LH Feature Magazine

The Little Hawk

feature 12

•

18 •

15

boys and girls and

everything in between

Gender-nonconforming students discuss navigating the gray areas of the gender spectrum and of society’s expectations. (p. 12)

PREVIEW

4

SIMPLE HOLIDAY SNACKS

5

“it happens everywhere�

8

in a puff of smoke

By Bella Pittman

Gather around the fire with Festive Crunch Popcorn and a mug of Hot Vanilla.

By Caroline Brown & Olivia Parrott

What is driving the epidemic of gun violence that is racking the United States?

By Sonali Durham & Nova Meurice

Cigarette sales are down and e-cigarette use is rising. Many teens are embracing the trend, but the medical community remains skeptical.

4

14

8

14

INSIDE THE #istandwithpp DEBATE

By Madeline Deninger

Perspectives on the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood from both sides.

2 Little Hawk Feature Magazine

COVER PHOTOS BY CAROLINE BROWN & MAX GRUBER

SON OF A GIFT

By Addie Bass

The holiday season is sneaking in like the stench of Thanksgiving leftovers rotting in the fridge—and with it, the pressure to gift.

Ah, yes, the spirit of generosity, mistletoe, and involuntary participation in Secret Santa name drawings. It’s something out of a Norman Rockwell knock-off, and it reaches its harrowing climax when the first gift is hastily unwrapped around the Christmas tree and… oh no. Oh dear. The red and green paper floats limply to the floor, revealing your gift. Well- no, not your gift, but the gift you bought! You spent time, effort, and most importantly, money on that gift! The giftee takes a moment, the tiniest of moments, to establish

an opinion on your gift-baby. Their face either rises with Christmas joy, or falls in disappointment; and if it falls, it then quickly rises, to spare your feelings.

AND IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! The second most prominent cause, after the common cold, responsible for the mass deflation of holiday cheer, are less than satisfactory gifts.

What can one possibly do to avoid such a conundrum? Well, some festive faculty and friends here at City High are here to give you their two cents on the issue, with tales of Christmas miracles… and Christmas failures.

nysio poulakos ‘17

christina goering

beth fettweis

“When I was younger I used to make a lot of art. I was into watercolors and stuff, and this one time it was my aunt’s birthday and I totally forgot to make her something, so literally an hour before we were having people at our house for her birthday, I took colors and just splatter painted them all over the place and painted random blobs in the middle of the paper. And I looked at it and thought, “This looks pretty good!” Then when she came over I gave it to her and she was like, ‘This is so beautiful. I can tell you’ve spent a lot of time on it!’ And to this day she has it framed in her house and she is unaware that I literally just threw stuff on paper.”

“When I was around five, one of the Toy Story movies had just come out and Buzz Lightyear was my favorite character. I really wanted a cool Buzz Lightyear action figure and, I ended up not getting that, and instead I got a doll. But it was ok! I went with the flow, and it was all right. I think the key to gift giving is understanding the other person and how they perceive things. For example, for my worst gift given, those recipients who received it weren’t looking for something sentimental; they would have been happier with chocolate or candy or something like that. So just kind of understanding what the recipients are looking for is always helpful. But if you’re doing a Secret Santa, and maybe don’t know the other classmate, sometimes that’s kind of hard. So in that case just straight out letting people know what you want is probably the best bet to get what you’re looking for.”

“Unfortunately, my husband’s the recipient of the worst gift I ever gave. I had lost all of my sentimental side because of our children, I think, and he would complain all the time about how our Tupperware lids and containers didn’t match. I thought I was doing a great thing by—and I’m embarrassed just to say it out loud— by geting him a brand new full set of Tupperware! When he opened it and I saw his face, I immediately knew that it was a horrible idea. I mean, he got me all these sweet little things like jewelry! And I got him Tupperware… So that was a swing and a miss, big time.”

december 18, 2015 3

holiday snacks

By Bella Pittman It’s that time of the year again where holiday memories are made, family is joined, and warm drinks are in the hands of those who matter most.

Gather around the fire with Santa Crunch Popcorn and a mug of Hot Vanilla while you cherish the time spent together.

FESTIVE CRUNCH POPCORN from twosisterscrafting.com INGREDIENTS

° 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels ° salt ° 1/4 cup butter (sweet cream salted) ° 3 cups of mini marshmalows ° vanilla ° mini M&M candies (red & green) ° pretzel M&M candies (red & green) ° christmas sprinkles

CROCKPOT HOT VANILLA from thefrugalgirls.com INGREDIENTS ° 5 cups of milk ° 1/2 cup of white sugar ° 1 cup of hot water ° 6 to 7 teaspoons of Torani French Vanilla Syrup

Instructions

1. Combine sugar and hot water in large pan. Stir, and bring to gentle boil.

2. Transfer misture to crockpot, and add milk and vanilla syrup.

3. Stir, then cook on high for two hours (or low for four hours), or until hot.

4. Pour into mugs, then top with whipped cream and sprinkle ground cinnamon on top.

4 Little Hawk Feature Magazine

INSTRUCTIONS 1. Pour 2 tablespoons of oil in the bottom of pan (make on stove) then heat on high/ medium. Wait three minutes for pan to heat. Add 1/4 cup of kernels. Take pan off stove after kernel popping slows down. Salt liberally.

2. Melt 1/4 cup of butter in medium sauce pan. When melted, add three cups of mini marshmallows. Stir until marshmallows are melted. Turn off the heat. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla 3. Put popcorn in a prepared cookiw sheet and pour the marshmallow mixture on top. Fold the popcorn gently to spread the mixture. Add sprinkles and M&Ms and serve!

says

what is driving the epidemic of gun violence racking the united states?

happens

where.�

By Caroline Brown & Olivia Parrott

december 18, 2015 5

I

n the past year, the United States has averaged more than one mass shooting per day.

In the past few weeks alone, more than fifteen lives were lost in violent events that generated massive national coverage. Even here in Iowa, a shooting at the Coral Ridge Mall claimed one life last June.

“Everybody always says they never thought it would happen ‘here.’ Well, where’s it supposed to happen?” John Knutson, retired professor of psychology at the University of Iowa, said. “It happens everywhere.”

