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The 2001 Institute of Medicine report entitled Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care pointed out extensive healthcare disparities in the United States even when controlling for disease severity, socioeconomic status, education, and access. The literature identifies several groups of Americans who receive disparate healthcare: ethnic minorities, women, children, the elderly, the handicapped, the poor, prisoners, lesbians, gays, and the transgender population. Disparate healthcare represents an enormous current challenge with substantial moral, ethical, political, public health, public policy, and economic implications, all of which are likely to worsen over the next several decades without immediate and comprehensive action. A review of recent literature reveals over 100 general and specific suggestions and solutions to eliminate healthcare disparities. While healthcare disparities have roots in multiple sources, racial stereotypes and biases remain a major contributing factor and are prototypical of biases based on age, physical handicap, socioeconomic status, religion, sexual orientation or other differences. Given that such disparities have a strong basis in racial biases, and that the principles of racism are similar to those of other "isms", we summarize the current state of healthcare disparities, the goals of their eradication, and the various potential solutions from a conceptual model of racism affecting patients (internalized racism), caregivers (personally mediated racism), and society (institutionalized racism).

Queer people present interesting challenges to sexual health care because they often defy dominant understandings of gender, sex, and sexuality. When it comes to sexual health assessments, most practitioners operate according to a set of heteronormative assumptions or misinformation that too often has life and death consequences for people, particularly queer people. To provide much needed guidance and clinical recommendations on how best to prevent and manage sexually transmitted infections (STIs) prevalent in diverse populations, the Public Health Agency of Canada revised the Canadian Guidelines on Sexually Transmitted Infections in 2006. I examine this policy and speculate about its effect on the health of queer people. I argue that its additive approach does not meet the needs of queer people because it is entrenched in both a heteronormative and homonormative agenda in health care policy. Focusing on the latter, I assert that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organizations take on this homonormative agenda, which promotes and defines an acceptable gay and lesbian population and negates questioning the confines of gender, sex, and sexual identity. This omission of other queers (trans, intersex, and those between and outside of existing boundaries of sex, gender, and sexuality) is a specific neoliberal political manoeuvre that results in the dominance of a homonormative agenda in sexual health care to the detriment of queer people's health.

Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues, while widely recognized and celebrated as a groundbreaking portrayal of a transgendered protagonist at the time of its publication, has rarely been seriously considered as a novel. Regularly assumed to be a thinly disguised autobiography and generally considered too "sentimental" to rank as a serious literary accomplishment, Feinberg's text is considered politically and pedagogically effective, but not literarily or culturally significant. Such assessments, however, take for granted both the genre of "sentimental" fiction and its status as "unliterary," and, in so doing, obscure the way that Feinberg both draws upon and revises traditions of women's literature-particularly the captivity narrative-to produce and alter the genre's particular sentimental effects. Understanding the way that Feinberg has constructed this deeply affective narrative is significant not only for our understanding of hir transgender protagonist, but for our approach to "multicultural" literatures more broadly. I would like to argue that Feinberg's revision of the captivity narrative is a pioneering and significant example of narrative that manages to represent a "minority" body without allowing that body to become rhetorical, symbolic, or displaced. In presenting readers with the opportunity for ethical contact, in Levinas's sense of the word, Feinberg eschews the focus on ethical content that has characterized, and limited, early approaches to multicultural curriculums and pedagogies, including the study of "minority" sexualities.

This article explores the social and political implications of transgenderism for women's groups and organisations. One aim of transgender support groups such as, The Gender Centre Inc. and others, is the right of male to female transgenders (MTFs) to enter what were previously understood to be women-only spaces such as women's health centres, domestic violence shelters, and rape crisis centres. MTFs whether pre or post-operative, claim the right to enter these spaces as both clients and workers. In-depth interviews were conducted with managers of gendered spaces and a small number of workers. Discussions centred around their values and policies about gendered spaces and the advantages and disadvantages of having women-only spaces, as well as their experience of trans-inclusion when it had occurred and the impact on staff and clients of inclusion. The majority of interviewees supported women-only space and employed only female staff in their centres. Their policy and practices around the employment of MTFs, or accepting MTFs as clients, depended on whether or not they considered MTFs to be women, a point upon which there was significant disagreement. Those who believed MTFs to be women supported their inclusion. Those who did not consider MTFs to be women felt that their presence would compromise women's feelings of safety and threaten not only the very existence of women-only spaces, but also they services they provide. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Our task in this Symposium is to place Loving v. Virginia in a contemporary context: to interpret, if not reinterpret, its meaning in light of the settings in which race, sexuality, and intimacy are being negotiated and renegotiated today. So we might ask, in what way are Mildred and Richard Loving role models for us today? How, if at all, does the legal movement for marriage equality for interracial couples help us think through our arguments and strategies as we struggle today for marriage equality for same-sex couples? One way to frame these questions is to ask whether there is a shared etiology in the racial and sexual orientation contexts. That is to say, can or should the contemporary struggle mirror the arc of justice in the racial equality context fifty years ago? Does getting the justice project right today mean that same-sex couples are entitled to our own Loving moment, and that we are entitled to it soon? Surely that is the overwhelming view in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender legal community. But I will say here, as I have said elsewhere, that there are good reasons to resist the analogy to Loving and to resist the pull of a Loving-like notion of justice. As we push to create a less heteronormative society, we ought to rely less on lawyers and more on politics, and in so doing, we may find different analogies that inspire our political and legal strategies in the present.

