We Can’t Fight Monkeypox “Ourselves”
Legacy media has reintroduced shame-based conversations from the AIDS era centering on behavioral change to contain an epidemic without mentioning vaccines. Have we learned nothing?
LGBTQ
When White Men Set Standards of “Normalcy”
White cisgender heterosexual men have assumed the power to define the terms for how to be—and not to be—in the world, rendering the rest of us aberrations. And that should terrify all of us.
Does Shame Serve a Purpose Anymore?
People who feel shame believe one’s self is inherently wrong. Which might explain why those who most need to feel the emotion never do.
I Am Here to Remember the Forgotten
The writer reflects on how to grieve and most faithfully honor the life and work of L.A.-based artist and activist Diviana Ingravallo, who emerged during the AIDS pandemic and died an indirect casualty of COVID, rendered invisible by legacy media.
The Anti-Trans and Anti-Abortion Connection
Anti-trans and anti-abortion protesters are trying to control the bodies of everyone who isn't a cis male. And they've proven they're willing to kill for it.
I Want My Lesbian TV
Growing up in the 1980s, there was little in the way of queer representation on TV. Now we've shattered the celluloid closet. But is this progress restricted to our small screens?
The Game Was Rigged All Along
The DSM removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 1973. So why did the author's mother lose everything—including her kids—when she left her abusive husband for a woman in the late 1970s?
Protecting Trans and Nonbinary Kids Is a Life-or-Death Issue
GOP lawmakers around the country claim they’re “protecting women and girls” in school sports. But, as this genderqueer writer attests, these humiliating, discriminatory laws can have devastating consequences on our kids.
In the Trans Identity Discourse, Words Matter
When two cis-female anti-trans professors were uninvited to give talks, they were presented in the U.K. press as “victims” of cancel culture. But in the fight for trans rights, framing harmful rhetoric as personal opinion shouldn’t get a platform.
“Conversion Therapy” Is Abuse
In recent years, the destructive practice of anti-LGBTQ "therapy" was being outlawed across the country. Then Trump-appointed judges decided that the bans were a violation of free speech.