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Speaking in Sango and French, Kathleen DeBold and Eve Nagler recently reminisced about their time in the Central African Republic some two decades before. At the time, DeBold was an extension and training specialist with Africare, a non-profit organization specializing in aid to Africa, and Nagler was working with village midwives.
Speaking in Sango and French, Kathleen DeBold and Eve Nagler recently reminisced about their time in the Central African Republic some two decades before. At the time, DeBold was an extension and training specialist with Africare, a non-profit organization specializing in aid to Africa, and Nagler was working with village midwives.
Improving focus on lesbian health
Mautner Project, American Cancer Society forge new ties
By Laurel Lundstrom
Caption: Kathleen DeBold, executive director of the Mautner Project, said working closer with the American Cancer Society would help her organization spread the word to more people nationwide about the cancer risks that women who partner with women might face.
Speaking in Sango and French, Kathleen DeBold and Eve Nagler recently reminisced about their time in the Central African Republic some two decades before. At the time, DeBold was an extension and training specialist with Africare, a non-profit organization specializing in aid to Africa, and Nagler was working with village midwives.
But as Peace Corps volunteers for alternate African villages, the two women never met. It was not until 2002 that their paths crossed. Nagler, the American Cancer Society’s director of special populations, and DeBold, executive director of the Mautner Project, a national lesbian health organization based in Washington, D.C., currently are collaborating to address the health needs of lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered women with cancer.
“Although lesbians have higher risk factors for certain cancers,” DeBold says, “there are very few places where we can turn for help.”
For lesbians, increased vulnerability to breast and other cancers is influenced by factors such as higher rates of smoking, obesity and alcohol use. Other factors include not using birth control pills and not having children before age 30, which can lead to elevated estrogen levels and, thus, a higher risk for certain forms of cancer, advocates for gay women’s health say.
DeBold noted that “ex-gay” ministry brochures and anti-gay quotes from the Bible about homosexuality are still included in pamphlets that some medical providers hand out to patients. To counteract this, the Mautner Project and other groups are working to create and distribute medical brochures with quotes from lesbian clients.
When the Mautner Project and the American Cancer Society recently conducted focus groups in Washington, D.C., with lesbian cancer survivors, their partners and caregivers, the majority of respondents said they never thought of contacting the American Cancer Society when they or a loved one was diagnosed with cancer.
Nagler and DeBold said the American Cancer Society is currently acting on key recommendations from the surveys to better meet the health needs of gay women nationwide. For example, the American Cancer Society’s New England division recently produced “Cancer Facts for Lesbians & Bisexual Women,” as well as “Tobacco and the GLBT Community,” materials being used as far away as California.
“These activities and others in the planning stage demonstrate the society’s commitment to serving the needs of all people with cancer and their families, partners and friends,” Nagler says.
Strengthening community
The American Cancer Society is also becoming a resource for lesbians nationwide by posting stories on the organization’s Web site about the relationship between sexual orientation and cancer. The Mautner Project is listed as a resource in several of the American Cancer Society’s national publications and several personal stories by lesbians and their partners are now on its Cancer Survivors Network Web site.
“We particularly look forward to using the Cancer Survivors Network to strengthen the sense of community among lesbian cancer survivors and their caregivers to provide them with valuable information through discussions and chats, personal stories and a resource library,” says Greta E. Geer, manager of the ACS’s Cancer Survivors Network.
A study in the April 2001 edition of American Public Health Association’s (APHA) American Journal of Public Health noted that women who partner with women could be at double or triple risk for cancer.
This makes the budding partnership between the Mautner Project and the American Cancer Society, which has 3,400 local units nationwide, to spread the word about lesbians and cancer crucial, those involved said.
“It takes the burden off of us,” DeBold says. “Instead of using phone and e-mail to reach people in Topeka, Kansas, we are partnering with mainstream groups.”