The Daily Campus, Page 3
Friday, March 30, 2012
News
» LGBT
Ala. civil rights museum exhibiting lesbian photos
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Founded to teach about human rights and the fight for equality during the days of racial segregation, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is introducing a new topic: Lesbian awareness in the South. The museum opens a new exhibit Friday night featuring photographs of lesbian couples and families living in the Deep South. Some women are depicted arm-in-arm or embracing with their faces fully visible. Others who weren’t comfortable being identified publicly are pictured with their backs to the camera. Some photos include the women’s children. The 40 images are stark and plain. Shot against a white background, there’s nothing but the women and their kids to draw viewers’ eyes. Two women are shown in military uniforms with their faces to the side; two female ministers were photographed in clerical garb. The women are young and old; While one couple is kissing there’s nothing sexual about the photos, and everyone is fully clothed. Organizers say the exhibition is meant to encourage civil dialogue about inclusion and equality in Birmingham, once a flashpoint of conflict and violence in
the civil rights movement. The museum is down the street from the spot where firefighters used water hoses to douse young civil rights demonstrators in 1963. While lesbians are the focus of the exhibit, titled “Living in Limbo: Lesbian Families in the Deep South,” professional photographer Carolyn Sherer said her work also is meant to encourage greater inclusion for gay men, bisexuals and people who are transgendered. “We’re hoping to start a conversation about equality for everyone,” said Sherer. She has never before acknowledged her homosexuality publicly, but the exhibit includes a photo of her and her partner. Alabama is a deeply conservative state, and Sherer expects some “push back” once people begin filtering through the exhibit, located beside galleries that document the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and ‘60s. School groups tour the institute almost daily. The art exhibition, which runs through June 11, is the first at the 20-year-old Civil Rights Institute to feature homosexuals. The longtime president of the museum, Lawrence J Pijeaux Jr., said Thursday he has received more
than 125 emails in support of the exhibit and just one complaint. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the reaction,” said Pijeaux. As he spoke, a museum director hung the final portraits ahead of the opening. Sherer, who grew up in Birmingham, said she was inspired to do something to encourage greater understanding and acceptance of lesbians after a friend died. The woman’s female partner met resistance from the family when she tried to get clothes and other items from the home the couple had shared, Sherer said. “That galvanized my resolve to go ahead and address my own identity as a lesbian,” she said. “This is really my coming out story.” Armed with an idea and a camera, Sherer said she approached friends in the lesbian community and asked them to let her take family portraits for display at the museum. “Most of my friends would not do this even with their backs to the camera,” she said. But a few did agree, and word of the project spread along with some of Sherer’s initial photos: Soon, the dam broke and women agreed to be
AP
Photographer Carolyn Sherer looks at her group of photographs of lesbian families on Thursday at the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Ala.
photographed. Anna Koopman said she and her partner, Hanne Harbison, attended a photo session with their 9-month-old son Amon after getting a couple emails about the project. Koopman said she and Harbison had to overcome some
initial doubts about being photographed as a family, but she is glad they did. “It felt really monumental. It felt really courageous on the part of the artist, and it felt really great for us to stand up and be seen as part of this,” said Koopman. “Who we
are is love and commitment and caring, and we were very excited to be counted in that regard.” While the downtown institute is best known for its focus on civil rights, Pijeaux said the exhibit fits its overall theme of promoting human rights.
» SCIENCE
More autism reported, likely from better testing
ATLANTA (AP) — One child out of 88 in the U.S. is believed to have autism or a related disorder, an increase in the rate attributed largely to wider screening. Advocacy groups seized on the new number as further evidence that autism research and services should get more attention. “Autism is now officially becoming an epidemic in the United States,” said Mark Roithmayr, president of Autism Speaks, at a news conference where the new figures were released Thursday. The previous estimate was 1 in 110. The new figure is from the latest in a series of studies that have steadily raised the government’s autism estimate. This new number means autism is nearly twice as common as officials said it was only five years ago, and likely affects roughly 1 million U.S. children and teens. Health officials attribute the increase largely to better recognition of cases, through wider screening and better diagnosis. But the search for the cause of autism is really only beginning,
and officials acknowledge that other factors may be helping to drive up the numbers. “One thing the data tells us with certainty – there are many children and families who need help,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency that released the estimate. For decades, the diagnosis was given only to kids with severe language, intellectual and social impairments and unusual, repetitious behaviors. But the definition of the disorder has gradually expanded, so that now “autism” is also shorthand for a group of milder, related conditions, including Asperger’s syndrome. Still, Melissa Miller, a St. Petersburg, Fla., mom whose daughter, Chelsea, was diagnosed last year at age 2, said many people misunderstand the disorder. “I think many people hear ‘autism’ and think ‘Rain Man,’“ she said, referring to the 1988 movie featuring Dustin Hoffman as an extremely socially impaired autistic man. “The autism spectrum is so vast
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and all of our children are different. Many of them don’t rock back and forth or have savant skills. They are sweet, affectionate, intelligent, goofy – and exhausting – kids,” Miller said. There are no blood or biologic tests for autism, so diagnosis is not an exact science. It’s identified by making judgments about a child’s behavior. Meanwhile, there’s been an explosion in autism-related treatment and services for children. In 1990, Congress added autism as a separate disability category to a federal law that guarantees special education services. School districts have been building up autismaddressing programs since. The CDC study is considered the most comprehensive U.S. investigation of autism prevalence to date. Researchers gathered data from areas in 14 states – Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin. They looked specifically at
8-year-old children because most autism is diagnosed by that age. They checked health and school records to see which children met the criteria for autism, even if they hadn’t been formally diagnosed. Then, the researchers calculated how common autism was in each place and overall. An earlier report based on 2002 findings estimated that about 1 in 150 children that age had autism or a related disorder such as Asperger’s. After seeing 2006 data, the figure was revised to about 1 in 110. The estimate of 1 in 88, based on 2008 data, is about 1.1 percent of kids that age. The study also found that autism disorders were almost five times more common in boys, while a growing number of black and Hispanic children were also reported to have them. And an increasingly large proportion of children with autism have IQs of 85 or higher, it said — a finding that contradicts a past assumption that most autistic kids had IQs of 70 or lower.
AP
Christopher Astacio reads with his daughter Cristina, 2, recently diagnosed with a mild form of autism, in her bedroom on Wednesday in New York.
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