GLMA LGBT Health Digest

July 11, 2014
Table of Contents

Early Bird Registration Ends Tuesday, July 15th

Supreme Court Decision Worries LGBT Community
NCLR Launches #BornPerfect: The Campaign to End Conversion Therapy

Washington State Ends Discriminatory Transgender Health Insurance Policies

New Bisexual Research Collaborative on Health Formed
California’s Ban on Conversion Therapy Stands After Supreme Court Declined Case

Article: Improving Nursing Care for Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Women

Resource: Start Talking. Stop HIV

Event: LGBT Health Forum on Global LGBT Health & Rights

Webinar: The Foundations of Culturally Appropriate Integrated Services for LGBT Individuals
Webinars: Post-DOMA Federal Changes

Early Bird Registration Ends Tuesday, July 15th GLMA’s 32nd Annual Conference
September 10-13, 2014
Baltimore, MD

Join over 400 of your colleagues in LGBT health this September in Baltimore, MD, for GLMA’s 32nd Annual Conference! GLMA’s Annual Conference is the premier LGBT health conference and the world’s largest scientific gathering devoted to LGBT health issues and concerns. GLMA’s Annual Conference educates practitioners and students—from across the health professions—about the unique health needs of LGBT individuals and families.

Early bird registration ends Tuesday, July 15th! Click here to learn more and register for the conference.

Reminder: GLMA members receive a discount on registration! Become a member today!

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Supreme Court Decision Worries LGBT Community
This June 30, 2014, Advocate piece explores the potential impact of the US Supreme Court decision in Sebelius v Hobby Lobby on the LGBT community. The court ruled 5-4 that closely held corporations can deny insurance coverage of contraceptives to their employees on the basis of religious beliefs. As the article notes, although the justices stated this ruling was specific to the contraceptive coverage component in the Affordable Care Act, LGBT advocates are concerned about the potential implications this decision could have on LGBT-related healthcare, such as HIV and transgender-related care.

GLMA joined Lambda Legal and Pride at Work in submitting a friend-of-the-court brief in the case earlier this year and released a statement in response to the ruling last week.
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NCLR Launches #BornPerfect: The Campaign to End Conversion Therapy
As reported in this June 23, 2014, Time article, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) launched a new campaign called #BornPerfect aimed at passing laws across the US to protect LGBT youth, fighting in courtrooms to ensure their safety and raising awareness about the serious harms caused by conversation therapy.

GLMA is a supporter of the NCLR campaign. Click here to read more about #BornPerfect and how to get involved.

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Washington State Ends Discriminatory Transgender Health Insurance Policies
As reported in the Advocate on June 26, 2014, the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner issued a clarification that all health insurance policies (public and private) must cover transition-related care, and cannot discriminate against transgender residents of Washington. Danielle Askini, a member of the Coalition for Inclusive Healthcare and advocacy director of the Gender Justice League, said, "Removing these outdated exclusions brings Washington up to date with the latest information from medical experts and will provide transgender Washingtonians with access to lifesaving and medically necessary healthcare.”

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New Bisexual Research Collaborative on Health Formed According to the Rainbow Times on July 2, 2014, this June, leaders in bisexual health research and community activists gathered to discuss the state of the research on bisexual health. The meeting was hosted by the Fenway Institute and was co-chaired by Judith Bradford, PhD, who was also a committee member for the 2011 Institute of Medicine report on LGBT health. The Bisexual Research Collaborative on Health (BiRCH) was formed at the meeting and will foster high-level discussions of bisexual health research, host a national conference and seek to advance public awareness of bisexual health issues.

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California’s Ban on Conversion Therapy Stands After Supreme Court Declined Case According to this June 30, 2014, New York Times article, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a California law that bans conversion therapy aimed at changing the sexual orientation of LGB minors. By not taking up the case, the federal appeals court ruling that the state’s ban does not violate free speech rights stands. In a letter to the editor in response to this article, the Executive Director of Empire State Pride Agenda notes there was a bipartisan-supported bill in the New York Assembly and the Senate that would have enacted similar legislation to that of California’s, as well as New Jersey’s. However, the Senate leadership refused to allow a vote on the bill.

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Article: Improving Nursing Care for Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Women Healthcare needs of lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LBT) women are inadequately addressed in nursing education and practice, which may contribute to heterosexism and homophobia on the part of healthcare providers. Nurses have an obligation to use available tools and resources to assess and positively transform healthcare environments to ensure high-quality care for LBT women. The context within which care for LBT women is learned, practiced and experienced requires radical improvement. This article was published in the recent issue of the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing and is available here.