In the wake of these shootings, many have cited mental health illness and the need for reform in the United States’ mental health care system as the main cause of this violence. Many citizens who don’t want to see guns made illegal have made the argument that the people are the problem, rather than the guns.

“I think I’ve always [thought] that it’s mental health that’s the problem,” Sadie Hobbs ‘17 said.

Mental health was at the core of President Obama’s proposed 2013 plan to prevent future mass shooting tragedies. Among universal background checks, strong bans on assault weapons, and new restrictions on ammunition and magazines, this reform included: Sending letters to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities, providing incentives for schools to hire school resource officers, launching a national dialogue on mental health, and directing the Centers for Disease Control (or CDC) to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

However, Knutson believes these reforms don’t follow the research on the association between psychopathology-psychiatric diagnosesand gun violence.

“The problem is that the mass media and some political figures use mental illness in a non-specific, generic fashion,” Knutson said.

“There are millions of people who have psychiatric diagnoses. It’s not the guy who’s walking down the street mumbling, it’s not people who don’t look like us; it’s people in our homes. This is the problem: We’re building a model of gun danger based on misinformation.”

According to experts cited by CBS News, mentally ill people cause less than five percent of violent crimes, and are much more likely to be the victims of these crimes.

“Most of the folks with a psychiatric diagnosis don’t commit any dangerous acts,” Knutson said. “You’re as safe sitting in a ward of schizophrenic patients as you are anywhere in the world. They’re not necessarily dangerous. But for people who don’t actively study risk and dangerousness, they make the attribution to psychopathology.”

In fact, mentally ill people are much more dangerous to themselves than to others when armed with guns: More than 60 percent of gun deaths in the United States are the result of suicides, not homicides, according to an October article in the New York Times.

However, gun homicides tend to get more news coverage than suicides. Knutson blames the relationship often shown in the media be-

6 Little Hawk Feature Magazine

tween gun violence and mental illness for public misperceptions of the problem.

“What happens is you have these celebrated cases [of gun violence]. You can identify cases of psychopathology and celebrated cases of shootings, and then you can make the attribution that this occurred because of the psychopathology,” Knutson said. “The mass media hasn’t done us any favors, because they let people make these pronouncements.”

Some argue that another way the media has worsened these situations is by providing any form of identification or recognition of the shooter. Abby Dickson ‘16 agrees that the spotlight the media provides by covering these events may be causing more harm than good.

“Personally I like to know about [the news],” she said. “I would rather these stories be covered, but I can see how it’s a bad thing to have this much publicity about shootings, because some people decide to do it for attention, or to get their causes noticed.

For example, the planned parenthood guy was trying to draw attention to his views on abortion.”

While an individual with a mental illness may commit a violent crime, calculations of risk must consider numerous factors. For this reason, it becomes difficult for mental health professionals to distinguish between real and idle threats. This ambi-

“IT’S NOT THE GUY WHO’S WALKING DOWN THE STREET MUMBLING, IT’S NOT PEOPLE WHO DON’T LOOK LIKE US; IT’S PEOPLE IN OUR HOMES. THIS IS THE PROBLEM: WE’RE BUILDING A MODEL OF GUN DANGER BASED ON MISINFORMATION.” DR. JOHN KNUTSON

guity greatly impacts the effectiveness of their duty to warn.

“I think there’s evidence that the guy that did the shooting in Aurora evidenced psychopathology. But there are a lot of people who could merit a similar diagnosis who will never harm anybody,” Knutson said. “Those things are so multidetermined.”

Dickson recognizes the multiple factors associated with determining violence risk.

“I can see both sides because mental health is a huge problem in America right now, and it’s not really being addressed,” Dickson said. “That is not super connected to gun control-it is a little bit, but not as much as some people are stressing. Even in schools, [mental health] is huge problem.”

In the ‘60s, the federal government, in conference with a large number of states, constructed a community mental health model that was built upon the assumption that breakthrough medications would solve the problem of serious mental illness. The government also believed it disadvantageous to patients and their families to shuttle to hospitals that were remote from their homes.

To serve both purposes, the government built many state hospitals. The expectation was outpatient and brief inpatient mental health services through community mental health systems. However, the drugs did not live up to expectations, as only some mental health problems were solved.

Furthermore, the funding base for the community mental health initiative was eroded by the costs associated with the Vietnam war, and economic and political changes that occurred. The state mental hospitals were also not particularly effective, according to Knutson.

Over the last 50 years, there’s been a decline in the number of inpatient facilities for people with serious psychopathology. In Iowa, Governor Terry Branstad chose to close Clarinda and Mount Pleasant, two out of four Iowa state institutions this year. Knutson believes this is symptomatic of an effort to allocate resources to psychopathology, a goal likened by the creators of the early 20th century mental health care structure in the United States.

“I think Iowa closing those facilities in the absence of providing resources for alternatives is a mis-

take,” Knutson said. “I don’t think we’re doing a good job. Does that mean that we’re more likely to get shot in Iowa? No, because those folks weren’t going to be shooting us anyway.”

Whether or not mental health is at the heart of the problem, Hobbs is simply concerned about her school’s safety.

“With all of the school shootings that have been going on, it is scary to think that the main doors aren’t locked and someone could just walk in,” Hobbs said. “It would be safer to have a guard or someone here. Even though an incident like that has never happened here, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Hobbs believes in more regulations and stricter background searches for those seeking to own a gun, and Dickson shares the same view.

Noting that however the laws may be changed, they must make a positive difference in the gun violence death rates—over 32,000 deaths per year according to Forbes—in the United States to be worth installing.

“There should be stricter gun control,” Dickson said. “I don’t know how people should implement that, but there needs to be less of what we’ve been seeing.”

Access to guns increases the risk of gun violence. Knutson notes that Paris—the site of the recent terrorist attacks—is the safest of any metropolitan area comparable in size in the US because of their gun control laws.

He cites Iowa City as an example of the result of easier access to guns in the nation. The problem in the United States, Knutson believes, is that anyone has access to a gun.

