Archives

UK pharmacy education, like many other professions of healthcare, is grounded in stong heteronormative and cisnormative paradigms that value the queer identities and experiences. This paper looks at critically how such normative structures are inscribed in curricula, which are enacted through pedagogies and institutional governance, making UK pharmacy education a quiet formidable adversary to queer inclusion. Using queer theory, intersectionality, and testimonies from pharmacies students and professionals, the study shows that there is the invisibilization of queer health needs, lack of representational equity and perpetuation of gender binaries in both classroom content and clinical training. The research implies pharmacy education tends to emphasize neutrality and objectivity (and hence, silences conversations about sexual and gender diversity), thereby further institutionalizing differences in health care delivery to LGBTQ+ populations. The paper advocates for the rapid disassembling of the normative pedagogical paradigms and calls for integrating queer-affirmative frameworks that celebrate diversity, encourage critical reflexivity and enable future pharmacists to stand up for care that is inclusive and equitable. Doing this, UK pharmacy education can become a transformative space in which queer lives, bodies, and the health narratives that are built from them are not just recognized but actively affirmed.