Links, articles, and such:

[moominmuppet]

A possible attempt to enstate a gag order within the US similar to what we have outside the US -- I'm not seeing enough backup on this to be sure about what's going on, and I'm on every reproductive rights list known to maude. My suspicion is that they're trying it (because they're constantly trying this crap), but that it'll come up against the same legal barriers it has in the past (as I understand it, and anyone feel _very_ free to correct me if I'm wrong, these attempts have been successfully fought on First Amendment grounds in the past, at least within the US). Again, this is from hazy recollections of mine, and I'm posting this as much to get feedback from other folks on my friends list as to "pass the alert".

According to The Advocate, statistics show that lesbian and bi female teens are 2-3 times as likely to get pregnant as straight girls. Likewise, almost twice as many gay and bi male teens have gotten a girl pregnant than their straight counterparts.
Which shows that sexuality in the younger LGBT generation is very fluid and labels... are only labels.
Callen Lorde's free program, Health Outreach to Teens (HOTT) is now receiving federal funding for free STD testing and contraception for queer girl teens who feel much more comfortable receiving GYN services in an LGBT setting than in a place like Planned Parenthood or by a family doctor. Callen Lorde is an LGBT Health Center in Chelsea http://www.callen-lorde.org/

Nifty things we can learn from the Platypus genome

Pretty scary WTFery on the work group assigned to review gender identity disorder for the DSM-V

Interesting little snippet from SciAm: How is the gender of some reptiles determined by temperature? (the info about interaction of genome and temperature was news to me, although I knew about the basic phenomenon)

And as long as I'm posting links, this is an older post of Heron's, but the studies and results are fascinating enough to be worth a relink

Comments

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

I searched on the advocate's site and in an initial pass, couldn't find anything about those statistics. I'd be curious to see what study that was.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not one they've got online, which is why the original poster transcribed it. I don't have a paper subscription anymore myself to read it in full. I'd heard something about the research elsewhere, although I personally wonder whether they mean "this many times more likely per incidence of intercourse" or "this many time more likely, period"

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

Although I have to admit, it partly makes some gut level sense to me.

Even me, of all people, finds it harder to keep in mind that queer boys are every bit as capable of getting me knocked up as straight boys.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3634/is_199905/ai_n8843462

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

Weird. It doesn't actually compare the rate of pregnancy. All the other stats compare two percentages gay and straight. overall, the differences are pretty slight in all other instances. everything else is about 3% difference. I would bet that since everything else is a terribly small difference that what the facts really say is that it doesn't matter who you like to or want to have sex with, you still need to know as much about contraception as the next person. Which is the conclusion of the above.

I know, my take is way less exciting, sorry.

If I'm not misreading the stats here, is this queer on queer "magic gay"ing?

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

From the other article I linked:

According to a 1999 study published in Family Planning Perspectives, a secondary analysis of a 1987 Minnesota Adolescent Health Survey showed that of the 3,816 students interviewed, about 30 percent of young women of all sexualities report having intercourse. Yet women who are bisexual or lesbian have twice the rate of pregnancy than their heterosexual peers (12 percent versus 6 percent, respectively). Moreover, the study also found that lesbian and bisexual teens are more likely than their heterosexual peers to have early intercourse (before the age of 14), frequent intercourse, multiple partners, and multiple pregnancies.

Advocates for Youth cites another study showing that 21 percent of lesbians report having high-risk sexual contact, including sexual intercourse with men who have had sex with men. (For bisexual women, that number jumps to 49 percent.) Overall, numerous studies have concluded that about 30 percent of lesbian and bisexual women have been pregnant at some point in their lives.

The Resource Center for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention summarizes this data as “staggering,” especially “when you consider that most health-care providers do not counsel young women who claim a lesbian or bisexual identity about common STD prevention and family planning.”

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

that blows my theory out of the water then.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

If I'm not misreading the stats here, is this queer on queer "magic gay"ing?

I've been trying to make sense of this, but I think I'm humor-impaired. Help? I do understand the framing, just not how it applies in this case.

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

well it doesn't really hold up since I was misreading the stats. It looked like the initial mention was reporting the total number as if it was percentage greater than the heteros which would be a gross exaggeration.

To me it looked like both populations were actually about the same.

A complaint about the magic ___ trope and prejudice in general is that it makes ____ out to be astoundingly different. Normally this is thought of as a bad thing.

So if the advocate was making it seem like its target audience was wildly different and it wasn't, and it looked like that's what they were doing, that's a bit of the magic gay from a place one wouldn't expect.

I'm sure some part of that didn't need to be over explained but I wasn't sure which part I wasn't clear about the first go round.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

Ah, and somewhat relevant:
http://www.curvemag.com/Detailed/298.html

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

That article about the workgroup for the DSM-V? Yeah...that's really unfriendly. Of course, I am sure that if psychiatrists see the hope of a "treatment" for GID that doesn't involve SRS, they'd probably be all over it. After all, it will likely involve YEARS of expensive psychotherapy. And there may even be drugs developed down the line, that they can then get money for prescribing.

Yes, I hold a dim view of the field. Not quite the Tom Cruise level of paranoia and pathology about psychiatrists. But I don't exactly trust them to have my best interests at heart, either.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

I have a very love/hate/distrust relationship with them, too, actually. I like my current psych, but I'm also insanely picky.