SOGI Award 

The Sexual Orientation and Gender Institute presents its first annual SOGI Award for the Advancement of LGBTQ Mental Health to Dr. Gilbert Herdt, the executive director of the National Sexuality Resource Center. The award ceremony in June will cap off the Institute's LGBTQ Mental Health Symposium, which will focus on lifespan development.

The Sexual Orientation and Gender Institute has been developed to expand national access to high quality culturally competent mental health care for LGBT individuals and their families. The Institute offers graduate training and provides professional development programming. It also works to advance clinical practice through the promotion of research on LGBT behavioral health issues. SOGI is a program of Center on Halsted, Chicago's premiere community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons.

Dr. Herdt is the director of San Francisco State University's human sexuality studies program. His research on the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea, made famous in a series of books and papers beginning with Guardians of the Flutes, is a key case study that analyzes how culture and society create sexual meanings and practices. In the United States Dr. Herdt has studied adolescents and their families, the emergence of HIV and gay culture, and the the impact marriage denial has on the mental health of lesbians and gay men.