Tag Archives: U.S. government

Collecting Good Health Data: An Important First Step

Debbie says:

As Jos at Feministing says,

“The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) announcement yesterday that they plan to begin including sexual orientation and gender identity in health data collection probably doesn’t sound that exciting unless you’re a total data nerd.”

But it is exciting. Here’s Jos again:

There is a lack of data on LGBT folks, who we do know face disparities in health and access to health services. Without federal health data, it’s practically impossible to direct federal government resources to focus on health inequalities. Including sexual orientation in data collection will go a long way towards showing what LGB folks face.

The problem is especially stark for transgender and gender non-conforming folks, and the potential for positive change is huge.

Collecting data about trans folks is not easy. We’re a relatively small community, we’re spread out, and we’re difficult to reach since we face such immense barriers to access. Just figuring out the right questions to ask is complicated, when you realize language that makes sense to lots of trans folks doesn’t make sense to lots of cisgender folks – so how do you phrase a question that can be included in a general survey? HHS’ efforts to determine best practices for collecting data related to gender identity have the potential to change the problem, creating a body of knowledge about trans and gender non-conforming folks. And with data comes the ability to point to a problem and direct government resources to solving it.

I’m not quite a total data nerd myself (but some of my best friends are). And I’m a deep believer in the value of data, for exactly the reasons Jos states. Without the data, we can’t solve the problems. And yet, I’m inevitably aware that there are comparable populations on which the United States does have data–good data. AIDS, cancer, heart disease and stroke are all more common in ethnic minority populations, including African Americans, Latin Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Hawai’ians and Pacific Islanders. Researching this post, I discovered that health disparities seems to be an under-reported area in which both the Bush administration and the Obama administration have been doing serious work, but it’s not clear whether or not the data shows encouraging results.

So while I laud the new data collection initiative, I have to be skeptical about what we’ll do with the data. Maybe it’s because I also read this article:

Nations seeking to compete for well-paying jobs in research, development and manufacturing are now adding proven critical thinking activities developed in America to their science courses.

Meanwhile, more and more American teachers are postponing scientific experimentation until after the last [memorization and detail-oriented] state test has been completed.

Scientists spend little time memorizing details. They spend more time experimenting and interpreting the results. They know the details relevant to their own work because they use the information every day to reason about dilemmas. When they need a detail from another field, they tap the Internet.

To be sure, scientists need to know what information they are missing before they can look it up. Identifying gaps in knowledge is part of critical thinking.

The data the HHS is collecting can help fill those gaps in knowledge. Major props to Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for taking this step. I’m just hoping that people with good sense, critical thinking skills, and good hearts get to decide how that data gets used.

Linking Around

Debbie says:

Because it’s toxic to think about the economy all the time, here are three other things I’ve found worth thinking about recently:

Dauntless link-sharer Arthur D. Hlavaty is a frequent source for Body Impolitic Posts (but not usually three at once!). All the links below are from him except Wheelchair Dancer, which I got from Liz Henry.

“Gen. J. C. Christian, Patriot” at Jesus’ General, has some suggestions for people who are opposed to Obama, but not because he’s black.

spinner wheel with excuses

Wheelchair Dancer completely nails the key issues about art and disability Here We Go Again: Journalism, Bad Art, and Making a Difference. Here are quotations from the first two of her seven “strands,” and the last one, but really, read the whole thing:

Bad Art: A Definition

What do I mean by bad art? I am not talking about whether art means something or is just beautiful. I’m not talking about whether shit and blood stains in a bed can be art; I am talking about the way the motivation for production or the performance of production can come to be the art itself, can outperform the art, can become more prominent than the art. I am talking about art that when viewed appears to be more about its production/performance and the production values experienced by the producer/performer than the product itself.

Disabled People and Art

Don’t be telling me that it is art that is performed, written, composed by disabled people …. awww shucks, must be good then. It can suck. And, btw, it is condescending to think that art produced by disabled people must be easily accessible to all folk; crip art can be as complicated, twisted, and challenging as the work of any other culture, movement, people, or individual (more on that later).

Inclusiveness means that disabled people should have access to the means to produce their art. Access means that disabled people should be able to get in the door and see, touch, hear the art (or perhaps its the other way around, but you get my point!) But access to art does not mean that the work itself is

And, people, disability or no, it requires experience, training, technique, and work to produce art. You don’t just wake up the next day and call yourself a dancer, artist, writer, filmmaker … Geez. People, disabled or not, work — as in the case of my colleagues work for years, day in and day out, to become dancers; they cross train, take class, experiment, rehearse, try and fail. And they aren’t the story in their work; the work itself is paramount.

Crip Art and Making a Difference


Crip art. Really good crip art gets you. It gets under your skin. It can sneak in slowly and gently and then sting you when you aren’t ready for it. It can seep through your pores undetectably; before you know it, you are changed by it. It can blow your socks off. It can twist your mind, fuck you up, make you weep, blow a gasket; it can stun you, numb you, seize your mind, and change your world. Or it can be simply blah. Either way, the best of it has little to say about the art-maker.

If crip art makes a difference, it is not because it teaches or has anything to say about disabled people in the world. If crip art makes a difference, it is connected to a movement. If crip art makes a difference, it is because it penetrates the core.

***

Because the War on Terror and its craziness is always with those of us who live in the U.S.

Lesbian equals terrorist?

Security guards contracted by the DHS threw a woman out of a Social Security office in Van Nuys for wearing a t-shirt that read “lesbian.com.” He claimed that “The Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Federal Property” gave him the right to throw her out for wearing a t-shirt with the word “lesbian” on it.

If you haven’t already checked out the link: I’ll give you one guess regarding the woman’s race. (You were right, weren’t you?)

And some good things can happen, even in today’s Federal government:

Today a federal judge ruled that the Library of Congress illegally discriminated against a Special Forces veteran when she was denied a job after announcing her intention to transition from male to female. In a groundbreaking decision, the court ruled that discriminating against someone for changing genders is sex discrimination under federal law.