The Fight for Reproductive Justice and Combating Disparities in LGBTQI+ Health Care
This is a two-part, in-person CE Class from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (6 hours of CE credits). If you’re a UC nurse, an extra hour will be available from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Participants must be in attendance all day to receive the full 6 CEU CE credits, even if they have taken one of the classes prior to the sign-up date.
Part 1: The Fight for Reproductive Justice
Description
Life-saving reproductive health care is under attack. In this class, we will discuss how the current assault on women’s and gender oppressed people’s reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy fits within the wider history of reproductive health and health care in the U.S. The course will review the overwhelming evidence that reproductive health care is life-saving care, and it will examine the health disparities that highlight the need for nurses to advocate for health justice, gender justice, and racial justice simultaneously. Finally, we will discuss why resisting current attacks on reproductive health care is essential to advancing wider efforts to protect democracy and to advance health and economic justice.
Part 2: Queering Care: How Nurses can Combat Disparities in LGBTQI+ Health and Health Care
Description
This course will examine the unmet health needs and unique health care disparities faced by LGBTQI+ people in the U.S. We will focus on the impacts of institutional discrimination, clinical pathologization, and criminalization on both individual patients and at the public health level. Using the most up-to-date evidence and data, the class will analyze how gender and sexuality interact as social determinants of health, as well as debunk misinformation regarding the care and treatment of LGBTQI+ patients. We will consider the current wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation, and more specifically, how recent restrictions on life-saving health care for transgender people exacerbate health disparities, systemic barriers to care, and poor health outcomes.
Within this context, the course reviews the ongoing struggle for LGBTQI+ health justice and how it is a necessary piece of the larger struggle for health equity. As clinicians and patient advocates, nurses have an important role in that struggle and a unique opportunity to resist institutional discrimination, combat misinformation and political attacks, and help safeguard equitable care for LGBTQI+ patients.