Lavender Health – LGBTQ Resource Center

Sharing our Stories

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Peggy L Chinn

Stories are a vital part of human history, human culture. For LGBTQ communities, stories of our lives take on particular significance because so many of our stories have been hidden, often even buried beneath years of denial. So when we read or hear them, or see them portrayed in a movie or TV, it means even more than just any ordinary human story. But telling our stories can be hard. It is time consuming, and it sometimes takes the story-teller to places that are hard to “visit.” But it is so important to do, and I encourage folks who are reading this blog to consider two opportunities to share your story.

The first is a research project being conducted by Dr. Sean Robinson, Associate Professor, Higher Education & Student Affairs, School of Education & Urban Studies, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD. The title of the study is “Inside the Lavender Tower: Stories of LGBTQ Faculty Call for LGBTQ Faculty Participants.” Here is his description of the study:

Dear Faculty Colleagues, I am conducting an international, qualitative study on the experiences of LGBTQ faculty. The purpose of my research is to capture the stories and narratives of LGBTQ faculty, and how they navigate and negotiate the campus environment in the 21st century. I am interested in how your personal and professional identities have been impacted by the campus milieu (including policies, procedures, interactions with students, peers, administrators, teaching, research activities, etc.), and how you make meaning from your experiences. This study has been approved by my institution’s IRB (project # 13/12-0156). There continues to be scant contemporary research looking at the experiences of LGBTQ faculty within the United States, and virtually none exploring the issues across other countries or regions of the world. The research that does exist focuses primarily on issues of coming out in the classroom, issues related to specific fields such as education, engineering, and science, or general campus climate perceptions. Often, research is also limited to the experiences of only gays and lesbians, omitting the experiences of bisexuals, transgendered, or those identifying as queer. This research aims to expand our current understanding of the day to day lived experiences of LGBTQ faculty, across institutional type and place. By expanding our understanding of the experiences of LGBTQ faculty, colleges and universities may be better equipped to design and implement LGBTQ affirming policies and process, and practices. Voluntary participation includes a 60-90min phone interview; participants may also be asked to for follow-up conversations either via email, or phone. Confidentiality will be assured; only pseudonyms of both individuals and institutions will be used. If you are interested in participating in this study, please email the following information to c.sean.robinson@gmail.com: Name Institution/Location Rank/position Department/Discipline Preferred Email for follow-up Please consider passing this request on to colleagues that you know. I appreciate your assistance in what I hope will be an extremely valuable study.

Sincerely, Dr. Sean Robinson, Associate Professor, Higher Education & Student Affairs, School of Education & Urban Studies, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD Email: c.sean.robinson@gmail.com

The other opportunity is not a research study; it is a project to collect and archive stories of lesbian nurses. Lesbians have long been a major presence and force in this woman-dominated profession, but the fact of lesbian existence in nursing has been a matter of shame and fear, with the label being used to intimidate, shame and silence any strong woman in nursing regardless of her actual identity. We described this dilemma here:

Lesbian presence in nursing has long been acknowledged and known, but the negative connotation of this presence has remained relatively untouched by the emergence of the gay rights movement. Historically any nurse who lived without a man in her life has had this fact noted in public accounts of her life, and has been the subject of seditious rumors about her sexuality. There is probably not one nurse who, as a student, did not hear something demeaning and uncomplimentary about Florence Nightingale’s life, for instance.

Still today, considerable fear surrounds the possibility of being known. Common rejoinders to any hint of lesbian existence include “this is nobody’s business” and the related “so what?” Of course, if lesbian existence were nobody’s business, then it would not be a matter that has garnered such strength as to be used as a tool for intimidation and discrimination. Like the color of one’s hair, it would be a matter that might prompt inconsequential judgments of taste (i.e. “what beautiful red hair” or “she needs a new hairdo”).

You can explore more about this opportunity at the Lesbian Nurse Stories Web site!

Please consider these opportunities! They are all too rare – and very important!

