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It's a health thing

By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman

So, you were able to get out of bed this morning, walk the distance from your car to your office, and tonight you'll be hitting the floor at Club Q.
But you're still smoking, you haven't seen anything resembling a vegetable on your dinner plate in weeks…and you can't remember the last time you asked someone to save the last dance for you because, these days, you're conking out well before midnight.
Forget those New Year's Resolutions you made during a long, cold January night, when the thought of getting up and taking a walk the next day made your toenails want to shiver. Spring is almost here, and BTL is here for you – to help you achieve and maintain the health you know you want and deserve.
First we have to ask, "What is this 'health' thing, anyway?" More than just an absence of illness, health is what helps us to not only get up in the morning with an "ooh" rather than an "ouch," it's what leaves us with enough energy for activism at the end of a busy work day.
Health is about more than Western allopathic medicine, as we discuss in our article about Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center's first holistic health fair.
Health is about our relationships, as Joe Kort reminds us in the interview on page 33.
Health is also about our politics, which is why National LGBT Health Awareness Week, March 12-18, is so important. Right now, the medical community at large is mostly ignorant about LGBT health issues. The federal government doesn't fund many studies of our health, and not many physicians are aware of the unique health needs of LGBTs. This is yet another good reason for us to come out – after all, if the LGBT community isn't out about our health needs, how can we expect physicians to know what they are? In this issue, we tell you what the University of Michigan is doing to combat the ignorance and Dr. Wang discusses it in his special health column this week.
Oh – and we don't forget our pets' health. See page ? for information on a Pet First Aid course being offered by Canine To Five.
Granted, it can be easy to put our health at the bottom of our ever-growing to-do lists. After all, LGBTs have busy lives. Not only do we work and contribute to the larger community, we are busy fighting a hostile right wing that would deny our families health insurance, deny us the right to our relationships, and even deny us our right to exist if they could. Add the stressors of bigotry and discriminatory laws to the regular stressors of work, family and juggling the bills, and it's easy to see why LGBTs can have a harder time than our straight brothers and sisters achieving and maintaining our health.
But that discrimination, in and of itself, should be one of the reasons we make our own health a priority. After all, living well is the best revenge. While watching our health requires discipline and doesn't always feel fun, imagine the look on the faces of the Dobsons and the Phelps of the world when the average life span of an LGBT person reaches 100 years should inspire us all.

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