Queer youth of color experience disproportionate rates of housing instability and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), yet they remain among the most underserved populations in mental and sexual health care. Structural racism, homophobia, and transphobia compound to limit access to affirming, trauma-informed services, leading to disengagement, mistrust, and elevated health risk.

This presentation examines how housing precarity and systemic bias shape clinical encounters with queer adolescents of color. Drawing from direct clinical practice, supervision, and education within urban community settings, it highlights the ways traditional care models often replicate inequities through rigid policies, pathologizing language, and a lack of intersectional awareness.

Using a trauma-informed, anti-racist, and pleasure-affirming framework, this model proposes strategies for increasing access and engagement among unstably housed queer youth, including flexible intake structures, integrated partnerships with housing programs, and clinician training focused on cultural humility and harm reduction.

By reframing sexual health as inseparable from housing and racial justice, this session calls for a systemic shift toward equity-driven, intersectional care models that center belonging, safety, and agency for queer youth of color.