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On Tuesday, July 26, it was brought to public attention that St. Thomas More High School (STM) has included the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana's "Sexual Identity Policy" in the forefront of its 2022-2023 handbook. The policy, written as a "spiritual mandate," prohibits students' expression of gender or sexuality that is not "God-given" and requires full enforcement by faculty and staff. As news of this policy spread, a group of more than 100 STM alumni—concerned about the well-researched, irreversible harm that this policy will have on students of the diocese—formed We Demand More. [We Demand More's] goal is to create an open dialogue with the diocese to amend the policy in respect for the dignity of all LGBTQ+ students. On Friday, August 5, We Demand More delivered their statement to the doors of STM expressing their demands. You can read the full statement here. As of now, they have yet to receive a response from the diocese or St. Thomas More Catholic High School. In turn, they are asking for help from supporters to make sure their message is spread far and wide on platforms like Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. WDM Member Ellis Clay shares the following in response to what this work means to him: “We Demand More means to me that there is a physical presence ready to protect queer kids at these Catholic institutions to ensure they have a safe environment when so many of us who’ve walked through those doors never had that chance." - Ellis Clay As WDM works to compile a document to present to STM with messages from their supporters, they have also turned to crowdfunding and petitioning websites. Currently, their Change.org petition to protect LGBTQ+ youth in Lafayette, LA has reached roughly 1,600 signatures. But more signatures can help to further their cause while bringing attention to such policies that exist beyond Louisiana alone. Additionally, they have set up a GoFundMe and created Merch with a fundraising goal of $5,000 that will go towards legal consultations, PR, marketing maintenance, photo/video editing, and future investments at STM for queer students. Any excess of funds will be donated to the Trevor Project. On the WDM Instagram page, they have been regularly sharing Impact Stories both from STM alumni and other local queer students in the Louisiana area. In fact, anyone who has a story is welcome to share theirs. With prompts like "What was your experience like in high school?" to "What would you say to your younger self?" WDM has taken on a life of its own, bringing awareness to the kind of abuse and harassment that queer and trans students face regularly in and outside of school. As WDM Member Lincoln Duhon shares: "We Demand More means standing up for LGBTQIA+ youth as an adult now, when the adults never did for me or others then." - Lincoln Duhon WDM Member Sarah Trotter furthers this sentiment, finding that the act of sharing one's story itself can be healing: "We Demand More’s mere existence is healing parts of myself I thought were fine. The community & friendships we have formed are giving me strength and power I never knew I could tap into." - Sarah Trotter While WDM has prompted personal stories of adversity to come out from the woodwork, WDM's demands remain specific. With a clear goal of creating a dialogue with both STM and the Diocese, they intend to advocate against the systemic culture that allowed this policy to be created in the first place. Their demands for STM are listed on their website and are reflected below: Repeal the Sexual Identity Policy Join in initiating dialogue with the Diocese Acknowledge students by their chosen name or last name Respect requests to use pronouns that align with the student's gender identity Allow all students to have an option to wear pants on mass days, regardless of gender expression Provide access to a gender-neutral or single-stall bathroom Reform the culture of the campus to be one of inclusion and dignity Furthermore, their demands for the diocese are as follows: Repeal the Sexual Identity Policy Initiate dialogue with WDM Acknowledge the large body of evidence of the damage the policy will cause Affirm the existence of transgender and non-binary lives Reform the culture of the diocese to be one of inclusion and dignity Embrace all of God's children with tenderness and dignity, including very vulnerable queer students Their fight to protect queer and trans youth across South Louisiana is only beginning. But with the inception of We Demand More, Member Camille Langlinais shares that such desires for change remain possible: "To me, WDM is a cultural shift that is much needed in our local area. Our community is about total inclusion, acceptance and love. We are learning from one another and demonstrating to that these things can and will be achieved." - Camille Langlinais To support We Demand More's goals, you can take the following actions below: - Sign and share their petition. - Donate to and share their fundraiser. - Buy their merch. - Contribute your own Impact Story. - Share a brief note on why you stand with WDM (to be shared with STM). If you are or know an LGBTQ+ Student in need of mental health resources, please visit the following site below: Sacrosanct is a community blog that amplifies the voices and art of LGBTQ2IA+ BIPOC. As a digital space for marginalized folks to self-define, self-actualize, and heal, Sacrosanct is firmly situated at the core of intersectionality while also providing mental health and community resources made for and by LGBTQ2IA+ BIPOC. To fund these LGBTQ2IA+ BIPOC artists for their contributions to the platform, consider leaving a donation here and follow Sacrosanct on Instagram and Facebook.

Columbus Pride invites everyone to march with and for our Transgender and Non-Binary community. We will unite and take to High Street and show the city that we are smart, we are beautiful, and we are HERE to stay! If you’d like to march with us, please come to the Ohio Statehouse at 7:30pm on June 14th. The march will begin at 8pm heading south on High Street and then west on Main St. ending at the Columbus Pride Festival. This march is of the community and for the community. It is a true march, and not a parade. There are no sponsors and no corporations. Security will be provided by wonderful members of PFLAG.

GIRLS WHO CODE: Virtual Club Calling 3rd through 12th graders! Join our live virtual club of the national movement dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology! GIRLS WHO CODE fosters bravery, sisterhood, activism, and resilience through teaching the skill of computer coding. Starting January 5th, we'll meet virtually every Wednesday from 4:30 - 5:30pm, beginning as a large group and then breaking out into smaller groups based on grade. **Our club also welcomes children who identify as non-binary or gender nonconforming and want to be in a female-identified environment.

But on Tuesday, the 28-year-old admitted she "didn’t even realise" she was "coming out". "I thought it was like, not a big deal, which it shouldn't be. I don't like all the labels and crap, you should just be free to chill however you want," she said in an Instagram Live. Olivia said she sees pansexuality as "a gift" because it gives people "the ability to love anyone". "So I haven't dated women before. I've had crushes and things like that, and there have been girls and non-binary people that I've been like: 'Oh!'," she continued. "I go for the connection, not the gender, not the look. I have the ability to love anybody, but it just so happens that most of my connections - and I've not had that many relationships - have been with men. "But that doesn't mean that I haven't had strong feelings for women and things like that. I don't need to explain myself." Since opening up about her sexuality, the OnlyFans creator has been hit with trolling comments that she "only came out for more clout". "Do you say that to everybody in the LGBTQI+ community?" the MAFS star hit back. In late May, footage of Jackson kissing a 20-year-old woman named Hannah Hughes out in a bar in Melbourne went viral. After a week of drama and claims that the incident was a publicity stunt, Jackson and Olivia put rumours of a breakup to bed in a video where Jackson took full responsibility for his "f---ed" actions. "I f---ed up. A bit of background, all the negativity we've been getting from the show, the way I've been dealing with it is to get blackout drunk which don't get me wrong isn't an excuse," Jackson said. "It's not acceptable, it's not the person I wanna be, it's not who I am. I am seeking help to figure out how to combat my emotions and how to deal with this negativity. "It has been s--t but I've been very happy to have Liv by my side. She's been nothing but an angel throughout it all." Olivia, sitting by Jackson's side, then added: "we're hanging in there. We're staying together. We've got a lot of feeling to do but ultimately we love each other and it's not worth throwing away." To find your own love story off reality TV, sign up for a free eharmony trial today!

A recollection of all the posts from last month’s Featured Voices theme: SOFFAs (significant others, friends, family, allies). And introducing next theme: Out at Work or School. Now a seasoned gender veteran, Julie looks back on her son’s fascination with the female historic personages aboard the Titanic. Transition can suddenly envelop you in a whirlwind of choices. Yet as Cameron soon realized, those decisions weren’t only about him – his family, friends, co-workers, were all transitioning along with him. Through previous romantic relationships, AJ learns what it means to be seen in their gender. But sometimes what it means to be a good or a bad partner isn’t so binary. “What does it mean for her – for my wife – to be in love with someone who blurs the lines of gender?” A personal piece about the history of my relationship with the most significant person in my world. When your child comes out at 14 as “agender” what do you do? Eli’s Mom has always been loving and supportive, no matter what; nevertheless, her journey has not been straightforward. A loving mom shares with us the process she’s been through (and is still going through) in parenting an agender teen. What happens when an introverted feminist academic tosses off her big black nerd glasses and succumbs to a brutal crush on a hard-rockin’ Texas boygirl? “Queer Rock Love” reminds us that our trials and tribulations can sometimes become powerful sources of community and connection. When your child comes out as “agender” what do you do? As a parent, Libby shares her story of compassion, love, and many many questions in her journey to understanding her eldest’s non-binary gender identity. A summary of last month’s Non-Binary MAAB theme, and an introduction to this month’s Featured Voices theme: SOFFAs! Write about that special someone, or have them write about you. Gender Odyssey – an international conference, a thoughtful exploration of gender – took place August 2015 in Seattle. Here’s what happened.

Notes from the Trans Theatre Artists Convening The first Trans Theatre Artists Convening took place on December 5th and 6th, 2015, and was organized by HowlRound and hosted by New Dramatists. Developed from a conversation between Sylvan Oswald, Polly Carl, MJ Kaufman, and Kate Bornstein (who was unable to attend), the convening included approximately twenty trans theatre artists from across the United States, supported by key staff members from both HowlRound and New Dramatists. The convening envisioned a future that prioritizes inclusivity and accessibility, removes barriers of funding and space, and allows trans theatre artists to become leaders making meaningful contributions to theatre and society at large. The convening had a number of goals centered around connecting trans theatre artists and strategizing for future actions. Though there are numerous trans people working in the theatre industry, many participants in the convening did not yet know each other, or only knew a few fellow artists. Some participants noted that they had never before been in a room with so many other trans theatre artists. The convening gave an opportunity for artists to meet each other, discuss their experiences, and counteract isolation. The bulk of the first day of the convening was spent sharing work. After dinner and basic introductions, each participant of the convening was given five minutes to share their art with the group. Some shared video work samples, some read excerpts of their recent writing, and others performed parts of their solo shows. Still other artists simply described their work or passed the proverbial mic to others who needed more time. The content and themes of the work presented were as diverse as the participants, including explorations of sound, bodies, and movement in transition, spoken word poetry, character-based work, autobiographical narratives, as well as scripts that incorporated trans characters without making transition the focus of the plot. As the first day drew to a close, participants had a better sense of the breadth of the talent and experience gathered in the room. The convening was an opportunity to “find the possible”: after meeting and connecting, the participants were committed to determining the next actionable steps towards better support and representation of trans people in theatre and bringing more trans theatre artists into the conversation. The second day of the convening was opened by actress, writer, and director Bianca Leigh, who graciously agreed to take on the enormous and perhaps impossible task of presenting a concise history of trans theatre artists. What was shared in the allotted hour was a fragment of the history of trans theatre artists, one that largely centered on white artists based in New York City. Leigh noted that her presentation was limited by the lack of readily available documentation of trans theatre artists, leading her to focus on work with which she was personally familiar. As with much of the convening, this session generated perhaps more questions than answers. Some of those included: where is the work of trans theatre artists being documented, if anywhere? Who gets included? Who’s being omitted? Who has access to this history? After reflecting on the history of trans theatre artists, the convening moved on to envisioning the future. In a visioning exercise led by performer and producer Ignacio Rivera, first individuals and then small groups imagined where trans theatre could be in ten years. Groups envisioned trans theatre artists restructuring the theatrical landscape, presenting their art on Broadway, in the street, and everywhere in between. Common themes that emerged from all of the visions included increased funding and resources for trans theatre artists, and the ability for trans theatre to move beyond a focus on gender. The convening envisioned a future that prioritizes inclusivity and accessibility, removes barriers of funding and space, and allows trans theatre artists to become leaders making meaningful contributions to theatre and society at large. In the afternoon of the second day, participants gathered in small breakout groups to further explore the ideas and themes that had emerged over the course of the convening. These groups then returned to share the highlights of the discussions with the group as a whole. Expertly led by playwright, director, producer, performer, and performing artist Annie Danger, participants then synthesized the breakout discussions into short-term projects, long-term goals, and overarching questions. In the short term (one to two years), members of the convening proposed: focusing on skill development and mentorship by and for trans artists, developing a manifesto/”better practices” guide and training for artistic leaders and theatre staff, planning a festival of “transition” pieces, allying with other marginalized groups and looking to other models (such as the Latina/o Theatre Commons), creating funding/fellowship opportunities for trans artists, compiling lists of available resources that could be shared via a database or listserv, and publishing an anthology of trans plays and performance texts. All of these projects were designed to support long-term goals: establishing trans leaders at artistic institutions, creating models for transitioning leadership across generations, fighting trans tokenization, developing funding opportunities with intersectionality across race, gender, and class, increasing the depth and breadth of published trans theatrical work, and documenting trans theatrical history. The first actionable step toward the next convening was the creation of this very write-up—a way to share notes with our community, to garner support and gain momentum. As these goals were created, key questions were identified to further guide the work: What is trans theatre history, and who gets to tell it? What does success look like? How can trans theatre amplify non-binary voices? How can participants share their skills and stories, with each other and with the broader theatrical community? How can trans theatre artists best empower and support each other? What is trans theatre? After identifying goals and guiding questions, the convening assembled an action plan, a sort of blueprint for stepping into the future of trans theatre. It was decided that this convening would work towards another, larger convening, one including a wider representation of trans theatre artists. The first actionable step toward the next convening was the creation of this very write-up—a way to share notes with our community, to garner support and gain momentum. From there, work on longer-term goals can begin: developing a “better practices” guide for theatres and artistic leaders, publishing an anthology, and establishing sustainable mentorships. This process—writing up the event and sharing it with the community—has taken longer than originally anticipated, but it has begun. We look forward to taking the next steps into the future. If you’d like to get involved with the next steps of any of the projects, please fill out this form and someone will be in touch.

We pledge to support women in the Green movement by focusing on dismantling capitalism and patriarchy. We recognise that women’s leadership is key to tackling climate change. - We recognise the intersectional nature of power which creates additional barriers for women facing multiple discriminations; we support equality of opportunity, pay and political representation. - There is no gender equality without reproductive rights; we support bodily autonomy and a person’s right to choose. - Women have disproportionately shouldered the burden of 'austerity' choices; we support a fair and inclusive welfare state that recognises the value of care. - We support rights for all women, including disabled women, lesbian, bisexual and trans women, as set out in the Equality Act 2010 and UN Conventions on discrimination and violence against women. - We recognise the gendered and racial barriers that face women of colour, and seek to challenge racism, islamophobia, anti-semitism and other forms of discrimination and abuse. - We support statutory self-declaration for trans individuals, and the recognition of non-binary genders. - All debate must be respectful and inclusive. We condemn all forms of abuse and violence. “We all are different in terms of our experiences in life. All I know is that when we choose to do the right thing in solidarity, we can make a difference.” - Nadia Kanyange "There is no doubt that patriarchy is one of the greatest causes of inequality and that women are the largest group who suffer under patriarchy. There is also no doubt that women's inequality is intersectional with issues including race, religion, ability, sexuality, and gender identity. I am proud to take this pledge, to support women's rights, and human rights, and campaign for an end to inequality. " - Elaine Gallagher

Whether you’re casually swiping, actively seeking a committed relationship, or hankering for a good ol’ hook up, online dating offers a plethora of options to suit your needs. If you’re new to the online dating world and unsure where to start, here is some advice to get you set up for success. You can also find my podcast episode about online dating here! Proceed with Intention Before diving in, reflect on your dating goals and what kind of relationship you’re looking for. Having a good understanding of your intentions will help guide your decision on what app or website to use and how to “market” yourself. There are no hard and fast rules here; you can have casual hookups while also dating in pursuit of a committed relationship, but personal clarity will help you avoid sending mixed messages to other daters and demonstrate that you know what you’re looking for. If you’re unsure about why you’re diving into the dating game, perhaps a little introspection is in order. Which App or Website to Use? Online dating is accessible through chat rooms, meetup groups, social networking communities, convenient phone apps, classifieds ads (RIP Craigslist casual encounters), and paid-subscription websites. With all the options to pick from, the decision can be overwhelming. Once you’ve identified your dating intentions, narrow your options to sites/apps that cater to your needs. A simple search on Google or the app store will help you with this (i.e. queer, kink, divorcees, single parents, casual), but many individual apps or sites are acceptable for a range ages, genders, or sexual orientations. Compare the different bells and whistles of each one. Start with a couple options and test them out before you spend any money (many have free versions!) Whether you’re looking for a bang, a bae, or a bacchanal – online dating offers a flavor for most. Create Your Dating Profile Before you read this piece of advice, imagine the fabulous writer of this blog (me…hi!) looking down at you sternly while pointing my finger in your face and saying “Don’t be fu*king lazy! Spend time on your profile!” It’s ridiculously surprising how many people do not put effort into writing a thoughtful dating profile. Follow this advice and you will surely stand out amongst many. Remember when I told you to proceed with intention? This is where you put those thoughts down into little typed-out words called sentences. It’s not too difficult, I promise. - State clearly what type of relationship or situation you are looking for. Don’t waste other people’s time by making them guess. Avoid using statements like, “I’m not sure what I’m doing here.” Lacking clarity of reason is a clear sign of insecurity and immaturity. It’s completely OK and encouraged to state that you’re specifically looking for something monogamous, or casual, or kinky, or discrete etc. - Express your personality because – you’re awesome! What hobbies do you enjoy? What is important to you in a partner/hookup/friend? What are your values, goals, and beliefs? What is attractive to you in other people? Where would you like to take someone on a first date? Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, inject humor, and ask for what you want; vulnerability isn’t always easy but you can learn a lot about yourself when you put it out into the universe. Side note – this should go without saying but be HONEST. Lying about yourself is not only unattractive but will probably backfire on you. - Use a mix of photos that communicate multiple aspects about your personality. Saucy selfies are great and all, but full-length photos are an absolute must. Group photos are OK if you’re easily distinguishable, but if it requires squinting realllllly hard to guess which one you are? Um… boi, byyyyeee. Use current photos that are no more than one year old. And for goodness sake, if you absolutely *must* use a bathroom selfie, wash the damn toothpaste off your mirror first. Initiate the Conversation It was always my personal preference to only “swipe right” on people who spent time on a well-delivered profile. I credit this tactic for mostly being able to avoid unsolicited genital photos and harassment from shitty people. The likelihood of quality reciprocated communication was higher if I could easily see that they were invested in the process. Opening the lines of communication, however, can be an intimidating aspect of online dating and leave some paralyzed in fear. First, you have to understand that rejection is part of the process but you won’t know until you try. I’m not sure if this is more typical with straight men, but initial messages have a tendency to be quite lackluster. It took me five minutes of indiscriminately swiping this morning to fill my inbox with examples like these: “Hi, how are you?” “Good morning, beautiful!” “Hi.” [five minutes later…] “Hello?” [five minutes later] “Hey what’s up.” You can see where this is going. There is a serious lack of creativity happening here and frankly, it’s irritating. Just because you’re online and not face-to-face does not excuse a lack of effort when initiating conversation. (I’d love to hear from some queer or non-binary folks on whether their experiences are similar!) PSA – It is unacceptable to send anyone unsolicited nude photos without their consent and I fully support any receivers of said unsolicited photos to put them on blast via social media. Draw inspiration from their profile – it’s that easy! If you’re not sure how to start the conversation, find something intriguing about their profile/their pictures/their interests and take it from there. An introduction doesn’t have to be a novel, but you should invest some effort. Here are a few examples: “I’ve never been skydiving before but it looks really exciting! Where did you go and how was the experience?” -OR- “Your smile is really great and I find your sense of humor attractive. I’m interested in learning more about you. What are you looking for in a relationship?” -OR- “I have seven cats, too! We should grab some coffee and talk about how much we love our cats! Did I mention that I have seven cats?” Don’t feel terrible about yourself if someone doesn’t respond or rejects your attempt at connecting. People have all sorts of personal things happening in their lives at any given time or may already be emotionally invested in another person. Move on and don’t give up! Don’t Overwhelm Yourself If you’r serious about online dating, there’s no sense in overloading your match feed with as many people as possible. Would you be able to juggle 30 potential intimate partners in person at once? I highly doubt it. My suggestion is to keep your feed open to no more than 7-10 people at a time. Put forth an effort to those you’re attracted to and see where they go. If you’re no longer interested, be straightforward, tactful, and close the match. This opens room in your feed for new potentials! Set Up Your First Meeting You’ve been chatting online with someone and are interested in meeting, but how do you take it to the next level? Don’t wait too long to initiate this next step; if they’re long distance, set up a Skype introduction. If they’re local, don’t be afraid to request a meeting over coffee, lunch, happy hour, whatever! Your first date doesn’t have to be an extravagant dinner – laaaawwwd knows that can get expensive if you’re dating frequently! Again, there are no hard and fast rules here. When my now-husband and I met, our first date lasted for nearly 12 hours and ended at my house, so… All I’m saying is that a quick meeting to see if there’s a spark is perfectly acceptable and time efficient. Initiating a first date is going to look differently for everyone and will depend on what you’re looking for, your previous experiences, and your comfort level. Safety and precautions are a good idea, even if you’re looking for a simple hookup. Have fun with the dating process and treat each other with respect. Ghosting someone is unnecessary and being honest about your feelings will only help you grow for the benefit of future relationships. Hopefully online dating can offer many of you a great opportunity to meet new people and engage in some personal growth along the way! It wouldn’t be the Bad Relationship Advice Blog & Podcast without ending with a piece of bad advice from Alyssa! I left you a nugget of bad advice on the podcast last week, but here’s one more that has actually happened to me: If you crash a wedding while on a first date, drink from their open bar all night, and then your date gets arrested for a DUI on the way home, be sure to drive to the county jail where they’re being held and try to get them out. But if their dad shows up and the introduction is a giant ball of embarrassment and confusion, lose their information and pretend it never happened.

