Health
Mautner Project celebrates 20th year
Health group credited with advancing lesbian care, visibility
Leslie Calman, the Mautner Project’s executive director, said the organization ‘introduced the rest of the country, including health care providers and government policy makers, to the vision of a lesbian health agenda.’ (DC Agenda photo by Michael Key)
The Mautner Project, the D.C.-based national lesbian health organization, is celebrating its 20th anniversary Saturday with 800 people gathered for a gala fundraising dinner and dance party at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.
The group’s founder, Susan Hester, and its executive director, Leslie Calman, say the festive occasion marks the success of an organization that bears the name of a woman whose forward-thinking ideas and untimely death in 1989 became the inspiration for its mission and programs.
“Before she died of cancer at the age of 44, Mary-Helen Mautner asked her partner Susan Hester to create an organization to help other lesbians and their loved ones meet the challenges of life-threatening illnesses,” says the group’s web site. “Susan promised to make Mary-Helen’s dream a reality — and the Mautner Project is a result of that promise.”
With Hester serving as executive director for the first six years, Mautner Project embarked on a mission to fulfill a vision that Hester says her partner sketched out on a single piece of paper while in the hospital shortly before her death.
“She told me that during a bone scan she realized how many lesbians in her situation would not have someone with them,” Hester recalled in a 2008 essay. “They would be going through this all alone. And she had an idea of how to deal with that.”
Before becoming ill, Mautner was an attorney with the U.S. Department of Labor and a keen observer of the LGBT rights and AIDS advocacy movements, including programs by AIDS groups to assign volunteer “buddies” to assist gay men with AIDS-related illnesses, Hester said.
“She wanted an organization that would provide support for lesbians who didn’t have the support she had,” Hester said.
Calman, who began her tenure as executive director two years ago, said the early vision of both Mary-Helen Mautner and Hester evolved into a nationally acclaimed health services and advocacy organization that, among other things, educates health care professionals on the needs of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women.
The organization’s programs include providing direct services and support for lesbian, bisexual and transgender women with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses; and offering support groups for cancer clients, caregivers and others grieving over a loss. It also educates the lesbian, bi and trans communities about preventive health practices and nutrition and offers smoking cessation programs and programs to address obesity.
“The most remarkable thing to me about the Mautner Project is that lesbians came together — created a vibrant organization — and introduced the rest of the country, including health care providers and government policy makers, to the vision of a lesbian health agenda,” Hester told DC Agenda.
“But 20 years later — despite the remarkable exposure of lesbians and gays — there are still more lesbians and gay men who are not out to their health care providers than the number who live free and open lives,” she said. “There are more health care providers who blush or blanch at the idea of working with lesbians than there are who welcome us.”
Calman said Mautner Project currently has a staff of six full-time and two part-time employees and an annual budget of about $900,000. In keeping with its tradition of volunteer help, the group has 60 volunteers who help carry out its programs.
“We’re still small and scrappy,” she said.
Hester and Calman credited former executive director Kathleen DeBold, who headed the organization from 2000 to 2007, with expanding its budget and programs, transforming it from a local group to a national organization.
Last year, the group weighed in on a controversy over when women should begin undergoing mammogram tests for breast cancer. The controversy was triggered by a U.S. government medical task force, which issued recommendations suggesting that mammograms may not be beneficial for women between the ages of 40 and 50.
Among other things, the task force pointed to data showing there was a statistically insignificant difference in the lives saved of women who underwent mammograms in their 40s and those who did not. The task force concluded that the very small difference in the number of breast cancer cases detected in women taking the test in their 40s did not justify the expense, subsequent biopsies and “anxieties” the tests generated.
In an open letter to the community, Calman and D.C. physician Linda Spooner, chair of the Mautner Project’s board of directors, sided with the American Cancer Society, which urged women between 40 and 50 to ignore the task force recommendation and take yearly mammograms.
“Mammography is a diagnostic tool, not a cure, and we need a cure,” Spooner and Calman said in their letter. “But for the task of early and timely detection, mammograms, in conjunction with clinical breast exams, are our best tool.”
They added that the task force’s suggestion that avoiding mammograms would spare women anxiety “strikes us as patronizing and dangerous.”
Health
MISTR announces it’s now prescribing DoxyPE
MISTR, the telemedicine provider that offers free online PrEP and long-term HIV care in all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, announced it is now prescribing Doxycycline Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (DoxyPEP), an antibiotic that reduces bacterial STIs, including gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis. Patients can now use MISTR’s telehealth platform to receive DoxyPEP online for free, according to a release from the company.
