Tag: LGBT+

Categories
World Alzheimer's Month

Connor Richardson Guest Speaker for Dementia Researcher Podcast:

Highlights from Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2022 & underrepresentation in dementia research

While attending the Alzheimer’s Association conference, I was a guest speaker on the Dementia Researcher podcast. Among the two other guests, we all had one major highlight, a fantastic session on “Navigating the crisis of underrepresentation in ADRD research: New directions and best practices”. An eye-opening session focussed on the unique challenges facing memorised groups living with dementia, failures in research of including minority groups in research and fresh ideas to address underrepresentation.

Right to left: Dr Bhargav Teja Nallapu, Dept. of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York; Dr Isabel Castanho, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Harvard Medical School; Dr Annalise Rahman-Filipiak, Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical School & Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Dr Connor Richardson, Newcastle University Population Health Sciences Institute.

Links to the podcast, information on Dementia Researcher, session descriptions and speakers are included below.

Dementia Researcher

About Dementia Researcher

Session Description:

Across a host of Western countries, persons from minority groups are increasingly recognized to be severely and persistently underrepresented in clinical research on Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD). Early investigations into this problem consisted mainly of small, descriptive studies and bespoke interventions focused on participant-related barriers to research enrolment (like mistrust), often among persons of colour. This Featured Research Session will highlight recent conceptual and methodological advances in the field of recruitment, engagement, and retention (RER) science, present new findings from research being conducted in various regions of the United States, and call on ADRD investigators to action in identifying concrete ways to intervene amidst the current crisis of underrepresentation in clinical research. The first two presentations will discuss ongoing, transdisciplinary efforts to rigorously characterize historical and current issues impacting research participation across a range of marginalized and minority communities. The following three presentations will feature innovative approaches to increasing ADRD research participation within specific underrepresented populations. The final presentation will provide a rationale for expanding the concept of research inequities beyond biological disparities and systemic inequities, incorporating researcher-related barriers to research enrolment.

Session Presenters:

  • Kylie M Smith (Emory University, GA, USA) – Incorporating history into disparities research: A model for interdisciplinary collaboration and trust building
  • Nicole Taikeff (CARE Research Center Massachusetts General Hospital, MA, USA) – Early norming data for engagement and recruitment of diverse populations into ADRD research
  • Jennifer H Lingler (University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC), PA, USA) – Mechanisms by which culturally-informed narratives may promote ADRD research enrollment among African American adults
  • Jason D. Flatt (University of Nevada Las Vegas, NV, USA) – Promoting Inclusion of Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Research
  • Krystal R. Kittle (University of Nevada Las Vegas, NV, USA) – Caregiving Experiences and Health of LGBTQ+ Caregivers: Results from the Equality in Caregiving Study
  • Jonathan D. Jackson (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA) – A Methodological Framework for Investigating Diversity in Clinical Research
Categories
Book Club LGBT+

Book Club: International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

May 17th

By Connor Richardson with Recommendations from the Lit and Phil.

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo | Fiction

This is Britain as you’ve never read it.
This is Britain as it has never been told.

‘Beautifully interwoven stories of identity, race, womanhood, and the realities of modern Britain. The characters are so vivid, the writing is beautiful and it brims with humanity’ 

Nicola Sturgeon


From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They’re each looking for something – a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .

THE SUNDAY TIMES 1# BESTSELLER & BOOKER PRIZE WINNER

BRITISH BOOK AWARDS AUTHOR & FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 

History of Violence

Édouard Louis | Autobiographical fiction

The radical, urgent new novel from the author of The End of Eddy – a personal and powerful story of violence.

‘It stays with you’

The Times

‘A heartbreaking novel’

John Boyne


I met Reda on Christmas Eve 2012, at around four in the morning. He approached me in the street, and finally I invited him up to my apartment. He told me the story of his childhood and how his father had come to France, having fled Algeria. 

We spent the rest of the night together, talking, laughing. At around 6 o’clock, he pulled out a gun and said he was going to kill me. He insulted me, strangled and raped me. The next day, the medical and legal proceedings began.

History of Violence retraces the story of that night, and looks at immigration, class, racism, desire and the effects of trauma in an attempt to understand a history of violence, its origins, its reasons and its causes. 

Transgender History

Susan Stryker | Non-fiction

Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events.

An invaluable text for anyone who wants to better understand evolving concepts of gender. Essential.

CHOICE

Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-’70s to 1990-the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the ’90s and ’00s.

Ground-breaking and all-around excellent.

Autostraddle

Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.

This timely and relevant book should be required reading.