Why should you #BeBoldForChange? When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful. Not because of the tragedy behind it, but because of the years of struggle, misery and action that lie beneath it as an unbroken foundation. In times of fear, our instinct tells us to run, but if we run, who will be left to fight? Malala Yousafzai, is the educational campaigner from Swat Valley, Pakistan, who came to public attention by blogging for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban. Using the pen name Gul Makai, she often spoke about her family’s fight for girls’ education in her community. In October 2012 Malala was targeted by the Taliban and shot in the head as she was returning from school on a bus. Making More Voices Heard International Women’s Day is celebrated each year. It’s a day about equality. It’s a day about change. A chance to celebrate the equality that some of us do have, and a chance to take action for the women of the world who don’t. Many people in our world: men, women and non-binary alike still believe that women are the weaker sex. This view is archaic, and these people are not living in the modern age. Change is happening. We see women in government, we see women as entrepreneurs, we see women holding some of the most important jobs in the world. We are finally breaking through into the big bad world that was once an exclusively male zone. However, although things are better, there is still along way to go. For more International Women’s Day videos look here Equality In The Classroom One thing we are still stuck with is gender stereotypes, even in primary schools. I recently wrote a blog, highlighting the extreme importance of banishing these stereotypes. Children should not be made to feel as though their predetermined gender predetermines their future aspirations. We’ve experienced it in our adult lives, let’s not let them experience it in theirs. Teachers can make the biggest difference. My job, as a primary school classroom teacher, is an amazing job. I am entrusted with young minds, to train and nurture and never let them believe that they can’t achieve. My aim every single day with them is to teach them that it’s okay to be who you want to be. I teach my boys that it is okay to want to cry, it is okay to want to play with ‘girl’ toys and it is okay to want to write a story about love. I teach my girls that they can speak up for something that they believe in, that they can want to be scientists or play football. The most important thing that I do is make sure that the other gender is aware of this too. Teachers Can Make The Difference As teachers, we have the ability to instil the belief that women can do anything that men can do. No young girl should be made to feel like she can’t achieve because of how she was born. There is a suggestion that true equality will not be global until 2186 – who’s to say that teachers can’t be the moving force behind reducing this time by incredible margins? Be that teacher that creates a movement, a shift in the eyes of children to see that what is happening is unacceptable. They’re the ones with the power to change it. Be that teacher who says ‘You can do anything.’ International Women’s Day is a fantastic cause and an enticing movement. Get involved, even if it is just reinforcing their beliefs that they can do anything they put their mind to. The importance of International Women’s Day is not to shout about women’s rights. It’s about having the understanding that no one has the right to tell anyone that they can’t do something.

Click to open video OTTAWA — Former Liberal justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould is slamming the federal government she was once a part of for making only “incremental” progress on the Indigenous justice file and their promise to “decolonialize” Canadian laws and policies. “My fear and disappointment is that despite sounding the alarm, providing the advice, pushing and challenging, sharing perspectives of lived Indigenous experience… the federal government has fallen back once again into a pattern of trying to ‘manage the problem’ with Indigenous peoples and make incremental shifts rather than transforming the status quo,” Wilson-Raybould said during a keynote address on Wednesday at the First Nations Provincial Justice Forum in Vancouver. They were invited by the B.C.-based First Nations Justice Council. She appeared alongside fellow newly-Independent MP Jane Philpott to deliver a joint address called: “From denial to recognition: the challenges of Indigenous justice in Canada.” “Since I spoke to the leadership of British Columbia this past November, there have been a few developments, things have changed a bit,” Wilson-Raybould said early in her remarks, to laughter. “Perhaps not fully unexpected but certainly an eventful time,” she continued, appearing to reference the months-long controversy surrounding her allegations that she faced a sustained effort from senior government officials to attempt to pressure her to interfere in a criminal case against the Quebec engineering and construction giant SNC-Lavalin. Wilson-Raybould framed her comments as her reflections and insights from her nearly three years as Canada’s first-ever Indigenous justice minister and attorney general, presented with the aim of informing these Indigenous leaders’ ongoing efforts to change the current justice system. She said that she had “no illusion” about the reality of the system she was taking the helm of, but said that over the course of her time in cabinet she fought to challenge the way things had been done. MORE Independent MPs Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould speak with the media before Question Period in the Foyer of the House of Commons in Ottawa, Wednesday April 3, 2019. Former cabinet minister Philpott says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the law when he expelled her and Wilson-Raybould from the Liberal caucus. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld Former cabinet minister Jane Philpott says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the law when he expelled her and Jody Wilson-Raybould from the Liberal caucus. In the House of Commons, Philpott says the Parliament of Canada Act says MPs can’t be kicked out of their party groups without a vote and Trudeau ejected them on his own. She’s asking Speaker Geoff Regan to declare that their privileges were violated. A set of amendments in 2015 was meant to make it more difficult to remove MPs from their caucuses, to shift power away from party leaders and toward rank-and-file legislators. Philpott says if Trudeau had followed the rules, it would have taken 90 Liberal MPs to vote to kick her and Wilson-Raybould out, and no such vote was held before Trudeau expelled them on the grounds that the caucus didn’t trust them any more. The two former ministers have been thorns in Trudeau’s side in the SNC-Lavalin affair, with both resigning from cabinet over the way the controversy has been handled. Riley Yesno: Why absence and silence was so powerful at Daughters of the Vote Trudeau looks to the audience for a question following his speech to Daughters of the Vote in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Wednesday April 3, 2019. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld) “Your seat is your power. By giving up your seat you’re giving up your power”. That’s what Maryam Monsef, Minister for Women and Gender Equality, told me and the other two dozen or so delegates from Daughters of the Vote, who protested in the House of Commons by walking out on Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and turning our backs on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on April 3. Run by the non-profit organization Equal Voice Canada, the Daughters of the Vote program is an initiative that brings together 338 women, gender-fluid and non-binary folk—one from every federal riding in Canada—to engage with women in politics, sit and speak in the House of Commons, and provide a platform for young leaders to have their voices amplified. Although many of my fellow delegates and I didn’t say a word during our protests earlier this week, I think our messages were certainly heard. The peaceful action attracted unanticipated media attention as reporters and journalists swarmed many of my colleagues following our exit from the House. The main question they wanted answered: Why? Read more: The fall of the feminist Prime Minister While I cannot speak on behalf of any of my peer’s individual motives, I know that some said they were prompted, at least in part, by the ejection of former ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus.Others said they protested in response to the policies, programs, and beliefs held by Scheer and Trudeau that have violent implications for their communities; such as Scheer’s anti-2SLGBTQ+ stances on marriage equality, or the Trudeau government’s sale of weaponry to countries like Saudi Arabia and large-scale environmental offences for example. Several people simply saw others taking action, and knew that this was a time to enact meaningful allyship and show solidarity. MORE Daughters of the Vote discuss participating in politics, MPs being kicked out of caucus WATCH ABOVE: An extended walk and talk with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould rejects the idea that by raising concerns about the SNC-Lavalin scandal, she may have helped boost Conservative prospects in the fall election campaign. In an interview with the West Block‘s Mercedes Stephenson, the now-independent MP for Vancouver-Granville said that while she understands concerns from her former caucus about how the scandal will impact their re-election chances, she thinks that is beside the point at the heart of the controversy. READ MORE: Wilson-Raybould says anonymous leaks ‘trampling all over’ the confidences she still vows to uphold “I don’t see myself as helping Andrew Scheer win the next election.,” she said, speaking from her Vancouver-area riding. “I spoke my truth, I stood up for what was right and my belief in the institutions of our democracy and the necessary nature of those institutions remaining independent and upholding the rule of law … if politics ever overtakes the right thing to do, then we’ve lost already.” WATCH: Video coverage of The West Block’s exclusive interview with Jody Wilson-Raybould PM’s lawyer sent letter to Opposition leader about remarks made concerning the SNC-Lavalin matter Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he stands by his criticisms of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after receiving a lawyer’s letter threatening a lawsuit. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press) Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has received a lawsuit threat from the prime minister regarding comments he made about the SNC-Lavalin affair. Scheer says he received a letter from Justin Trudeau’s lawyer on March 31. The letter from Trudeau’s lawyer Julian Porter took issue with what they term inappropriate comments in a statement made by Scheer on March 29 in response to new documents tabled in the justice committee from former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould. “The statement contained highly defamatory comments about Prime Minister Trudeau,” it reads. Trudeau has been under fire for the last two months over allegations that there was pressure on Wilson-Raybould to interfere in criminal proceedings against Quebec construction giant SNC-Lavalin. In an appearance before the House justice committee, she said top government officials asked her to help ensure a special legal deal was extended to the company. She later provided emails, a written statement and a taped recording to the committee. MORE Michael Wernick called it a “profound change in Canada’s legal landscape.” Jody Wilson-Raybould appears at the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee on June 20, 2018. PATRICK DOYLE/CP OTTAWA — Jody Wilson-Raybould’s text messages with Gerald Butts focused on the release of a historic directive on civil litigation involving Indigenous peoples, not just SNC-Lavalin, according to evidence submitted to the Commons justice committee. The former principal secretary tabled texts between him and the former attorney general as evidence to the committee as part of its study of the SNC-Lavalin affair and allegations of political interference. Butts told the committee earlier that the directive was “the biggest contentious issue” between him and Wilson-Raybould around mid-December 2018. Wilson-Raybould texted Butts on Nov. 28 to give him a heads-up that she intended to release a directive for civil litigation involving Indigenous peoples “at a big gathering in BC” the next day — formalizing a major government-wide policy shift to ditch adversarial litigation in favour of reconciliation. “Even all the DOJ lawyers ([including] conservative ones) are good with it,” she wrote, adding that release of the directive “ticks off yet another mandate letter commitment.” MORE ‘The trust has been broken,’ says Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip Independent MPs and former cabinet ministers Jane Philpott, left, and Jody Wilson-Raybould speak to reporters before question period in Ottawa, a day after being removed from the Liberal caucus. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press) The Trudeau government is defending its commitment to reconciliation as a growing number of Indigenous leaders and youth say they’re discouraged by his decision to eject two key figures on the file from the Liberal caucus. “I’m very disappointed that it had to come to this,” said Linden Waboose, a 22-year-old from from Eabametoong First Nation who sits on the Nishnawbe Aski Nation Oshkaatisak Council, an advisory network of ten youths aged 18-29 from Northern Ontario. “I feel like [Trudeau] doesn’t value that relationship he committed to in 2015.” In her testimony before the Commons Justice Committee during its investigation of the SNC-Lavalin affair, Wilson-Raybould said she would not apologize for being a strong advocate of transformative change for Indigenous peoples. As she was being shuffled from her justice post, she warned senior people in the government that it would not look good for the government. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, wants the prime minister to apologize to Jody-Wilson Raybould and Jane Philpott. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press) In text messages to Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s then-principal secretary, she wrote that the “timing of pushing me out (which will be the perception, whether true or not) is terrible. It will be confounding and perplexing to people.” That perception is already being echoed by some. “I think there is irreparable harm and damage done to Prime Minister Trudeau’s vision and stated intent to carry forward the reconciliation agenda,” said Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip. “The trust has been broken.” MORE Jody Wilson-Raybould lives up to the name she was given, her father says The former AG talks to Maclean’s about recording her call with Michael Wernick, her relationship with Gerry Butts and the dangers of blind loyalty Independent MP and former Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould speaks to reporters before Question Period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, a day after being removed from the Liberal caucus on Wednesday, April 3, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang There are two ways this might go now for Jody Wilson-Raybould: creation of an icon or writing of a footnote. To her admirers, the former justice minister’s attributes seem lastingly potent. She was the woman who rose higher in federal politics than any previous Indigenous politician, only to be driven out on a point of principle. To her critics, including many of her former Liberal colleagues, she just wasn’t a team player and didn’t understand the compromises high office demands. Wilson-Raybould, 48, was first elected a Liberal MP in Vancouver in 2015, having been recruited by Justin Trudeau on the strength of her record as a B.C. First Nations leader. He made her his first justice minister, then demoted her to Veterans Affairs early this year. Wilson-Raybould suspects she fell out of favour after resisting months of pressure from Trudeau and senior officials to use her power as attorney general to give SNC-Lavalin a way of avoiding a bribery trial through a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA). Trudeau denies that was the reason. But Wilson-Raybould quit his cabinet as the controversy raged, and he kicked her out of the Liberal caucus on April 2, along with her ally, former Treasury Board president Jane Philpott. The following afternoon, she sat with Maclean’s for this extensive interview, which has been edited for length and clarity. (To read our interview with Jane Philpott, go here) MORE Justice Minister David Lametti arrives for a cabinet meeting in West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday, April 2, 2019. File photo by The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld Attorney General David Lametti says he will resist any attempt to pressure him on the SNC-Lavalin criminal prosecution. Lametti is now in the hot seat on the court case that has rocked the Liberal government, resulting in the resignations of two cabinet ministers, the prime minister’s most trusted adviser and the country’s top civil servant. The director of public prosecutions decided last fall not to negotiate a deferred-prosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin, which is facing charges of bribery over its work in Libya between 2001 and 2011. Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould says she was inappropriately pressured by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his senior staff to overrule that decision. She believes she was shuffled out as justice minister and attorney general in January because she would not intervene, though the prime minister denies that had anything to do with her move. MORE

Join us in welcoming guest blogger, Hannah Givens. We met Hannah through another mutual blogger friend over a year ago and we fell in love with her super intelligent and pop culture rich blog,Things Matter. We asked her here today to talk about an important and seldom addressed topic: how to write sensitive and realistic lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters.This is a subject we knew almost nothing about, but we wanted to know more, and thought our readers would too. Please give a warm Write On Sisters welcome to Hannah! So, you want to write a queer character? Great! Your fiction will be more realistic, and your audience will thank you for your respect. Of course, it can be challenging to write outside your comfort zone, but it’s definitely not impossible. For our purposes, your writing will fall into one of three categories, and your approach will vary slightly depending on the category. 1) Historical Fiction As with any kind of historical fiction, research is your friend. How did people live during your time period? If someone didn’t want a traditional marriage or a traditional gender role, what other options were available? In ancient history, the culture might be open to male homosexuality but not female, or open to all homosexuality as long as all parties went home to their opposite-sex partners at the end of the day. Other cultures and time periods were less hospitable, and people had to find creative ways to break taboos. What code words and signals would a gay man use to meet other men in the 1900s versus the 1950s? The most important thing to remember is that queer people have existed in every time and place, you just have to find them. It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom either, even if you’re dealing with a restrictive time period. Queer people can make their own happy endings, if that’s what your story needs — look at Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, a lesbian couple in early-1800s America who lived in a de facto marriage for 44 years. It can happen. 2) Contemporary Fiction With a story set in the present, research is still your friend, but in this case you’re fortunate to have all the primary sources you could possibly want! Talk to people, read blogs, read books, find out what it’s like. Use resources like the Diversity Cross Check tumblr to locate people willing to answer questions. We’re in a transitional phase at the moment where homosexuality is becoming commonplace, but we’re not stopping there. People are exploring all kinds of new identities and understandings. Labels are many, varied, and personal. As a writer, terminology is something to treat with great care, keeping your character’s personality and backstory in mind. Some people are accustomed to the word “queer” being derogatory, and would never apply it to themselves. Others, like me, use the term as a general catchall for LGBTQQIA+ (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Questioning Intersex Asexual and more.) People fall onto a whole gender spectrum far beyond male/female, and they have any number of pronouns to go with those identities. As a writer, if you’re not sure you’re using a term correctly or representing an identity accurately, hold off on that using it or presenting that character until you’re confident. The most important thing here is that a queer person is probably not thinking about their queerness every second of the day. It’s totally fine to write an “issues” book or a coming-out novel, but don’t be limited by that — queerness doesn’t have to be the plot! 3) Science Fiction/Fantasy In these genres, it’s totally up to you! You don’t have to worry about what it was “really” like in some other time period, you can design your world any way you want. If your story is based on Earth or is meant to be a human future, then modern issues might be an influence. If not, or if you’re far enough into the future, you have free reign to create not just characters but whole societies. This can be especially interesting if you want to explore different ideas of gender, like in the recent award-winning Ancillary series by Ann Leckie. As with terminology, you’ll want to be reasonably secure in your point of view to avoid accidentally creating a world with unfortunate implications that will reflect back on you as an author. That’s easy to do even for the most well-meaning of creators. I’m not trying to scare you off, though. The most important thing here, and really with any genre, is to have the queer characters! Even if they aren’t central, you can still reference how queer people fit into the society you’ve created. If they’re totally nonexistent, if there’s no place for them at all, then I’ve got news for you… You’re writing a dystopia! One More Most-Important Thing Including the queer characters really is the most-est important, even if you make mistakes. In most circumstances and for most stories, you’ll write a queer character just like any other. But if you’re having trouble, or you feel like your research is getting the better of you, it never hurts to try things the other way around: Look at your existing lineup and try some experiments. What would happen if your POV character came out? Could one of your characters be transgender? At the least you’ll get some good practice in conceiving fully-formed queer people, and while you’re doing that, you may find your characters are already queerer than you thought! Guest Blogger: Hannah Givens is a history and museum studies student in the Deep South. She blogs about history, pop culture, sci-fi writing, and queer issues of all kinds. She is also the founder of the twitter hashtag, #queerpop, and a member of the Non-Binary Book Club. Find her at Thing Matter, or on Twitter with @HannahEGivens. More posts you might like

Written Arts Program Presents Monday, March 26, 2018 A Reading by Sandra Allen László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building The author reads from their book, A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia On Monday, March 26, at 7 p.m. in the László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Performance Space, Sandra Allen will read from their book, A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are required. In 2009, writer Sandra Allen got something in the mail from their uncle Bob. It was his autobiography, typed on 60 pages in all-capital letters. Bob was a self-described "hermit" who lived in a Californian desert. Allen didn't know him well. On the phone, he said he wanted to get his story "out there" because it was "true." In A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia, Allen shares Bob's story with the world. AKOMP is written in two fonts. In one, Allen tells their uncle Bob's life story faithfully to his account—animating his childhood and teenage years in tumultuous late-'60s Berkeley, California. His world was changed irrevocably when one day, at age 16, he was driven to a mental hospital, locked in a cell, and injected with antipsychotics. In a second font, Allen interlaces familial, historical, and medical contexts, seeking especially to better understand the "label" Bob received: "psychotic paranoid schizophrenic." The result is an utterly unique and electrifying work, one poised to change conversation about schizophrenia and about mental illness generally. "Thrilling writing . . . The interest and the quality of the story make honesty about each aspect of this strange life worth including. . . . A watershed in empathetic adaptation of 'outsider' autobiography." —The New Republic ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sandra Allen grew up in Northern California, studied nonfiction writing at Brown, and received an MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program. In 2009, they cofounded the digital literary quarterly Wag's Revue, which they ran for many years until its final issue in 2015. From 2013 to 2015, they were deputy features editor at Buzzfeed News. Allen's own features and essays have appeared in Pop-Up Magazine, BuzzFeed News, and elsewhere, and are forthcoming in Pacific Standard and them. They live in the Catskills and are non-binary (pronouns she/them). More at www.sandraeallen.com. Time: 7:00 pm Location: László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building

