Grant: Master's Award - HIV/AIDS Community-Based Research: General Stream

Transgender/transsexual (herein referred to as trans) communities face serious challenges in accessing health and social services, and experience unparalleled levels of discrimination, stigma, and violence. To date, there has been little exploration of how service barriers, systemic erasure, pervasive experiences of transphobia and other forms of discrimination affect trans people living with HIV. As such, the aim of this project is to contribute to a gap in the literature by providing an understanding of how multiple layers of social exclusion interact to create complex mental health and well-being concerns for trans people living with HIV. Implications for healthcare provision, mental health policies, funding, service delivery and programming will be offered. This project will use semi-structured interviews with 20 trans people living with HIV and 10 service providers to address the following research objectives: (1) Contribute to an understanding of the ways in which social exclusion, transphobia and erasure work in combination to produce unique health-related needs for trans people living with HIV. (2) Contribute much needed knowledge about the current health-related issues and concerns facing trans people living with HIV in Ontario. (3) Contribute much needed knowledge about the current mental health-related issues and concerns facing trans people living with HIV in Ontario. (4) Contribute much needed information about the impact of living with dual stigmas; identifying as trans and living with HIV. (5) Contribute important information about barriers to effective HIV-related care for trans people living with HIV in Ontario. (6) Ensure that the work results in effective and community- and policy-relevant knowledge transfer and exchange in such a way that it can contribute programming and policy solutions toward the development of trans-relevant and sensitive HIV services for trans people living with HIV in Ontario.