Everybody Hates Me: Let's Talk About Stigma – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Dr. Lori Brotto is internationally recognized as a leader in sexual health research. She has evaluated psychological interventions for sexual dysfunction and genital pain, which collectively impact 1/3 of women. Her work influences practice internationally, with mindfulness now implemented in sexual medicine centres and recommended as front line care in international guidelines. In recognition of her contributions, she holds a Canada Research Chair in women’s sexual health, has received recent awards in mentoring junior faculty, excellent public education through media, book awards, and is listed among the top 2% cited scientists by Stanford/Elsevier (SCOPUS citations).

We talk about stigma around things sex: sexual anatomy, sexual pleasure, sexual relationships, and the harms from stigma for individuals, relationships, and society. You can find Lori's book 'Better Sex through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire'  here and you can also find her on Netflix. We also shout out Cliterate and the World Association for Sexual Health!

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Cozmic Cat, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

This podcast invited Dr. Mike Lang and Kristy Wolfe, digital storytelling experts at Common Language Digital Storytelling to reflect on the power of digital storytelling and stigma reduction. Carmen met Mike and Kristy at the First International Digital Storytelling Festival in Greece in 2024 where she was blown away by their powerful stories across the world. Carmen was then a podcast guest on the Common Language Digital Storytelling Podcast Co-Created, hosted by Kristy Wolfe.

We discuss the potential power of digital storytelling in both freeing the storyteller from internalized and anticipated stigma, as well as increasing awareness and empathy among people watching and listening. Telling stories matters- they help us to understand, and this deeper understanding of oneself and others can reduce stigma. We talk about stigma spanning a range of issues, HIV, substance use, heart disease, suicide, autism, PTSD- and how both the storyteller and the listener can shift socio-cultural norms and expectations to generate more community support. Digital Storytelling can highlight strengths-based perspectives on coping, ingenuity, hope  and wisdom in the face of challenges. "When we change the questions we ask, we change the answers we get." Learn more about how to meaningfully engage with digital stories from Mike's article.

As our podcast guests remind us: "If no-one is willing to tell the story, nothing is ever going to change."

Dr. Steffanie Strathdee is Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences and Harold Simon Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. She co-directs UCSD’s new center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH), Global Health Institute and the International Core of UCSD’s Center for AIDS Research. An infectious disease epidemiologist, she has spent the last two decades focusing on HIV prevention in marginalized populations and has published over 600 peer-reviewed publications. She has recently begun working to move bacteriophage therapy into clinical trials at IPATH. She has co-authored her memoir, The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug.

In this podcast we talk about Dr. Strathdee's experiences learning about bacteriophage (phage) therapy treatment through a personal experience where her husband became extremely ill from antimicrobial resistant bacteria. She learned that stigma in part was how phage therapy had become forgotten in North America--stigma toward scientists with different beliefs and training than the mainstream, stigma toward viruses that maybe perceived "at the borderline of life", and stigma toward research based on geopolitics (including the "Russian taint"). Steffanie inspires listeners with her discussion of the power of global collaboration, advocacy in healthcare, and the importance of making (rather than waiting for) miracles to happen.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

As a community organizer, artist, activist, academic and at times a “professional”, Jessica Lynn Whitbread is interested in doing work that creates spaces for dialogue about social justice and social change. She does this through public installations, consciousness raising, workshop development and facilitation, engaging in direct action, policy review, research and any other method that allows a variety of stakeholders to engage in a diversity of ways. She believes that acts of kindness are stronger than acts of fear and that strong, united hearts can overcome the inequalities of this world. Jessica was the youngest and first queer woman to be elected as the Global Chair for the International Community of Women Living with HIV – ICW (2012), the founder of the first International Chapter of Young Women, Adolescents and Girls living with HIV (2010) as well as a long standing Steering Committee member for AIDS ACTION NOW!, and a Board member of the Canadian HIV Legal Network.  Learn more about Jessica here

In this podcast we speak with the legendary Jessica Lynn Whitbread, whose projects include Tea Time, Love Positive Women, No Pants No Problem, and PosterVIRUS (AIDS ACTION NOW!). Jessica discusses how we can all engage in action and work for social change to improve the lives of women living with HIV. To learn more about how you can participate in, and contribute to, LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN: Romance Starts at Home! (LPW) visit here and check out this LPW implementation guide by WHAI.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Sabby Duthie and John E. Johnson are authors of 'Elder Abuse: You have a role to play'.  This first-of-its-kind book undertakes the uncomfortable conversation that elder abuse is widespread and very real. John E. Johnson, a retired lawyer, and Sabby Duthie, a former retirement-home owner, share real stories from families of different generations and backgrounds.