Posted in Call for participants, Join the discussion, Stories of our lives | 1 Comment

The Economic Impact of Same-Sex Marriage

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Michael Johnson

A few weeks ago, I was walking across my university campus when a young man with a clipboard stopped me to sign a petition to legalize the sale of marijuana. He had many scripted arguments to try to gain support for this petition, but he focused on the economic impact. He discussed the enormous economic impact seen in the short time since Colorado legalized the sale of marijuana. That discussion reminded me of the reports published by the Williams Institute at UCLA detailing the economic impact of extending marriage to same-sex couples.

Same-sex marriage remains a contentious issue throughout the United States, and we need to use diverse approaches when trying to persuade those state and federal government officials and voters who are still unsure whether they should be in support. The Williams Institute approaches same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ issues through law and public policy research. They detail their findings in a vast collection of reports. Included in their collection of reports are those that describe the economic impact of extending marriage to same-sex couples.

Although these reports probably go unnoticed by most people, they can be significant when persuading government officials and voters who are on the fence of supporting same-sex marriage. As state governments continue to face financial woes, the prospect of bringing revenue to the state and to local businesses grabs the attention of people. The economic impact reports published by the Williams Institute might have that grab effect. For example, the Williams Institute projects that extending marriage to same-sex couples in Colorado would generate $50 million in spending to the state and local economy. Other projections include $20.4 million in New Mexico, $42 million in Minnesota, and $103 million in Illinois. Although they do not have reports for every state, I urge you to look at the list by state: http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/economic-impact-reports-by-state/

These reports make it apparent that the potential economic impact is enormous to those states that extend marriage to same-sex couples. Many of these reports also detail the economic impact to taxes. There are many other economic impacts that are not as easily calculated, such as the cost of illness to those who are not covered by their partner’s health insurance.

I wonder how many people signed the young man’s marijuana petition based on the economic impact argument. Also, I wonder if the economic impact was a major influence to Colorado voters and government officials who supported the law legalizing the sale of marijuana. If the economic impact factor did in fact sway voters and officials on that issue, a similar approach for same-sex marriage might be worth trying.

For more information on the Williams Institute: http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/

Michael Johnson

johnsonmikej@live.com

Posted in Activism, LGBT Health, LGBTQ rights, Marriage Equality | Leave a comment

Sports – a huge hurdle for LGBTQ rights

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Peggy L Chinn

I admit that I was never much of a sports fan before I went to the University of Connecticut! To me, the hype about sports left me cold. Then when I went to UConn and discovered the wonder of women’s basketball, I was hooked, but now even more disturbed by the hype around sports as a male domain. I also became more and more aware of the homophobia that dominated much of the sports world. Then I saw an early screening of the amazing documentary – Training Rules – that gives a shocking, though not unexpected, true story of unabashed homophobia in women’s basketball. If you have not seen this film find it and see it ASAP!

Tonight, the UConn women advanced to the women’s final four; last night the UConn men also advanced to the men’s final four. The inequality based on gender in even the naming of these sports is appalling …. the “final four” is assumed to be the men .. ignoring the women, unless the term ‘women” is associated with term “final four.”

It is amazingly inspiring to watch these amazing athletes perform! But the barriers of both gender and sexuality remain huge in the sports world. I invite every reader of this blog to tune in, and tune up your antennae for both gender and sex inequality. If we as fans begin to support the brave athletes who are making a breakthrough, we will make a difference!

Posted in LGBTQ rights, Sports | 1 Comment

Safety Barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge? It’s About Time!

Posted on March 28, 2014 by monashattell

This week in the New York Times, Carol Pogash reported that the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District is nearing agreement to build a safety net on the Golden Gate Bridge. It seems that finally, the public health hazard of the iconic symbol of San Francisco, will finally have what other previously popular suicide jumping destinations such as the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower have long had, a safety barrier.

This was a long time coming.

Safety barriers prevent suicides. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention last year published a report that outlined the benefits — bridge barriers eliminate suicides at suicide “hot-spots”; there was virtually no increase in suicides at other nearby locations when barriers were added, and a reduction in copy-cat suicides that is correlated with less media coverage. The report also noted that these barriers were found to be a particularly useful intervention for young men. More recent studies support these claims.

