PHOTOS: Rare Barbra
Many previously unpublished photos grace a career-spanning book, Streisand: In the Camera Eye.
Christopher Harrity
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/music/2014/10/24/photos-rare-barbra
5 Things Every Woman Should Know About Egg Freezing
5 Things Every Woman Should Know About Egg Freezing
By: Rachael Rettner LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 10/23/2014 08:19 AM EDT on LiveScience
The announcement that Apple and Facebook will cover the steep cost of egg freezing for their employees has many people talking about the risks and benefits of the procedure.
Last week, Facebook said it has already started covering egg freezing, and Apple plans to add the benefit next year. Both companies said they would cover up to $20,000 of the cost of the procedure, which can range from $5,000 to more than $15,000, not including the cost of the required medications, which can be thousands of dollars more.
Egg freezing is viewed as a way to thwart a “ticking biological clock” — as women grow older, it becomes more likely that their eggs will have chromosomal abnormalities, which increases the risk of miscarriage and certain disorders, and can make it harder or impossible for women to conceive. [Future of Fertility Treatment: 7 Ways Baby-Making Could Change]
But egg freezing is not a perfect fix. Here are five important facts to know about egg freezing.
Egg freezing is better now than it used to be
Egg cells contain a lot of water, and so when they are frozen, crystals can form that damage their structure. For this reason, the egg-freezing techniques of the past were not as successful as current ones, and were used mainly by women with cancer or other conditions who faced a high risk of losing their fertility from chemotherapy.
A new technique has come around in the last five years, which freezes egg cells so quickly that the crystals do not form. Studies have found that eggs frozen with this new technique, called vitrification, are similar to fresh eggs in their ability to lead to pregnancy (if the eggs are taken from a woman still at a young age). Because of these findings, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) declared egg freezing no longer experimental in 2012.
But it’s still not recommended for delaying childbearing
The ASRM now recommends egg freezing for several groups of people, including women who may lose their fertility during chemotherapy. The procedure is also recommended for couples who are undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) and are not able to fertilize eggs the same day that they are collected (because sperm from the male partner is not available on that day), and for couples undergoing IVF who have surplus eggs and do not wish for those eggs to be fertilized and frozen as embryos.
However, there is not enough data to recommend that women freeze their eggs for the sole purpose of delaying childbearing, according to the ASRM. Studies are needed on the safety, efficacy, cost effectiveness and emotional risks of the procedure for this purpose, the ASRM said.
“Marketing this technology for the purpose of deferring childbearing may give women false hope and encourage women to delay childbearing,” a 2012 report from the ASRM said. “Patients who wish to pursue this technology should be carefully counseled about age and clinic-specific success rates of oocyte cryopreservation vs. conceiving on her own, and risks, costs, and alternatives to using this approach.”
Freezing your eggs means a lot of trips to the doctor
There are three main steps to egg freezing: stimulation of the ovaries, retrieval of the eggs and egg freezing.
For the first step, women are given hormones to stimulate their ovaries to produce multiple eggs in one cycle. During this phase, women visit the doctor frequently — sometimes five or six times over a two-week period — to monitor how well the treatment is working. At these visits, doctors view the ovaries with a vaginal ultrasound to look at the maturing eggs, and take blood samples.
In general, it takes about eight to 14 days of hormone treatment before the eggs can be retrieved, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Eggs are retrieved from the ovaries with a suction device that is connected to a needle. Ultrasound is used to guide the needle through the vagina to the egg follicle, according to the Mayo Clinic. The procedure is done under sedation.
During the actual egg freezing, eggs are cooled to subzero temperatures, the Mayo Clinic says.
Egg freezing at younger ages is best
Frozen eggs can later be thawed, fertilized and implanted using IVF.
But the chances for success (pregnancy) are greater if a woman uses “younger” eggs — meaning either eggs she froze in her 20s or early 30s, rather than later on, Dr. Wendy Vitek, a fertility expert at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told Live Science in an interview in June.
