GLMA Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality

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Founded in 1981, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality is the world’s oldest and largest association of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) healthcare professionals and their allies. GLMA is committed to ensuring health equity for LGBTQ+ individuals, and equality for LGBTQ+ health professionals in their work and learning environments. To achieve this mission, GLMA utilizes the scientific expertise of its diverse multidisciplinary membership to inform and drive advocacy, education, and research.

We are living in unprecedented times. Two pandemics, legislative and judicial attacks on our rights to bodily autonomy, and violence threatening the livelihoods of LGBTQ+ all across the country. For years, GLMA has been harnessing the power of health professionals to create a more equitable world for LGBTQ people in healthcare.

Now more than ever, we need to join together to build power in the new year! 

Join the movement for LGBTQ+ health equity by supporting GLMA today!

Read on to learn more about some of GLMA's most impactful programs of 2022:

The GLMA Annual Conference on LGBTQ Health is the premier, interdisciplinary LGBTQ health conference and the world’s largest scientific gathering devoted to LGBTQ health issues and concerns. GLMA’s Annual Conference educates practitioners and students—from across all health professions— about the unique health needs of LGBTQ individuals and families. 

The conference is a forum for discussion and exploration of how best to address these needs as well as the needs of LGBTQ health professionals and health profession students. GLMA’s Annual Conference on LGBTQ Health also reports on research into the health needs of LGBTQ people. 

In 2022, GLMA held the 40th Annual Conference on LGBTQ Health in San Francisco, CA, hosting over 500 health professionals working for LGBTQ+ health equity. The conference focused on comprehensive and team-based approaches to healthcare and research that optimize the mental and physical wellbeing of LGBTQ people from all age cohorts, while taking into consideration the intersection of sexual orientation, gender identity, and age with other identities.

On December 1, the new and improved LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory will  officially launch. The LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory is a free, searchable database of doctors, medical professionals and healthcare providers who are knowledgeable and sensitive to the unique health needs of LGBTQ+ people in the United States and Canada. 

The directory, developed by Tegan and Sara Foundation, GLMA and Cigna, will reach vital and diverse audiences of medical professionals and LGBTQ+ patients in need of care.

LGBTQ+ patients deserve healthcare providers who they can be open and honest with —free from fear of stigma or bias. The simple act of connecting patients with care is a solution to this problem.

Over 15 years ago, GLMA built the very first directory of LGBTQ+ healthcare professionals. Through their vast membership, the directory grew to be the most respected resource of its kind in the United States. Together with input from LGBTQ+ health experts and community leaders, this resource has been updated with innovative search functionality, the highest standards of accessibility and a new set of guiding principles.

The Lesbian Health Fund (LHF), a program of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, was established in 1992 to define, study, and educate lesbians and other sexual minority women, as well as their healthcare providers, about health issues facing the community.

Since its launch, LHF has granted over $1 million dollars to fund over 120 critical research studies which have deepened knowledge of our communities’ health. LHF is the only US research fund dedicated solely to the unique health needs of lesbians and sexual minority women. The grants are crucial catalysts to larger, multi-million dollar studies funded by federal agencies.

Today, LHF remains committed to improving the health of lesbians and sexual minority women over the lifespan, from early childhood, through adolescence, and adulthood, including aging. There is still great need to understand how social determinants, especially race and ethnicity, influence the health and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ women and girls.