Document Type
Article
Abstract
Navigating healthcare infrastructures is particularly challenging for queer-identifying individuals, with significant barriers emerging around stigma and practitioner ignorance. Further intersecting, historically marginalised identities such as one’s race, age or ability exacerbate such engagement with healthcare, particularly the access to and use of reliable and appropriate health information. We explore the salience of one’s queer identity relative to other embodied identities when navigating health information and care for themselves and their communities. Thirty semi-structured interviews with queer community leaders from South Carolina inform our discussion of the role one’s queer visibility plays relational to the visibility of other identities. We find that leaders and their communities navigate these intersectional visibilities through unique and iterative approaches to health information seeking, sharing and use predicated upon anti-queer, racist, ableist and misogynistic sentiments. Findings can inform queer-inclusive, intersectionally informed interventions by health and information professionals such as non-profit advocacy organisations and medical librarians.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Postprint version. Published in Journal of Information Science, 2021.
APA Citation
Wagner, T. L., & Kitzie, V. L. (2021). ‘Access necessitates being seen’: Queer visibility and intersectional embodiment within the health information practices of queer community leaders. Journal of Information Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/01655515211040658
Included in
Health Sciences and Medical Librarianship Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Social Justice Commons