Below is a lightly edited transcription of an interview we did with Brett:

What exactly is WeHo Life?

WeHo Life is a program that is specifically targeted to gay men’s and transgender women’s health.

The overall organization targets much more than that, but it is divided up into specific branches in order to implement the most effective strategies in advocating for LGBT rights. The entire program is actually funded by the city of West Hollywood, and they are very proactive in making sure that everyone is receiving the proper care they need.

What are some services offered by the center?

The program offers services for testing, PrEP, mental health services, programs targeting homeless youth, transgender services, and more.

This organization really is all encompassing. WeHo life specifically also offer strip surveys, which is a unique and fun way to interact with the program. For every question on the survey someone answers, a porn star takes off one article of clothing. Who wouldn’t want to participate in that?

How has this organization influenced the West Hollywood area?

People have learned to become more accepting to this culture. The gay population in WeHo is a very prominent one, and being able to advocate for them has allowed people to become more open-minded and accepting to this community.

Our online programs have reached people in all fifty states, and even different countries. People in Russia are watching our videos, and it’s incredible because gay men there don’t have a safe haven like this, but we can give them that through our online program. It’s amazing what technology can do nowadays!

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced while working with the Los Angeles LGBT Center?

West Hollywood is not a very diverse area. It consists of mostly caucasian people, and the majority of the gay population here is muscular, white males. However, there is a latino population as well, and they do not receive the proper attention that they need due to their background.

The LGBT Latino population between the ages of 19-25 still has a disproportionately higher rate of HIV, but it is something that the Los Angeles LGBT Center is actively working to change!

How did your partnership with Say It With A Condom help enhance the delivery of your message?

The customized condom foils provided by Say It With A Condom are terrific and actually very popular. People want to take them because of the creative packaging. And that accomplishes our goal of making sure people have access to and are making use of these tools.

Where do you see the program going in the future?

I am focusing on pushing the use of condoms despite the introduction of PrEP. I also want to make sure that there is a continued sense of awareness surrounding the LGBT community and HIV. People need to stay informed so that they don’t feel ashamed. Inclusion is key, especially in West Hollywood considering the discrimination people face due to their body type or ethnicity.

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Happy October. Do you guys know what that means? It means it’s national breast cancer awareness month!

What is breast cancer? It’s a malignant tumor, and it starts in breast cells. Unfortunately, breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women. This is why it is so important for people to get educated on how to check for symptoms and learn their options. It’s also necessary that people know what their options are regarding genetic testing. Although rare, it is a form of cancer that can also affect men.

There are a variety of risk factors that people should be aware of. Some risk factors are in one’s control (ie. smoking) while others are not (ie. genetics). The National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc. provides a vast amount of information surrounding this topic so check them out now!

Learn about the risk factors of breast cancer here. There’s no better time to get educated than right now!

Awareness initiatives are an extremely effective way to raise awareness and education about a multitude of health-related topics. Here at Say It With A Condom, we believe that it is necessary to take the time to acknowledge all of these efforts. This is why we make it a priority to continuously update all of our various awareness campaigns! Check out some of our custom designs for all of the strong, powerful women out there!

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In this day and age, there are a plethora of resources out there for women’s rights. However, it is not a topic that is talked about nearly as much as it should. Here at Say It With A Condom, we’ve done our research and we know that people need to start important conversations and get the facts about what sorts of controversies surround this topic. We love to keep up with the latest and greatest organizations of our time to see what campaigns are out there for various public health matters.  This month, we decided to talk about the NOW Foundation.

NOW stands for “National Organization for Women Foundation” and this organization is doing wonderful things for women all over the country. They have a variety of different programs that are aimed at helping women with a multitude of situations. Their well-known “Love Your Body” campaign targets young women and engages people through a unique poster drawing contest. Other than this, they have programs such as their “Crisis In Family Courts” project, which is aimed at helping women going through divorces on issues such as custody battle, and their “Global Feminism” projects. They also have “Voter Mobilization” efforts that are aimed at promoting women in politics. This organization truly is an all-encompassing organization, and we are greatly inspired by The National Organization For Women.

The National Organization for Women along with other great women’s rights organizations have inspired us to create a line of Feminism Condoms. We know how powerful a condom is in starting a conversation, so it was only necessary that we created awareness for a topic of this magnitude. We have also worked on a variety of Pro-Choice condoms to tie into this. Check out some of our designs below!

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College is a time of change and growth, but with that comes a great deal of trials and tribulations. It’s a matter of balancing schoolwork with a social life, both of which come in handy throughout one’s life. With those being the major influencers on many college campuses, topics that are equally as important to one’s growth and education may slip away from the reach of many people.

