Queerness and psychedelics have at all times been intertwined in advanced methods. From their historic exploitation in analysis to develop coercive so-called “conversion therapies”, to their naturalistic position in facilitating religious, artistic and neighborhood experiences (together with inspiring the Pleasure flag itself), these substances have carried each hurt and hope for LGBTQIA+ communities.
Regardless of this, tutorial analysis into queer psychedelic experiences stays sparse, typically targeted on danger and pathology reasonably than id, therapeutic or liberation. Additional, the illustration (or lack thereof) of queer contributors in trials of psychedelic-assisted therapies is unsure, attributable to lack of standardised recording of this demographic.
Bartlett and colleagues (2024) got down to discover what the “significant, non-pathologising” inclusion of queer voices may seem like, in psychedelics analysis. Their evaluation requested:
- How have queer experiences of psychedelics been represented within the literature?
- Who’s being studied, what motivates queer psychedelics use, and what outcomes are described?
This evaluation aimed to focus on gaps and level the way in which ahead for psychedelics analysis, which higher contains and represents queer communities.
Strategies
The authors searched seven main databases, utilizing a variety of psychedelic- and queer-related phrases. There have been no restrictions on publication date. They screened greater than 74,000 data, which included qualitative research, case experiences, commentary items and a few medical trials.
The authors establish a purposive choice strategy:
A part of the strategy taken on this scoping evaluation was to keep up a wholesome skepticism of the heteronormative strategy to analysis, together with questioning the dominant analysis ideological framework and methodology, each traditionally and in trendy analysis.
To be included, research needed to discover psychedelic use in ways in which centred queer views, identities and neighborhood, and prevented additional stigmatisation. Publications that talked about queer individuals solely in passing, or framed psychedelic use solely in unfavourable phrases, have been excluded – to yield a complete of 18 research spanning from the late Sixties to 2022, protecting substances akin to MDMA, LSD, psilocybin and ayahuasca.
Questioning typical analysis narratives – the research included 18 papers spanning the late Sixties to 2022, chronicling queer experiences of psychedelic use.
Outcomes
Wanting on the definition of ‘psychedelics’ throughout the 18 included research, one research coated ‘psychedelics’ as a category of drugs, whereas others particularly referred to MDMA (7), and fewer generally LSD (4), psilocybin (3) and ayahuasca (2). In-keeping with the Nixonian social insurance policies that influenced each its use and its later management as a scheduled drug: all however one LSD-focused articles have been written on queer experiences within the Sixties – two discussing psychedelic conversion remedy. The rest of the extracted publications have been written throughout the final 20 years, shifting to a non-LSD psychedelic focus.
When it comes to the inhabitants cohort, the authors comment:
A defining power of the queer neighborhood is the varied, ever evolving, and ever-expanding potentialities of self-identity with which one can align and categorical. Sadly, this heterogeneity and richness is just not mirrored within the queer psychedelic literature
Many of the literature reviewed, recognized a deal with the psychedelic use of homosexual and cisgender males, typically white and English-speaking. Queer girls, trans and non-binary individuals remained largely absent in analysis, however a small variety of research provided some wealthy insights, as id categorisation was typically much less inflexible than ‘homosexual’, ‘bisexual’ and many others, however extra flexibly ‘Queer’ or ‘non-Queer’ (Bryant, 2016; Jadali 2022), reasonably than breakdowns by gender id and sexuality.
Intersectional particular person and collective identities (akin to race, class, and incapacity), experiences and practices (akin to these linked to faith or spirituality) have been hardly ever explored – however Jadali’s 2022 research on how non-binary Islamic youth concceptualised and associated to God by means of psychedelic use, was recommended on this regard. Total, given geographical and neighborhood unfold, with some research figuring out non-western divergent gender and sexual identities as effectively (Stauffer et al; 2022 (Tumtum); Bryant, 2016 (Two-spirit)), demographic reporting requirements have been variable.
