House votes to block all funding from Planned Parenthood
Because they’re so “pro-life,” of course. By law, federal funds haven’t paid for abortions since the 1970s, so the House hasn’t voted to cut abortion funding. They’re cutting funding for the entire Title X program — funding for contraception, cancer screening, STI tests, sex education, mammograms, HIV testing and diagnosis, and pregnancy screening and counseling. [...]
...read moreInjustice at Every Turn
The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) just released a report on discrimination against trans and gender-noncomforming people, and the results are (predictably) horrifying. The report is based on the largest survey of trans and gender-nonconforming people ever taken in the United States, with 6,450 participants. [...]
...read moreIn D.C., New York and San Fran, Carrying a Condom Can Give Cause to Arrest
You’d think this was one of those mythical laws from one of those Puritan colonial states, but it’s not. D.C. police confirm that carrying a condom, while with another person, can contribute to cause to arrest for prostitution. Making condoms a factor for arrest, discourages prostitutes (or anyone, really) from practicing safe sex — this [...]
...read moreObama Lifts the U.S. HIV Travel and Immigration Ban
Excellent news: President Obama on Friday announced the end of a 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people who had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.” At [...]
...read moreWhat do sex workers think about the ethics of biomedical research studies that are done on them?
Last year, researchers Dan Allman and Melissa Ditmore started a project asking sex workers about their experiences with and opinions about clinical trials, which they’ve turned into a 65 page report, Good Practice for Sex Workers’ Participation in Biomedical HIV Prevention Trials. The main mission of the project was to get feedback from sex workers [...]
...read moreCondom liberation!
There was a recent article about this in DC’s local newsweekly – the fact that CVS stores continue to keep condoms locked up and inaccessible to customers. I’m not a regular condom purchaser myself these days – at seven months pregnant, I think that ship has sailed – but it’s a big enough pain in [...]
...read moreNew report demonstrates – yes, again – that ab-only programs don’t work
But we’ll keep cranking them out until these ineffective, disproven, misleading programs go away – or at least no longer receive federal funding. This week’s report is from SEICUS and focuses on Florida specifically. I never forgot this article I read year – although I can’t for the life of me find it right now [...]
...read moreTransgender Woman Beaten By Police and Threatened With Murder in Honduras
From Amnesty International UK comes the story of a woman, transgender sex worker and HIV/AIDS campaigner (unnamed for her own safety) in Honduras, who was assaulted by police officers and threatened with death if she spoke out about the attack: Four police officers in a police car approached the transgender woman, who has asked Amnesty [...]
...read moreCaught Between the Tiger and the Crocodile
SD from the Foreign Affairs blog (a blog which tagline reads: Rantings on Cambodia, politics, human rights, corruption, feminism, the environment and other topics that provoke, interspersed with posts on life, the universe and everything) posted this interesting video on the issues impacting sex workers in Cambodia: SD writes: The popular opinion is that the [...]
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