LGBTQ
Our project is related to the treatment of cancer, so we tried our best to explore which parts of the project might have overlooked the claims of some groups.
After preliminary background research and literature review, we found that in China, the rights issues of the LGBTQ community are neglected by publicity due to relatively conservative policies. LGBTQ community also be called as SGM, so we probably use SGM in the subsequent descriptions.
1. Preliminary Background Research
A review of the literature revealed that there is a relationship between colorectal cancer and LGBTQ. Adults 50 years and older in the US had colorectal cancer screening with combined stool/endoscopy of 71.8% gay/lesbian, 62.7% straight, and 53.2% bisexual. Not only the colorectal cancer, but LGBT people may have certain risk factors and behaviors that can predispose them to all types of cancer [1]. The 2015 National Health Interview Survey data report that current cigarette smoking in adults 18 years and older in the US as gay, 19.6%; lesbian, 16.1%; straight male, 16.7%; straight female, 13.6%; bi-sexual male, 26.8%; and bisexual female, 20.9% [2].
In terms of policy, a special association focusing on LGBTQ cancer has been established in the United States ----- the American Cancer Society (ACS), which has embraced the achievement of equity in cancer-related health outcomes as a foundational principle [3]. But in China, let alone the government focusing on the cancer rates of LGBTQ group, sometimes there is a risk of being blocked when the word is used on social media.
Although our project is only related to the treatment of colorectal cancer, we found that there is a certain group of the people in our country whose rights are being ignored. This means that even if our drug development is successful in reaching the market, such groups will not enjoy the care they deserve. So we decided to take action.
Based on these data, we also wanted to find out popular views on LGBTQ issues in China. Therefore, we distributed questionnaires and collected a total of 139 valid data. When we asked the public about their views on the LGBTQ community, we found that 14% were opposed to them, but 13% were able to respect them, indicating that Chinese society is more inclusive of LGBTQ people, only somewhat conservative in terms of policy.
Then, we were quite curious about whether public ever learned that the LGBTQ community bears a disproportionate burden of cancer (e.g., breast cancer, anal cancer, etc.) Results indicate that more than half of people don't know the reason of it or even completely unaware of this thing, which means it's of great necessity for us to bring it into public view.
We went further and asked the public if they understood the difficulties of the LGBTQ community in the overall cancer treatment process. Only 28% completely understand they need a special way of care, which shows that the public does not pay attention to this aspect.
Lastly, we asked about approaches that the public believes will help the LGBTQ community. The two most endorsed approaches were training and dissemination to improve SGM’s culture and competence level, and enact laws against medical discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The later one related to the government which does not depend on us. But what we can improve is the former one. So next we took some actions.
The above are only the representative questions in the questionnaire, the full questionnaire see the following PDF.
2. The Promotion of Brochure and Written Proposal in China
Our school, Lanzhou University, locates in the northwest of China. The economy of the northwest in China is not as developed as that of the southeast coast, and people are not as open-minded. So we decided to promote LGBTQ and cancer issues begin at northwest.
For publicity, we wrote a brochure in understandable language that contains three parts: our background research, initiatives for LGBTQ people to stay healthy and wishes. We printed about 50 copies and put them in the First Hospital of Lanzhou University and Gansu Provincial Hospital, mainly on the tables of the service counter on the first floor (figure 1) and on the shelves for renting power bank (figure 2).
These brochures did attract a certain number of patients who come and go to read them in the hope that they will dispel the prejudice against the LGBTQ community, at the same time make the LGBTQ community more aware of their health issues and timely medical checkups.
For health care workers, (we chose this group because they have the most contact with LGBTQ cancer patients and are the most influential factor in their health care experience) we drafted a written proposal based on the disregard for LGBTQ patients in the Chinese healthcare system. We want to do what we can to enhance the experience of LGBTQ patients and bring this group to the forefront of health care professionals' attention.
We also took action in two hospitals mentioned above. We first communicate with some nurses whether they considered LGBTQ community during working, most of them indicated that they didn’t take these group into consideration. So we distributed our written proposal to them and discussed about the future of LGBTQ community in China.
3. Bringing this Issue to the International Stage
The problem of disregard for LGBTQ rights does not only occur in China, as we learned from the Indian exchange students in our lab, the same problem is also in India. In this way, we found that action in China alone was not enough, so we contacted two Indian iGEM team ICT-Mumbai and IISER Tirupati. In order to understand LGBTQ's situation and difficulties in each other's countries, we had a meeting on zoom, meanwhile we discussed how to take this project forward in India next.
The first issue that needs to be tackled is the language, we translate our brochure into English, and they helped us to translate it into Hind. This will expand the influence of our project. The Hindi version of brochure is shown below.
References:
[1] Marc Ceres et al., “Cancer Screening Considerations and Cancer Screening Uptake for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Persons,” Seminars in Oncology Nursing 34, no. 1 (February 2018): 37-51, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soncn.2017.12.001.