“That guy that shot the woman in the Coral Ridge mall: It’s prototypical—he legally had a gun. Now, if he didn’t have a gun, if he snapped, he might of done something egregious and stupid, but she might still be here,” Knutson said. “It’s the ready access to firearms under circumstances of normal provocation—that’s a bigger problem than mental illness.”

Hobbs was in the Coral Ridge Mall movie theater when a shooting occurred over the summer. An armed man with a valid license to carry a weapon shot and killed his ex-girlfriend in the parking lot near the food court.

“I remember someone who worked at the theater came in and said that there was an emergency and we needed to evacuate the mall,” she said. “My first thoughts were that there was either a bomb threat at the mall, or a shooting was happening in

“IN TERMS OF A CIVIL LIBERTIES QUESTION, IS IT BETTER TO RESTRICT ACCESS TO A TOOL, OR IS IT BETTER TO RESTRICT THE CIVIL LIBERTIES OF PEOPLE ON THE BASIS OF FALLIBLE PREDICTIONS?” DR. KNUTSON

a different theater.”

Looking back on that day, Hobbs recalls the safety precautions that were taken to handle the situation in the most safe and efficient way. She feels that the security and employees at the mall were on top of things to the best of their abilities.

“The safety policy [said] just to exit the mall and get in your car and go home. I know that when we exited the movie theater we saw that the mall was completely empty, so I think we were some of the last people to exit.

I’m not exactly sure how that worked, but I heard that there were swarms of people running outside,” she said.

“We were really confused about what was going on, so we kind of asked around. I definitely think it would be hard to get an organized group out of the mall when you hear gun shots.”

A constellation of factors can provoke someone not diagnosed with a mental illness to shoot. They may be suddenly angered, overestimating risk, or fearing strangers and people who are different from them. However, the gun control conversation becomes more complicated in determining the equal distribution of rights among the population. Knutson considers the proposal that no mentally unhealthy person have access to a gun.

“In terms of a civil liberties question, is it better to restrict access to a tool, or is it better to restrict the civil liberties of people on the basis of fallible predictions?”

Knutson believes an effective future in combating the United States’ gun violence issue lies in formatting laws based on factors

which raise the base rate for gun violence of the common person. This could be family problems, domestic altercations, jealousy, or any argument that may provoke negative emotion.

“People do dumb things when they’re really fearful. They’re afraid, so they grab the gun and shoot, and… It was a person knocking on the door to ask for directions,” he said. “It’s not mental illness that’s our problem, it’s access to guns and being afraid of strangers, getting mad at family members, doing dumb things, and drinking.”

“Priors” can also be used to predict future behavior, Knutson says.

“Your behavior today predicts your behavior down the road. If you shoot at a neighbor’s dog, I see you’ve got guns, I see you using them inappropriately by shooting them in town, and then that changes the base rate.”

These risk factors, Knutson says, which are much more based on the people and the circumstances than on mental illness, are much more likely to predict risk than mental illness. Risk, he says, is not predicted generically from psychopathology.

Dickson has voiced that she would like to see more be done to prevent violent crime besides taking away the weapon.

“I think more education in schools about mental health is important. I know we have a mental health club. I would like that to be more widely known and used, even just having more resources for everyone is good,” Dickson said.

Mixed perceptions may be the effect of a decision made 20 years ago, when Republicans prohibited the Centers for Disease Control from doing research on gun violence. Without this restriction, the CDC could have treated gun violence as a public health problem and potentially achieved a deeper understanding of its nature.

One observable phenomenon has emerged, despite the loss of the opportunity for research.

According to the Mother Jones website, vigilante action by an armed civilian has never successfully stopped deadly gun violence. In fact, in cases when armed armed civilians attempted to intervene, those civilians not only failed to stop the shooter but often were also fatally wounded or killed. Additionally, as America becomes increasingly equipped with firearms which are now easier to carrier in public places, the rate of mass shootings has increased.

No matter the causes of gun violence, thousands are impacted both directly and indirectly by these tragedies: According to a UC Davis medical school report, about 60-70,000 thousand of the injured have enduring mental health problems due to the trauma of the shooting.

“Then you have family members of people who were shot,” Knutson said. “We don’t have any idea how much trauma and adverse experiences they’ve had. And then you have all of the people who aren’t family members but are friends, and associates, and people that have to pick up the pieces,” he said. “Those numbers happen every year.”

december 18, 2015 7

in a puff of smoke

By Sonali Durham & Nova Meurice

cigarette sales are down and e-cigarette use is rising fast. many teens are embracing the trend, but the medical community remains skeptical.

PHOTOS BY CAROLINE BROWN

8 Little Hawk Feature Magazine

T

he year is 1999, and class is about to start at City High.

A dozen students linger on the corner of Lowell and College, surrounded by clouds of smoke created by their last-minute morning cigarettes. They crush cigarettes under sneaker heels and head to class, still smelling of tobacco.

“There were a lot of kids that smoked when I went to school here. They’d use the ‘smoker’s corner,’” Michael Close, City alum and current art teacher, said. “It was mainly people that smoked that would park their cars there, and then they would hang out outside their cars and smoke cigarettes before school, and then at lunch time, and then after school, and maybe during open hours.”

In 1999, 23.2 percent of high school seniors smoked cigarettes every day. Fifteen years later (2014 is the most recent year for which data from the National Institute of Health’s Monitoring the Future survey is available), only 6.7 percent of high school seniors reported smoking cigarettes daily. The drop in smoking rates is significant, and factors like aggressive anti-smoking campaigns and increased public awareness of the health hazards smoking presents may have played a role. But as cigarette use has declined, a potential replacement has grown in popularity: 17.1 percent of high school seniors reported ecigarette use on the same NIH survey. E-cigarettes, or more broadly, personal vaporizers, first reached United States markets in the early 2000s. Little research has been done about their potential health implications, although the body of work is growing.

The term e-cigarette refers to a family of electronic devices that heat and disperse liquids containing flavoring and sometimes nicotine or marijuana oil. They come in three basic varieties: E-cigarettes appear similar to conventional cigarettes and can be refilled with separately purchased cartridges.