With this launch, MISTR plans to offer patients access to post-exposure care, in addition to its existing preventive and long-term HIV treatment options, which include PrEP and antiretroviral therapy (ART). This comes at a time when the rate of STIs continue to rise. In 2022, more than 2.5 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia were reported in the U.S; of that population, gay and bisexual men are disproportionately affected, the company reported.
“Despite an ongoing STI epidemic affecting the LGBTQ+ community, there are few resources available for this underserved, vulnerable community to get the preventative medication they need,” said Tristan Schukraft, CEO and founder of MISTR. “I’m proud that MISTR is democratizing access to PrEP, HIV care, and now DoxyPEP.”
An NIH-funded study published by the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2023 found that doxycycline as post-exposure prophylaxis, now known as DoxyPEP, reduced syphilis by 87%, chlamydia by 88%, and gonorrhea by 55% in individuals taking HIV PrEP, and reduced syphilis by 77%, chlamydia by 74% and gonorrhea by 57% in people living with HIV.
MISTR is a telemedicine platform offering free online access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and long-term HIV care Visit mistr.com for more information.
Health
UNAIDS to commemorate Zero Discrimination Day’s 10th anniversary
UN agency urges global action to protect human rights
As the world marks the 10th anniversary of Zero Discrimination Day; UNAIDS is sounding the alarm on the increasing threats to human rights, calling for renewed efforts to protect the rights of all individuals as a fundamental step towards ensuring health for everyone.
Established by UNAIDS a decade ago, Zero Discrimination Day aims to promote equality and fairness regardless of gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity or HIV status. The progress achieved over the past years is now in jeopardy, however, due to rising attacks on the rights of women, LGBTQ people and other marginalized communities.
UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima emphasized the critical link between protecting human rights and safeguarding public health.
“The attacks on rights are a threat to freedom and democracy and are harmful to health,” she said in a press release. “Stigma and discrimination obstruct HIV prevention, testing, treatment and care and hold back progress towards ending AIDS by 2030. It is only by protecting everyone’s rights that we can protect everyone’s health.”
Despite challenges, there has been notable progress.
At the onset of the AIDS pandemic more than 40 years ago, two-thirds of countries criminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations. They are now decriminalized in two-thirds of countries. An additional 38 countries around the world have pledged to end HIV-related stigma and discrimination, contributing to positive changes that include 50 million more girls attending school compared to 2015.
To sustain and enhance these advancements; UNAIDS urges global support for women’s rights movements, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, economic justice, climate justice and peace initiatives. By standing with communities advocating for their rights, the U.N. aims to reinforce the collective effort towards a more inclusive and equitable world.
Zero Discrimination Day is observed on March 1.
Events and activities that will take place around the world throughout the month will serve as reminders of the essential lesson and call to action: Protecting everyone’s health is synonymous with protecting everyone’s rights.
“Through upholding rights for all, we will be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and secure a safer, fairer, kinder and happier world — for everyone,” said Byanyima.
Health
New CDC report finds transgender women at higher risk for HIV
More than 1,600 people in seven cities surveyed
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new study report this week that revealed that restricted by employment and housing discrimination and lack of access to needed gender-affirming healthcare for transgender women increasing the risk of contracting HIV.
Researchers reviewed data from a 2019-2020 survey, the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Among Transgender Women, which found that the demographics of HIV/AIDS have been disproportionally high, especially among Black and Latina trans women, who had experienced employment and housing discrimination coupled with lack of access to gender-affirming healthcare.
The Jan. 25 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report was based on data studies of more than 1,600 trans women in seven major urban locales. Participants from Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle were chosen by referrals from people and community-based organizations who knew or were part of the local population of trans women.
The study’s researchers noted: “Employment discrimination occurs at the overlapping nexus of poverty, homelessness, incarceration, health insurance, disability, food insecurity and survival sex work. These issues are interconnected.”
The study stated that trans women’s inability to access quality healthcare, including gender-affirming treatment or access to PrEP, and can expose them to potential incarceration as many turn to “survival sex work” and violence, which increases the risk of contracting HIV.
The study’s author’s pointed out: “When economically marginalized transgender women are refused employment, this refusal cyclically contributes to economic hardships. This analysis …demonstrates the importance of transgender women working and living with dignity and without fear of unfair treatment.”
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