圣玛丽亚：帮助LGBTQ+青年经历无家可归的人始于建立信任
Rates of homelessness and suicide among sexual- and gender-minority youth greatly exceed those of their heterosexual and cisgender peers, said黛安·圣玛丽亚，Drph，MSN，RN，Uthealth Houston的Cizik护理学院院长。
这些年轻人遇到许多障碍，获得医疗服务的障碍，提供者必须克服许多挑战，以建立保持女同性恋，同性恋，双性恋，变性者，酷儿，酷儿和质疑（LGBTQ+）青年的信任（LGBTQ+）青年，以获得他们需要的护理，她说。
圣玛丽亚说10月19日UTHealth轩的一部分ton’s Diversity and Equity Speaker Series. She holds The Jane and Robert Cizik Distinguished Chair and the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair in Nursing Education Leadership at Cizik School of Nursing. She has received more than $3.8 million in National Institutes of Health funding for primary and supplementary research projects assessing the efficacy of a nurse case management HIV prevention and care intervention among youth experiencing homelessness and holds co-director positions with the Texas Development Center for AIDS Research (TX D-CFAR).
根据2022年的LGBTQ+青年心理健康调查（Trevor Project），过去一年中，有45％的LGBTQ+青年认真考虑了自杀。圣玛丽亚说，对于跨性别者和非二进制青年来说，这一比例甚至更高，他们可能为归属感而苦苦挣扎。
She shared other statistics related to sexual health, practices, and increased risk for sexually transmitted infections and teen pregnancy among LGBTQ+ youth, but she cautioned against applying generalities to any specific patient or person.
她说：“比基于人群的趋势不是个人，这可能很难记住。”“我们始终必须使用以人为单位的语言。仅仅因为一个团体处于较高的风险并不意味着个人处于较高的风险。”
Establishing trust with LGBTQ+ youth who have been rejected by their families or aged out of foster care and juvenile justice systems can be an uphill battle, especially when a health care provider doesn’t understand their sexual or gender-affirming health issues or feels uncomfortable discussing such topics.
圣玛丽亚说：“这是他们与提供商互动的前两三分钟，它决定了他们将来是否寻求医疗保健。”
Estimating the number of LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness can be difficult because they typically don’t want to be found. “Youth often don’t want to interact with systems they may have had bad experiences with in the past, so they go to great lengths not to look homeless,” Santa Maria said.
但是，仅休斯顿独立学区就确定了约30,000名学生，他们被认为是无家可归或不稳定的学生。与其他一些城市相反，休斯顿的这些年轻人往往不仅仅是经过 - 大多数在这里和现在在庇护所，朋友的沙发和街道之间漂浮。
为了解决有助于LGBTQ+青年无家可归的无数问题，圣玛丽亚呼吁消除卫生保健系统内的障碍，在跨性别患者护理中的更加认识和包容性以及在性教育中的非统治观点的整合等。
圣玛丽亚说，任何人可以帮助的最重要方法之一是鼓励朋友或家人与可能是LGBTQ+的孩子保持联系。庇护所和往返中心每天都面临着家人拒绝的青年。
“It’s just a tragedy,” she said. “I think we really need to find ways to help families understand their role and give them the coping strategies to figure out how to continue that parenting role – to protect and support LGBTQ+ children.”
Sherri Green, Cizik School of Nursing
