About

LavenderHealth is a Resource Center for reliable LGBTQ+ health information and resources for health care professionals, educators, policy-makers and consumers. The primary mission of the project is to promote high-level wellness for LGBTQ+ people. We aim to:

Advance LGBTQ+ health equality.
Empower LGBTQ+ people to shape their own health decisions.
Strengthen positive relationships of support that nurture resilience in coping with minority stress.
Inspire advocacy and activism on behalf of LGBTQ+ individuals, families and communities.
Share information and resources that serve consumers, healthcare professionals, and policy-makers in creating quality and equality in LGBTQ+ healthcare.
Encourage scholarship related to LGBTQ+ health and healthcare.

The project was founded by a team of nurses – Mickey Eliason, Sue Dibble, Jeanne DeJoseph and Peggy Chinn, and the project remains rooted in nursing perspectives on health, high-level wellness, positive relationships that support individuals, families and communities in reaching their full health potential.

While we do not endorse or recommend particular treatments or approaches, we do analyze the information posted here for truthfulness, currency, and potential for benefit to LGBTQ+ communities. Opinions posted on our blog are those of the authors and are not endorsed by any organization or group.

We want to hear from you! If you want to be involved in our work, please comment on any of our pages, on our blog, or contact us! We are delighted for you to share our site freely, but if you quote or use any of the information we have posted, you need to attribute the source to LavenderHealth. Here is the appropriate APA format for attribution to our site:

LavenderHealth.org. (2009 – 2016). Retrieved [your date], from http://lavenderhealth.org (If you are quoting a blog post, include author information, blog post title, and specific URL for the blog post)

Our Bloggers

Our bloggers come from a wide range of backgrouds, but we all share a commitment to LGBTQ+ health. We are listed below in the order in which we joined the team!

Michele J. Eliason, PhD – Mickey Eliason is currently an associate professor in the
Mickey Eliason

Department of Health Education at San Francisco State University. Formerly, she spent 20 years on the faculty of the College of Nursing at the University of Iowa, and was first director of the Sexuality Studies Program there. She has written extensively about LGBT health issues. She is the primary author of the co-authored book, LGBTQ Cultures published by Lippincott, now in its 2nd Edition!

Peggy Chinn, RN, PhD – Peggy is Professor Emerita of Nursing at the University of
Peggy Chinn

Connecticut. She is a former member of the GLMA Board of Directors, and has been active throughout her career promoting women’s health and LGBTQ rights. She authors books and journal articles on nursing theory, feminism and nursing, the art of nursing, and nursing education. Her major books Integrated Knowledge and Theory Development (2010), and Peace and Power: Creative Leadership for Building Communities (2007) are used world-wide. She is co-author of the book “LGBTQ Cultures: What Health care Professionals Need to Know about Sexual and Gender Diversity.

Michael Johnson, PhD, RN is a full-time faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
Michael Johnson

and is dedicated to LGBTQI health research. His doctoral work focused on studying health and healthcare disparities in LGBTQI populations. He is interested in collaborating with others on any type of LGBTQI health related work. He is a founding member of the GLMA Nursing Section, serving as Chair during the 2015-2016 term.

Thomas Long associate professor-in-residence in the School of Nursing at the University of Connecticut, has enjoyed a twenty-year career as a writer, editor, and writing coach in higher education, including universities and community
Tom Long

colleges. As a professor of English in a school of nursing, he provides writing support consultation through the Center for Nursing Scholarship. He has published a book and articles on topics in the medical humanities (literary and cultural representations of the body, sexuality, and disease), has served as editor-in-chief of an international literary journal, and has been a consultant for individual, business, and government clients. His PhD is in English (with a specialization in early American studies from Indiana University of Pennsylvania); he has two MA degrees (one in English from the University of Illinois, the other in Theology from the Catholic University of America). He maintains a personal blog called The Long View. You can also view his profile at Academic.edu or follow him on Facebook or contact him via email: Thomas.Long <at> UConn.edu (replacing <at> with @).
Lisa Goldberg is an Associate Professor and Caritas Coach in the School of Nursing, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS. Her educational and research scholarship builds on her clinical expertise as a perinatal nurse and uses innovative feminist and queer phenomenological
Lisa Goldberg

