LGBTQIA + Pride Month and health

A few years ago, the month of June was called the Red June, to encourage and draw the population's attention to blood donation. June was also chosen as the month of LGBTQIA + Pride, to honor the date on which the Stonewall Uprising took place.

The Stonewall Uprising (or Stonewall Rebellion) took place on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn bar in New York, USA. The bar had a large number of LGBTQIA + clients, and after police beat some of them, most of whom were young people from the periphery, homeless (many who had left their families because of prejudice, according to reports in books), and drag queens, a rebellion started, bringing to the streets of New York Protestants who were part of the gay community, which until then hid.

For this reason, the date went down in history, and the event is considered the milestone of the gay liberation movement and the moment when activism for LGBTQIA + rights wins the public debate and the streets.

March in Times Square, 1969. Gay liberation front.

But after all, what does LGBTQIA + Pride Month have to do with Red June?

Since the event in 1969, the LGBTQIA + community has gained more strength to fight and guarantee their rights. When AIDS began to spread in the 1980s, it was noted that many of those infected were homosexuals, which in addition to contributing to the prejudice that already existed in society, opened up the scope for calling them a "risk group".

Despite this, another group contributed to the spread of AIDS: injecting drug users. Drug users can be men or women, regardless of their sexual orientation, and with that, it was found that there is no risk group, but risk behaviors.

However, the AIDS epidemic that marked the 1980s prompted several governments to take drastic measures to try to control the spread of the disease. It was in this global context that Brazil, following other countries, prohibited 1993 that homosexual men donate blood. With the advancement of science and methods to avoid infection, barriers were reduced so that homosexuals and bisexuals could also contribute to the blood bank.

In Brazil, the total veto on blood donation by men who had sex with other men was relaxed in 2002, when Anvisa started to authorize the donation, provided that the sexual intercourse had occurred at least 12 months ago. However, in 2016, a question was raised about this practice, which ended up culminating in the trial to lift the restriction.

Minister Edson Fachin, a rapporteur of the case, said that discrimination against homosexuals in blood donation has no technical justification, data, or scientific advances, and offends human dignity. According to him, banks should select donors based on the safety of their sexual practices (which includes condom use and diversity of partners, for example), not on sexual orientation.

Victory LGBTQIA +

On May 8, 2020, the Brazilian STF ministers concluded the trial that considered unconstitutional provisions of the Ministry of Health and Anvisa rules that excluded from the list of qualified blood donors “men who had sex with other men and/or their sexual partners in the previous 12 months ".

This is a victory that for decades had been expected by those who would like to contribute to the blood banks, but were prevented by their sexual orientation. Currently, with low blood stocks amid the coronavirus pandemic, this sensible decision will help to leverage blood collection throughout Brazil.

The oncologist, scientist, and writer, Dráuzio Varella, in a video posted on the Drauzio Varella Portal, states that, as we mentioned above, the concept of risk group no longer applies, what must be taken into account is risky behavior.

“Considering a homosexual who has a single partner, who is not infected, what is the chance that he will get the AIDS virus? It's zero. If you get another homosexual, who has several partners, but none of them are infected, what chance does he have? Zero. And then you take a woman married to an infected man. The chance of catching is greater than zero. Who is the risk group today? What matters is the number of sexual partners you have and whether or not these partners are infected ”

Transsexuals and the conquest of the social name

Some people do not identify with the sex they were born in, and preventing them from the right to adapt their bodies, their identity, and their lives to their gender identity can cause enormous psychological distress accentuated by social discrimination.

Brazil is the country that kills the most transvestites and transsexuals in the world. According to research carried out by Transgender Europe (TGEU), a European network of organizations that support the rights of the transgender population, between January 2008 and March 2014, 604 deaths of transvestites and transsexuals were registered in the country, with more than half coming from situations of discrimination.

Considering this scenario, in April 2016, during the week of the Joint National Human Rights Conferences, Brazilian Presidential Decree No. 8.727 / 2016 was published, which provides for the use of the social name and the recognition of the gender identity of transvestite and transsexual people in within the federal public administration, which was yet another great victory.

The social name refers to the name by which the transsexual or transvestite person identifies and is socially recognized. When it comes to the social name, it is also important to know how to distinguish sexual orientation from gender identity, where the orientation concerns the different forms of affective and sexual attraction of each one, while gender identity is the term used to refer to the fact that an individual identifies with the opposite sex to the one assigned to them at the time of their birth. Thus, gender identity is different from sexual orientation and does not depend on biological sex.

Using a name that you identify with and be recognized by is a right, especially for transsexuals and transvestites, who should be called by the name that represents the gender with which they identify.

Update on the Ninsaúde's Apolo: social name in patient records

One of the last updates made to Ninsaúde's Apolo software was the insertion of the social name field in the patient registry. When attending to a patient, both the health professional and the secretary will have access to this information, which facilitates their identification.

Social name on Apolo.

Also, the fact of using the patient's social name when performing a service, makes the consultation much more humanized, and becomes a great differential when it comes to retaining them. This action also makes the patient feel more comfortable and more respected, as he will be using the name he chose to represent him before society.

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