In 2003, psychology professor and sex researcher J. Michael Bailey published a book entitled The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. The book's portrayal of male-to-female (MTF) transsexualism, based on a theory developed by sexologist Ray Blanchard, outraged some transgender activists. They believed the book to be typical of much of the biomedical literature on transsexuality—oppressive in both tone and claims, insulting to their senses of self, and damaging to their public identities. Some saw the book as especially dangerous because it claimed to be based on rigorous science, was published by an imprint of the National Academy of Sciences, and argued that MTF sex changes are motivated primarily by erotic interests and not by the problem of having the gender identity common to one sex in the body of the other. Dissatisfied with the option of merely criticizing the book, a small number of transwomen (particularly Lynn Conway, Andrea James, and Deirdre McCloskey) worked to try to ruin Bailey. Using published and unpublished sources as well as original interviews, this essay traces the history of the backlash against Bailey and his book. It also provides a thorough exegesis of the book's treatment of transsexuality and includes a comprehensive investigation of the merit of the charges made against Bailey that he had behaved unethically, immorally, and illegally in the production of his book. The essay closes with an epilogue that explores what has happened since 2003 to the central ideas and major players in the controversy.

Abstract The aim of the research was to explore the possibilities and limitations to foster teacher empowerment and promote Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (GLBTQ) educational equity in schools. The context of the research was the GLBTQ Educational Equity (GLEE) Project funded by European Union (EU) during 1999–2002. Using an action research approach a Leadership Training Course (LTC) for teachers was developed with an international training team. The aim of the course was to empower teachers to develop action plans for their schools to promote GLBTQ equity. After the course teachers were supported in their actions by an internet-based support network called GLEENET. There was a LTC in 2000 and 2002 in Oulu, Finland. The starting point for developing an empowering pedagogy for the LTC was critical pedagogical theories. The results from the LTC along with the post-course actions were used to further develop the pedagogical theory, followed by another course and further theoretical development. The focus of the dissertation is on: (1) evaluating the empowerment of course participants, (2) developing principles of web-assisted transformative pedagogy, and (3) evaluating the methodological approach as a counter-heteronormative praxis. In addition, new tools for conceptualising empowerment are developed. There was evidence that the participants were empowered by the LTC, and that GLEENET after the course further empowered them. Following the LTC all the teachers engaged in some form of activism such as workshops for colleagues, curriculum development and student activities. Also, some of the participants carried out transnational projects funded by the EU. The first was the Inequality in School Project 2001–2002 and the second was the Towards an Inclusive School Project 2003–2006. Despite the empowerment of teachers and their actions to transform their schools, the research concluded that there were limitations. In particular, resistance and barriers were faced including opposition from headteachers and colleagues, as well as having a lack of time. There is a need for wider EU anti-discrimination legislation, action on the part of educational authorities, and pre and in-service teacher training to break down cultural and structural barriers to promoting GLBTQ educational equity. ; Tiivistelmä Tämän tutkimuksen päämäärä oli selvittää mitä mahdollisuuksia ja rajoitteita liittyy homojen, lesbojen, biseksuaalien sekä transgender- ja queer-henkilöiden (GLBTQ) yhdenvertaisuuden edistämiseen koulumaailmassa opettajien voimaannuttamisen kautta. Tutkimuksen konteksti oli Euroopan unionin (EU) rahoittama GLBTQ Educational Equity (GLEE) -projekti vuosina 1999–2002. Toimintatutkimuksellista lähestymistapaa käyttämällä kansainvälinen kouluttajatiimi kehitti opettajille suunnatun johtajuuskurssin (LTC), jonka päämäärä oli voimauttaa opettajat kehittämään kouluilleen toimintasuunnitelmat GLBTQ-yhdenvertaisuuden edistämiseksi. Kurssin jälkeen opettajat saivat tukea toimilleen GLEENET-internetyhteisön kautta. Kaksi LTC-kurssia järjestettiin Oulussa vuosina 2000 ja 2002. Kriittisen pedagogiikan teoriat olivat lähtökohtana LTC-kurssin voimauttavalle pedagogiikalle. Ensimmäisen LTC-kurssin tuloksia sekä osallistujien kurssin jälkeisiä toimia käytettiin pedagogisen teorian jatkokehittämiseen, minkä jälkeen seurasi toinen LTC-kurssi sekä teorian edelleen kehittämistä. Tämä väitöskirja keskittyy: (1) arvioimaan kurssin osallistujien voimaantumista, (2) kehittämään web-avusteisen transformatiivisen pedagogian perusperiaatteita, sekä (3) arvioimaan metodologisen lähestymistavan soveltuvuutta heteronormatiivisuuden vastaiseksi praksikseksi. Lisäksi kehitetään uusia työkaluja voimaantumisen käsitteellistämiseen. Havainnot ja tutkimusaineisto tukevat sitä, että osaanottajat voimaantuivat LTC-kurssilla, ja että kurssin jälkeen GLEENET voimaannutti heitä lisää. Kurssin jälkeen kaikki osallistuneet opettajat aktivoituivat esim. pitämään työpajoja kollegoilleen, kehittämään koulunsa lukujärjestystä tai järjestämään opiskelija-aktiviteetteja. Lisäksi jotkut osallistujat perustivat EU:n rahoittamia kansainvälisiä projekteja, joista ensimmäinen oli Inequality in School vuosina 2001–2002, ja toinen Towards an Inclusive School vuosina 2003–2006. Vaikka opettajat voimaantuivat ja pyrkivät toimillaan muuttamaan koulujaan, tutkimustulokset kertovat myös rajoitteiden olemassaolosta. Erityisesti ongelmia aiheutti rehtorin tai kollegoiden vastustus sekä ajan puute. Tarvitaan EU:n syrjinnän vastaisten lakien laajentamista, koulutuksesta vastaavien viranomaisten toimia sekä opettajien koulutusta ja jatkokoulutusta, jotta kulttuuriset ja rakenteelliset esteet GLBTQ-yhdenvertaisuuden edistämisen tieltä saadaan raivatuksi.

