With the resources for sexual health on the internet being numerous, its hard to know where to go.  Well now HIM has a one-stop shop for gay men’s sexual health information.  The site bundles a host of HIV and STI testing resources together; those who visit www.checkhimout.ca/testing are invited to learn their own “number” – that is, how many times per year they should be testing for HIV, based on their level of risk.

New HIV and STI Resource Launch in Vancouver, British Columbia!

With the resources for sexual health on the internet being numerous, its hard to know where to go.  Well now HIM has a one-stop shop for gay men’s sexual health information.  The site bundles a host of HIV and STI testing resources together; those who visit www.checkhimout.ca/testing are invited to learn their own “number” – that is, how many times per year they should be testing for HIV, based on their level of risk.

By Stephanie Siek, CNN

(CNN) – Salt Lake City, Utah, is known for breathtaking mountain scenery, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the 2002 Winter Olympics.

But today it was also named the Gayest City in America by The Advocate magazine.

The Advocate ranked cities according to its own admittedly nonscientific criteria, including the number of gay and lesbian bookstores, elected officials who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and some edgier metrics like the number of International Mr. Leather competition semifinalists and the presence of nude yoga classes. This year’s list intended to examine cities that are outside the usual orbit of San Francisco, Boston, Miami and New York, and came up with several surprises – Grand Rapids, Michigan, Knoxville, Tennessee. Even Little Rock, Arkansas, ranked 11 out of 15.

Salt Lake City LGBTQ advocates were pleasantly surprised by the rankings.

“Well, you know, we’re all very proud of our community here, and we’ve done a lot of growing and empowering of each other and our allies in the community,” said Valerie Larabee, the executive director of the Utah Pride Center, but “we probably wouldn’t have a higher ranking if the homework was done … We don’t have naked yoga, or at least none of us know about it.”

(For the record: The Advocate counted one nude yoga class there, and one Mr. Leather semifinalist, too.)

According to 2010 Census data analyzed by UCLA’s Williams Institute, 15.36 out of every 1,000 households in Salt Lake City are headed by a same-sex couple. Salt Lake City ranks 81^st out of 1,415 cities nationwide in its number of same-sex couples per capita.

The same analysis found that Little Rock had 7.51 gay or lesbian couples for every 1,000 households, ranking it 392^nd.

Salt Lake City was ranked higher than several cities many would presume to be gay-friendlier, like Denver, Austin, and Atlanta. But Larabee said that Salt Lake’s top ranking shouldn’t overshadow the discrimination and lack of acceptance that many LGBTQ Utahns still face.

“I appreciate that there’s some humor in the selections, in the indices that were used, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves,” Larabee said. “We, like many of these communities, still have some issues that need to be addressed. While we have a thriving community here, we’re united because we have to be.”

Opinion: Attention Rick Santorum – here’s how to support a gay child

Randi Romo heads the Center for Artistic Revolution in Little Rock, which serves as the state’s LGBTQ organization. She was also bemused by the city’s inclusion.

To see the entire list and read more, click here.

 Are Our Future Doctors Receiving Enough Training to Care for LGBT People?

Andrew Silapaswan
Public policy intern, Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC)

After relocating halfway across the country to New York City, finding an LGBT-friendly and culturally competent doctor was not high on my priority list. However, my priorities changed when I required medical services in November. I quickly realized I would have to find a new primary care physician who is both knowledgeable in LGBT health care, and who will treat me with understanding and respect.

My experience is not unique, as many others in the LGBT community face similar challenges. In a 2005 survey 22 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual patients reported having experienced some form of discrimination in a health care setting. So why are so many health care providers ill-equipped to handle the health care needs of LGBT people? As a medical school candidate with my sights set on starting medical school in fall 2012, I am cross-comparing prospective M.D. programs and actively examining components of medical school curricula.

A medical school’s curriculum must meet rigorous standards established by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) to receive accreditation. Nonetheless, recent studies and testimony on behalf of medical school administrations indicate that there are significant gaps in curricular content. More specifically, the quality and breadth of LGBT health-related content is lacking and remarkably uneven across medical schools.

One of the most comprehensive studies examining the incorporation of LGBT content in medical education was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report indicated that the median time dedicated to teaching LGBT-related content was five hours (during the entire four years of medical education) in the 132 U.S. and Canadian medical schools that were surveyed. Additionally, nine schools reported zero hours taught during the preclinical years, and 44 schools reported zero hours of clinical training.

In terms of overall assessment of quality, the results are equally discouraging. A majority of medical school administrators revealed that their coverage of LGBT-related content was fair or worse. Thirty-two deans responded that their school’s coverage of LGBT health care was “good” or “very good,” while 58 reported that it was “fair,” and 34 indicated that it was “poor” or “very poor.”

The results are especially problematic given the fact that LGBT people have historically faced barriers in accessing competent medical care in addition to having specific health care needs.

Research findings reported by the American Psychological Association indicate that LGBT individuals may be at an increased risk for negative health behaviors and outcomes and experience a number of health disparities compared with their heterosexual peers. For example, gay men and lesbians report higher rates of smoking. Cardiac and cancer risk factors are also more prevalent among lesbians compared with heterosexual women. A large-scale study published in 2000 found that breast cancer rates and several associated risk factors are higher among lesbians and bisexual women.

