Author: TheConversation

By Jules Gill-Peterson, Associate Professor of English and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, University of Pittsburgh In 1942, a 17-year-old transgender girl named Lane visited a doctor in her Missouri hometown with her parents. Lane had known that she was a girl from a very young age, but fights with her parents over her transness had made it difficult for her to live comfortably and openly during her childhood. She had dropped out of high school and she was determined to get out of Missouri as soon as she was old enough to pursue a career as a dancer....

By Jamie Rowen, Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst As the nation takes a day to memorialize its military dead, living military veterans are facing a deadly risk that has nothing to do with war or conflict: the coronavirus. Different groups and communities have faced different degrees of danger from the pandemic, exemplified by the humanitarian disaster in India and the inequalities in U.S. health outcomes, vaccine distribution problems and outright rejection of vaccines. Veterans have been among the most hard-hit, with heightened health and economic threats from the pandemic. These veterans face...

By Gregory B. Fairchild, Associate Professor of Business Administration, University of Virginia When Viola Fletcher, 107, appeared before Congress in May 2021, she called for the nation to officially acknowledge the Tulsa race riot of 1921. I know that place and year well. As is the case with Fletcher – who is one of the last living survivors of the massacre, which took place when she was 7 – the terror of the Tulsa race riot is something that has been with me for almost as long as I can remember. My grandfather, Robert Fairchild, told the story nearly...

By Paul K. Halverson, Dean, Fairbanks School of Public Health, IUPUI The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has joined hundreds of cities and counties across the country in declaring racism a public health threat. On April 8, 2021, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky called racism an epidemic that affects “the entire health of our nation.” Declaring racism a public health threat will create a sharper strategic and operational focus on understanding and combating racism. Walensky said the CDC will invest more in communities of color and will work to create more diversity within the CDC. The agency...

By Shoshanah Inwood, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, The Ohio State University; Andrea Rissing, President’s Postdoctoral Scholar in the School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University; and Florence Becot, Associate Research Scientist in Rural Sociology, Adjunct Faculty – National Farm Medicine Center, The Ohio State University Kat Becker feeds hundreds of people with the vegetables she grows on her Wisconsin farm, and she wants to expand. But her ability to grow her business collides with her need for affordable health insurance and child care. She has had to make difficult choices over the years: keep her...