title: Negotiating sexuality in home care settings: older lesbians and bisexual women's experiences.
abstract: There is evidence that lesbians and bisexual women often face prejudice and stigma when accessing routine primary healthcare services. However, limited research to date has examined their experiences outside of primary healthcare contexts or the perspectives of older healthcare users. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of older lesbians and bisexual women in Ontario who accessed publicly-funded home care services. In qualitative in-depth interviews, 16 women responded to questions about their decision making around disclosure of their sexuality, home care workers' reactions to disclosure and their experiences of receiving care. The thematic analysis of participants' responses demonstrated that they experienced isolation and ongoing anxiety, as well overt and subtle examples of heterosexism and discrimination. However, there was also evidence of participants' resilience and resistance to heteronormativity and sexual minority stress. These findings have implications for our understanding of lesbians' and bisexual women's healthcare experiences and for policy recommendations.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy , University of Toronto , Toronto , Canada.
authors.forename: Alisa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Grigorovich
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001727:Bisexuality / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006699:Home Care Services; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008875:Middle Aged; D009864:Ontario; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012933:Social Identification; D012938:Social Perception; D016387:Women's Health
keywords: bisexual; home care; lesbian; older people; sexual minority stress