Two topics that play a big role on a college campus are sexual assault and consent, but oftentimes there is not enough awareness about what they really are. The campus health center and certain organizations may offer talks and information sessions, but with the variety in every student’s schedule, it may not be accessible to everyone even though it should be. This is where consent condoms come into play!  Students are always on the go, so we wanted to create a tool that volunteers or organizations could easily hand out to the student body as they’re walking around campus. And a creative condom design is sure to raise questions and start a conversation!

To get a better idea about what the statistics are for the college-aged demographic in the United States, check out the largest anti-sexual assault organization in this country. RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) provides a wide array of tools and services to combat sexual assault.

Here are just some of the sexual awareness and consent campaigns we’ve been fortunate enough to work on with various universities:

Tufts University’s Consent Condoms

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Consent Condoms for their on-campus organization, ‘Sex Out Loud’

Indiana University’s Custom Condoms for ‘Culture of Care’

Florida International University’s Consent Condoms

Custom Condoms for Harvard University’s Sexual Literacy Program

The post Why Consent Condoms?: College Edition appeared first on Say It With A Condom.

Here at Say It With A Condom, we believe in creating a mutually beneficial relationships with all of our clients. Our clients are our number one priority, and we want to see each and every one of them succeed in their individual endeavors. From the creativity to the printing aspects of condom marketing, we’ve got them covered, literally!

One of our recurring clients is Planned Parenthood. Say It With A Condom has had the pleasure of working with Planned Parenthood leagues all over the country, and we are continually partnering up to achieve their goals.

Planned Parenthood provides the public with the necessary and proper tools to get educated on a wide variety of topics. Many people think abortion when they think Planned Parenthood, but this non-profit organization also focuses on cancer, health & wellness, sexual education, relationships, STD’s, emergency contraception, pregnancy and sexual orientation & gender. These are all extremely important topics, and it is necessary that both youths and adults have access to all the information and programs provided by Planned Parenthood.

Say It With A Condom stands with Planned Parenthood, and we are extremely grateful to work with an organization of this magnitude. Check out some of our work below:

SIWAC supports Planned Parenthood at a convention in New Orleans, Louisiana

‘Say It With A Condom Stands With Planned Parenthood’ Condoms

Say It With A Condom created custom condoms for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts

Say It With A Condom created custom condoms for Planned Parenthood of New York City

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The Central Illinois Pride Health Center is an up and coming center located in the city of Bloomington, Illinois. To give you all a little background, Bloomington is a very small city “in the middle of nowhere”, in the words of Len Meyer, the Executive Director and brains behind this center. The population of Bloomington certainly has a variety of needs, and Len saw that the needs of the LGBT population was not being met, and took this as an opportunity to create a safe-haven for this population within the small town.

Len Meyer

Len, what prompted you to create The Central Illinois Pride Health Center?

“During my undergraduate career, I had to work on a Capstone project, and I essentially researched this population. I saw that there was not enough support for this population, and I wanted to give these people a sense of community; a place that they can feel safe and understood”.

Len saw a group that did not have a voice and was able to create something amazing out of it.

We know that the organization is just getting started. What have you done thus far to help the LGBT community of Bloomington?

“As of right now, our social support groups are active. We have a weekly youth group, and that has been very successful already. On top of that, we have an adult group that meets quarterly and a parents group that meets once a month. The parents group has received lots of positive feedback, especially because it has given families the chance to bond with others like theirs. We also had a youth resource fair last month, and people were able to get tested for HIV and STI’s as well.”

It’s amazing to see everything this center has already done, and this is just the beginning according to Len Meyer.

What’s next for The Central Illinois Pride Health Center?

“Once the center opens this summer, we are going to have mental health and medical services. Our focus is directed at the youth, because they are the population without adequate resources to battle their issues, however, our doors are open to anyone. We will have primary care for pediatrics, youth, and adults as well as mental health care and guidance. We also want to have a holistic wellness approach to the LGBT community.”

What would you like to see this center accomplish within the upcoming years?

“I want to work on creating and maintaining partnerships and collaborations with other organizations. I don’t want it to just be about this one center. I want to create a network, and I would like to see us grow to other neighboring cities. This is the best way to help our community.”

We are excited to see The Central Illinois Pride Health Center continue to do extraordinary things, and we cannot wait to see where our partnership will take us in the future! We wish nothing but the best for Len and their center.
Check them out at: https://cipridehealthcenter.org/

The post Say It With A Condom Recognizes The Central Illinois Pride Health Center appeared first on Say It With A Condom.

