US: Intersex surgeries spark move away from drastic treatment

Efforts are underway to change the way intersex children are treated: "The way that we took care of things in the past ... where there was a fair amount of secrecy, where there was surgery done in the infant state, and potentially irreversible surgery, is probably not the best way to go about things," said Dr. Earl Cheng, who runs the sex development disorders program at Chicago's Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, one of several nationwide.

It's a fitful evolution and a sign of the times, perhaps the natural next step in the gender-blurring evolution. Intersex conditions are often confused with gender identity issues, but they're different. Gender orientation refers to whether someone identifies as male, female, or something else; intersex involves reproductive anatomy. Some affected children have typical male or female chromosomes, but genetic glitches and hormonal problems that begin in the womb, cause genitals to resemble those of the opposite sex. Others have a male-female blend of sex chromosomes and reproductive organs.

Prevalence estimates vary, from more than 1 in 1,000 newborns, including conditions that involve mildly atypical genitals, to about 1 in 5,000 for more obvious cases. Experts say there's no evidence numbers are increasing, although rising awareness has led more families to seek treatment at specialty centers. Read More

Australia: Unexpected challenges for LGBs in outer metropolitan areas

Lesbian, gay and bisexual Australians living on the outskirts of major cities experience similar levels of discrimination and social isolation to those living in rural and remote areas. This surprise-finding is from the first nationwide survey comparing the experiences of LGB communities in a range of metropolitan and rural locations.

The survey found those in rural-remote and outer metropolitan areas experienced similar levels of 'minority stress' such as internalised homophobia, concealment of sexuality from friends and concern regarding disclosure of their sexuality. Compounding this disadvantage, LGBs in rural areas and outer city areas also reported reduced social support relative to their urban peers, including less involvement in an LGB community. 

The findings reinforce those of past research, indicating that LGBs living in rural and remote Australia experience a greater likelihood of risk factors linked to adverse mental health outcomes including substance abuse and suicide.Those in outer metropolitan areas also reported increased social isolation, something not seen among the rural sample. Read More 

US: Lack of competent providers leaves many LGBTs uninsured & untreated

A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health indicates that LGBT people are twice as likely to be uninsured and even more likely to forgo and delay medical care, compared to straight people. Few such hospitals reported having ways to identify doctors knowledgeable about LGBT health, and only a few hospitals offered comprehensive LGBT-competency training to their staffs.

“As medical organizations we really should be making a better effort to identify providers that can provide competent healthcare,” said Dr. Allison Diamant, the study’s senior author from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. LGBT people suffer from the same conditions as other people do, but their outcomes tend to be worse, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“When organizations are seen as leaders for LGBT people, people will go there for care,” he said. “What people need to be thinking about is not only training people, but showing they’re welcoming of LGBT people.” Read More

India: Helpline flooded with gay sex issues and HIV scare

In an effort to offer some support to the LGBT community, a 24x7 helpline called the Sahaay Helpline was set up to answer queries on health and psychological issues. In 9 months the line received more than 100,000 calls from 39,800 callers.

According to the data, almost 70% of the callers did not report HIV testing in the year. When asked, 50.82% of callers said they did not get tested out of “fear”. In India, men who have sex with men often face physical violence and harassment from police and the society. Many such men do not disclose their sexual preferences, especially if they are married to women and have families. Nearly three-fourths of the callers identified themselves as belonging to this category. 

Several callers faced psychosocial problems like “self-identity crisis”, crisis in family relationships, violence and abuse, substance abuse, addiction, discrimination in workplace or educational institutions. Read More 

Kenya: MAAYGO brings HIV counseling openly and in secret

Men Against AIDS Youth Group founder Victor Shaaban speaks bravely alongside transwoman and member Lily Simon about the challenges of working in Kenya. Both are openly HIV positive and, through MAAYGO, look for new ways to reach out to stigmatized populations by holding open sessions as well as providing HIV testing at night. See more from Staying Alive Foundation 

Leave No-one Behind in the Post-2015 Health Agenda

In just a few months' time, the world will agree on a new set of global development goals which are expected to be more ambitious, more rights-based, and more sustainable than the preceding Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Proposed targets like "end the AIDS epidemic", "ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health services" and "achieve universal health coverage", as well as a goal on reducing inequalities, give us a lot of reason for hope. Hope that this time we will get it right and not leave behind people who are marginalised, excluded, stigmatised or even criminalised. These include LGBTI people and other groups most at risk of HIV who can be denied access to life-saving health care for no other reason than their sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV status or trait that marks them as "different" from the majority.

Securing universal health coverage (UHC) is a key priority for the WHO. It's depressing to see that, despite the momentum that UHC has been gaining for a solid decade now, it's clear that it has not been reaching the most marginalised. The International HIV/AIDS Alliance has launched Write Us In, a new global campaign to ensure equitable access to healthcare for LGBTI people. Read More

Bangkok: UNAIDS holds civil society meeting on fast-tracking the end of AIDS

UNAIDS convened over 50 civil society leaders from around the globe to develop a plan detailing how the HIV community can best work together to advocate for accelerated, strategic, and equitable international and domestic responses to HIV. 

