Queer, Trans, and Non-binary health cannot be understood in isolation from the political conditions that shape stigma, identity recognition, and healthcare access. Minority stress theory has long established that enacted, anticipated, or internalised stigma, and associated identity concealment or hypervigilance, contribute to health inequalities for queer, trans, and non-binary people. Structural stigma extends this framework to illustrate that anti-queer, anti-trans, anti-non-binary hostility at the level of laws, policies, and public opinion also shapes health outcomes and healthcare access. Therefore, hostile political and legal environments are powerful drivers of ill health among queer, trans, and non-binary people, including in regions where hard-won rights are increasingly eroded.

The politicisation of gender-affirming care, particularly for young people, illustrates how moral panic (a product of disinformation) can contribute to restrictive, pathologising health policy and widening health inequalities. Similarly, the persistence of efforts to “repair” or “convert” a minoritised sexual orientation or gender (identity, modality, or expression) demonstrates that attempts to oppress queer, trans, and non-binary identity and expression remain entrenched in institutions. Criminalising such practices must be a priority in the pursuit of queer, trans, and non-binary health justice.

We invite submissions that address the following topics:

• Minority stress, structural stigma and novel frameworks for understanding widening health disparities
• Politicisation of gender-affirming healthcare
• Pathologising health systems, medical paternalism or refusal of care
• The harms of “conversion practices”, “gender exploratory therapy”, and other forms of sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts (SOGICE)
• Knowledge production, censorship and attacks on queer expertise in health and medicine
• Community-led responses and survival practices, including self-sourced medication and peer-delivered healthcare
• Harm and resilience across intersecting axes of inequality
• Inclusion of sexual orientation and gender measures in public health surveillance

Please note that non-empirical submissions must enable readers to identify a concrete implication for how LGBTQ+ health is understood, studied, practised, or governed. Work that engages medicine or illness solely as cultural, representational, or symbolic terrain, without implications for health knowledge or practice, falls outside the journal's scope.

Pre-submission enquiries can be directed to Dr Dean Connolly (dean.connolly@lshtm.ac.uk) and Dr Michal Pitoňák (michal.pitonak@fhs.cuni.cz).

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3, Good Health and Well-Being, SDG 5, Gender Equality, SDG 10, Reduced Inequalities and SDG 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

All submissions in this Collection undergo the journal’s standard peer review process. Similarly, all manuscripts authored by a Guest Editor(s) will be handled by the Editor-in-Chief. As an open-access publication, this journal levies an article processing fee. For articles accepted for publication in 2026, Global LGBTQ+ Health has waivers available to offer that can be requested upon submission and allocated on acceptance. For more information on publication fees, please see here. We recognize that many key stakeholders may not have access to such resources and are committed to supporting participation in this issue wherever resources are a barrier. For more information about what support may be available, please visit OA funding and support, or email OAfundingpolicy@springernature.com or the Editor-in-Chief.

Within the broader spectrum of sexualised drug use, research on chemsex - a socially structured and culturally codified practice involving the use of psychoactive substances and complex forms of intimacy desire, and vulnerability - has been shaped overwhelmingly by epidemiological and clinical contexts. Within this dominant frame, chemsex is most often approached as a public health problem to be measured and controlled. This risks narrowing how people who engage in chemsex are assessed and understood, positioning them primarily through the lens of risk rather than in relation to the broader social, relational, and embodied dimensions of their experiences.

In doing so, it can underplay the nuanced and textured realities of those who engage in chemsex, and the communities who provide care and support for them. Chemsex unfolds under diverse individual, interpersonal, social, and institutional conditions that cannot be fully captured through a clinical or public health lens alone, particularly where harm-reduction infrastructure are limited or absent. This is especially relevant for trans and non-binary people, women, bisexual people, sex workers, whose practices remain largely unstudied. The term "chemsex" itself also invites critical inquiry, particularly in relation to how it frames sexualised drug use, the subjects it brings into view, the kinds of knowledge it produces and the ways it shapes responses and interventions.

This Collection invites work that decentres the clinical gaze and balances both the potential harms and the meanings of chemsex. Chemsex practices and contexts serve as sites of risk and care, but also of intimacy, pleasure, autonomy, and community in ways that impact health.

We welcome submissions including, but not limited to:

• Sexualised drug use research from contexts where epistemic and empiric gaps exist, including, but not limited to, the Global South, ‘Global Majority’ (e.g. Asia, Latin America, Africa), and other under-represented and resource-limited settings
• Critical analyses of "chemsex" as an analytic category across contexts and its implications for health and other health outcomes
• Sexualised drug use among trans and non-binary people, women, bisexual+ people, and sex workers and other underrepresented communities
• Pleasure, agency, intimacy, wellbeing, and community as analytic anchors, alongside risk and harm
• Sexualised drug use under criminalisation: policing, legal risk, and their health consequences
• Community-led and peer-delivered responses where formal services are absent
• Syndemic and intersectional approaches that move beyond single-axis risk factors
• Methodological and ethical innovation in researching stigmatised, hidden, or criminalised practices as they relate to health and wellbeing

Please note that non-empirical submissions must enable readers to identify a concrete implication for how LGBTQ+ health is understood, studied, practised, or governed. Work that engages sexualised drug use solely as cultural, representational, or symbolic terrain, without implications for health knowledge, policy, or practice, falls outside the journal's scope.

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3, Good Health and Well-Being, and SDG 10, Reduced Inequalities.

All submissions in this Collection undergo the journal’s standard peer review process. Similarly, all manuscripts authored by a Guest Editor(s) will be handled by the Editor-in-Chief. As an open-access publication, this journal levies an article processing fee. For articles accepted for publication in 2026, Global LGBTQ+ Health has waivers available to offer that can be requested upon submission and allocated on acceptance. For more information on publication fees, please see here. We recognize that many key stakeholders may not have access to such resources and are committed to supporting participation in this issue wherever resources are a barrier. For more information about what support may be available, please visit OA funding and support, or email OAfundingpolicy@springernature.com or the Editor-in-Chief.