Oxfam has long touted its dedication to promoting gender equality for women and girls, despite its reputation being marred in recent years by its lax approach to allegations of sexual exploitation of those very groups in places like Haiti. Imagine my shock, then, at Oxfam’s apparent capitulation to woke virtue-signalling by withdrawing children’s bingo game, ‘Wonder Women’, that celebrates female trailblazers of the past and present from its stores and online, due to apparent ‘concerns’ voiced by transgender and non-binary staff members. Oxfam was not clear on what exactly these concerns were, but the charity reportedly told the Mail on Sunday that it took the decision because of concerns that it ‘didn’t live up to [their] commitment to respect people of all genders’. Now, there are numerous theories as to what exact values the game is in opposition to. Could it be the inclusion of gender-critical JK Rowling and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie amongst the pictures of 48 other inspirational women? If so, how ridiculous a suggestion that is that these women should have their achievements erased from history, especially by a charity that claims to champion women’s rights. Labour activist and journalist Owen Jones took it upon himself to post a message he received from a reported employee at Oxfam that claimed the game being pulled had nothing to do with this, but was due to the incorrect reference to actor Elliot Page, who has recently transitioned, as a woman. Interestingly, however, the anonymous individual also did admit that as part of a discussion with head office, it was ‘briefly explained’ that the UK had a ‘massive Terf problem’, (that being the derogatory name used by trans activists to smear gender-critical feminists), and that JK Rowling had a ‘part in it’. This is of course ignoring the fact that the game also includes individuals such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai amongst others, but focussing on the issue of Elliot Page for a moment, I fail to see how the inclusion of the actor warrants a transgression by Oxfam, considering the vast majority of Elliot’s established career was as a woman due to them being born a girl, and they only announced their transition in December 2020. Even then, instead of pulling the game from their stores completely, surely Oxfam could have replaced the outdated copies of the game? Its publisher, Laurence King, said that they had immediately recommissioned an updated copy after Page’s announcement. Regardless of what the reasons for pulling the game are, one only needs to look to Oxfam’s vague explanation to see that this is yet another example of the comical hand-wringing by the chattering classes. Oxfam clearly felt it was safer to get rid of the game altogether. Just look at the way the likes of Professor Kathleen Stock was harangued by intolerant trans activists at Sussex University that demanded she lose her job, simply for daring to express gender critical views, which are a legally protected characteristic in the UK following the landmark tribunal case involving Maya Forstater, whose contract was not renewed for committing the crime of believing in biological sex. And these concerns are even echoed by volunteers at Oxfam. The Times reported that a volunteer of ten years had handed in her notice at the charity because of the removal of the game, feeling as though ‘women are under attack. We’re [women] not allowed to have a word to ourselves’. How can this be right? How can it be that celebrations of women are readily erased as though they mean nothing? For many of us, this is more than a game. If women’s rights are to stand the rest of time, one first needs to accept the existence of biological sex. There’s no question about it.

I’m attending the Web 2.0 Expo at the Moscone Center in SF this week. First up is the High Performance Webpages workshop, presented by the Yahoo! Exceptionial Performance team. Pretty interesting so far. Their primary thesis is that 80-90% of user-perceived response time is client-side and images; only 5-10% is the actual generation and downloading of HTML. Even if the user has cached a lot (they’re visitng the page again), the percentages don’t change much. Some of the interesting facts they’re citing: - The percentages cited above (HTML-generation vs. other things in user-perceived response time) is pretty consistent across the 10 biggest properties on the web. - 40-60% of unique users visit with Yahoo with an empty cache. ~20% of total page views are with an empty cache; higher than you’d think. - Base cookie sizes for some major web properties set at their splash page (in bytes): - Amazon 60 - Google 72 - Yahoo 122 - CNN 184 - YouTube 218 - MSN 268 - eBay 331 - MySpace 500 - Use at least 2 but no more than 4 aliases (hostnames) for images from a single HTML page because the browser will download 2 objects in parallel per alias. More aliases leads to CPU thrashing and more DNS lookups. - 14 Rules (in rough priority order): - Make fewer HTTP requests - Use image maps to reduce # of images. - Use CSS sprites; <span style=”background-image: …; background-position: -100px -100px;”>. - Use inline images, but not supported in IE; binary of image is in HTML! (The binary is in the HTML?!? Oh my god, that hurts my sensibilities!) - Use a CDN (like Akamai; not practical for small sites) - Add an Expires header (set it far in the future) - Gzip components (not just html files but all non-binary ones of a non-trivial size) - Put CSS at the top - Where you’re supposed to, because pages don’t layout until all the .css files are downloaded. - Move JS to the bottom - Not where you expect to put it. Put it as late as possible in the code because downloading .js files block the browsers from parallel downloading of other assets (like images). - Avoid CSS expressions (ones that are calculated off other things; way too much processing) - Make JS and CSS external (this makes it cacheable) - Reduce DNS lookups - Minify JS (“minify” is a word? Huh, I guess it is. In dev-talk, it means to remove unnecessary whitespace.) - Avoid redirects - Remove duplicate scripts - Turn off ETags - Entity tags prevent caching by the browser because ETags are never the same for the same asset across different servers, so for a multi-server farm, it does a lot of harm. - Make AJAX cacheable and small - Make fewer HTTP requests Update: They posted the presentation; it’s been the best session so far, IMHO.

Content warning: this article discusses eating disorders. Mental disorders are tough. Eating disorders are deadly. Deadly eating disorders in the midst of a deadly virus pandemic are… pure comedy? Or so says Angela Gulner. Gulner co-created and stars in the indie dark comedy web series BINGE, which follows the life of a character grappling with bulimia (also named Angela, and based on Gulner’s life experience) during COVID-19. The third episode of the series just dropped, and might have you laughing despite yourself. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all mental disorders. One in five anorexia deaths is a suicide. Eating disorders are more common amongst certain demographics, like sexual minorities, women over 50, transgender college students, or active duty military personnel. Bulimia specifically, which is properly called bulimia nervosa, affects 4.7 million women and 1.5 million men in the US (no mention of non-binary people!). It’s often accompanied by mood or anxiety disorders, and sometimes by substance abuse. While not fully understood, the disorder usually seems to be triggered by environmental stressors like bullying or fatphobic microaggressions. Bulimia doesn’t always manifest in outward changes of appearance, the way anorexia or other eating disorders commonly do, so it often goes undetected and untreated. A person can live secretly with bulimia for long periods of time. It’s different from binge eating disorder because it’s characterized by cycles of purging (usually vomiting) and/or compensatory behavior, like over-exercising. Gulner says her struggle with bulimia lasted 10 years. And now she’s using that experience to reach out to other people walking through eating disorders, inviting them to laugh at their own chaos and lack of control. It’s tragic material, but it makes for some biting humor. “I mean that’s the whole point of the comedy and tragedy masks, right? It’s theater school 101,” Gulner says. “What is comedy? What is tragedy? Are the sad parts actually funny? Is the funny part deeply sad? Yes and yes. They’re the same thing.” This philosophy has led Gulner to craft what she calls the “anti-after-school-special,” or AASS. She says she grew up seeing eating disorders only depicted in the kind of schmaltzy Lifetime movies that minimize and over simplify deep and genuine struggles. “Those after school specials told us that one day Mom would come sit on the bed and we’d have a cathartic heart-to-heart that would fix everything,” Gulner says. “Surprise! It never happened. Or if it did, it didn’t work. Because it doesn’t work that way.” She says it’s important to show bulimia as it really is: messy, raw, and sometimes tragically funny. “Bulimia is a complex disorder, and it’s underrepresented in media,” she says, adding that people suffering from all eating disorders deserve to have stories that reflect their struggles without being saccharine or patronizing. And she says the response to BINGE has been overly positive. “People from all over the world have been writing in saying ‘thank you’ and telling us they finally feel seen,” Gulner says. She and series director and co-creator Yuri Baranovsky, who say while the decision to produce BINGE independently was initially to prove it was a story people wanted to hear (spoiler alert: 1.6 million views on the Pilot episode say yes), they’ve come to realize that greater creative control has helped them better reach their audience. “We had this tight, polished pilot with a good concept, but we couldn’t find anyone to pick up the series because they kept saying the material was too niche, or too dangerous,” says Baranovsky. “Except, you know, it’s not. First of all, eating disorders affect millions of people worldwide, it’s not any more niche than alcoholism and somehow we’re okay with every other show having a charming alcoholic male lead. Secondly, if Fleabag showed us anything, it’s that audiences crave brutally honest and funny stories. At some point we decided, you know what? If no one is brave enough to make it, we’ll do it ourselves. And it’s been a big success for us.” “Not to say that we wouldn’t be glad to make this for Netflix,” Gulner adds with a laugh. Gulner’s performance as Angela is informed by a dark time in her life, but she says she works to emphasize hope. “I think the completeness of my own recovery can encourage others in their healing,” she says. “I look back on it now, and it’s like a distant past life.” The BINGE crew and their production studio, Happy Little Guillotine, have found innovative ways to continue production while social distancing, enabling them to shoot a three episode in-quarantine miniseries called, Binge: How to Lose Weight in the Apocalypse. They released a new episode this week. And the show isn’t just for people with eating disorders. If you’ve ever been sick of yourself, or curled up on the floor and moaned into a wadded up bathrobe because life has slammed you with one too many frustrating dead ends, you’ll probably get a laugh out of it. Or maybe a tear. Comedy is tragedy, after all.

Corey Alexander is at high risk of homelessness and needs your help. Two years ago, Corey was hit by a car. Ever since the hit and run, they have been struggling with substantially increased PTSD symptoms and chronic pain. These symptoms worsened at the beginning of 2016. Corey was no longer able to work and went into full time psychiatric treatment. After treatment, they were not able to return to work, and will not able to return to work in the near future (if at all). Corey has been living on state disability (SDI) for the last year, and has applied for federal disability (SSDI), but the application process takes a long time. Right now, it is not clear when SSDI will kick in; and state disability is running out in May. There is NO chance Corey will begin receiving SSDI in May. In other words, at the end of May, Corey will be without the resources to pay for shelter, food, and medication. Corey's disability advocates are telling them that they are at high risk for homelessness. Corey cannot survive being homeless. Corey’s disabilities make having a safe home a necessity for their continued ability to manage pain, access medication, cope with limited mobility, and manage their PTSD. Not having a safe home will make both their physical and psychological symptoms increase dramatically, and is not something they are likely to survive. Budget: $1300/mo, for 12 months= $15,600. Rent: $780/mo. Bills & Incidentals: $250. Food: $270 Corey's done so much for our communities. Now we're asking those communities to give back to them. Corey is a queer, trans, fat disabled educator and writer who writes romance and erotica under the name Xan West. Some of you may be familiar with Corey's writing and activism on the intersection of disability, LGBTQIA, and kink. Corey has written about trauma and coping on their blog and via #DailyCoping threads on Twitter. Corey writes about disabled daily life and LGBTQIA issues in essays, Twitter threads, and in their fiction. Their blog offers resources for writers, particularly around trans, fat, and disability representation. Recently, they have created a resource collecting reviews of trans and/or non-binary literature, written by trans and/or non-binary reviewers. Corey spent twenty years in the field of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. They were a hotline and shelter volunteer, and a volunteer community educator. They spent a decade working full time supporting and training staff and supervisors at a large victim assistance agency. Corey is now too disabled to continue work in this field, and supports survivors by offering resources online. Corey is devoted to creating quality community sexuality and kink education for queer and kink communities and has consistently volunteered since 1994, both teaching and creating educational programming. They co-led queer support groups, helped create a model for anti-heterosexism peer education, was a Triangle Speaker, and co-founded a queer fat activist support and education group called FATTYS (Fat and Tired of Taking Your Shit). They founded the Queer SIG at The Eulenspiegal Society, co-organizing queer kink education for the first three years. They ran programming at The Floating World 2010 (over 100 classes). They active in the CC4D collective, organizing for better trans inclusion at LSM. They volunteered at queer conferences like NOLOSE, Butch Voices, and Forge Forward to offer tailored sexuality and kink education for queer communities dear to their heart. As Corey has become more disabled and in-person volunteer work is less possible, Corey has continued to invest in community education by working to translate their kink and sexuality educationmaterials to make them accessible for free on the web. They are working within their own limitations to continue to create access to quality information about kink and sexuality. Together we can help Corey survive and thrive. Please give generously and boost the signal.

This is an archived page from 2022. Find out more A new 3-episode bilingual podcast series launches today to celebrate the International Day of Transgender Visibility. It’s called Transitioning In Translation, or Traduzindo a transição in Portuguese. Each episode will be available in both Portuguese and English. The series tells the stories of Brazilians Jakob and Wendlle and their experiences with gender transitioning in Australia, also a special episode with psychologist and specialist in gender transitioning, Patricia Martins. For Wendlle, the podcast is actually the first step towards discussing their transition with their family. This is one standout quote for me; “I asked my sister to show (my family) some videos about transgender people, non-binary people just to get started but I think this interview with SBS might be a first step for us to have this conversation in the future.”

Sexual Health for Trans and Non-Binary People This SWAN event organised in collaboration with QUB, the South Eastern Trust, Sail and Gender Jam will provide free training for health professionals and students on including transgender and non-binary people in sexual health. Discussions and training will focus on, specific community sexual health needs, language and cultural competency, and best practice for inclusive care. - Date: Tuesday 6th Feb 2018 - Start Time: 9.30 - End Time: 13.30 - Location: South Dining Hall, QUB - Organiser's Name: QUB, South Eastern trust, Sail & Gender jam - Related URL Link: Click Here

During Toronto’s Fringe Festival in July, Venus Fest acted as a musical curator for Fringe’s Postscript Patio happening at Dundas and Bathurst and the K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation is a proud supporter of this exciting and meaningful project. For the second year in a row, Venus Fest curated a mini music festival featuring a lineup of all women and non-binary artists and offering free, accessible, outdoor programming for Fringe-goers, music lovers, and Toronto residents right in the heart of downtown. The lineup included performances by No Joy, Nuela Charles, Moscow Apartment, New Chance, Maylee Todd, and many more, and was designed to create a showcasing platform for established and developing women and non-binary artists to support their visibility within the city. Photo above of Camille Jodoin-Eng and Charlotte Cardin at The Opera House.

Hannah Frilot Scholarship In memory of Hannah Frilot, this annual scholarship supports an undergraduate student following in Hannah’s footsteps, pursuing interests in a STEM major. A scholar is chosen annually to receive a $1,000 scholarship. Hannah, an industrial engineering student, had an impact across the campus, from her work as a UMass IT student staffer, to being treasurer of the Pride Alliance, to her support of the Stonewall Center. With her many interests and involvement on- and off-campus in mind, preference will be given to women and gender non-binary students active in their community and studying in a STEM field.

