Culture

How things like sex, gender and relationships have been throughout, exist in and are presented by the larger world has a big impact on how they are for each of us, all on our own. Whether we’re talking about right, law and policy; specific cultural or community history, beliefs or norms; bias, inequity or privilege within the wider world – anything from our family, to our school, state or the globe, that’s what you’ll find here.

image of a globe
Article
  • Michaela Glinsky

Saniya Lee Ghanoui is a historian and critical media studies scholar who focuses on the intersection of gender and sexuality, medicine, and media. Through her studies, she became intrigued by how society created stigma and taboo around the menstrual cycle, which led her to focus on critical menstrual studies investigating the construction and depiction of menstruation in television, the history of menstrual education films, as well as the history of sex education in the United States.

Article
  • Sam Wall

As more and more states in the United States criminalize abortion, the amount of surveillance, and the negative consequences of that surveillance, are going to increase. That’s just a sad fact. With that in mind, we’ve put together some basics on how to protect your privacy during each step of the process of seeking abortion help. We made this with reproductive care in mind, but many of the steps here also apply to situations like abusive relationships and the increased criminalization of trans people, families and healthcare.

Announcement
  • Sam Wall

One of the trends that gives me hope for the future is seeing more and more queer media on shelves and screens. It's heartening that, even in the face of alarming and depressing times, queer and trans people still manage to make art and tell stories. Too, with the pushes to censor queer content, it...

Announcement
  • Siân Jones

I want to talk about joy. About feeling sweatily, vibrantly alive and connected and lifted up by community. I want to talk about dancing. Specifically partnered dancing, where two people dance together. Dancing is where I find sanctuary, where I celebrate the good days and find my way through the...

Announcement
  • Mo Ranyart

Pride is difficult for me this year, as I imagine it may be for many others. For a lot of reasons, I've struggled to feel much hope recently. Maybe some of you reading this can relate. I've never lived in a world where queer and trans people didn't face discrimination, demonization, threats of...

Article
  • Gabriel Leão

The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory and Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health, edited by Zena Sharman, was created in collaboration with fifteen contributors from across North America, and "merges practical ideas with liberatory imaginings about what queer and trans health care could be, grounded in historical examples, present-day experiments, and dreams of the future. At its heart, The Care We Dream Of is a spell of transformation, one that’s both a loving invitation and an urgent demand to leave no one behind as we dream a more liberated future into being." In conversation with Garbiel Leão, Sharman talks about all this and more.

Announcement
  • Sam Wall

It's been less than a year since I wrote a blog post like this. In that time, there has been an increased wave of right-wing attacks on trans youth at the state level, trying to ban young trans people from sports, trying to ban trans stories from shelves, trying to revoke your access to medical care...

Article
  • Marisha Thomas

The bimbo is a product of a misogynistic imagination, a sex object and an ableist stereotype. Her image is tied up in ageism as well, being forever young and childlike. Because the outlines of the bimbo stereotype are so bold, and her character so outrageous, she also makes perfect material for drag and other kinds of gender play and parody. And, because gender is weird, people have begun to mess with language so that people of all genders can play with it as well. But is all of this, like, okay?

Article
  • Gabriel Leão

Abortion can be hard for many adults to understand and process, let alone for kids. As with so many potentially major life events, they are often left in the dark without any comment or explanation as if nothing happened, or receive a rigid lecture from an authority figure imposing only their singular point of view. The book "What’s an Abortion, Anyway?" proposes a new, more fluid and non-judgmental way to explain this event to the small ones.

Article
  • Gabriel Leão

Indigenous people have long been persecuted and oppressed on their own unceded land by the government of the United States and the picture gets darker with intersectionalities like gender, orientation and social class. SB8 is tinged with white supremacist, patriarchal and elitist values disguised as ways to help Texans. In an interview with Scarleteen, co-founder and sex educator Nicole Martin of Indigenous Women Rising (IWR) speaks on SB8 and Indigenous people.