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Resource: Start Talking. Stop HIV Start Talking. Stop HIV., a new phase of CDC’s Act Against AIDS initiative, seeks to reduce new HIV infections among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men by encouraging open discussion about a range of HIV prevention strategies and related sexual health issues between sex partners. Effective partner communication about HIV can reduce HIV transmission by supporting HIV testing, HIV status disclosure, condom use and the use of medicines to prevent and treat HIV. Created by and for gay and bisexual men, this new national HIV prevention campaign has a number of resources available online here.

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Event: LGBT Health Forum on Global LGBT Health & Rights July 15, 2014
7:00pm
Washington, DC

The 2nd annual LGBT Health Forum on Global LGBT Health & Rights will be held at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, Tuesday July 15th at 7:00 pm. The event is open to the public and will be webcast live worldwide. The Forum showcases current health issues for the LGBT community, this year examining the struggles of LGBT populations worldwide including ongoing persecution and violence against LGBT people and their care providers, HIV/AIDS and access to health services. Speakers include: Dr. Nils Daulaire, former assistant secretary for Global Affairs at HHS, Julie Dorf with the Council for Global Equality, Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Jack Andraka, a high school student who at age 15 developed a simple screening test for detecting several types of cancer. For more information, click here.

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Webinar: The Foundations of Culturally Appropriate Integrated Services for LGBT Individuals July 16, 2014
2:00-3:30pm EST

Integrated primary care and behavioral health providers can create culturally appropriate, highly accessible integrated care to members of the LGBT community with behavioral health conditions. Join CIHS and the CDC National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco & Cancer Control to discuss ways to evaluate current organizational barriers to accessing care, strategies for reducing these barriers and actionable steps for implementing culturally appropriate services. Review how to internally evaluate your agency’s services, and leave with an understanding of best practices and resources to increase engagement efforts with the LGBT community. Presenters: Andrea Washington, LCSW-S, SUD and Integrated Care Coordinator, Montrose Center; Dr. Scout, Director, Network for LGBT Health Equity at CenterLink; and National LGBT Health Education Center, The Fenway Institute. Click here to register.

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Resource: Webinars: Post-DOMA Federal Changes A year after the Supreme Court decision in United States v Windsor, federal agencies have been issuing rules that affect same sex couples regarding programs like Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Medicare and Medicaid. In this two-part webinar series, you will learn what’s happened since the decision and what’s still needed to ensure the rights of LGBT same sex couples are fully recognized by the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Social Security and SSI Post-DOMA: Changes for Same Gender Couples?
July 22, 2014
2:00pm EST
Presenter: Gerald McIntyre, NSCLC Directing Attorney

Medicare & Medicaid Post-DOMA: Changes for Same Gender Couples?July 23, 2014
2:00pm EST
Presenters: Georgia Burke, NSCLC Directing Attorney

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GLMA’s LGBT Health Digest is an electronic newsletter with information and resources for health professionals concerned about the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) populations.

The Digest highlights issues, events, publications and other newsworthy items pertinent to LGBT health. Please feel free to circulate the Digest to your colleagues.

To sign up, send your request to digest@glma.org. Also, to submit an item to be considered for publication in the Digest, please send your request to Emily Kane-Lee at ekanelee@glma.org

Hector Vargas on Supreme Court Rulings

Note from Hecor Vargas, Executive Director GLMA , reposted at http://www.keystothecloset.blogspot.com,

In two separate rulings today, the US Supreme Court opened the doors for legally married same-sex couples to be treated equally under federal law and re-opened the doors for loving and committed same-sex couples in California to marry.

GLMA joins with the entire LGBT community in celebration of equality and renews our commitment to ensure that every same-sex couple in this country, regardless of where they live, will one day enjoy the freedom to marry.

I was lucky enough to be in the courtroom today as these decisions were released, and I couldn’t help but feel strong pulls of joy and pride as Justice Anthony Kennedy read from his opinion overturning DOMA (the so-called Defense of Marriage Act), speaking about the dignity of same-sex couples and their children and the very real harms DOMA inflicted on them. Justice Kennedy wrote that DOMA “undermines both the public and private significance of state-sanctioned same-sex marriages; for it tells these couples, and all the world, that otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition.”

In his opinion, Justice Kennedy alluded to the social stability that marriage affords and also noted how—in very tangible terms—the law prevented married couples from receiving federal healthcare benefits and raised the cost of healthcare for families by taxing health benefits employers provided to same-sex spouses of employees.

In addition to overturning DOMA, the Supreme Court let stand a federal district court ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional allowing marriage of same-sex couples to resume in the state of California.

I’m proud of the hard work of the many LGBT people and organizations across the country who made this possible —especially the ACLU and the American Foundation for Equal Rights, who brought the cases decided today. I’m also proud of the role that each of you, as GLMA members, played in this historic victory.