Jha reviews the book Made in India: Decolonizations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/National Projects, by Suparna Bhaskaran (Palgrave: New York, 2004).

In ihrem Beitrag befassen sich Sandra Stoll und Berit Kitzing mit dem gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit Intersexualität aus einer kulturanthropologischen, Akteur_Innen zentrierten Perspektive. Sie haben sich einem gesellschaftlichen Bereich genähert, in dem medizinisches Wissen und juristische Normen in Lebensformen, Identitäten und Körper lenkend eingreifen, sich gegenseitig legitimieren und das 'Andere' pathologisieren bzw. ausschließen. Hierzu haben sie Interviews mit internationalen Künstler_Innen des Ausstellungs- und Archivprojekts 1-0-1 [one'o one] intersex – Das Zwei-Geschlechter-System als Menschenrechtsverletzung (NGBK Berlin-Kreuzberg 17.06. – 31.07.2005) geführt. Nach einer theoretischen Einführung in das Zwei-Geschlechter-System analysieren sie genauer die Kunstprojekte von Ins A Kromminga, Del LaGrace Volcano und Terre Thaemlitz. Im Fokus stehen deren Strategien der Sichtbarmachung von selbstverständlich erscheinenden Normen im Hinblick auf das Postulat der Ausstellung, "dass Eingriffe in die Menschenrechte von Intersexuellen kein individuelles, sondern ein gesamtgesellschaftliches Problem sind, das alle angeht."