[2] Jennifer Griggs et al., “American Society of Clinical Oncology Position Statement: Strategies for Reducing Cancer Health Disparities Among Sexual and Gender Minority Populations,” JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, n.d., 7.
[3] Richard Wender et al., “The American Cancer Society's Approach to Addressing the Cancer Burden in the LGBT Community,” LGBT Health 3, no. 1 (February 2016): 15-18, https://doi.org/10.1089/lgbt.2015.0089.
Surdomute
In order to make synthetic biology understood by more people, and to make science spread in special populations, we contacted the Lanzhou University Sign Language Association, hoping to express our promotion video in sign language. Students at the Sign Language Association of Lanzhou University were happy to work with us and thought it is great and meaningful to be able to pass on some biological methods to deaf people.
In September, we held an online meeting with the Sign Language Association. Our members discussed with them how to turn these more specialized words into simpler expressions, and we also worked with them to learn simple sign language expressions that we hope to use to communicate easily with deaf people.
After a period of collation and learning, the members of the Sign Language Association of Lanzhou University Jing Ma, Yuting Ouyang and Dan Li cooperated to translate our promotion video into sign language video at the same frequency. We hoped to help the deaf and dumb people understand and learn our topics and related knowledge of colorectal cancer.
Wiki Accessibility
Our Wiki pages accessibility production is progressing rapidly. It can meet the needs of different people for different styles, and users can switch the background color of the Wiki page and the background graph by clicking the button. At present, the writing of css and the production of page buttons have been realized, and further rendering and use will be carried out in the future to make our Wikis more readable and convenient. Follows are the screenshots of our menu and the unfinished codes.
culture
China as an eastern country with a long history has a different culture from the West, but iGEM is a competition that brings people from all over the world together. We decided to incorporate traditional Chinese culture into synthetic biology. For the Mid-Autumn Festival, we symbolized lanterns as glowing E. coli. During the process of making lanterns by hand, people can get close to the synthetic biology. More details about our process can visit communication.
Under our suggestion, our close friend NEU_CHINA also brought people to make mooncakes with our team's logo on the top, the paste of mooncake was genetically modified soybeans that have been approved for marketing to dispel public misconceptions about genetically modified foods.
Intellectual Disabled People
This education event was jointly organized by LZU-CHINA and SCUT-China two iGEM teams, and the event was held at the Tianhe Work Therapy Station in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province. The activities were aimed at people receiving treatment at Work Therapy Stations. The "Work Therapy Station" is a living place that provides work and treatment for intellectual disabled people, the disabled and the mentally ill (who have generally recovered) in the community. We chose them as our educational group because they usually lack communication with the outside world, which they have limited access to synthetic biology. We also believe that one of the purposes of synthetic biology is to benefit special groups like them, so that barriers between people can be removed and the world can become a more equitable and free place.
The purpose of the work therapy activities is to make the workers realize their own value, and at the same time, let all the intellectually handicapped people have a place to communicate and learn. This activity aims to build a communication bridge between our team and vulnerable groups in society; we also hope to enrich the amateur life of the intellectually handicapped people by making crafts related to synthetic biology. Our team have held several similar events before this, covering multiple groups including children, college students and more. Our purpose is also to make synthetic biology known and accepted by more people, so as to create favorable conditions for the development of synthetic biology in China.
After consultation, our two teams have formulated a new way to let them appreciate the beauty of biology. Our team prepared the basic materials included butterfly specimens, fake flowers, watercolor pens, glue and other tools. One of the butterfly specimens was collected during our scientific research in the Qilian Mountains, with the permission of the local environmental protection bureau, we want people to feel the beauty of nature and the wonders of animals. SCUT-China bring the functional silk developed, which can eliminate the public's misunderstanding and resistance to genetic modification. We hope they will be able to use these tools to stitch and decorate on paper and finally assemble their favorite artwork. In order to make it easier for them to take home the artwork they have created, we have also prepared a picture frame so that they can pack the finished product in the frame and take it away.
At 2:30 pm 30/08/2022, our activity was officially launched at Tianhe Work Therapy Station. The event consisted of 10 participators and 5 team members from LZU-CHINA and SCUT-China. At the beginning of the activity, we first told the participators about the preparation of materials and the use of specific tools(figure4,5). After the explanation, the workers began to use the tools to create art by themselves. Two of them have some hand disabilities and need volunteer assistance to create with them(figure6).
After the activity starts, each of them was very involved and were using the tools and rich materials very carefully to create their own art (figure7,8). They have put a lot of effort into color matching, material selection, material placement and other aspects, and everyone in them is happy at the moment when their own artworks are finally created(figure9,10,11). This is the meaning that the combination of biology and art brings to them. When everyone finished their art, everyone gathered together to take a big group photo to commemorate that afternoon that was so meaningful(figure12,13,14).
In this event, each participant did an excellent job of performing their own artwork. We believe that through this activity, they will have a deeper understanding not only the synthetic biology but the beauty of life, which we believe will also help them to further carry out their therapy.
We promise that all photos were taken with the permission of the staff of the Work Therapy Station and the guardians of intellectual disabled people.