Dear Editor:

The recent “pumping party” silicone-injections that killed one transgender woman and left another on life support in San Diego provided further proof of the need for improved access to health care for transgender Californians. The San Diego Democratic Club (SDDC) actively supports Assembly Bill 1586, which would help assure that transgender Californians receive sensitive, gender-appropriate health care services from their health care providers. The bill was recently approved by the Senate Committee on Banking, Finance and Insurance, and is expected to go before the full Senate after clearing the Senate Judiciary Committee. The SDDC stands as committed to our transgender community as it is to our lesbian and gay communities, and this legislation, if passed, will represent one more step on the long road to improving access to health care, social services, and employment for transgender San Diegans.

Stephen Whitburn

Dear Editor:

I am responding to a letter sent to the editor by Rev. Keith Ramsey in 6.23.2005 edition of your magazine. Mr Ramsey left the mayor candidates forum disgusted and undecided where to cast his vote. Though I am not here to tell Mr. Ramsey how to vote, I do want to point out a couple of items.

If you are a candidate for office, you are speaking in a public forum, and your opponent attacks you on an issue, you have no choice but to respond. Frye has said many times that she prefers to debate the issues rather than respond to dirty attacks. You said in your note that Francis went off-topic at length to take snipes at Frye.

Unfortunately, that is politics. When a candidate does not have a firm platform to stand on, they use the attack method because they think it works. I am sure that voters would rather debate the issues, and do without the dirty attacks.

Francis mailed his “plan” to every San Diego resident. Being the political junky I am, I read the entire plan from cover to cover. Not only did I find false statements and half truths on practically every page, I noticed that he lifted some ideas from Frye’s plan and put them into his own plan. So Francis is not only attacking Frye at that forum, he is attacking her on every level.

Like I said, I am not going to tell you how to vote, but I think you should not blame Frye for defending herself. I am sadden by the fact that you returned your ballot without filling it out. However, that is your choice. Unfortunately, as the race gets closer and closer, you can expect more attacks and Frye will have no choice but to defend herself.

I for one look past the dirty politics and returned my ballot. Rest assured, I did not fill in the bubble for Steve Francis.

Mike Petrogeorge

Dear Editor:

My goodness, folks, just read all these meth-related articles in today’s San Diego Union Tribune – the A section, another op/ed piece and three more letters to the editor. Do you think if mainstream publishers can print all this stuff, the gay and lesbian community and press could stop pussy-footing and dancing around the issues and problems?

A good first step would be to ask the self-righteous owners of the bathhouses to find other uses for their so-called entrepreneurial skills. Bathhouses are no longer the safe haven social clubs they once were in the 1960s and ’70s. Now they offer safe haven to drug dealers, users and prostitutes.

Gay and lesbian publishers across the country – who really care about their communities and readers – can find another source of revenue by refusing bathhouse advertising, not because of any political agenda, but because the drugs accompanying the sex is killing off our community at least one man at a time.

Lee A. Schoenbart

Dear Editor:

I was deeply disappointed to see you devote four pages to a feature on “holistic medicine”. (Perhaps I should say three pages, since the page on Tai Chi and aerobics doesn’t count. Tai Chi as practiced in China doesn’t claim to be medicine of any sort; it is a martial art. Its health benefits, and those of aerobics, are those which flow from the practice of any well-designed regular exercise program. Besides, Scott Cole is too good looking to criticize.)

“Holistic” and “alternative” medicine regimes have failed every scientific attempt to test their validity. Not one single properly controlled double-blind trial has been able to document even their slightest statistically significant positive effect in treating physical illness. The anecdotes from persons like “Sarah” who are convinced they been helped fall under the well-known rubric of “mind over matter”. People have believed at various times that they have been cured (and because they believed, they actually were cured) by letting copious amounts of blood, swallowing mercury, and sacrificing a goat to Aesclepius. Any doctor will tell you that a patient’s belief in the treatment he is receiving may help him even if it’s the wrong treatment, or no treatment at all (the so-called “placebo effect”). That is why these “holistic” regimes may have some benefits in psychological or psychosomatic conditions. (Your acupuncturist unwittingly admits as much when she says, “ . . . the medicine is in the patient.”) But when it comes to actual physical illnesses caused by viruses or bacteria, these pseudo-scientific mystiques have no verifiable value. Our human race in its childhood developed many “comfort beliefs” based on our wishes to control our environments and futures. Too many of those beliefs, like astrology and spiritualism, still have too many adherents. Usually, such beliefs are harmless. Sometimes they can even be entertaining (I, too, like you, check my “sun sign” in “Update” occasionally).

But as your opening editorial noted, we face a serious viral pandemic. Solid science is what has brought AIDS to a manageable level, and solid science is what will some day find a cure. Wishful mumbo-jumbo won’t do it. The danger is that features like yours will lead some to put their faith in shamanistic “alternatives” that won’t help them and that may, to their tragic cost, delay them from seeking truly effective medical treatment.

Although many people still cling to the beliefs of humanity’s childhood, our community doesn’t have that luxury. It’s time for us to abandon magical thinking and grow up.

Paul Morgan Fredrix

Dear Editor:

It is with a tremendous sense of sadness that we listened to our news cast of the disgraceful, cowardly and senseless acts of terror that have befallen London and the people of England. Our deepest condolences go out to you all.

At times such as these, I look to a better world that I know is possible in an age of technology and communication that steadily increases mutual interdependence between all human beings regardless of our origin, religion, nationality, loyalties or personal convictions.

As with all such acts, we are reminded of how fragile and precious life really is as well as the shortness of our time on this earth. Somehow we must shape a world where differences and ignorance do not automatically result in intolerance, hate, destruction and death. Differences can and should be our strength not our weakness. Our educations systems must aim to eliminate ignorance and the prejudices that produce such violence. Then, and only then, can we generate the mutual respect, comfort, security, success and dominant peaceful co-existence the overwhelming world so desperately seeks.

In the realm of mankind, gross differences are inherent and inevitable. To survive despite our differences we must learn and teach each other to address our common needs and desires in ways that create tolerance and understanding in a non-threatening manner. We don’t have to be in complete agreement with each other, but we have to stop demonizing differences. Stressing the negative only fosters the infliction of pain, danger and fear. It yields only the continuation of the escalating failures that have played out through human history. Feeding the negative reaps only an overwhelming inability to recognize, understand, and co-exist peacefully. We can and must strive to create a world better than we witness in the face of such events.

William E. Kelly