Reader Diaries

In Which The Stupak Amendment Rains On My Parade

Alison Cole — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:55:36 -0500

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How long have I been making noise for healthcare reform? But I just can't feel like the House "reform" vote is a victory, though I know it is. Eliminating insurance coverage for abortion is NOT what I had been looking, hoping, and advocating for. Once again, the health of women is a political football. It is not about what's best for us, it's about political expediency, and that's just bullshit. The Stupak amendment is not about ensuring tax dollars don't pay for abortions -- the Capps amendment provided for that, along with the notorious Hyde amendment. It is about restricting women's access to healthcare.

Here's what our government says to women: Making an intimate personal choice to end a pregnancy? No insurance coverage. Want to give birth in the privacy of your own home with a midwife and minimize costly intervention? You may or may not be covered. Pressured into an unnecessary induction, epidural and cesarean because the ultrasound shows that the baby is big/small/whatever? Where's the checkbook? At least in Washington State, the government is refusing to pay more for cesareans than for vaginal birth. At least in Washington State, poor women can get Medicaid to pay for a midwife-attended birth or an abortion.

My tax dollars pay for military action I do not support, and anti-abortion people refuse to allow premiums paid by individual women to go toward abortion coverage within their health plan. Why is my concern for life less valid than theirs? Please defund the Pentagon before asking me to give up my autonomy. Women (& men) deserve the freedom to make our own best choices with dignity. Legal, covered abortion & homebirth for all women, now!

Stupak-Amendment Passes! Affects every woman

Megan Evans — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:35:05 -0500

After hearing the results of the Stupak-Amendment this evening, I burst into tears. Normally, when these ridiculous bills are passed and, once again, a road block is placed in front of women’s health, I grit my teeth, curse under my breath, and prepare to face another challenge in the world of reproductive health. Tonight, though, my emotions took over and I wept. If you know me, you know I don’t cry easily. But my tears weren’t for me. I was crying for the thousands upon thousands of women this bill affects.

If you work in abortion care, you hear the stories that no one will believe. Of course there are the tragic tales of rape and incest that cause your insides to turn, but there are also so many stories of women seeking abortion because of other valid, personal, challenging reasons. The struggle that these women face to finance their abortion is tremendous. And this is in conjunction with the extensive legal barriers created to block their choice…as if the decision is taken lightly!

You ask any person that works on the NAF hotline, or an abortion fund, or if you read The Abortioneers Blog, they will tell you the financial barriers placed infront of women to obtain an abortion are incredible. These barriers are so great, in fact, that some women struggle to pay for a first trimester abortion (cheaper and safe)and end up pulling together the money when they are in their second trimester (more expensive with more health risks).

And these are the stories of women who don’t have abortion coverage.

Not only does this bill continue to ban coverage of abortion services in the public insurance sector, but it bans abortion in the private sector as well. Thus women who are covered by their insurance for an abortion (majority) IN CASE they have an unplanned pregnancy, have now lost that privilege (…if this bill becomes law obviously). And who suffers the most? Low-income women, the most vulnerable.

If there ever was a time to speak up to your representatives, it's now. I contacted Rep Stupak just minutes before writing this blog. Am I a constituent of Representative Stupak? No (I put in the address of his own office in the email form), but he made a decision for me and my friends and my patients and every woman by creating this bill, so he is going to hear from me.

Dear Representative Stupak,

As a woman of this country, I want to tell you directly that your abortion ban disgusts me.

How dare you make decisions for me and how dare you create a bill that takes away my abortion coverage. Would you also like to take away my contraceptive coverage? Perhaps my ability to have an annual pap smear?

Your bill makes me seethe with anger. As a future physician, you have just made a decision for so many women-you will never meet them, you will never hear their stories, and you will never know their struggles. Abortion care already carries so many burdens for women and you have just made it harder.

When women start dying from dangerous "back-alley" abortions again because of severe lack of access to providers, don't be surprised when you and all the other members of congress who voted for your selfish bill find blood on their hands.

