Malecare: Twenty Years of Innovation and Service to Gay and Bisexual Men and Transgender Women with Prostate Cancer

Abstract

C H A P T E R S U M M A R Y This chapter tells the story of the world’s leading gay, bisexual, and transgender (GBT) prostate cancer psychosocial support group network, Malecare. Challenged to develop the world’s first prostate cancer support group for gay men, a small group of social workers and psychologists developed a set of unique modalities to help GBT people with the psychosocial and sexual stressors associated with prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment. A new nonprofit organization called Malecare was formed to create novel programs, using those new interventions to help underserved men diagnosed with cancer. During the last two decades, Malecare has become a source of medical innovation, healthcare change, and psychosocial understanding for all men diagnosed with cancer throughout the world.