The state of healthcare education in the Global South is at a critical point of change. In general terms, the introduction of LGBTQIA+ health content into curricula is widely accepted as an important contribution and a step toward acceptance of gender diversity and inclusion. However, the actual way of teaching this content oftentimes simply continues to perpetuate violence against LGBTQIA+ people and, by extension, their communities. In other words, the historical patterns of teaching LGBTQIA+ people as “problems” (i.e., as pathological entities that need intervention), as at-risk groups that need to be managed, and as an example of how not to be healthy are continued by most educators despite the existence of LGBTQIA+ health content. The way that LGBTQIA+ health content is taught in the Global South reflects the influence of historical power relations that are built into medical education systems inherited from colonial powers as allied health practitioners and medical institutions continue to control whose bodies will be seen as worthy, acceptable, and validated as being a part of the “normal” world and as a result who will have access to health care services. There is limited attention to how LGBTQIA+ body pedagogies can serve as counter-practices to reimagine care, learning, and inclusion in the contexts outlined previously. This study analyzes how body pedagogies can disorient reductionist and interventionist approaches to LGBTQIA+ identities in health care education in the Global South.
Vicars et al. (Fri,) studied this question.