I’ve written a piece for the Dublin Inquirer on how inclusive LGBTQ+ club nights are for trans people and LGBTQ+ women. It can be read here. This article was originally published in the University Observer in March 2017. It was later published online. David Monaghan speaks to Senator David Norris as he receives UCD LGBTQ+’s Foy-Zappone Award. IN JUNE 1993, homosexuality was decriminalised within Irish law as a result of the Criminal Fraud (Sexual Offences) Bill. A century-old law that saw LGBTQ+ people thrown into prisons, beaten, tortured and analysed as sexual pariahs had finally been overruled, and many felt they could now begin the long journey to feeling like they were welcomed in Irish society. The progenitor from which the momentum for decriminalisation came was David Norris, a former Joycean academic-cum-Senator, who kick-started the movement in the late 1970s. It is because of his efforts that many are no longer considered criminals in their home country, and why successive generations of LGBTQ+ individuals are now unaware of the threat those handcuffs held. In February 2017, nearly 24 years since his efforts to increase the rights of sexual minorities in the country resulted in decriminalisation, David Norris has been honoured by UCD’s LGBTQ+ society. He recently received the annual ‘Foy-Zappone Award’, a prize reserved for anyone seen to do remarkable work within the field of LGBTQ+ rights advancement. It is named for Dr. Lydia Foy and Katherine Zappone TD, the inaugural recipients of the prestigious award, and Norris is the fourth person to be honoured since its inception in 2014. David Norris and long-time friend Mary Robinson. Photo credit: senatordavidnorris.ie Known for his jovial attitude, before the prize-giving began, Norris joked with society members and recounted various anecdotes from his career as a political activist: “I was once approached by a man who was worried his dog was gay,” he quipped. The event began with a short screening of an RTÉ recording from 1975, featuring Norris being interviewed by the late Áine O’Connor – possibly the first time an openly gay man had been seen on Irish television – as the somewhat younger but still recognisable activist is asked upfront if he is sick. “When they approached me,” says Norris, addressing the audience that had formed to hear him speak, “they said, ‘well, we’ll have your back to the camera and disguise your voice,’ and I said, ‘well then I’m not doing it,’ because the whole point in being on television […] was to disprove the idea that we’re monsters.” “If they had me sat there like the Elephant Man, back to the camera, in shadow, using a disguised voice, of course people would think I’m a fucking monster.” Of course, RTÉ suggesting something like this was symptomatic of the time: many gay people were simply too afraid to be vocal about their sexuality in public for fear of violent backlash, or in extreme cases, incarceration. Norris, however, never shied away from discussing his sexuality, and he took his first baby steps towards campaigning for equal rights in 1969, as he informed the audience: “There was an advertisement on the back page of the Observer newspaper and it said ‘Homosexual? […] Send address on envelope to The Campaign for Homosexual Equality, 28-something street, Manchester.’ And I sent off my ten bob […] and became a member.” “IF THEY HAD ME SAT THERE LIKE THE ELEPHANT MAN, BACK TO THE CAMERA, IN SHADOW, USING A DISGUISED VOICE, OF COURSE PEOPLE WOULD THINK I’M A FUCKING MONSTER.” In the very early 1970s, Norris’s activism became more overt, shifting from the personal sphere to the public. Seeing the Troubles unfold in Northern Ireland, Norris was involved in the formation of the ‘Southern Ireland Civil Rights Association’, which was established to show solidarity with oppressed Catholics north of the border. Although a member of the Church of Ireland, he felt Roman Catholics were being treated with contempt, but he became incensed when fellow campaigners suggested Presbyterians were more tolerant in the Republic, prompting Norris to stand up and say, as he recalls now: “‘You think you don’t discriminate but you do. I am ‘homosexual’’ – that’s the way we said it in those days, as if we were a species of rare butterfly – and I eventually persuaded them to include reform of the criminal law as part of their agenda, and that was the first time in Ireland that any group had committed itself to law reform.” David Norris speaking to Áine O’Connor on RTÉ television in 1975, as chairman of the Irish Gay Rights Movement. Despite this initial success there soon followed a brief hiatus in Norris’s overt campaigning until 1973. He explained to the audience that a conference was held in Trinity College at this time on the broad topic of sexuality, but as the event progressed it became increasingly apparent that most of the attendees were interested in the more specific and much more taboo subject of homosexuality. Norris continues: “Then they started another conference in 1973 that I went to, and they had various people from England coming over, [such as] the editor of Sappho, a lesbian magazine, and we had our own people, like Hugo McManus.” Out of this sprung the Sexual Liberation Movement, of which David Norris was a member. Disappointed with the direction the group was taking, he led the first split and formed what became known as the Irish Gay Rights Movement. The first event was held by IGRM on the grounds of Trinity College. Norris, expecting a meagre 20 or so interested patrons, was shocked to find that, in fact, 250 people had shown up. “That set my little nose wriggling,” Norris jokes, “and I thought, ‘oh, there’s money to be made in this’.” “I AM ‘HOMOSEXUAL’’ – THAT’S THE WAY WE SAID IT IN THOSE DAYS, AS IF WE WERE A SPECIES OF RARE BUTTERFLY” The IGRM then began regularly holding discotheques. Later, Norris helped found the Hirschfeld Centre in Temple Bar, Dublin, which became a social hub for an oppressed and overlooked minority for many years after its inception. Norris recalls: “On the night it opened – St. Patrick’s Day, 1979 […] 450 people turned up! This surging, seething mob outside [was] trying to push the doors in […] I noticed that the floorboards were deflected, because of people dancing […] So I stopped the music and made the announcement […] and got hissed and booed, and then somebody said, ‘c’mon now lads, at least somebody gives a shit about our welfare.’” Norris and company began work on fixing the issue and the Hirschfeld Centre was up and running again weeks later. Although he enjoyed working at the Centre, Norris admits that he knew little of the music that was played at the venue: “This led to me interrogating Freddie Mercury over his membership card and whether it was up to date – and I did the same to Elton John! I hadn’t a clue who they were!” The Hirschfeld Centre, although successful, was targeted numerous times. Norris informed the audience of one such occasion: “I was in the office on the top floor […] and I could see sparks [coming from the roof]. When I got up I found a bomb […] Someone had put […] two milk churns full of explosives, one on each side of a barrel of petrol, and they had poured petrol on the roof and thrown up firelighters […] the idea was to heat up the roof, and that would explode the milk churns, blow the lid off the barrel of petrol, blow the roof off, and send flaming streaks of petrol down to the discotheque, where about 300 people would have been burnt to death.” “THIS LED TO ME INTERROGATING FREDDIE MERCURY OVER HIS MEMBERSHIP CARD AND WHETHER IT WAS UP TO DATE – AND I DID THE SAME TO ELTON JOHN! I HADN’T A CLUE WHO THEY WERE!” Horrified, Norris entered fight or flight mode and used fire extinguishers he had carried with him to put out the firelighters. It was a narrow escape. The Hirschfeld Centre eventually burned down in 1987: “I was in bed about 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning,” Norris recalls, “and I was called down as a key holder […] and I ascertained that nobody had been injured, the archive was rescued, and the insurance was in place [and] I sat back to enjoy the fire.” The Irish Gay Rights Movement, which had been founded by Norris, was about to experience another major split, as he explained to the audience at the award ceremony: “I was pushing for political change and public agitation – and this was a very, very frightened community at this stage, we really were threatened by the criminal law […] and a lot of people didn’t want [public agitation]. They wanted [us] to keep our heads down, and to be quiet, and to have discos, and meet somebody to go to bed with […] all these perfectly natural human things, but they wanted to cut out the political things.” Image via The Irish Queer Archive. David Norris then moved on to form the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, which aimed to change the status of male same-sex activity in Irish law, then illegal. In 1983, Norris took this challenge to the High Court, and later the Supreme Court – where he was represented by former President Mary Robinson – and it was rejected both times. The case was then brought before the European Court of Human Rights by Norris and Robinson, the latter of whom had made the submission, where it was found that Ireland’s anti-gay law breached the European Convention on Human Rights. “We won by one vote,” Norris reflects. “And there were about twenty judges, so it was very narrow. The Irish judge, of course, [voted] against us.” This ruling paved the way for decriminalisation by the Irish government in June 1993. With such a vast, long-standing and notable career in campaigning for the advancement of gay rights, it is unsurprising that Norris would be selected as the next recipient of the Foy-Zappone award. Speaking to OTwo after a long talk, and a round of questions, he is quick to inform that receiving such accolades always comes as a surprise: “I’m surprised people remember these things, because my policy is to go straight on to the next thing and keep forging ahead, and I don’t look back very much, so it’s lovely.” “I NOTICED THAT THE FLOORBOARDS WERE DEFLECTED, BECAUSE OF PEOPLE DANCING […] SO I STOPPED THE MUSIC AND MADE THE ANNOUNCEMENT […] AND GOT HISSED AND BOOED, AND THEN SOMEBODY SAID, ‘C’MON NOW LADS, AT LEAST SOMEBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT OUR WELFARE.’” The audience that had come to hear Norris speak and receive the award was comprised mostly of people in their twenties. “A lot of young people don’t realise it was a criminal offense, which surprises me,” Norris admits. Senator Norris made headlines in 2013 when it was announced that he had developed cancer on his liver, and he had to undergo a transplant in late 2014 as a result. A month before receiving the Foy-Zappone Award, he signed off from his duties at Leinster House for a time, citing a chest infection. “I couldn’t breathe,” Norris explains, “I couldn’t do anything, and I was put straight into hospital […] Then they found I had a very severe form of diabetes […] But my energy levels, physically, are not what they used to be.” Has Norris’s physical health impacted on his work in the Seanad? “I used to speak on absolutely everything,” he says. “But now I’m much more targeted. I select the issues on which I could make an impact, and I speak on those. For example: Alice Mary Higgins [Senator for the Civil Engagement group] put down a thing on the Canadian Trade Agreement, and I did my research on it and made a really passionate speech, and my speech led to Fianna Fáil abstaining, and the government were defeated […] which was good, but some of the other issues that are going around I just leave them.” Image via LetsMakeHistory.ie. One issue that Norris has spoken about is the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment, which currently prohibits women from attaining legal abortions in Ireland. “I think [the eighth amendment] is dreadful,” he says. “I don’t understand how somebody outside a relationship, with no connection to the people involved, can presume in their arrogance to tell a fourteen-year-old girl who has been raped by a neighbour, that she has to keep the child. I think there should be choice: if women keep the child in those situations, or in terms of fatal foetal abnormality, or rape, or incest, then that’s wonderful and I admire them for it, but I definitely think they should have the choice.” In 2011, Senator Norris entered the race to become the ninth President of Ireland, a position hotly contested by six other candidates. Support initially fell in his favour, with Stephen Fry even tweeting that Ireland “couldn’t have a more intelligent, passionate, knowledgeable, witty or committed President” than the famed Senator. However, it was revealed in July of that year that Norris, over a decade previously, had used notepaper with the Oireachtas letterhead to send a letter to the Israeli High Court. He asked for clemency in the trial of his former partner, left-wing activist Ezra Nawi, who was convicted of statutory rape. Norris withdrew from the race later that same month, but re-entered in September when it seemed support was moving in his favour again. Norris eventually lost to Labour Party candidate Michael D. Higgins. “I’VE ALWAYS BEEN FAIRLY LOQUACIOUS, SO THAT DIDN’T REALLY CONCERN ME AT ALL, AND I NEVER FELT IT WAS A BURDEN. THERE WAS OFTEN QUITE A LOT OF FUN INVOLVED IN IT, AND I WAS QUITE IRREVERENT IN THE INTERVIEWS I GAVE.” Reflecting on this period, Norris calls it a “destructive and homophobic experience.” He elaborates: “RTÉ put out jokes that [said] ‘David Norris would like it up the Áras’ […] If they had said that kind of thing about women, they would have been burnt to the ground. They said I advocated parents having sex with their own children – I mean, crazy, crazy stuff […] And then also the Israeli Government were involved in releasing information which only they had about the case Ezra [Nawi] was involved in, which was actually a honey-trap by the Israeli police.” Norris continues: “my whole campaign team — bar three people — buggered off and left me. Not one of them officially resigned. I learned it on the Nine O’Clock News […] that the principle PR woman […] no longer worked for Norris campaign. It was devastating – the utter scandalous disloyalty.” Despite losing after an embittering and dramatic race, Norris feels that our current President, Michael D. Higgins has done a stellar job. “I do think we have an excellent President […] He’s a little academic [and] if you tune into his speeches, if you’re tuned into his wave-length, they are brilliant.” Flikkers Dance Club in the Hirschfeld Centre 1985/6. (Photo: Tonie Walsh). The Senator has seen huge political and social changes in his lifetime, particularly in the area of LGBTQ+ rights. Having been born into a state in which he was considered a criminal, Norris now lives in a country where he need not live in fear of incarceration simply because of who he is, where anti-discrimination laws exist in LGBTQ+ individuals’ favour in areas of employment, the provision of goods and services, and speech, and where he can not only adopt children, but also marry the partner of his choice. And this is to say nothing of the Gender Recognition Bill, which allows Ireland’s trans citizens to change gender on legal forms without interference from doctors or psychologists. “I rarely thought about [the changes that were possible],” Norris explains. “I had a series of defined targets at each stage. The first one was knocking out the criminal law, and then building on the social and human rights legislations. So I was usually targeting an immediate object, and planning and strategizing for that, rather than looking beyond that, at the next thing, because that would have been a waste of time.” When asked if he ever felt a burden of responsibility in being one of the first openly-gay public figures in Ireland, Norris responds with a firm and decisive “no,” adding: “I’ve always been fairly loquacious, so that didn’t really concern me at all, and I never felt it was a burden. There was often quite a lot of fun involved in it, and I was quite irreverent in the interviews I gave.” This article originally appeared on the HeadStuff website on March 16th, 2017. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius is a poignant reflection on ageing, a focused character study on the protagonist Clara (Sônia Braga), who tries to live her life in spite of multiple intrusions to its status quo. Although the socio-economic conditions of modern Brazil exist on the peripheries, make no mistake, this is a film about an individual and her quest for inner peace in her increasingly tumultuous personal life. The film centres on the ageing Clara, called ‘Dona Clara’ by friends, a retired journalist, as she struggles to hold on to an apartment her family has held for generations. She refuses to sell to a construction company looking to own the property, despite being the last person left in the building, even as she faces pressure from her closest family to accept a deal. The construction company’s attempts to persuade Clara turn sinister and they stage orgies and religious gatherings in apartments upstairs, forcing our determined and caustic protagonist to take action. The film’s opening sets the tone: we are introduced to a young Clara (Bárbara Colen) who attends the 70th birthday party of her aunt Lucia (Thaia Perez). Friends and relatives gather and recount Lucia’s various achievements, and it is discovered Clara has recently survived a battle with cancer. While Lucia’s achievements are listed – she entered Law at a time in Brazil’s history when it was difficult for women to engage with such systems – her mind wanders elsewhere: she recalls moments of intimacy from her youth while her nieces and nephews speak, and reminds them that in their recollections they skipped over the ‘sexual revolution’ of which she was a proponent. The film then moves to the present and shifts focus to the now older Clara, who appears to be inspired by her vivacious aunt. She reels against the passage of time, refusing to let age be a determining factor in what she can or cannot do: she simultaneously owns records and cassettes alongside digital formats like .mp3 files, and her battle to retain her long-time home, despite outside interference, becomes an extension of this. Clara desperately tries to hold on to her youth, and long, focused shots of a cabinet owned by her aunt Lucia, whose apartment she now occupies, articulates this struggle of sentimentality versus a more exterior, harsher reality. “I am a child and an old lady all together,” she tells her now grown-up children. This film is to be applauded for its depiction of the ageing female body. A close-up in the film’s first act briefly depicts Clara naked, her right breast removed via mastectomy, and it is not shown for the appeasement of the heterosexual male gaze. Rather, it appears to emphasise her character’s long history, and by not expressing nudity in a sexual, performative or submissive manner – Clara appears naked not to fulfill the needs of a male contemporary, but rather to wash her body – the film asserts her independence and highlights her solitary existence. When Clara experiences sexual intimacy – she is accosted by a widower at a dance club, and later hires a gigolo – she asserts dominance, guiding her male partners in the act. The film is unabashed in its depiction of ageing sexualities and champions the sexual prowess of its middle-aged protagonist. Of course, in a film that is more focused on impalpable themes of ageing and the passage of time, the plot takes a backseat until the film’s final act, at which point, much to the film’s detriment, it takes centre-stage. The text loses momentum here when it attempts to wrap up things up having spent a concentrated amount of time on subtext. However, without giving too much away, it delivers one of the most satisfying endings in recent memory as Clara stands up to her tormentors in a climax designed to please. In all, Aquarius is a beautiful-looking film (Mendonça Filho makes ample use of each frame, filling the text with a plethora of visual information that it warrants repeat viewing), with a poignant and nuanced depiction of one woman’s struggle against the passage of time. It is a case study in determination and will power, and a celebration of its middle-aged protagonist. Aquarius is in cinemas March 24th. View the trailer below. This article originally appeared on the HeadStuff website on March 14th, 2017. On March 8th, an estimated 10,000 people partook in a march in Dublin to protest Ireland’s Eighth Amendment, which positions the life of the unborn as equal to that of its mother. This restricts abortion access for Irish women and forces many to travel to the UK in order to avail of the country’s more progressive abortion laws. According to the website of the Irish Family Planning Association, approximately 166,951 women traveled to the UK between 1980 and 2015 in order to make use of this legislation. The mental and physical toll of this journey, coupled with the stigma many face upon a return to their native country, has been a subject of great anger for campaigners since the Eighth Amendment’s implementation in the October of 1983. Although the march attracted a lot of media attention both at home and abroad, appearing on CNN and Buzzfeed, Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTÉ, instead focused its news report last Wednesday on the worldwide significance of International Women’s Day, neglecting to mention the implications of such a movement in Ireland. They did not reference attendance figures, the Eighth Amendment, and also dedicated equal time during the broadcast to the rise in stamp prices. “We set this up basically because we shut down the city twice last Wednesday, there were marches all over the country, we had solidarity come in from all over the world, and [there wasn’t]a peep from RTÉ. We decided to bring the story to their doorstep.” This angered activists Eva Griffin, Sadhbh Ní Bhroin and Síofra Dempsey, who together organised a protest outside RTÉ studios on Monday, March 13th, in order to hold the broadcaster to account for its blatant misrepresentation of the march. Speaking at the protest, Ní Bhroin outlined the reasons for organising such an event: “We set this up basically because we shut down the city twice last Wednesday, there were marches all over the country, we had solidarity come in from all over the world, and [there wasn’t]a peep from RTÉ. We decided to bring the story to their doorstep.” Echoing Ní Bhroin’s comments was co-organiser Eva Griffin: “After the strike and march on Wednesday, I saw a lot of people […] complaining online about the RTÉ coverage, which consisted of […] ten seconds of the strike, which they actually bought from another source, used as a segue into a story on the gender pay gap, which is obviously important, but they skipped over the biggest story in Ireland at the time.” Also at the event was Síofra Dempsey: “The purpose […] is to make it clear to RTÉ, and to the state, that they can’t ignore the issue of Repeal the 8th. It’s something they want to sweep under the rug and pretend isn’t happening, and by not reporting [on the march], RTÉ are directly colluding with the state in covering up, so we want to make that impossible for them in organising a protest.” Griffin set up the Facebook page ‘RTE Recognition 4 Repeal’ late last week, and overnight it attracted hundreds of interested participants. This was down to support from the Strike for Repeal movement, Trinity for Choice, UCD for Choice, ROSA, Amnesty Ireland’s Colm O’Gorman, and People Before Profit. Griffin continues: “The Facebook group blew up. Between attending and interested, there was over 1000 people.” The protest on the day attracted approximately 90 participants who joined together in chants of “Hey hey RTÉ / Put the strike on our TV,” and “Enda, Enda / We want a referendum.” The protest began at 4:30pm outside RTÉ’s side entrance at Nutley Lane, and eventually moved to Stillorgan Road where it continued until 6:30pm. It attracted attention from the Pro-Life Campaign and Liberal.ie’s Cora Sherlock, who is a noted Pro-Life advocate. In attendance at the protest was MA student Aisling Fulcher, who noted the broadcaster’s hypocrisy in claiming to be non-biased: “They obviously show a centre-right leaning [in not reporting the march], and if they say it’s their responsibility to provide fair and equal coverage, they should do that. They should do [their]job.” “[It’s important] that there’s more inclusion and intersectionality. With trans people and non-binary people, it’s a discussion that affects us too. Abortion is always talked about as a woman’s issue, but it also affects non-binary people and trans men, and there are added traumas they might have to go through as well” Representing Non-Binary+ Ireland at the protest was Kay Cairns, who spoke about a neglected minority in debates surrounding the Eighth Amendment: “[It’s important] that there’s more inclusion and intersectionality. With trans people and non-binary people, it’s a discussion that affects us too. Abortion is always talked about as a woman’s issue, but it also affects non-binary people and trans men, and there are added traumas they might have to go through as well – such as being misgendered at an abortion clinic, or having terms used to describe our bodies that we might not use ourselves.” “I say it’s important for trans and non-binary people to be included in these marches, but I do see the value in highlighting how much it is a women’s issue as well, because it’s a symptom of the systematic oppression of women. When legislators are making laws like the Eighth Amendment, they’re not thinking about trans or non-binary people, of course, so I do think it’s important we put women at the centre of that, but it is also important to talk about the trans and non-binary people that it affects.” Cairns led the crowd in a chant of ‘Trans for Repeal / Trans for Repeal.’ RTÉ sent out two cameramen at different times during the protest in order to record the event. Despite this, the event did not receive mention on either the Six One News or Nine O’Clock News that evening despite interest. Instead the event was mentioned in the ‘News in Brief’ section of RTÉ’s website. On this, Ní Bhroin stated: “It was a challenge for them to prove us wrong and give the movement some coverage but they didn’t step up. Normally I love being right but this time [I] was bitter.” Featured Image by Louise Flanagan Note: This article was originally published in the University Observer, Vol. XXIII, No. 6. It was later published online. With HIV figures increasing both at home and abroad, David Monaghan looks at the student-led ‘UCD for PrEP’ campaign and how effective the drug is in combating the disease. RISING figures of HIV in Ireland have encouraged student activists to campaign for help in minimising its continued spread. ‘UCD for PrEP’ is a student-led initiative that aims to lobby the Students’ Union to take a proactive stance on introducing the drug ‘pre-exposure prophylaxis,’ or ‘PrEP’ for short. According to the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the drug is reported to reduce the risk of contracting HIV by up to 90% when taken daily. PrEP is intended for people who are at high risk of contracting HIV. This includes individuals whose current partner is HIV-positive, as well intravenous drug users. It is a preventative measure that is readily available in some countries across the globe, and has been recommended by the World Health Organisation since 2015. It has been approved for usage by those at risk of contracting HIV in the United States, where depending on income it can be obtained for free, and France, where it was approved in November 2015 and introduced the following January. However, the drug is not readily available in Ireland despite increasing concerns about rising HIV figures. According to Newstalk, 513 people were diagnosed HIV-positive in the country last year, a startling increase of 5.8% from previous recorded figures. Numerous factors have been suggested to explain such a jump in numbers: a failing sexual education system; dating apps like Tinder or Grindr; disconnect between LGBTQ+ individuals and the history of the virus. Whatever the reasons, it is clear that immediate action must be taken to combat the spread of disease. “513 PEOPLE WERE DIAGNOSED HIV POSITIVE IN THE COUNTRY LAST YEAR, A STARTLING INCREASE OF 5.8% FROM PREVIOUS RECORDED FIGURES” Finn McLysaght helped establish the ‘UCD for PrEP’ campaign with fellow activists. “There is a need [for PrEP]” they said. “HIV has reached a crisis point. There’s a new diagnosis every 18 hours.” The campaign was inspired by the work of ACT UP Dublin, a non-partisan group dedicated to using direct action against increasing HIV figures. “[It’s] a coalition to campaign for the introduction of PrEP and PEP [post-exposure prophylaxis],” McLysaght continued. In Ireland the drug does not fall under the HSE’s Drugs Payment Scheme, and trials are ongoing to establish its effectiveness. “It would cost hundreds for a thirty day supply,” McLysaght says. “Most people don’t even know about it. I think only 51 people availed of it last year.” The current actions of the HSE echo the debate surrounding the introduction of PrEP in the United Kingdom last year. According to the BBC, a trial was established to see how effective the drug would be in preventing HIV transmissions. The trial finished early when it became obvious that PrEP worked successfully. “IT IS CLEAR THAT IMMEDIATE ACTION MUST BE TAKEN TO COMBAT THE SPREAD OF DISEASE” Despite this, in 2016, the NHS decided not to fund the drug and said it was the responsibility of local councils to deal with its distribution. This was successfully challenged by the National AIDS Trust in the UK’s High Court. McLysaght has met with Students’ Union Welfare Officer, Róisín Ní Mhara, and last week a motion relating to PrEP was passed by the SU council. The motion will see the Students’ Union campaign for the licensing of PrEP at the Dublin Pride Parade in 2017. Speaking to the Observer before the council meeting, Ní Mhara said: “My own personal belief is that, if you need it, absolutely you should take it. If you feel you need it and you warrant it in your life, who am I to say it’s not suitable for you to take?” UCD Students’ Union currently has a plethora of information on sexual health on its webpage. How will the introduction of PrEP augment this current campaign? Ní Mhara continues: “I’m not sure how we’re going to slot it in just yet…because the drug itself isn’t licensed for use in Ireland [but] I would like to sign it into sexual health week somehow.” “HIV HAS REACHED A CRISIS POINT. THERE’S A NEW DIAGNOSIS EVERY 18 HOURS” Although the campaign is external to UCD LGBTQ+ society, the committee is still very much dedicated to campaigning for its licensing and usage. Philip Weldon, LGBTQ+ society’s auditor, states: “we took a vote last Monday [23rd], the first committee meeting of semester two, and we all voted in favour to support [the drug], by making the campaign visible at our own events. For example, simply things like stickers. We’re more than happy to display it on our own materials at coffee mornings and other events.” At present, the campaign has not been met with opposition at any level. PrEP is known to create minor side effects, such as nausea and diarrhoea, but these are known to pass after a few days. “There are side effects,” McLysaght says, “but that’s part of the territory of taking any medication. They’re pretty minimal.” With HIV diagnoses increasing, a trend that has not been curbed in recent years, it is becoming increasingly obvious that direct action must be taken to stop its escalation. Trials have shown that PrEP is effective in combating HIV, and so necessary measures are needed to see its licensing both at home and abroad. Note: This article was originally published on the HeadStuff website. Imagine you were fighting an invisible war where the enemy could anticipate your every move and tactic. Worse still: imagine the enemy lived inside your head and was unrelenting in its fight against you. I was around eleven when I first thought I might have OCD. By this time I was washing my hands so excessively that the skin around my knuckles regularly cracked, and I’d leave little traces of blood on the floor, couch or whatever book or magazine I happened to be reading at the time. Skin cream was bought, gloves were worn, but it didn’t matter; I’d either wash it away or simply grow irritated and take them off. Family members told me it was nothing to worry about: “I saw someone on the Late Late Show,” one said, “who claimed that teenagers and children worry about having OCD when they really don’t. I wouldn’t worry, it’s normal.” I figured they were right and I’d grow out of it eventually. Years later a counsellor would tell me that it was simply a way I’d learned to deal with stress: “Whenever you felt you weren’t in control of your environment you’d wash your hands. It was a way for you to gain control.” It made some sense, but it didn’t account for the regular irritating thought patterns that had emerged when I hit puberty. Whenever I couldn’t play guitar like a musician I admired, write like a poet I loved, or learn to socialise like a boy of my age should, I’d analyse and overanalyse what I thought I was doing wrong and think about it repeatedly before trying again. If I didn’t make the self-established mark a second or third or fourth time, it would be back to square one in a cyclical pattern of blame and criticism that, over time, tore down my self-esteem. These weren’t thoughts that could be dismissed: I couldn’t control them. They were negative, intrusive thoughts that bled into every aspect over my life, essentially paralysing me into a state of fear that inhibited my ability to function. They’d descend onto my mind like military paratroopers intent on ransacking and usurping all the rational, logical thoughts I’d stored over time, replacing them with anxiety and worry over the smallest details of my existence. Everything was up for scrutiny: the way I’d walk, talk, learn, write, and interact with others. I’d go into a state of dissociation and disconnect from my friends, making me feel isolated and alone. Eventually these intrusive thoughts would lead to ritual behaviours: I’d think about something negative, and whether it be it truthful or imagined, if I didn’t enact the behaviours I’d fear they would make themselves manifest. If I didn’t tap my head three times with my knuckles, I’d fail my exams, my friends would fall out with me, my family would leave. I’d lose control of my life and all my fears would be free to wreak havoc on my existence. Illogical, I know, but inescapable all the same. No one else I knew had a mind that worked like this, and so I felt like a fool. I’d lose sleep thinking and worrying about all the things in my life I was doing wrong and without any kind of guidance I felt scared. I’d fall into regular depression and spend periods of time feeling lost, sometimes contemplating self-harm. Of course, despite my concerns, I wasn’t alone. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder affects one in every 33-50 people – essentially 2% of the Irish population. It is a tangible, real illness that studies suggest is caused by chemical or structural abnormalities in the brain, possibly as a result of environmental factors such as stress. It manifests as obsessive thinking and compulsive behaviours, and is often misrepresented by wider popular culture as a heightened ‘ultra-cleanliness’: an obsession with hygiene that has spun out of control. Although many who live with OCD do obsess over hygiene and sanitation, it is much more debilitating than is presented in the media: much less a quirk than a wearying, unavoidable illness. In fact, as a direct result of inaccurate depictions, people have taken to using the term ‘OCD’ in such offhand and flippant ways to describe such quirks in their lives: when was the last time you heard a neat freak friend of yours describe themselves as “so OCD?” Or when you heard someone you know use the term to describe the way they organise their notes or work environment? Could you imagine if these people used other illnesses so flippantly in their day-to-day lives? What if they used cancer so flippantly, or heart failure? Naturally, your response would be one of condemnation, so why allow them to use OCD? There is a persistent stigma of not only OCD in our culture, but mental illness more broadly. If an illness doesn’t make itself physically manifest, we dismiss it off-hand without realising the impact that might have. I was diagnosed with OCD in January of last year. Sitting in a psychiatrist’s office in UCD holding back tears, I listened intently as everything I’d suspected from a young age was confirmed. It was as if the woman speaking to me in that office retroactively validated the concerns I had when I was 11. She didn’t take the same route others had taken. She didn’t tell me it was all made up or in my head, or that I was simply being a worrywart. She looked at me and said, “you were right, this is OCD.” I was suddenly overwhelmed: I was not strange or a fool for feeling this way, and I was perfectly right in feeling concerned in the first place.This is what prevented me from seeking help for so long. If my anxieties had been validated and discussed from the start, I might have been presented with the tools towards dealing with my illness, but because it was presented as a quirk or a joke or something so rare and exclusively hygiene-centred, I figured I was simply damaged. My medication was altered to better deal with my symptoms and once I discovered exactly what it was I was dealing with, I was able to take concrete steps towards living with my illness. I see a counsellor regularly and have alerted lecturers where necessary. Now that I have tangible proof of what it is I am dealing with, slowly but surely everything is falling into place. However, as with all mental illness, there is no quick fix, and the symptoms detailed above will appear and reappear at the most inopportune of times: at family gatherings, when writing, or, worst of all, when I’m tucked up in bed trying to sleep. As ever, the worst thing about having OCD is not knowing what will trigger it in your day to day life. Any offhand comment could plague you for weeks. There’s no consistent pattern. Put simply: it’s like walking through the tall grass in Pokémon. And you’ve just got to live with it. The difference in dealing with OCD post-diagnosis though, is that I have the tools necessary to wade through the battlefields of anxiety without getting completely lost. It is worth bearing in mind that a multitude of supports are available for those suffering with OCD. OCD Ireland links to numerous networks on their website, and there is no shame in contacting a local doctor, psychiatrist or counsellor if you have any concerns. Although you may be fighting a war on yourself, you don’t have to fight it alone. This article originally appeared in the University Observer Vol. XXIII, Issue IV. It later appeared online. In honour of World AIDS Day on December 1st, David Monaghan sits down with activist, archivist, and journalist Tonie Walsh, whose work in the LGBTQ+ community spans over 30 years. TONIE WALSH has been involved in LGBTQ+ activism since the early 1980s, and has been a prominent figure in developments made within and outside of the community since that time. He was foundational in the evolution of the Hirschfeld Centre, a Dublin-based meeting place for Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community, and the National LGBT Federation (NXF), a non-governmental collective designed for the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights. Alongside Catherine Glendon, he also became one of the founding editors of GCN, Ireland’s foremost LGBTQ+ publication. Walsh’s interest in activism was inspired and spurred on by his familial ties: “I grew up in a feminist household,” he says. “I come from three generations of feminism. My great-grandmother was the founding secretary and manager of the Gate Theatre. She campaigned for women’s franchise in 1910… Her husband, Hector Hughes, helped set up the Socialist Party of Ireland [in 1918], and would have been a contemporary of James Connolly and Jim Larkin.” Dissatisfied with the lack of momentum of the early Labour movement in Ireland, Hughes eventually moved to London and became a Labour Party MP for Aberdeen North, a seat he held until his death in 1970. “Politics ran…through every vein of my family,” explains Walsh. Tonie Walsh speaking as the grand marshall of Dublin’s 25th Pride Parade. Photo credit: Paula Geraghty via indymedia There has been a history of activism in Walsh’s family, and he has had, in turn, a front row seat to the dramatic, chaotic, emotional and sometimes frustrating narrative of LGBTQ+ progression within the state. He is keen to inform that, like most, he arrived from a place of misunderstanding and confusion surrounding his sexuality. “I came out when I was 19 [in 1979]. I was studying the History of Art and French in UCD… I arrived [to the college] expecting a hot bed of radicalism and I was instantly dissuaded of that… It just seemed like it was coming out of a grim decade. There was no gay presence on campus – Gaysoc [precursor to UCD’s modern LGBTQ+ society] had been founded two years previous — winter 1976 — and it had made some noise before I arrived – but during fresher’s week, it wasn’t staffed.” Indeed, at this time the Gaysoc stand was staffed by Student Union’s Welfare Officer, Brighid Ruane, due to the homophobic environment of the campus. I GREW UP IN A FEMINIST HOUSEHOLD,’ HE SAYS. ‘I COME FROM THREE GENERATIONS OF FEMINISM.” During this period, Walsh was dating a French woman who would later come out as lesbian: “the blind leading the blind,” he jokes. Discovering the Hirschfeld Centre, which had opened in March 1979, became the trigger for his eventual coming out: “I had been having sex with boys all throughout high school, but I just wasn’t ‘out’… I actually did a personal ad – like the Grindr of its day – and this guy came over to my granny’s house in Rathgar. We had a bit of a snog and a fumble, and then he says, ‘do you want to go into this club?” The club in question was the aforementioned Hirschfeld Centre, which was named for Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish-German sexologist who became one of the earliest proponents of LGBTQ+ rights in the Weimar Republic. The club became the epicentre for the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights in Ireland, and sported a dance floor, a women’s group, a youth group, counselling services, and a queer cinema club. “I thought it was going to be full of freaks,” says Walsh. “[But] I arrived in the middle of a slow set. It was all just so ordinary and fabulous.” Within six months, Walsh experienced a complete political transformation. “The lesbian and gay movement was about five years old at that stage… and the [National LGBT Federation] was a part of this second wave of activism, and it hugely appealed to young kids like me at the time.” Despite this emerging ‘second wave,’ very few LGBTQ+ people had the strength to stand up and speak out, as Walsh elaborates: “Ireland felt like a much smaller world, for a start, and it was! Very few people were living in [Dublin] city centre, the city was derelict, [and] at this time of nascent queer liberation, very few were [fearless] enough to stand up and be counted.” Only a handful of vocal pro-gay activists emerged in this period, including Senator David Norris, and future Presidents of Ireland Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson, who with their combined efforts in the 1970s established the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, which sought to decriminalise homosexuality in the Republic of Ireland. While some gay people and their allies were vocal at this time, trans rights as we know them today simply did not exist. Walsh elaborates: “back in 1979… trans identity just didn’t enter our lexicon or our conversations at the time. There was a national transvestite group running from the Hirschfeld centre, but trans identity and the concerns of our trans brothers and sisters just weren’t getting a look in.” Walsh’s decade-long involvement in the Hirschfeld Centre would later inspire his work on the Irish Queer Archive. The IQA was established in 1997 and is a collection of historical material from Ireland’s queer past, including magazines, posters, pictures, badges and other such ephemera, with a view to providing insight into the social, political and cultural development of LGBTQ+ communities in Ireland. Walsh’s direct involvement with the movement during the decades in question provided him with tangible links to such an expansive history. “We have the administrative records of all the major lesbian and gay groups in Ireland since 1974,” he says. The Hirschfield Centre in the 1980s. Photo credit: Seán Gilmartin via IQA Indeed, the archive contains material from the Alternative Miss Ireland contest, the GAZE Film Festival, the Sexual Liberation Movement, the National LGBT Federation, Gay Health Action, GLEN, Dublin LGBT Pride, GCN, and more. Although it contains such a vast collection of material, very little of the IQA’s material has been digitised: “most of it is still in storage in Whitehall somewhere,” Walsh explains. He continues: “it’s inaccessible [to all but a few, such as] bona fide historians [like] Diarmaid Ferriter… You’ll see us a few of us making noise next year, people like Mary McCauliffe and Katherine O’Donnell from Women’s Studies in UCD, myself, Elizabeth Kirwan who manages the National Photographic Archive – these are people who came together to help find a home for the archive and were responsible for its transferral [to the National Library of Ireland] in 2008. We have to make it accessible [so] people can begin the process of rebuilding, of fitting all the blocks into place that go towards building this historical structure… We only have an incomplete picture of where we are now.” GAY LIBERATION IS THE STORY OF SURVIVAL AND HOPE… IT’S THE STORY OF PEOPLE, IN SOME CASES, LIVING SHITTY, MISERABLE LIVES, AND BEING ABLE TO RISE ABOUT THE SHITTINESS OF THEIR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT, AND FIND A WAY TO BETTER THEMSELVES, AND BETTER THEIR WORLD FOR THEMSELVES AND OTHER PEOPLE” The key to promoting LGBTQ+ awareness, Walsh claims, is to be out and vocal: “the way to be a persuader of gay liberation is to be able to stand up on TV, in the media, in the newspapers, [be] out in the streets and say, ‘this is me, this is who we are, we are your brothers and your sisters, your sons and your daughters.” This is the attitude he carried with him into his journalism career in the 1980s. He is one of the founders of GCN,the longest-running LGBTQ+ publication in Ireland, and his beginnings in the field came as a staff writer for Out, Ireland’s first commercial queer magazine, which was established in 1983. Out folded eventually, owing to a lack of funding: “gay businesses refused to advertise in the gay press, that’s how oppressive and repressive the situation was.” A decision made by the Carlow and Leinster Times, who printed the publication, also pushed the magazine into folding: they refused to publish the penultimate issue as it featured a safer sex ad of two silhouetted men embracing. This was largely because sex between men was illegal at the time. “There was nothing expressly pornographic about the image, but given the taboo around homosexuality and anything to do with intercourse, the fucking printers had a conniption and refused to print it. You can imagine, our brothers were dying horrible, shabby deaths, and we have a culture where condoms were still illegal, and the government [did not] engage with the reality of what was happening at the time – the Dáil first began to have conversations about AIDS five years after the first people began to die of it.” Indeed, the first AIDS-related deaths in Ireland were reported as early as 1985, but Leinster House only had its first conversation about the crisis in 1990. “All the time people were dying. There was hysteria in Ireland [among] very worried homosexual and heterosexual people.” Conversations about the AIDS crisis occur frequently today, but very rarely are they in the context of the European or indeed Irish experiences. Such narratives are made invisible, undoubtedly contributing to the rise of HIV in contemporary Ireland – in 2015 it was reported that there had been a jump of 25% in such diagnoses, with young people being most affected. The work Walsh strives to do in compiling and documenting indigenous LGBTQ+ history is vitally important to understanding the current problems such communities face: “gay liberation is the story of survival and hope,” says Walsh. “It’s the story of people, in some cases, living shitty, miserable lives, and being able to rise above the shittiness of their social and cultural environment, and find a way to better themselves, and better their world for themselves and other people.” Walsh continues: “the history of [LGBTQ+] liberation is about how we coped with awful situations: people being beaten up, people being murdered and having [no help], people being kicked out of Garda stations when they went to complain about being set upon by a group of marauding, homophobic thugs in Phoenix Park or somewhere. [It’s about] young guys who were brutally murdered, like Declan Flynn or Charles Self, the RTÉ designer who was stabbed almost 30 times in his own home, and how his murder still remains unsolved because at the time the Gardaí just simply didn’t look hard enough or look in the right places. Dreadful stories of oppression and repression, but out of it there are stories of how we survived, and I think that’s important when we come to look at the problem in our midst right now with rising levels of STIs.” Between Wednesday November 30th and Thursday December 1st, in honour of World AIDS Day, the Media Studies department in Maynooth University will host ‘AIDS in Irish Media: Art and Activism’ for the second year in a row. On the last day of the event Walsh will launch his new project, the Dublin AIDS Memorial, which runs parallel to his work at the IQA in addressing the gaps left by the erasure of LGBTQ+ narratives in Irish society. Walsh describes how such an erasure stemmed from blatant ignorance: “I had just turned 25 when people my age started falling ill and dying of AIDS… I stopped counting the number of people I lost at 43… When you went to visit your friends you were expected to put on rubber gloves and masks.” GAY BUSINESSES REFUSED TO ADVERTISE IN THE GAY PRESS, THAT’S HOW OPPRESSIVE AND REPRESSIVE THE SITUATION WAS He continues: “the culture of engagement was just infused with hysteria and fear, and massive amounts of ignorance underpinning that fear.” A group of gay men came together in May 1985 to form Gay Health Action. It was the first group in the country to develop a tactical response to the unfolding crisis. Walsh was involved in its early development but had to step back due to other commitments. “The GHA was responsible for producing the first leaflet on AIDS in Ireland,” he explains. “[They] got a small wedge of cash from the Department of Health, and then went for a reprint. Now remember this was the only [available leaflet on AIDS], the Department of Health hadn’t even produced information at this point, and remember that HIV was a death sentence at the time. The Department of Health balked at producing extra cash [for reprints] because the advice from the Attorney General was that, if they funded a leaflet that talked about male-on-male intercourse, it would be seen to be encouraging criminal activity.” Tonie Walsh revealed his own HIV status in a Facebook post on December 1st2015, to commemorate World AIDS Day. In the image he holds a sign that reads, “I’m not proud to be HIV positive, but neither am I ashamed.” He joins fellow activist and friend Rory O’Neill (drag queen Panti Bliss) and former Mr. Gay Ireland Robbie Lawlor in the increasing list of notable Irish personalities who have publicly described living with HIV, in order to help alleviate the lingering stigma of the 1980s. “I spent what felt like a lifetime… protecting myself, and those around me, and trying to survive when so many of my best friends and lovers did not. I became positive just at the point when I could benefit from the latest developments in antiretrovirals… but I felt fraudulent that I’d become infected and was able to survive. It’s a twisted way of thinking, but unless you’ve been in a situation where you’ve lost a lot of friends and lovers, it’s difficult, and that’s why I want us to begin the process of reconciliation of that period, and that means allowing the stories of the survivors [to be heard].” I STOPPED COUNTING THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE I LOST AT 43… WHEN YOU WENT TO VISIT YOUR FRIENDS YOU WERE EXPECTED TO PUT ON RUBBER GLOVES AND MASKS. Walsh continues: “Rory [O’Neill] was one of the first people I told… I became positive ten years ago. I was actually raped.” Rape can have long-lasting physical and psychological effects, with self-blame and guilt acting as two of the most common. Walsh experienced such patterns himself: “I was hugely ashamed… Lesbian Line were doing a mental health weekend in Outhouse a couple of months ago… and they asked me to talk, and I thought, ‘I’m going to talk about the corrosive effect of guilt.’ This feeds into my rational for an AIDS memorial. Guilt, if it’s left unchecked, can hugely damage people. I have lots of scars: I’ve been attacked, knifed [across the face], I have scars on my head… And I’ve found myself in some very weird situations. My first relationship with a man was very abusive.” Cover of the first issue of Gay Community News (GCN). Founded by Tonie Walsh and Catherine Glendon. Walsh’s consultant in St. James’s Hospital encouraged him to seek counselling. Instead he chose to talk about it in his own way: “I just sort of blabber at everyone, and that sort of normalises it. There’s a difference between secrets and privacy… Secrets corrode. I was angry… because I was not in control. It’s the classic victimhood that rape victims and abuse victims actually display.” Sexual and emotional violence affects every community, and LGBTQ+ communities are no exception. In a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States in 2010, it was revealed that lesbian, gay and bisexual people experience such violence at similar rates to their heterosexual counterparts. The problems for LGBTQ+ peoples are intensified by outside bigotry: a 2016 BuzzFeed article titled ‘This Is What Domestic Violence Is Like When You’re LGBT,’ explains that many LGBTQ+ abuse victims live in fear of being ‘outed’ by their partners, and that many hotlines are not equipped to deal with LGBTQ+ specific abuse. “I want to talk about something that’s not talked about enough,” says Walsh, “and that’s abuse in same-sex relationships.” Walsh hopes the Irish government will fund his AIDS Memorial project and give voice to countless numbers of LGBTQ+ citizens who died during the crisis. To date there is only one AIDS memorial in display in Ireland: a monument on Buckingham Street in Dublin 1. “That [area] was ravaged by heroin addiction and, consequently AIDS,” Walsh explains, “but to the best of my knowledge it’s the only one in the country.” ‘AIDS and Irish Media: Art and Activism’ will take place on November 30th and December 1st in Maynooth University’s symposium. Tonie Walsh will launch the Irish AIDS Memorial project on the latter date at 3:30pm. The Irish Queer Archives Facebook page can be accessed athttps://www.facebook.com/IQAadvisorygroup/ If you were affected by any of the issues highlighted in this article you can reach out to the following: T: 1890 929 539 | W: www.lgbt.ie TENI Helpline (Transgender Support) T: 085 147 7166 | W: www.teni.ie T: 1850 60 90 90 | W: www.samaritans.ie T: +353 (0)1 873 3799 | W: www.hivireland.ie Dublin Rape Crisis Centre T: 01 661 4911 | E: [email protected] | W: www.drcc.ie/ T: 1890 303 302 | W: www.aware.ie | E: [email protected] Pieta House (Self-Harm/Suicide Support) T: 01-6010000 | W: www.pieta.ie | E: [email protected] Mental Health Ireland