Through GLMA’s friend-of-the-court briefs, submitted to the Supreme Court in March, we provided your expertise as health professionals to the nation’s highest court and joined a chorus of organizations and individuals in support of marriage equality.

Through these briefs, GLMA stood up for LGBT equality and the freedom to marry as critical issues that affect the health and well-being of LGBT people and their families.

While we celebrate this victory today, you and I both know there is still much work to be done. The repeal of DOMA and marriage equality will play a significant role in helping to strengthen our community, but it is not a silver bullet.

With renewed spirit from this victory, GLMA will continue our quest for LGBT health equality. Our work encompasses the philosophy that not only is LGBT health a civil rights issue, but also that issues of LGBT equality, such as marriage, have a significant impact on LGBT health.

Your support has helped us reach this pivotal moment in the movement for LGBT equality, and so I thank you and look forward to continuing our work together to achieve our goal of healthcare equality for LGBT people.

Opponents of gay marriage getting slimy and desperate

By Adam Serwer reposted at http://keystothecloset.blogspot.com

There’s a very big story unfolding in California right now whose ultimate outcome could determine whether or not gays and lesbians will have the right to get married in the United States.

The story concerns Proposition 8, the statewide referendum banning same-sex marriage. Having failed to prove their case in court, Prop 8 supporters are now attacking the sexual orientation of the judge who overturned the referendum.

Supporters of Prop 8 were dealt a blow last year when Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that there is no empirical basis for the notion that same-sex marriages harm heterosexual marriages and therefore no compelling interest in preventing gays and lesbians from getting married.

Yesterday, same-sex marriage opponents filed a motion to have Walker’s ruling vacated, on the grounds that his being gay and in a long-term relationship amounts to a conflict of interest that should have forced him to recuse himself:

Given that Chief Judge Walker was in a committed, long-term, same-sex relationship throughout this case (and for many years before the case commenced), it is clear that his “impartiality might reasonably [have been] questioned” from the outset. He therefore had, at a minimum, a waivable conflict and was obligated either to recuse himself or to provide “full disclosure on the record of the basis for disqualification,” so that the parties could consider and decide, before the case proceeded further, whether to request his recusal. His failure to do either was a clear violation of Section 455(a), whose “goal ... is to avoid even the appearance of partiality.”

This argument is too clever by half, and relies on the same faulty argument put forth originally in defense of Prop 8: The qualitative judgment that same-sex relationships are inferior. Opponents of same-sex marriage are arguing, in effect, that because Walker was in a long term same-sex relationship, he stood to benefit personally from Prop 8 being overturned. They argue, naturally, that the issue is not Walker’s sexuality per se, but his relationship status. But by that logic the only way a gay or lesbian judge could rule impartially on matters involving gay rights is if they’re celibate.

The problem is that this same logic could be applied to a straight, married judge hearing the case. After all, supporters of the same-sex marriage ban are arguing that marriage equality is so damaging to the institution of marriage that the government has a vital interest in making sure gays and lesbians can’t get married. That means that a straight, married judge couldn’t be expected to be impartial, either — after all, according to supporters of Prop 8, “the further deinstitutionalization of marriage caused by the legalization of same-sex marriage,” would directly impact married heterosexuals. Therefore, a heterosexual, married judge could be seen as having just as much “skin in the game” as Judge Walker.

Proposition 8 supporters would never make that argument, of course, because the implication of their argument is that gays and lesbians are incapable of the impartiality expected of judges by their very nature. The notion that Walker’s ruling should be vacated is build on the flimsy assumption that gays and lesbians are different from heterosexuals in a manner that justifies denying them their fundamental rights. It’s also built on an unstated but core conservative view of the courts — that judicial “impartiality” is best defined as viewing the law through the cultural prism of a heterosexual, conservative white Christian judge. That’s partly why the impartiality Justice Sonya Sotomayor was viewed as suspect from the outset.

The real problem faced by Prop 8 supporters real problem is that their case is profoundly weak, and relies almost entirely on archaic and rapidly eroding social prejudices against homosexuality. During the trial, they only called one witness, and that witness was unable to provide a factual basis for the assertions being made by Prop 8 supporters — that extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians would harm anyone. Conversely, Prop 8 opponents were able to demonstrate, in vivid detail, precisely how they were personally hurt by California’s decision to deny gays and lesbians their fundamental rights.

Now Prop 8 supporters are reduced to arguing, essentially, that Walker’s ruling should be vacated because he is gay. Aside from the faulty legal reasoning, supporters of the law aren’t doing themselves any favors when it comes to convincing anyone that their position on marriage amounts to anything other than prejudice.