Megan Evans

Medical Student and future Ob/Gyn

These representatives have made a decision for all women of this country by voting to take away our right to abortion coverage. Our LEGAL RIGHT!

Be vocal about this issue. We cannot let this bill become law. Our choice is legal, personal, private, and should be affordable and covered for all women.

Women's Health Equals Global Health: A Radical Proposal

Jane Roberts — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:35:56 -0500

What follows is a radical proposal from a grassroots activist who wants to see a whole new framework for global health. It was written because the Washington DC Global Health Council conference next June is going to emphasize the health related Millennium Development Goals and the Women Deliver Conference also in Washington next June is going to again bring world attention to the subject of maternal mortality with a heavy emphasis on family planning as a great saver of both women's and children's lives.

In much of the world, if you are born a girl, there is often commiseration instead of celebration at your birth. Or earlier you may have been aborted for your gender or your life may be purposefully snuffed out in your first days of life. In your first five years, you may die of simple neglect. There are between 60 and 100 million of you missing in the world today simply because of your gender.

And yet, no human being has ever lived who has not come from the womb of a woman. Right now on this earth, 6.8 billion people are living because a woman did something quite brave. She carried a pregnancy to term even though she probably had some difficult days. She is the giver and keeper of life. In fact, I say this rather facetiously but if every man on the planet disappeared but there were frozen sperm in a sperm bank somewhere, humanity could start over. If every woman disappeared, well, you get my point.

So from a biological scientific point of view, you women of the world are la crème de la crème, the cat’s pyjamas. You are it! But at the present time individuals, governments, religions, cultures and customs do not accord you full equality. In fact, gender inequality is the moral scourge of the age, so huge in its implications that it is almost too big to see, almost invisible.

I have with me a little writing booklet from a United Nations Population Fund sponsored elementary school in Senegal, The times tables are on the back and on the front, in French, this message: Little girls have as much right to food, education, and health care as little boys.

We should all be in a state of utter disbelief that such a thing needs to be said. We all know that girl children (often along with their mothers) eat last and least. What implication for health? After all food and water are the basics of health. What if the world committed to making sure every girl had enough nourishing food and clean water. Wouldn’t that in itself do wonders for global health and the future of coming generations? Because quite frankly, if this were the case for girls, it would also be the case for boys. It would carry over!

We all know that little girls often do not have equal opportunity to attend school. Equality of education is a primary component of the Millennium Development Goals both for girls and women. We know that two thirds of the illiterate people on the planet today are women and girls. Illiteracy equals ill health. Illiteracy equals poverty which equals ill health. What if the world committed itself to the equivalent of a high school education for every girl? If available for girls and women, it would carry over to boys and men. It would be an immeasurable contribution to health. Thus Millennium Development Goals 2 and 3 although they speak of education, are also much related to health.

What if every girl and woman on the planet were given access to health? For instance what if every baby were more or less guaranteed a birth weight of 7 to 8 pounds and to be AIDS-free. That would give every baby a good start. Imagine the revolution in health that this guarantee would imply. It would imply a world commitment to everything contained in the field of reproductive health. It would imply that early marriage would disappear. It would mean the end of FGM. It would probably imply that every pregnancy was wanted, that ante-natal care was universal, that every birth was safe, (immediate emergency obstetric care on the spot) i.e. no more maternal mortality and no more obstetric fistula. It would mean that family planning would be universally accessible as promised in human rights documents (particularly ICPD in Cairo) which have been more honored in the breach than in the implementation. It would mean that the huge toll of unsafe abortion (70,000 deaths and 5 million injuries, hemorrhages, and infections every year) would disappear. The acronym PAC (post-abortion care) would disappear. The fact that abortion remains illegal especially in the developing world results from women’s disempowerment politically and culturally. Gender inequality is the underlying reason that universal access to family planning and access to safe abortion have not been realized.

If the world committed to vaccinate every girl for childhood diseases, believe me, the boys would get vaccinated too. If the world committed to malaria bed nets for all girls and pregnant mothers, all boys and men would have them too. And if the world committed to women’s education, health, and human rights, and made the necessary moral, financial, legal, and cultural commitments to gender equality in all realms of civil society, this planet would be a different place and women and girls and men and boys would benefit equally. Women’s health equals men’s health and global health.