Vape pens are more expensive to purchase initially, have a longer battery life, and can be refilled with fluid (rather than with disposable cartridges). Modifiers are similar to vape pens, but are customizable, larger, more expensive, and have a longer battery life. Each type functions by using battery power to heat vape liquid, which is first dispensed onto cotton within the device.

“They’re fun, to be completely

honest,” Daisy*, a City High student, said. “I like to practice tricks.

You can make tornadoes, smoke rings, all sorts of stuff.”

Daisy first tried using e-cigarettes, or vaping, as a sophomore.

She now vapes almost every day, and she and her boyfriend have begun using a more expensive modifier.

“A good modifier is anywhere from sixty to eighty dollars,” she said. “You can get a lot cheaper or a lot more expensive than that. You can buy a dinky little vape pen for ten bucks and it’ll do fine—perfect for a beginner.”

Simon*, another City student, has also tried vaping, although he no longer uses e-cigarettes. For him, cost and health were both concerns.

“I knew that it wasn’t as bad as cigarettes and it you feel kind of cool when you have that going on, like when you’re blowing clouds and stuff,” he said. “[But] it’s kind of expensive to keep going, and it’s just not something that I want to keep doing, especially because I’m a runner.”

A 2015 summary report on studies relating to the health effects of e-cigarette use by the governmental organization Public Health England estimated the risks of using e-cigarettes to be ninety-five percent less than the risks of smoking.

“While vaping may not be 100% safe, most of the chemicals causing smoking-related disease are absent, and the chemicals that are present pose limited danger,” the report reads.

Nevertheless, e-cigarettes are new enough that the long-term impact of use has not been studied.

University of Iowa pediatric cardiologist Tom Scholz has concerns about the possible effects use might have, especially given the current minimal regulation on the contents of commercial vape liquids.

“The thought is that it doesn’t have all those carcinogens that come from the combustion of tobacco. It’s potentially the case, but then whatever you mix in is then going to be aerosolized and then brought into the lungs. So there are compounds that don’t need to be burned that if you get them in your lungs can cause quite a bit of damage,” Scholz said. “Think of all the environmental chemicals that if you inhaled—something like benzene or gasoline or anything—if you inhaled those on a regular ba-

“I UNDERSTAND THE RISKS. I’M AWARE THAT THEY DON’T HAVE THAT MANY TESTS THAT THEY’VE RUN ON THEM, THAT THEY’RE STILL NOT SURE, BUT I’M WILLING TO TAKE THAT RISK.” DAISY (A CITY STUDENT)

sis, you’d cause quite a bit of damage to the lungs. Again, the contents are so poorly regulated you don’t know if there are some of these components in there that could be causing lung damage.”

Scholz is also troubled by the lack of research regarding the long term effects of e-cigarette usage.

“I think that the fact that you can get them doesn’t necessarily meant that they’re safe and doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not going to cause some damage down the road,” he said.

“One big reason I would discourage anyone from using e-cigarettes is that understanding what you’re putting into your body is not going to be known for quite some time.”

Douglas Hornick, a pulmonologist at the University of Iowa, shares Scholz’s point of view, adding that he is very cautious about any inhaled substances because of the fact that a person’s lungs are directly connected with a their bloodstream.

“With the lungs, you have access to the vascular system or the blood vessels. It’s much easier to get things into the bloodstream when you inhale them than through your skin,” Hornick said. “You’re quite vulnerable to whatever is in that material that you’re inhaling. So I think that’s why we have to be careful about new products like this, that are not well-regulated or where there’s, in a way, a lot of uncertainties and unknowns.”

For Anthony Fischer, a pediatric pulmonologist at the University of Iowa, ecigarette flavorings are one specific cause for concern.

The flavored components of vape juices are sometimes FDA-approved for ingestion, but not inhalation, according to a report from the CDC. Some have been found to contain chemicals that are harmful when inhaled.

“One thing that we’ve learned is that 75 percent of the e-cigarettes that are used are flavored, and some of the

*names have been changed to protect privacy

december 18, 2015 9

flavorings that are used are known to be inhalation toxins, including one of the chemicals that cause popcorn workers lung,” Fischer said. “Some of the flavors we know can be dangerous if inhaled at high enough quantities.”

Popcorn workers lung is a form of the serious inflammatory lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans which can be caused by diacetyl, a compound found in some artificial butter flavorings and in more than more than 75 percent of the e-cigarettes tested in a study that appeared recently in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

For serious vape users like Daisy, health concerns are something to consider, but don’t outweigh the benefits of vaping.

“I understand the risks,” Daisy said. “I’m aware that they don’t have that many tests that they’ve run on them, that they’re still not sure, but I’m willing to take that risk.”

One way Daisy addresses with the risks she sees in vaping is by making her own juice. She and her boyfriend purchase vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol in bulk, mix them, and add flavoring and nicotine. It costs them about two cents to make a bottle of juice, compared to around ten dollars for commercially sold products.

“They just have any flavor you can imagine,” Daisy said. “We just got jalapeno and tried it, and it was terrible. Disgusting, spicy. We stick to fruits, usually. We do kiwi and peach, or cream and strawberries. Anything you want, really. It’s a lot more changeable than cigarettes are.”

Daisy makes her own juice because she enjoys it and because it helps to save money, but also in order to have more control of the chemicals she inhales. Hornick sees this as a potentially safer option, but also a new source of uncertainty.

“I think that potentially it is [safer to mix your own juice] if it’s someone that knows what they’re doing, but the number of people who know what they’re doing— you know, have a chemistry degree or a chemistry background— is probably few and far between,” he said. “Certainly, even myself— I’ve got a chemistry degree—I would be a little nervous if I were making my own brew on a regular basis and ingesting that into my lungs.”

10 Little Hawk Feature Magazine

“THE MARKETING FOR THIS IS DIRECTED VERY MUCH AT [YOUNG PEOPLE]. THEY’RE TRYING TO GET PEOPLE ADDICTED TO NICOTINE.” DR. ANTHONY FISCHER

While e-cigarettes have a somewhat ambiguous status in the medical community due to the current lack of research about them, they are generally viewed as safer and more socially acceptable than tobacco products by the general public.