We’re back with our second ‘back to school’ edition article! Keep reading to learn more about how condoms have been implemented on college campuses all over the country to effectively raise awareness and spread important messages! This time we’ll be talking about the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tufts University, UCLA, and California State University Northridge.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has an amazing organization on campus called ‘Sex Out Loud‘ This organization is meant to promote sexual education in an open, healthy way. The organization provides students with the proper education and tools necessary to make smart decisions. The organization also has many programs all over campus, and stays really involved with the student body. Say It With A Condom was able to partner with The University of Wisconsin-Madison. The University started a contest on campus to allow students to create their own condom designs centered around consent. They did a great job, and we’re so happy to have worked with such a wonderful student body. #consentissexy

Tufts University wants to ensure that all of their students have the proper education needed to make healthy life decisions. They wanted to spread pro-consent messages throughout campus, so Tufts University partnered with Say It With A Condom to modify one of our pre-designed Consent Condoms. They are able to hand condoms out on campus while also delivering an important message. Tufts believes in spreading awareness, having proper resources, and education. Keep up the great work Tufts! We can’t wait to see what we can do together in the future.

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has a very diverse campus with lots of opportunities. They have a large variety of clubs and extracurriculars to keep  students engaged beyond the classroom setting. They started an organization in 1965 that is knows as the Campus Events Commission. This organization was actually able to partner up with Say It With A Condom, and together we designed condoms to allow the Campus Events Commission to spread awareness for their events. They wanted to promote the activities and entertainment they provide on campus, and what better way to do so than with a custom condom?!

California State University, Northridge (CSUN) is a public university located in a neighborhood of Los Angeles. The university provides students with the opportunity to engage in many extracurricular activities. The CSUN Young Democrats were able to go above and beyond by partnering with Say It With A Condom. Together, we raised awareness about the events that they hold on campus. These efforts were successful, and they have ordered custom condoms from us several times over the past few years. It’s great to see young students making a real difference by starting a conversation and raising awareness about activities that they are passionate about. Keep up the awesome work CSUN!

It’s wonderful to see that these custom condoms are being used for all types of important causes all over the nation. We can’t wait to further our work with these amazing universities, and we wish them all the best of luck during this upcoming school year!

The post Back To School: College Spotlights Part 2 appeared first on Say It With A Condom.

With back to school season right around the corner, we wanted to highlight some of the work we’ve done with universities all over the country. Condoms on college campuses are an effective tool in spreading awareness about any given message to the student body. This can be anything from promoting consent to raise awareness for HIV/STD testing to even just promoting the athletics on a campus. Custom condoms are also a tool that the students can use to ensure that they are staying safe and protected. Stay updated on our ‘Back To School Series’ to learn about how organizations all over the nation are using our creative products to advertise their messages successfully.

Penn State Beaver was able to use our custom condoms to create awareness for their hockey team. They were able to use their own design and completely customize it to their needs, and in turn efficiently created awareness for their hockey teams games. It’s amazing what can be done with a little bit of creativity and hard work. Go Penn State! We can’t wait to see you guys do great things this upcoming year.

PENN STATE BEAVER | 724-773-3800

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Harvard University was able to use our custom condoms to effectively promote their sexual literacy program on campus. The main purpose behind these condoms is to create a safe environment on campus for students. Harvard is making sure that their students are able to ask questions regarding relationships, consent, and just overall sexual health and wellbeing and get the proper answers in a comfortable way. It’s amazing what a difference one tiny package can make, and Harvard University is doing a great job at showing just how great condoms can be to start an important conversation.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY HEALTH SERVICES | 617-496-2053

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Florida International University wants to make sure that their students know how important consensual sex is. Their on campus Victim Empowerment Program turned to us, and together, we were able to create custom condom designs with pop-culture references on them to talk about consent in a lighthearted manner. This is a great tool to implement on any college campus, and FIU was really able to take make the most with it. Students are now openly encouraged to stop and ask questions if they have any confusion in an effort to really clarify what it means to have consensual sex. Great job FIU!

FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY | 305-348-2000

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Indiana University-Bloomington has a very passionate student body, and together, they created a student-led organization known as “Culture of Care”. They took it to a new level by not focusing so much on once a week meetings but by making it more of a campus culture. Students on this campus are very like minded in the sense that they believe in respect and being compassionate to one another. This is an all-encompassing organization that allows people to get the information they need about everything from sexual health, overall well being and mental health, drugs and alcohol awareness and respect in general.

Indiana University-Bloomington | 812-855-8187

We’re more than happy to have worked with these amazing universities all over the country, and we cannot wait to see where our partnership takes us during this upcoming school year.

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The Resource Center, located in Dallas, Texas, is an organization that provides services for the LGBTQ community. With about 30 years of experience, the members working for the organization create a safe place for families and a sense of community. We talked to JP Cano, the ‘Prevention Services Manager’ and a veteran to this organization to learn more about their empowering work.

Tell me a bit more about the Resource Center.