Sex and the City è un serial televisivo creato e trasmesso inizialmente negli Stati Uniti, tra il 1998 e il 2004 (in Italia tra il 2000 e il 2004 in prima visione). La serie è basata sull'omonimo romanzo di Candance Bushnell (pubblicato in Italia da Mondadori, 2001), una delle opere che ha contribuito a rilanciare il genere letterario conosciuto come "chick lit". Sia il genere in cui si colloca il libro della Bushnell sia il serial televisivo che ne è derivato hanno riscosso un ampio successo di pubblico e di critica in tutto il mondo. Il serial si guadagnato 7 Emmy Award e 8 Golden Globe. Decisamente un fenomeno socio-culturale di rilievo. Perché? Ambientato in una Manhattan chiaramente upper class, Sex and the city tratta della vita sentimentale e sessuale di quattro amiche tra i 35 e i 45 anni, presentando come modello sociale una tipologia di donne apparentemente emancipate e postmoderne che vantano le medesime opportunità degli uomini: "Per la prima volta nella storia di Manhattan le donne hanno le stesse possibilità economiche e lo stesso potere degli uomini, insieme al lusso di poterli trattare come oggetti sessuali" (Samantha Jones, prima puntata della prima serie). Sex and the city si propone come un manifesto del riscatto femminile, senza tralasciare, attraverso i personaggi secondari, l'ormai immancabile sigla del politically correct, LGBT: lesbian, gay, bisex e transgender. In realtà, però, i fili che ne compongono la trama perpetuano i canoni tradizionali di costruzione dei ruoli maschile/femminile, a partire dal linguaggio adottato fino ad arrivare all'utilizzo ed alla percezione profondamente genderizzata degli spazi. Il concetto di emancipazione incarnato dalle protagoniste, infatti, adotta in pieno il discorso maschilista, naturalizzandolo e perpetrandolo nella gestione delle relazioni tra i generi, con tutte le implicazioni che ciò può avere sugli spazi pubblici e privati.È in tale ottica che questo lavoro si propone di analizzare la "genderizzazione" spaziale (effettiva e percepita) del ...

In recent years, environmental awareness has received a great deal of public attention. However, little emphasis has been put on the influence of environmental factors (weather, personal attitudes, policies, physical structures, transportation, etc.) on the quality of life of persons infected with HIV/AIDS. The goal of this study was to assess the effect of selected environmental factors on the quality of life of persons affected by HIV/AIDS. To achieve this goal, the Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors (CHIEF) subscales including Policies, Physical Structure, Work/School, Attitudes/Support, and Service/Assistance were evaluated in patients selected from a STD/HIV clinic in Jackson, MS. They were chosen based on previously diagnosed HIV/AIDS status and age (16–95). Written consents, demographics sheets and self-administered questionnaires were obtained. Data were analyzed using Excel and SPSS software. Interviews started in July 2007 and ended in August, 2007. One hundred and thirteen patients responded. Participants were 72.6% (82) male, 26.5% (30) female and 0.9% (1) transgender. The median age of participants was 38.8 (18–63). Over 50% (65) had some college or higher education, and 35.4% reported annual incomes less than $10,000. Multivariate analysis showed marginal significance between disease diagnosis and gender (p < 0.10), and statistical significance between disease diagnosis and income (p = 0.03). Also, age (p = 0.01) and education (p = 0.03) were significant predictors in one of the subscales. The CHIEF subscales that showed the greatest significance among AIDS respondents were Attitudes and Support, and Government Policies with mean sensitivity scores of 1.39 and 1.42, respectively. The element with the least effect on AIDS patients was the Work/School subscale, with a mean score of 0.74. In general AIDS patients were disproportionately affected in all but one of the five subscales observed. Conversely those with HIV were more affected in the Work/School subscale with a mean score of ...

Abstract Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) have been among the most affected populations by HIV since the AIDS pandemic was first identified in the 1980s. Evidence from a wide range of studies show that these men remain at the highest risk for HIV acquisition in both developed and developing countries, and that despite three decades of evidence of their vulnerability to HIV, they remain under-served and under-studied. Prevention strategies targeted to MSM are markedly under-funded in most countries, leading to limited access to health services including prevention, treatment, and care. We explore the global epidemic among MSM in 2008, the limited funding available globally to respond to these epidemics, and the human rights contexts and factors which drive HIV spread and limit HIV responses for these men. What do we mean by the term MSM? MSM is a construct from the 1990s that tries to capture behavior and not identity. It was crafted to avoid stigmatizing and culturally laden terms such as gay or bisexual, which do not capture the wide diversity of orientations, sexual practices, cultures, and contextual settings in which male same-sex behaviors occur, and where HIV transmission and acquisition risks are centered. MSM includes both gay and non-gay identified men, bisexual men, and MSM who identify themselves as heterosexuals. It also includes men engaging in "situational" sex between men, such as can occur in prisons, schools, militaries or other environments; and it includes male sex workers who may be of any orientation but are often at very high risk for HIV. MSM may include some biologically male transgender persons, though some do not identify as male. And MSM includes a wide array of traditional and local terms worldwide–with enormous cultural diversity in Asia, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. We use the term MSM here at its most inclusive.

