The View From Somewhere: Locating Lesbian Experience in Women’s Health

In some circles of nursing practice and research, "women's health" is seen to stand for "women's reproductive and heterosexual health." In this article we offer a view of women's health that makes central the contexualized reality of the material, social, and discursive experiences of women's lives. We suggest that the barriers to adopting broader conceptualizations of health are grounded in pervasive ideologies that privilege biology and a traditional model of health over nonmedical determinants of health. Lesbian disclosure is a central experience in lesbian life, and, as such, is seen as an exemplar of research questions that challenges our taken-for-granted ideologies and contextualizes women's health experiences.