Sexual and Gender Minority Health Disparities as a Social Issue: How Stigma and Intergroup Relations Can Explain and Reduce Health Disparities

Sexual and gender minorities experience disparities in mental and physical health often attributed to structural discrimination through policies that do not promote equal rights and interpersonal–intrapersonal processes. Social issues research on stigma and intergroup relations can explicate the intervening processes that explain health. In this introduction to the special issue entitled Translating Stigma and Intergroup Relations Research to Explain and Reduce Sexual and Gender Minority Health Disparities, we call social issues researchers to focus their work on sexual and gender minority stigma and intergroup relations processes in order to understand and ultimately reduce health disparities.