March 18-22 is LGBTQ+ Health Awareness Week.
At VA, we serve our Veterans with the equitable, inclusive, and respectful health care you deserve. Today, VA provides care to more than six million Veterans with a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences, and identities. And a growing proportion of VA users are LGBTQ+ Veterans—with over 104,000 who are enrolled in VA health care—many of whom have unique and varied needs.
Sexual orientation and gender identity matter in health care. We know that some LGBTQ+ people have experienced bias or discrimination. That is why we celebrate LGBTQ+ Health Awareness Week by reminding Veterans that we provide personalized health care that understands the specific risk and protective factors based on sexual orientation, gender identity, race, age and other individual factors.
We encourage all Veterans to receive routine exams and take advantage of the mental health resources we offer. Our providers are trained to know both specific risk and protective factors that impact health care based on sexual orientation, gender identity, race, age and other individual factors.
We provide comprehensive care for LGBTQ+ Veterans, including routine and specialty health services. We encourage Veterans to talk about all aspects of their lives with their providers, including sexual orientation and gender identity so that we can provide the best care possible.
Building a safe and welcoming environment for all Veterans
Veterans with LGBTQ+ identities are less likely to seek routine care because of experiencing discrimination and bias. Research suggests they may have higher risks for health problems such as heart disease, suicide, mental health conditions including PTSD, substance use and some cancers.
We know that each Veteran has unique health care goals and needs, including our LGBTQ+ Veterans. That is why at every VA facility we have an LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinator (VCC) to help Veterans navigate health care. Find your local VCC.
The VCCs not only build a safe and welcoming environment for our Veterans, but also provide education and trainings to providers and teams. VCCs can connect LGBTQ+ Veterans to resources both at VA and in the community. VA is committed to promoting health and wellness through providing vital services to LGBTQ+ Veterans.
VA is addressing these challenges for Veterans by offering a suite of comprehensive health care services, which include:
- Gender-affirming therapies, including hormone treatment
- Substance use/alcohol treatment
- Tobacco use treatment
- Treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) and PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) for Veterans at risk for HIV
- Intimate partner violence reduction and treatment of after effects
- Military sexual trauma screening and treatment of after effects
- Suicide prevention services
- Whole Health
- Cancer screening, prevention and treatment
- Virtual Mental Health Care: Veterans can connect with a VA mental health provider through a computer or mobile device from the comfort of their homes or at their nearest VA health facility
- Reproductive health services, including contraception, family building, specialty gynecology care, pregnancy care, menopause management
- Infertility: VA is committed to helping Veterans navigate challenges that may arise from issues with fertility and the conception of a child.
More information can be found here on LGBTQ+ Health at VA and resources.
Our promise
Veterans who come to VA are proven to have better health outcomes, higher patient satisfaction ratings, and 91% report that they trust VA health care. But we are not only committed to providing you with the very best health care—we are also committed to making sure that whenever you walk into a VA facility, you know that you will be treated with the care, compassion and respect you deserve. Creating a welcoming, respectful and inclusive space for all Veterans at every VA facility—while promoting health care—positively affects the mental and physical well-being of our patients. We will never settle for anything less, and we encourage LGBTQ+ Veterans—and all eligible Veterans—to come to us for their care today.
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Randy Coon: You can’t be serious with your comments! The comments you made clearly show your lack of education, ability to think critically, incomprehensible bias, straight up discrimination, and the fact that you are admitting you are gullible as the day is long! What on Earth is “The VA should be the grown-ups in the government, not a political arm of the Marxist Social Left” supposed to mean?? Making statements like that make it obvious that YOU are the one who needs to “grow-up,” stop projecting, and perhaps educate yourself in Human Relations to rid yourself of your ethnocentric thinking! That level of closed mind makes YOU look like the one who “needs help” for YOUR “crazy thinking!” Unreal incomprehensible ignorance!
Wow. Where do you get off, jumping on that guy like that?
Gender Dysphoria, as an example, has been classified as a mental illness since the early 1950’s!
Why do WE have to accept it? Or acccommodate it?
And doesn’t the VA have better things to worry about?
Long waiting times, for one.
This nation and its military have gone astray from its greatness and real purpose.
I hope and pray to God, that the woke sickness, like cancer, will be cured soon.
I wish this was true, but not here in Spokane Washington
The most ridicules nonsense I have ever heard. Lets try being adult human beings. Not some made up thing.
Thank you, VA, for your outreach efforts to our LGBTQ+ Veterans. This article and VA’s actions represent significant progress for our nation, government, and people after centuries of violence, abuse, and discrimination.
However, when I read the comments at the end of the article, I became distressed at the amount of ignorant and malignant hate directed at Veterans and VA. Let’s take a deep breath and agree that discrimination and hate must end.
I embrace loving our neighbors! EVERYONE deserves to feel welcome and cared for. Let’s let actions speak louder than words. As a veteran, we all have to have each other’s backs no matter what.
The VA is not equitable! If you want to be equitable you will eliminate all the gay sex types gender types and Nationalitiy types and treat us all equally as Veterans.
Thank you for making this effort, every veteran deserves proper care, treatment, and respect. Please monitor the comments or make them at least reportable.
I am an Army Vet. I do not want to see the VA getting involved with LGBTQ+. The only healthcare needed is mental health, they need help, not support for their crazy thinking. Equally disturbing is the mental issue of gender confusion. The VA should be the grown-ups in the government, not a political arm of the Marxist Social Left.
Stop the WOKE indoctrination and concentrate on serving war fighters with PTSD , homelessness, anxiety disorders, disability physical and emotional and psychological problems and quit spending money on the 1% of queer men/women that don’t really want help they just want to have the government support them.
Not equitable but rather “EQUALITY”
VA Palo Alto, San Francisco VA Medical Center, VA Northern California Health Care System, VISN 21, Pacific Region 5 Readjustment Counseling Services, VA Secretary Denis McDonough “fight like hell”to discriminate against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) veterans and they encourage suicide and will offer Uber rides to Golden Gate Bridge and jump so they can conceal complaints.
Is it true the VA pays for gender operations, male to female.?