this will work as the only form of feeding due to the volume of breast milk produced)
Also - we want to normalize and validate that not all folks who are capable of lactating (with or without a hormonal protocol!) want to or need to breastfeed.
What about Sam's favorite topic – LGBTQ+ medical history?
Yes!
A group of scholars (featuring Jessica Halem, a perennial pod favorite) presented their recently-published article in the New England Journal of Medicine
The article reviews the long history of healthcare trauma and systemic oppression against LGBTQ+ people
Why it matters:
A big institution - like the New England Journal - publishing queer scholarship like this is a big deal and an important first step towards repairing the relationship between the healthcare system and the LGBTQ+ community.
Moreover, the article talked about taking actual steps towards restorative justice between medical institutions and the sexual and gender minority populations that have
TRANSCRIPT
Alex Sheldon: We are here live from the 42nd Annual Conference on LGBTQ+ Health right here in Charlotte, North Carolina. We are very proud that this is the largest annual conference in our 42-year history. We have over 600 health professionals joining us here on site to share best practices, learn more about LGBTQ+ health, and also make sure that we have all we need to progress LGBTQ+ health equity today and in the fight tomorrow.
[QHP THEME MUSIC BEGINS]
Sam: Welcome to Queer Health Pod. I'm Sam, I use he/him pronouns, and I'm a primary care doctor in New York.
Gaby: I'm Gaby, I use she/her pronouns, and I'm also a primary care doctor in New York. Is that getting old by now?
Richard: And I'm Richard, I use he and him pronouns, and I am, guess what, also a primary care doctor in New York City, and I've been practicing LGBTQ health for more than 20 years.
Gaby: And you're listening to Queer Health Pod, season three, episode two. Updates from GLMA's 42nd annual Conference on LGBTQ+ health. Or, Dispatches from GLMA, part one.
[QHP THEME MUSIC ENDS]
Sam: At the top of the episode, we heard from Alex Sheldon, who is currently the executive director of GLMA.
Richard: GLMA is a national organization that advocates for LGBTQ health, and GLMA is shorthand for GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality. This will be one of two episodes featuring the organization, as well as what we learned from attending its 42nd Annual Conference this past fall.
Gaby: Since its inception in 1981, GLAMA's annual conference on LGBTQ+ health has served as the premier scientific conference that shapes the future of LGBTQ+ healthcare. It's where healthcare professionals come together to share innovative breakthroughs and interventions as well as the latest research on, well, you guessed it, LGBTQ+ health. Also, say that five times fast, it's really hard.
Sam: What's unique about the conference compared to others I've been to is it's open to healthcare providers of all disciplines. So doctors, nurses, psychologists, therapists, researchers, academics, health administrators, policy experts, advocates, and all LGBTQ+ health supporters. The only contingent missing is the gay app developers, but in time.
Gaby: And that's regardless of horoscope, so Scorpios, we do welcome you to the conference.
Sam: Say that. I will also say this: queer people love an acronym. So yeah, GLMA used to be Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, but she got herself MTV'd to be a little more inclusive, and now it's GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality.
Gaby: So, none of this history explains why we think that this conference is worth talking about on this podcast. And the short of it is that we think GLMA matters to you, our listeners, because it's really the only organization of its type. It brings together LGBTQ+ health professionals to better advocate for and serve queer patients.
Sam: Alex GLMA's executive director, agrees.
Alex Sheldon: Hi, everyone. My name is Alex Sheldon. I use they/hem pronouns, and I'm the executive director of GLMA, Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality. We are the oldest and largest association of LGBTQ+ and allied health professionals in the country, and we are working to ensure health equity for LGBTQ+ communities across the country and to support LGBTQ+ and allied health professionals in their work and learning environments. One of the unique impacts of this conference is that we are bringing together mostly LGBTQ+ identified health professionals. And so these are folks who are both representing patients and providers from our community. And that means that they can bring in their lived experience that counts as so much of their expertise. and also their educational and simply health professional expertise they've gained through practice. And by coming together in those spaces, they can really unite around their shared determination to advance LGBTQ+ health equity. They're able to share best practices, both from their own lived experience, as well as that of their patients and clients. And also we are able to really push the envelope in how we actually define our health care.