We must talk a little about the issue of human population. The basic reason why there are 6.8 billion of us now is that “making babies” is enjoyable and a natural human activity. Raising children is a much desired and rewarding activity for most people.

Yet, in the 21st century, human population has run up against the carrying capacity of the planet for food, water, and a life sustaining environment. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN has just come out with a finding that there are 1 billion hungry people on the planet now. Believe me, women and girls are more than 50 percent of this number! With the percentages of young people on the planet today, the UN Population Division predicts a world population of 9.1 billion by the year 2050. Can anyone seriously doubt that this will be a humanitarian disaster of immense proportions particularly for health?

If you take Africa alone, the UN says that with present fertility rates the population of Africa will double in 40 years to 2 billion. This is unconscionable. India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, southeast Asia are in trouble on population. The global health community can not now insure health for all human beings. How will it do so with another 2.3 billion people, the great percentage of whom are going to come from the least and less developed countries who now offer very low levels of education and health and health infrastructure such as sanitation. What are the health implications of a lack of sanitation? Huge, absolutely huge! And people, to be honest, the status of women in most of these countries is low. This is no accident. There is a little bit of cause and effect here.

Poverty equals ill health. According to the UNICEF “Gender Equality: Big Picture Report for 2007”, women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of food, but own 1 percent of property. Women receive only 10 percent of worldwide income and perform more than 70 percent of unpaid work around the globe. Two thirds of the poorest of the poor in the world are women, often women with children. For health to come for women, the feminization of poverty must be addressed. Changes would emphasize girls’ education, gender equality and all of its legal ramifications , economic opportunity and reproductive health and choices. Bref, as they say in French, less poverty for women equals a better life for all.

I have never seen the mental health costs of gender inequality being addressed. There would be huge room for research here.

The world is seeing more and more conflicts over resources. These conflicts often result in violence of all kinds perpetrated against women. Violence against women is a public health nightmare. Increasingly rape is being used as a weapon of war. The public health implications of GBV (gender based violence) (it has its own acronym!) are astronomical, astronomical not being a term used by health professionals but by this grassroots activist retired French teacher.

And when there are typhoons, floods, droughts, 70 percent of those who die are women, often pregnant or with children. The United Nations Population Fund and the Women’s Environmental and Development Agency WEDO have issued a report on the necessity of taking gender issues into account when adopting climate change policies.

Here are some observations. Which comes first, maternal or child health? The Millennium Development Goals have cutting child mortality by two thirds as number 4 and improving maternal health as number 5. I would reverse the order. Improving maternal health is a prerequisite for cutting child mortality. And obviously cutting maternal mortality cuts child mortality big time!

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn in their groundbreaking book “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” share the stories of women caught up in trafficking and sexual enslavement. The root causes of the global human trafficking phenomenon are poverty and illiteracy which result in powerlessness. One must attack the root causes.

If you look up www.un.org/millennium goals and click on number 5, the last line of target two says: “An unmet need for family planning undermines the achievement of several other goals.” I think it undermines all of the MDGs, every single one. But family planning is controversial. When I see the opposition to family planning, let alone to legal abortion, on the part of the religious right in this country I see mind-boggling hypocrisy. They all use family planning. Family planning equals health. With millions of women unable to be the decision makers when it comes to sexual activity, family planning is the crucial element for women’s empowerment. It allows women and girls to go to school, to learn, and to earn both money and respect and to play an active role in civil society. The health benefits of family planning for people, the planet, and peace are so vast as to be almost invisible.

Hillary Clinton at her hearings to become Secretary of State said: Of particular concern to me is the plight of women and girls who comprise the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid.

Ban Ki-moon says: In women, the world has the most significant but untapped potential for development and peace.

Stephen Lewis: I challenge you to enter the fray against gender inequality. There is no more honorable or productive calling. There is nothing of greater import in this world. All roads lead from women to social change.

