|
Gay rights activists have noted that
sexual orientation is in its own way completely free of prejudice. No
religion, race, class, or nationality can be accused of being “the gay
ones”—there is no profile of a queer that dictates who is more
likely to be a member of the club. I find an odd comfort in the idea of
an anonymous hand going “eenie meenie minie moe” and sprinkling
fairy dust on whomever it may.
And then you have those
other anonymous hands that are even more pervasive in society—those of
disease. There are many. Cancer is the worst, with an astonishing rate
of 1 in 3 Americans contracting some form of it in their lifetimes.
The word cancer is
itself an umbrella term. In the basic mechanisms of a body you have cell
division, and there are those times when some cells go into
fundamentalist mode and decide that no other cell is as worthy as they
are and attempt to replicate themselves in some area of the body. It’s
variations on a theme—here the breast, there the skin, there the
liver.
There are certain
confusing statistics regarding cancer risk in gay men and lesbians. The
research simply hasn’t been done (particularly among the transgender
community), so although it would seem to be the case, no definitive
conclusions can be made about risk rates. Perhaps lesbians are more
likely to have certain kinds out of a general lack of having children
and not using birth control, perhaps not. Likewise for gay men and
penile cancer.
Certainly, at least
among the lesbian community, there is a widespread distrust of doctors
and traditional medicine. There are enough horror stories of doctors
being fixated on a patient’s lesbianism or saying “Oh, then you’re
a virgin” to the statement “I’ve never had sex with a man” to
make one cringe. Perhaps every med school should have a course in
Dealing With Patients Who Aren’t Just Like You. Understandable as it
is, this “stay away” mentality is deadly— in ovarian cancer, for
example, an early diagnoses means a 90% survival rate, while later
stages plummet down to 25% survival. In other words, just because you
don’t intend to go forth and people the world doesn’t mean that
those bits that would aid with said peopling shouldn’t be observed now
and then.
It would be another
form of trivial ghettoization to say that this is something that queers
should be concerned about because we are queer. It’s the human
race’s fight, and one in three means that everyone’s family and
everyone’s friends will deal with and fight some form of cancer.
It’s not noble, it’s necessary.
Genetics and massive
industrial pollutants aside, there are various ways of preventing
cancer. The simple one is what we’ve been told for years—diet and
exercise with less smoking and alcohol. (Rick, forgive me for borrowing
your favorite theme.) This is also the way that one can safely and
reliably lose weight. Given the current American rate of obesity that is
not caused by medical problems, it’s safe to say that we are not only
living in denial, we are using it for drinking water. It’s worth
noting that lesbians are at a higher risk of obesity than heterosexual
woman. This is casually attributed to a higher level of comfort with
body image, despite the fact that “comfortable body image” does not
on any level equal “my daily exercise is to walk to the television and
the fridge.” On the flip side, recent research indicates a higher
level of eating disorders (which does include morbid obesity, but is
more generally thought of as anorexia and bulemia) in gay men than in
heterosexual ones. I’d love to know the rate of eating disorders in
queer women just to see if the general rejection of the supermodel body
type is in fact accurate. It’s doubtful, if only because queer people
seem to be at a higher risk for pretty much everything except for
accidental pregnancy and obsessive preoccupation with Britney and
Justin’s relationship. (If I’m at higher risk for that, please kill
me now.) A casual perusal of the Healthy People 2010 Companion Document
for LGBT Health, a fascinating document available online at http://www.glma.org,
indicates that “50 percent or more of cancer can be prevented through
smoking cessation and improved dietary habits.” Interestingly enough,
it also seems that “gay men and lesbians who do not disclose their
sexual orientation may be at increased risk...due to a psychogenic
suppression of the immune response.” I’m waiting for a news report
entitled “better physical health through breaking down closet
doors.”
Sometimes stating the
obvious cannot be done enough. Try to be healthy and get regular
screening for disease. Advocate for those who do not have sufficient
insurance to do so; force the medical system to eradicate homophobia. We
might be second-class citizens, but at least we’ll have our health.
Kristen
Minor is a member of the class of 2004 at Dartmouth College and would
like to note that her mother is one of the strongest and most amazing
women on the planet. She can be reached at kristen@youth-guard.org.
.
|