“I’ve heard of people getting caught by their parents a lot, and usually it’s not as big of a deal as if they were actually smoking, because it’s not, in a lot of people’s minds, as unhealthy,” Simon said.

This perception may be one factor that has contributed to the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes, even as smoking rates decline.

“I honestly think the biggest part of why that’s happening is there has been so much research showing how bad [smoking cigarettes] is, and I think kids are getting smarter, too. They’re realizing this is bad for [them],” Daisy, whose parents have both tried vaping, said. “I think [vaping] is 100 percent a safer thing to do than cigarettes.”

Close also attributes young people’s shift in smoking habits to educational emphasis on the dangers of tobacco products.

“We were the first class to do the DARE program. And that didn’t start until fifth grade, so I think fifth grade was even too late for a lot of people to take that information to heart,” Close said. “Now they start ‘no drugs, no cigarettes, no alcohol’ sort of stuff way back in first or second grade, or maybe even before that. We didn’t really have that kind of education.”

Fischer, too, believes that education in school, which is often conducted via programs like Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, is an effective way of combating tobacco use. However, an article that appeared in the American Journal of Medicine in 2004 found that DARE was in fact an ineffective method of drug prevention, citing very small differences in drug abuse rates between those who had DARE education and those who did not across a meta-analysis of eleven relevant studies. Bigger changes have occurred in the areas of public policy and media portrayal than in education programs, which might indi-

cate other more important causes of the shift away from combustibles and toward e-cigarettes.

“I went to high school in the ‘90s when the movie Pulp Fiction came out, and smoking was glamorized by that movie,” Fischer said.

“You see these glamorous actors and actresses smoking, and that had an impact on people.”

Since then, Fischer has seen advertisements begin to portray cigarettes more negatively. He believes that the anti-smoking ad campaigns, coupled with high taxes and smoke-free policies, have sent a clear message to the public. “[Recently], the government has done a much better job of regulation [of cigarettes], and providing also a countervailing message against smoking,” he said. “Smoking has become a much more expensive habit; it’s much more difficult to do. I think that one of the reasons that cigarettes are in decline is because of regulation that has been very successful.”

Although some use vapor products as an alternative to smoking combustible cigarettes, for young people, e-cigarettes may simply have the allure of a new and trendy gadget. Daisy believes that this is why she saw a lot of initial enthusiasm for e-cigarettes a couple of years ago, but has since seen it somewhat fade “I think a lot of people were very hyped up about it. I think a lot of people were like, ‘Ooh, let’s go to The Den,’ and it was a really fun thing to do,” Daisy said. “I think it’s kind of died off a little bit, as things do. Clothing will trend and you’ll see everybody wearing it, and then it’ll kind of die off, and I think it’s just like that.”

Several shops in the Iowa City area sell e-cigarette products; The Den and Black & Gold Vapors both declined to comment for this story. However, the number of vapor shops in business is perhaps indicative of e-cigarettes’ current popularity—a rise which Simon, like Daisy, has seen follow a typical trend among his peers.

“It’s gotten a lot more popular, probably because people like new technology and new stuff,” he said.

“And this is a new thing that replaces something that is unhealthy and bad, as well as just being something new.”

In fact, results from the CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey indicate that e-cigarette popularity has risen steadily for several years:

in 2011, 4.7 percent of high school students had tried e-cigarettes. In 2012, the number was 10 percent, and in 2013, it was 11.9. By 2014, 27.3 percent of high school students reported ever trying e-cigarettes.

Vapementors.com, a website dedicated to helping vape enthusiasts start their own businesses, puts Millennials at 60 percent of the market share, members of Generation X at 30 percent, and Baby Boomers at only 10 percent. These trends are confirmed by a report from the Centers for Disease Control Public Health Grand Rounds, which showed that 11.7 percent of adults were current vapers in 2013, while 13.4 percent of high schoolers were. Daisy speculates that the disproportionate use of vapor products by young people may be due to different attitudes about new technologies and potential risks.

“I think because it’s so new and we don’t know a lot about it, a lot of adults are more skeptical to try something,” she said. “Teenagers might not care as much about the fact that it hasn’t been studied as much. But I think that in a couple years time, you might see a lot more regular people out on the street vaping.”

Some proponents of e-cigarettes posit that they can be an effective tool for quitting smoking. However, research to support that claim is thin, and the same CDC Grand Rounds report suggests that e-cigarettes may in fact encourage smoking combustible tobacco products.

“The observational study shows that people who use e-cigarettes are actually less likely to quit smoking, so for current smokers, there is a risk that e-cigarettes may prolong nicotine addiction,” Fischer said.

“Some people who use e-cigarettes may have a decreased amount of cigarettes that they smoke, but I think that we’re not seeing them turn into former smokers or nonsmokers.”

Another point of concern for Fischer is the fact that a significant share of the e-cigarette market is dominated by major tobacco companies, who have a vested interest in maintaining sales and attracting new customers. Because of this, e-cigarettes are often marketed to young people and nonsmokers.

“The marketing for this is directed very much at [young people],” Fischer said. “It’s not directed at current smokers. They’re advertising in things that teenagers

read, like Sports Illustrated or Rolling Stone, and they’re marketed at a younger demographic. In some cases, these e-cigarettes are given away free at things like concerts or for a very low price. They’re trying to get people addicted to nicotine.”

Reports from the CDC also suggest that nonsmokers who use e-cigarettes are more likely to take up smoking than their non-vaping peers. In the study cited, high school students who used e-cigarettes initially were 2.7 times more likely to be combustible cigarette smokers after one year than those who had never used e-cigarettes.

Young adults in the same study were 8.3 times more likely to take up smoking after one year if they were vapers than if they were not.

“It’s pretty hard to prove causality in this, but the study that I’m describing was a longitudinal study, and so the people who had been using e-cigarettes subsequently used cigarettes,” Fischer said. “So we can establish a temporal relationship between those things. Whether it be that those are people who would have smoked anyways, it’s hard to say. But it’s important to note that the decline in cigarette use has been going on since the mid 1990s, and this predated the introduction of ecigarettes. So I don’t see the introduction of e-cigarettes as a reason for the decline in smoking at all.”

