Queering Health Systems

 

Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters (SRHM) is launching a themed issue – in partnership with the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, South Africa – on Queering Health Systems.

 

People with marginalised sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC)^[1] across diverse global contexts contend with health systems that fail to recognise, affirm and respond to their lived realities. Experiences of stigma, exclusion, criminalisation and denial of care are embedded across health policies, institutions, service delivery models and data systems. More recently, these inequities have been intensified by rising anti-gender movements, shrinking civic space and punitive legal environments, with deleterious implications for access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), including HIV prevention, treatment and care, harm reduction, gender-affirming care and mental health support. This themed issue positions queering health systems as both a critical analytical lens and a transformative political practice that interrogates power, labels and knowledge hierarchies.^[2] Queering challenges the assumption that health systems are neutral by interrogating how cisnormative, heteronormative and binary frameworks shape their design, governance and delivery. It draws attention to the persistent silence on SOGIESC issues within mainstream public health and health systems discourse. In addressing these silences and biases, it prioritises the lived experiences, knowledge and leadership of LGBTQI+ communities. Importantly, queering health policies and systems is not a niche intervention; it highlights the importance of intersectionality, recognising how sexuality, gender identity, expression and discrimination intersect with race, class, disability, geography and other axes of marginalisation in shaping health outcomes across one’s life-course.

 

This themed issue seeks to advance both conceptual and empirical scholarship that critically engages with the project of queering health policies and systems across diverse contexts. It invites contributions that document barriers and innovations, examine policy and practice, and amplify community-led approaches to transforming health systems. By bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives and lived experiences, the issue aims to contribute to a more inclusive, accountable and rights-based SRHR agenda that leaves no-one behind.

 

We welcome emailed proposals for submissions to this themed issue on any of the topics below (or beyond) as they relate to ‘Queering Health Systems’.^[3] Following assessment of the initial proposals, selected authors will be directly invited to submit their full manuscripts to the issue. Mentoring will be available for less-experienced authors, where required. Full details of requirements for proposals can be found at the end of this call.

 

1. Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging: disrupting normativity and reimagining foundations. This topic explores queering health policies and systems as both an analytical lens and a political practice that challenges the assumption that health systems are neutral. It interrogates how cisnormativity, heteronormativity and binary frameworks are embedded across legal and policy frameworks, governance, service delivery and knowledge systems. This topic invites conceptual and empirical work that reimagines SRH frameworks, policies and service delivery models to be inclusive of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and examines how integrated and universal healthcare can be fundamentally reimagined to centre dignity, justice and diverse lived realities of marginalised individuals. It invites perspectives from the Global South that foreground conceptualisation and practices of queering health systems and policies beyond dominant western framings, while critically interrogating how such frameworks (e.g. ‘decolonisation’) can be strategically deployed within health discourse in ways that advance inclusion or reproduce exclusion.
2. How queering health systems addresses structural barriers and health inequities. This topic situates queering health systems within a rapidly shifting global political landscape marked by criminalisation, shrinking civic space, anti-gender movements and attacks on science. It invites analyses of how legal frameworks, both explicit and indirect, funding politics and geopolitical pressures shape access to care, visibility and safety for LGBTQI+ populations, particularly in the Global South. It also encourages exploration of strategies that demonstrate agency of communities, resistance, solidarity and navigation within hostile environments. Proposals may analyse how criminalisation, stigma and exclusionary policies shape lived experiences, social movements, health outcomes and structural reforms. Further, this topic invites proposals that explore diverse opportunities, challenges and harms in connecting and mobilising communities through virtual and digital platforms.
3. Queer-affirming models of care and service delivery. This theme spotlights service delivery models within public, private and community-based health systems innovations that highlight ‘what works’ in establishing queer-affirming care. Contributions may discuss experiences with service delivery approaches that tailor differentiated service delivery models which foreground bodily autonomy, agency, informed consent and person-centred care as core principles of healthcare systems. Focus areas may include how health systems engage with adolescent sexuality and gender diversity, including counselling and life-skills services; gender-affirming care; access to reproductive technologies; and the reform of education and health promotion services. Contributions can also examine barriers and facilitators for successful integration of HIV/sexual and reproductive healthcare. They may also address how health systems go beyond identity-specific or transition-related care to encompass comprehensive, life-course approaches to health, including work on preventive, routine and long-term care such as ageing, prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Contributions may further address alternative models of care, including the use of mHealth to support service delivery, and integration of traditional and community-based approaches.
4. Health workforce transformation and provider competencies. This topic examines what it takes to achieve sustainable transformation in health systems. It moves beyond short-term or symbolic interventions such as isolated trainings or pilot projects to analyse how health systems have transformed to embrace dynamic and non-homogeneous needs of communities. Contributions may explore possibilities for holistic approaches to queering health systems and policies, such as integration into public healthcare systems, financing, institutional culture, service delivery models, strategies for scaling and sustainability. The topic invites submissions that explore the attainment of queer-affirming care, including through curriculum reform, continuous professional development, task shifting and elimination of stigma and discrimination.
5. Community leadership, agency, and accountability. This topic centres the role of LGBTQI+ communities in shaping health systems. Topics may include community-led monitoring, social accountability mechanisms, advocacy and co-creation of services, emphasising power shifts towards affected populations in decision-making processes.
6. Data justice, measurement and visibility. This topic focuses on how data systems shape recognition, inclusion and harm. It explores the tensions between visibility and safety, highlighting how data can both enable accountability and expose individuals to surveillance, criminalisation and violence. The topic also interrogates how LGBTQI+ populations are counted or erased in health data systems. Contributions may: 