This paper examines the emergence of non-normative sexual orientations in contemporary Indonesian films. Unlike the representation of sexuality in New Order Indonesian films, which centred on the female reproductive role and presented the nation as constructed of heterosexual families rather than individual citizens, a number of 200()s Indonesian films can be seen as negotiations of new understandings of sexual diversity and individual subjectivity. These films represent a challenge to monolithic and essentialist constructions of sexuality in Indonesia, and portray characters and situations in ways that seem to fulfil the five selection criteria which Griffin and Benshoff (2006) apply to the definition of 'queer' cinema. As such, they are indicative of a paradigm shift in Indonesian cinema, which needs to be studied in association with broader patterns of social and political change. The paper describes three categories in the representation of sexual minorities in contemporary Indonesian films. The first category is represented by films such as Arisanl and , Gie, which portray characters and situations deal with male homosexual subjectivity or homoeroticism. The second category concerns films of this type that portray female characters, such as Detik Terakhirand TentangDia. In the third category are films which depict waria (male to female transgender characters) and transsexuals, represented by Panggil Aku Puspa and Realita Cinta dan Rock n Roll. The paper examines these films in the light of Boellstorff's (2005) study of gay and lesbi communities and subjectivities in Indonesia, as a way of situating them in a larger cultural picture. It suggests that the makers of these films are attempting to change the perception of their audiences about non-normative sexualities, and investigates the strategic devices used by the film makers to subvert censorship codes and social taboos in a country where homosexual behaviour is accommodated, but homosexual identities remain outside the range of socially and culturally-sanctioned subjectivities.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://home.liebertpub.com/open-access/open-access-journals/131 ; In its recent position paper regarding men's health, the Australian Commonwealth's Department of Health and Ageing addresses the burden of disease and illness faced by Australian men. This document represents a significant advancement in both a national discussion regarding men's health and the use of a truly gendered perspective when engaging in that dialogue. Within the document, the health of several groups of particularly disadvantaged men is addressed. These groups include Aboriginal/Torres Straight Islander men, men of a low socio-economic status (SES) and rural men, among others. It is obvious that men in those groups experience compromised health as a result of their minority group status and the social, economic and political disadvantages that are engendered through minority identification. The health of these men is important and worthy of increased attention so as to rectify the inequities described in the report. Despite the report's exemplary identification of several groups of minority men, it is surprising that it does not expressly identify gay, bisexual and transgendered (GBT) men as a specific at-risk group. Indeed, GBT men face particularly poor health outcomes, often as a result of social homophobia that renders silent the voices of gay men and serves to impair these men's access to adequate health resources. Transgender men may suffer even worse outcomes, due to their especially hidden and stigmatised place in Westernised culture. Notwithstanding the exclusion of GBT men from the original draft of the Men's HealthPolicy, we are encouraged by the Australian Senate's enquiry into this document and the possibility for future revisions and additions to the text. Therefore, we present the following discussion of GBT men's health both to inform practitioners who may lack knowledge and understanding of this field, and to inform policy makers and other stakeholders as to the relevance of GBT health concerns to any future discussions of Australian men's health.

A qualitative and quantitative approach forms the base of this analysis of the results of "Vida Digna," a project aimed at abating stigma and discrimination in the HIV transmission field with actions taken by civil society organizations from 2005 to 2009 in the Mexican region of El Bajío. The results were analyzed in 2009 and 2010. The organizations involved were made up of key populations, defined as groups vulnerable to infection but also capable of resisting and controlling the transmission of HIV and the stigma and discrimination that are important barriers in the seeking of care and the achievement of effective HIV control. We describe and analyze the actions taken and the strengthening of the participating organizations. The visibility of new social actors such as transgender women and injecting drug users, as well as informative activities directed at journalists, the police and the military to prevent the criminalization and persecution of these groups, are highlighted. ; Una aproximación cuali-cuantitativa es la base para el análisis de los resultados del proyecto "Vida Digna", cuyo objetivo fue abatir el estigma y la discriminación en el campo de la transmisión del VIH a partir de las acciones realizadas por organizaciones de la sociedad civil durante el período 2005 al 2009, en la región mexicana llamada El Bajío. Los resultados se analizaron en los años 2009 y 2010. Las organizaciones participantes estuvieron compuestas por y para las denominadas poblaciones clave, definidas como grupos vulnerables a infectarse pero también capaces de resistir y controlar la transmisión del VIH, el estigma y la discriminación, que se constituyen en barreras importantes para la búsqueda de atención y en el control efectivo del VIH. Se describen y analizan las acciones y el fortalecimiento de las organizaciones participantes. Resaltan la visibilización de nuevos actores sociales, como las mujeres transgénero y los usuarios de drogas inyectables, y las acciones informativas dirigidas a periodistas, policías y militares para evitar la criminalización y persecución de estos grupos.