E-cigarettes, which originated in China, were largely unregulated when they first reached markets in the United States. Today, they are classified as a tobacco product by the Food and Drug Administration; specific regulations vary by state and city. In Iowa, the sale of vapor products to minors has been illegal since July 2014; the FDA called for such a ban in April of that year. City High administration also treats e-cigarettes as a tobacco product. In general, that means confiscating the product if it is found in a student’s possession, and potentially involving the police if the student is caught multiple times.

Despite these regulations, ecigarette sales and advertising expenditures have continued to rise.

Daisy, who herself is not yet eighteen, believes that restrictions on e-cigarette sale are justified.

“It think it was a good move [to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors],” she said. “In my own personal experience, it’s not hard to get it from people older than you, and I don’t think minors need to

“I WOULD JUST SAY BE SAFE AND RESPONSIBLE. IF YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT IT, YOU SHOULDN’T BE DOING IT.” DAISY

be buying it themselves because that really just opens up way too many doors to nicotine addiction for kids.”

E-cigarette use in public spaces has also faced increasing regulation. In 2015, the University of Iowa introduced a Tobacco-Free Campus Policy that included ecigarettes on the list of products restricted. To Daisy, respecting other people’s right not to be around e-cigarette vapor is important. However, she doesn’t agree with strict bans.

“I think it’s kind of rude to do it around other people, just like with anything. You don’t want to put on a bunch of perfume and then go out and make people smell that.

It’s one of those things that’s a courtesy to other people,” she said. “I think you should be allowed to do it [on campus]. Not in class, but when it’s appropriate.”

While state and local legislation does regulate public e-cigarette use in Iowa City, e-cigarette sales in Iowa do not carry an excise tax the way cigarette sales do. The overall lack of regulation on and knowledge about e-cigarettes concerns Fischer. He is among a growing group of health professionals who advocate caution in trying e-cigarettes, as well as combustible tobacco products.

“I think that the safest thing to do is none of the above,” he said.

While current medical evidence points to some potential risks associated with ecigarettes, some students, including Daisy, believe that teenagers should stay informed and make their own decisions.

“I would just say be safe and be responsible,” Daisy said. “If you’re worried about it, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.”

december 18, 2015 11

everything in between

Gendernonconforming students discuss navigating the gray areas of the gender spectrum and of society’s expectations.

By Innes Hicsasmaz & Sophia Schlesinger

A 2012 survey by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that around one percent of the U.S. population identifies as “gender variant” to some degree. For this one percent of individuals, gender may be better represented as a spectrum rather than the a baby pink or sky blue, or they may find that their gender as listed at birth isn’t entirely representative of their identity.

Over the past decade, information about nontraditional gender identities has become more readily available due to the rise of the Internet. Ours is among the first generations to be able to connect via the World Wide Web, which has helped to spread an understanding of what it means to identify as something other than “male” or “female.” Now, people are able to research their feelings of gender dysphoria (the feeling that a person’s body does not match their true identity) and determine how they are best represented. Alex Pradarelli ‘18 is one of these people.

“I didn’t really want to tell anybody until I was certain,” Pradarelli said. “I was researching it for a while, trying to decide if this was really something I wanted to do, because I didn’t want to be uncertain about it and have it be this long process where everyone was asking me questions.”

Named Abby at birth, Pradarelli knew from a young age that he didn’t identify with the traditional female stereotypes. He came out as gay in the fifth grade, but somehow that still didn’t feel like the complete truth.

“You know when you say you’re straight and you just know that’s who you are? When I came out as gay, it was still uncomfortable. Once you finally figure that out about yourself, you should feel good, like, ‘Okay, I figured out who I am,’ but that wasn’t how I felt, necessarily,” Pradarelli said. “It felt like there was more to it, and that’s what I was confused about and trying to understand.”

Pradarelli researched gender transitioning for over a year before deciding to tell his parents.

“My whole family is pretty okay with all this kind of stuff,” Pradarelli said. “I knew my parents would support me, but there’s always that fear of

12 Little Hawk Feature Magazine

telling them, because it’s like, ‘I don’t want to be wrong,’ but at the same time you know yourself, so you’re obviously not going to be wrong.”

With the support of his family, Pradarelli started taking testosterone this past October, and plans to have top surgery within the next two months.

“It’s different for everyone. Everyone has their own journey, or what it means to them, because some trans people don’t take hormones and don’t have surgeries, and they’re okay with that, but they still identify as the other gender,” Pradarelli said.

Gender identity is a person’s internal sense of whether they’re male or female or somewhere in between. Facebook’s new profile format, with over 50 gender options, demonstrates just how vast the gender spectrum is.

However, gender identity is not synonymous with gender expression. Gender expression is defined as the way a person communicates their gender identity to other people.

The most common modes of expression are through clothing, hairstyles, speech, and body movements. For example, Pradarelli expresses his gender through a coiffed pompadour,

“I WAS RESEARCHING IT FOR A WHILE, TRYING TO DECIDE IF THIS WAS REALLY SOMETHING I WANTED TO DO, BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT TO BE UNCERTAIN ABOUT IT AND HAVE IT BE THIS LONG PROCESS WHERE EVERYONE WAS ASKING ME QUESTIONS.” ALEX PRADERELLI ‘18

button-down shirts, and men’s jeans.

While Pradarelli identifies more as a male, Liana Gabaldon ‘16 identifies as neither male nor female, and prefers ‘they’ as a pronoun.

“I identify as genderqueer,” Gabaldon said.

“So constantly fluctuating feelings of gender, and where I land on the spectrum.”

Gabaldon began to confront their identity around sophomore year, and like Pradarelli, they did so by researching on the Internet.

“I knew that I wasn’t feeling like a girl, but I knew that I wasn’t completely on the opposite side; I knew I wasn’t a guy,” Gabaldon said. “I wondered what other things were out out there, because I knew there were more than just the two extremes.”

Like Gabaldon, Charlie Escorcia ‘18 doesn’t identify as either male or female, but he places himself somewhere in the middle.

