Tag: LGBTQ community

Trump administration threatens future of HIV research hub

A researcher works in the stem cell lab on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2012. (Paul Sakuma, AP

The Trump administration has thrown into doubt a multimillion-dollar research contract to test new treatments for HIV that relies on fetal tissue — work targeted by antiabortion lawmakers and social conservatives aligned with the president.

The turmoil over the National Institutes of Health contract with the University of California at San Francisco is part of a building battle between conservatives opposed to research using fetal tissue and scientists who say the material is vital to developing new therapies for diseases such as AIDS and Parkinson’s.

The researcher who runs the UCSF laboratory was given a 90-day extension on the contract, rather than another year’s $2 million installment, as had been routine. A few days earlier, she had been told the money would be cut off immediately, according to a virologist familiar with the events.

View the complete December 5 article by Amy Goldstein on The Washington Post website here.

Protecting Basic Living Standards for LGBTQ People

The following article by Caitlin Rooney, Charlie Whittington and Laura E. Durso was posted on the Center for American Progress website August 13 2018:

Introduction and summary

“In the nearly seven years since I transitioned, I have been unemployed, surviving off the charity of friends and family, and government assistance when I could get it. I have over 20 years of experience in my field, yet I cannot even land a part-time retail position.”

— Respondent to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey1

A transgender father holds his 1-year-old daughter on her birthday, March 2017, in Michigan.

Employment discrimination, along with discrimination in housing and health care, is all too common in the LGBTQ community. It can impede LGBTQ people’s ability to attain and maintain economic security. That’s why it’s crucial that LGBTQ people have access to supports that help them put food on the table, access health care, and put a roof over their heads. Despite high need for public benefits in the LGBTQ community, access to these benefits is far from assured. At the state and federal levels, there are recent and ongoing attacks on programs that ensure basic living standards, including the implementation of harsh work requirements for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid and proposed funding cuts to SNAP in the House farm bill.2 These efforts increase the urgency to examine how cuts to benefits such as nutrition assistance and Medicaid could affect the LGBTQ community. Continue reading “Protecting Basic Living Standards for LGBTQ People”