A new tool makes it even easier to let your sex partners know—anonymously—that they may have been exposed to a treatable sexually transmitted infection (STI) and that they might want to get tested.
The free service, Tell Your Partner, is a fast, secure, easy-to-use notification system that doesn’t require you to share any of your personal information. Simply add phone numbers or email addresses for partners you’d like to notify and enter the infection(s) your partner(s) should get tested for. After you preview a sample message and confirm you’re not a robot, hit send.
How Tell Your Partner Works
Many people keep up with regular STI testing and treatment as part of a proactive sexual health plan. But with rising STI rates across the U.S., and higher rates among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, it’s clear that more tools are needed to slow the spread of STIs including gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis.
“Notifying sex partners about a recent infection makes it more likely that those partners will get tested, treated and not pass the infection along to anyone else,” said Jen Hecht, MPH, senior director of program strategy & evaluation at San Francisco AIDS Foundation and director and co-founder of Building Healthy Online Communities. “In that way, you’re also improving your own future health, by reducing the overall infection rate in the community.”
The site and mobile app were conceptualized and created by Building Healthy Online Communities(BHOC) in collaboration with YTH and the National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD). Tell Your Partner is a modern version of inSPOT, the first online STI partner notification system developed by YTH, which sent e-cards anonymously to partners.
LGBT+ people in China are being forced to undergo so-called ‘conversion therapy’ in at least 96 public hospitals and unlicensed centres, according to a new human rights report.
China removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders in 2001, but in the absence of a conversion therapy ban the practise has continued to thrive and is openly advertised on vans and billboards.
There are many different techniques, including electric shocks and testosterone injections, but no reliable scientific evidence that sexuality can be changed.
“It’s not just a commercial scam, but an action that violates people’s rights,” Wang Zhenyu of Equal Rights for LGBTI told Reuters.
Zhenyu compiled the report along with several other rights groups, questioning health departments in 25 cities that offer conversion therapy. In 17 cases, they found no evidence that any action had been taken against them.
Conversion therapy has been described as a form of torture (Pexels)
Four cities had punished medical institutions between 2017 and 2018 for practicing psychiatry without proper credentials, among them the capital, Beijing, and the southern city of Changsha in Hunan.
However, the majority were allowed to continue practising on vulnerable individuals, who were often pressured by their family to undergo damaging treatments, including shock therapy which is illegal.
This was seen by activist Peng Yanzi, who went undercover in a conversion therapy centre in 2014 and was forced to undergo electrotherapy. He then brought the case to court and won.
Two years later, a man sued a hospital in the city of Zhumadian where he had been locked up for 19 days while receiving therapy. In another case in July, a young transgender woman’s family committed her to a hospital against her will in the southern city of Jingdezhen.
China’s National Health Commission did not respond to Reuters‘ request for comment.
In a rule change announced on Friday, November 1, the Trump administration said that health programmes receiving grants from government Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) would no longer have to abide by nondiscrimination guidelines protecting LGBT+ people.
The Trump administration changed the regulations in the name of “religious freedom”, and it would also apply to abortions, contraception, gender confirmation surgery, or any other services or people healthcare providers might disagree with “on moral or religious grounds”.
This week, US district judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California joined two other judges in writing off Trump’s new rule.
Alsup wrote in his decision: “Under the new rule, to preview just one example, an ambulance driver would be free, on religious or moral grounds, to eject a patient en route to a hospital upon learning that the patient needed an emergency abortion. Such harsh treatment would be blessed by the new rule.”
He added: “When a rule is so saturated with error, as here, there is no point in trying to sever the problematic provisions. The whole rule must go.”
According to Instinct, Jamie Gliksberg of Lambda Legal which represented the plaintiffs said in a statement: “That is now three judges in two weeks who have recognised the Denial of Care Rule for what it is, an egregious and unconstitutional attack on women, LGBT people and other vulnerable populations.”
Two federal judges have already blocked Trump’s rule allowing discrimination against LGBT+ people in healthcare.
Donald Trump and the White House had claimed the religious protections were introduced following a “significant increase” in complaints from hospital workers who were being forced to violate their faith by treating LGBT+ patients – but Engelmayer ruled that this was “factually untrue”.
