Coming Together for Sexual Health
Season 3 of our podcast Coming Together for Sexual Health (formerly known as Speaking Frankly: The State of Sexual Health) is out now with a new episode every two weeks! The podcast is a series of conversations for health professionals that looks at the personal and structural issues that impact sexual health.
Learn more about the podcast and name change in the press release about the new season. Comments, questions, interview ideas? Contact us!
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Season 3: Latest Episode
Season 3, Episode 2, Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Harm Reduction Strategies with Jen Jackson
This episode of Coming Together for Sexual Health features CAPTC’s own Jen Jackson, a disease intervention specialist and harm reductionist. Jen walks us through the history of harm reduction, the principles that guide the movement, and gives us some personal examples of disease intervention and harm reduction values in action. Listen in to learn how theories of harm reduction apply in myriad settings, and how a foundation in these theories is essential to providing effective sexual healthcare.
Season 3
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Andrew Gurza is an award-winning Disability Awareness Consultant and the Chief Disability Officer and Co-founder of Bump’n, a sex toy company for and by disabled people. They have spoken all over the world on sex, disability and what it means to be a Queer Cripple. They are also the host of Disability After Dark: The Podcast Shining a Bright Light on Disability Stories which won a Canadian Podcast Award in 2021, a Queerty Award, and was chosen as an Honoree at the 2020 Webby Awards.
Join Andrew and Tammy to learn about how Andrew navigates the sexual healthcare system as someone who has complex disabilities.
Season 2
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Roz takes us through her work with the clinic, anal cancer screening and risk factors, and debunks many of the stereotypes and stigmas surrounding anal cancer and its causes.
Want to chat with Roz directly? Email her: Rosalyn.Plotzker@ucsf.edu
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If you work in sexual health, you have probably had the experience of becoming the “sexpert” for your friends and family.
In this special episode we have gathered some (but by no means all!) of the questions Dr. Rosalyn Plotzker has received from her various circles to try and demystify at least some of these aspects of sexual health.
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We continue our conversation with Dr. Paul Nash, Associate Professor in Gerontology at USC.
In Part 2 of this discussion about ageism, host Duran Rutledge and Paul dive into the harmful stigma surrounding sex and aging, particularly for people at the intersections of various identities and life experiences.
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Paul currently serves as a Commissioner on the Los Angeles County Commission on HIV, and he consults with the World Health Organization on ageism. He is active in teaching and recently published the book, Critical Questions for Ageing Societies.
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He discusses how capitalism reinforces racism, the creation of anti-blackness through policy, and the systems and structures that have led to white supremacist ideology.
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On this episode, we talk with Dr. Mays about her important work.
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Dana Cropper, previously Director of Education at HealthHIV, recently stepped into the role of Director of the California Prevention Training Center, after Alice Gandelman’s retirement.
In this debut episode of Speaking Frankly season two, we talk with Dana about her new position, why Oprah and Sojourner Truth are two of her heroes, and why she thinks to reduce stigma, we must each engage in deep and ongoing self-reflection “about how we navigate through the world”.
Season 1
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On Jan 21, 2021, the FDA approved Cabenuva, the first once-monthly injectable HIV treatment for adults. Dr. Kelly Johnson, a fellow in infectious diseases and sexually transmitted infections at the University of California, San Francisco, and a physician at San Francisco General Hospital’s Ward 86, explains the implications of this new treatment and how it affects the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV.
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Dr. Monica Gandhi is an infectious disease physician and professor of medicine at UCSF, and the Medical Director of the Ward 86 clinic focused on HIV. She has become a trusted expert on COVID-19.
She talks with us about the vaccines already being used in the US, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine that was submitted to the FDA for Emergency Use Authorization.
She explains the implications for the one-dose J & J vaccine and when we may finally get back to a little bit of normalcy.
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Dr. Ina Park talks about her new book, Strange Bedfellows, in which she uses science, humor and storytelling to share the untold stories of many common sexually transmitted infections.
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Congenital syphilis is up 900% in California since 2012. UC San Francisco’s Dr. Rosalyn Plotzker speaks with us about CS prevention and treatment and about the complex issues contributing to the spike, like systemic racism.
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Dr. George Rutherford, Professor of Epidemiology at UC San Francisco, talks with us about COVID-19, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and why anti-microbial resistance is the next public health threat.
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We continue our discussion with Lidia Carlton, Director of Community Education at Planned Parenthood Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley. In this episode she explains the social-emotional component of sex ed, and why sex ed is an ideal place to teach about race and ableism.
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Lidia Carlton, Director of Community Education at Planned Parenthood Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley, speaks with us about the California Healthy Youth Act, which mandates more robust and inclusive sex ed in California. She tells us about the positive results it’s yielded, but why some parents are still concerned about the new curriculum.
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Wanda Jackson, DISTC Trainer/Technical Assistance Specialist, has more than 30 years’ experience in the field of disease investigation and contact tracing. In this episode, she gives us a detailed look at the contact tracing process and explains why compassion, patience, and empathy are so valuable as we face this public health crisis.