Alec Grant and colleagues explore heteronormative assumptions and practices in mental health that have a negative effect on patients from LGBTUI communities

The aim of this article is to critique heteronormative cultural assumptions that inform mental health practice, from the standpoint positions of ‘queer’ scholarship. Those assumptions regard heterosexuality as the desired cultural norm and thus negatively affect the wellbeing of people in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, undecided and intersex (LGBTUI) communities. It will be argued that LGBTUI experiences of stigma are understandable in the context of the way people are pathologised on the basis of those assumptions. The article concludes with a discussion of some emerging implications for mental health practice.