Sam: While Alex is the Executive Director, the President- Elect of the Board is Jona Tanguay, who we'll also be hearing from as a clinical expert later this season when we talk about methamphetamine use. Here's Yona talking about what they are excited about around GLMA.
Jona: Everyone benefits from having educated health care providers, especially those that look like them or share a community with them. Not every queer person has to have a queer doctor, but it's important to have queer doctors out there because the more the queer people are in the room, the more things change. So it's really important for those people to be supported. And that's a primary role at GLMA. We also work a lot in education for our allies and other people as well to make sure that they are getting the content so that way we can move the needle on LGBTQ healthcare.
Gaby: Sam, can you stop jangling the keys of your Subaru at me?
Sam: That was my first car, but we don't need to get into that. What I'm perhaps prompting you to do, though, once you're done parallel parking your Subaru, is to talk a little bit more about GLMA's Lesbian Health Fund.
Gaby: I'll do it while I parallel park because I'm a top. (Sam chuckle). The Lesbian Health Fund is a sub-program of GLMA that, from this lesbian's point of view, is one of the few dedicated groups that supports LBQ+ women's health through grants and funded scientific research.
Alex Sheldon: Our Lesbian Health Fund has been around for over two decades. It is the only research fund that is dedicated solely to advancing our understanding of the unique health needs of LGBTQ+ women and girls. And we've granted over 1.2 million dollars, mostly to early career researchers so that they can actually see some initial funding dedicated to their specific research interests. And one of the best things about this fund is that many of our researchers who have received these grants, they have actually been able to turn that into institutional funding for much larger grantors.
Richard: The LHF is one of the primary sources of information about lesbian, bisexual, and queer women's health, which is often underrepresented in the literature because of the perceived lack of a health crisis in this community.
Alex Sheldon: We cannot drive solutions for LGBTQ+ health equity unless we know what the challenges are, and that really starts with research. So LGBTQ+ women and girls, much like women and girls writ large, are one of the most understudied populations in the entire country. So we find it to be incredibly important to basically, provide that foundation for early career researchers so that they can then advance in their own fields and continue to center this population in their research populations.
Gaby: So, this is my soapbox, and I will happily stand on it when given the opportunity. What Richard's talking about is the fact that there are no particular health conditions that are specifically associated with being an LBQ woman. There's HIV and STI prevention for cis gay men, there's gender affirmation for trans and gender diverse folks, but there's no "pull" into care for LBQ+ women. As a result, we're often invisible. Except, thanks to the LHF, we aren't. So, yeah, the work that they do carving out and maintaining this academic, scientific space where we study and serve the health needs of this community is super critical.
Sam: Gaby, your healthcare inequities are on mute. Can you unmute them? (chuckle) You can check out our show notes where we'll give links to the LHF website where you can see who is doing research and past research on lesbian and queer women's health that's come out of the LHF.
Gaby: The last thing we want to mention about GLMA is one of the pillars of their mission and work, which is the LGBTQ plus health directory. It's got critical support from the Tegan and Sara Foundation, which means other power lesbians in the mix, which swoon, but basically what it is is a directory, which is really just a fancy database, where you can find healthcare providers who are all educated and informed about the best ways to take care of you and your health needs.
Alex Sheldon: One of the best tools that we have to advance LGBTQ+ health equity is to connect LGBTQ+ patients with affirming healthcare providers that actually understand their unique health needs. That's why GLMA partnered with the Tegan and Sara Foundation to launch a brand new LGBTQ+ healthcare directory. If you go LGBTQhealthcaredirectory.org, you can search nearly 4, 000 affirming healthcare providers of all disciplines and specialties representing all 50 states and even all of the Canadian provinces. If you're looking for affirming healthcare providers - providers that actually understand your unique lived experiences and your unique health needs go to LGBTQhealthcaredirectory.org to connect with a provider there
Gaby: And I want to plug that if you're looking for a provider, It's an amazing place to search. It's interactive, it's beautifully designed and it has a bunch of things that I think are really wonderful. So, for example, you can check a box to look only for providers who are sex positive, weight inclusive, committed to racial equity, which is hopefully everybody. And if you're a provider and you're listening to this, I highly recommend that you think about signing up. It takes, I think it took me literally five minutes, and it gives you access to a whole new community of patients, which is hot.