I say: When the world takes care of women, women take care of the world. That is my radical grassroots proposal. That the peoples of the world commit in every way imaginable to women’s health and empowerment and equality. The pay-off would put people and the planet on a sustainable course. Women and girls, men and boys would benefit equally. In my little book “34 Million Friends of the Women of the World” I say: “We have to imagine a world where all people, men and women, in equal partnership, with no artificial legal, cultural, religious, or economic barriers, work together for the greater good. We must imagine a world where all people regardless of their gender are judged, as Dr. Martin Luther King might have said, only by the content of their character.”

At the 2007 Women Deliver conference in London, the Lancet put out a special edition with this message on the front: “Since the human race began, women have delivered for society. It is time now for the world to deliver for women.”

We need people, men and women together, who will DELIVER for women, who will climb over the barricades, in a non-violent struggle for enormous change. We have to make it happen. We need a peaceful, purposeful, stubborn and obstinate REVOLUTION!

A Promising First Step in Protecting Illinois Teenagers' Health and Safety

ACLU — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:11:03 -0500

In a legal challenge brought by the ACLU, an Illinois state court yesterday issued an emergency order blocking a law that prevents teens from having an abortion unless they notify a parent or go to court. This victory ensures that teens throughout Illinois will continue to be safe and able to obtain the care that they need.

The truth is that most teens already turn to their parents when facing a pregnancy. This is what any of us would want as parents. Make no mistake: If enforced, this unconstitutional law would change nothing for those teens. Instead, the law endangers teenagers from dysfunctional families — those who face physical and emotional abuse, homelessness, and forced childbirth, among other things, if they tell their parents about their pregnancies.

The stories the ACLU submitted to the court make this point all too well:

One young woman described how her parents responded when her older sister became pregnant. Upon learning of the pregnancy, the father beat the older sister and threw her out of the house with all of her belongings. He then ordered the younger siblings to take the discarded things to a dumpster and demanded that they never speak to their sister again. Four years later, this young woman and her family still knew nothing of the sister's whereabouts.
Other young women tell of being emotionally abused or beaten when their parents learn they are pregnant; some were involuntarily sent to live in another country to prevent them from having an abortion; and others were forced to give birth and become mothers against their will.

Proponents of parental notice laws acknowledge, as they must, that these kinds of situations exist, and that it would be unlawful to allow a parent to overrule a young woman's right to decide whether and when to become a parent herself. Instead they point to the judicial bypass, which allows a teen to go to court in lieu of talking to her parents. But what kind of alternative is it to ask a pregnant teenager, one who is already feeling quite vulnerable, to find a lawyer, navigate an unfamiliar court system, and reveal the most intimate details of her life to a judge, a complete stranger. For many, especially those who are afraid or ashamed of revealing the abuse they experience at home, going to court is simply not an option.

Indeed, Jamie Sabino — a lawyer who has worked with minors seeking judicial bypasses in Massachusetts for more than 25 years — has many troubling stories to tell about the bypass process: One teen was at the courthouse for a bypass hearing when her sister's class came through on a field trip. Another ran into her father outside the courthouse. One young woman successfully went through her bypass hearing; however days later, an anti-abortion group sent her parents a letter informing them that she had done so. They had monitored the courthouse and identified her from a school yearbook picture.

Although promising, yesterday's injunction is only a first step. We will continue to fight this law in the weeks and months to come. In the meantime, instead of enforcing laws that do more harm than good, let's start talking to our daughters and sons about making responsible and healthy decisions about sexuality; let's help parents and teens communicate; and let's ensure that every teen has a caring adult they can turn to for advice and support no matter what life challenges they may face.

Rihanna Speaks

Sarah Seltzer — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:07:00 -0500

This morning and all week, pop superstar Rihanna has opened up at long last about the violent outburst she infamously endured at the hands of fellow star and then-boyfriend, Chris Brown.

She spoke with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America this morning, and was interviewed for Glamour this month, saying that she felt ashamed for falling in love with someone who would then hurt her and admitting that she initially went back to Brown after the incident. The full interview will air Friday night on 20/20.