The literature identifies that motivations for psychedelic use and analysis have shifted over time. Whereas naturalistic use of psychedelics has been part of queer id integration, in Indigenous communities (Stephen, 2002) all through historical past, within the mid-Twentieth century, psychedelics have been typically proposed to be used in makes an attempt to suppress queer id, with LSD and mescaline administered in so-called “psychic shock” conversion therapies (Dubus, 2020).
However, newer accounts are starting to re-frame each naturalistic and therapeutic psychedelic use. Settings ranged from medical trials and ceremonial rituals to raves and personal gatherings. The context typically formed the result: for some, a supportive group area fostered therapeutic, whereas for others, solitary use in nature prompted profound religious insights. That is in line with the generally cited ‘set and setting’ paradigm of psychedelics analysis.
The one included experimental medical trial (Anderson et al., 2020) on psilocybin-assisted remedy for long-term HIV survivors, reported lowered demoralisation, PTSD signs and complex grief. Each psilocybin (Agin-Liebes et al., 2021, in a medical trial) and MDMA (Ching, 2020, as autoethnography) have been recognized to supply queer contributors a path to self-acceptance, id exploration, neighborhood connection and religious development.
In some research, contributors described psychedelics as serving to them course of minority stress, confront internalised stigma, and construct resilience. Importantly, each classical and non-classical psychedelics akin to Ayahuasca (Cavnar, 2011; Cavnar, 2014), and MDMA in even bigger research (Coveney, 2005; McElrath, 2005) have been particularly recognized in qualitative research as enhancers of sexual expertise, and a manner for individuals to discover their non-heterosexuality and normalise their journey of ‘popping out’ as queer, suggesting potential to analysis a bidirectional relationship between the usage of psychedelics and queerness.
Love, Intercourse and Desires: though most research captured the experiences of homosexual cisgendered males, the big selection of research designs captured the ‘turning into’ of queer individuals into their identities, the exploration and acceptance of their gender and sexuality, and in addition how they associated to their desires and spirituality.
Conclusions
Bartlett and colleagues present that queer voices in psychedelic analysis are nonetheless uncommon – and that when current, they’re too typically filtered by means of a slender lens.
The research that do centre queer views recommend these substances can play a robust position in self-discovery, therapeutic and connection. That is broadly inkeeping with views on the aim of naturalistic psychedelic use, however might have explicit neighborhood significance within the “set and setting” of queer communities and lived expertise.
To additional realise the potential of psychedelic use in experimental analysis and therapeutics – researchers want to return to the drafting board, and draw on the wealthy expertise of queer tradition and historical past, in co-producing research straight with queer communities, utilizing inclusive and intersectional strategies, and reporting demographic knowledge transparently and robustly.
Queer tradition gives important classes for extra inclusive psychedelic analysis and remedy.
Strengths and limitations
A serious power of this evaluation is its broad search technique and clear, affirming inclusion standards, which keep away from perpetuating stigma. The authors additionally carry lived expertise to their evaluation, permitting for essential reflection on potential heteronormative bias within the discipline.
Critically, one newer literature evaluation, by Haft et al. in 2025, has tried to cowl “participant range in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy trials” extra broadly, Bartlett’s research is extra distinctive and impactful in creating an inclusive search technique – proactively uplifting under-represented queer voices and their experiences of psychedelics, with robust experiential accounts in tutorial autoethnographies and case research, positioned alongside findings of bigger structured qualitative analysis or experimental trials. This enables for a extra strong exploration of naturalistic psychedelic use and queer experiences, which ought to present new avenues for researchers looking for to assist queer communities, led by the neighborhood’s personal priorities.
One potential limitation is that the analysis query itself might have been biased by selecting to focus completely on optimistic experiences of psychedelics, as this may occasionally overlook the opportunity of there being particular unfavourable results that queer individuals expertise in isolation, or disproportionately.
