growing up

From Erasure to Ownership: A Bisexuality Journey

I experienced bisexual erasure when I was a teenager. The first crushes I remember having were on boys, but I’ll never forget the first time I met a girl and felt weak in the knees. I was thirteen years old. A year later I heard the term bisexual for the first time and felt like it described me.

Beezus Murphy's Mom Had an Abortion: An Interview

"My Mom Had an Abortion" is a comic written by Beezus B. Murphy, illustrated by Tatiana Gill, and produced by the Shout Your Abortion network. It tells a unique and personal coming of age story, while emphasizing the importance of choice. In this interview between two high school students across the country from one another, interviewer Zosia Johnson and Beezus discuss this story, and why Beezus decided to share it.

It's Never Too Late To Start To Date

Being autistic, some things just haven’t come as naturally for me as they seem to for other people. Unfortunately, these have included hallmarks of American life often used to symbolize being “an adult” like driving on my own or getting my first paid job. But human beings are not on a strict timetable to do all the same things at the same time. This is just as true of dating like anything else. Just because you (or I) haven’t been actively dating when a lot of other people in your life have doesn’t make you (or me) a failure. You’re just on your own timetable. So am I.

Hell Is In Poland: Pregnancy, Power and Protest

Ida Covcin talks about growing up in Poland and what that meant for her ideas about and experiences with sex and possible pregnancy, and participating in the powerful abortion bans that have taken place there over the last few years.

What I Didn’t Know About Having a Queer Daughter

When a young person comes out, the adults in their lives can have all sorts of reactions. If you're trying to be a supportive parent, here are just a few of the ways you can help them navigate those moments.

How do I deal with my overprotective parents?

Anonymous asks:
So I’m 16 years old, and my parents are so overprotective of me, since I’m a petite female. Even before the whole COVID-19 situation, I couldn't go anywhere without my parents or my older brothers. When my brothers were my age, they could go hang out with friends without parents. And I can’t!...

Wait, What? It's Finally Here?!? (It is!)

From Heather Corinna, founder and director of Scarleteen.com, and Isabella Rotman, cartoonist, sex educator and Scarleteen artist-in-residence, comes a new graphic novel guide -- and activity book! -- that covers essential topics for preteens and young teens about their changing bodies and feelings. Find out all about it, and sneak preview one of our fave sections, here!

Impurity Culture: Learning to Support Reproductive Rights When Your Religion Doesn't

Hello. I’m glad you’re here. I first just want you to know that I see you. I see you showing up here and maybe elsewhere, trying to learn, being open to new information and being willing to change and to grow. Intelligence, Stephen Hawking famously reminded us, is the ability to adapt to change. You’re smart, you’re doing your best and I believe in you. I know what it’s like to go your whole life being told one thing is true only to find out that actually, it isn’t. That’s happened to me so many times, on so many different topics, I’ve lost count. I know what it’s like to feel angry and disillusioned. I felt angry and disillusioned, too, when I began to realize that what I had been told about abortion was a lie.

Making My Hair Mine

My adoptive mom’s hangups convinced me I was an ugly duckling with noticeable imperfections. Turns out, it was about her, not me, and certainly not about my hair, which isn't the enemy she -- or I -- thought it was, either.

This Place

I’ve changed dramatically because of this place that never insisted I change. This place where it didn’t matter how—or even if—I was sexual gave me sexuality as something I could live. Sex became something I could know about, talk about, do, enjoy and choose. My body became livable. Imagine that.