Globalization, Structural Violence, and LGBT Health: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Abstract

It is a daunting task to provide even a partial analysis of the health of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals (LGBTs) from a global perspective owing to the cross-cultural and regional variation in the social construction and expression of sexuality as well as the still incomplete scholarly literature on the topic. This chapter, however, argues that it is precisely such a global vantage point that is required to apprehend the contemporary context of health and illness among LGBT populations. Although LGBT health is shaped by local cultural meanings and practices, it is also inherently embedded in large-scale processes and the position of local LGBT populations within the global system. In the era of a highly mobile, hybrid, and fundamentally interconnected world in which material and symbolic cultures are linked across vast distances, the meanings of LGBT sexuality and their consequences for health in specific locales cannot be understood if nations are viewed in isolation (Altman, 1989). Indeed, the nature of global interconnectedness requires us to engage LGBT health as a fundamentally transnational phenomenon involving the interplay of meanings, practices, and vulnerabilities that extend beyond the purely local. For example, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic among gay-identified men in the United States and Europe may be intimately related to the meanings and practices that drive risky practices in Papua New Guinea, Uganda, or Bolivia.