   ·         Address inclusive and exclusionary data practices, ethical data governance, misinformation and the need to bridge clinical, quantitative and narrative forms of evidence to better reflect diverse realities; 

   ·         Explore work on inclusive and exclusionary indicators, ethical data collection, disaggregation and the politics of visibility, highlighting how accurate and ethical data systems can drive equitable sexual and reproductive health planning and financing; 

   ·         Examine how knowledge is produced, legitimised and used to elevate queer, trans and gender diverse persons, and intersex people as not just subjects but also knowledge producers and thought leaders in advancing research, policy and practice; 

   ·         Contribute discourse to often-silenced research by exploring experiences navigating ethical review processes for research and evidence generation among communities in settings with restrictive legal and policy environments.

 

Guest Editors

This themed issue will be guest edited by Humphrey Ndondo and Phoene Oware, in close collaboration with SRHM’s editorial team.

 

Humphrey Ndondo is a public health leader and HIV prevention expert with over 18 years of experience advancing equitable, community-centred health responses across Zimbabwe and the African region. He holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Zimbabwe. Currently, he coordinates the Inclusive Men’s Advocacy for Rights Alliance in Africa (IMARAA).

 

Phoene Oware is a social scientist and public health researcher whose work focuses on gender, sexual and reproductive health, trauma-informed research and practice, social policy and social protection. She holds an undergraduate degree in International Relations, and a Masters and PhD in Development Studies. Phoene is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape.

 

Proposals

Please read SRHM’s Aims & Scope and Information for Authors before completing your proposal.

 

Each proposal should comprise a completed SRHM Themed Issue Proposal Form. Please download and complete the form, then email it to SRHM’s Managing Editor. Please include the subject line ‘Proposal: Queering Health Systems’ in your message. Proposals in other formats or with missing information will not be considered. Please do not send full manuscripts via email.

 

The deadline for proposals to be received is 3 July 2026. Only proposals submitted by the deadline and in the appropriate format to the above email address will be considered.

 

The Guest Editors and SRHM editors will select the proposals that they would like to take forward for the issue, and those authors will be invited to submit their full manuscript via this platform (submissions will be required towards the end of October 2026).

 

A full waiver of the article-processing charge will be provided for the manuscripts that are selected from the initial proposals – should they be accepted for publication following external peer review.

 

Please note that only manuscripts selected from the received proposals will be considered for the issue; authors will be notified in early August 2026 whether they are being invited to submit their full manuscript to this themed issue. Full manuscripts submitted directly to the journal instead of via initial proposal will not be considered for this issue.

 

All submitted manuscripts will be subject to the journal’s standard assessment and peer-review processes, and final decisions will be made by the Editor-in-Chief following the Guest Editors’ recommendations. If you have any queries about your proposal or this themed issue, please contact the Managing Editor.

 

Webinar

Join our upcoming webinar to connect directly with the editorial team and Guest Editors and get everything you need to submit with confidence.

 

The webinar will take place on Wednesday 20 May, 2pm - 3pm BST.

 

You can find full details and register here.