According to Advocate, the next day judge Stanley Bastian of Washington announced that he would also rule against the Trump administration in a lawsuit brought by Washington state.
Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson added in a press release: “This rule would have disproportionately harmed rural and working poor Washington families, who have no alternatives to their local health care providers, as well as LGBTQ individuals, who already face discrimination when they seek medical care.”
The American Medical Association on Tuesday voted to support state and federal efforts to ban gay conversion therapy, throwing the weight of America’s medical establishment behind ending the scientifically discredited practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“It is clear to the AMA that the conversion therapy needs to end in the United States given the risk of deliberate harm to LGBTQ people,” AMA board mMember Dr. William E. Kobler said in a statement shared with NBC News. “Conversion therapy has no foundation as scientifically valid medical care and lacks credible evidence to support its efficacy or safety.”
Speaking on background, an AMA official said Tuesday’s directive means that AMA will produce model legislation banning conversion therapy that can be distributed to state-level organizations, since medical licensing happens at the state level, while simultaneously working on a federal effort.
In August, a study found that 200,000 transgender people in the United States have been exposed to conversion therapy at some point in their lives. A September study of 27,000 transgender peoplefound that those who were exposed to these efforts before the age of 10 were four times more likely to report a suicide attempt in their lifetime versus trans people who were never subjected to efforts to change their gender identity.
Currently, 18 states and the District of Columbia ban conversion therapy for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank focused on LGBTQ issues. And recently, New York City hurried to repeal its conversion therapy ban because it prohibited the practice for minors and adults — who, as discredited as the practice is, may be entitled under free speech protections to pursue the therapy for themselves.
“Historically, medical professionals have contributed to the stigmatization of LGBTQ individuals, so the AMA’s active involvement in LGBTQ health advocacy is incredibly important,” Dr. Alexis Chavez, medical director for the nonprofit Trevor Project, said in a statement. “The AMA’s support for ending conversion therapy furthers the work that The Trevor Project is doing across the country with our 50 Bills 50 States campaign to protect LGBTQ youth from this dangerous and discredited practice.”
The AMA also endorsed the creation of electronic health records that are inclusive of LGBTQ people.
“The newly amended policy now supports the voluntary inclusion of a transgender patient’s preferred name and clinically relevant sex specific anatomy in medical documentation,” the AMA said in Tuesday’s statement.
“Without this information, transgender patients and their specific health care needs cannot be identified or documented, the health disparities they experience cannot be addressed, and the provision of important health care services may not be delivered,” Kobler stated.
Chavez said the electronic health record change “can help reduce the 50 percent of transgender individuals who delay seeking necessary health care because of legitimate fears of discrimination.”
The AMA also endorsed a policy that encourages medical accreditation bodies “to both continue to encourage and periodically reassess education on health issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity in the basic science, clinical care and cultural competency curricula in medical school and residency programs.”
Last week, in advance of today’s International Trans Day of Remembrance, Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide released the annual results from its Trans Murder Monitoring research project, “to join the voices raising awareness of this day regarding hate crimes against trans and gender-diverse people, and to honour the lives of those who might otherwise be forgotten.”
The TMM project is devoted to the systematic collection, monitoring and analysis of reported killings of gender-diverse/trans people worldwide. It was established by TvT Worldwide in 2009, using data from 2008 onward.
This year’s update, which was published on the organization’s website November 11, reported 331 cases of reported killings of trans and gender-diverse people between October 1 2018 – September 30 2019.
The complete update is reproduced below:
“On the occasion of the International Trans Day of Remembrance (TDoR), which is held on 20th of November 2019, the Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide (TvT) team is publishing the Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) research project update to join the voices raising awareness of this day regarding hate crimes against trans and gender-diverse people, and to honour the lives of those who might otherwise be forgotten.
The TDoR 2019 update has revealed a total of 331 cases of reported killings of trans and gender-diverse people between 1 October 2018 and 30 September 2019. The majority of the murders occurred in Brazil (130), Mexico (63), and the United States (30), adding up to a total of 3314 reported cases in 74 countries worldwide between 1st of January 2008 and 30th of September 2019.