Hauora Tāhine, pathways to transgender healthcare is the collective name for a number of secondary health services (including Auckland Sexual Health) that provide gender affirming healthcare for transgender, non-binary and gender diverse clients across the Auckland region. Auckland Sexual Health welcomes all transgender, non-binary and gender diverse people. We recognise that you are the expert around your own gender, whether you're a binary trans person, non-binary, transsexual, agender, whakawāhine, tangata ira tāne, tāhine, fa'afafine, fakaleiti, akava’ine, genderqueer or however you describe yourself. The team send your GP an outline of your management plan, and support your primary care health team to provide on-going maintenance therapy once established. Your GP may refer you back to the service for further support if your hormone therapy needs to be reviewed or you need to access further gender affirming health care. The service supports clients to navigate and translate our healthcare system and additional support services within the DHB and wider community. We advise you on the process and answer any questions you may have about gender affirmation (transition). To use this service please contact Jove on 021 589 519. How to get an appointment If you need an appointment please phone us on 0800 739 432 to speak to a nurse.

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And there are also the potential of creating groups the location customers can launch discussion posts, manage incidents, cooperate and collaborate with NGOs. This is the social network feature, and we happen to be obsessed with this.

Schakowsky Blasts HHS Rollback of Obama-Era Protections for Transgender People EVANSTON, IL - Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Senior Chief Deputy Whip and Chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus Providers and Clinics Task Force, released the following statement after the Trump Administration finalized their rule to promote gender-based discrimination and rollback of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which protects individuals seeking health care services from discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, language proficiency, age or disability: “On Friday, the Trump Administration continued its cruelty and malpractice in yet another attack on our health care. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, during a national uprising for racial justice and Black lives, in the middle of Pride Month, and on the 4th anniversary of the deadliest attack on the LGBTQ+ community in our nation’s history, the Trump Administration gave providers, insurers, and hospitals a green light to discriminate against patients at a time when they need health care the most. “Let me be clear: this rollback impacts LGBTQ+ people, women and all who can become pregnant, people seeking reproductive health care, people whose first language is not English, immigrants, people of color, and people with disabilities. That’s almost all of us. But this rule will hurt people living at the intersection of these identities the most — a Black transgender woman trying to get a COVID-19 test, an immigrant woman trying to access an abortion, a non-binary individual with a disability trying to get covered. “President Trump and his enablers have committed an all out attack on our civil and human rights. Though this rule encourages providers and courts to adopt a discriminatory interpretation of our law, discrimination against LGBTQ+ patients, people of color, and women remains illegal. As the proud grandmother of a trans man, I will work with my colleagues to pass legislation explicitly prohibiting this type of discrimination and to ensure that health care is not a privilege for some but a human right for all.”

About Me and My Practice My life’s work is devoted to supporting those individuals who are forced to know themselves in the face of being ‘othered’ by dominant culture and systems of oppression and the work is always informed by my own identities, struggles, and experience of overcoming. In the spirit of transparency, I would like to share with you more about me so you can understand the lens through which I engage in clinical practice and in particular how my own journeys have come to inform my work in affirming gender and identity for others. I grew up in Salem, Oregon and largely resisted my emerging same-sex orientation due to the absence of visibility and affirming messaging in my world. After some difficult attempts to prescribe to normative gender roles and attributions, I ‘came out’ and found my way to the Capitol Hill district of Seattle where I continued to explore my sexuality as well as other emerging identities. Around age 24, I moved to the Castro district of San Francisco and was first introduced to radical queer, trans, and gender non-conforming folk (including the drag community) and I became called to engage in social activism, community organizing, and spiritual exploration with a growing intentional or chosen family of individuals. After a few years, I began to identify as queer, largely because of the emerging intersections of my identities and experiences, including my sexuality, gender non-conformity, beliefs, and values but also because of the growing difference I was starting to feel between myself and other more homonormative gay men. Over the next 10 years, I spent much of my time engaged in various helping services and living within these communities and in 2012 I returned to school to answer my calling to become a therapist. In 2015, while attending Lewis & Clark, I was offered an internship at TransActive Gender Center where I worked solely with trans, non-binary, and questioning children, adolescents, and their families. My heart was opened up the unique developmental challenges that young trans people have as they try to locate themselves in their gender in an all-to-often uncertain and invalidating world. I also saw how important it was to support parents and families to gain insight and competency in being able to meet their children where they are and really affirm their experience. As a result, I converted that internship into my private practice in 2016. Over the following 1 1/2 years, I was also working primarily with adult transgender and queer-identified clients in community mental health. Many of my trans clients were struggling through their transition, while others were wanting to work on other mental health concerns now that their gender felt more secure. In October of 2017, I left community mental health and expanded my private practice here at In Context. That work is always informed by my life just as it informs my own personal exploration and identity formation, my overcoming, my formalized clinical background, and my social justice and advocacy work. I'm now also training and providing clinical consultation for those who are also looking to provide gender affirming care to the communities we know and love. I am a queer, non-binary person and use they/them pronouns. I am AMAB and generally male passing. I’m white and I’m educated. ‘Queer’ for me has become a nuanced psycho/social/spiritual framework that captures my sexual identity, my own gender non-conformity, socio-political views which include activism, and my spiritual beliefs. It continues to be the way by which I make the most meaning of myself as I move through the world and my varying intersections of identity. It is both expansive enough to capture many of my most salient parts while being narrow enough that I can feel myself in it. I'm deeply embedded in Portland queer community both as a person but also as a stakeholder and both inform my counseling space with my clients who are almost always part of our shared communities. While I experience marginalization, I realize that I have certain privileges to present and be as I am and I continue to work on my own critical awareness of these as I strive to affirm my clients and community. I consistently seek feedback from those I'm in relationship with and strive to get feedback from those in the greater community as I continue to do my own work to deconstruct my participation and replication of systems of oppression and my own limiting beliefs and assumptions about others. I am aligned with gender work not only because of my own experience and my relationships with other queer and trans individuals but because advocating for those marginalized for being who they are and supporting others to be more of who they are lies at the heart of my values and drive for social activism. I find that because identity work has given me greater security and self-acceptance in an often uncertain and invalidating world, I am passionate about helping others find a more secure and authentic sense of self that is bolstered by being in relationship with others including an affirming therapist. As a white clinician, I continue to engage in my own anti-racist and bias work and that work has taken on many forms. I feel deeply that being with a clinician that reflects who you are and is embedded in your community is most healing and I have been privileged to do clinical work with QTPOC folks for sometime. QTPOC individuals are given priority when scheduling with me and I also have several referrals for QTPOC clinicians that I can offer up if you wish. It is my hope that sharing part of myself helps you to know more about my own social and cultural location and orientation to this work. It is not a substitute for earned trust. That can only occur over time and in shared space together where each of us is resourced to risk being more authentic even if that means feeling uncertain. I have found that what is co-created by my clients and me is a space for inquiry and the unconditional welcoming of all parts and identities. The container for the work provides safety and movement towards more expansive experiences including hope, a growing sense of freedom, access to all emotions, self-compassion and self-acceptance, desire, and the capacity to reach out into the world to be in relationship with others.

Given the rarity of genderqueerness, it’s one of those identities where many of the people in your life may never know another genderqueer person. And that means that for a lot of people, I may be the be all and end all of what it means to be genderqueer, and I’m not terribly comfortable with that. So to combat this in some small way, I’ve decided to occasionally pull together links to other genderqueer people talking about their experiences and the ways in which they parse their own identities. Check out the rest of the series (now titled “Gender Perspectives” and encompassing a wider variety of gender identities and expressions!). This anonymous post on Black Girl Dangerous deals with the tensions that come up between feminism and genderqueer identities (i.e what does it mean when you reject womanhood?) and many, many other things, including intersections among race, disability, and gender. I’m a black, disabled, queer, working class, non-binary person who has an attachment to the femaleness with which I was born but can’t abide the language that surrounds it. I know that for many people – those who buy into the false gender binary and even those in trans* communities – this does not make sense. I know also that many people will see this as a statement of internalised misogyny or self-hate. I know, too, that this sense that is rooted deep in my chest and my mind is in fact none of those things. …people can define genderqueer in an indefinite number of ways. None of which I can say, without exposing my reasoning to fault, is “wrong”; I can clarify however, that there are definitions, several of which presently do not fit me as a genderqueer identified person. All my friends seemed so sure they were girls and boys. So confident and assertive. They never had that doubt, they didn’t stand in front of the mirror at night thinking about cutting their breasts off or wondering why they didn’t have penises. I didn’t know what I was because I didn’t have a word for it. There were girls and boys and men and women and I wasn’t any of those things, even though sometimes I liked being a boy, having people think I was a boy. I couldn’t imagine being a man. I definitely did not like being a girl, I can tell you that.

Did you go to your school prom? Rachelle Foster speaks to the people reinventing it. Queer Prom is on the first night of Brighton Pride — and they are inviting members of the LGBTQIA+ community to ‘do it right, do it again, do it queer AF’. It’s two weeks until Brighton Pride, which will shower the city with technicolour in this year’s ‘Colour my World’ theme. In keeping with the theme, Queer Prom's ‘Rainbow Ball’ is on Friday, 3 August. Queer Prom was set up in 2014 as an alternative to an incredibly alienating, heteronormative experience with no real space for people on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. “Queer Prom began as an event designed to rewrite people’s negative prom experiences within the LGBTQIA+ community, it has since evolved into something far greater,” says its creator Vicki Cook. “I think that living under a Conservative government has meant individuals in a position of power and privilege are given much more of a platform than minority groups. We have witnessed a resurgence of fascism on a grand scale, resulting in discrimination and inequality in all forms.” Vicki says that even within the LGBTQIA+ community there is still gross prejudice and discrimination, especially towards trans and non-binary people. She makes reference to the anti-trans protest led by Lesbian Rights Alliance at Pride in London recently. The group claim ‘trans-activism erases lesbians’ and wrote a letter to Stonewall calling to remove the ‘L’ out of LGBT. “As a part of the queer community we can’t ignore the issues that have sought to divide us,” says Vicki. “By coming together and throwing a prom that will change people’s past experiences, we also want to invest to change people’s future and not only will we party the night away, but we will unite in solidarity.” As a non-profit event, Queer Prom are raising money for projects and services that support the LGBTQIA+ community. Their main charity choice, Mermaids, does tremendous work to support transgender children and their families. They will also be fundraising for Brighton’s LGBTQ Disability project and there will be charity buckets on the night to raise funds for other local causes. Vicki says she struggles to take the time to pause and bask in her achievements and good ideas, and to see their potential on a greater scale. Her partner Jules Haydon Guaitamacchi saw her vision and helped her to mould it into what it is now. “As well as this, Jules is a PR powerhouse,” she added. Together, they took Queer Prom to the mainstream media and said "Look! Look at this amazing thing that’s happening in Brighton". “Jules and I share the same passion and drive, and have skills that really complement each other which makes us such a good team,” says Vicki. There is no dress code for the night, but Vicki and Jules say, "it’s an opportunity to wear the outfit your heart always desired". “Last year, people came dressed to the nines in Queer Prom realness, some people even had their own crowns and tiaras! Everyone looked like Queer royalty and we can’t wait to see what people wear this time,” says Vicki. Queer Prom's ‘Rainbow Ball’ is on Friday 3 August. Tickets are available at patternsbrighton.com

Town hall meeting addresses name policies and provides a time for integration BY TRAVIS MCMILLAN, STAFF WRITER In an effort to further the goal of inclusive community Mason hopes to foster, Josh Kinchen, associate director for LGBTQ resources, spoke about updates to Mason’s name change policy at a town hall meeting on Sept. 25. A major implication of such policies at Mason is that they would give transgender and non-binary people the ability to update their names and pronouns in Mason’s online systems to match their chosen names. The original policy, approved back on Dec. 19 of 2016, had used the “preferred name policy” as opposed to the newly adapted “chosen name policy.” “This crazy manual workaround, students had to present themselves in the registrar’s office to let them know that … the chosen name should be appearing on Blackboard and in their class rosters,” said Jeannie Brown Leonard, dean of Student Academic Affairs. The adaptation of this new policy, besides the change to the name policy, is having it apply to faculty members and not just students. Mason has many students who are transgender or non-binary as well as a diverse staff, so moving the policy to apply to faculty was the logical next step. Students and faculty will be able to choose from the available pronouns and genders, as well as updating their name. “It’ll have a drop down list with three sets of available pronouns. So he, she and they. And they’ll also [have] a gender identity option as well … So man, woman and non-binary,” said Kinchen. Kinchen also expressed the goal of a seamless integration of the chosen name policy into the university system. This would include having one’s chosen name shown on Mason sites such as StarRez, Outlook, Mason360, Handshake and other systems where a student’s name is required. This would require speaking to every department’s tech team, and deciding what is and what isn’t possible in terms of the changes being applied to all platforms. During the question portion of the meeting, the problem of changing names on Mason ID cards came up. One staff member who had looked into this spoke up and stated that, because the ID is used for voting purposes, a person’s legal name must stay on the front. They then brought up how the school is planning on moving from ID cards to iris scans and using students’ smartphones. Being that the policy can only be reviewed every three years, the administration wanted to ensure that they were prepared. The timeline shown at the meeting, depicting the start of the revision process, outlined all the steps they plan to take with this policy. According to Kinchen and the timeline, students should have the chance to go into Patriot Web and update their chosen name as early as November. The November date will only apply to Patriot Web, as there will be an extended wait for the new policy to take effect on all other platforms. Leonard told attendees at the town hall meeting that there will be a call or email telling everyone to go in and check their information, and correct it if needed. The timeline has the plan being fully integrated by 2022.

From established small businesses to startups, the grants available this week are providing timely and badly needed funds for entrepreneurs. The grants include everything from contests to American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds addressing a number of issues. If you are in need of capital, and who isn’t these days, take a look at these grants and apply for the ones you qualify for. As a small business owner, you can now apply for ARPA, recovery, and legacy grants. It also includes grants for black-owned businesses from The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and American Express. These grants are supporting established small businesses and even startups by addressing challenges entrepreneurs are facing today. Take a look at what grants are available now. With an additional $220,000 of support for 200 businesses owned by women and non-binary individuals PNC Bank looks to help underrepresented entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses. This is part of PNC’s three-year commitment to Coralus a year ago by providing $1,257 million of funding. In related news, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the return of ChallengeHer. This program will help women-owned small businesses gain access to federal contracts. With tens of billions in federal contracts up for grabs each year, this is a great opportunity for women entrepreneurs to apply. Small Business News Roundup – September 2, 2022 For the rest of the small business news this week, here are the headlines from Small Business Trends. The Federal Reserve said the FedNow instant payment service will be ready to launch between May and July of 2023. With the FedNow Service, businesses and individuals will be able to send and receive instant payments conveniently, and recipients will have full access to funds immediately, giving them greater flexibility to manage their money and make time-sensitive payments. Small Business Deals The first Chick-fil-A restaurant in the state of Hawai’i opens on September 1 in Kahului, Maui, and will bring around 160 full and part-time jobs to the community. Nextiva has announced that Alan Black, former CFO of Zendesk and founder of Surfspray Capital, and Robert (Bob) Beauchamp, former chairman and CEO of BMC Software have been appointed to the company’s board of directors. Twitter has started integrating podcasts into their platform as a part of its newly redesigned Spaces Tab, meaning audio conversations are now possible. Twitter is Adding Podcasts Since August 25, the re-imagined Spaces Tab including the addition of podcasts has been visible to a select group of global English-speaking Twitter users on both iOS and Android. For those that are unfamiliar and want to know what a CRM system is, the acronym stands for customer relationship management. A CRM system is software that automates and accelerates many mundane processes. Taco Bell chain and metaverse platform Decentraland have announced their partnership to offer United States-based couples the chance to get married in the metaverse. The national average price of a gallon of gasoline has gone down by five cents reaching $3.853 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). Gas prices have continued declining since their peak of $5.06 in mid-June. The continued decrease in gas prices has brought some relief to consumers at the pump the last time gas prices reached the $3. When I was growing up in Connecticut in the 1970s, there was a commercial I repeatedly heard on TV over and over again; it was about a company in New York based consumer electronics store named “Crazy Eddies” whose prices the commercial said, “were insane”. Buying a proven and established business has many benefits, especially for new entrepreneurs. And buying a proven and established online business is that much better because you can run it from virtually anywhere. This is not the case for all online businesses, but it is for the majority of them. Senator Ben Cardin, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Senator Cory Booker, a senior member of the Small Business Committee have urged the Small Business Administration (SBA) to make loans accessible to entrepreneurs with a criminal record. More in: Small Business Grants

If you don’t yet know Jacob Tobia, you will. They is an activist for the nonbinary community, a bestselling author, producer and actor, who grew up in Raleigh and Cary. Jacob will be coming to Raleigh in December and speaking at and LGBT Center of Raleigh event, but be sure to RSVP if you want to go. They (Jacob uses they/them pronouns) is having a big year, to understate it. Their book (reviewed by the New York Times) became a bestseller. Their recent voice acting role in Netflix’s “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power” will be a nonbinary character in the animated series. According to Variety: “The series … would follow Tobi Gibran, a non-binary college grad and full time gender weirdo from North Carolina. Tobi moves to New York City in search of queer utopia. … Tobi quickly learns that NYC is less ‘glittering trans paradise” and more “trash-filled hell with a side of street harassment.’ “ WHERE THIS STORY RAN: Read the newsletter & subscribe! Jacob spoke about growing up in the Triangle in INDY Week earlier this spring, calling the Triangle a “radical” place that taught them about being an activist. “Like many other young, queer kids growing up around Raleigh, Tobia cites their early experiences at places like Raleigh Little Theatre, White Rabbit Books, and Cup A Joe … as formative for their early explorations of identity. In fact, they even wrote much of Sissy at Cup A Joe, having come back to North Carolina to pen the majority of the book on a writer’s retreat.” [read more] Jacob will be speaking at the LGBT Center of Raleigh on Wednesday, Dec. 18. Tickets are free, but sign up. [RSVP] | [main 📸: Oriana Koren] READ MORE RALEIGH: Shop local at these holiday markets.

