I’m frustrated.  The man sitting in front of me is an incredible person. He’s been the chair of medical departments and president of one of the world’s largest global health non-profits. He’s improved the lives of millions of people. I have everything to learn from him, but I can’t seem to get much from what he’s saying.

It’s hard to pin him down. He is willing to condemn fee-for-service reimbursement and endorse an accountable care organization model but the conversation stops there.  He doesn’t even give me a chance to finish asking about his thoughts on single payer; he talks right over me.  He’s most famous for both working in the pharmaceutical industry and also being a champion of increased access to medicines. When I ask him how he personally navigates the tension between the “incentive for innovation” and increasing access to medications worldwide, he describes the financial strategy of providing funding to help defray cost and risk to pharmaceutical companies, but there is no mention of his own inner, ethical dialogue.

This is my chance to take advantage of the “old boys’ club” network and I feel it being schmoozed and side-stepped away with tangentially related anecdotes.

I get the distinct feeling that this is how it feels to be a member of the press interviewing a politician and that confuses me even more because the context of our conversation is not an antagonistic one.  We were invited to chat with him over a meal so that we could learn from him -- we were even asked to submit questions ahead of time!

I’m also pretty sure that he doesn’t like me.

Dammit. How depressing. I can’t even make friends when I want to.

This week is National Coming Out Week. And though we'll focus on celebrating the queer community, it's not a holiday.  And despite the fact that its whole existence is due to prejudice and hate, it's not a memorial.  When I was in high school, I started a Gay and Straight Alliance and I remember how big a deal National Coming Out Week was (though back then I think it was only a day). This was our chance to establish our presence. In an environment where any queer aspects of the curriculum were laundered and the social scene was assumed to be heterosexual, it was also our chance to challenge the norm.  With our pins prominently displayed and posters strategically hung, I remember feeling like we were walking into battle.  Long before "fierce" was campy, it was butch; and we were fierce.

As my aspirations to effect change have grown, so has the scale of my efforts.  The cynic in me says that efforts targeted at "small numbers of people" have no significant results.  The egoist in me says that my time is better spent elsewhere.  And yet I continue to advocate for grassroots change.  It turns out my hypocrisy is not only limited to telling my patients to exercise regularly.

A fellow activist and organizer once counseled me when I was complaining about how tired and burned out I was. "You need some inspiration," he said.

Last year, the business school gave out rainbow pins during National Coming Out week. By the end of the week, nearly every business student had one.  I didn't think much of it until a desperately closeted friend of mine said, "You know, seeing all these people walking around with pins -- even, like, the big footbally guys -- makes me feel like I could really come out and it would be ok."  Talk about warm and fuzzy.  Inspired by that, this year all of the queer organizations on campus came together for a button campaign targeted at the entire undergraduate and graduate student population. (See an interview with the organizer here!)

In high school things were pretty black and white for me: you either take a stand for justice or you don't. These days I feel overwhelmed by the complexities of everything. Now I'm concerned about unintentional consequences, participating in programs that are more colonial than empowering, marketing my message so that it can be heard, taking leadership without taking power, and building smart alliances without selling out.  But this button campaign... it builds a sense of community, it creates a sense of safety, and it establishes a presence. It's simple and it pleases me.

JAMA published its annual medical education issue this week and there was an article on LGBT-related curriculum. I was asked to write a short blog response for Slate.  Check it out!

Am I the only queer person in the country that is sad about the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell"? The long-delayed bill just signed into law has destroyed my plan to avoid any future military conscription.

Let me explain. Many of my male friends in college photodocumented their participation in pacifist activities.  They explained that this was their insurance policy against any eventual military draft: solid proof to support a history of conscientious objection.  As a queer person, I had another plan, though:  If anyone tried to compel me to serve in the military, before anyone could even "ask," I planned to "tell" by yelling, "I'm gay, and not in the happy way!" loudly and repeatedly, until no branch of the military would want me. Just for extra measure I would threaten to convert any and all women that I ran across.

Now, in the wake of another victory for queer rights in this country, it seems silly to not have taken pictures of myself at anti-war protests anyway.

But I have mixed feelings about the repeal of DADT for other reasons, too.  With queer folks now allowed to serve openly, it seems that yet another oppressed minority group has been pulled into being exploited by the American military-industrial complex.

I woke up this morning with my email abuzz with the most recent gossip politics. The assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan has turned into a Mean Girl - only he's not crafty and manipulative. The biggest tool in his arsenal is stealing pictures from Facebook and using Microsoft Paint to modify them. (I feel sorry for him; he's in a bind. As a government employee, he doesn't make enough money to afford Photoshop, but he's professionally bound not to bootleg it. Thus he's reduced to creating digital creations reminiscent of five year old art projects.)

But I'm not going to spend too much time pointing out how stupid or ridiculous he is. Even his boss says “his immaturity and lack of judgment... are clear.” And it's exactly this reason why I want to call out to all Allies that this the time to speak up.