Embodiment and Erasure: Understanding Health Inequity for Queer and Trans Communities through a Queer Ecosocial Lens.

This article examines health disparities affecting queer and transgender (trans) communities through the lenses of ecosocial and queer theories, emphasizing the concepts of embodiment—how individuals incorporate social and environmental factors into their physical and mental health—and erasure, which refers to the invisibility imposed by healthcare systems and societal structures. It identifies key pathways contributing to health inequities, including cisnormativity and heteronormativity, institutional discrimination and structural violence, interpersonal violence and rejection, and internalized oppression, with particular focus on the role of healthcare services, training, and research. The article calls for systemic changes involving educators, researchers, funders, and clinicians to disrupt oppressive norms and practices, advocating for inclusive education, ethical research, equitable funding, and culturally competent healthcare to promote health equity for queer and trans people. It concludes by urging a radical reimagining of social institutions through queer theory’s praxis-oriented approach to foster accountability and justice in health and social systems.