About Queermed Germany

Why it needs such a project

Why is Queermed Germany needed?

For many people from the queer community and other groups, seeking medical help is still not a matter of course.

There are prejudices in the healthcare sector and there is a lack of professional expertise as well as self-critical and empathetic work with people.

Discrimination can take various forms, such as queerophobia, racism, ableism and fatphobia. It can occur subtly in the form of micro-aggressive comments or overt statements. In some cases, necessary medical services may also be denied.

This can result in people who have already experienced discrimination no longer seeking medical help.

The power imbalance between practitioners and patients is particularly critical, as it can also further favour experiences of discrimination. We need places that pay attention to sensitivity, as in practice we are dependent on the professional expertise and goodwill of the other person. Everyone has a right to self-determined and respectful healthcare.

How Queermed helps

Queermed is committed to reducing experiences of discrimination in the healthcare sector. This is achieved through various areas of work. On the one hand, there is the directory, where people can anonymously share positive experiences and actively filter them on the website.
Queermed pursues an intersectional approach, as all people with different life realities can be affected by discrimination. At the same time, Queermed offers educational work in the form of materials (information posters or the guide to sensitised interaction with patients) as well as lectures and workshops.

The aim is to reduce experiences of discrimination in the long term, empower patients and sensitise practitioners.

This is exactly where Queermed Germany is meant to support people.

Founder and Managing Director Sara Samson Grzybek

Current tasks:

Executive activities
Support & maintenance of the website
Support of the social media channels
Author for blog, social media and newsletter
Contact person for enquiries of all kinds
Contact person for press or podcasts
Speaker for lectures or panels
Conception and coordination for workshops, lectures or keynotes
Coordination of fundraising campaigns
Coordination of cooperations and sponsoring
Coordination of volunteers & freelancers

Contact: sara.grzybek[@]queermed-deutschland.de

"Ideally, we wouldn't need this project, but we need these safe spaces so that we can also safely seek medical help. At the same time, the project openly shows the problem that there are very many people in Germany who cannot access medical help without discrimination."

Sara Grzybek

From the directory to the non-profit status

At first, the project was set up privately and went live in May 2021. A year later, it was clear that a separate structure was needed behind Queermed. At the end of 2022, Queermed was founded as a non-profit UG. This allows Queermed to stand on its own two feet and at the same time receive the necessary support in the form of donations or other funding.

Queermed Germany would not have come into being through the important groundwork that others have already done. Thanks to Queermed Austria and Gynformation, who supported me at the start of the project with a lot of advice and knowledge.

A lot has happened in these almost two years since the website was created. Besides several hundred recommendations on the website, I was allowed to participate in events for Queermed, online and offline, to talk about the existing discrimination in health care and at the same time to give Queermed to people and other organisations.

Currently, Queermed continues to be run completely independently by founder and CEO Sara Grzybek. The search for interested volunteers is still ongoing.

Support from outside

At this point, I would also like to thank a number of individual people who have accompanied and supported this project & me to some extent at various points: Clara Wördenweber (logo), Alexander Borunski (search function).