The Lesbian Health Fund
2024 Grant Recipients
We are excited to unveil the recipients of the Lesbian Health Fund 2024 grant cycle! These exceptional researchers are committed to addressing the health disparities that persist within our community, and we are proud to support their critical work.
Since our founding in 1992, LHF has funded 134 research projects, awarding over $1.2 million in grants. These grants serve as vital catalysts for larger, multi-million dollar studies backed by federal agencies. Today, LHF stands as the only research fund solely focused on advancing the understanding of the unique health needs of LGBTQ+ women and girls. The Lesbian Health Fund operates as a program under GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality.
You can read more about this year's grantees in our full press release.
This year's grantees exemplify the innovative and inclusive approaches necessary to advance health outcomes for LGBTQ+ women and girls. Their projects address critical issues, including gender-inclusive and equitable health data collection, community-based mental health initiatives, and crucial research on sexual violence prevention for LGBTQ+ women and girls, a field that remains largely underexplored. LHF is proud to announce this year's grantees and is committed to advancing research on the distinctive health challenges faced by LGBTQ+ women and girls, a demographic that has historically been neglected in health studies. - Carey Candrian, PhD (she/her), VP of the Lesbian Health Fund
Lesbian Health Fund 2024 Grantees
Accepted Proposal:
De-Gendering Reproductive Health – A Pilot Study
Elizabeth Boskey, PhD, MPH, LICSW, MSW (she/her)
Co-Director of Research in the Division of Gynecology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Instructor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School
Elizabeth Boskey, PhD, MPH, LICSW, MSW is Co-Director of Research in the Division of Gynecology at Boston Children’s Hospital and an Instructor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on access and ethical issues in gender affirming care as well as the issues related to sexual and reproductive health in gender diverse populations. In addition to her training in basic research and public health, Dr. Boskey is also a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, an AASECT Certified Sexuality Educator, and a Certified Health Education Specialist. She is one of the founders, and the current head, of the New England Gender C.A.R.E. (Collaboration. Access. Research. Education.) Consortium, an organization designed to promote collaboration in transgender health across the New England region.
What will this funding mean for LGBTQ+ women and girls?
Reproductive healthcare and health information often assume that individuals are cisgender and heterosexual by default. While it is possible to remove these gendered assumptions, in recent years, there has been a backlash against the idea of degendering women’s health information. While people may be bothered by the concept of removing explicitly gendered terminology from health information, this research is designed to test the hypothesis that most people do not notice or mind when this is done in practice. Our secondary hypothesis is that sexual and gender minority individuals born with a uterus and ovaries will find inclusive health materials more relevant to them while cisgender, heterosexual women will find no difference between explicitly gendered and inclusive information.
Accepted Proposal:
Investigating Adaptations of a Campus Self-Defense and Sex Education Intervention to Reduce the Risk of Sexual Assault for Bisexual Women and Nonbinary Students at Rural Colleges
Annie Nickell, MA (she/her)
Clinical psychology PhD candidate at the University of North Dakota
Annie Nickell is a clinical psychology PhD candidate at the University of North Dakota. She has been the lab manager for the Anderson Sexual Violence Prevention Lab for the past 3 years, with research interests including sexual violence prevention and intervention, especially relating to LGBTQ+ and minority populations. She has been studying these topics for the past 6 years throughout her schooling and has published and presented related research both nationally and internationally.
Elleh Driscoll, MS (she/her)
Clinical psychology PhD program graduate student at the University of North Dakota
Elleh Driscoll is from the Meskwaki tribe in Iowa, a descendant of the Ho-Chunk in Winnebago, and an INSPYDE clinical psychology PhD program graduate student at the University of North Dakota. Her research interests include tele-mental health access for Indigenous communities, sexual violence prevention for LGBTQ+ and Indigenous populations, and neuropsychological assessment implementation.
What will this funding mean for LGBTQ+ women and girls? (Joint Statement)
Everyone deserves to have access to relevant and effective resistance training for sexual violence prevention. This funding from the Lesbian Health Fund will help address research gaps surrounding LBGTQ+ women, girls, and nonbinary assigned female at birth (AFAB) individuals who are at a significantly higher risk for experiencing sexual violence, but whose experiences remain vastly understudied in comparison to their heterosexual and cisgender peers. This funding will support implementation of a sexual assault resistance program that will be adapted specifically for bisexual women and nonbinary AFAB individuals, aiming to reduce the high rates of sexual assault among these groups, as well as to improve their subjective experience in sexual violence programming. It is our mission that future resistance training and prevention programming can be confidently offered to all those who identify as LGBTQ+ and backed by these research efforts for years to come.
Accepted Proposal:
An Implementation Pilot Trial of DBT Delivered in a Black-Transgender-Woman-Led Community Based Organization
Madeleine Miller, BS (she/her)
Doctoral student in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Madeleine Miller is a third-year doctoral student in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her research focuses on addressing mental health disparities through increasing access to evidence-based care using community engaged dissemination and implementation science.
Danielle Berke, PhD (she/her)
Associate Professor of Psychology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center
Danielle Berke, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center. Danielle has nearly a decade of experience researching prevention and intervention strategies to address gender-based violence against queer women, Black women, and women of trans experience.
What will this funding mean for LGBTQ+ women and girls? (Joint Statement)
Support from the Lesbian Health Fund will facilitate the implementation of a dialectical behavior therapy skills group delivered within a Black, transgender-woman led, community-based organization – The Brooklyn GHOST (Guiding and Helping Others Survive Transition) Project. The community organization partner provides support for transgender and non-binary people of color throughout New York City. Our proposed project aims to address the mental health needs of community members by implementing a transdiagnostic, evidence-based, group intervention within the community space. The project will also serve as a blueprint for conducting community engaged implementation science with transgender women and other racially marginalized sexual and gender minorities. As such, this project is positioned to chart a path for mental health resource allocation and overcoming longstanding issues of access to evidence-based mental health care for LGBTQ+ individuals.
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