Portland Book Review

And Tango Makes Three

Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell & Henry Cole | Childrens

Roy and Silo are two boy penguins who live in the zoo in New York’s Central Park. They like to spend all their time together, and so just as the boy and girl penguins begin to build nests, so do Roy and Silo.

But then eggs start to appear in all the other nests, and Roy and Silo’s nest remains empty. So the penguin keeper gets the idea to give them an egg that’s not wanted by another couple.

This is a really delightful story and the message behind it is subtle. It’s a true story, and you can learn more about it in a note at the end.

Categories
LGBT+ History Month

LGBT+ History Month

NUPHSI PG Student Georgia Louise Bell

writes on the importance of LGBT+ History Month & Volunteering with ReportOUT.

LGBT+ History Month is an important time, in which we can reflect on the progress that has been made in the fight for LGBT+ equality, how far we still must go, and where in the world LGBT+ communities still need urgent help. We first started celebrating LGBT+ History Month in the UK in 2005.

This year in the UK we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first official Pride event held in London in July 1972. Pride protests and marches were held before this, but 1972 signifies the founding of London Pride. This is a considerable anniversary to be celebrating, and this LGBT+ History Month we should be looking back at the progress made in these five decades:

  • 1967: homosexuality in the UK was decriminalised five years before the first official pride event, a significant first step in changing social attitudes toward the LGBT+ community.
  • 2001: the homosexual age of consent was reduced from 21 to 18, bringing it in line with the heterosexual age of consent.
  • 2005: same-sex relationships finally gained legal recognition with the introduction of the Civil Partnership Act, followed in 2014 by the right to be married.
  • 2005: transgender people can change their legal gender by acquiring a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), gaining a level of legal recognition not before seen.
  • 2007: discrimination based on sexual orientation is outlawed
  • 2010: the 2010 Equality Act Officially adds gender reassignment to the list of protected characteristics
  • 2017: The Alan Turing Law awarded posthumous pardons to those in England and Wales charged under sodomy laws. In January 2022 it was announced that all same-sex criminal convictions are to be pardoned as part of a new scheme

These are just some of the positive steps made in the UK there are many other more, both large and small that have made the UK a safer and happier place to live for the LGBT+ community. However, there are still great strides to be made.

However, the journey toward equality is not a linear one and during that time the UK also experienced a significant decline. In 1988 the UK government introduced Section 28, a law which prohibited schools and councils from “promoting homosexuality”. This included stepping in when children were homophobically bullied and a complete lack of sex education based around non-heterosexual sex. This was repealed in 2003, but harmed public attitudes toward LGBT+ people and had a lasting impact on those who lived through Section 28 during their school years.

In recent years there has also been a marked increase in anti-trans rhetoric in the UK. This is part of a worrying global trend with the UK being noted by both the Council of Europe and ILGA-Europe as having a particularly sharp rise. This has created an increasingly hostile environment for trans people in the UK who are facing largely negative media attention and restricted access to healthcare. Many LGBT+ organisations and trans activists are attempting to make the application process for a GRC less complicated and more accessible as well as trying to counteract a growing trend of anti-trans rhetoric.

But LGBT+ History Month isn’t just about the UK and the progress it has made; it is also about LGBT+ communities around the world who are also fighting for equality. There are currently 71 countries in which it is illegal to be homosexual. In these countries, punishments can range from fines to prison sentences to the death penalty. LGBT+ people are also subjected to incredible amounts of violence by the public and the police.

Last year I began volunteering with ReportOUT, a global LGBT+ human rights charity based in Gateshead. Their mission is based on three areas: Report (research and documentation), Inform (education) and Defend (campaigns). I personally volunteer as a human rights researcher and have been working on book chapters for ReportOUT’s upcoming book which will give an A to Z of the history and current state of LGBT+ human rights in every country. I got involved with ReportOUT because I am a big believer in queer solidarity and mutual aid, and this has allowed me to put my academic research and writing skills to practical use. Though research into the reality of human rights abuses against LGBT+ communities around the world has been sobering, and at times difficult, I am grateful to be part of an organisation that is helping in the fight for social justice. Doing this research has also made it stark just how precarious the rights that we fight for are, and how easily they can be repealed.

In light of the recent conflict in Ukraine, one of my fellow researchers produced this blog post regarding the risks being posed to LGBT+ people in Ukraine. I highly recommend this post to anyone who wants to gain further context of the risks involved with the Russian aggression in Ukraine and get an idea of the work ReportOUT does.

https://www.reportout.org/post/he-who-licks-knives-will-soon-cut-his-tongue

Georgia is a postgraduate student on our MSc in Public Health and Health Service Research. Georgia volunteers for ReportOUT a global LGBT+ human rights charity based in Gateshead. Links to ReportOUT can be fount below.

ReportOUT