Promoting the Well-Being of Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals: Reflecting on the Past and Future Directions

There is a long history of institutional and interpersonal stigma, violence, and oppression of sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals in the United States and around the world. Structural and sociocultural factors have served to promote and justify criminalization, discrimination, and violence targeting SGM groups. This commentary provides a brief chronological summary of laws and policies that served to pathologize, oppress, and justify violence and discrimination; the evolution of academic study and understanding; activism aimed at changing laws, questioning pathologizing assumptions and practices, and protecting human rights; current challenges; and recommendations for policy, research, and practice. This commentary pays particular attention to the roles the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice and its journal, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, have played to advocate for full recognition of the human rights of SGM individuals.