As we've discussed before at RHRC, the settling dust on this high-profile story has made all the doubters, the victim-blamers and the "two sides of the story" folks look like the silly misogynists they were.

Now Rihanna's frankness in connecting her story to that of other women suffering domestic abuse, and her acknowledgment of the fact that her status as a role model helped motivate her to break from Brown, is as much as the feminist community could ask of her. She told Sawyer:

“When I realized that my selfish decision for love could result in some young girl getting killed, I could not be easy with that."

It's a noble--extremely noble--sentiment. But ulimately the responsibility didn't lie with her: it lay with Brown not to hit her.

The public has largely turned on Brown, and no number of interviews he gives will repair his image. Still, I remain troubled by the endless media focus on Rihanna as a quintessential "woman in pain," and the debate over why she chose to stay with Brown. Instead, we should be having a raw discussion about the abusers in our midst and how our society allows and even cultivates this scourge.

Great commentary from around the blogosphere:

Rihanna speaks out on Good Morning America from Bitch Magazine Blogs

Rihanna from Ta-Nehisi Coates

Rihanna is all kinds of "fearless" from Salon: Broadsheet

Rihanna On Chris Brown: "I Fell In Love With That Person — That's Embarrassing" from Jezebel

Rihanna Picked for Glamour Woman of the Year. from Feministing

Parental Notice Law Not a Political Compromise

Julia Fedor — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:49:42 -0500

Quite the contenious issue, the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act has never been enacted due to a court order. That is, until now.

The most recent version of the law, passed in 1995, would require a young woman seeking to terminate a pregnancy to inform a parent, step-parent living in the household, grandparent, or legal guardian of her decision, or navigate the judicial system for a waiver.

The law was scheduled to go into effect yesterday, after a federal court lifted the injunction in July, but now remains in limbo pending a lawsuit by the ACLU of Illinois and considerations by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune published a flawed editorial in favor of the law. Here are a couple of their claims:

It's a sensible, temperate law aimed at ensuring that parents will not be shut out of a decision that has such grave health and moral implications.

It took a long, long time for democracy to work in this instance, but we're glad it did, particularly for a measure that represents an intelligent middle ground on a deeply divisive issue. Abortion-rights supporters think pregnant girls should have unrestricted access to abortion, while abortion-rights opponents think abortion should be illegal for adults as well as teens in most or all circumstances. Neither got their way this time.

The law recognizes that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses a woman's right to have an abortion. But it reflects an understanding that most minors lack the maturity to handle a matter like this without the counsel of the people who care most about them. To most people, we suspect, this is just a matter of common sense.

Needless to say, the Tribune’s editorial oversimplifies a very complex social issue. Sadly, the piece employs many of the same worn-out arguments supporting such laws.

At first glance, parental involvement laws – either notification or consent – for abortion do seem like common sense measures in the best interest of young women. But, with a little more consideration and analysis, we know that’s hardly the case. Parental involvement laws affect the most helpless young women who can not inform a family member or legal guardian – those, for instance, who live in abusive households, are the victims of incest, or who face possible eviction.

What’s more, the Tribune’s charge that young women “lack the maturity” to make such a decision is belittling, to say the least. We have an obligation, first and foremost, to provide young women and men with information, skills, and resources to make responsible decisions about their sexual health. Then, we need to trust them – trust that they will inform a family member or close adult and, if not, that they have a compelling reason.

The Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act is certainly not a “sensible, temperate law” that offers an “intelligent middle ground” to the abortion debate, as the Tribune claims. Putting at-risk young women in harm’s way is not a political compromise.

Beyond Breast Cancer: “Awareness” Must Extend to Other Women’s Cancers

Miranda Spencer — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:56:25 -0500

All October long, I saw pink ribbons and merchandise touting breast cancer awareness everywhere I went. On bags of pink M&Ms in the grocery store; on lapels; on the Google home page every time I opened my Internet browser. By now, is there any American who's NOT aware of the disease and the stated importance of early detection?

