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Amid widespread social and cultural shifts and advocacy toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights remain a hidden population of homeless adolescents who are cast out from families and communities because of their sexual and gender orientation. The result is an over-representation of LGBT adolescents among the homeless in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of literature and research which explores the status and needs of LGBT homeless adolescents in the United States.

To understand the experiences of LGBT adolescents leading up to and during homelessness, I provide a thematic and critical review of four decades of research to connect our understanding of the LGBT homeless experience with institutional and collective efforts that work to promote their well-being.

Bringing together this body of literature, I explore four interrelated questions. First, has the rate of homelessness increased for LGBT adolescents in recent decades? Second, what is the experience of LGBT adolescents who become homeless? Third, what role does advocacy and support play in ameliorating the difficulties these young people face? Finally, what role can future research and policy play in shaping the well-being of LGBT adolescents who become homeless?

Understanding the experience of homeless LGBT adolescents and the collective advocacy efforts designed to promote their well-being offers insight into the intersection of symbolic, inter-personal, and institutional forces which shape their trajectories.

Purpose: This chapter explores the role of life course transitions, personal networks, community, and social support in the physical and mental health of LGBTQ+ elders. Specifically, we review the literature on formal and informal supports and resources available to LGBTQ+ elders as they age.

Methodology: We use an intersectional lens that explores dimensions of social identity and social location among diverse subpopulations within sexual and gender minority (SGM) elders. We outline the implications of access (or lack of access) to formal and informal care for SGM elders' physical and mental health and well-being in late life. We examine the availability of these supports in the context of broad inequalities and life events that structure the life course for LGBTQ+ elders and have long-term health implications.

Findings: Our findings from this review demonstrate how social factors over the life course shape SGM mental and physical health later in life for aging LGBTQ+ populations. We reflect on how strained relationships and lack of acceptance compel some to seek alternative sources of support and relationships. Our analysis uncovers individual and institutional sources of support: personal social networks and formal spaces, such as healthcare settings, that connect elders with resources to develop social support and avoid social isolation.

Implications: The implications of our review reveal the unique needs and barriers to practical and social support that SGM older adults face. We explore alternative supports that LGBTQ+ elders need compared with their heterosexual cisgender peers, given the disproportionate rejection they face in a range of public and intimate spaces. We conclude by identifying and celebrating sources of support and resilience as LGBTQ+ elders have crafted alternate support networks and advocated for increased recognition, rights, and care.

Originality and Value: Despite some recent flourishing of research in SGM health, a road map for scholars, practitioners, and community members outlining future research in understudied areas such as LGBTQ+ aging and transgender health would help advance scholarship and policy. Our commentary highlights quantitative and qualitative studies and suggests avenues for research that put in conversation literatures on rural studies, urban sociology, and social networks; gerontology; health; and gender/sexuality studies.

This chapter provides evidence that the Stonewall Inn riots were the foundation for a legacy of empowerment and improvements in the civil and political rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community in the United States. Increased protections in the United States and globally are needed to fully integrate LGBT individuals into society. The next phase of this work will examine how the failure to extend equitable civil and political rights to LGBT individuals has led to continued stigma and discrimination which, in turn, is associated with a host of LGBT health disparities ranging from HIV to suicide to substance use. Future research will also identify ways to reduce these inequities.

Purpose: Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) young adults smoke at rates much higher than the general population. Young adults, in general, are less likely to seek medical help for smoking cessation and LGB individuals are less likely to seek health care generally. Alternative methods to encourage smoking cessation are necessary. This research seeks to establish whether LGB young adults in California would be willing to use social media for smoking cessation.

Approach: We conducted 41 qualitative interviews among LGB young adults in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles in Fall 2014.

Findings: The results suggest that our participants were interested in a LGB-focused social media intervention, as long as the intervention was private or anonymous and moderated. Further, across topical areas our participants spoke extensively about the import of social connections. We may be able to leverage these connections to encourage cessation.

Research Limitations: This is a qualitative, non-generalizable dataset from a fairly limited geographic area.

Public Health Implications: Online smoking cessation interventions aimed at young adults would benefit from further testing with LGB young adults to ensure efficacy among this population. In addition, states and localities concerned about young adult LGB smoking might benefit from investing in an online socially mediated cessation forum. Online interventions could be scalable and might be useful for other groups who regularly face discrimination, stigma, or other stressors that make successful smoking cessation difficult.

This chapter focuses on ways libraries can ensure the services and collections they provide do not exclude bisexual people and indulge in the “bi erasure” that is otherwise so prevalent in society. The authors share best practices for public, academic, and school libraries to add bisexual/pansexual titles to their collections, as well as provide programmatic tips that include the larger bisexual/pansexual community. Most importantly, the authors highlight community partners, advocacy organizations, or non-profits that can serve as potential collaborators as librarians brainstorm programming for bisexual/pansexual patrons. This chapter also contains staff training guidelines and resources for creating a more welcoming environment for bisexual/pansexual patrons. The chapter concludes with a list of resources that will help librarians make more inclusive collections’ decisions and resource guides. It’s purpose is to help libraries better serve bisexual/pansexual patrons who are undoubtedly already library users.

