What can I do to improve my health if I'm Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or Transgender (GLBT)? Besides the things that everybody ought to do (eat well, exercise regularly, avoid cigarettes), GLBT individuals can do these things to improve our own health:

Find GLBT-culturally competent health care providers. Ask friends. Ask your HMO or your doctors themselves about their attitudes. Some culturally respectful resources in King County are listed on our web site. The Gay & Lesbian Medical Association has a physician referral service that you also might find helpful nationally.


"Come out" to your health care providers about your identities, your family (however you define it) and your sexual and other risk behavior (e.g., drug use). You'll get better diagnoses if they know what you're at risk for and receive more humane treatment during medical crises if they know on whom you depend.


Educate your health care providers. Be assertive. You have a right to insist, for instance, on being tested for sexually transmitted infections, even if you are lesbian, and not assumed to be immune. Or, if you are transgender, to insist on being referred to by a preferred name and pronouns. Or if you are gay, not to have HIV tests thrust upon you (despite the fact that you may have never had sex) when what you really wanted was a sports physical.Or if you are bisexual, to be asked about your sexual behavior rather than having someone assume they know what you do.


Offer your health care provider this web address and take them a cool poster from the Massachusetts Department of Health to display in their waiting room: www.glbthealth.org/HAPMaterials.htm.


In the absence of being allowed to marry or establish a civil union, it is especially critical to protect yourself and your partner in case of catastrophic illness:
designate a health-care power-of-attorney, give a copy to your primary provider, to significant others, and carry one when you travel
purchase long-term care insurance
Though less urgent for those in legal marriages or civil unions, these practices can still be helpful.


Women and Trans Men (female-to-male transsexuals) with cervical tissue should have pelvic exams starting three years after your first sex that involved someone's penis, fingers, shared sex toy or tongue inside your vagina, or at age 21 at the latest, and then at least every three years.


Women and Trans Men with breast tissue over age 40 should have annual mammograms.


Those with depression, anxiety or substance abuse issues should talk with GLBT culturally-competent mental health or drug/alcohol treatment professionals.


Those who have had unprotected sex, especially with more than one person or with someone who may have had multiple partners, should get tested for HIV, HPV and hepatitis.


Those who might have sex in the future, especially if they aren't ready to settle down with one person "forever", should get hepatitis immunizations and learn how to make condoms and/or latex dams a comfortable, expected part of love-making.


Work for equal health care benefits and financial safety for yourself and other GLBT people, from children to elders.