Psychosocial Overview of Gender-Affirmative Care

Transgender and gender-diverse youth and their families are increasingly presenting to adolescent gynecological providers for education, care, and referrals. These youth more often face mental health and social disparities that frequently go unrecognized or unaddressed by providers. A gender-affirmative approach focuses on providing emotional validation, psychological safety, and support to young patients and their families. With better understanding of the unique needs of transgender and gender-diverse populations, gynecological care can be personalized and delivered in a nuanced fashion to better address the sexual and reproductive needs of gender minority patients. In this article we review essential psychological and social considerations in caring for transgender and gender-diverse youth, including concepts relating to gender identity, affirmative approaches, means of assessing for risk and resiliency, and family dynamics. Ultimately, adolescent gynecological providers have an important role in promoting the emotional health and positive development of transgender and gender-diverse youth.     

Drinking comfortably? Gender and affect among Danish pre-partiers

BackgroundThe aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between youthful drinking practices and gender within the domestic pre-party (prior to a night out), an arena, which has been relatively ignored in existing qualitative research on youthful alcohol use. An examination of the relationships between gender and drinking practices in this context is important for three reasons. First, pre-parties are associated with heavy drinking, which has traditionally been associated with masculinity. Second, because pre-drinking takes place in the private sphere of the home, it is therefore ‘controlled’ in terms of who can participate and hence what precisely is the gender composition. Third, whilst being located in the private sphere of the home, pre-party practices are nevertheless informed by the (hyper) gendered environments of public drinking spaces in the Night-Time Economy (NTE), most dominantly mainstream clubs and bars. We suggest that such characteristics allow for the emergence of specific gendered relationships, activities and affectivities, thereby demarcating the pre-party as a particular gendered drinking space.MethodsWe draw on narrative data from 140 in-depth face-to-face interviews with young Danish alcohol users between 18–25 years of age. The interviews were part of a large-scale research project on the gendered aspects of youthful alcohol use and intoxication. Theoretically, we draw on a combination of the ‘doing gender’ paradigm (West & Zimmerman, 1987) and affect theoretical notions on (un)comfortability (Ahmed, 2014). We propose that these perspectives mark out the pre-party as a particularly gendered drinking space.ResultsWhile our analysis supports the observation of existing qualitative studies, that pre-partying is not merely motivated by the possibility of becoming intoxicated in a cheap and un-surveilled way before going out, we especially argue that pre-partying is fueled by a desire for 'comfortability', which seems almost impossible to disassemble from the gendering that pre-partying also entails. Our analysis therefore contributes to the ongoing academic discussion around the relationship between ‘intoxicated femininity’ and ‘intoxicated masculinity’ by suggesting that we need to take the affective implications of young people’s (gendered) drinking practices into account in a thorough discussion of the relationship between youthful alcohol use and gender.     

Association of metabolic syndrome with atherogenic index of plasma in an urban Chinese population: A 15-year prospective study

Background and aimsThe metabolic syndrome(Mets) is a multiplex risk factor for atheroselerotie cardiovascular disease. The aims of the study were to assess the association of the Mets with atherogenic index of plasma(AIP) and other atherogenic parameters in an urban Chinese population.Methods and resultsThe data were collected in 1992 and then again in 2007 from the same group of 582 individuals(359 men and 223 women) without Mets in 1992. During 15 years’ follow-up, AIP was the lipid parameter that was most strongly associated with Mets, with an unadjusted odds ratio of 5.66 (95% CI:1.76–18.23, P = 0.004) in the univariate logistic regression analysis. Multivariate logistic regression analyses also revealed that AIP was an independent risk factor for Mets. AIP significantly predicted Mets in men, with an unadjusted odds ratio of 30.73 (95% CI: 5.62, 168.12 P = 0.012) in a univariate model. Associations remained significant after adjustment for smoking, drinking, physical exercise and components of Mets. The incidences of Mets adjusted for age according to the quartiles of AIP showed a statistical linear trend in men(P for trend = 0.007) rather than in women(P for trend = 0.529).ConclusionsAIP might be a strong and independent predictor for Mets in an urban Chinese population. The incidence of Mets increased with AIP elevated in men while not in women.     

Proximal Shift of Colorectal Cancer Along With Aging

IntroductionAlthough several reports have documented the increased incidence of right-sided colorectal cancer (CRC) in the elderly, especially in women, the gender-specific, age-related changes in the characteristics of CRCs, especially related to the cancer localization, have not been fully investigated. This study evaluated the age-related changes in the clinicopathologic features of CRCs, according to the gender.Materials and MethodsA total of 1059 consecutive patients with CRCs who were admitted to the authors' surgical department between February 2005 and June 2012 were retrospectively reviewed. The patients were divided into male (n = 632) and female (n = 427) groups and then according to the age group, and the correlation between the age group and the other clinicopathologic features was analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis.ResultsThe number of concomitant adenomas found was significantly increased along with increasing age in men, and the presence of concomitant adenoma was the only independent age-related factor of male CRC in the multivariate analysis (P = .0044). In contrast, in women, the location of the CRC progressively shifted to the right side (proximal colon) with increasing age, and the presence of right-sided CRC was the only independent factor of female CRC in the multivariate analysis (P < .0001).ConclusionThere was a significant gender-specific difference in the age-related changes in the characteristics of CRC. Increasing the number of concomitant adenomas and the shift of CRC localization to the proximal colon were the gender-specific characteristics of male and female CRC, respectively.     

Ruptures,rights, and repair: The political economy of trauma in Haiti

This article analyzes the unintended consequences of humanitarian and development interventions in Haiti implemented to facilitate its postconflict transition following the period of military rule between 1991 and 1994. International and national governmental and nongovernmental initiatives to provide redress and healing to victims of human rights abuses from this period inadvertently contributed to the growth of a political economy of trauma. I argue that state-sponsored and non-state interventions aimed at truth seeking, acknowledging past ruptures, and reparations have intersected with the politics of local communities in ways that contribute to the commoditization of suffering in the political economy of trauma. The experience of a woman whose bodily integrity and personal sovereignty were violated by members of Haiti's terror apparatus demonstrates the presence of a terror economy. My witnessing of her interactions with the international and national humanitarian and development aid organizations that assisted her in the aftermath of violation revealed the contours of the compassion economy.     

Beyond masculinity: Testosterone,gender/sex,and human social behavior in a comparative context

Largely based on pre-theory that ties high testosterone (T) to masculinity, and low T to femininity, high T is mainly studied in relation to aggression, mating, sexuality, and challenge, and low T with parenting. Evidence, however, fails to support this, and the social variability in T is better accounted for by a competition–nurturance trade-off as per the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds (van Anders et al., 2011). Four key domains are discussed: adult–infant interactions, sexual desire, sexual behavior, and partnering. Empirical engagements with gender/sex are shown to lead to important insights over assumptions about masculinity–femininity. Humans are discussed within a comparative framework that attends to cross-species principles informed by human insights alongside human-specific particularities like social constructions, which are critical to evolutionary understandings of the social role of T. This paper thus integrates seemingly orthogonal perspectives to allow for transformative approaches to an empirically-supported social phenomenology of T.