Holy Cross Health in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is advancing health equity through a comprehensive, community-based approach to HIV prevention and care, STI and Hepatitis C screening, and LGBTQ+ health. Broward County remains one of the nation’s HIV epicenters, with 579 new diagnoses in 2022, far exceeding the national average. Despite this, 96.2 percent of people living with HIV in the county know their status, and 80.8 percent are linked to care within one month. Holy Cross Health’s initiatives, such as community outreach, HIV self-testing, and culturally competent education, are designed to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ individuals who are disproportionately affected by these conditions. The program is led by community advocates and LGBTQ+ healthcare professionals who step beyond traditional clinical roles to engage directly with the community. This session will explore the program’s design, implementation, and measurable impact, offering a replicable model for other health systems.

This session centers on using research, community engagement, and social innovation to address these systemic inequities. Drawing from the qualitative study Exploring Interventions to Improve Healthcare Access for LGBTQ+ Individuals, it highlights trauma-informed strategies from organizations like the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Their peer-led, culturally responsive models and harm reduction frameworks offer promising approaches for transforming service delivery and improving outcomes.

In this conversation, we expand the frame to ask: What do we mean when we say chemsex? Who gets included, and who doesn’t? What does that reveal about or conceptualiztion of chem sex and the risk involved? We’ll explore how people of all genders and sexualities engage in sex and substance use, and how experiences of disability, chronic illness, trauma, and marginalization shape those choices. We’ll look beyond the typical substances to include alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, mushrooms, and other drugs that are often excluded from chem sex conversations. We’ll ask: What is a substance? What is sex? And how do race, gender, class, and ableism shape our assumptions about “risk,” “pleasure,” and “safety”?

This presentation explores strategies for effective LGBTQIA+ health promotion and community engagement amid a shifting sociopolitical landscape. Drawing on recent case studies, grassroots initiatives, and community-led research, we examine the ways in which LGBTQIA+ individuals and organizations are responding to policy rollbacks and social hostility. We highlight inclusive health interventions, mutual aid networks, and coalition-building as mechanisms for advocacy and care.

'Out of Gender Conversations’ is an interactive training and workshop developed to offer insight, awareness, and care guidance for those providing care for LGBTQ+, gender variant communities and people.

Transgender Empathy Training is an interactive, community-centered educational program designed to cultivate cultural humility, deepen understanding, and expand institutional capacity to support transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people. Grounded in trauma-informed care, intersectional analysis, and lived experience, this training moves beyond basic terminology and policy compliance to build genuine human connection and sustained allyship.

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.