Tag: health

Quitting Smoking

Posted by helenboyd – January 18, 2009

As Mark Twain said: Quitting is easy; I’ve done it lots of times. But actually I haven’t. They say the average smoker has to try quitting seven times before they manage it permanently, and I’ve really tried exacty once. Maybe twice.

Still, I was smoking something like 70-100 cigarattes a week – 5+ packs – when I left Brooklyn in December, and now I’m down to 20 a week, maybe 2+ a day. But wow do I enjoy those two, even in minus 45 degree weather, and especially after a day teaching.

It really is a shame smoking is so bad for you, because it really statisfies something that nothing else does. I’m chewing the gum – which helps a lot – but there’s still so much missing. The lovely smell of burning tobacco, playing with fire, the oral thing, and even fiddling with this thing between your fingers. *sigh* But I’ve decided I am best off thinking of myself as a smoker who doesn’t smoke rather than as an ex-smoker.

Whatever it takes, as they say. For Betty it took a trip to the hospital and a case of atypical pneumonia.

Cynthia Nicole

Posted by helenboyd – January 17, 2009

Human Rights Watch is asking Honduras authorities to investigate the murder or transgender activist Cynthia Nicole, who was murdered on January 9th, 2009.

As a leader in Colectivo Violeta – an organization working to defend the rights and health of transgender people since 1995 – Nicole had a long record of outreach work on rights with transgender sex workers in Tegucigalpa. She provided information about HIV/AIDS and human rights, and represented her community at various national conferences and before the media.

“The transgender community is terrified,” said Indyra Mendoza, director of the Honduran lesbian and feminist organization Cattrachas. “But these attacks will not silence the community in Honduras, and we will continue to work to ensure that the rights of transgender people are recognized and protected.”

Apparently this violence has been going on for years, with little or no response from Honduran authorities.

Commissioner for Human Rights

Posted by helenboyd – January 8, 2009

The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe has released a statement about transgender people, discrimination, violence, and human rights that is stunningly thorough and well-articulated. Here’s an example:

To require surgery as a prerequisite to enjoy legal recognition of one’s gender identity ignores the fact that such operations are not always desired, medically possible, available, and affordable (without public or other funding). It is estimated that only 10% of transgender persons in Europe actually undergo gender reassignment surgery.

Even access to ordinary health care is a problem for transgender people. The lack of trained staff familiar with the specific health care needs of transgender persons – or simply  prejudice towards transgender people – render them vulnerable to unpredictable and sometimes hostile reactions.

He covers issues such as divorce, child custody, employment, identity documents, and jsut about every other aspect of life with the same clarity and sense of fairness. Do read the whole thing.

Holiday Angst

Posted by helenboyd – December 16, 2008

There is something about the Christmas season that makes you think about life in sad ways.

I had a friend visiting not too long ago who had just heard that a friend of hers had decided to have a baby despite the fact that she didn’t have a husband. She kept repeating how sorry she felt for her, not to have had a husband and father, and all I could think was that she did have her child, who was healthy, and she had a good job to be a single parent – she’s a teacher – and that life comes with a lot of goddamn compromises.

I think about my lovely set of friends from high school and so many have had unfortunate surprises in their lives: babies born with serious medical conditions, boyfriends in near-fatal accidents, people who wanted children & didn’t have them (yet), people who didn’t and who did. There are so many ways things can go a little awry, or a lot awry, but I found myself feeling a little angry at the pity my friend was expressing, maybe because I’ve felt that kind of pity directed at me, although not from her, because I married someone trans.

So I’ve been thinking this winter about how to make room in my life for other people’s decisions in a way that really is fair to them. I’m tired of feeling like everyone’s a control freak, as if we all know better than others about what they need or should have. I’m not sure what the answer is but as we all get ready to see old friends and family I thought it might be something to think about.

Life is not easy, but it’s definitely that much harder when you can feel someone’s judgement on the back of your head.

NYC HHC Report

Posted by helenboyd – December 11, 2008

Betsy Gotsbaum, NY’s Public Advocate, has released a report (pdf) that recommends way to improve the LGBT population’s access to healthcare.