methodologies to examine the taken-for-granted and relational practices of nurses, primary care providers, and women in contexts of birth (and beyond) against the institutional landscape of gender, power, and heteronormativity. More recently, having completed the Caritas Coach Education Program through the Watson Caring Science Institute (WCSI), her scholarship has integrated new strategies for more deeply understanding LGBTQ health in relation to its systemic invisibility within curricula and nursing education more broadly. To see more of Dr. Goldberg’s scholarship, visit the following link to her home page at Dalhousie University: (http://www.dal.ca/faculty/healthprofessions/nursing/faculty-staff/faculty/lisa-goldberg.html) or her most recent research with colleagues related to queer birthing practices in rural Nova Scotia: (http://lgbtqbirthing.weebly.com).

Jennifer Searle is a queer-identified intersectional feminist from Halifax, Nova Scotia. She holds a BScN, as well as a BSc in Biology and Social Anthropology, both from
Jennifer Searle

Dalhousie University. In addition to beginning what will certainly be a rewarding career as an RN, Jennifer is also currently working as a Research Assistant at Dalhousie for Dr. Lisa Goldberg (who is also on our Blog Team). Their research uses queer and feminist phenomenological methodologies to study and explain (in an attempt to improve upon) gender & heteronomative practices in healthcare. Jennifer is excited to be included in such important work as a representative of the LGBTQ+ community, and to continue to educate herself on the most current healthcare practices and theories.
Vanessa Shields is a New Orleans-based public health activist enrolled in an accelerated BSN program at Louisiana State
Vanessa Shields

University. As an advocate for access to universal, preventative health care and comprehensive sexual education, Vanessa is a Louisiana-certified HIV/STD counselor and tester working with the LGBTQ community and injection drug users. She is a volunteer with the New Orleans Abortion Fund where she helps provide women in Louisiana with financial assistance to access safe, legal abortions regardless of their economic situation. As a board member of the New Orleans Adolescent Reproductive Health Program, Vanessa is focused on the inclusion of LGBTQ-health into comprehensive, medically accurate sexual education for high school students. Vanessa previously worked with the Louisiana Office of Public Health as an HIV/STD Capacity Building Specialist and with the United States Agency for International Development in Nigeria and Guyana where she helped develop supply chains for the delivery of anti-retroviral drugs and medical equipment in the fight against HIV and AIDs. She holds an MA in International Development from Bradford University, UK.

With Appreciation!

The following awesome people have contributed to the development of the web site and blog in the past:

Suzanne L. Dibble, DNSc, RN – Suzanne is Professor Emerita at the Institute for Health and Aging, Department of Social and Behavioral Science, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco. She has been an active
Sue Dibble

researcher for much of her career, conducting numerous funded studies, written more than 100 articles, and co-write the recent book “LGBTQ Cultures: What Health care Professionals Need to Know about Sexual and Gender Diversity.” She is co-editor with Dr. Patricia Robertson of the book “Lesbian Health 101”, published by UCSF School of Nursing Press. She is a co-founder of the Lesbian Health and Research Center at UCSF.

Jeanne DeJoseph, CNM, PhD – Jeanne is Professor Emerita from the University of
Jeanne DeJoseph

California San Francisco, Department of Family Health Care Nursing where she was co-director of the Midwifery Education Program and also taught feminist, qualitative research methods. Her research centered around women and work, specifically during pregnancy. She is co-author of LGBTQ Cultures: What Health Care Professionals Need to Know about Sexual and Gender Diversity.

Carla Randall, Associate Professor in the College of Nursing and Health
Carla Randall

Professions at the University of Southern Maine. Her research has involved looking at attitudes of nursing faculty and students toward lesbians, experiences of nursing faculty when they include lesbian healthcare concerns within their teaching, and how lesbians have been presented within nursing textbooks.
Mona Shattell PhD, RN
Mona Shattell

University and former Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project. Her primary responsibility as a faculty member is teaching graduate level research methods, theory, health policy, and ethics courses. Prior to joining the faculty at DePaul, she taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She holds a BSN, MSN, and PhD degree in nursing. Her clinical specialty is in psychiatric/mental health nursing and her current research focuses primarily on the mental health/illness of vulnerable populations, and various mental health treatment environments. Her past research has focused on therapeutic relationships and the physical and mental health of truckers. She is an Associate Editor of Issues in Mental Health Nursing and the author of more than 90 journal articles and book chapters.