During this same period, I've been dealing with my mother's stage 3-C ovarian cancer. Dubbed "the silent killer" because it often goes unnoticed until it has progressed, ovarian cancer will touch one in 71 women in their lifetime. (The risk of breast cancer is 1 in 8.) Unlike breast cancer, ovarian cancer is difficult to detect early, when it is most treatable. Even at later stages, it is very treatable, though almost always fatal in time.

My mother turned 90 on October 31, five days after her total hysterectomy and tumor "debulking" surgery--a goal she was determined to reach when diagnosed last spring. It chilled me to realize she'd probably had the disease for some time. I later learned that though she had had regular medical checkups, her physician hadn't offered her an internal exam in more than 20 years. And so many of her symptoms could so easily be attributed to something else - upset stomach and heartburn to indigestion, shooting pain near her buttocks to a pinched spinal nerve, bloated ankles to water retention from other medications she was taking. It is perhaps no wonder she waited until she was disabled by pain, fatigue, and bloating to go to the emergency room.

The good news is that the chemotherapy drugs used to treat ovarian cancer are some of the more easily tolerated, especially with today's anti-nausea medications. It wasn't easy to watch my mother lose her full head of silver hair, but it was very heartening to see her rally a few days after each round, enjoying her Netflix, cooking (and eating) dinner, and arguing as usual with my father.

Ovarian Cancer: The Basics

At 89, my mom was older than the median age of diagnosis, 63. Ovarian cancer is usually a disease of middle to old age (80 percent of those diagnosed with it are between 45 and 84). Some 62 percent of cases are diagnosed after the cancer has already metastasized; at that stage, the relative five-year survival rate is a meager 28 percent, (The 15 percent of patients whose cancer is caught before it's spread have an impressive 94 percent five-year survival rate.) Ovarian cancer strikes White and Black women the most, although the five-year relative survival rates by race are about 46 percent for White women and only about 37 percent for Black women. There were some 14,600 deaths due to ovarian cancer in 2009 (compared with 40,000 for breast cancer and 4,000 for cervical cancer).

All of these facts are easily accessible on the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) website (http://www.cancer.gov) and elsewhere. But because it's not the media darling breast cancer is, you have to seek this information out.

Cervical cancer, which affects "only" one in 145 women, has a much higher profile because methods of early detection (the annual Pap smear) have been developed and implemented into standard reproductive health care. Moreover, there's now a preventative vaccine that, while still controversial, can be given to girls and young women to prevent infection with the most common virus that causes cervical cancer.

Psychological Impacts

Besides being potentially fatal, later-stage ovarian cancer is particularly devastating because its treatment typically involves not only chemotherapy but the removal of ovaries, fallopian tubes, and uterus, uniquely female organs that are part of our gender identity. Removal of the reproductive organs causes hormonal changes, bringing on instant menopause--with all its unpleasant symptoms--in younger women with the disease. This major abdominal surgery takes several months to heal fully and, as one hysterectomy patient told me, "You don't feel up to par for about a year."

For those who have not had but wanted children (or more children), the loss of one's reproductive organs is especially heartbreaking. (Fortunately, if the disease is caught earlier, fertility can often be preserved.)

It may sound a little cheesy, but knowing my mother's womb would no longer be part of her greatly saddened me. She no longer "needed" it, but it was my first home, before I could even remember.

Ribbon Needed

I don't know what color ribbon ovarian cancer awareness should adopt, but I do know information on the disease needs to be better promoted.

Few reliable methods of early detection, much less prevention, yet exist for ovarian cancer. More research on identifying ovarian cancer early is needed, as are more effective, less invasive treatments.

Till then, women need to know about symptoms that can be signs of the disease (I'm quoting the NIC here):

Pressure or pain in the abdomen, pelvis, back, or legs
A swollen or bloated abdomen
Nausea, indigestion, gas, constipation, or diarrhea
Feeling very tired all the time

Now that I myself have a relative with ovarian cancer, I realize that means I'm at greater-than-average risk for the disease. I want some way to protect myself and pre-empt an untimely death. The breast cancer cause is a very urgent one, but let's not let it crowd out other women's health problems that also require our attention.