Among the recommendations:
• Require in-house LGBT sensitivity training for all HHC employees.
• Designate an LGBT liaison in each HHC facility.
• Establish, display, and enforce a zero-tolerance discrimination policy.
• Establish a review process to monitor progress.

Among the people quoted in the press release are Ray Carannante of CenterCARE and Michael Silverman of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF).

70 Under 30

Posted by helenboyd – December 9, 2008

’50 Under 30′ Youth Hate Crimes Report Re-Issued: Almost 20 New Victims; Re-Titled ’70 Under 30″

WASHINGTON (December 4, 2008) — The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition’s 2006 hate crimes report, “50 Under 30: Masculinity & The War Against America’s Youth” has been updated and re-issued. Because of the nearly 20 new murders, the new title has been changed to “70 Under 30.”

Said GenderPAC Executive Director Riki Wilchins, “It’s sad to see so many new murders so quickly. We had hoped to only need to update this report every few years or so, but the pace of violence has surpassed our expectations.”

The report highlights the continuing vulnerability to assault that individuals face if they are young, of color and gender non-conforming. It also underscores the limited resources for safety and support many of them have.

More→

Crossdressing Husband & Father on NPR

Posted by helenboyd – November 30, 2008

Some things you just never expect. NPR recently did a show about a crossdressing husband & father that was about as off the mark as Dr. Phil usually is. Pathologizing, full of the embarassed & shamed comments by the wife and commentary of the narrator, it was rife with ignorance and misunderstanding, and seemed to equate this person’s other mental health issues with his need to crossdress.

Wow. I wish I were more often pleasantly suprrised by the media, but I really never expected this kind of crappy story-telling from NPR. Just one opinion that offset all the negativity would have been nice.

That the story is about someone who is deceased makes it all the more sickening. There is no one to represent Doug/Donna to explain what crossdressing is all about.

You can listen to it here – all of 12 minutes & nothing redeemable! – & narrated by a family “friend.” Feh.

Raped Soldiers

Posted by helenboyd – November 18, 2008

Here’s another update – and more chilling news – about the astronomical levels of rape and sexual harassment inflicted on female soldiers serving in the US military. To really add insult to injury, the military’s health insurance plan doesn’t pay for rape kits in many circumstances.

This is embarassing and pathetic for us as a country.

In the meantime, Ann Dunwoody has become the first female four-star general. Maybe she can do something about it.

Trans for Obama: Reason #3

Posted by helenboyd – November 2, 2008

Reason #3 to vote for Obama is because on-the-ground discrimination issues – bathrooms, healthcare, veterans’ services, & social services – are exactly the kinds of issues Obama has worked on and felt strongly about for his entire career. A President Obama will give us a chance to bring these issues to light nationally, to do the research on where discrimination is happening, and how, and to whom, and to have the data to fix the problem.

Bathrooms, baby! Maybe someday we can stop talking about them!

& Here’s Charles, born in 1922, talking about volunteering for the Obama campaign in Boulder, CO. (Have a tissue ready.)

Old Drugs

Posted by helenboyd – October 26, 2008

I know I’m often somewhat cynical about scientific studies, but this one especially seems to take the cake. Not because it’s not smart, or comes to wild, unfounded conclusions, but rather because it’s – well, obvious: thoughtful people tend to get depressed.

Verhaeghen, who is also a novelist and describes himself as a “somewhat mood disordered person,” had a particular interest in the connection between creativity and this ruminating state of mind.

“One of the things I do is think about something over and over and over again, and that’s when I start writing,” he said.

Psychologist types can tell me if anything specific is meant by “ruminating” – that is, if the term is used in your field to mean a kind of obsessive thinking and reviewing of thought – because otherwise, to us lay folks, ruminating just means thinking, reviewing. I don’t think of it as being a negative activity by any means, or even an obsessive one.

