New Lesbian Health Program

The Health Promotion Office is very excited about our new health program: Gynecological Orientation for Lesbians.

As part of Student Health Services, the Health Promotion Office provides educational programs and counseling sessions for students regarding all aspects of sexuality; HIV counseling sessions & results; safer sex/STD presentations; pregnancy counseling; rape presentations; and GYN orientations, just to name a few.

A GYN orientation session is a 75 minute interactive talk with young women about pap smears, contraceptive methods, and why women need to have an annual exam. It is primarily aimed at those students who have (a) never been on birth control before and wish to start a method, or (b) are about to have their first pap exam. Our staff and students (trained Peer Health Educators) provide a question and answer session, demonstrate appropriate ways to put on a condom or the birth control patch, etc., and explain the procedures that take place during a pap examination.

We realized that these sessions were not meeting the needs of lesbian students. It is for this reason that we have developed a separate orientation session specifically for these students. This session will answer the following questions:

1. Besides being a contraceptive method, what are the other benefits of birth control?
2. If I don’t have sex with men, should I be concerned about STDs or having a pap smear?
3. What would I use a condom for?

It is our goal to reach as many lesbian students from the SDSU campus as possible. We don’t want them putting their health in jeopardy due to the fact that there aren’t programs catered to their needs.

There are sessions every week.

Please call (619) 594-4133 or stop by the Health Promotion Office in Student Health Services for more information.

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