“The power in egg banking is that it allows women to have the freedom to keep looking for the right partner, and alleviates that stress that occurs when a woman is in her late 30s and early 40s and hasn’t quite found the right person,” Vitek said.
Egg freezing is not a not a guarantee for pregnancy
However, a woman who freezes her eggs, even at an early age, still does not have a guarantee for pregnancy later in life. Studies conducted in Europe on frozen (vitrified) eggs from donors under age 30 found that women’s pregnancy rates ranged from 36 to 61 percent.
And an online fertility calculator developed by researchers at New York Medical College and the University of California Davis estimates that a woman who freezes 15 eggs at age 30 has about a 30 percent chance of giving birth to a child if she uses these eggs. A woman who freezes 25 eggs at age 30 has about a 40 percent chance of giving birth to a child, the calculator estimates.
Natural pregnancy rates are not 100 percent, either; among couples without fertility problems, 60 percent will become pregnant within three months of trying.
Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. FollowLive Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
- Conception Misconceptions: 7 Fertility Myths Debunked
- 5 Myths About Fertility Treatments
- 9 Uncommon Conditions That Pregnancy May Bring
Copyright 2014 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Batman finally gets asked: 'Are you gay?'
Batman finally gets asked: 'Are you gay?'
Holy homosexuality!
joem
www.gaystarnews.com/article/batman-finally-gets-asked-are-you-gay241014
Wave of Equality in Arizona Cities
Wave of Equality in Arizona Cities
HRC is working hard to pass non-discrimination ordinances throughout Arizona.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/wave-of-equality-in-arizona-cities?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
50 Cent To Headline At Cyndi Lauper's LGBT Youth Benefit Concert
50 Cent To Headline At Cyndi Lauper's LGBT Youth Benefit Concert
The line up for Cyndi Lauper’s Home For the Holidays benefit concert have been announced and this year’s roster is shaping up to be rather interesting. For the past four years Lauper has produced the concert series in collaboration with her True Colors Fund, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about homeless, queer youth.
“I am astounded by the artists who continue to give of their time and talent each and every year and I am so excited by the line-up who are joining us in December,” Lauper exclaimed in a statement. “The concert plays such an important role in supporting the True Colors Fund’s work to ensure that no young person is homeless again because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
In addition to Salt-n-Pepa, Natalie Maines, and Sufjan Stevens, 50 Cent will lend his talents to this year’s show. Curtis Jackson, better known by his stage name, has a storied history of fending off rumors about his sexuality in addition to lashing out at the gay community.
In 2010 Jackson drew heat from Truth Wins Out over a series of tweets relating about oral sex that were interpreted as homophobic. Jackson suggested that men who do not perform oral sex on women should kill themselves, a message that particularly ill-timed considering that 19 year-old Tyler Clementi had recently killed himself after being publicly outed as gay.
“The other night I made a joke about a blow job,” Jackson explained. “My male followers enjoyed it. So I then went on to joke about women receiving the same.”
“[Somehow] they turned a simple joke about oral sex into a anti gay statement. I have nothing against people who choose and alternative life.”
In an interview with Playboy back in 2004, Jackson said:
“I ain’t into fa**ots. I don’t like gay people around me, because I’m not comfortable with what their thoughts are. I’m not prejudiced. I just don’t go with gay people and kick it – we don’t have that much in common. I’d rather hang out with a straight dude. But women who like women, that’s cool.”
Home For the Holidays will take place on December 6th.
