2011 National Healthcare Quality Report: Disparities

[TygrBright]

http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhqrdr11/nhdrlgbt11.htm

None of the information in this report will surprise any of us, I'm certain. But sometimes having some facts accessible can be useful.

Dear friends, today the news of Maurice Sendak's death, combined with the ongoing evidence of humanity's inhumanity, has me sorrowful.

I remind myself that I lived to see someone who isn't white elected to the office of President of the United States. While it does NOT mean that racism doesn't exist anymore (and in some ways it has re-ignited and re-invigorated racism) it does signify something important and hopeful: Racism is still powerful, but no longer powerful enough to control all of our institutions and intimidate those of us who despise and reject it.

Now I have set myself a new "hope goal." This one is simple: I wish to live long enough to see the vicious, tragic aberrance of homophobia regarded as the disease that it is, and that sufficiently widely to see it described as such in medical/psych literature, and to see treatments evolved to help these sad, sick, dangerous perverts offered help. Help that will allow them to recognize this hate for what it is, and the damage it does to them, and the freedom and joy that can come from recognizing it for what it is, and abandoning the fear that engenders the hate.

May it happen in my lifetime.

And I'm old enough so that isn't "a long time" although hopefully it's "enough time" for a cultural change of such magnitude.

sadly,
Bright