For instance, post-psychedelic integration and the significance of safeguarding for weak teams are a spotlight of discourse in psychedelic analysis areas. The evaluation might have been enriched by additionally contemplating these components, though the authors do explicitly state their intention was to forgo together with literature that additional perpetuates unfavourable stereotypes or stigmatization of psychedelic use and queer people. The pool of included research was additionally small, making it tough to generalise findings.
This research paved new floor by amplifying self-led first- and second-person case research and autoethnographies on queer individuals’ naturalistic use of psychedelics, alongside formalistic analysis and experimental trials on their therapeutic use with queer contributors.
Implications for apply
For clinicians, the message is that psychedelic experiences may be deeply significant for queer individuals, however this have to be recognised and revered in therapeutic settings. For researchers, there may be an pressing have to broaden the vary of identities represented and to take intersectionality severely. Funders and policy-makers ought to assist work that strikes past danger and analysis to discover id, neighborhood and pleasure.
This evaluation suggests there may be extra to be completed to deal with queer individuals who use medication as energetic companions in psychedelics analysis. For apply and future research, step one is to maneuver away from an “outsider wanting in” mannequin. That will imply shifting from recruitment that depends on comfort samples and broad promoting in the direction of in-reach methods that embed researchers within the areas the place queer communities already collect – and may additionally imply growing representativeness in groups who develop and lead analysis, past contributors. Methods to facilitate this, embody collaborating in analysis growth with trusted neighborhood organisations, queer-led hurt discount companies, and peer networks, and guaranteeing they’re resourced to co-develop recruitment supplies and protocols.
Addressing the absence of queer girls, trans, non-binary, and marginalised intersecting contributors requires intentional oversampling and focused outreach. This might contain forming advisory teams made up of underrepresented sub-communities earlier than the research begins, after which tailoring recruitment to their wants and areas. For instance, work with QTIPOC (Queer, Trans, Intersex Individuals of Color) networks, disabled queer collectives, and faith-based LGBTQIA+ teams can attain people whose voices are often lacking from analysis. Researchers also needs to funds for sensible helps akin to journey vouchers, childcare, and translation companies, which may make participation possible for individuals dealing with financial or accessibility limitations. It is very important word additionally that the NIHR now requires well being fairness to be a consideration actively made when submitting funding purposes.
There are examples outdoors psychedelics price emulating. The Trans PULSE Canada survey used a nationwide community of community-based organisations to achieve over 2,800 trans, non-binary contributors, many from racially minoritised backgrounds. In HIV and sexual well being, the Optimistic Voices research in England has demonstrated how partnership with grassroots organisations can ship giant, numerous samples that replicate neighborhood realities. Comparable collaborative frameworks may underpin future psychedelic analysis, guaranteeing that these most marginalised are central to the research design.
Finally, apply on this space ought to undertake a “nothing about us with out us” stance: queer communities have to be actively concerned in deciding the analysis questions regarding their neighborhood, shaping strategies, decoding findings, and sharing outcomes again in accessible codecs. This isn’t nearly illustration, however about producing proof that’s credible, related, and genuinely helpful to these it goals to serve.
The door to exploration could also be open – however queer communities can’t be doorstops for exterior psychedelics researchers, to determine intra-community analysis designs and priorities.
Assertion of pursuits
Stephen has additionally accomplished a briefing for the UK Parliament focussed on psychedelic-assisted remedy for psychological well being circumstances. Stephen additionally researches substance use in homosexual and bisexual males, particularly focussing on chemsex.
Shubhangi has labored as a public science communicator in Eire, giving talks on the historic and political panorama and pressures on the scheduling of psychedelics, and the exclusion of marginalised teams in psychedelics analysis.
Reflexivity: Stephen identifies as a cisgender pansexual man, with lived expertise of the subject being researched. Shubhangi identifies as QTIPOC, with lived expertise of the subject being researched.
References
Major paper
Bartlett A, Christ C, Martins B, Saxberg Ok, Ching THW. The library is open: a scoping evaluation on queer illustration in psychedelic analysis. Entrance Public Well being. 2024;12:1472559. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2024.1472559
