December 2022
Issue 12
This newsletter was developed (in part) with federal funds from the Office of Population Affairs. For more information on the rules and regulations that apply to our programs, please visit
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The Wyoming Health Council works to ensure that all people can access safe, unbiased, high-quality sexual and reproductive health care. |
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As the year comes to an end and we look back at 2022, the Wyoming Health Council would love to celebrate and thank our Wyoming Title X Family Planning Clinics for their dedication and the hard work they do every day to support their clients and communities!
"Caring has the gift of making the ordinary seem special."
-George R. Bach
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.....World AIDS Day.....
EQUALIZE
Dec 1
Last Wednesday, December 1 was World AIDS Day. This day is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV, and remember those who have died from an HIV-related illness.
Global HIV statistics
- 38.4 million [33.9 million–43.8 million] people globally were living with HIV in 2021.
- 1.5 million [1.1 million–2.0 million] people became newly infected with HIV in 2021.
- 650 000 [510 000–860 000] people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2021.
- 28.7 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy in 2021.
- 84.2 million [64.0 million–113.0 million] people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic.
- 40.1 million [33.6 million–48.6million] people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic.
This World AIDS Day, UNAIDS is urging each of us to address the inequalities which are holding back progress in ending AIDS.
The “Equalize” campaign this year is a call to action!
It is a prompt for all of us to work for the proven practical actions needed to address inequalities and help end AIDS. These include:
- Increase availability, quality and suitability of services, for HIV treatment, testing and prevention, so that everyone is well-served.
- Reform laws, policies and practices to tackle the stigma and exclusion faced by people living with HIV and by key and marginalized populations, so that everyone is shown respect and is welcomed.
- Ensure the sharing of technology to enable equal access to the best HIV science, between communities and between the Global South and North.
- Communities will be able to make use of and adapt the “Equalize” message to highlight the particular inequalities they face and to press for the actions needed to address them.
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Data from UNAIDS on the global HIV response reveals that during the last two years of COVID-19 and other global crises, progress against the HIV pandemic has faltered, resources have shrunk, and millions of lives are at risk as a result.
Four decades into the HIV response, inequalities still persist for the most basic services like testing, treatment, and condoms, and even more so for new technologies.
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Global AIDS fight Crossroads After Setback During COVID
Hard-won progress against HIV has stalled, putting millions of lives at risk, according to an alarming report Wednesday on how the COVID-19 pandemic and other global crises are jeopardizing efforts to end AIDS.
Worldwide, the years-long decline in new HIV infections is leveling off. Worse, cases began climbing in parts of Asia and the Pacific where they previously had been falling, according to the United Nations agency leading the global AIDS fight.
The number of people on lifesaving HIV treatments grew more slowly last year than it has in a decade. Inequities are widening. Every two minutes last year, a teen girl or young woman was newly infected — and in sub-Saharan Africa, they’re three times as likely to get HIV as boys and men the same age. And 650,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses last year, the report found.
“This is an alarm to the world to say that COVID-19 has blown the AIDS response significantly off track,” said Matthew Kavanagh, deputy executive director of UNAIDS.
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What Parents and Providers Need to Know About HIV Risk and Teens
The average teenager feels as if she or he could not possibly get HIV. Most believe that HIV only happens to other people. However, teens represent a growing share of people getting and living with HIV worldwide. It is important that all teens take HIV seriously, get educated, and be tested if they have sex or use drugs.
Risk Factors
Teens and young adults make up the largest number of HIV cases reported in recent years, and young women account for the majority of young people living with HIV. In many countries, girls and young women have few or no privileges in the economic and social structures of their communities. As a result, they often have less access to HIV testing and treatment as well as to prevention measures, such as condoms and negotiating for safer sex. Moreover, many young women worldwide do not know enough correct information about HIV.
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The TikToker Who Is Smashing HIV Stigma |
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HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system. If HIV is not treated, it can lead to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). There is currently no effective cure. Once people get HIV, they have it for life. But with proper medical care, HIV can be controlled. People with HIV who get effective HIV treatment can live long, healthy lives and protect their partners.
People with HIV should take medicine to treat HIV as soon as possible. HIV medicine is called antiretroviral therapy, or ART. If taken as prescribed, HIV medicine reduces the amount of HIV in the body (viral load) to a very low level, which keeps the immune system working and prevents illness. This is called viral suppression—defined as having less than 200 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood. HIV medicine can even make the viral load so low that a test can’t detect it. This is called an undetectable viral load.
Getting and keeping an undetectable viral load* is the best thing people with HIV can do to stay healthy. Another benefit of reducing the amount of virus in the body is that it prevents transmission to others through sex or syringe sharing, and from mother to child during pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding.
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PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis)
PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is medicine that is highly effective at preventing HIV from sex or injection drug use when used as prescribed.
PrEP is for everyone at risk for getting HIV! PrEP can stop HIV from taking hold and spreading throughout your body. It is highly effective for preventing HIV if used as prescribed, but it is much less effective when not taken consistently. And remember, PrEP protects you against HIV but not against other STDs.
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International Day of Persons With Disabilities
Dec 3
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International Day of Persons With Disabilities is all about promoting the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities at every level of society and development, and to raise awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in all aspects of political, social, economic, and cultural life.
The World Health Organization (WHO) joins the United Nations (UN) in observing this day each year, reinforcing the importance of securing the rights of people with disabilities, so they can participate fully, equally and effectively in society with others, and face no barriers in all aspects of their lives.
The theme this year is "Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovative in fueling an accessible and equitable world.
