Evidence-based sex ed

I thought I put this up months ago. But I never pressed “Publish”! My bad. Here it is.

For Ottawa’s 2010 Skepticamp, I did a 10 minute (actually it was probably 13) minute presentation about evidence-based sex education. it was hard to cram everything in!

Here is my presentation notes, with talking point highlighted. I don’t tend to write stuff that is “obvious” to me in my notes but I tried to get everything relevant for someone who’s not a sex ed super nerd like myself. Comments welcome, especially from folks who saw the talk.

Julia Serano strikes against Autogynephilia

A little over a year ago, when I was inhaling everything I could find on trans history, trans issues, trans health, trans people and trans politics (a list of books I might have trouble reconstructing), one book that really stuck out was Whipping Girl by Julia Serano. Unfortunately it was a library book, and I returned it. I have finally gotten around to ordering my very own copy, which I can now re-read at a more reasonable pace and take notes in.

Wondering what Ms Serano is up to these days, I checked on her livejournal to find that she’s still fighting the good fight:

Big pharma and reproduction

I just listened to episode 23 (fnord!) of the Token Skeptic podcast, “On Big Pharma”. The interview with Michael McRae and Leslie Cannold was about the reasons why people might be suspicious of pharmaceutical companies, and they gave the issue the best treatment I have seen so far from the skeptical community.

Cannold in particular raised some excellent points regarding research surrounding the hormonal birth control pill, something which has been around long enough that there ought not be any issues with volume of quality research at all. She seems to be a professional feminist and has published a number of interesting looking papers on reproductive issues which will definitely make their way onto my reading list.