Coming Together for Sexual Health
Coming Together for Sexual Health is a podcast that explores both the how of improving sexual health—the root structural problems we must address to make changes—and the why, sharing the stories of people who are impacted most directly. In Season 3, we grapple with disability, STIs, stigma, anti-Blackness, and more. Our podcast aims to provide nourishment and connection to people working in sexual health care. Join us!
Comments, questions, interview ideas? Contact us!
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Season 3: Latest Episode
Season 3, Episode 5: Trauma-Informed Pregnancy Care with Becca Schwartz, LCSW
Becca Schwartz, LCSW,speaks about Team Lily, a pregnancy clinic for people experiencing significant barriers to care located at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. We focus on trauma-informed care: how past trauma can show up for patients in the medical setting, ways providers can practice trauma-informed care, and how these issues present and are addressed in San Francisco and specifically at the Team Lily clinic. We’d like to note that this episode contains occasional gendered language when talking about pregnant people. We recognize that not all pregnant people identify as women.
We also acknowledge the national events taking place that are magnifying the pre-existing reproductive injustices in our country and recognize the disproportionate effects anti-abortion legislation has on low-income people of color in rural areas. We stand with abortion activists, abortion providers, and abortion seekers globally. We firmly believe that abortion should be provided on demand, and without apology, for all people.
Find more resources from Becca and the CAPTC in the detailed show notes.
Season 3
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Follow Ina on Instagram and Twitter @inaparkmd for timely (and often entertaining) updates on sexual health. Check out Dr. Park’s book, Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs.
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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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We speak with Dr. Rosalyn Plotzker about her work with UCSF’s ANCRE Center, the world’s first clinic devoted to anal cancer prevention. Anal cancer incidence is on the rise despite it being associated with HPV, a highly preventable (and extremely common!) virus.
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.