Charles Pulliam-Moore
www.towleroad.com/2014/10/50-cent-to-headline-at-cyndi-laupers-lgbt-benefit-concert.html
Exposé sur LGBT
Exposé sur LGBT
YOU DONT WANT TO MISS THIS.NITE By @myday_1101 "By @myday_1101 "ITS SCORPIO SEASON BAYBEE! THIS TURN UP IS GOING TO BE LIVE YOU ARENT GONNA WANT TO MISS THIS PARTY. JOIN @xavier_entertainment AS TURN ALL THE WAY UP AT @thelaylalounge THIS FRIDAY 10/24/14
Rick Santorum: Young People Support LGBT Rights Because the Gay Community Has 'Silenced the Church' – VIDEO
Rick Santorum: Young People Support LGBT Rights Because the Gay Community Has 'Silenced the Church' – VIDEO
Former senator and likely presidential candidate Rick Santorum has said the only reason young people support gay rights is because they have never heard any arguments to the contrary, reports Right Wing Watch.
Speaking yesterday during an interview with Tony Perkins, president of listed hate group Family Research Council, Santorum said that the anti-gay lobby is losing in the battle for LGBT rights because “[LGBT activists] have effectively silenced the church on a lot of those issues and young people don’t even know what the opposing view is on these issues.”
On the issue of pastors in Houston suing the city for rejecting their petitions to repeal a non-discrimination ordinance, Santorum said:
“I really believe in this subject matter at hand with the gay community that a Judeo-Christian worldview cannot survive with a worldview that is as rabidly secular as this movement is.
“One is going to battle the other and I can tell you that the statists, these secular statists, do not want the competition that comes from the church and so they are going to do everything they can to marginalize them, to force them out of the public square to be quiet.
“They’re going to use, as they have, the Johnson amendment, try to use the IRS and the tax code to do so, they’re going to use every lever of power the government has to keep this competition of ideas silent so they can win the argument.”
Listen to the interview, AFTER THE JUMP…
Last year, Santorum claimed that same-sex marriage would “discourage” straight couples from marrying.
Jim Redmond
www.towleroad.com/2014/10/rick-santorum-christians-silenced-on-issue-of-gay-rights-listen.html
Federal Judge Cancels Today's Hearing on Challenge to Kansas Gay Marriage Ban
Federal Judge Cancels Today's Hearing on Challenge to Kansas Gay Marriage Ban
A federal judge in Kansas who was set to hear a challenge to the state’s ban on same-sex marriage today has canceled the hearing, the Associated Press reports:
ACLU attorney Doug Bonney said U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Crabtree is considering whether to reschedule the oral arguments or decide the case based on the parties’ written arguments.
Bonney said he told Crabtree during a 30-minute conference Thursday that the ACLU did not have time to review the state’s written response to the lawsuit because it had just been filed.
This is separate from the case scheduled to be heard before the Kansas Supreme Court on November 6.
Kansas remains the only state in the Tenth Circuit without marriage equality.
Kyler Geoffroy
In Online Dating, Everyone’s A Bit Of A Racist
In Online Dating, Everyone’s A Bit Of A Racist
OK Cupid has roughly 4 million active users, many of whom are seeking same-sex dates. And if you happen to be one of them, know that the site watches every move you make. Not to be creepy, but to compile meta-data (which, OK, is maybe a little bit creepy).
Cofounder Christian Rudder spoke recently to The Atlantic about how users break down on racial lines, offering this analysis:
The racial picture isn’t the most pleasant one. It’s definitely, um, what you would expect if you were a very cynical person. So, you know, black users get a kind of…25 percent discount in the replies they get, volume of messages they get, level of rating they get from other users. And that’s from not only whites, but Asians and Latinos as well.
You can ask people directly, you know, ‘what do you think about interracial dating?’ and you’ll almost always get a, like, ‘oh, yeah I’m totally cool with interracial dating’ or this kind of attitude when they have to verbalize it. But the way they act is definitely different than that…It’s pretty universal.
Some gay guys have no shame in making their racial preferences known, often in horribly crass phrases like “white only” or “not into Asians,” not realizing that their language can and does hurt people.
But behind the veil of anonymity, it appears that there are many more who think and behave just like them.
Dan Tracer