“Well, we offer an array of services here in Dallas. We have 2 main departments. One deals with STD testing and treatment, and we have a condom distribution  program tied to this. We hand out condoms for things like events and bars. The other big program is our dental program for HIV positive clients. On top of that, we have a transgender clinic where doctors are able to write prescriptions for individuals in transition. At another location, we also offer clinical services and a food pantry for our HIV positive clients and a youth behavioral program and empowerment program.”

What did you all do to celebrate Pride month?

“In all honesty, all of us at the Resource Center are celebrating LGBT pride throughout the year. We believe that it is extremely important to always stay engaged when it comes to advocating for this community but we do have a few local celebrations happening in the month of June for pride month. However, due to the extreme temperatures during Dallas summers, we have our annual pride parade in September. LGBT organizations from all around this area join, and our center always participates. This is probably our biggest event within the community, and there’s always a great turnout.”

How did you become involved in this line of work?

“This is something that has interested me for a very long time. I knew I had the ability to make a difference within this community, so about 10 years ago, I started working for the Latino Empowerment Program that the Resource Center offered back in the day. I fell in love with this place and the work I was able to do, and now i’m extremely proud to be the manager of the clinic here.”

What are you looking forward to next in terms of the Resource Center?

“Our PrEP program just started in April, and it’s basically my baby. I was there every step of the way in seeing the program start up, and I can’t wait to see what we can do with it. We’re already advocating for Dallas County to provide information surrounding PrEP at the Dallas County department of health so the information is more accessible to our community. I can’t wait to see what campaigns we are able to create and implement within the next few months. Other than that, I’m excited to continue working towards educating Texans on the LGBT community. The metropolitan areas are accepting, but all of us at the Resource Center want to use social media to reach new communities and audiences both in Texas and nationwide.”

We’re thrilled to see all of the efforts being made by the Resource Center, and all of us at Say It With A Condom cannot wait to work on some new PrEP campaigns to better help LGBT organizations effectively execute their messages.

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The San Fernando Valley LGBT Community Center is the first LGBT center within the Valley. It is an all encompassing center that works to “promote liberty, equality, and justice” for the LGBT community. We were able to speak to the founder and President of the center, Renato Lira to learn more about the unique approach this center takes to advocate for the LGBT community in San Fernando Valley.

Renato Lira

What prompted you to start the LGBT Community Center?

I grew up here, and I saw how unaccepting the overall community was of the LGBT population. I wanted to change that so the youth today has a safer place to grow up in. I was an ambassador in D.C., and the right hand of the Chief of Staff for Obama, and after I had finished my duties there, I decided to move back to my hometown to really try and change some things for the better. So that’s how this center came to be.

Tell me about some of the main programs your center offers.

We offer anything ranging from support groups to HIV and STD testing services. Our main support groups are our youth group that has people anywhere from age 12 to 18. We also offer another group where the participants are anywhere from 19 to 45 years old. You get a lot of different perspective with these age groups. Other than that, we have community events where we hand out condoms and information pamphlets, and we also have an AIDS walk, which is one of our bigger events.

What is the San Fernando Valley LGBT Community Center doing for Pride Month?

This is a really exciting time for us. We have been travelling to various cities to advocate for the LGBT community. We had a march recently, and we had events in LA and Long Beach where we handed out information and condoms. We also just got back from Orlando, FL, where we hosted a similar event, and we’re doing an event here in the Valley and in San Francisco as well. We’ve also been able to fundraise during these events which is great because we are connecting with the LGBT population nationally while also raising awareness for our center.

So I know your center uses a bit of a unique approach when it comes to advocating for LGBT rights. What strategy do you use?

Over the years, we’ve found that the best way to gain acceptance within the overall community is to include them. This is why we work with the straight community regularly and have events with them. This allows them to get to know more people within the LGBT community so they can overcome their initial bias or stereotypes found in the media. We also offer testing for everyone, not just the LGBT community, and the youth support group is also all-inclusive. This makes everyone feel welcome, because one of our goals is to spread equality. Our training program for parents also ties into this because it gives them a place where they can learn more about what it means to identify as LGBTQ+ and allows them to learn how to accept their children.

What are you looking forward to most for the upcoming months?

There’s a lot going on, so I don’t have on particular event in mind. However, i’m very excited to continue promoting LGBT Pride Month in various cities. Our efforts focused on Pride Month end on July 8th, but our school supply giveaway efforts begin then, so i’m excited for that as well. Other than that, I’m just curious to see where the rest of the year takes us, and what else we can accomplish.

Renato Lira’s dedication has motivated all of us at Say It With A Condom, and we’re excited to create more Pride Campaigns that will help any LGBT organization properly execute their messages into the community.

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