S4 E7 Dan Savage on the Magic Question “What are you into?” & Dr. Ina Park on How Providers Can Help

Dan Savage is a sex-advice columnist and podcaster, and Ina Park is a sex positive STI researcher, physician, and author. The two come together in this episode to discuss desire, pleasure, and how to communicate about what feels good with partners and providers. Dan delves into discovering kinks, pleasure as we age, and trying new things alone and with partners. Ina reflects on her experiences as a provider, having conversations with patients around sex and pleasure as bodies, needs, and abilities change.

Dan says that gay people might be better at sex, “not because we’re magic…we use the 4 magic words ‘what are you into?’” Ina explains that honest communication with a partner, a physician, a sex columnist, or a therapist knocks down barriers to explore sex and discover pleasure. The two emphasize the importance of both having providers and friends (with a good sense of judgment) with whom you can discuss sex freely.

This is our first episode of the 3-episode mini-series on pleasure.

Resources:

Connect with Dan: https://savage.love/, @dansavage on Instagram, and @fakedansavage on Twitter/X

Connect with Ina: https://www.inapark.net/ and @InaParkMD on Twitter/X

Learn how to include pleasure in sexual health history-taking from the National Coalition for Sexual Health: https://nationalcoalitionforsexualhealth.org/tools/for-healthcare-providers/video-series

Bios:

Dan Savage is a sex-advice columnist, podcaster and author whose graphic, pragmatic, and humorous advice has changed the cultural conversation about monogamy, gay rights, religion, and politics. “Savage Love,” Dan’s sex-advice column, was first published in 1991 and is now syndicated across the United States and Canada. He also hosts the Savage Lovecast, a weekly, call-in advice podcast that has tens of thousands of paying subscribers for premium Magnum content. Both his podcast and column can be found on his website Savage.Love.

Ina Park MD, MS, is the author of Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs. She is the Principal Investigator at the California Prevention Training Center. She is a Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and a Medical Consultant in the Division of STD Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is a co-author of the 2021 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines, the country’s premier resource for diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

S4 E6 Family Planning as Gender Affirming Care with Trans and Nonbinary Patients

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Director of Gender-Affirming Care for UC Davis Health, Miles Harris, FNP-BC, advocates for the integration of gender-affirming care with primary care and family planning. He shares that “so much of gender affirming care is not about hormones” and that “it is often so easy as a health care provider to do the thing that someone needs that changes their life.” He breaks down misconceptions: hormone therapy and contraception for trans folks is relatively simple, taking testosterone and not having a period does not prevent pregnancy, and there are no contraceptive methods that are contraindicated due to testosterone use.

He emphasizes the importance of not making assumptions about someone’s body parts or those of their partners, as well as not assuming that people are having types of sex that can result in a pregnancy. In choosing a contraceptive method, he says, “we want to remember that this person is a whole person, more than just their trans or non-binary identity.” This is the last episode in our mini-series on family planning and reproductive justice.

Download the transcript of this episode.

Resources:

Contraception Across the Transmasculine Spectrum Article co-authored by Miles Harris

Guidelines for the Primary and Gender-Affirming Care of Transgender and Gender Nonbinary People UCSF website

National Transgender Health Summit Biannual conference

National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center Online learning from the Fenway Institute

LGBTQ+ Healthcare Directory Created by GLMA

Queer Doc & Plume Remote providers of gender affirming care

CAPTC-Related Training and Resources:

S3 E9: Abortion and Reproductive Justice Across State Lines Podcast episode

S2 E2: Speaking Frankly: Supporting Youths’ Choice to Parent with Dr. Aisha May Podcast episode

Reproductive and Sexual Health Considerations for Trans and Non-Binary People Recorded webinar

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Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Miles Harris is a trans and non-binary identified family nurse practitioner. He serves as the founding Director of Gender-Affirming Care for UC Davis Health and as an assistant clinical professor at the UC Davis Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. His research focuses on sexual and reproductive health needs of transgender and gender nonbinary people, including contraceptive options for transgender and gender-nonbinary people assigned female at birth.

