Make care pathways easier to find.
We maintain the statewide Provider Directory, affordability and access information, referral tools, and practical navigation pathways.
About LGBTQIA+ Health NJ
Building clearer pathways to LGBTQIA+-affirming care in New Jersey.
A clinician-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working to make affirming healthcare, mental health support, community resources, and professional education easier to find and use across New Jersey.
Read our storyOur mission
Make LGBTQIA+-affirming healthcare easier to find, understand, and navigate.
LGBTQIA+ Health NJ is an independent, federally recognized 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization serving communities across New Jersey. We connect people with affirming-care pathways, reliable information, practical resources, and educational opportunities.
We are not a hospital, clinic, healthcare practice, school, or government agency, and we do not provide emergency services or individualized medical or legal advice.
Our work across New Jersey
Public-benefit programs with practical next steps.
Make useful information publicly accessible.
We develop evidence-informed health resources, the Support & Understanding Guide, school and care-team guidance, and healthcare-information tools.
Support continued affirming practice.
We provide foundational training, professional education opportunities, and transparent affirming-practice initiatives for providers and care teams.
Connect verified policy information with community action.
We maintain the Healthcare Caution Map, explain healthcare-access developments, build partnerships, and conduct permissible nonprofit advocacy.
Organization information
Transparent by design.
- Organization
- LGBTQIA+ Health NJ
- Status
- New Jersey nonprofit; federally recognized 501(c)(3) public charity
- EIN
- 42-3313577
- Service area
- Statewide New Jersey
- Leadership
- Clinician-led
- Contact
- Contact LGBTQIA+ Health NJ
“Affirming in theory” is not the same as affirming in practice.
The founder’s why
A family-building experience that made the gaps impossible to ignore.
While building her own LGBTQIA+ family through fertility care, founder Giana Simonelli experienced how today’s healthcare system can still fail to fully recognize the realities of LGBTQIA+ parenthood.
As the non-birthing parent, Giana was repeatedly referred to as the “support person.” But she was not standing outside someone else’s journey. She was making decisions, carrying uncertainty, preparing for parenthood, and building her family, too.
That wording pointed to a larger inadequacy. In her experience, forms, referrals, and care conversations centered the birthing parent while the non-birthing parent’s role, wellbeing, and parenthood were not fully recognized.
This became part of the reason LGBTQIA+ Health NJ exists: families should not have to translate themselves to receive care. Affirming healthcare should understand their relationships, recognize every parent, and connect them with providers prepared to support LGBTQIA+ reproductive, fertility, and family-building experiences.
Recognize every parent.
The non-birthing parent is a parent—not an accessory to someone else’s care.
Include the whole family.
Family-building care should make room for the emotional, relational, and practical experience of everyone becoming a family.
Refer with understanding.
Families deserve pathways to providers who understand their identities, relationships, and roles without requiring an explanation first.
Giana Simonelli, MA, LAC, APCFounder, LGBTQIA+ Health NJ
How we approach the work
Clear information. Practical access. Community accountability.
Every part of our work is designed to help people make more informed choices without turning participation, visibility, or sponsorship into an endorsement.
Show what participation means.
Directory tiers and access details help people understand listings without presenting the platform as certification.
Design around real barriers.
Cost, insurance, Medicaid, telehealth, geography, privacy, and identity all shape whether care is actually reachable.
Strengthen the whole ecosystem.
Community members, families, providers, schools, and organizations each have a role in creating safer pathways.
History
From a healthcare-access gap to statewide public infrastructure.
LGBTQIA+ Health NJ was organized in New Jersey in June 2026 after the founder’s family-building experience made gaps in recognition, referral, and affirming healthcare navigation impossible to ignore. Federal recognition as a 501(c)(3) public charity became effective June 22, 2026.
The organization began by building practical infrastructure: a statewide provider directory, transparent participation levels, access-focused filters, free and low-cost resource pathways, community and professional education, and a national Healthcare Caution Map grounded in dated source review.
The work remains intentionally focused. LGBTQIA+ Health NJ is not a healthcare practice and does not replace direct care. It organizes information, strengthens education, supports responsible referral, and helps people move through systems with clearer next steps.
Vision & values
A New Jersey where affirming access is easier to find and easier to use.
Our values guide how information is reviewed, programs are developed, partners are recognized, and community trust is protected.
Accuracy
Time-sensitive healthcare and policy information is dated, sourced, and separated from proposals or uncertain developments.
Access
Cost, insurance, disability, language, geography, technology, privacy, and family structure are treated as real parts of healthcare access.
Transparency
We explain what listings, designations, sponsorships, partnerships, and educational tools do—and do not—mean.
Identity respect
LGBTQIA+ identities are not pathologized. Health disparities are understood in relation to structural barriers, stigma, exclusion, and other social conditions.
Community accountability
Feedback informs priorities without allowing financial support to purchase governance authority, rankings, referrals, or endorsement.
Responsible growth
New initiatives move forward only when scope, evidence, capacity, safeguards, and implementation responsibilities are clear.
Strategic priorities
What the organization is building toward.
Current priorities focus on maintaining trustworthy public infrastructure while increasing the depth, reach, and sustainability of legitimate programs.
- Maintain accurate navigation.Protect directory integrity, improve access filters, and keep resource information current.
- Expand evidence-informed education.Develop original community and professional learning without overstating clinical authority.
- Strengthen policy transparency.Continue primary-source review, clear effective-date language, and public methodology.
- Build sustainable partnerships.Grow mission-aligned collaboration, volunteers, funding, and community feedback with governance safeguards.
- Prepare future initiatives responsibly.Establish standards, capacity, evaluation, accessibility, and funding before launching new programs.
Leadership & structure
Founder-led, board-governed, and community-connected.
Founder Giana Simonelli, MA, LAC, APC provides executive leadership and brings experience in behavioral health, LGBTQIA+ health access, community education, and statewide professional engagement.
LGBTQIA+ Health NJ is governed under adopted bylaws by a nonprofit board responsible for organizational oversight. Program development may also involve educators, volunteers, community partners, professional collaborators, and advisors working within defined roles.
Community partnerships
Collaboration without purchased influence.
Partnerships can support resource development, education, outreach, accessibility, community events, and feedback. Sponsors and contributors are recognized transparently, but financial support does not influence directory participation, provider ranking, referrals, policy conclusions, or organizational governance.
Explore programsFuture initiatives
Growth will remain public, careful, and mission-aligned.
Potential future work includes expanded healthcare navigation, original educational resources, additional professional training, accessible community programming, stronger referral infrastructure, and the separately governed Verified Recognition Program.
These are areas of development—not claims that every service is currently available. New initiatives will be announced through the News & Updates page after their purpose, scope, safeguards, capacity, funding, and implementation plan are established.
View news & updates