Health

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Transgender youth who receive hormone therapy are less suicidal: study

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There’s simply no denying that gender-affirming care is life-saving. Transgender youth who are able to access hormone replacement therapy are less likely to be suicidal, according to a report recently published in The Journal of Pediatrics. Researchers surveyed 432 patients ages 12 to 20 over 679 days, finding that “suicidality significantly declined from pretreatment to post-treatment” across all sexes, ages, and treatment durations. “HT was associated with clinically meaningful reductions in suicidality over time, extending prior findings with a larger sample and longer follow-up,” the report concludes. “These study findings provide clinical evidence supporting the mental health benefits of timely access to HT in this population.” Hormone […]

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Gay doctor who resigned from CDC over “radical non-transparency” will lead historic health org

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Dr. Demetre Daskalakis – who was among several employees who publicly resigned from a leadership position at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August – is returning to the local health sector. He has been appointed Chief Medical Officer for the historic NYC health organization, Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. “My career has taken me from local to federal,” the out physician told health and science publication STAT10 after his appointment. “This is when it’s time to go back to local.” “Demetre has a wealth of experience that will help him guide Callen-Lorde through new clinical initiatives and challenges while remaining steadfast to our mission to care for our communities regardless of ability to pay,” Callen-Lorde […]

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What is ‘hopecore’ and how can it make life better for LGBTQ+ people?

The social media landscape has become a toxic wasteland full of conspiracy theories, alt-right pipelines, ragebait, and meaningless consumerism.  The real world is already a dark and overwhelming place, and now we also spend way too much time doomscrolling on our phones, where we’re fed all of this toxicity. This is where the “hopecore” trend comes in. A shining beacon of optimism in a sea of toxic sludge, hopecore is using social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram to inspire a positive outlook on life. Since we could all use a little of that in our lives, we talked to Will Dempsey, a […]

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The sex ed you get depends on your ZIP code — and your state’s politics

Faith Fluker’s cousin was a 14-year-old cheerleader and magnet school student when she became pregnant last year. She didn’t have to be such a young mom; she just lacked the means to avoid teen parenthood, Fluker said. “She fell pregnant because she didn’t have access to reproductive health resources, and she didn’t have transportation to end the pregnancy, which is what she wanted to do,” said Fluker, an Auburn University senior who champions reproductive rights as part of her work with Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. “The lack of sex education in Alabama has led to […]

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U.S. bishops officially ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals

U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to make official a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals. The step formalizes a yearslong process for the U.S. church to address transgender health care. From a Baltimore hotel ballroom, the bishops overwhelmingly approved revisions to their ethical and religious directives that guide the nation’s thousands of Catholic health care institutions and providers. More than one in seven patients in the U.S. are treated each day at Catholic hospitals, according to the Catholic Health Association. Catholic hospitals are the only medical center in some communities. Major medical groups and health organizations […]

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What public health experts want you to know about the severe mpox strain appearing in the U.S.

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A more severe strain of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, has quietly appeared in California, and for the first time, the infections weren’t brought here by travelers. For the nation’s LGBTQ+ communities, the news is unsettling not only because of what it says about the virus, but also because of what it reveals about a public health system in crisis. The strain began to spread in the spring of 2024 in people who had traveled outside the United States. In an interview with The Advocate, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and the Bidenadministration’s White House deputy coordinator for […]

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Richard Isay went through conversion therapy. He helped turn psychoanalysis against it.

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Dr. Richard Isay is a modern hero who opened up the world of psychoanalysis to the LGBTQ+ community. He suffered through what we would call conversion therapy today, but after realizing it didn’t help, Isay fought for psychoanalysis to better serve the queer community.  Not only did he open the profession to gay people, but he also convinced psychoanalysts to stop treating queerness as a problem rather than an innate part of being human. And above all, he convinced the most homophobic psychological professional society to not just change its ways but become the first mental health organization to support […]

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‘[He] Helped Me … Hate Myself’: Conversion Therapy Survivors Speak Out

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You don’t feel secure in your masculinity,” Sam Nieves remembers his licensed therapist telling him at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. “Go grab a Playboy and find a way to enjoy it,” the Mormon therapist told him. “He told me I can’t be straight if I don’t go fishing with my dad,” says Nieves, who was 20 at the time. “He told me I needed to play more sports, listen to country music, stuff like that. He told me something was wrong with me.” After these sessions, which lasted about a year and a half, Nieves started experiencing crippling […]

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Walking the tightrope: Being a queer therapist in a system built to erase us

Being a queer therapist often feels like walking a tightrope, balancing high above a circus built by a system that was never meant for people like me to perform. The rope is taut, the stakes are high, and below is a crowd that has, at times, cheered for me to fall. On other days, I am the ringmaster of my quiet revolution, shaping the show, choosing the music, and refusing to let the system dictate the script. In truth, I am always a bit of both; I move between survival and defiance, between navigating oppressive structures and reimagining them entirely. The mental health system, […]

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Six Former US Surgeons General: RFK Is A “Profound, Immediate, Unprecedented Danger To US Public Health”

From a Washington Post oped published today: As former U.S. surgeons general appointed by every Republican and Democratic president since George H.W. Bush, we have collectively spent decades in service as the Nation’s Doctor. We took two sacred oaths in our lifetimes: first, as physicians who swore to care for our patients and, second, as public servants who committed to protecting the health of all Americans. Today, in keeping with those oaths, we are compelled to speak with one voice to say that the actions of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are endangering the health of the nation. Never […]

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