What they seem to miss – or don’t articulate – is that writing is a kind of thinking for a lot of writers. It’s a way of kind of nailing down a certain kind of looped thinking, following wild hairs to their logical end, sorting out complex connections. In other words, it’s a kind of sanity-making thing to do when you’re thinking all the time.

I had a writing prof who used to say that it’s impossible to tell if people who have a lot of vivid dreams become writers or if writers have a lot of vivid dreams – that is, whether the inclination to write causes someone to dream & think very intensely, or whether people who naturally dream & think intensely find writing is their only good outlet for all the stuff going on in their head. Writing, to me, is an anti-depressant, but in a certain sense it creates this other place you get to go, and like with other drugs, maybe you just get to a point where pushing the button doesn’t result in relief anymore. With DFW, it would be easy to come to that conclusion – he wrote so intensely, so intricately, for a long while, & it’s as if the moment he stopped – he couldn’t stand it anymore. Maybe, as with other drugs, we have to be careful how much we press the button, because we become resistant to its palliative qualities, eventually.

GREat

Posted by helenboyd – October 1, 2008

Today I’m taking the GRE, or Graduate Record Exam, and let me tell you, I’m not excited about it. I don’t mind taking a test for four hours – my time spent writing often runs longer than that – but the idea of this exam just pisses me off. I don’t do well with standardized anything, but the idea of standardized intelligence is so unbelievably counter-intuitive, especially for us humanities types.

I’ve always been good at math; I just didn’t like it. My sister, who always scored higher on verbal than math, went into banking. I always scored higher on math than verbal and I’m the writer. Maybe it’s just inborn perversity, or maybe this whole idea of a “right” answer offends me. Math encouraged the wrong bits of me entirely.

I’ve spent most of my intellectual career teaching myself not to look for a right answer, but to look instead at things in a way they’re not usually seen, to ask questions that expose more of the riddle of the thing in question. I love the idea of imbuing the subjective narrative with authority; of defining the universe in a kind of Buddhist solipsism. You know, in a healthy sort of way, that maximizes the importance of our humanity and decreases our judgment of what’s right or wrong.

Call me a recovering Catholic, but I had a literature professor in my first year at Fordham – I started out a theology major, no kidding – who called me The Church Lady because I found Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” a moral outrage. I was The Church Lady with a mohawk, but judgmental nonetheless. I think that tendency is sometimes referred to as liberal fascism, or for you D&D types, Lawful Evil. I recognized the streak and since then have learned to tame it.

And then this test comes along, a test I avoided taking the first time around by getting my MA in Writing, of all things, but now, considering doing a Ph.D., I can’t avoid any longer. And they want to know the best opposite of restive is, and I have to spend the first seconds while reading the question turning off the part of my brain that wants to know the context, and whether restive is being used sarcastically, who’s using it and what they’re describing. The next seconds I convince myself to just answer the damn question the way I expect they want it answered, and the next seconds after that I have to convince myself to stop thinking about it because my first “this is the answer they want” impulse is usually the one that gets me the check mark of correctness. It’s exhausting.

I don’t believe in check marks of correctness, and the idea – at this age! – of having to take a test to give someone a numerical way of understanding how smart I am, or am not, is pretty damned frustrating.

Either way, I’m taking the GRE today.

Please wish me luck in not sticking the pencil in my own eye out of frustration.

Questions

Posted by helenboyd – September 17, 2008

Katha Pollitt’s recent column in The Nation, “Lipstick on a Wing Nut,” proposes that we skip all the Sarah Palin family saga & simply ask her a dozen questions instead:

  1. Suppose your 14-year-old daughter Willow is brutally raped in her bedroom by an intruder. She becomes pregnant and wants an abortion. Could you tell the parents of America why you think your child and their children should be forced by law to have their rapists’ babies?
  2. You say you don’t believe global warming is man-made. Could you tell us what scientists you’ve spoken with or read who have led you to that conclusion? What do you think the 2,500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are getting wrong?
  3. If you didn’t try to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Baker over her refusal to consider censoring books, why did you try to fire her?
  4. What is the European Union, and how does it function?
  5. Forty-seven million Americans lack health insurance. John Goodman, who has advised McCain on healthcare, has proposed redefining them as covered because, he says, anyone can get care at an ER. Do you agree with him?
  6. What is the function of the Federal Reserve?
  7. Cindy and John McCain say you have experience in foreign affairs because Alaska is next to Russia. When did you last speak with Prime Minister Putin, and what did you talk about?
  8. Approximately how old is the earth? Five thousand years? 10,000? 5 billion?
  9. You are a big fan of President Bush, so why didn’t you mention him even once in your convention speech?
  10. McCain says cutting earmarks and waste will make up for revenues lost by making the tax cuts permanent. Experts say that won’t wash. Balancing the Bush tax cuts plus new ones proposed by McCain would most likely mean cutting Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Which would you cut?
  11. You’re suing the federal government to have polar bears removed from the endangered species list, even as Alaska’s northern coastal ice is melting and falling into the sea. Can you explain the science behind your decision?
  12. You’ve suggested that God approves of the Iraq War and the Alaska pipeline. How do you know?

I’d really like to hear her answer these.

Vital National Trans Survey

Posted by helenboyd – September 16, 2008

Respond to the survey online at
https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim

WASHINGTON, DC September 11, 2008 — In the wake of one of the most violent years on record of assaults on transgender people, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (The Task Force) have teamed up on a comprehensive national survey to collect data on discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, public accommodation, health care, education, family life and criminal justice.

To date, in 2008, several young gender non-conforming people of color have been murdered, including California junior high school student Lawrence King, who was shot in public during the school day. King’s murder, and the murders of Simmie Williams in South Carolina and Angie Zappata in Greeley, Colorado come in a year in which we are still working to include transgender provisions in a federal bill to protect lesbian, gay and bisexual workers from discrimination in employment.

Hate crimes against transgender people suggest multiple points of vulnerability, which can compound each other: discrimination in employment may lead to unstable housing situations which in turn can leave transgender people at the mercy of public programs and public officials who may not respond respectfully or appropriately to them. These stressors add burdens in a health care system that is often unprepared for transgender people’s needs. The list goes on. “We know that transgender people face discrimination on multiple fronts,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of NCTE. “This data will help us sort out the combination of forces that leave transgender people vulnerable to unemployment, homelessness, and violence.”

Jaime Grant, director of the Task Force Policy Institute noted, “There is so little concrete data on the needs and risks associated with the widespread discrimination we see in the lives of the transgender people we know. This data will help point the way to an appropriate policy agenda to ensure that transgender people have a fair chance to contribute their talents in the workplace, in our educational systems and in our communities.”

NCTE and the Task Force have partnered with Pennsylvania State University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education to collect and analyze the data. Applying rigorous academic standards to the investigation will strengthen any case made to legislators, policy makers, health care providers, and others whose decisions impact the lives of transgender people. A national team of experts in survey research and transgender issues developed the questionnaire, which can be completed on-line at https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim. Paper copies can also be downloaded from the NCTE and The Task Force websites soon.

Keisling notes: “This is an absolutely critical national effort. We urge all transgender and gender non-conforming people to take the survey to help guide us in making better laws and policies that will improve the quality of life for all transgender people. We need everyone’s voice in this, everyone’s participation.”

The Requisite Sarah Palin Post

Posted by helenboyd – September 4, 2008

The real kicker of Sarah Palin’s talk tonight was the “scary ideas from Europe” idea. I mean, seriously? Scary Europeans? Where there’s national healthcare and maternity leave and no gun crime? That scary place?

I’m still flummoxed by just about everything she said tonight. Astounded, even. Aside from the Big Fat Liar issue – she was for the Bridge to Nowhere until she was nominated, and she raised taxes on Alaskans – I can’t believe her entire talk was about the elites, and scary European ideas, and tiny government. (You know, like the kind that brought you Katrina.) I mean, aren’t culture wars so 90s?