Health science librarians occupy a unique place in librarianship, guiding healthcare professionals and the public to quality sources of medical research and consumer health information in order to improve patient outcomes and quality of life. A broader impact of health sciences librarianship is its advocacy for improvements in public health. In recent years, health science librarians have been actively involved in advocating for adequate, responsive, and culturally competent health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals. Health sciences librarians have advocated for LGBTQ+ individuals through a variety of specialized outreach projects to address health disparities found in the LGBTQ+ community such as HIV/AIDS, women’s health, or substance abuse, have collaborated with public health agencies and community-based organizations to identify health disparities and needs, and have implemented outreach to address these needs.

This chapter maps the landscape of health sciences librarian outreach to LGBTQ+ people. The authors develop this theme through case studies of health science librarians providing health information to the LGBTQ+ community and healthcare professionals. Following an overview of advocacy for LGBTQ+ health by the US National Network of Libraries of Medicine and professional information organizations, they conclude the chapter by discussing the “pioneering” nature of these projects and the common threads uniting them, and by identifying the next steps for continued successful outreach through the development of an evidence base and tailoring of outreach and resources to address other demographic aspects of the members of the LGBTQ+ community.

In India, recently on December 11, 2013, the Supreme Court re-established a ban on gay sex following a four-year period of decriminalization that had helped bring homosexuality out of the closet in this communally conservative country. In the light of such prosecution and denial of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) human rights in India, this chapter presents a library manifesto of action for progressive change in support of this marginalized and “invisible” population.

Content analysis of online news articles published during November 14, 2013–January 14, 2014 in The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india), one of India’s most popular English newspaper, identifies proactive economic, educational, legal, political, and social actions libraries can adopt as agents of human rights protection to integrate a social justice agenda on behalf of this subjugated population.

This chapter presents an action-based manifesto consisting of realities experienced by sexual minorities in India and future economic, educational, legal, political, and social actions libraries can take on their behalf.

This research showcases the meaningful role of the library and information science professions in potentially shaping community-wide progressive changes to address the information needs and expectations of underserved populations who are marginalized owing to conservative laws, policies, practices, and politics. It also adopted an innovative strategy in library circles and human rights research of examining online news articles to explore the relevance of the information found in the news covered related to the adoption of an archaic law denying equal rights for sexual minorities in India.

This chapter examines how people weigh and discuss opportunities for collective action to improve community health. Drawing from research on civic and social movement engagement, it focuses specifically on how cultural logics of pragmatism, activism, and cynicism are invoked in such debates.

Qualitative data come from four focus group discussions of strategies for reducing tobacco use in Atlanta’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. Participants included 36 self-identified community members.

Pragmatic logics were used most often in evaluating the tobacco control strategies, with activist logics second and cynicism a distant third. This echoes prior research, but our participants used these logics in unexpected ways: they combined pragmatism and activism, downplaying the former’s emphasis on individual self-interest and the latter’s emphasis on contentious confrontation. In addition, use of the logics varied by focus group and strategy, but not with individual speaker’s identities.

Though limited by a narrow demographic focus and small convenience sample, our study suggests that public support for community health initiatives will likely depend on how they are framed and on the interactional dynamics and shared identities of the groups they are presented to.

Logics of pragmatism, activism, and cynicism inform debate over community health initiatives, as with other forms of civic action. However, use of these logics is not uniform but varies with the groups and issues at hand. Our study participants’ mutual LGBT identification gave them a sense of shared community and a familiarity with the politicization of personal life that led them to combine pragmatist and activist logics in novel ways.

Purpose: This chapter explores the relationship between international human rights and the domestic practices of nation-states around lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights.

Methodology/approach: Using Sweden and Russia as case studies, this chapter analyzes LGBT human rights recommendations from the cyclical United Nations Universal Periodic Review and how they affect practices within nation-states.

Findings: Sweden embraces recommendations to strengthen LGBT human rights and institutes stronger national LGBT rights policies of its own, while Russia’s compliance with LGBT rights recommendations is low. Further, reports of LGBT victimization show that the severity of attacks on LGBT people is pronounced in Russia.

Social implications: Relying on case studies limits the generalizability of this study, but the implications of these findings suggest that, to strengthen human rights compliance and improve the lives of minority citizens, human rights advocates should take note of domestic ideologies and leverage the institutional environment of the world society to provide information, resources, and pressure to facilitate nation-states’ compliance with international human rights recommendations.

Originality/value: This chapter deepens the discourse on the contested realm of international LGBT rights by highlighting the dynamics between international monitoring mechanisms, domestic discourse, and domestic law.

This chapter addresses the current state of librarian participation in the global lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ (LGBTQ+) Wikipedia engagement efforts and proposes an extended librarian advocacy to advance LGBTQ+ rights and concerns. The author provides a brief history of global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia engagement, librarian involvement in Wikipedia, and librarian participation in global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia initiatives. In the process, the author examines the underrepresentation and invisibility of librarians in global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia engagement efforts and Wikipedia initiatives in general, as well as the barriers that librarians face in becoming active Wikipedian librarians. Based on a review of the literature, the analysis of data gathered from Wikipedia, and the author’s own experiences as an LGBTQ+ Wikipedian librarian, the author recommends strategies for librarians to advocate for and include global LGBTQ+ Wikipedia engagement in their professional practice.