Celebrating Coming Out Day

The PT's from CHC celebrated "Coming Out Day" last week together in the colors of the rainbow. Can you guess which one is coming out? (HINT) You have seen her on this blog site before.

Island Dyke

OK Men Here are Your Facts!

After my last posting I started to think about you men. Last month, September, was National Prostate Cancer Awareness month. If lesbians are at greater risk I was wondering if the same is true for gay men. Johnson (2007) shares with us that the American Cancer Society thinks gay men ARE at an increased risk for prostate cancer as well as skin, colon and lung cancer. The ACS attributes this increased risk to:

• Lack of health coverage
• Healthcare discrimination and negative experiences
• Gay men and smoking

According to one citation gays that smoke are 36% of LGBT adults compared to 25% of all adults.

For a PDF file copy of Cancer Facts for Gay and Bisexual Men follow this link: http://gaylife.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=gaylife&cdn=people&tm=1209&gps=297_914_1276_640&f=00&tt=2&bt=0&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.cancer.org/downloads/COM/Gay%2520Men%2520CF%2520Brochure.pdf

Island Dyke

Reference:

Johnson, R. (2007) Gays Have Higher Cancer Risk. About.com: Gay Life. Retrieved on October 8, 2007 from http://gaylife.about.com/od/healthfitness/a/smokingcancer.htm

Lesbian's Risk of Breast Cancer

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in which the month is dedicated to increasing awareness of the importance of early breast cancer detection. I found a web site that gives a simple test to calculate your risk of developing breast cancer. Follow this link I found it very informative (even men are at risk for breast cancer and can take this quiz):

http://www.divine.ca/en/breast-cancer-corner/breast-cancer-risk-calculator/c_244/

So are lesbians at a greater risk of developing breast cancer? Well I found a site on lesbian life and Kathy Belge answers this question for us. She tells us that lesbians as a group do have higher incidence of certain risk factors that are known to be associated with developing breast cancer. These risk factors are:

• obesity
• smoking
• alcohol use
• having never birthed a child

In addition to these increased risk factors on the whole there is also the factor that lesbians are less likely to visit a doctor for fear of homophobia or being uncomfortable with answering questions that would have them coming out. Another noted factor is that lesbians are less likely to have health insurance which is partially due to plans not offering domestic partner benefits. The interesting information I found though, according to Dr. Hudson, is that lesbians are less likely to perform self-breast exams. (Belge, 2007) Hmmmm.

Island Dyke

Reference:

Belge, K. (2007) Are Lesbians More at Risk? About.com.: Lesbian Life. Retrieved on October 5, 2007 from http://lesbianlife.about.com/cs/healthconcerns/a/brcancer.htm

Coming Out Day

October 11 is National Coming Out Day with the aim to raise awareness of the GLBT community among the general populace number one and number two an additional aim is to give a familiar face to the GLBT rights movement.

This year is also the twentieth anniversary of the 1987 Gay and Lesbian March on Washington when the AIDS Quilt was unfurled on the National Mall.

You can make your own You Tube coming out video to celebrate this special event. This link will take you to the HRC site with instructions to making your video: http://www.hrc.org/issues/7649.htm

I encourage community members to wear some identifying symbol to celebrate this day.

Island Dyke

National Coming Out Day 2007

Gaydar

Wikipedia describes gaydar as "the intuitive ability to determine whether another person is gay or not". They go on to describe gaydar as a sense or intuition. It can also rely on an individual's sense to mannerisms that are associated with being gay. (WIKI, 18th)

You can take the test to see how well your gaydar is. This was very difficult for me as with looking at pictures it is difficult to get a sense of who a person is. I really didn't do that well as I scored a 60%. Check it out and see how well you do.
http://www.okcupid.com/gaydar

Have fun.

Island Dyke

Reference:

WIKI 18th WWW GAYDAR Retrieved on September 18, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaydar

OK, Let Talk About Larry Craig

So, there I was this morning replying to a comment, a second reply, about why am I not posting something about Larry Craig. Later, as I was driving the island to work, I started asking myself why I was not interested in talking about Larry and his recent run-in with the law. Thinking about it some I came to the realization that it had pushed a button of mine. I am learning that when my buttons get pushed I either (a) get defensive or (b) turn the subject around back onto the other person. SHHH don't tell Lori, my S.O., that I am admitting to this! At any rate, I would like to apologize to blogger pictytaz and anonymous for turning my reply back. You make an excellent recommendation to talk about Larry Craig.

So, an hour later after thinking about writing this blog after my above realizations, I picked up the Saipan Tribune September 5, 2007 edition, and saw in bold print "A prayer for Larry Craig" written by former Governor of New Jersey, James E. McGreevey. If you have not read this article, please do. It is a short, heart felt, coming out story of Governor McGreevey. I applaud the Saipan Tribune for printing this article.

So back to that button of mine that was pushed, the one that I didn't come out until I was 27 y/o. I was raised in an ultra religious family environment and it was understood from day one that being "gay" was a sin, not natural, and not talked about period. I'm not a famous movie star or political figure that needs to hide in fear of hurting a career, at age 27 I finally found that honest person I could trust talking about who I am. I finally was set free and at that point it was one of the easiest things I've done, coming out of the closet. But I still think back about how come I didn't do it sooner? What prevented me? There were several times I ventured a bit, however, quickly retreated in fear.

So, let's talk about Larry Craig. Has he been an 'in the closet' gay man all this time? Well I found two web-sites written by Michael Rogers. The first site is named blogActive.com and has been touted by Yahoo News as "He's starting to make Capital Hill look like Brokeback Mountain". (Rogers, 2007) His second site named "Proud of Who we are" is his other site dedicated to holding government officials accountable for hiding their truth. (PROUDOFWHOWEARE, 5th) Check out those sites and let's talk.

Island Dyke

Reference:

Rogers, M (2007) Senator Larry Craig.....What's with the gay bashing? Retrieved on September 5, 2007, from

http://www.blogactive.com/2006/10/senator-larry-craig-whats-with-gay.html

PROUDOFWHOWEARE 5th WWW Retrieved on September 5, 2007, from

http://www.proudofwhoweare.org/