S4 E5 Lesser-Known Forms of Birth Control and Downplayed Side-effects: Providing Empowering Contraceptive Care

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Family doctor Jennifer Karlin, MD, PhD, and health educator Mariana Horne, join host Tammy Kremer to talk through forms of birth control that are not as well-known, including self-injectable Depo Provera, internal condoms, and the fertility awareness method. They go into side effects of birth control methods that are not always named, such as changes in mood and blood pressure. Mariana shares how she has supported clients who’ve faced coercive birth control practices in getting the care they want and how her background helps her connect with monolingual Spanish-speaking communities. Meanwhile, Jennifer shares how her family’s experience with healthcare led her to focus on empowering her patients, making the connection between how experiences in the clinic can impact people outside of the clinic: “I want them to take that feeling of autonomy, of like ‘oh, this is my body, I get to make choices about it,’ I want everybody to walk around the world knowing that and feeling that and acting that when they’re not in the clinical space.”

Read the transcript of this episode.

Resources:

Plan C Pills

M&A Hotline

UCSF New Generation Health Clinic

CAPTC Related Training and Resources:

S3 E9: Abortion and Reproductive Justice Across State Lines

Reproductive and Sexual Health Considerations for Trans and Non-Binary People

Shared Decision Making in Contraceptive Counseling

Emergency Contraception

Prevention and Management of IUD Complications

Turn on notifications to never miss an episode of Coming Together for Sexual Health.

Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Mariana Horne is a health educator and outreach lead at UCSF New Generation Health Clinic. She is committed to addressing racial inequities and disparities in reproductive health care and is an advocate for anyone in need of reproductive care, including monolingual Spanish-speaking communities. Her expertise encompasses birth control, sexually transmitted infections, minor consent laws in California, and reproductive justice initiatives.

Jennifer Karlin, MD, PhD, is a board-certified family physician and family planning specialist whose primary care practice is anchored in caring for patients in ways that encourage their empowerment and autonomy. At UC Davis and beyond, she is committed to medical and resident education that aims to encourage physicians-in-training to approach their practices from an historical, trauma-informed, and self-reflexive perspective. Her research aims to understand how social, political, and institutional structures affect people’s experiences with diagnosis, treatment, and health care.

S4 E4: When People Have or Are Denied Abortions: The Turnaway Study with Diana Greene Foster

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Welcome to our mini-series on Reproductive Justice and Family Planning! Diana Greene Foster, PhD, author of The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having – or Being Denied – an Abortion, sits down with host Tammy Kremer to advocate for reproductive justice and bodily autonomy. She explains that the Turnaway Study found that, “When people are making the decision about what to do with an unexpected pregnancy and they decide on abortion, all the reasons they give us are exactly those outcomes that we see for people who are denied an abortion.” She envisions a world in which “everyone is an equal partner in sex, in childbearing, in contraception, in pregnancy decision-making.”

Download the transcript of this episode.

Follow Diana Greene Foster on Twitter.

Resources:

The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion

Global Turnaway Study

ANSIRH: Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Care

Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health

Plan C Pills

“Black Women’s Lived Experiences of Abortion”

Girlx Lab

CAPTC-Related Training and Resources:

S3 E9: Abortion and Reproductive Justice Across State Lines

S2 E2: Speaking Frankly: Supporting Youths’ Choice to Parent with Dr. Aisha May

Reproductive and Sexual Health Considerations for Trans and Non-Binary People

Turn on notifications to never miss an episode of Coming Together for Sexual Health.

Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Diana Greene Foster is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and a researcher at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health. She is the principal investigator of the Turnaway Study in the United States and Nepal, a nationwide longitudinal prospective study of the health and well-being of women who seek abortion including both women who do and do not receive abortion.

S4 E3: America’s War on Drugs and Harm Reduction Around the World with Tanagra Melgarejo Pulido

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Tanagra Melgarejo Pulido, Director of Capacity Building at the National Harm Reduction Coalition, speaks with host Tammy Kremer about the landscape of harm reduction programs and policies around the world and in the US, with a focus on the impacts of racism and colonization. She explains how harm reduction began with “communities of people who used drugs looking at each other, saying wait a minute, ‘We love each other, we care for each other. We need to build power and we need to work together.’”

Download the transcript of this episode.