In this podcast, we discuss elder abuse and how stigma toward the elderly can fuel elder abuse and create a lack of awareness surrounding this issue. Sabby and John provide examples of the ways in which people can value the elderly, notice important signs of elder abuse, and be part of creating change.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Annie Philpott is a public health professional, pleasure propagandist and ‘guerrilla girl’ of HIV prevention. She founded The Pleasure Project in 2004,  an international education and advocacy organization working to eroticize safer sex. The Pleasure Project builds bridges between the public health world and the pleasure and sex industry, and help to develop the evidence base for a sex-positive and pleasure-based approach to sexual health and rights. You can read more about her work here and follow The Pleasure Project on Twitter here.

We talk about The Pleasure Project's important work in entering sexual pleasure as key to sexual rights and sexual health, and the ways that certain sex is more stigmatized than others. Annie talks about the exciting projects that The Pleasure Project is doing to put the sexy into safer sex, the importance of pleasure inclusive sexual health, and the pleasure wave. 

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Dr. Keosha T. Bond is an Assistant Medical Professor in the Department of Community Health and Social Medicine at the CUNY School of Medicine.  She is a trained behavioral scientist and sexual health educator who has centered her work on the complex intersections of race, sexuality, social justice, and health equity among individuals of marginalized genders. You can learn more about her research here, and follow her on twitter here.

We talk about Keosha's work on the intersection of gender and race, and the ways that bias, stereotypes, laws and health practices impact the ability of Black women to live healthy and quality lives. We also discuss the stigma surrounding sex, and how this gets in the way of sexual and reproductive health care and safer sex. Keosha describes the multiple ways people can be part of reducing stigma and bias, including learning about histories and continued legacies of racism and becoming comfortable talking about sex.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Associate Professor Steve Bell is a Principal Research Fellow in the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at the University of Queensland. He is an applied health and social researcher with 20 years’ experience of qualitative, participatory and ethnographic research on sexual, reproductive and maternal health, HIV and other infectious diseases. He is currently working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in remote, regional and urban settings across Australia, and excluded and oppressed communities in Asia and the Pacific (Indonesia and Papua New Guinea), and has undertaken previous work in countries in Africa (Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) and Asia (India and Nepal). Find his new book here and follow him on Twitter.

We talk about the importance of community expertise and leadership in research, youth-centred research, and recognizing the solutions and agency within persons experiencing social exclusion. Steve calls for empathy and action to reduce stigma and inequity.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Calvin Hudson Hwang is an award winning Taiwanese Canadian director, producer and founder of SUPRE.  SUPRE aims to empower underpowered voices and present  often unheard points-of-view with insight, vulnerability and authenticity. They find unconventional ways to produce films to make them openly accessible for everyone to watch. Calvin's directorial work includes What Flowers They Bloom (2021), Miracle, Baby (2019), Exiting Hell Bar (2017), My Best Dress (2013), and Vestiaire (2011). You can follow SUPRE on Twitter here.

In this podcast we talk about Calvin's new documentary 'What Flowers They Bloom' (2021) on anti-Asian racism and COVID-19. Calvin discusses the importance of addressing both disinformation as well as pre-existing stigma, discrimination and bias toward Asian communities that has been amplified in the pandemic. What Flowers They Bloom explores the trauma created by anti-Asian racism, as well as the importance of solidarity and community in fighting back against this stigma.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.

Laura Ferguson is an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, the director of the Program on Global Health & Human Rights and the director of research at the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health. Her research focuses on understanding and addressing health system and societal factors affecting health and the uptake of health services, as well as how attention to human rights can improve health outcomes. She collaborates with a range of United Nations agencies as well as foundations, universities and non-governmental organizations. She is also an associate editor for the journal Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. Learn more about her research here and follow her on Twitter.

We talk about the social and structural forces that cause harm, such as laws and policies that criminalize sex work and same-sex sexual practices, that limit rights and produce barriers to health care access. Laura shares her experience working on changing these social and structural contexts of discrimination, including engaging judges in conversations with persons who are negatively impacted by laws. Laura details actions everyone can take to create a more just world.

Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Canada Research Chairs program. Original music and podcast produced by Jupiter Productions, who have various production services available to support your podcast needs.