“Fast-tracking the AIDS response is about political mobilization,” said meeting moderator Chris Collins, chief of the UNAIDS Community Mobilization Division and amfAR’s former director of public policy. “A revitalized AIDS response won’t happen without civil society, and the reach to people who have been left behind has to come from the community.”

The Fast Track strategy calls for an increased focus on funding HIV interventions proven to have greatest impact and delivering them to most-affected key populations—men who sex with men (MSM), transgender individuals, sex workers, and people who inject drugs. Read More

A young man who survived “ex-gay ministries” taught me what it means to be a Christian

The campaign against marriage equality sent me fleeing from the church. Here's what brought me back. - Rachel Held Evans:  "If Christians in East Tennessee wanted to send the message that gay and lesbian people would be uncomfortable and unwelcome in our churches, that their identity would be reduced to their sexual orientation and their personhood to a political threat, then we’d sure done a bang-up job of communicating it...

A man I didn’t recognize invited us to attend a meeting that night to discuss the “radical homosexual agenda in America and how Christians should respond to it.” He spat out the word homosexual the same way others spat out the words liberal, feminist, and evolutionist, and it occurred to me in that moment that maybe I wasn’t the only one who brought an uninvited guest to church on Sunday morning. In a congregation that large, there was a good chance the very people this man considered a threat to our way of life weren’t out there, but rather in here—perhaps visiting with family, perhaps squirming uncomfortably with the youth group in the back, perhaps singing with the worship band up front. How lonely they must feel, how paralyzed.

...Seven years after the “Vote Yes On One” campaign sent me fleeing from the church, I discovered church again in an unlikely place: the Gay Christian Network’s annual “Live It Out” conference in Chicago. I spoke at the conference as an ally, but within hours of arriving at the Westin on the Chicago River, it became clear I had little to teach these brothers and sisters in Christ and everything to learn from them. Read the full excerpt from "Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church" Read More

Europe urged to protect transgender rights, abolish medical procedures

European nations have been urged to protect the rights of transgender people, abolish medical procedures needed to change legal gender and make transgender-specific healthcare accessible under a pan-European resolution adopted late on Wednesday.

The Council of Europe, the continent's human rights watchdog, also called on its 47 member states to adopt transgender inclusive anti-discrimination and hate crime legislation and introduce a third gender option in identity documents for people who do not identify as male or female.

Human rights organisation Transgender Europe (TGEU) hailed the resolution as the most important and wide-ranging statement of support for transgender rights ever made in Europe. Most countries in Europe require transgender people to undergo genital removal surgery and sterilisation, be diagnosed with a mental disorder and get divorced if married in order to have their desired gender legally recognised by the government. Read More

Meet “M-Coalition” The First Arab Coalition on MSM and HIV

While the common understanding is that Arab countries are considered to have a low prevalence of HIV, available epidemiological data show that men who have sex with men (MSM) bear a disproportionate burden of HIV infection.

MSM in Arab countries are 50 to 130 times more likely to be exposed to HIV than the general population.During the past decade, few Arab countries have started implementing activities targeting key affected populations at higher risk of HIV infection, including MSM. However, the coverage and the impact of such activities remain insufficient to meet existing needs.  Read More

US: Obama calls for end to ‘conversion’ therapies for gay and trans youth

President Obama is calling for an end to such therapies aimed at “repairing” gay, lesbian and transgender youth. His decision on the issue is the latest example of his continuing embrace of gay rights. His official statement was posted alongside a WhiteHouse.gov petition begun in honor of Ms. Alcorn, the trans teen whose suicide note mentioned undergoing conversion therapy. The petition has received more than 120,000 signatures in three months.

Mr. Obama condemned the practice, sometimes called “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, which is supported by some socially conservative organizations and religious doctors. Read More 

UK: This is what happens when you undergo gay conversion therapy

Journalist Patrick Strudwick's undercover investigation into gay conversion therapy in the UK eventually led to the British Medical Association condemning the practice. In his new essay, he describes his terrifying experience, how the therapy made him doubt himself, and why he's an advocate against conversion therapy:

There was a single, terrible moment, while investigating conversion therapy, that changed me. I did not know that it would alter also the course of the conversion therapy movement in Britain, a movement hinged on a chilling idea: that gay people can be cured.

It was a few weeks into my investigation in the summer of 2009. I was in my living room, pacing, on the phone to one of the two people attempting to make me heterosexual. The therapist’s name was Lesley Pilkington, and this was our second session. The first had been in her plush, suburban home, near Amersham, northwest of London. A recording device was taped to my stomach, under my shirt, as she asked me if I had been sexually abused. She was trying to find out what childhood trauma had “triggered” my homosexuality, because those who consider being gay a sickness believe it is formed by trauma. I said no. Read More