Nursing homes’ nursing aides have ridiculed and harassed queer
patients for expressing their identities,43 and reports of this mistreatment are
on the rise.44 For example, some nursing aides have neglected their personal
care responsibilities—such as refusing to give patients sponge baths—
because they were gay or lesbian.45 Nursing aides’ intolerance of queer
patients may therefore denigrate those patients and interfere with the nursing
aides’ ability to provide quality care.