Health

For Bay Area trans women, facial feminization surgery helps complete their transition

Diana Days’ face was swollen. Bruised purplish-blue lines curved along the top of her cheeks beneath her grey eyes and full eyebrows—which she intentionally had not plucked while waiting for surgery—and followed her newly-shrunken brow bone. She had recently undergone a process known as “brow bossing,” in which the brow bone is sawed down by surgeons to give the face a more feminine appearance. “Women don’t usually have this here,” she said, her hands feeling around her brow ridge, a…

Alameda County gets ready to promote PrEP, a drug that prevents HIV infection

The Alameda County Public Health Department is preparing to launch a marketing campaign this summer to promote PrEP, a drug that prevents HIV infection, targeted specifically to communities which are most affected by HIV. PrEP, short for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, was approved by the Federal Drug Administration for use in 2012, and although it has had a national effect on lowering HIV rates, it isn’t reaching the communities in Alameda County it needs to. Although African American males make up only…