“I’m non-binary,” Escorcia said. “I go by the name Charlie, because it’s just more neutral, but I’m also okay with masculine pronouns, like he and him. I don’t dress super feminine, but I don’t dress very masculine either. I just wear jeans and a t-shirt, very neutral. I

guess I go very neutral sometimes because I’ve had people ask if I’m a boy or a girl and I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’”

Escorcia started to wonder about his identity a couple years ago, and only landed on non-binarism after extensive research on gender identity.

“I was really confused, when I was questioning my gender, because I didn’t feel like a boy, but I didn’t feel like a girl,” Escorcia said. “I was like, ‘Ay, non-binary gender is a thing, so maybe that’s me.’”

Like Pradarelli, Escorcia received support from his family as well as a network of friends in the LGBTQ+ community. City High psychology teacher Jane Green noted the importance of familial support and accepting communities, such as Iowa City.

“All teens have to come to terms with their identity, everybody goes through it. But this is a little bit increased because it’s not the norm. It doesn’t fit all of society’s rules, and society’s acceptance is hard to get,” Green said. “I think it depends a lot on the family: Is the family accepting or not? If the family is accepting, to what extent? It depends on each individual situation.”

However, familial support isn’t all that common for many. One survey concluded that 57 percent of transgender and gender nonconforming individuals are rejected by their family.

Because so many experience this kind of rejection, many members of the LGBTQ+ community must turn to their community for support.

“We’re lucky to live in Iowa City,” Green said. “I could think of half a dozen places in Iowa I wouldn’t want to live. It would be possibly unsafe.

We’re in this insulated, educated area and yet, you’d be surprised at how many people really don’t know about gender identity, gender expression.”

Green believes education is the key to more widespread understanding and acceptance of transgender and non-binarism.

“I do think our society is getting much more accepting on a lot of different levels. It’s just going to take some education. People are afraid of what they don’t know, and they need to ex- The trans* pride flag is perience it. They have to be around blue, pink, and white. these folks and realize that they’re just people,” Green said.

Slowly but surely, this acceptance is becoming more common. Celebrities like Laverne Cox, Caitlyn Jenner, and Ruby Rose have helped start a discussion in our culture about transgenderism and gender fluidity. From Netflix’s hit show “Orange is the New Black” to the recently released movie “The Danish Girl,” more LGBTQ+ are being portrayed in popular culture.

This signals an overall increase in acceptance, especially with younger generations. The number of Americans who identify as gender variant is around three million, a number that Green credits to the newfound understanding and the accessibility of the Internet.

“If you compare today with 20, 30, 40 years ago, there were still people who felt this way, but they didn’t feel like they could come forward or change anything in their lives.

So they were very unhappy and depressed throughout their whole lives,” Green said. “We’re seeing kids today realize things at a much earlier age and say, ‘That’s not what I want.

That’s not who I am.’ And having people say, ‘Okay.’ Including school districts. That never would have happened 20 years ago.”

Even so, Pradarelli, Escorcia, and Gabaldon all agree that the concept of the traditional gender binary is heavily ingrained in our society, and that anything beyond that is often difficult for people accept. In fact, until 2012, gender dysphoria was known as “gender identity disorder,” or GID, and was classified as a mental illness.

“They were talking about GID being a problem instead of it causing other problems, like depression and anxiety,” Green said. “And now we know the difference. There’s treatment for depression and those kind of things, but for GID, people are who they are. So the treatment is acceptance.”

This treatment, however, can be difficult to come by. The average individual is especially unfamiliar with gender identity that goes beyond male or female—which is in some ways a result of a system where male/female are the only two options on many legal documents and public spaces.

“It’s such a strange issue and concept to people, and they don’t want to go outside the realm of the little normal they’ve built for themselves,” Gabaldon said. “But being outside gender binary is completely normal.

It’s just not their normal, so it makes them uncomfortable.”

For Pradarelli, the difficulty lies in understanding. Though people have struggled with their identity throughout history, “non-binary” isn’t a title that has been widely used until fairly recently.

“That’s uncomfortable to them because they don’t understand it,” Pradarelli said. “There’s either male or female and you’re born that way and that’s how it is, and I think it’s hard for people to understand that

that’s not always the case for people.”

Indeed, the idea is frequently ridiculed, especially on the Internet. Genderqueer, non-binary, and gender-fluid individuals are often accused of simply desiring attention over anything else.

One Reddit user, _trashpanda_, wrote, “99.999% of people who claim to be ‘genderqueer’ are, in reality, historic attention whores.”

“People get hostile because they don’t understand it,” Pradarelli said. “There’s boys, and there’s girls, and anybody in between messes that up, and that scares people in a way.”

Gender neutral bathrooms are another issue where opinions are sharply divided. In 2013, Arizona passed Senate Bill 1045, which protects business owners from criminal liability if they choose to ban someone for using a bathroom that doesn’t match their sex at birth. Talk of a gender neutral bathroom has recently surfaced at City High, though there are no official plans for construction yet.

“I’m more comfortable with using the women’s bathroom, because that’s what I grew up with and I don’t have a problem with it,” Escorcia said. “But sometimes, when I’m dressed more masculine, I’m worried that people will react to me being there-- either because they know I’m passing as a male or they’ll harass me about looking like a guy and being a girl.”

Bathrooms are a classic example of gender binary in American society—which, in an image, is the stick figure versus the stick figure in a dress. For many, however, the simple task of using the restroom becomes stressful when they have to choose.

“When I’m at the mall or at a restaurant, it’s kind of scary,” Pradarelli said. “I’ve been trying to go into the guy’s bathroom, but it’s kind of like, ‘Where do I go?’ A lot of times I just don’t go to the bathroom until I get home.”

Escorcia and Pradarelli believe that a genderneutral bathroom would be a step in the right direction towards an even more accepting environment at City High. The University of Iowa’s Memorial Union building has had a gender neutral bathroom since 2013, following an overall progressive trend among college campuses. According to a study by the University of Massachusetts LGBT organization, there are over 150 college campuses now offering a gender neutral bathroom to their students.