Resources:

National Harm Reduction Coalition

Harm Reduction International Conference

The Chicago Recovery Alliance

Positive Women’s Network

Sister Stone

CAPTC-Related Training and Resources:

S3 E2: Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Harm Reduction Strategies with Jen Jackson

Drugs 101 Series

Harm Reduction Resources

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Tanagra Melgarejo Pulido was born and raised in Puerto Rico and is a daughter of immigrants from Mexico and Cuba. She leads the National Harm Reduction Coalition’s capacity, building, and technical assistance efforts across the United States and its territories.

S4 E2: Harm Reduction by Heart with Braunz Courtney

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CW: Substance Abuse

Braunz Courtney speaks with host Tammy Kremer about how he practiced strategies of harm reduction at the age of 11 before he knew what the term meant. He went from dancing shirtless to raise awareness of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in queer Black communities to serving as the Executive Director of the HIV Education Prevention Project of Alameda County. He touches upon the importance of organizations that understand the lived experiences of the populations they serve.

Download the transcript of this episode.

Follow HEPPAC on Instagram and Twitter.

Resources:

National Harm Reduction Coalition

Cal-Pep

Oakland LGBTQ Center

CAPTC-Related Training and Resources:

Syringe Services Programs Workshop

Breakout Session 6: Mobile Harm Reduction, Street Medicine as a Medical Home

Turn on notifications to never miss an episode of Coming Together for Sexual Health.

Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Braunz Courtney is the Executive Director of the HIV Education Prevention Project of Alameda County. He serves PWUDs, the unhoused homeless, LGBTQ+, youth, and the recently released/reentry of the Alameda, Contra Costa, and Solano Counties. He creates, implements, and markets culturally appropriate programs that provide services in non-clinical settings to BIPOC communities throughout Northern California East Bay with a goal of having long-lasting public health impacts.

S4 E1: Narcan Queen Kochina Rude on Drag and Harm Reduction

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CW: Opioid Overdose, Molestation

Welcome to our mini-series on Harm Reduction! Host Tammy Kremer sits down with drag queen Kochina Rude to share how she uses her performances to educate the LGBTQ+ community about Naloxone administration, safer partying, and overdose prevention. At her show “Princess,” cohosted with Lisa Frankenstien, Kochina Rude has provided training and 2,000+ doses of Narcan in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood since 2021.

Download the transcript of this episode.

Follow Kochina Rude on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Resources:

National Harm Reduction Coalition

Remedy Alliance For The People

NEXT Distro

DanceSafe

CAPTC-Related Training and Resources:

Unconditional Positive Regard–Intersectionality of Harm Reduction & Spirituality

Syringe Service Program Community of Practice

Drugs 101

Turn on notifications to never miss an episode of Coming Together for Sexual Health.

Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Kochina Rude is a Bay Area-based drag queen, harm reduction advocate, and public health worker. She co-hosts the drag show “Princess” with Lisa Frankenstein at SF Oasis, where she established a naloxone distribution and overdose prevention education project for LGBT+ nightlife.

S3 E14: Monkeypox: Where are We Now? with Dr. Peter Chin-Hong

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UCSF Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong chats with host Tammy Kremer about the current state of the Mpox outbreak: how it reflects contemporary health inequities, how stigma can be a barrier to people accessing treatment, and how lessons learned from past public health crises shaped the clinical and community response. Dr. Chin-Hong speaks about his experience caring for Mpox patients over the course of the outbreak, and how the stigma surrounding the virus has discouraged individuals from seeking out the necessary care, creating invisible populations of patients who are disconnected from diagnosis and treatment. Finally, he breaks down the social and behavioral interventions that have been effective in slowing the spread of the virus over the past months. They explore the role of public health education and messaging in the Mpox outbreak and how Dr. Chin-Hong anticipates the outbreak may proceed.

Read the transcript of the episode here.

CAPTC-Related Training and Resources:

S3 E8: Monkeypox in California: A Personal Story and Public Health Perspective

S3 E3: Monkeypox, What’s the Hype?

CAPTC Monkeypox FAQ’s

CDC Monkeypox Resource Center

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Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Peter Chin-Hong, MD, is a professor of medicine and associate dean at UCSF. He specializes in treating infectious diseases, especially in immunosuppressed patients such as recipients of organ and stem cell transplants and HIV-positive recipients of organ transplants. He is regularly featured in the media discussing COVID-19 and Mpox.