Stigma and discrimination against trans and gender-diverse people is real and profound around the world, and are part of a structural and ongoing circle of oppression that keeps us deprived of our basic rights. Trans and gender-diverse people are victims of horrifying hate violence, including extortion, physical and sexual assaults, and murder. In most countries, data on murdered trans and gender-diverse people are not systematically produced and it is impossible to estimate the actual number of cases.
Violence against trans and gender-diverse people frequently overlaps with other axes of oppression prevalent in society, such as racism, sexism, xenophobia, and anti-sex worker sentiment and discrimination. TMM data shows that the victims whose occupations are known are mostly sex workers (61%). In the United States, the majority of the trans people reported murdered are trans women of colour and/or Native American trans women (85%), and in France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, which are the countries to which most trans and gender-diverse people from Africa and Central and South America migrate, 65% of the reported murder victims were migrant trans women.
More about the project can be found on our TMM report 2016.”
Since beginning the TMM project, TvT has registered the murders of 3317 trans and gender-diverse people worldwide. The killings are merely catalogued as reports of murdered trans and gender-diverse persons, without further classification, because (according to the TvT website), “The classification of the murder of a trans/gender-diverse person as a hate crime is often difficult, due to a lack of information in the reports as well as the lack of national monitoring systems.”
TvT Worldwide, an ongoing, comparative qualitative-quantitative research project initiated by Transgender Europe (TGEU), serves gender-diverse/trans people’s movements and activism by seeking to provide an overview of the human-rights situation of trans and gender-diverse persons in different parts of the world and to develop useful data and advocacy tools for international institutions, human-rights organizations, the trans movement, and the general public. Besides the TMM, their work is divided into two additional sub-projects: one, dedicated to legal and social mapping, surveys existing laws, law proposals, and actual legal and health-care practices as well as diverse aspects of the social situation relevant to gender-diverse/trans people; another, a Survey on the Social Experiences of Trans and Gender-Diverse People, addresses experiences of both Transphobia and Transrespect in communities around the world.
A transgender woman said she was “humiliated and traumatized” after she was forced to remove her makeup with hand sanitizer for her driver’s license photo.
Jaydee Dolinar told NBC News that after her purse was stolen, she made an appointment at the Fairpark Driver License Office in Utah to obtain a replacement license last Wednesday. She said she brought the required documents to the appointment and “was fully prepared to have to say my dead name,” since she is currently in the process of changing her gender marker and legal name on her paperwork. A “dead name” describes a trans person’s given name, if different than the name they choose to go by.
Jaydee Dolinar said she was forced to remove her makeup with hand sanitizer when taking a picture for her driver’s license.Courtesy
What Dolinar was not prepared for, however, was that after taking a picture with makeup, she would be instructed by another employee to remove it for a second image.
“I was told my wearing makeup would be confusing to the system,” Dolinar, 33, said. “The employee said because my appearance didn’t match my gender, it wouldn’t be able to be picked up by the facial recognition software.”
Dolinar, who is a full-time doctoral student in archeology at the University of Utah, said that because she wouldn’t have time to reschedule the appointment and because people were watching her, she felt “forced” into taking off her makeup.
“I asked what I should do, and they handed me the hand sanitizer and wipes,” Dolinar said. “The whole thing was terrible and traumatic. I had to take it off right then and there and I felt as a trans woman, I had forced myself to get clocked.”
After removing her makeup, Dolinar took a second picture. This time, her makeup was smeared. She said she tried to “smile while crying.”
Neither the Fairpark Driver License Office nor the Utah Department of Public Safety Driver License Division responded to NBC News’ requests for comment, but Sue Robbins, chair of the board of directors of Transgender Education Advocates of Utah, said this is not the first time an incident like this has occurred. According to Robbins, two other transgender women were required to remove their makeup for their drivers license pictures in 2015, prompting her organization to provide training and a video about “how to treat trans people.”
“Trans people should be able to live our lives the way they feel,” Robbins said. “The license should match the way a person presents on a regular basis and reflect their regular appearance, so to make them present differently is discriminatory.”
Robbins said Transgender Education Advocates of Utah plans to work with the office again to “discuss a path forward” and prevent a similar incident from happening again.