But it’s more than that. The cynicism and sarcasm and meanness she expressed blew my mind. I like people who are clever and clear-thinking, but that’s not what she is. It makes me so sad to think anyone might admire her, or find like-mindedness in her comments. She’s like Dr. Laura, and those platitudes don’t work as advice, and they definitely don’t work as policy.

Please, Dems, don’t rest easy. We need to kick this woman’s ass. She cut funding on a center for pregnant teenagers even though she has one. Talk about elitism. She tried to ban books and she got pork-barrel funding for aerial hunting (which is about the lamest, most shameful thing I’ve ever heard of).

naked.

Posted by helenboyd – August 31, 2008

DO is upcoming, and so I’ve been wondering: why do I so hate being naked in front of people?

I went to a workshop at a DO summer camp about getting in touch with your body, and you’re meant to sit there naked, and talk about stuff, like what you like about your body, what you hate, problems your body brings you, & pleasures.

& I did it, at long last, only after stripping down piece by piece. A little at a time. Iit was when Ii was at my thinnest (which means it was fall 2006), and now, 20 lbs heavier, I’m thinking I should try that workshop again.

Because there are always people at DO who are fatter, hairier, older; more scarred, more beautiful, thinner, more hairless, with better or worse skin than me. Even if I were judging, which is not my style, I’d still end up somewhere in the middle – not the best, not the worst.

& Then I feel like such a shallow idiot. Because there are people with all sorts of bodies out there – scarred, people who have lost limbs, people with chronic medical conditions, etc. – and really I have a pretty healthy body, all told.

So what is it?

What annoys me most is that plenty of people are not comfortable naked & they’re perfectly okay with being uncomfortable being naked. Others are happy naked and okay with that. Me, I’m not okay with not being okay. *sigh*

Post-Blogging the DNC

Posted by helenboyd – August 28, 2008

I didn’t blog tonight because I was busy worrying about Betty and having dinner with my sister.

I don’t care what anyone else thinks — I think (Bill) Clinton’s speech was mediocre. For him, & for this campaign. Were I his speechwriting consultant, I would have sent him back to the drawing board. It was too safe, nearly mealy-mouthed. This is the man who defined what is is, after all.

Who did rock tonight was John Kerry. His talk left me thinking, as I did with (Hillary) Clinton’s, where the hell was that during their own campaigns? Kerry had his claws out, & that was lovely.

Biden’s rocked too (though it’s not yet up on YouTube). & Yes, I’m biased, since he’s a good Catholic boy from PA. But I just love that he’s made up for his stutter by being someone who speaks, sometimes too much, in public. In front of thousands. I haven’t liked him much since the Anita Hill fiasco, but he’s a good VP for Obama, and he gives good emotion. I especially liked what he said about America regaining the world’s trust.

What’s funniest is that I find myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan (who’s a regular commentator on MSNBC): Where’s Guatanamo? Where is the criticism of Cheney, that fucker? He’s a traitor and a shit and his approval rating is something like 18%. What about Rove? What about Valerie Plame? ATTACK, DEMOCRATS, ATTACK! These guys suck.

Here’s another thing: someone needs to get up & try to undo (Hillary) Clinton’s poison against Obama, specifically her charge about his “rhetoric.” We need rhetoric right now. Great leadership is not just about policy. It’s about Fireside Chats, and “nothing to fear but fear itself,” and “once more into the breach.” It’s about motivating people. & While no, we don’t need a motivational speaker as President, it doesn’t hurt when a guy as smart as Obama can move the masses with his words. I know I’ve needed someone to tell me to have hope, what with paying $900/month for health insurance that covers who the fuck knows what.

Book Review: Queer Catholicism

Posted by helenboyd – August 23, 2008

It’s been a year of Catholics, hasn’t it? From the sad news about Ted Kennedy’s health, to the deaths of Tim Russert & George Carlin. So the editors of Queer + Catholic might have unusually good timing, even if none of the Catholics who died this year were queer.

