Op-Ed: Why Health Care Is the Next LGBT Battleground

I’m one of those people who thinks of health in broad terms: Health isn’t just about doctors. It’s about mental health. It’s about having a roof over your head. It’s about being able to get an education. It’s about feeling safe. Philosophers Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum talk about true equality being a world where people have the resources they need to live to their fullest potential. True equality is making sure those health service providers—doctors, psychotherapists, social workers, even shelter providers—actually know how to work with members of every community.

I hereby throw down the gauntlet: A major front in the battle for LGBT equality is making sure health service providers are competent and sensitive enough to meet our community’s needs. Read More

Leaving no one behind in the Asia-Pacific HIV response

Government delegates, leading civil society voices, and UN partners gathered in Bangkok to review progress in responding to the HIV epidemic in the Asia Pacific region. The meeting will produce a new regional framework of cooperation. 

In his opening remarks, Nicholas Rosellini, Director of UNDP's Bangkok Regional Hub, highlighted that the HIV epidemic in Asia and the Pacific continues to be concentrated among key populations who face the burden of being marginalized not only socially but also through counter-productive legal frameworks. Read More 

Cartoon Aims To Show Dangers Of Syphilis

With syphilis on the increase amongst gay men, the Victorian AIDS Council (VAC) has joined up with a local Australian animator, Michael Cusack, to release Wayne & Kevin an hilarious animated short that encourages men who have sex with men (MSM) to be informed about STIs and get tested regularly.

With syphilis being an STI that can often be asymptomatic or mistaken for other things, the importance of spreading the message surrounding treatment and testing is imperative.

Watch here

India's Justice Shah: Sec 377 damaging psychological well-being of homosexuals

Law Commission Chairman Justice Ajit Prakash Shah has said that the Supreme Court's December 2013 decision to uphold Section 377 of the IPC and re-criminalise gay sex was constitutionally wrong as it deprives homosexuals of basic rights and also affects them psychologically.

 "Section 377 is discriminatory in its application, unreasonable in its intent, deprives a group of its personal autonomy and violates individual privacy and human dignity. Consequences of the laws in our country on gay sex include damage to the psychological well being of homosexuals, encouragement of violence and facilitation of police harassment and discrimination against the LGBT community," Justice Shah said.   Read More

Australia: 17 year old given power over his parents for gender dysphoria

A 17-year-old transgender boy has become the first child in Australia to have been given the right to make decisions on special medical procedures without parental consent. 

The Family Court found that the boy, known as Isaac, was competent and gave him the power to override his parent's wishes to prevent him from using puberty suppressants, testosterone replacement therapy and undergoing any surgery related to his gender. The case potentially paves the way for other children seeking treatment without the support of one or both of their parents to ask the courts to declare them competent enough to make the decision themselves.  Read More

Botswana: BONELA welcomes NACA’s overtures to gays, prostitutes

The Botswana Network on Ethics Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA) has welcomed the decision by the government to spread the HIV/AIDS message to marginalised groups, including the gay community and commercial sex workers. In an interview, BONELA executive director, Cindy Kelemi said her organisation had been calling for such intervention “for more than a decade” but no one had been willing to listen.

“We see it as a milestone that finally government is reaching out to minority groups.  We applaud government for taking such a step,” she said. Read More 

Scholarly research on children with gay or lesbian parents

An overview of research literature finds that children of gay parents fare no worse than children whose parents identify as straight. Taken together, this research forms an overwhelming scholarly consensus, based on over three decades of peer-reviewed research, that having a gay or lesbian parent does not harm children.  Read More 

Transgender kids aren't confused about their identities

Transgender youngsters identify as much with their genders as do non-transgender children, a new study says. The findings indicate that transgender children are not confused or delayed in their understanding of gender, as some have suggested, write the researchers in Psychological Science.

The children were asked different types of questions that have been shown in other studies to be measures of implicit gender identity. When the researchers looked to see if the transgender children’s responses mirrored those of non-transgender kids - known as cisgender children - they found that transgender boys’ responses mirrored cisgender boys’ answers. Transgender girls responded the same as cisgender girls. Read More

Gay and Bi Men Account for 75% of All Syphilis Cases

At the end of 2014 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its sexually transmitted disease surveillance data for the previous year, showing the rates for primary and secondary syphilis, increased by an alarming 10 percent.

“This second year of double-digit increases of syphilis rates is completely unacceptable and also significantly intersects with our HIV epidemic,” says William Smith, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “This continues to affect populations already disproportionately impacted by all STDs, including HIV, most notably gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM).” Read More 

LGBT health issues receive paltry funding

A new report shows that foundation funding for LGBT health totals less than 0.5 percent of all health funding, and funding for HIV/AIDS is drastically out of proportion. The report was issued by Funders for LGBTQ Issues to coincide with an LGBT Health Funding Summit.

The report shows that of the nearly $3 billion that foundations invested in health issues annually, less than 0.5 percent is given to LGBT communities. The report covers the years 2011 to 2013.

Also, only 21 percent of U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS targeted LGBT communities despite the fact that gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men account for 64 percent of new HIV infections. Read More

UK: Men who have sex with men have other health inequalities

The UK government’s leading body for public health has launched a new framework for improving the health of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.  Public Health England have identified research showing that men who have sex with men are twice as likely to be depressed or anxious as other men, are twice as likely to be dependent on alcohol as other men, are more likely to smoke, have higher rates of cardiovascular disease, asthma and diabetes and are less likely to seek help from health and social care services.  Read More