Richard: And, it's free for you to search and use. If you have or know of a great provider, you should tell them to sign up too.
Sam: Speaking of providers, if you are one, you can also check out GLMA's free continuing medical education credits online, which will also be in our super gay, dare I say lesbian, show notes.
Richard: Also, If you're a provider who has changed your name, we'll also link to information GLMA has about how to get your NPI, or National Provider Identification Number, changed so you aren't dead named every time you prescribe something.
[TRANSITION MUSIC]
Sam: Now that we've told you a little bit about GLMA, what we're going to do in this episode, which is part one of two, is pull out some really exciting cutting edge things that we don't think are immediately available in current guidelines or widely discussed research in the media about all topics queer, sexual, and gender minority health.
Gaby: I want it to be clear for the listeners at home that Sam is currently buttoning up a flannel shirt and locking eyes with me across the Zoom screen, and I need to understand why.
Sam: I've been outed as being interested in lesbian [00:10:00] health, which is to say, the first topic I wanted us to bring up was sexual minority women and weight.
[B-LIST HORROR MOVIE NOISE]
Gaby: Okay, that is just an aggressive opening noise.
Sam: Sorry. The software didn't have the sound of a group of women knitting or a U Haul door slamming, strangely. Horror music seemed like the next best option.
Gaby: Okay, camp moment aside, this is really important work being done by Katie Sullivan out of Wayne University. She started off her research presentation by explaining the why that drives her work, which is really that sexual minority women, it's the community that you often hear me call LBQ plus women on this pod, that this group generally have higher BMIs. We also know that LBQ women lead more sedentary lifestyles, and when they're asked about why they don't exercise, they tend to cite having more barriers to actually getting to the gym and working out. This is where Katie Sullivan comes in, who with her research group put physical activity tracking devices, so it's the same kind of stuff that you'd see in your iPhone, that kind of technology only on lesbian and bisexual women who all self identified as those categories of sexual orientation for anyone who's keeping track of the research methods at home. Anyway, it turns out that lesbians were slightly more sedentary compared to bi women, and it was a small study, so the effect size, which really means how much more sedentary lesbians were than bisexual women, that effect size is really small, and so we can't really hang our hat on it.
Sam: If the statistics are bad, why should we care?
Richard: Aside from that, I have number dyslexia and I need Gaby to explain it to me.
Gaby: Well, I also have number dyslexia, but more importantly, I'm a queer woman, so I'll be taking on the emotional labor of explaining these stats. I'll tell you that while the effect size between the two groups is small, the study is a really important start at explaining a phenomenon that we've never really tried to explain, which is that there's been this really ugly implication floating around in the societal ether that says that there's something about the experience of being marginalized and oppressed as a queer woman that relegates you to having a deviant body. When in reality, I think it may be a sign of liberation, right? The idea that how we define sexy, beautiful, and attractive all change when we step out of the male gaze.
Richard: So in this case, you're using bisexual women as a proxy for people who still care about the male gaze.
Sam: Ugh - Ugh, he's dyslexic AND she's reductive.
Gaby: So it's an imperfect proxy I know because there are plenty of bi women who could give a fuck about cishet norms.
Richard: Preach!
Gaby: Right? Same. But I think it at least starts a conversation about how what we think is attractive" is totally dependent on the lens that you use and the people that you're trying to fuck.
Sam: Oh, now I'm unbuttoning my flannel.
Richard: The other thing that I'm thinking about is then, how do we support lesbian identified women who are being judged for their body weight or size, particularly in healthcare spaces, when it may be something that is actually a sign of improved mental health?
Sam: Richard, Psst, Gaby's got a whole script to write for her lesbian weight stigma episode later this season.
Richard: She can use that that was good.
Gaby: I will, and also for those who are listening and think this is interesting, think of this as the teaser that leaves you just short of satisfied for that episode. I don't know if you've ever heard of edging.
Sam: Okay, so while we're waiting for our audio software to make a sedentary lesbian knitting sound effect, I will concede, maybe the horror sound effect was a little too much.
[CHIME NOISE]
Ah, much better. Okay, Gaby. You went to a talk that discussed isotretinoin, commonly known as Accutane, which is a pill that people with severe acne are sometimes prescribed. Tell us what you learned at this talk and what was it about?