U.S. Ban on HIV-Positive Travelers Eliminated

Audacia Ray — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:57:46 -0400

This morning President Obama announced the end of travel restrictions that have long prevented HIV positive foreign nationals from entering the United States. Until today, the United States was one of 12 countries that banned HIV positive people from entering the country for any reason or length of time.

The travel ban has frequently prevented HIV positive activists and advocates from travel to the United Nations and other important US-based meetings.

The process to lift this restriction started under the Bush administration, and made progress this past June, when HIV was removed from the list of “communicable diseases of public health significance,” effectively removing the last hurdle to overturning the ban. The change will come into effect in the beginning of 2010. The bill is part of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act (link to PDF Statement of Administrative Policy issued by the Executive Office of the President).

Indian Sex Workers Celebrate Sexual Diversity

khushbu — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:58:23 -0400

As an Indian woman living in America, I have visited sex worker
programs across seven states in India. Most of these visits were
conducted through official roles within international NGOs, but a few
were personal visits to see friends who lived in red light districts
and brothels. These experiences, whether discussing the effectiveness
of condom distribution strategies in HIV prevention or sharing some
local beer and ruminating about life, profoundly shaped my own
thinking. Beyond a greater practical understanding of how it is
critical to address issues of stigma in order to reach out to
vulnerable high-risk groups, I also learned some things about what it
means for movements to celebrate sexual diversity.

For instance, I spent considerable time with members of a very powerful sex workers’ organization, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee
(DMSC), one of the largest sex worker collectives in the world, made up
of over 65,000 sex workers across Kolkata. Since 1995, a core strategy
of DMSC’s efforts to address the HIV/ AIDs epidemic has been the
political mobilization and social empowerment of sex workers.

For myself, I valued the camaraderie of being around individuals who
were so politically, artistically and sexually diverse and open.
Together, we conducted outreach to government officials in Delhi, we
sang songs and ate ice cream, too. These moments, in fact, were my
first introduction to queer community in India. The experience of being
in a peer group made of straight women, lesbians (including butch
women), transgender women and gay men was a much-needed breath of fresh
air.

At a recent January 2009 meeting in Bangalore organized by Action
Plus, a network of civil society groups fighting to make India’s
HIV/AIDS policy more responsive, one transgendered woman reminded us of
the specific vulnerability caused by queerness. She shared her story
that while growing up, she had excelled in her studies, but was forced
to leave school given the daily violence she faced from students and
teachers. She was later kicked out by her family and sexually tortured
repeatedly by the police. To support herself, she entered sex work.

When we talk of sex workers in developed countries, many are from
the most excluded groups, including low-caste and Dalit women, widows,
those whose lands have been usurped by inequitable development and
those who are migrant workers who cannot support themselves through
seasonal work alone. Amongst the most vulnerable, are also those who
are gay, lesbian and transgendered.

Queer sex workers who are part of DMSC had explained to me how they
considered themselves lucky to have found DMSC, where their peers
accepted their differences and where they could work together to fight
police and client brutality. Within DMSC, while there were subsets of
butch lesbians serving women, gay men serving men, transgendered women
serving men and women serving men, all members conducted outreach and
held meetings together. When there was violence against any sex worker,
all members, regardless of their orientation, spoke with a single voice.

I was again reminded of the commitment that sex workers activists
have towards LGBTQI rights during an April trip to Maharashtra, a state
in Western India. There, we accompanied Meena Seshu, the visionary
behind SANGRAM, to a sex workers
meeting. SANGRAM is a phenomenal organization that empowers various
vulnerable groups including sex workers, HIV positive women, positive
youth, migrants and elderly care-takers in the fight against HIV/ AIDS.

On the hot balmy night, I listened attentively as the women
explained recent developments to Meena, including their many successes
negotiating with police and maintaining strong condom usage.
Eventually, the discussion moved to the story of two women sex workers
who had recently fallen in love. Once their relationship was discovered
by the other sex workers, they were chastised. One woman in the lesbian
relationship attempted suicide by badly slicing her arms, as she could
not cope with either the ensuing rejection of her female lover or the
stigma she faced from her own community.

