Two decades later sexual orientation is still elided from the statistics being compiled on women and cancer.Įvery effort has been made to include data on race, ethnicity and age with regard to women and cancer.
The more I delved into what few details were available, the more harrowing the story became: Lesbians were getting cancer at a rate well above the national average for non-lesbian women, yet there were no studies being done on lesbians and cancer, no outreach to lesbians on cancer. My own experience with cancer led me to investigate just how prevalent it was among lesbians.
I first wrote about lesbians and cancer nearly two decades ago for The Advocate and OUT. But we are also getting - and dying - of cancer.Įverything we know thus far about lesbians and breast cancer stipulates to lesbians being at high risk for the disease - and at high risk from other cancers as well. Susan Love, the renowned breast cancer specialist and out lesbian who is spearheading research and is herself a cancer survivor, and my cover story for that same issue on lesbian comedian Tig Notaro and her own battle with cancer, lesbians seemed to have been elided from the breast cancer awareness story. But with the exception of a splashy feature I had written for the October issue of Curve magazine featuring Dr. Throughout the month of pink, I kept waiting for the issue of lesbians with breast cancer to be highlighted in the media. Unless you happen to be a breast cancer survivor or be battling the disease yourself, that is - like me and millions of other women, many of us lesbians. Now the pink has been put away for another year and breast cancer is no longer in the spotlight.
Nationwide, pink ribbons, pink yogurt tops, pink energy drinks, pink caps, pink scarves, even the pop singer, Pink, herself supporting awareness, were in abundance. In my city, Philadelphia, the fountains ran pink and the lights atop three of the premiere skyscrapers in Center City were also pink, as were the lights in the famed Love Park as well as outside City Hall. Everywhere you looked, from city lights to supermarkets, was awash in pink, the color designated for the "cause" of breast cancer. October was Breast Cancer Awareness month.
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