Background While exposure to environmental greenness in childhood has shown mixed associations with the development of allergic disease, the relationship with food allergy has not been explored. We investigated the association between exposure to environmental greenness and challenge‐confirmed food allergy in a large population‐based cohort. Methods The HealthNuts study recruited 5276 12‐month‐old infants in Melbourne, Australia, who underwent skin prick testing to peanut, egg, and sesame; infants with a detectable wheal underwent food challenges to determine food allergy status. Environmental greenness was estimated using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for five buffer zones around the infant's home address: at the home, 100 m, 500 m, 800 m, and 1600 m radial distances. Environmental greenness was categorized into 3 tertiles and mixed effects logistic regression models quantified the association between greenness and the risk of food allergy, adjusting for confounding and accounting for clustering at the neighborhood level. Results NDVI data were available for n = 5097. For most buffer zones, medium and high greenness, compared to low greenness, was associated with an increased risk of peanut allergy (eg, 100 m tertile 2 aOR 1.89 95% CI 1.22–2.95, tertile 3 aOR 1.78 95% CI 1.13–2.82). For egg allergy, the effect sizes were smaller (100 m tertile 2 aOR 1.52 95% CI 1.16–1.97, tertile 3 aOR 1.38 95% CI 1.05–1.82). Socioeconomic status (SES) modified the association between greenness and peanut allergy, but not egg allergy; associations were apparent in the low SES group but not in the high SES group (p for interaction 0.08 at 100 m). Air pollution (PM2.5) also modified the associations between environmental greenness and food allergy, with associations present in high air pollution areas but not low (p for interaction at 100 m 0.05 for peanut and 0.06 for egg allergy.) Conclusion Increased exposure to environmental greenness in the first year of life was associated with an increased risk of food allergy. Increased greenness may correlate with higher pollen levels which may trigger innate immune responses skewing the immune system to the Th2‐dependent allergic phenotype; additionally, some pollen and food allergens are cross‐reactive. Given the mixed data on greenness and other allergies, the relationship appears complex and may also be influenced by confounding variables outside those that were measured in this study.

Gay–straight alliance (or gender‐sexuality alliance; GSA) is a high‐school based club aimed at providing a safer environment for sexual and gender minority youth as well as their straight allies. Yet, as a club historically rooted in addressing sexual orientation‐related concerns, less attention has been given to understanding the changing relational dynamics of internal GSA activities aimed at expanding membership boundaries through the promotion of transgender inclusivity. I address this by bridging existing scholarship on GSAs, social movements, and the sociology of culture to showcase the impact boundary‐spanning strategies are having on GSA mobilization, in‐group solidarity, and external political and social activism. My findings reveal that membership boundary negotiations around gender diversity issues are shifting the social landscape of these clubs. Emerging barriers that impede boundary‐spanning efforts are also highlighted and discussed. More broadly, I generate new theoretical insights into how boundary spanning can shape political and social activism as well as offer promising future research directions in this area.

No abstract

The term “transgender” (trans) has no singular or fixed meaning; instead, it represents a broad umbrella of non-traditional gender identities. Although the term is useful in the sense of inclusion, outsider recognition, and social activism, individuals and groups under the trans umbrella are not without internal ideological differences and contention about the boundaries of their collective identity. Taking a cyber-ethnographic approach with a transgender forum on the popular website Reddit, I offer insights into the complex membership debates that occur under this broad umbrella. In doing so, I present three distinct identity membership strategies, entitled “unbounded,” “socio-biological,” and “medically-based.” Each identity strategy showcases a mix of social and biological considerations that underlie trans-identity formations while highlighting differences in authenticity claims used within and between each group. My findings show a unique interplay between cultural definitions of trans-identities, lived experiences, and the explicit expulsion of some members in developing and maintaining internal symbolic boundaries of what constitutes a “trans enough” identity. More broadly, I generate new theoretical insights into the intracommunity “policing” strategies, shifting identity politics, and power dynamics that shape and inform interactions within the evolving category of transgender.