Gaby: This is research by Dr. Daniel Strock out of the University of Georgia. He had heard that there were people talking about oral accutane and how it might impact top surgery healing.
Sam: To make the connection explicit, Accutane is a heavy duty oral acne medication. Testosterone can sometimes cause pronounced acne. You might imagine that people who are on testosterone are more likely to be on Accutane than the average Joe Schmoe.
Gaby: Right, and so the study sought to answer a question, which is: are the rumors true? Do we actually care if there's a big group of top surgery bound people on Accutane?
Richard: Our expert opinion, not worth getting up in arms about.
Gaby: When you systematically look at what's been published, and by you I mean the authors of this research study, a couple of case studies looking at other surgeries, so something like a nose surgery, not top surgery, is all that really comes up. And that data doesn't really support that there's any impact on surgical healing when someone is on Accutane. So can I specifically, with precision, answer the question, "does Accutane impact top surgery healing?" I can't, because there's literally almost no data on it.
Sam: Welcome to our podcast.
Gaby: But in QHP fashion, when there isn't enough data, I can extrapolate from other, similar-ish data. And in that case, I'm actually not really worried about the potential for poor healing from Accutane.
Richard: A note about scarring, some folks are really proud of their scars and don't really care, and some folks really want to minimize their scarring as much as possible. It's an individual choice.
Gaby: Totally, but at the end of the day, no matter how you feel about scars, you don't want to have a prolonged healing period, no matter where the scar ends up. If there's a question of, is my wound going to heal at all, or heal in sort of a normal expected timeline, then that's actually important information too.
Richard: Yeah, this kind of work is the kind of thing that GLMA is really amazing for, because people get together and think about the things that are necessary for folks in our community, and then they present them so that other healthcare providers like us can go and share this information with our patients and have risk benefit conversations about it.
Sam: On that note, Gaby, you went to another fascinating talk about lactation in trans women. Tell us about it.
Gaby: So, I thought this was really cool, particularly as someone who doesn't really interact with lactation much in my professional work. So first of all, I learned that there are actually established hormonal protocols to help cis women lactate, or produce milk, even when they're not pregnant.
Richard: Pregnancy being the usual physiologic or bodily state that prompts lactation.
Gaby: Yes, exactly. And basically what we're doing is we're using hormones to manipulate the body to produce milk - and manipulate in a complimentary sense, not a derogatory sense. I think this is super exciting for queer cis women, I think this is super exciting for queer cis women where there's only one partner who carries, and there's one who doesn't, but I think this is super exciting for queer cis women where there's only one partner who carries and there's one who doesn't, but both want to participate in breast or chest feeding. Anyway, the question becomes, can this be done in trans women for whom breast development comes later in life, right? Same hormones, but the timeline is a little bit different
Sam: Typically elsewhere in the medical guidelines, the breast tissue of trans women is seen as the breast tissue of cis women. For example, we recommend screening for breast cancer after five years of estrogen use in trans women who now have breast tissue.
Gaby: Exactly. So, really the tissue works the same no matter how or when you came by it. But the actual lactation protocol, so the hormones that you use, is a little bit more complicated because for cis women, you're just giving them a little bit of extra estrogen and then you're taking it away completely. But with trans women, we wouldn't want to take all the estrogen away completely because then you're sending somebody into estrogen withdrawal. Because in trans women, estrogen is typically coming from outside of the body. So you have to make some intentional modifications to the protocol and it turns out that when you do that and when you have the right people thinking about this, there are reports of success for trans women being able to lactate
Sam: Like many things in the queer health world, there is often a catch.
Gaby: And I think there are two in this particular case. So I would say the first catch is that it requires what I would say is pretty niche knowledge. It isn't hard stuff to do, but it requires someone to look up a protocol, and I don't think it's unsafe to do in conjunction with a primary care doctor with a can do attitude, but it does, like I said, require a little bit of forethought and planning. But the more important caveat that I'll give is that the breast milk that was produced, while nutritionally pretty similar to the breast milk produced by cis women, wasn't enough to feed the baby, at least in terms of the total volume that the baby needed. And so if this is more about having a breastfeeding relationship with your child, that's great - this is a great way to do it. But if we're hoping to use this lactation protocol as the primary way of breastfeeding a child, I will say, at least so far, probably not enough milk is going to come out of this protocol to create a full diet. And that's actually true of cis women who also use a similar protocol to breastfeed.