I’m a contributor to this book – I’ll say that upfront to say that I’m biased – but I honestly didn’t know what to expect from it. I feared I would be one of very few to have anything positive to say. But the more of this book I read – and I’ve read almost all of it already – is that I was very, very wrong. The editors have chosen some of the most tender eulogies to their childhood Catholicism, some complicated appreciations of having been both queer and catholic, and honestly, some straight-up love letters to the mysteries that are the Catholic Church.

It is hard not to especially love hearing the way gay men talk about being Catholic: about the first time they noticed the obscenity and eroticism of the way Christ was portrayed, or the many martyred saints, the homoeroticism of all boys’ schools. The love and shame and pride are served up in such equal measure, but always with that kind of gentle, sad-eyed quality that gay men do so well.

How gender-y this book is struck me as well. My own piece is very much about gender, of course: I wanted to be a priest but found I had a vagina, horror of horrors. The other lovely female perverts and poets in this collection are uncanny in the way they talk about bodies, about blood, about sex.

Because Catholics are, as a lot, obsessed with sex. I had an older, experienced crossdresser once tell me that it’s always the Catholic girls who are wild rides. & I believe him.

What is in this book isn’t just sex though; we all, as Catholics, become a bit Jesuitical in seeing always both sides of the same coin. So that sex becomes suffering, and redemption; sex becomes shame, but also pride; sex becomes beauty, and divinity, and transcendence.

So there is something about declaring myself a Catholic that seems exactly right to me in the way the Church’s mysteries always enfolded a little more than you bargained for, and to me, that’s downright vulvic. Mother Church, indeed.

If you’re Catholic, or interested in religion, or in art, or homoeroticism, or spirituality – or any or all of the above – do get the book. These are some of the best, most personal, marrow-full essays I’ve read in a long, long time.

To Erma Bombeck, With Love

Posted by helenboyd – July 23, 2008

As many of you know, I’ve been struggling with my weight & fitness for the past couple of years. I was in pretty great shape when I met Betty, & got lazy, for starters, which was then exacerbated by (1) pretty extreme depression after 9/11; (2) quitting a job that was very active for writing, which is not; and (3) getting older and having my metabolism slow. Effectively it’s been a decade since I worked out at a gym regularly, which is embarassing to admit, though I have almost always walked regularly, and some distances, do some yoga, work out with free weights & calisthenics, & of course try to watch what I eat.

Recently, I joined a gym again because watching what I eat and walking a lot and doing at-home workouts wasn’t helping.

But – I know this is going to be a shocking revelation – I am totally out of shape. I go to the gym in my baggy sweats and t-shirt, and get on the Precor elliptical machine, which is kind to my flat foot and bad knees, and start pedaling. In minutes, I notice how much slower I am going than anyone near me, and yet – and yet – my heart rate shoots straight out of any health zone, weight loss or cardiovascular. I slow down a little more, take breaks, watch my heart rate respond, and then notice I have become the literal tortoise to the hares pedaling around me. More→

Can’t Afford Kids

Posted by helenboyd – July 6, 2008

Dubya & Co. have been in power long enough to pretty much devastate the economy, and in response, women are reporting that they had abortions in the past year precisely because of the bad economy. Women, being imminently practical, and carrying the burden of most childcare, and being the first and hardest hit by dropping wages, can’t afford to have their babies.

An interesting dilemma for Republicans, no?  So if you want to prevent abortions, maybe it would be a good idea to quit funding tax cuts for the rich.

(via Feministing)

Healthcare Proxy Forms

Posted by helenboyd – June 29, 2008

A couple who’ve been together for 18 years went on vacation, on a cruise, with three of their four children. One of them had a massive stroke as their ship was about to leave port, which meant she received medical care at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, where her partner was told the couple made the mistake of being in “an anti-gay city and state” and refused to let her partner in to see her, but for five minutes, as she was dying.

She died about 18 hours later. Both women were only 39 years old.

This is what DOMA & all this other anti-gay bullshit leads to, but please queer folks, fill out your healthcare proxies. You can find NYS’s here, and here in .pdf format. If people have or find links for these forms in their state, please post them below, or send them to me via email & I can post them.

More instructions and state-specific forms below the break. More→