Info for Queer Youth & their Healthcare Providers
This section of the website is a result of a project intended to help
address the sexual health issues of queer youth in Saskatoon. Funding
was found from the Muttart Foundation Youth Granting for Youth program
and the Advisory Committee on Family Planning to create a focus group
consisting of queer and allied youth to find out what they needed to
address the sexual health issues of the queer youth in Saskatoon.
For a two month period 12 youth were recruited to act as a focus group
for the LGBT Youth Project. Initially, the purpose of the project was
to see if a clinic which welcomes and addresses the unique sexual
health needs of the queer youth population in the Saskatoon area was
appropriate. It was thought that this clinic could be operated once a
month out of the Sexual Health Centre Saskatoon. However, over the
course of the focus group meetings, several important recommendations
were made by the youth group. The youth did not want a segregated
clinic, what they wanted was better access to educational resources
that are specific to the queer population including general
information on queer sexual health. Secondly, the youth felt, for the
most part, the medical community is heterosexist and when visiting
health care providers their sexual orientation was assumed to be
heterosexual.
The outcome of the focus group was to expand the Sexual Health
Centre's website to include resources for health care providers and
queer youth. The section focusing on health care professionals
provides literature regarding better practice models when working with
the queer community. The section on queer youth provides resources
surrounding sexual health information specific to queer youth.