Richard: I do think it's worth re emphasizing what Gaby said about how there are many benefits of breastfeeding beyond just the actual production of milk. If we have the ability for transgender women to be able to attach to their children in this way, I think that's an incredibly important thing for us to attend to - whether or not it's the sole source of milk production.
Gaby: And if you're listening this and thinking it doesn't feel right for you, this is not a directive that everybody who has boobs needs to breastfeed. As the partner in my relationship who isn't going to carry the children, I know for sure that I am not planning on breastfeeding my children, and it doesn't make me a bad person.
Richard: And for what it's worth -
Gaby: - what, you're not going to breastfeed either? Is that what you're going to say?
Sam: Gaby - he can't, he's bald.
Richard: No, that's not what I was going to say. What I was going to say is, I was never breastfed and I'm perfectly fine. Thanks, Mom.
Gaby: Oh, you weren’t breastfed? That explains so much.
Sam: QHP would like to make a disclaimer that breastfeeding does not lead to baldness.
Gaby: While the topics, we've discussed so far are certainly very niche and very unlikely to have guideline based evidence in the future, something else that was important and emphasized throughout the entire conference was programming about the battle against trans best practice medical care bans. Specifically, disinformation around the scientific data that we have that supports trans affirming care.
Richard: Misinformation is information that's not correct, and disinformation is just the withholding of information that is correct. These are two strategies that are being used by the far right to contradict the actual data and prevent trans youth, and potentially in the future, adults from being trans to from accessing gender affirming care. We know that there's basically a war in this country against providing gender affirming services to trans youth, and these services are basically hormone blockers (if that's what's needed) which are commonly used for other reasons and are reversible. All of the data that we have, including that from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, say that these treatments are beneficial for the mental health of trans youth and that we should support them in providing this care. However, politicians have decided that it's their business to say that we are not supposed to do this, that we should ban this kind of care, and so the youth now are having terrible problems finding gender affirming services. The other half of this strategy, of course, is to create fear and repercussions with the providers who offer this care by creating the bans and then threatening them. This means that even healthcare providers who wanna provide this care are afraid that they will lose their license or not be able to serve other patients. And so it sets up a dynamic where even healthcare providers who want to be supportive can't really be, and it just removes all of the resources from the table for these trans youth.
Sam: For those of you who aren't circuit queens, and by that I mean conference circuit queens, there is something called a plenary, which means there is no other educational programming during that time, so everyone can come to a topic that the conference planners want highlighted. One of the plenaries at GLMA's conference was a panelist conversation about dis and misinformation on trans health with a focus on youth. For context: according to data from the Trevor Project, there's been a 72% increase in suicides in trans and gender non-binary youth in states or legal districts where these sorts of bans on best care medical practice have been put into place.
[TRANSITION MUSIC BEGINS]
While the current situation is certainly dire there are resources within the LGBTQ healthcare community and there are access to these. So you can check out our show notes for more ways to access those resources and also work against advocating against these bans. And we'll be talking about this topic more in an episode later this season.
[TRANSITION MUSIC BEGINS]
All right. Okay. So taking a break from that heavy topic the last thing I wanted to talk about this episode was a talk about LGBTQ medical history. Which, admittedly, is not always filled with delightful information. For those who haven't been entertained by Jessica Halem before, you can pause right here and now and listen to our Season 1 episode on Queer Women's Health. While we haven't had Jen Manion on, another co presenter of this talk, you can check out their book Trans Husbands, which is a fun and fascinating read.
Richard: Also, for those of you who don't know, our darling boy, Dr. Sam Dubin is a full on history buff. If you didn't listen to our episodes last year about the history of HIV, highly recommend.