Furthermore, men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to face disproportionate rates of HIV and are the only demographic in which new infections are rising in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MSM represent 2 percent of the general population yet accounted for 61 percent of all new infections in 2009. Clearly, the health care needs of LGBT individuals, which are largely complicated by stigma, homophobia, and other structural factors, underscore the necessity for comprehensive LGBT-related content in medical school curricula.

Read more.

Are Our Future Doctors Receiving Enough Training to Care for LGBT People?

Andrew Silapaswan
Public policy intern, Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC)

After relocating halfway across the country to New York City, finding an LGBT-friendly and culturally competent doctor was not high on my priority list. However, my priorities changed when I required medical services in November. I quickly realized I would have to find a new primary care physician who is both knowledgeable in LGBT health care, and who will treat me with understanding and respect.

My experience is not unique, as many others in the LGBT community face similar challenges. In a 2005 survey 22 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual patients reported having experienced some form of discrimination in a health care setting. So why are so many health care providers ill-equipped to handle the health care needs of LGBT people? As a medical school candidate with my sights set on starting medical school in fall 2012, I am cross-comparing prospective M.D. programs and actively examining components of medical school curricula.

A medical school’s curriculum must meet rigorous standards established by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) to receive accreditation. Nonetheless, recent studies and testimony on behalf of medical school administrations indicate that there are significant gaps in curricular content. More specifically, the quality and breadth of LGBT health-related content is lacking and remarkably uneven across medical schools.

One of the most comprehensive studies examining the incorporation of LGBT content in medical education was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The report indicated that the median time dedicated to teaching LGBT-related content was five hours (during the entire four years of medical education) in the 132 U.S. and Canadian medical schools that were surveyed. Additionally, nine schools reported zero hours taught during the preclinical years, and 44 schools reported zero hours of clinical training.

In terms of overall assessment of quality, the results are equally discouraging. A majority of medical school administrators revealed that their coverage of LGBT-related content was fair or worse. Thirty-two deans responded that their school’s coverage of LGBT health care was “good” or “very good,” while 58 reported that it was “fair,” and 34 indicated that it was “poor” or “very poor.”

The results are especially problematic given the fact that LGBT people have historically faced barriers in accessing competent medical care in addition to having specific health care needs.

Research findings reported by the American Psychological Association indicate that LGBT individuals may be at an increased risk for negative health behaviors and outcomes and experience a number of health disparities compared with their heterosexual peers. For example, gay men and lesbians report higher rates of smoking. Cardiac and cancer risk factors are also more prevalent among lesbians compared with heterosexual women. A large-scale study published in 2000 found that breast cancer rates and several associated risk factors are higher among lesbians and bisexual women.

Furthermore, men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to face disproportionate rates of HIV and are the only demographic in which new infections are rising in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MSM represent 2 percent of the general population yet accounted for 61 percent of all new infections in 2009. Clearly, the health care needs of LGBT individuals, which are largely complicated by stigma, homophobia, and other structural factors, underscore the necessity for comprehensive LGBT-related content in medical school curricula.

Read more.

2011 – A Good Year to be Gay

via theguardian, by Aaron Hicklin

A funny thing happened in America in 2011. With the US political establishment in deadlock and Republicans bowing to Tea Party mandarins over a raft of issues from immigration to curbs on trade unions, one area of American civil liberties celebrated a watershed year.

After decades in which gay rights have polarised US opinion, the country barely shrugged in September when a two-decade old law prohibiting gay men and women from serving openly in the military was finally repealed, prompting thousands of gay soldiers to post coming-out videos on YouTube – just one more example of how the web has transformed gay visibility.

Less than two months earlier New York became the sixth, and biggest, state to allow same-sex couples to marry.

To put that in context, there are more people living in New York than in the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage.

The struggle for marriage equality has been one of the most bitterly divisive issues in America, but after a series of defeats for gay-rights advocates, the tide appears to be shifting irrevocably in their direction.

A series of national polls this year has shown support for same-sex unions outgunning opposition for the first time since polling on the issue began in the 1980s – a dramatic turnaround from even three years earlier, when voters in California approved a ballot measure overturning same-sex marriage.

In the 2004 election, under the keen encouragement of Karl Rove, no fewer than 11 states passed ballot initiatives banning gay marriage — a cynical get-out-the-vote ploy that helped swell Republican ranks at the polling booths.

The perception that marriage equality was a poisoned pink chalice persisted up to the 2008 election, when even Obama was careful to clarify that he wasn’t in favour of gay marriage, apparently heeding warnings from Bill Clinton to give the issue a wide berth.

Yet in this year’s debates between the ragtag pack of Republican presidential nominees, the usual rhetoric denouncing gay marriage has been noticeably absent.

Even Obama, facing precarious odds for a second term, has said that he favours repealing the notorious Defense of Marriage Act that has prevented federal recognition of gay marriages, even those performed in states where they are legal.

What changed in those few short years? In many ways the transformation of attitudes has been ongoing for decades, accelerated in large part by the impact of Aids, which reconfigured gay identity around community and relationships.

In TV shows such as Glee and Modern Family, gays are no longer comic stooges or punchlines, their relationships treated with the same respect as those of their straight counterparts.

Read more.