The concept of "preventative healthcare" refers to measures that individuals take to maintain their physical and mental wellbeing before illness occurs. This includes regular checkups with doctors, screenings for diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, and lifestyle modifications such as eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly. In theory, this approach has many advantages since it can help detect problems early on when they are more treatable.
There is growing concern among queer people that preventive care strategies may pathologize their identities and lead to unintended consequences.
Prevention is often based on the assumption that illnesses and injuries arise from individual failures rather than systemic issues.
The belief that smoking causes lung cancer implies that smokers should be held responsible for their actions. Similarly, the promotion of HPV vaccination implies that those who don't get vaccinated are responsible for contracting the virus.
These attitudes ignore social factors such as poverty, lack of access to healthy food, or discrimination in healthcare settings. Queer communities have historically faced significant barriers to accessing quality healthcare due to homophobia and transphobia.
Prevention focuses heavily on the individual body, leaving out other important aspects of identity. A recent study found that some lesbian women were told by medical professionals to 'become straight' after being diagnosed with breast cancer, implying that their sexuality was causing the disease. Similarly, gender nonconforming individuals may feel pressured to 'normalize' their bodies through surgery or hormone therapy, even if those interventions do not align with their desires or goals. As a result, preventative healthcare may contribute to internalized stigma and self-harm within queer communities.
To address these concerns, it is crucial to adopt a holistic approach to healthcare that prioritizes community over individual responsibility. This means recognizing how social and environmental factors impact wellbeing and providing support to marginalized groups. It also involves advocating for policies like universal healthcare coverage and anti-discrimination laws. By promoting collective action rather than personal responsibility, we can create systems that empower all people to live healthy lives without pathologizing certain identities or experiences.
How might preventive care strategies pathologize queer identities, and what philosophical safeguards can prevent harm?
Queer identities have long been stigmatized as abnormal or deviant, which has led to various forms of discrimination and exclusion from society. Preventative care strategies aimed at "normalizing" these identities may perpetuate this narrative and pathologize them further by treating them as something that needs to be fixed or cured.