This edited volume fills an important gap in health communication, exploring the significant disparities in access to health care and health coverage that LGBT individuals and their families face. With cutting-edge empirical research, the essays examine the social and structural factors that lead to the stigma and discrimination that LGBT populations experience.

Part I: Constructing Identity by Coming Out to Your Physician -- -- An Introduction to the Loosely Knit Patchwork of LGBT Health Care / Teresa Heinz Housel and Vickie L. Harvey -- The Importance of Sexual Orientation Disclosure to Physicians for Women Who Have Sex with Women / Karina Willes and Mike Allen -- Coming Out Conversations and Gay/Bisexual Men's Sexual Health : A Constitutive Model Study / Jimmie Manning -- Shaping Self with the Doctor : The Construction of Identity for Trans Patients / Katy Ross, Juliann C. Scholl, and Gina Castle Bell -- -- Part II: Access, Disparities, and Harassment Under the Guise of Policies -- -- Health Insurance Coverage For Same-Sex Couples : Disparities and Trends under DOMA / Gilbert Gonzales, Ryan Moltz, and Miriam King -- Carving Triangles into Squares : The Effects of LGBTQ-Stigma-Related Stressors during Youth, Adulthood, and Aging / Dawn L. Stongin, Marc J. Silva, and Fredrick Smiley -- Reproductive Physicians' Treatment of Lesbian Patients in Germany and the United States / Alicia VandeVusse -- -- Part III: Silencing, Violence, and Other Forms of Intimidation of LGBT People -- -- Limiting Transgender Health : Administrative Violence and Microaggressions in Health Care Systems / Sonny Nordmarken and Reese Kelly -- Women's Health, Health Care Service Utilization, and Experience of Intimate Partner Violence in the United States / Bethany M. Coston -- Political Activism as a Health-Giving Activity : Transforming Silence into Language and Action / Michael Warren Tumolo.