Are there really fewer suicides when the means of suicide are restricted? Studies have shown that indeed they are. Restriction of means for suicide was found to be effective, especially for popular, lethal, and available means (e.g. the Golden Gate Bridge) in one recent study published in The Lancet. Researcher Jane Pirkis and colleagues from the University of Melbourne published a study last year that was a meta-analysis of several studies of structural interventions at suicide hotspots. They found that these barriers decreased suicide rates in these particular locales.

I hope that the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District follow through on what is expected to happen. That they will reverse previous objections and policies against building a barrier and they will do the right thing to save lives.

It’s about time.

Posted in LGBT Health, Mental Health, Public Policy, Suicide | Tagged American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Mental Health, Public Policy | 4 Comments

Have You Had “The Talk” with Your Provider?

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Thomas Lawrence Long

Over the past four decades as an out-of-the-closet adult, with now countless numbers of primary care health providers during those years, I can count on one hand the number of times that a health provider (usually a physician) has initiated a conversation with me about sexual health.

In fact I can count on one thumb of one hand the number of times that a health provider has initiated a sexual history with me. And he was a gay medical school physician in Virginia whom I lost to Johns Hopkins.

All adult patients, but particularly patients who have sex with people of their same sex, need to take the lead in overcoming health providers’ sexual reticence.

Why It Is Important

There are two serious issues at stake here. First, your earlier history of sexual behaviors may have put you at risk for later illness, even if you usually practiced safer sex. For example, men who have performed oral sex on another man, or men who have been the passive partners in anal sex with a condom, run some risk of infection with human papilloma virus (HPV), known to cause cervical cancer in women and anal warts and cancers in men. For more information: http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/stdFact-HPVandoralcancer.htm Second, problems with sexual function or experience may be sentinels of other serious health conditions. For example, “erectile dysfunction” (euphemistically referred to as “ED”) may be caused by cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurological disorders, medications, or substance abuse, among others. Your health care provider needs to know your past and current sexual practices.

It’s a Serious Problem

The professional research literature suggests that physicians’ and nurse practitioners’ reticence about sex and routine failure to take sexual histories with patients is widespread. Less than a third of physicians in a study of urban primary care settings routinely took a sexual history of patients, while better than half did ask about current sexual behavior but two-thirds would ask about sexual history only if a presenting medical condition warranted it (Wimberly, Hogben, Moore-Ruffin, Moore, & Fry-Johnson, 2006). Jayasuriyaa and Dennick (2011) point to a lack of sexual health education in medical and nursing schools. If you’re an older adult, you are even less likely to be asked about your sexual history or current practices. In one study of nurse practitioners only 2% of respondents said that they always conducted sexual history taking of patients 50 and older, while 23.4% never or seldom did (Maes & Louis, 2011).

How to Get Started

It’s your health and it’s your body, so you can’t afford to let someone else’s reticence or lack of formal preparation become an obstacle to your well being. You have to be prepared to initiate the conversation about your sexual history and sexual health.

The obvious first step is to ensure that you have a health provider who is both comfortable and knowledgeable about your sexual health concerns. If you don’t, you might consider changing your provider.

Second, you need to prepare yourself the way that your health care provider should be. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a handy guide to providers, A Guide to Taking a Sexual History http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment/SexualHistory.pdf with which you can make yourself better informed and better prepared for your next health care visit. It tells you what they should be asking you.

Play safe; stay healthy; and talk to your health care provider.

References

Jayasuriyaa, A. N., & Reg Dennick, R. (2011). Sexual history-taking: using educational interventions to overcome barriers to learning. Sex Education, 11, 99–112. doi: 10.1080/14681811.2011.538155

Maes, C. A., & Louis, M. (2011). Nurse practitioners’ sexual history-taking practices with adults 50 and older. The Journal of Nurse Practitioners, 7, 216-222. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/10.1016/j.nurpra.2010.06.003

Wimberly, Y. H., Hogben, M., Moore-Ruffin, J., Moore, S. E., & Fry-Johnson, Y. (2006). Sexual history taking among primary care physicians. Journal of the National Medical Association, 98, 1924-1929.