Whilst lesbian women, gay men, and bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people are typically excluded from normative forms of social order, we continue to create our own forms of inclusive communities. These intersections of exclusion and inclusion often result in complex health issues for LGBTIQ communities.

The papers in this Special Edition of Health Sociology Review comment on aspects of non-heterosexual’s negotiation of key elements of normative social orders as they play out in relation to families, community and citizenship. Despite the diversity of topics covered, in diverse contexts, some common themes link several papers. Specifically, the somewhat paradoxical relationship of many people of diverse gender and sexual identities to the law and medicine features in a number of articles. While not always framed explicitly in these terms, many papers are concerned with the efforts of LGBTIQ populations to exercise the rights of sexual citizenship.

The concept of risk runs through several papers; the exercise of nonheterosexual citizenship continues to incite some lamentably-familiar fears about the ‘danger’ posed by LGBTIQ populations to the social fabric. And finally, many of the papers highlight the contestations that occur within LGBTIQ communities in regard to the development of new forms of order.

Many of the papers in this issue of Health Sociology Review point to the ambivalent relationship that exists between LGBTIQ populations, on the one hand, and the institutions of law and medicine, on the other. Non-heterosexual people frequently need medical knowledge if they are to exercise fundamental aspects of citizenship; to have a family, or to have their preferred gender identity legally recognised.  less