Also important is working with public schools to ensure that they include LGBT history and culture in their curricula and equally importantly, initiate educational interventions that proactively address racism, sexism and heterosexism, dealing appropriately and effectively with bias-related language and violence in the schools. Risky behavior is the risk factor, e.g., sharing needles or having unprotected sex with an infected partner, not sexual orientation or gender of partners. Of course some gay and bisexual men are not at risk, successfully using abstinence or safer sex, while others are ignoring safer sex messages, or sharing injection drug equipment. Lesbian and bisexual women are also potentially at risk for the same reasons. Part of our health education message is that we value our LGBT students, we care about their health, we look forward to seeing them achieve their dreams and goals.
Violence is another issue for LGBT students.
The LGBT community has rallied to address and prevent this violence. More insidious is same gender relationship violence, which is also a problem. When heterosexism and homophobia are greatly diminished, LGBT health concerns will return to being college health concerns. Until then, we must all let our students know that there are health education, counseling, and clinical services that are well suited to their specialized needs.