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Queer theory often falls impotent in its palatability across disciplinary lines. I offer a conceptual paper that interrogates the disease and divide when considering queer theory in and for the health sciences. In so doing, I look to foster a process of making queer theory more tenable to applied practice – and to make practice in social work, at least, more queer. The exemplar of HIV is deconstructed as a preeminent discourse and health disparity. In the end, it is argued that queer theory may be an essential intervention in the arsenal of the helping professions.

Secure settings are not queer because lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, Two Spirit, and asexual (LGBTQ+) people populate them, and neither are LGBTQ+ people inherently criminal because they are found in those spaces. Queer people bear disproportionate health, mental health, and social inequities that have had, historically and currently, the effect to criminalize them. This review discusses effective language and ideologies when working with LGBTQ+ people in secure settings. Major health, mental health, and social inequities are reviewed, along with the applied framework of minority stress. Then, the process of criminalization is diagrammed across the phases of predetainment, being in the system, and through re-entering the community. Finally, multilevel strategies are offered to decriminalize LGBTQ+ people ideologically and in practice.

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This article reports on findings from a representative survey of Californians (N = 946) and their perception of social work and its professionals. Analysis of the survey data indicates that the public holds a generally positive view of social work and its "helping" nature, although social work is considered one of the least prestigious professions. Respondents primarily associated social work with child protection and behavioral health roles, and less often with tasks such as community organizing, promoting social justice, and crafting social policy. Implications are considered for renegotiating the identity of social work and foregrounding social justice.