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THE LAST TABOO is a story of six people with various physical disabilities and an able-bodied partner who was in a relationship with one of them and their experiences with sex. It reveals how universally complex human sexuality is overall by shining a light on how people with physical impairments navigate their sexuality. |
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People with disabilities deserve sexual and reproductive rights!
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Access, Autonomy, and Dignity: Comprehensive Sexuality Education For People with Disabilities
Every person should have the right to determine what happens – or does not happen – to their own body. It is one of our most basic human rights, one that is foundational to both reproductive and disability rights and justice. Expressing sexuality is connected to human rights principles that protect our basic, inalienable rights such as equality, nondiscrimination, and freedom of opinion and expression.
Deciding whether or how to express our sexuality is fundamentally about asserting autonomy over our own bodies. Access to sex ed helps to make this right a reality by giving people information and tools that help them have greater control over their own sexual experiences. Sex ed access is also intrinsically tied to dignity because it allows us to maintain a level of respect for our own bodies and own decisions about whether or how to explore and express our sexuality. Sex ed also asks us to recognize the dignity of others, to understand and respect other people’s choices about their sex and sexuality – and encourages society to respect our decisions as well.
People with disabilities understand all too well how society, the medical establishment, other systems, and even other individuals feel ownership over their bodies. People with disabilities are frequently told how to live, whether they can or should have children, whether they can or should have sex, and what interventions they “need” for their bodies or minds, among other intrusions
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Scarleteen
Disabled Sex Yes!
This is not the be-all-end-all guide to sex and disability because a) it's not, and b) there just can't ever be such a thing with any guide to sex. This series, much like your entire sexual life, is a work in progress and an endless, ongoing conversation. We hope this can be a good place for you to get started, and something that starts you on the path of good feelings about sex and your disability.
Sex and disability aren't often heard in the same sentence, and when they are, there tends to be a lot of sideways glancing and nervous giggling. After all, disabled people aren't sexual, right?
Wrongity, wrong, wrong! (Except for the ones who aren't, but that's not because they're disabled.)
Disabled people have bodies, and many people with bodies enjoy being sexual with them, because it feels good, it's fun, it allows them to get closer to other humans, or they just want to give it a whirl and see what all the fuss is about. Like other people with bodies, you have autonomy, which includes the right to decide if, when, and how you have sex and engage in other activities.
One of the things I hear most frequently from disabled youth is that they're super interested in sex, but have no idea where to go. They feel like everyone's going to make fun of them for wanting to explore their sexuality. I call bull on that —wanting to get sexual isn't weird or gross just because you have a disability, and you can totally have a rewarding, rich, awesome sex life if you're disabled – no matter what sex looks like to you and how many people are involved. We're going to explore sex and disability in this ongoing series, because when people do admit that maybe disabled people might like to have sex, they often don't provide any information about how this whole thing is supposed to work, and that's no good at all.
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Sexuality and Disability
Welcome to
sexualityanddisability.org, a website that starts with the premise that women who are disabled are sexual beings – just like any other woman.
sexualityanddisability.org is constructed as a bunch of questions a woman with a disability might have – about her body, about the mechanics and dynamics of having sex, about the complexities of being in an intimate relationship or having children, about unvoiced fears or experiences of encountering abuse in some form.
sexualityanddisability.org discusses a wide range of topics related to sexuality without shying away from them – parts of it are explicit. People have different views of what is and isn’t appropriate and we’ve included them all.
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....Human Rights Day....
Dec 10th
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A little bit of history...Human Rights Day is observed by the international community every year on 10 December.
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Sexual and Reproductive Rights are Human Rights
Almost 50 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declared that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” world leaders came together in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994 to center reproductive rights as integral to the enjoyment of other human rights.
A year after Cairo, the Beijing declaration supported by 189 countries at the Fourth World Conference on Women reinforced reproductive rights as critical for women’s enjoyment of equal opportunities in public and private life, including “opportunities for education and economic and political empowerment.”
Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are fundamental to people’s health and survival, to economic development, and to the wellbeing of humanity. Several decades of research have shown—and continue to show—the profound and measurable benefits of investment in sexual and reproductive health. Through international agreements, governments have committed to such investment. Yet progress has been stymied because of weak political commitment, inadequate resources, persistent discrimination against women and girls, and an unwillingness to address issues related to sexuality openly and comprehensively
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Right to a Better World is a documentary video series exploring how human rights-based tactics can be used to achieve sexual and reproductive health rights for all – and drive meaningful progress towards the fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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Looking to donate to an organization this holiday season?
Here are some suggestions!
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Your Local Title X Family Planning Clinic
Your local Title X Family Planning clinics provide comprehensive family planning and preventative health services for your community!
Find your local Wyoming Title X Clinic HERE
Find your local Title X Clinic throughout the states HERE
Center for Reproductive Rights
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization of lawyers and advocates who ensure reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person
Learn more and donate HERE
MSI Reproductive Choices
For over 45 years, MSI Reproductive Choices has been providing the healthcare services that enable people to make the reproductive choices that are right for them. From a choice of contraceptive, to the provision of skilled obstetric care to mothers in our maternity centers, we provide safe, supportive, and stigma-free sexual and reproductive healthcare services.
Learn more and donate HERE
March of Dimes
March of Dimes funds research to better understand maternal health, including diagnostic biological markers and maternal immunity factors. They also provide prenatal healthcare and education to pregnant women across America through their Supportive Pregnancy Care program Through their global programs, they offer maternal education to pregnant women and mothers in impoverished countries including Malawi and Brazil.
Learn more and donate HERE
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Laramie Reproductive Health has a new NP!
Schedule your appointment today!
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WYOMING HEALTH COUNCIL
111 S. Durbin, Suite 200
Casper, WY 82601
Call Us: (307) 439-2033
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