“I definitely feel that non-gender bathrooms are definitely helpful, because it’s not that awkward thing where everybody’s looking at you weird, or questioning you,” Pradarelli said.

Gabaldon, Pradarelli, and Escorcia all agree that Iowa City is a very open and tolerant town, and somewhat unique in a society that still struggles to talk about issues pertaining to the LGBTQ+ community. While they can’t help but wonder about how the rest of the world will accept them, they are confident that they will find a welcoming community.

“I feel like if I do leave, there’s definitely the possibility of people not accepting me,” Gabaldon said. “But I do also think that I will be able to find people who do accept me, and just thinking about that is important, and remembering that there will always be someone, somewhere, and I’ll always have someone supporting me.”

december 18, 2015 13

Planned Parenthood:

By Madeline Deninger

P

atients entering Planned Parenthood in Iowa City are now greeted by a security personnel, a measure which was added following the November 27th shooting of a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic. While this attack has been the

most deadly against the organization; killing three people, it has not been the first. For example, in 2012, a bomb set off at a Planned Parenthood in Grand Chute Wisconsin by an anti-abortion activist caused thousands of dollars in damages. Angie Remington,

14 Little Hawk Feature Magazine

the public relations manager at Planned Parenthood in Omaha Nebraska, has witnessed multiple acts of violence and vandalism while working for the health clinic.

“We’ve had several acts of vandalism to our facilities in recent months, such as splashing red paint

on our sidewalks and leaving a pile of coat hangers on the ground,” Remington said. “Recently, someone spray-painted the side of our building with some hateful words.”

Vandalism is one problem; another is protesters outside the

building, who are not an uncommon sight for Remington.

“We see regular protests throughout our affiliate. In Omaha, they are there twice a week on the days we offer surgical abortion. They carry signs meant to shame the women who are there to receive care,” Remington said.

These protests represent one facet of a growing debate in the country, not only about Planned Parenthood, but about abortion itself. For Mollie Hansen ‘17, this debate is a personal one closely linked with her faith. “[I’m not involved with] any public protest or anything, but I definitely pray about it. I pray for those who are considering abortions and don’t know what to do with their lives and are confused that they would know the right path to choose,” Hanson said.

Hansen believes the right path for those dealing with an unplanned pregnancy involves other options besides abortion.

“Adoption would definitely be good. I’ve heard of a lot of people who adopt from pregnancies from girls who don’t know what to do and decide to go through the pregnancy,” she said.

However, Rachel Fischer ‘17 believes that abortion is the best choice for some women.

“I think [abortion] is important because it’s easy to become attached to the baby and to want to keep it, even if you were planning on adoption before,” she said.

“And if you know that you cannot take care of it, you don’t have the income or the emotional stability, not having to see the baby might be the best thing for you.”

Restricting access to abortions is something that Planned Parenthood has fought against. However, Remington said that Planned Parenthood also hopes to reduce the need for abortions altogether.

“The obvious misconception is that we only provide condoms and abortions, or that we want to increase the number of abortions we provide. In fact, most of the work we do is to reduce the number of women coming to us for abortion care,” Remington said. “In the state legislatures, we work to protect access to women’s health care, including safe, legal abortion, because we believe that

abortion should be legal and accessible for any woman who has made the decision to end a pregnancy.”

A direct product of this opposition can be seen in the Senate’s reconciliation bill, passed on December 3rd. Part of the bill was an amendment to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood. While the bill is not likely to be put into law while President Obama is in office, Hansen believes that cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood would be a good solution to the issue.

“There’s a lot of people who, as you can tell, aren’t supporting it, and I think government funding should represent American thinking and should have the ability to represent what America is for,” Hanson said. “I think it should be privately funded so that way people can choose to fund it instead of having their tax money go towards that.”

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst was among those who voted in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood. Ernst agreed that tax money

should not go to Planned Parenthood, but maintains that women’s health care should be protected.

“Senator Ernst has made clear that she believes we must protect funding for women’s healthcare by redirecting money from Planned Parenthood — the nation’s single largest provider of abortion services — to other eligible providers of women’s health care, such as community health centers and hospitals,” said a statement from the office of Joni Ernst.

However, Remington believes that cutting federal funding would be harmful to vulnerable patients, especially because Planned Parenthood’s services go beyond abortions.

“The vast majority of federal funding we receive is from Medicaid reimbursement because we are a qualified Medicaid provider,” she said. “Some federal funding goes to preventive programs that provide things like breast and cervical cancer screening to low-income and elderly women.”

Planned Parenthood has received an influx of media attention this presidential election. While many GOP candidates have expressed disapproval of the organization, Remington believes that these views are not representative of the public.

“Politicians use access to women’s health as a pawn in their political grandstanding, appeasing an increasingly outof-touch and extreme base of supporters. Most Americans do not support defunding Planned Parenthood,” she said.

In addition to abortions, which account for around three percent of the services they provide, Planned Parenthood provides services such as STI testing and contraceptive access. seven percent of patients accessing these services are minors.

“It’s important for high schoolers to have those resources because they have sex too,” Fischer said.

“High schoolers should be treated like anyone else that has sexual relations.”

Remington added that Planned Parenthood addresses many of the issues facing teenagers today.

“When you look at the issues that often affect young people– unintended pregnancy, STDs, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, questions about sexual orientation and gender identity – it becomes clear why the services Planned Parenthood provides are so crucial,” she said.

According to Remington, Planned Parenthood encourages young people to speak with their parents about health issues such as pregnancy, STDs, and sexual assault. However, this may not always be possible.

“Sometimes a young person is in a situation where they cannot talk to an adult out of fear or violence or shame,” Remington said.

“To these people we provide the resources we can, without judgment, and within the limits of the law.”

According to Fischer, Planned Parenthood’s wide array of services are a reason for it to stay funded.

“I think it’s benefiting the entire public. They do services for males too, it’s not just females,” Fisher said. “If we’re going to federally fund hospitals, we should federally fund Planned Parenthood.”

december 18, 2015 15

ADVERTISEMENT

LITTLE HAWK FEATURE MAGAZINE