This article considers how health services access and equity documents represent the problem of access to health services and what the effects of that representation might be for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities. We conducted a critical discourse analysis on selected access and equity documents using a gender-based diversity framework as determined by two objectives: 1) to identify dominant and counter discourses in health services access and equity literature; and 2) to develop understanding of how particular discourses impact the inclusion, or not, of LGBT communities in health services access and equity frameworks.The analysis was conducted in response to public health and clinical research that has documented barriers to health services access for LGBT communities including institutionalized heterosexism, biphobia, and transphobia, invisibility and lack of health provider knowledge and comfort. The analysis was also conducted as the first step of exploring LGBT access issues in home care services for LGBT populations in Ontario, Canada.

Although immigrant women bear a disproportionate burden of chronic disease and mental health issues, limited research addresses how to promote their mental wellbeing. The authors first describe grounded theory findings from community-based focus group research with 57 racialized immigrant women in Toronto, Canada that used a critical gender and intersectional lens to explore the links among settlement, wellbeing, and activism. Secondly, a community mobilization strategy is described whereby racialized immigrant women discuss activism as a feature of wellbeing in various language communities while creating meaningful health promotion resources. Implications for creating activism-based initiatives to promote women's wellbeing are discussed.

All health care sectors are currently examining factors that influence delivery of high-quality services for diverse groups with an understanding that minority populations experience barriers to service access that contribute to well-documented ill health and health inequities. With a goal of understanding dynamics that can improve access to care in the home care sector, this qualitative exploratory study examined processes to create inclusive, positive space for diverse lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in community-based health and social service agencies. A purposeful sample of eight key informants from agencies in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which offer programs and services to LGBTQ communities, completed in-depth interviews. Conventional content analysis and a critical lens were used. Themes offered insight into the histories, challenges, and turning points which shaped the development of LGBTQ-positive spaces in these organizations. Community engagement and leadership emerged as relevant, as did strategies to embed LGBTQ voices and visibility within everyday organizational functioning. Given the gap in literature addressing LGBTQ access to home care and the unique dynamics that shape care in the home, implications address the application of these study findings for creating positive space in the home care sector.

This paper reports on grounded theory findings that are relevant to promoting the mental health and well-being of immigrant women in Canada. The findings illustrate how relationships among settlement factors and dynamics of empowerment had implications for “becoming resilient” as immigrant women and how various health promotion approaches enhanced their well-being. Dimensions of empowerment were embedded in the content and process of the feminist health promotion approach used in this study. Four focus groups were completed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with 35 racialized immigrant women who represented diverse countries of origin: 25 were from Africa; others were equally represented from South Asia (5), Asia (5), and Central or South America and the Caribbean (5). Participants represented diverse languages, family dynamics, and educational backgrounds. One focus group was conducted in Somali; three were conducted in English. Constructivist grounded theory, theoretical sampling, and a critical feminist approach were chosen to be congruent with health promotion research that fostered women’s empowerment. Findings foreground women’s agency in the study process, the ways that immigrant women name and frame issues relevant to their lives, and the interplay among individual, family, community, and structural dynamics shaping their well-being. Implications for mental health promotion are discussed.

Recent nursing research using a critical feminist lens challenges the prevailing view of political inertia in nursing. This comparative life history study using a critical feminist lens explores the relevance of activism with four generations of Canadian nurses. Purposeful sampling of Ontario nurses resulted in 40 participants who were diverse in terms of generation, practice setting, and activist practice. Interviews and focus groups were completed with the sample of Ontario registered nurses or undergraduate and graduate nursing students: 8 Generation X, 9 Generation Y (Millennials), 20 Boomers, and 3 Overboomers. Factors such as professional norms and personal and organizational supports shaped contradictory nursing activist identities, practices, and impacts. Gendered norms, organizational dynamics, and the political landscape influenced the meanings nurses attributed to critical incidents and influences that prompted activism inside and outside the workplace, shaping the transformative potential of nursing. Despite its limitations, the study has implications for creating professional and organizational supports for consideration of health politics and policy, and spaces for dialogue to support practice and research aligned with social justice goals.

Well-documented health research points to trans people’s vulnerability to health inequities that are linked to deeply embedded structural and social determinants of health. Gender and work, as social determinants of health for trans people, both shape and are shaped by multiple factors such as support networks, social environments, income and social status, shelter, and personal health practices. There is a gap in the nursing literature in regards to research on work and health for diverse trans people and a virtual silence on the particular issues of trans-identified health providers. This qualitative study used comparative life history methodology and purposeful sampling to examine links among work, career, and health for transmen who are health providers. Semistructured interviews were completed with four Canadian transmen involved in health care professional and/or practice contexts with diverse professions, age, work, and transitioning experiences. Critical gender analysis showed that unique and gender-related critical events and influences shape continuities and discontinuities in their careerlives. This strength-based approach foregrounds how resilience and growth emerged through participants’ articulation with everyday gender dynamics. These findings have implications for nursing research, education, and practice that include an understanding of how trans providers “do transgender work” and supporting them in that process.