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It feels a fitting start to open this by telling you that in the most 2020 way possible, we -- including me, the founder of this place, who first launched it frozen in my basement apartment with the entirely unuseful radiator in the ceiling  -- forgot our 22nd anniversary earlier this month.

This is a deeply lousy year for Halloween shenanigans. You can't shake candy out of a Zoom meeting, go to a haunted house unless your house is itself haunted, and it's really hard to drum up enthusiasm for a virtual party of any kind right now when we're all sick of the spaces we've been stuck in for months on end, when so many are ill, hurting or both, and, for those of us stateside, when election anxiety has our stomachs and hearts in a vice-grip.

This is also a lousy year for organizations and projects who need donations to keep the lights on and do all the things that they do, Scarleteen very much included. Based on how things have been the last eight months and how we suspect they'll still be for a while, unless something changes, we'll have about $10,000 less to work with this year than we did last year. We’re asking for your help.

Scarleteen will soon be doing video questions and answers on our Instagram!

I've been saving this very wonderful birthday-card-of-sorts from the also-very-wonderful Liz for almost a year now, looking for just the right time to post it.  Seeing as we're two days away from the end of this 20th year and our next (our 21st!) birthday, it certainly feels like a good time.

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to attend an inaugural sex education policy convening in Washington, D.C.

I know you'll be flooded this week with people asking for money from you. If your inbox has been anything like mine, you've already suffered through a solid week of targeted marketing landmines and nonstop sparkly coercions to spend money buying everything and anything on earth, no less.

Many trans or gender non-conforming youth come to us looking for support they're having difficulty finding, or don't feel safe looking for elsewhere. We know from talking with these users that one of the biggest factors in their overall well-being -- and how hard or easy all of this is on them -- is how supported and safe they feel in their identities when around their families.

This piece is created with an eye towards how can you support them while dealing with any emotions you might have.

At long last, Merriam-Webster has added they and them, as singular nonbinary pronouns, specifically, to the dictionary.

Those of us who are nonbinary, who use these pronouns, or both, didn't need a dictionary to validate our identities, or the pronouns we use.  Anyone and everyone's identities and pronouns are valid, whether the dictionary or other cultural institutions acknowledge them or not.

Over the years, we’ve had many Scarleteen fans -- especially older siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, camp counselors, babysitters or other folks who’ve loved Scarleteen for themselves and wanted to pass its goodness on to the younger people in their lives -- ask if they should refer preteens to our site.

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!