UPDATE: My mistake — Prop 8 supporters called two witnesses during the trial, not one. But neither was able to offer empirical evidence for the assertions made about the negative impact of legalizing same-sex marriage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/opponents-of-gay-marriage-getting-slimy-and-desperate/2011/03/04/AFLxZ5pE_blog.html?hpid=z4

Conservatives Remain Unsupportive of Gay Rights at Their Peril

By Noel Gordon, Jeff Krehely | March 23, 2011

A series of polls released over the past few weeks confirm what many Americans are witnessing in their homes, workplaces, and houses of worship—support for gay and transgender equality is on the rise. This polling data comes on the heels of the Department of Justice announcing it has determined the Defense of Marriage Act—which prohibits the federal government from recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples—is unconstitutional and will therefore no longer defend it in the several current federal court cases challenging the law.

Most Americans support the Justice Department’s decision as well as President Obama’s leadership against DOMA in general. Unfortunately, many Republican leaders, including the top likely candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination for president, still think it is 1996, when President Clinton signed DOMA into law after huge bipartisan votes in Congress.

Much has changed since then. According to a poll released by the Human Rights Campaign and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, 51 percent of voters now oppose the Defense of Marriage Act. The gap is even wider among independent voters, who oppose the law by a margin of 54 percent to 32 percent. Support for equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans does not just end there. After reading statements for and against defending the law in federal and district court, 54 percent of voters stood in firm opposition to the recent announcement from House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) that the House of Representatives would take the place of the Justice Department and represent the government’s interest in the various DOMA cases.

Some conservatives, however, continue to be in denial about where the public is on marriage rights in general and DOMA in particular. Reacting to the Justice Department’s decision to stop defending DOMA, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a possible Republican presidential candidate, argued that it was an “an affront to the will of the people.” Similarly, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told supporters in a fundraising email that the president “continues to push his far-left, socialist agenda on the American people.”

A new interactive from the Center for American Progress Action Fund highlights these and many other examples of inflammatory, anti-LGBT language among possible Republican presidential candidates. Just last year, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly “there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us.” And on the issue of marriage equality, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said that giving gay and transgender people equal rights was akin to “accommodate[ing] those who want to use drugs” or “believe in incest.”

This is obviously not the first time politicians have used anti-LGBT rhetoric to garner financial and political support from religious and social conservative voters. But it remains to be seen if this tactic will work this year, given how far the country has come in terms of support of equality for gay and transgender Americans.
These claims, and the others available in the interactive, do nothing more than to show just how out of touch these politicians are with the actual will of the American people. In fact, a Washington Post and ABC News poll recently concluded that 53 percent of Americans support legalizing marriage for gay couples, a first in nearly a decade of polling. This poll also found that support has grown most notably “among Catholics, political moderates, people in their 30s and 40s and men.”

This change is also happening rapidly among younger conservatives, who are finding it increasingly hard to support candidates who actively speak out against LGBT equality. Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign manager, came out in full support of marriage equality after the election. He also said the Republican Party would be better off affirmatively making gay rights part of its national platform. Ken Mehlman, George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential reelection campaign manager and former head of the Republican National Committee, offered a similar suggestion when he came out as a gay man after ending a lifelong career in conservative politics.

Thankfully, in addition to Republican leaders like Schmidt and Mehlman, some elected officials are also now supporting marriage equality and other rights for gay and transgender people. For example, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who voted for DOMA in 1996, has now signed on to sponsor Senate legislation that would repeal the law.

Like many people, Murray’s and others’ attitudes on marriage equality (and additional gay and transgender equality issues) have changed over the past 15 years, as gay and human rights advocates worked hard to educate and engage the general public. The struggle over gay and transgender equality is by no means over. But all indications are that those who oppose equality are fighting a losing battle.

Noel Gordon is an intern with LGBT Progress and Jeff Krehely is Director of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at American Progress. Posted at http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2011/03/turning_the_tables.html
Reposted at keystothecloset.blogspot.com

Potential Republican Nominees for President and Their Stances on LGBT Equality

Interactive: Conservatives on LGBT Issues
By Noel Gordon, Jeff Krehely
This interactive looks at the current field of potential Republican nominees for president and evaluates their stances on various LGBT-related issues in light of comments made in interviews, news stories, and articles. There are many potential challengers to President Barack Obama in 2012 but this interactive surveys the 13 politicians who have emerged as major contenders for the Republican nomination. Click on a candidate to view their comments.
Find out where each potential Republican nominee stands on the following issues: relationship recognition, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Employment Non-Discrimination Act, constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage, adoption, Defense of Marriage Act, and spousal benefits.

Last year, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly “there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us.”