LGBT Wellness Roundup: March 14

Your Weekly LGBT Wellness Roundup

Each week HuffPost Gay Voices, in a partnership with bloggers Liz Margolies and Scout, brings you a round up of some of the biggest LGBT wellness stories from the past seven days. For more LGBT Wellness, visit our page dedicated to the topic here.

1
Cancer and the Looming Open Enrollment Deadline
Getty Images/Tetra images RF
While nearly 2/3 of young people put off healthcare in the previous year because they couldn’t afford it, 27-year-old Andrew Cray was fortunate to have had insurance coverage through his employer when his cancer was found. In a compelling op-ed he strongly encourages his peers to get insurance during these last days of open enrollment in Obamacare.
2
Bisexual Health Month Spotlights Sexual Health
BRC
March is Bixexual Health Awareness month and each week the Bisexual Resource Center focuses on a different topic. This week they are spotlighting a dozen new resources on sexual health.
3
Michigan LGBT Tobacco Study Shows It’s About Community
Shutterstock / ChameleonsEye
The Michigan Department of Community Health, Affirmations, and the Kalamazoo Gay and Lesbian Resource Center collaborated to conducted focus groups exploring the role of tobacco in the LGBT communities. They report the primary reasons LGBT people smoke were to create community, ease social anxieties and meet people. Quitting was more difficult because of those same community influences and because few knew of the existence of the state quitlines at 1-800-QUITNOW.
4
Myth Busting: Trans Health Care Isn’t Bad for Business
YouTube
HRC and Pride At Work released a new video debunking the myth that trans inclusive health coverage is bad for businesses. Read about their larger trans health video series here and see their first video debunking the myth that all trans people want surgery here.
5
Top HIV Doc Moves to Create Historic Gay & Bi Wellness Initiative
Shutterstock / kurhan
One of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2012, Dr. Robert Grant, has moved from his university post to San Francisco AIDS Foundation. His first task there will be to create the first-ever home for gay and bi health and wellness, pivoting the response to HIV/AIDS from the traditional sickness and disease model.
6
Sexual Minority Youth May Have Notably Greater Cancer Risk
Getty Images/Fuse
Researchers created a profile of youth risk behaviors along three cancer-related metrics: substance use, sexual risk and diet/activity. They report sexual minority youth started displaying higher risk behaviors in all three metrics very early, as well as across gender and racial/ethnic categories, raising concerns about the aggregate impact of these behaviors over their lifetime. In better news, other researchers found youth attending high schools with a Gay Straight Alliance had lower alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use.
7
Transgender Health Care Discrimination Persists Despite Obamacare Provisions
EVA HAMBACH via Getty Images
Researchers analyzing data from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey found 41% of transmen reported being denied or refused care, verbally harassed, or physically assaulted in a doctor's office or hospital. Unfortunately, while Obamacare does offer new protections, the RH Reality Check does a good job here of overviewing how states vary in implementing them and raises concerns about newly denied coverages.

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