Meena patiently asked the sex workers why they had rejected the
couple. The women replied that while they felt it was acceptable for
men to sleep with me, or transgendered women to sleep with men, women
loving one another was something they had never seen. They felt that it
was against the nature of women.

What ensued was a long and passionate debate, as Meena methodically
explained the values of sexual diversity, the existence of lesbians and
the right of women to love one another. “Just as you do not want people
to judge you for the sexual choices you make in your profession, why
would you judge the right of people to decide who they want to love?”
Meena asked. After much agonizing back and forth, the conversation
eventually ended with the sex workers promising to support the two
women and move forward with greater solidarity. Both of the women
seemed relieved to still have a home and place in their community,
although still shaken from the episode.

As demonstrated in these exceptional examples, many of the strongest
sex workers movements deeply embody the values of sexual diversity, in
both theory and practice. Moving beyond strict ideological positions
about the relationships of men and women that is all too-often pushed
by conservative governments, religious leaders and feminists, sex
workers movements offer some concrete suggestions for how we can all
better celebrate diversity. If we take the time to listen, that is.

Original Post:

http://blog.iwhc.org/2009/07/indian-sex-workers-and-a-celebration-of-sex...

Decriminalizing Homosexual Sex in India: An Inspiring Movement

khushbu — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:54:27 -0400

On October 22, my colleague Chelsea Ricker and I went to a very inspiring panel organized by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice
(CHRGJ), “Litigating Human Rights Series: The Task and Implications of
Decriminalizing Homosexual Sex in India.” The recent decision by the Delhi High Court to repeal Penal Code 377
has been by far the single greatest event that has happened in my
lifetime, and it was fascinating to hear the reflections of those who
were closely involved in this historic event.

The event featured distinguished panelists including Anand Grover, Project Director of the HIV/AIDS Unit of the Lawyers Collective in India and recently appointed UN Special Rapporteur to Health. Grover first filed the challenge to 377 on behalf of the Naz Foundation in Delhi High Court more than eight years ago.

My friend, Mario D’Penha, a queer feminist historian was also on the
panel. Mario is a founding member of two organizations who are part of Voices Against 377,
a coalition of progressive organizations that intervened in the case
against Section 377. I felt so proud seeing him on the panel, and
fondly reminisced about how I used to see him at Voices meetings, where
he was one of the most active members, when I was living in India.

Panelists shared fascinating insider tidbits about the struggle to
overturn 377. For example, Mr. Grover explained the original reasoning
for filing the petition in Delhi. For one, explained Grover, they knew
if they failed, they still would have the option of taking the case to
the Supreme Court. They also chose Delhi because its Tihar jail had
stopped distributing condoms due to 377, which provided a concrete
example of how 377 impairs AIDS prevention.

While the panel topic was focused on litigation, all the panelists
agreed that the single biggest factor that resulted in the repeal of
377 was the change in mentality of judges, parliamentarians and
everyday Indians since the petition was filed in 2001. Activists in
India have led painstaking efforts in India to increase awareness about
how HIV/ AIDS cannot be addressed in a punitive environment and to
increase support for the rights of LGBTQI people. I would have loved to
hear more about how women’s groups, child rights, human rights groups,
and LGBTQI all came together so effectively and emphatically on the
issue.

My friend, Caroline Earle, who works at Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action, or CREA, did a brilliant job discussing a very inspiring question asked by Carole Vance,
an anthropologist and activist who specializes in sexuality, human
rights, health at the Mailman School of Public Health. Vance asked how
movements can be brought together around shared issues that impact
everyone such as discrimination, privacy, consent, dignity, and the
freedom to make choices. Caroline pointed out that one of the greatest
factors that led to the Delhi High Court’s decision was the fact that
so many diverse groups and interests came together to oppose the law,
which impacted them all.

Moving forward, I hope that this collaborative spirit amongst
diverse groups will ensure further victories for civil and political
rights in India, particularly for women and sex workers.

Original Post:

http://blog.iwhc.org/2009/10/decriminalizing-homosexual-sex-in-india-an-...