HEALTH

Transgender and homeless in Portland, a rising trend.

When she first considered transitioning from a man to a woman, Sophia Conquest made a checklist of “bad and good things.” On the bad side: As a transgender woman, she’d essentially have a target on her back. “I knew it was going to happen,” Conquest says. The day before WW interviewed her last month in Pioneer Courthouse Square, Conquest says, a child threw rocks at her. Earlier that week, she adds, a woman physically assaulted her in a confrontation that began with the woman insulting Conquest with slurs, like “She Man.” Conquest eventually fended her off with her purse while running away.

5 THINGS TO KNOW

Montrose Center reopens to help the LGBT community in Houston.

As Hurricane Harvey began its punishing descent on Houston, Kennedy Loftin knew the LGBT community in the city would need to pull together to survive. “In the last two storms, in Katrina and Ike, a lot of our community fell through the cracks,” Loftin, chief development officer of the Montrose Center, Houston’s largest LGBT community organization, said on Monday.

HEALTH

Matching the voice with the appearance after transitioning.

When a transgender person decides to transition from one sex to another, there are a lot of steps involved. They might change their appearance and their name. They might take hormones and have gender reassignment surgery. But after all of this is complete, many may find their old voice doesn’t match their new appearance.

HEALTH

PrEP helps keep gay and bisexual teens negative from HIV.

A group of gay and bisexual teenage males safely used a medication that prevents HIV infection, though some failed to follow the drug regimen fully and became infected, researchers report. People at risk for becoming infected with the virus that causes AIDS can dramatically lower their risk of infection by taking the drug Truvada in what is known as the PrEP regimen, but its use is only approved for adults.

HEALTH

Elite women’s colleges welcome transgender students.

Until last year, Ninotska Love would have been barred from attending Wellesley College. She’s an accomplished student who has persevered through hardship, but under longstanding rules, the college would have rejected her because she was assigned at birth as a boy. Now the rules have changed. This week, Love will become one of the first transgender women to attend Wellesley in the school’s 147-year history.

HEALTH

Higher rate of HIV infection among black gay and bisexual men in the south.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state the south has the highest number of people living with HIV. Two of the groups most at risk are gay and bisexual black men. “It is not the end of the world in 2017 if people are diagnosed because they can live a long healthy life,” said Gary Jenkins with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.  

5 THINGS TO KNOW

The evangelical’s Nashville Statement is harmful to LGBT youth.

This week, a group of the country’s most prominent evangelical figures released a document condemning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and those who affirm them in what they called the Nashville Statement. Read the list of signatories and you’ll recognize the names — presidents of some of the country’s largest seminaries and pastors of burgeoning evangelical churches.