Sam: (high pitched, Mickey-Mouse adjacent voice) Someone called me buff! (Normal voice) The talk was based on an article by Jessica Halem, Jen Manion, and Carl Streed that was published last July, 2024 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article was titled A Legacy of Cruelty to Sexual and Gender Minority Groups. Their presentation was looking at everything that the New England Journal of Medicine had published about sexual and gender minority in health since its founding. And just for some context, this journal is one of the most prestigious and often commonly cited peer reviewed medical journals that's out there. So as far as capital I institutions within medicine, this is certainly one of them. So while it first blush, this was just a talk about history, it really was actually about restorative justice. And while that term can mean many different things, one of the great things that the presenters emphasized was how it's well beyond time that medical institutions, including the New England Journal of Medicine, start accounting for their historical injustices and not just accounting for accounting's sake, but actually leveraging those institutions to further health equity. One of the exciting takeaway points during their presentation was how one of the biggest issues in LGBTQ Health is the fear of safety. And it's known that limits access to healthcare. And how this project is such an important starting point in getting healthcare institutions to acknowledge and account for the ways that they have harmed communities that they should be serving.
Richard: Another crucial element of restorative justice is to think about the restorative part, right, which is not just to account for what's been done and to take ownership of it, but then to think about what support will be given to those who are harmed and how to avoid this harm in the future. Both of these elements are important if we're going to call it restorative justice.
Gaby: And I will preface this by saying we're not going to read the whole article to you right now. There's a podcast for that and it's not ours, but it's very well written and engaging and I do think the article does a really good job of accounting for the history. Anyway, here is the part of the article that Sam wanted me to read out loud and he wrote that I have to do it in my NPR voice:
The simple fact is, that to protect themselves from further harm, LGBTQ people avoid care at deadly costs. The legacy of characterizing sexual and gender minority people as deviant and disturbed persists, playing out in examination rooms, medical schools, and state houses to this day.
And - that is the bread and butter of the underlying motivating theme of so many of our episodes. So this should, if you're listening to our podcast episode over episode, be a familiar topic to you. And it is critical to tie it back to the history that it comes from.
Richard: While this episode, like oppression, must come to an end at some point, we do encourage you to check out a link to the article on our website and give it a read. One of the reasons we thought this episode was so important to do was to give you a peek behind the curtain about how we within the medical community have to overcome so much of the bias and discrimination that existed before now, and also to come to terms with how are we going to move forward in a way that supports the community.
Sam: And while we also love just generally peeking behind curtains, topics like this are one of the reasons that we put this podcast forward and partnered with GLMA to share this information with you.
Richard: With that, let's wrap up with a final quote from GLMA's Executive Director Alex Sheldon on something they find special about GLMA.
Alex Sheldon: There was so much gratitude in the room for simply having a space where they didn't need to shelve one part of their personality, either their health professional expertise or their full LGBTQ+ identity and watching that sort of empowerment happen in one space. I was like, I truly can't get enough.
[QHP THEME MUSIC BEGINS]
Sam: QHP is a power sharing project that puts community stories in conversation with healthcare expertise to expand autonomy for sexual and gender minorities.
Richard: Thank you to GLMA for being our media partner this season and for warmly welcoming us to the 42nd Annual LGBTQ+ Healthcare Conference. To learn more about GLMA, check out their website at GLMA. org and don't forget to look at the free LGBTQ+ Healthcare Provider Directory.
Gaby: For more information on this episode's topic and links to the various things that we talked about, check out our website www. queerhealthpod. com.
Richard: Help others find this information by leaving a review, not just stars, but also commenting and [00:27:00] subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcast.
Gaby: Lastly, if you want to DM me I have my own personal Instagram, but if you want to DM the podcast, we are on Twitter and Instagram. Our handle on both is at Queer Health Pod, and so reach out to us. And again, by us, I really just mean me.
Richard: Thank you to Lonnie Ginsberg, who composed our gorgeous theme music. And we'd also like to thank the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation who provided support for some of the tech we use on this podcast.
Sam: Opinions on this podcast are our own and do not represent the opinions of any of our affiliated institutions. Even though we are doctors do not use this podcast as medical advice. Instead, consult with your own healthcare provider.
[QHP THEME MUSIC ENDS]
What I would like to say just for the record is that I did use one of my bar mitzvah gift certificates to buy a Tegan and Sara album. And I've always had an affinity for them since then.
Richard: Oh my God, I love them.
Sam: So there's that. Now it's in the public record. The
Gaby: The inner lesbian emerges.
Sam: Me and my Subaru, I mean, whoa.
Gaby: Yeah, there's a lot of lesbian coding going on. Do you have like a beaver tattoo? I don't know about
Sam: Mom, dad, husband, I have something to tell you.