S3 E13: Centering Pleasure, Problems, and Pride in Sexual Health Care with Jenn Rogers and Bryce Furness

S3 E13: Centering Pleasure, Problems, and Pride in Sexual Health Care

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Host Tammy Kremer interviews Jenn Rogers, Director of the National Coalition for Sexual Health (NCSH), and Bryce Furness, MD, CDC Epidemiologist, about their work developing a toolkit for primary care providers to use in order to center sexual pleasure, problems, and pride as a part of all wellness visits. The CDC encourages taking sexual history by asking about 5 Ps: Partners, Practices, Past STI History, Protection From STIs, and Pregnancy Intention. The National Coalition for Sexual Health recently released a video series called “A New Approach to Sexual History Taking,” along with a set of new questions for providers to ask patients in all wellness visits that add a 6th P: Pleasure, Pride, and Problems.

Jenn and Bryce discuss the 6th P, which re-centers patients’ needs, enjoyment of their sexual lives, and social stigma attached to sex. As Jenn elaborates, “A satisfying pleasurable sex life is really a key element to sexual health and well-being for most people. So our sexual history taking questions really should reflect that.” Bryce uses his specialized experiences providing sexual health care to LGBTQ+ populations to argue that we must recognize health disparities and address stigma around sexual health. Together, they discuss the creation of a freely accessible toolkit for all providers to use. They recognize that the current method of sexual history taking doesn’t incorporate enough discussion of issues such as gender identity, sexuality, shame, and stigma, and how these can affect sexual activity and sexual health.

Read the transcript of the episode here.

Resources:

National Coalition for Sexual Health

NCSH Membership Application

NCSH Health Care Action Group, Communications Actions Group, Policy Action Group

NCSH 6th P Video Series

NCSH Medical Provider’s Guide

NCSH Sexual Health History Questions

CDC guide to taking a sexual history

CDC’s Rachel Kucher et al. , “Sexual History Taking in Clinical Settings: A Narrative Review”

Turn on notifications to never miss an episode of Coming Together for Sexual Health.

Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Jennifer Rogers, MPH, is the co-director of the National Coalition for Sexual Health (NCSH), a robust Coalition of over 200 members where she works collaboratively to promote high-quality sexual health information and health services. She also leads the Coalition’s Health Care Action Group to develop evidence-based and practical provider tools and materials.

Bryce Furness, MD, MPH, is a Medical Epidemiologist with the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention. He has been embedded within the Washington, DC Department of Health since 2002. Highlights of his tenure include establishing a transgender health clinic, leading gay men’s health & wellness clinics, and improving the PrEP Clinic. He has recently published several articles on transforming primary care for LGBT people.

S3 E12: Four Decades of Sexual Health: History of the CAPTC

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Director of the CAPTC Dana Cropper sits down with Gail Bolan, MD, and Alice Gandelman to discuss the founding of the CAPTC and its work in supporting sexual healthcare providers over the last 33 years. We learn about the forces that shaped the sexual healthcare field. Our guests unpack how the CAPTC developed alongside the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s, the surprising relationship between HIV work and STI response, strategies to meet sexual healthcare needs both within and outside of sexual health clinics, and the ever-present need for greater training for providers around testing and treatment of STIs. We learn about how behavioral interventions were centered in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the importance of centering social determinants of health and larger structural forces in prevention and treatment efforts. They also discuss their hopes for opening up discussions about sexual health and de-stigmatizing the topic in the greater community.

Read the transcript of the episode here.

Resources:

HHS/Viral Hepatitis Action Plan

Ending the HIV Epidemic in the US (EHE)

Provision of Quality of STD Services (CDC) 2020

San Francisco City Clinic

Health HIV

National Coalition for Sexual Health

Turn on notifications to never miss an episode of Coming Together for Sexual Health.

Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Gail Bolan, MD, was the Director of the Division of STD Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2011 through 2020. Prior to joining CDC, she directed the California Prevention Training Center for 23 years. She served as the Chief of the STD Control Branch at the California Department of Public Health and the Director of the San Francisco City and County STD Prevention and Control Program from 1997 to 2011 as well as Medical Director of the San Francisco City Clinic from 1987 to 1997. 

Alice Gandelman was the Director of the CAPTC from 1994 through 2021. She oversaw growth and development of CAPTC in numerous training and capacity-building programs in STD, HIV, sexual, and reproductive health.