“It was just cruel. I didn’t expect that lack of humanity,” Dolinar said. “I’m a human being just like everyone else. Have some humanity.”
The National Center for Transgender Equality ranks Utah’s drivers license gender change policy with a “C,” stating that there are “burdensome process requirements,” such as needing to provide an updated passport or birth certificate. For reference, a state with an “A” grade does not require provider certification, while a state with an “F” grade requires either proof of surgery, a court order or an amended birth certificate.
Beyond Utah, there have been similar incidents noted in West Virginia, where two transgender women were reportedly told in 2014 that they must appear as male in their license photos, and in South Carolina, where a transgender teen was reportedly told to wipe off their makeup in 2015. In San Francisco, a DMV employee allegedly sent a trans women a letter, calling her an “abomination” in 2010.
A gay 19-year-old from a small town in Maine has become one of the youngest elected officials in the US, after winning a spot on the city council.
Keagan Roberts took home the second-largest share of the votes for a seat on the South Berwick Town Council, which serves a town with a population just shy of 7,500 people.
Roberts, whose twin brother is also gay, toldOut magazine that South Berwick is the kind of small town where “everyone knows everyone” and that it had been “such a great place to grow up” as a young gay person, after coming out in middle school.
“My school was super understanding,” he said. “I really didn’t face too much bullying, at least to my face, which was nice. I also have a twin brother who’s gay, so that kind of made high school a little bit easier. It’s amazing. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
The teenager said he was speechless when the results of the vote came in.
“I didn’t realise my message had touched so many people,” he said. “I was just really proud of what I was able to do and just what I was able to accomplish.”
After he is sworn in, Roberts will be the youngest-ever city council member in South Berwick’s history.
He will also be one of the youngest elected officials in the US.
Roberts’ mum is Tiffany Roberts-Lovell, the local representative in the MaineHouse of Representatives, where she has served since 2018.
He said that she taught him how to inspire people and how to run a grassroots campaign.
“My mom definitely had to coach me through, and some days were better than others,” he said. “I also work, so it’d be like, ‘Let’s go knock on 100 doors and then you can go work your shift.’ Some days I’d ask, ‘Mom, do we have to do this?’ And she said, ‘Yep, you have to do this. This is how we get votes.’”
He added that he hopes his win will inspire other young LGBT+ people to run for public office.
“I hope that it doesn’t matter how young you are, it doesn’t matter how you identify, you can do whatever you put your mind to,” he said.
Rugby player Israel Folau has drawn anger for linking Australia’s bushfire crisis to the nation’s same-sex marriage and abortion laws. Folau, who was sacked by Australia in May for making anti-gay remarks on social media, described the fires as a “little taste of God’s judgement”.
Six people have died since last month in blazes raging in eastern Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison condemned Folau’s remarks as “appallingly insensitive”.
“He is a free citizen, he can say whatever he likes but that doesn’t mean he can’t have regard to the grievance [and] offence this would have caused to the people whose homes have burnt down,” Mr Morrison told reporters on Monday.
During the 10-minute recording, the 30-year-old says the timing of the bushfire crisis is no coincidence but only a taste of God’s judgment should nothing change. “I’ve been looking around at the events that’s been happening in Australia, this past couple of weeks, with all the natural disasters, the bushfires and the droughts,” he says.
He then reads from the Book of Isaiah in the Bible: “The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.”
Folau links the passage to the twin disasters of bushfire and drought and, in turn, the legalising of same-sex marriage and abortion. “God is speaking to you guys. Australia you need to repent and take these laws and turn it back to what is right.”
As Chick-fil-A expands globally and into more liberal parts of the U.S., the chicken chain plans to change which charities it donates to after years of bad press and protests from the LGBT community.
Beginning next year, Chick-fil-A will move away from its current philanthropic structure, Bisnow has learned. After donating to more than 300 charitable organizations this year, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain will instead focus on three initiatives with one accompanying charity each: education, homelessness and hunger.
“There’s no question we know that, as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are,” Chick-fil-A President and Chief Operating Officer Tim Tassopoulos said in an interview with Bisnow. “There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message.”
