A breast cancer diagnosis is scary for anyone, but as someone who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or non-binary it can feel even scarier.
You may have unique concerns about communicating with your healthcare team, navigating the healthcare system, experiencing discrimination based on your sexual orientation or gender identity, and coping with your diagnosis.
In this section, find tailored information and practical tools to help you understand disparities in care and research for LGBTQ+ people, how your diagnoses may impact your emotions, body image, and sexual life, and some of the challenges you may face during treatment. Plus, find opportunities for connection and comfort in the real stories of LGBTQ+ people living with breast cancer.
The hopeful waiting family
My partner and high school sweetheart Jarrett is a transgender man and I am a cisgender queer woman, so life was very different when we were teenagers. We got married when I was 35, and that was when I suddenly felt closer to being ready to have a baby. Bad luck interfered, however, and in December 2015 I was diagnosed with stage II, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.
Living Beyond Breast Cancer is a national nonprofit organization that seeks to create a world that understands there is more than one way to have breast cancer. To fulfill its mission of providing trusted information and a community of support to those impacted by the disease, Living Beyond Breast Cancer offers on-demand emotional, practical, and evidence-based content. For over 30 years, the organization has remained committed to creating a culture of acceptance — where sharing the diversity of the lived experience of breast cancer fosters self-advocacy and hope. For more information, learn more about our programs and services.