HCA MA Curating Exhibition 16 - 23 July 2022 The MA Fine Art and MA Curating students of Hereford College of Arts proudly present MAniFest. Expanding over two locations within Hereford and Worcestershire. To manifest: To create something or turn something from an idea into a reality.MAniFest is a dedicated arts festival with no set theme across the participants, visitors can expect to find themselves engulfed in an exciting world of varying artistic outcomes with something for everyone to enjoy. MAniFest at Pitt Studios, Worcester, plays home to the final fabrications of the MA Curators research studies. With four dedicated sections, audiences are invited to explore the diverse and exciting possibilities of different curatorial practices. Organised by MA Curating students; Caroline Allen, Ollie Childs, Flora Maycock, Bethany Spicer. Exhibiting: MAniFest - HCA MA Curating. Location: Pitt Studio and Project Space, 4 Edgar Street, Worcester, WR1 2LR The (Art) Fair Curated by: Flora Maycock My curatorial practice stems from ideas surrounding immersion and accessibility, with an ever-developing desire to inject fun and humour into my work. Producing outcomes that provide new and exciting perspectives for a wide range of audiences that aim to reignite an enjoyment of art and its spaces. The (Art) Fair is a culmination of these interests that provides a unique, experience-led avenue of enjoyment of artwork. Appealing to a sense of nostalgia, childlike whimsey and desire to play, this curatorial exploration challenges our expectation of artistic viewing, merging both the traditional art world and new contemporary audiences. Curated by: Ollie Childs Over the past year my curatorial practice has centred around social issues. Specifically focusing on the LGBTQIA+ community. This exhibition aims to use the term of “Queer Junk” to subvert the separation of queer culture and the gallery, by creating a make-shift bar experience within a gallery space. Featuring artworks that are more than just erotic imagery, they instead carry messages of inclusivity and empowerment. Sidney Nolan: A Portrait of the Archive Curated by: Beth Spicer Throughout this degree, my curatorial practice has narrowed down to a specialist interest in history, heritage, and archiving. This exhibition is the culmination of a research residency at the Sidney Nolan Trust. From discovering these artworks from around 1988, documenting and archiving, to displaying them to an audience. I have grouped and chosen specific photocopies from these uncovered works to create an exhibition showing another side of Sir Sidney Nolan which has not yet been portrayed, through self-portraiture, and the medium of the photocopy. south florida sky Laila Majid and Louis Blue Newby Curated by: Caroline Lisa Allen For Majid and Newby the primordial ooze of the swamp is a fertile space for exploring collaboration, collectivity and diversity. Their interest in the DC comic character Swamp Thing stems from the notion that its physical form is rendered fluid, enmeshed within the biologically diverse space of the swamp. Much like the theorist Donna Haraway’s call to make kin with non-human species as a means of mutual future survival, Majid and Newby’s work also looks speculatively towards the potentiality of a new non-binary world.

Headmaster apologizes for gender-neutral toilets that made pupils ‘uncomfortable’ Adam Pettit oversaw the conversion of toilets at Highgate School in North London over the summer holidays, saying it would help students who are “gender fluid or don’t wish to identify themselves with a gender.” He claimed at the time young people were “pleasingly accepting of and sympathetic to those whose lives are made miserable by the inability of institutions to adapt to their gender-fluidity or their gender-neutrality.” According to the Daily Mail, however, the move was condemned by parents and pupils at the £20,370-a-year co-educational private day school. Pettit has now apologized to parents in a letter issued for the half-term break, admitting some pupils felt “less comfortable and happy at school” as a result of the gender-neutral toilets. He also included a picture of the gender-neutral toilets, and promised a new set of plans for them. He said staff would “test our thinking much more carefully and widely than hitherto.” “Pastoral care is a top priority, and something of which the school can feel proud of. I’m sorry we have not got this right,” he wrote. “We will continue to support gender neutral and non-binary pupils. However I have been asked whether the change which has impacted on many pupils is proportionate to the needs of a smaller number. “I’m sorry on a number of fronts. First that pupils returned in September without having had the opportunity of knowing that this change would take place or to know why it had been introduced. “Second that parents have had no opportunity to learn about these changes before they were introduced and thus query them.” Earlier this year, the 1,400-pupil school – which was founded in 1565 – was criticized over plans to introduce a “gender neutral” school uniform, under which boys could be permitted to wear skirts. Earlier this week, the prestigious Gordon’s School in Woking, Surrey announced it would allow boys to sleep in a girls’ dorm if they question their gender identity. It will also allow pupils to be known by gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘zie,’ wear school uniforms of the opposite sex, and use gender-neutral toilets.

Last Thursday, 25 June, three Malaysian women were named 'Women of the Future' in their respective categories at the Women of the Future Awards Southeast Asia Out of 48 finalists, photographer Annice Teo Ann Lyn, research scientist Dr Bee Lynn Chew, and non-governmental organisation (NGO) co-founder Heidy Quah were awarded for their work in the Arts, Sciences, and within local refugee communities. Founded in 2006 by Pinky Lilani, the Women of the Future Awards was established to provide a platform for female talent in the UK. In 2018, the platform expanded to include a Southeast Asian division as part of the Awards' wider goal of building a global, collaborative network of women. Nominations for the awards are open to all women under the age of 35. The nominees are then reviewed by a committee, and later, interviewed by their category judges. This year's judges include DP Architects chief executive officer Angelene Chan, Facebook director Sarita Singh, and former British High Commissioner to Malaysia Vicki Treadell, among others. A total of 11 Malaysian women were shortlisted for the awards across various categories The other Malaysian nominees were: - Arts and Culture: Nicole Lai, Lisa Surihani, and Ernie Zakri - Business: Jess Yap - Media and Communications: Cynthia Ng - Mentor: Dr Nellie Tan Sweet Lian - Science, Technology, and Digital: Wan Yong Ho and Dr Siu Yee New 1. Dr Bee Lynn Chew - Winner of the Science, Technology, and Digital category Dr Chew is a research scientist who predominantly studies Plant Biology at Universiti Sains Malaysia. The research scientist's interest in food crops was first sparked while doing her PhD at the University of Nottingham, UK, where she studied genes linked to flavour in tomatoes. Since then, she has personally worked with farmers and food growers in Malaysia. Learning just how rewarding yet tedious farming can be, Dr Chew has decided to use her research to improve cultivation methods in Malaysia in order to raise crop yields and improve the livelihoods of those working in agriculture. Amid the pandemic, Dr Chew looks to science for the answers to rising food insecurity and unemployment in the country She informed SAYS that her research currently deals with the micropropagation of figs that will eventually lead to the production of high quality plant stocks ready for commercialisation nationwide. The research scientist is also looking at lemons and olives which she aims to introduce to local farmers soon. Dr Chew is actively working to incorporate Internet of Things (IoT) technology, a system built for monitoring crop fields using sensors, in agricultural practices to make them more efficient. She hopes that by doing so, young people will be encouraged to join the agriculture sector, especially when unemployment rates are on the rise. She further described the impact these methods could have on building a more self-sufficient country. "This is important to ensure that the country has enough [food products] without the need to import. It will also enable us to move forward after this pandemic." Dr Chew was over the moon when she was announced the winner of her category, and dedicated the award to her students and loved ones She told SAYS that she was happily surprised by the nomination, recognising that previous winners of the Women of the Future Award had truly left a mark within their respective societies and nations. Dr Chew attributed the award to her students and relatives who have supported her scientific endeavours. "They are the ones who have always motivated me and made me believe I [could] win this," she noted. The research scientist says, "Believe in your dreams. Find what you are passionate about in life and work for it." She continues, "Be kind and compassionate as they will be the keys to your success." 2. Annice Teo Ann Lyn - Winner of the Arts and Culture category Teo is a visual artist, as well as a documentary and sports photographer, who founded her platform 'Anntopia' in 2015. As described on her website, Anntopia is a place for Teo to share her creative pursuits, whether that'd be in wedding, portrait, or sports photography. Teo's journey into photography began while pursuing a degree in architecture. Talking to SAYS, she described how vital her studies had been in igniting and shaping her artistic practice today. As an architecture student, Teo said, "We literally had to be the Chief of Everything, from pitching ideas, to sketching and building conceptual models, software build-ups, and photographing our work." Drawing on her background in figure skating, the accomplished sports photographer developed a passion for capturing moments that would otherwise go unnoticed A former national competitive figure skater herself, Teo was the first and only female photographer based in Malaysia to be accredited for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang. According to New Straits Times, the KL-based photographer hung up her skates at the age of 19, after accumulating a series of injuries that hindered her progress in the field. However, her experience as a sportswoman did not go to waste. After all, it was through the sport that Teo says she found an appreciation for visually documenting what happens behind the scenes. Through her craft, Teo overcomes numerous socio-cultural barriers in order to better understand and connect with those around her In an interview with SAYS, Teo explained that her creative process primarily rests on understanding and learning from others regardless of social status, culture, and race. The Women of the Future Awards judges were particularly taken by Teo's ability to celebrate unsung heroes with her photos during the Movement Control Order (MCO). Adding onto that, she quoted her favourite photographer Platon Antoniou. "I never think about a shoot before I do it. Because there's no formula for people… If I do that, I might miss a gem or a jewel that the person is offering me." Teo further noted how fulfilling it was be able to immortalise an individual's story and become a part of someone else's life through photography. "We [photographers] are present to visually document the most significant events of others' lives, for better or worse, by articulating and transposing fragments of moments into timeless imagery." The well-established photographer continues to support other women and non-binary creatives through Women Photographers Malaysia (WPM), a collective she co-founded during MCO Speaking to SAYS, Teo described her feelings after winning the award. "While I'm incredibly grateful for the recognition, this award will only make me work even harder as I have been recognised and have to live up to the faith put in me to further promote photography, for youth and women, not only in Malaysia, but also in Asia." By using WPM's platform to host workshops, organise monthly meet-ups, and provide a safe space for women and non-binary visual storytellers, Teo hopes to empower budding photographers. Knowing how tough it is to pursue a career in the arts, Teo wants to remind Malaysians that doing something you love will always be worth your while. "Being a creative in Malaysia takes courage and self-conviction to challenge the norm," she told SAYS. Teo ended by saying, "At the end of it all, know that there's no perfect life, but you still put up with it because you're doing it for something you love." 3. Heidy Quah - Winner of the Community Spirit and Public Service category Quah co-founded the non-profit organisation Refuge for the Refugees (RFTR) at just 18 years old, after the refugee school she volunteered at faced the threat of closure. When Chin Children's Education Centre (CCEC), a local refugee school, was told their United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) funding was about to end, Quah and a few other teen volunteer teachers decided to take action. That is how, in 2012, she found herself at the helm of an NGO. Speaking to SAYS, the now 26-year-old co-founder explained that, "The heart [of the organisation] is really to raise awareness regarding the plight of refugees in Malaysia." After eight years, the group helped construct 35 schools, two halfway homes, and a social business school dedicated to supporting the education and livelihoods of refugees in Malaysia. Apart from the organisation, Quah is also a prominent activist and caseworker focusing on human rights issues within the nation Recently, she has advocated against combat baby-selling, helped individuals who have been put in detention centres, and worked alongside other organisations to distribute food to refugee communities. Additionally, she is a firm proponent for greater refugee representation at roundtables and policy discussions. In fact, Quah will be attending a meeting this Thursday, 2 July, with a refugee student turned caseworker to discuss the right of refugee children to basic education. She feels that it is only by consulting refugees and amplifying their voices, that effective change will come. Quah says that this is how a community can be uplifted so that they might understand the weight and power of their own voices. Over the years, Quah has seen a big shift in conversations regarding refugees, but says there is still much left to be done Looking back, the 26-year-old was reminded of how little awareness there was about refugees in Malaysia, with many people believing that they only existed beyond our waters. While Quah recognises how far we've come, she also highlighted, "The tone of the conversation [regarding refugees] right now is really concerning." In order to shift the narrative, Quah brought up the importance of educating ourselves and humanising refugees and migrants. She added, "You don't need to start an organisation, you just have to be human… If we all started talking in a kinder way, we would see a huge change." Despite the reputation they have grown, Quah did not expect to win at the Women of the Future Awards "It is an incredible honour. I really wasn't quite expecting it. The other nominees in my category were extremely outstanding," she told SAYS. The activist recounted the times when people, particularly those older than her, would undermine the work she and RFTR were doing simply because of her age. "We had to fight extra hard to get a space at the table, both as a female and a young person," she said. In an age of instant gratification, the impressive advocate emphasised the importance of consistency and persistence, noting that real change does not happen overnight. One thing Quah has realised after years of doing social work is that, "Your convictions have to be stronger than your emotions. Know your why." In 2017, when she was just 23 years old, Heidy Quah received a Young Leaders Award from Queen Elizabeth II:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Disease, Bread, Efficiency: Rhetorics of Victorian Education Reform arose from my observation that, historically speaking, Anglo-American schools have always been “in crisis.” I argue that the crisis of the “failing school” is a rhetorical problem rather than an economic problem as most scholarship suggests. Much like the cultural myth of “the One True Love,” education reform debates tend to position the school as an institution that can rescue the nation from all perceived social ills. Not only is this unrealistic, the patterns of language are inconsistent as ideas about the purpose of school are translated into policy. This causes further disjuncture between ideal notions of the public school and its reality. I treat a range of archival materials through a variety of theoretical frames including metaphor criticism and Kenneth Burke’s notion of the terministic screen, which illustrates that school failure is not an objective occurrence but a rhetorical construction designed to achieve predetermined social ends. This research uncovers three insoluble conditions of public schools in capitalistic societies: a tension between the need for collective education while privileging individualism, a gap between the expansive purposes envisioned by the general public and the narrow measures policy can enact, and a lack of attention to the circulation of institutional energy. I conclude that conversations about education reform can become more productive by respecting the insoluble conditions and searching for non-binary ways to think about schooling. Document Availability at the Time of Submission Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide. Davis, Vicki Jean, "Disease, Bread, Efficiency: Rhetorics of Victorian Education Reform" (2017). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4451.

Remembering Kayden Clarke: The Urgent Need to Improve Clinical Understanding and Care for Transgender Autistic Clients Dec 14, 2016 Kayden Clarke was a 24-year-old trans man who identified as having Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism) and PTSD, among other challenges. He died on February 4 when police, responding to a suicide call, shot Kayden as he lunged at them with the kitchen knife he was holding. I will leave it to others to discuss the police response to the suicide call. What I want to address is what could have reduced the chances that Kayden and the police officer who shot him would ever be in that room together. Kayden made a number of YouTube videos. The final two were made in December 2015 and January 2016. In the first, he happily shares that he finally has insurance that will allow him to begin medical Transition. He says, “I get everything I was supposed to have. I can breathe. The anxiety is gone.” Several weeks later he posted a video full of fury and despair, recounting how the gender specialist he went to told him that she could not write a letter of referral for testosterone treatment until Kayden’s Asperger’s “disease” was fixed. In this video, Kayden said several times, “I don’t know what to do. I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t know who to turn to.” Several weeks after that last video was posted, Kayden was dead. New research indicates that about 20% of the Transgender population is autistic. A separate review of autistic people found that more than 20% identify as transgender or nonbinary. Many people in both the autistic and the transgender communities would say this high co-ocurrence is no surprise. Unfortunately, much of the clinical community lags in its preparation for working with this overlap. Professionals who work with transgender and gender nonbinary people need to understand the experience of autistic people and know how to respectfully and effectively work with them. Those who work with autistic and other neurodivergent people need to understand the transgender experience and have the cultural sensitivity, as well as the skills and resources, to support their needs as transgender youth or adults. The coincidence of trans-identities and autism should no longer be viewed as a rare, interesting phenomena, as has long been the case with autistic individuals. The myth of autism rarity has resulted in few therapists getting sufficient training in autism and neurodivergence, while the thought that autistic Gender dysphoria was not true dysphoria has resulted in many delays and rejections of gender treatment for trans autistic people. There is no doubt in my mind that Kayden Clarke would be alive today if he had been referred for medical transition. He would be making You Tube videos featuring his deepening voice and talking about top surgery. While the challenges of living with autism in a neurotypical world would remain, the affirmation of his capacity to choose a path based upon his inner sense of self would have given him additional strength in dealing with these challenges. He should not have died, and he should not have had to work as hard as he did to simply be himself and follow his dreams. Kayden’s videos and his subsequent death are an aching lesson in the power of our words and actions and of our failures to speak and act. It is time for gender specialists, neurodiversity specialists, and trans and neurodivergent people to come together, learn from each other and dispel the ignorance and prejudice that makes the world such a hard place for people like Kayden. This guest blog post was shared with Gender Spectrum by Finn Vivian Gratton, LMFT, LPCC, a somatic psychotherapist who specializes in working with trauma, neurodiversity issues, and transgender issues in Santa Cruz and Mountain View, California. They identify as Genderqueer and autistic. They can be reached at [email protected]. This was an abridged version of the article. Please see full article ”Remembering Kayden Clarke: What Gender Specialists Need to Know About Neurodiversity and What Neurodiversity Specialists Need to Know About Transgender Issues” for references to videos and research and for steps that gender and neurodiversity specialists can take to support trans and Non-binary neurodivergent clients.

‘Ambitious, mesmerising’ young woman is 40th trans person violently killed in 2021 In yet another frightening attack, an “ambitious, mesmerising” Black woman was brutally slain in Florida, making her the 40th trans person murdered in the US this year. Royal Poetical Starz, 26, was fatally shot in Miami Gardens, a city in the north-central Miami-Dade County, on the afternoon of 2 October. According to local law enforcement, the shooting took place between Northwest 18th Avenue and 183rd Street at approximately 12:51pm. The shooter sped off in a getaway vehicle, police added whole both misgendering and deadnaming the victim, only to crash into a tree mere blocks away from the scene. The killer fled on foot. Royal Poetical Starz ‘lived each day like it was her last’ To those who knew her, Starz was a vibrant, charismatic young singer who always sought to see the good in those around her. The Florida Career College Vocational School graduate always “left a lasting impression on everyone that she met,” a GoFundMe started by her loved one to raise money for her funeral in Omaha, Nebraska, states. “She was an ambitious and talented singer that produced many beautiful recordings. . Unfortunately, we will never get to hear her sing again or become the Star that she was destined to be Described as shy in high school, Starz blossomed as she and her friends banded together to form a singing trio, according to her obituary on a local funeral home website. Nights were spent belting out the songs that, unbeknownst to her friends, would later become her “legacy”. “Her final accomplishment was becoming her true self and becoming the person in his heart that she always wanted to be,” the obituary reads. “[Starz] did more in her life than more of us will ever do. “She lived each day like it was her last.” For the Human Rights Campaign, which has been monitoring the years-long surge in anti-trans violence in the US, Starz’s death brings with it unnerving yet all-too-known truths about what it means to be trans in America today. Starz is at the “very least” the 40th trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming person killed in the US in 2021, according to the HRC. But tallies from other monitoring organisations place the figure even higher than that. Across 2021, the community has mourned: Tyianna Alexandra, Samuel Edmund Damián Valentín, Bianca Bankz, Dominique Jackson, Fifty Bandz, Alexus Braxton, Chyna Carrillo, Jeffrey ‘JJ’ Bright, Jasmine Cannady, Jenna Franks, Diamond ‘Kyree’ Sanders, Rayanna Pardo, Dominique Lucious, Jaida Peterson, Remy Fennell, Tiara Banks, Natalia Smüt, Iris Santos, Tiffany Thomas, Jahaira DeAlto Balenciaga, Keri Washington, Sophie Vásquez, Danny Henson, Whispering Bear Spirit, Serenity Hollis, Oliver ‘Ollie’ Taylor, Thomas Hardin, Poe Black, Novaa Watson, Aidelen Evans, Taya Ashton, Shai Vanderpump, Tierramarie Lewis, Miss CoCo, Pooh Johnson, Disaya Monaee, Brianna Hamilton, Kiér Laprí Kartier and Mel Groves. “Royal Starz was shot in broad daylight in her own car,” said Tori Cooper, who helms the advocacy group’s Transgender Justice Initiative, in a blog post. “She changed her name legally, but the police still misgendered her. Too often, transgender people are denied basic humanity even in death.” The HRC estimate that approximately three-quarters of all known victims are misgendered by media and/or by law enforcement. While three-fourths of confirmed homicides against trans people have involved a gun, according to the 2017-2019 Transgender Homicide Tracker. “Royal deserved to live and pursue her dreams,” Cooper added, “but she became yet another victim of the horrific epidemic of violence against trans and non-binary people.” MyPinkNews members are invited to comment on articles to discuss the content we publish, or debate issues more generally. Please familiarise yourself with our community guidelines to ensure that our community remains a safe and inclusive space for all.

STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life Now Available on Console and PC in North America, Welcoming Everyone to Forgotten Valley XSEED Games Releases Modern Reimagining of Farming/Life Sim for Fans of All Generations TORRANCE, Calif. — June 27, 2023 — XSEED Games today released STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life for PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, and the Nintendo Switch™ system in North America and Windows PC via Steam worldwide. A reimagining of the fan-favorite entry in STORY OF SEASONS (Bokujo Monogatari in Japan), STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life adds modern visuals and design updates to the game to enhance the original experience for seasoned fans while welcoming younger fans to the popular farming/life sim genre. The title is available digitally on all platforms and physically with both standard and premium editions available for consoles. “It has been an honor to work on this reimagining of such a beloved classic like STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life,” said Rika Hoshina, Director for STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life, “Everyone on the development team has poured their hearts into recapturing the magic that charmed so many of us when the original game released. We hope that STORY OF SEASONS fans around the world, old and new, enjoy their time in Forgotten Valley, where everyone is welcome.” STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life revisits the tranquil community of Forgotten Valley where the protagonist fulfills their father and his friend Takakura’s dream of running a farm. As the seasons go by, they will find their lifelong partner, raise a child together, and watch them grow up. Will their child carry on the family’s farm legacy or find their calling somewhere else? Only time will tell… An unforgettable tale of friendship, family, and farming blooms back to life for a new generation. Originally released for the Nintendo GameCube (and later the PlayStation 2), the STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Life remake introduces a plethora of new events, enhanced festivals, a cornucopia of never-before-seen crops, and even more recipes to cook. Returning fans will find plenty of exciting updates to Forgotten Valley, while newcomers to the series will discover the joys of cozy farm life and the extraordinary characters that make this series shine. A Familiar Farm for a New Generation: Revisit this iconic community with updated systems, character designs, and visuals that revitalize Forgotten Valley while maintaining the charm that made the original a classic. Your Story, Your Way ‒ With the option to play as a male, female, or non-binary protagonist, as well as all eligible marriage candidates available for romance regardless of that choice, players can truly be who they want. Farming Simulation Evolved ‒ The original farming features have been updated, bringing new excitement to the carefree life of growing crops and raising animals. Living a Wonderful Life is More Than Just Farming ‒ While taking a break from your daily farm work, befriend memorable characters in the valley, help fellow residents with requests, and experience all-new events. STORY OF SEASONS: A Wonderful Lifereleased on Windows PC via Steam, PlayStation®5, Xbox Series X|S, and the Nintendo Switch™ system on June 27, 2023. The title is available for purchase digitally on all platforms for a MSRP of $49.99, and physically for console platforms on the XSEED Games Store and participating retailers for a MSRP of $49.99 for the standard edition. A premium edition, including a 3.5” x 4” goat pocket plushie and large 21” x 14” cloth poster, is also available for a MSRP of $59.99. As an added bonus, players will be able to download the “Mukumuku Costume” DLC for free on all platforms through July 5, after which it will no longer be available. The game is published in North America by XSEED Games and in Europe by Marvelous Europe. This title has been rated “E for Everyone” by the ESRB.

We are one month out from our next Pride and Joy Parent event, Prepping your family for Pride and are so excited that Rae McDaniel (they/them) will be joining our incredible panel of distinguished guests. Rae is a licensed therapist, certified sex therapist, gender specialist, coach, educator, and author of the new book Gender Magic. They are the Founder and CEO of Practical Audacity, a Gender & Sex Therapy practice in Chicago, Illinois. We spoke with them about writing their book, Gender Magic, what pride means to them, and some notes on allyship. Here is more from our conversation. "I believe the world is a better place when we all have the freedom and audacity to be our biggest, most lit-up, authentic selves. That’s my mission and I hope you will join me in it." -Rae McDaniel (they/them) Pride and Joy Foundation (PJF): Could you speak a little on the process of writing Gender Magic? (How long did it take, how did the idea come about, what was the biggest inspiration, etc?) Rae: As a non-binary person and gender and sex therapist, I was frustrated that the dominant narrative about gender exploration and transition only focused on the negative and hard parts of what it means to be a transgender person in our world today. The very real and difficult aspects of being a transgender person cannot be ignored, but I was also seeing my clients and community thrive and wanted to figure out how to help gender explorers engage with gender in a way that didn’t feel like a slog through the mud.. I got curious and I followed that curiosity. I sat on my living room floor for weeks surrounded by client notes, sticky notes, books, and research articles until I was able to get clarity on how all of the pieces fit together to create a framework for helping transgender and non-binary folks explore and transition their gender with less suffering and more ease. The outcome of this-The Gender Freedom Model-became a peer-reviewed journal article and the backbone of my book, Gender Magic. When I started the book proposal process in January of 2021, I didn’t feel quite ready to write a book yet. I wasn’t internet famous and I was concerned I wouldn’t get a book deal. Luckily, I had several business mentors and trusted friends who encouraged me to go for it. The entire process from proposal to publication took 2.5 years. PJF: What writer(s) inspired you? Rae: I adore Lydia Yuknavich. She writes in a way that viscerally impacts you both in her stories and her form. Her writing makes you feel more human by speaking the story underneath the story, delving into truths about humanity in a way that few contemporary writers are able to do. Rae: Pride is a fully owning and understanding your own dignity as a human being. It impacts the stories we believe about ourselves and how we talk to and about ourselves. In Gender Magic, I talk about pride as an action. Pride is unapologetically taking up space, setting boundaries for how we allow ourselves to be treated, fighting for our rights and the rights of others, and celebrating who we are. Pride is a also a muscle. We build pride in who we are by acting in alignment with our values and beliefs, in connection with a supportive community. Rae: My chosen family were essential in my coming out process. I was very fortunate to be working at an LGBTQ+ focused business and to have a strong support network of LGBTQ+ friends and allies when I came out publicly and to my family. My family is very religious and conservative and I knew they would not support my queer identity. Navigating their homophobia and transphobia was and is a challenging part of my life. However, I’ve always had close friends who have my back and a place to go for holidays. I’m not alone. PJF: What are three things you want from an ally? Available for pre-orders now and in stores May 30th! Hear more from Rae, Junior Mintt, Kalyela Josephs and Elena Joy Thurston on Tuesday, May 16 4pm PT/ 7pm ET for our Pride and Joy Parent Event open to any and all parents, adults, educators, caretakers who want to be more supportive in the LGBTQ+ community beyond Pride. Register here! About the Author: Rae McDaniel (they/them) is a non-binary Speaker, Author, Therapist, Certified Sex Therapist, Coach, and Transgender Diversity and Inclusion Educator. Rae helps audiences gain the sheer audacity to be themselves in the world through play, pleasure, and possibility. They also are the founder and CEO of Practical Audacity, a Gender & Sex Therapy practice in Chicago, serving over 300 clients yearly.

Distributed Denial of Women – a general strike It’s a well-known problem: the tech industry, be it proprietary or open source, hasn’t managed to tackle inequality in its ranks despite several proactive efforts and millions of dollars invested to diversify their staff. There are many explanations and critiques of these approaches, but in the end what counts is that technology is still developed and maintained by a homogeneous population of mainly English-speaking cisgender white men. That’s why on the 23rd February 2017 women and non-binary people in tech are called to join a general strike, the Distributed Denial of Women. We are calling on all women and non-binary people to stand in solidarity and pledge to stay offline, organize or join public gatherings, or stay home in protest of being constantly overlooked, undervalued, underpaid, and downright attacked for daring to demand basic dignity and respect. The organizers of the Distributed Denial of Women acknowledge that not all women and non-binary people have the privilege to participate in this strike, and offer several ways of joining the protest, also through social media. As women working at eQualit.ie, we have decided to join the strike in solidarity with women and non-binary people in tech who regularly face exclusion microaggressions or abuse. We will participate in the protest with a proactive attitude, so that the Distributed Denial of Women is not a one-off event but a step in a wider process aiming at inclusion and at creating a safer space within our working place, even geographicallydistributed one. For example, in the coming weeks we have committed, as a team, to set aside dedicated time to tackle (or continue developing) our hiring and recruitment processes (with a focus on actively pursuing diversity and standardising assessments) reviewing material we publish for exclusionary language and opening dialogues within the team about adopting a code of conduct that reflects the kind of balanced environment we want to work in. We realize that gender gaps exist across all sectors n Canada, where eQualit.ie was founded, women earn on average 66.7 cents for every dollar men earn, according to the most recent national statistics. The field of tech particularly exemplifies this disparity, with qualified female candidates often passed in favour of male candidates, and women earning less money and being hired more often than men in non-technical roles. This in addition to the harassment regularly directed at women in the workplace. In showing that we actively stand against discrimination we believe, as a first step, that the DDoW campaign being organised on February 23rd is a positive way to bring attention to these important issues. Furthermore, eQualit.ie pledges to develop and keep defining standards of fairness and diversity as we move forward, to keep taking necessary steps to show that despite statistics and biased industry standards, we are committed to living up to our name and doing our work in an inclusive environment.

IN Community: Help Improve The Lives Of LGBTQ2 People In Canada Complete an online survey and be a part of Canada’s LGBTQ2 Action Plan… By Jumol Royes The Government of Canada is putting out a call for participants to take a survey in the hope of learning more about the lives of LGBTQ2 Canadians. The LGBTQ2 Survey is open to anyone in Canada aged 16 or older who self-identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, Transgender, intersex, Queer and/or Two-Spirit, as well as anyone who identifies as a member of the community, but uses different terms or concepts to refer to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression. As a follow up to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2017 apology to the LGBTQ2 community and the government’s commitment to building a more inclusive country, and on the heels of the recent announcement of a design competition for the LGBTQ2 National Monument in Ottawa, survey results will allow for a better understanding of the challenges LGBTQ2 people face in areas such as healthcare, housing and homelessness, employment and safety. Participation in the survey is voluntary and anonymous. “I am pleased to announce the first step of the first-ever federal LGBTQ2 Action Plan,” says the Honourable Bardish Chagger, Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth. “I am looking forward to hearing from diverse LGBTQ2 communities as we write a new page of history by advancing equity and improving the lives of LGBTQ2 Canadians in a way that is based on their lived experiences.” The survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete online and is open until February 28, 2021. In addition to the national survey, the LGBTQ2 Secretariat plans to host a series of virtual roundtable discussions this spring with diverse LGBTQ2 communities, including Two-Spirit, Black, racialized, people with disabilities, Transgender and non-binary folks. Priorities identified during these discussions will also be used to support the community during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. “COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on certain communities in Canada, including LGBTQ2 Canadians. The LGBTQ2 Survey is an important first step that will inform further engagement activities as we build together to ensure everyone has the necessary resources and access to deal with the health, social, and economic impacts of the pandemic,” adds Adam Van Koeverden, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth. Fill out the online survey at: canada.ca/lgbtq2-action-plan Watch and share the video below: JUMOL ROYES is a Toronto-area storyteller, communications strategist and glass-half-full kinda guy. He writes about compassion, community, identity and belonging. His guilty please is watching the Real Housewives. Follow him on Twitter @Jumol and on Instagram @jumolroyes.

Transgenderism ‘Only A Provocative Display,’ Says New Vatican Document The Vatican released a document Monday condemning modern gender theory for aiming to “annihilate the concept of ‘nature,'” and helping to “destabilise the family as an institution.” This is the Vatican’s first comprehensive document on gender theory. The document questions the motives of transgender people, saying their gender transition is “only a ‘provocative’ display.” “This oscillation between male and female becomes, at the end of the day, only a ‘provocative’ display against so-called ‘traditional frameworks,'” reads the document, which was published by the Congregation for Catholic Education. The Vatican asserts there is irony in transgender people’s gender transition and non-binary people’s gender ambiguity in that they “actually presuppose the very sexual difference that they propose to negate or supersede.” In addition, the document, titled “Male and Female He Created Them,” blasts this “oscillation between male and female” for supposedly ignoring the suffering of people who live with biological sex disorders such as Klinefelter and Turner syndrome. The Vatican blames what they see as a destabilization of the family on gender theory’s “tendency to cancel out the differences between men and women.” The document says that, according to gender theory, “the only thing that matters in personal relationships is the affection between the individuals involved, irrespective of sexual difference or procreation which would be seen as irrelevant in the formation of families.” Different sexual identities are “often founded on nothing more than a confused concept of freedom in the realm of feelings and wants,” the document says. Many Catholic LGBTQ activists immediately fired back against the document. In a statement to the Daily Caller, Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, one of the most prominent organizations for LGBTQ Catholics, which is banned from all Church property, said, “Although presented as a call for dialogue, this statement reinforces the Vatican’s entrenchment in a simplistic and outdated ideology of biological determinism.” “The Vatican’s stubborn refusal to reconsider its stale vision of gender complementarity as the exclusive basis for human identity and relationships in the light of decades of contrary scientific findings and personal testimony from millions is tragic,” said Duddy-Burke. The Vatican’s document proposes an understanding of complementarity between men and women that finds its fruition in the family: “The family is the natural place for the relationship of reciprocity and communion between man and woman to find its fullest realisation.” The Congregation for Catholic Education traces a history of gender theory that begins with same-sex relationships in the 1990s and moves towards “a radical separation between gender and sex.” The Vatican says this “radical separation” between gender and sex has the goal of achieving “a society without sexual differences.” The document uses science to back up “sexual dimorphism” — the view that there is a sexual difference between men and women. “From the point of view of genetics, male cells (which contain XY chromosomes) differ, from the very moment of conception, from female cells (with their XX chromosomes),” it says. Genetics, endocrinology, and neurology are also mentioned as fields that demonstrate an inherent difference between the sexes. In providing a solution to what it sees as the errors of gender theory, the Vatican says: “There is a need to reaffirm the metaphysical roots of sexual difference, as an anthropological refutation of attempts to negate the male-female duality of human nature, from which the family is generated.” Duddy-Burke added that “it feels especially cruel and insensitive for this statement to be released as people all over the world are marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, a pivotal moment in the LGBTQI movement for visibility, respect, and equality.” However, conservative Catholics celebrated the move. Mary Rice Hasson, the Kate O’Beirne fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, tweeted, “Clear, strong document from the Vatican on gender ideology. We are created male and female. Period.”

Chloé Messdaghi “stalked” her way into her new role of chief impact officer at Cybrary just three weeks ago. Eleanor Dallaway sat down with her to discuss removing barriers and the mental health deterioration that is worryingly synonymous with the cybersecurity industry. “Burnout typically happens when people don’t have certain skills,” explained Messdaghi. “When they’re tasked with other people’s workloads, or overwhelmed with work they don’t know how to do, that’s when burnout happens.” She’s keen to add that what sometimes presents as burnout can actually be PTSD and/or depression, or will turn into one of those conditions if burnout goes untreated. “The industry isn’t doing anything about it,” she lamented. “In hacker communities, we keep learning about suicides, there’s no personal work life balance and that has tragic consequences.” Candidly, she stated: “this industry is costing people their mental health.” Messdaghi explained that PTSD in cybersecurity is often the result of “really bad management causing panic or anxiety. Sadly, we see it more with women; PTSD as a result of harassment, discrimination or assault.” It explains why the ‘revolving door’ in our industry moves even faster for women, she added. So what is the answer? How do we slow down that revolving door? “We need to figure out how to have more flexibility, the ability to be – and stay – remote, we need to ask out teams what they need and we must learn to be good leaders. It’s about listening to our team’s needs – be humble, be curious, take action.” ‘Representation matters’ is a message that has been touted all over the RSA conference. It is also something that Messdaghi is passionate about. “We have no sense of belonging yet [in cybersecurity]. We feel uncomfortable when we are the only ones that look like us in the room.” So, what’s the solution? “Get representation, put marginalized people on boards,” she answered. Messdaghi blames industry gatekeeping for the lack of success in this area to date. “Even researchers have a lack of diversity, so the research isn’t diverse. We have no data for the non-binary community, we lack data around people of color. Research needs to be more accessible, and do does our industry.” As mentioned in the introduction, Messdaghi “stalked” her way into her role at Cybrary. Those are her words. She set her sights on the cybersecurity training company because she is passionate about its mission – to make training accessible to everyone. Upskilling professionals contributes to reducing burnout, which is something Messdaghi cares deeply about. “Cybrary is built by cybersecurity experts, it’s a familiar name, it’s trusted and it’s accessible to everyone. We’re fighting the industry skills gap,” she said proudly. She added that there should be no limitations, including financial, when it comes to industry accessibility, and Cybrary’s affordable model aims to break down those barriers. “Cybrary opens those doors, making the industry accessible to people and, as a result, improving diversity.” Read more: https://bit.ly/3xi2fo1 You can also read this: Can Technological Advancement Fade Out VPN Usage in Cybersecurity?

BroadwayWorld: Moment Mag Zoominar Announcement Reading and Talkback With Playwright Michelle Kholos Brooks and Holocaust Historian Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, hosted by Moment Magazine. The Kilroys: The List 2020 The 2020 List has been created to honor new plays written by the women, trans, and non-binary writers of the American theatre. Jewish Journal Interview: Virtual Theater: Michelle Kholos Brooks’ ‘Hitler’s Tasters’ Offers Food for Thought “Hitler’s Tasters” is a compelling dark comedy that turns a historical footnote into a provocative social study. Its run at the Electric Lodge Theater in Venice cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic is streaming online through May 21. LA Times Interview: From Fringe Festival to Venice: A socially distanced ‘Hitler’s Tasters’ comes to L.A. "This historical tidbit inspired Michelle Kholos Brooks to write “Hitler’s Tasters,” a risky drama that asks audiences to empathize with Nazi protagonists. The production by the New Light Theater Project earned acclaim in New York and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and despite coronavirus-related theater closures in Los Angeles County, it is proceeding with its run through March 30 at the Electric Lodge in Venice." LA Times Article: Coronavirus canceled almost all shows in Los Angeles, but this one is still a go “It’s not just costs — though it’d be dishonest to ignore that — but they rehearsed and worked hard, and to send them home without allowing them to perform would be very difficult.” "Hitler’s Tasters, a play by Michelle Kholos Brooks freely imagines what risking your life, fork by fork, was really like." LA Times Interview: Age 28, going on 12: How adult actors pull off playing children onstage "Each day in her rehearsals for “Hitler’s Tasters,” director Norris had her actresses discuss a different memory — family pet, first crush, painful high school moment. The goal: bring them back to adolescence." Chicago Tribune Interview: Survival is complicated for ‘Hitler’s Tasters’ "Young German women risked their lives every day to ensure that Adolf Hitler wasn’t poisoned. Playwright Michelle Kholos Brooks tells their stories in “Hitler’s Tasters”." The Jewish Chronicle Feature "In Edinburgh I am very curious to see how an international audience reacts to Hitler’s Tasters." The New York Jewish Week Interview: Fresh Food For Thought On The Holocaust "In an interview, Brooks told The Jewish Week that it was by putting the young women in such an extreme situation that enabled her to delve into the psychology of her characters in a way that transcended the usual treatments of this age group in our culture." Spotlight Interview: A Taste of Success: Writing, Fundraising and Marketing a Fringe Hit "After a successful run of 'Hitler's Tasters' at the Edinburgh Fringe, we speak with writer Michelle Kholos Brooks and actress MaryKathryn Kopp about adapting historical accounts, bringing a show to Edinburgh from the US, and the IndieGogo campaign that made it all possible." The New Current Interview "Based on true events, a group of conscripted young women put their lives on the line three times a day, every day, for Adolf Hitler. A dark comedy that explores the way girls navigated sexuality, friendship and patriotism during the Third Reich, it also considers how power can corrupt, leaving children in the firing line." The EFC Interview: Meet the 2019 Performers - Hitler's Tasters "The team behind the play have already started an active marketing campaign on social media, and it is clear they are very excited about the production and the story they have to tell!" The Clyde Fitch Report Feature "Michelle Kholos Brooks seizes upon a curious historical footnote, depicting not one but three tasters of the Fuhrer’s food." Rep Radio Podcast Interview "On today’s podcast, here at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, we meet the creative team of Hitler’s Tasters. This ticket is highly shut after and I managed to get them along with the opportunity to chat. Here’s my interview for Hitler’s Tasters." Go See A Show Podcast Interview

Social Services Resources: LGBTIQQS Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) is dedicated to ending oppression and discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression. Rooted in social justice, they educate the public, advocate with state, local, and federal government, engage in activism, and encourage empowerment of community members through collective action. Phone: (617) 778-0519 Trans Health Program Patient Advocate can help you find health information and resources, and assist you in figuring out your next steps for getting the care you need. Services are free and available on a walk-in basis for 20-minute sessions on Wednesdays, 4:00 – 7:00 pm. Address: 1340 Boylston Street, Ansin Building, 2nd Floor Phone: (857) 313-6589 Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (QAPA) is committed to providing a supportive social, political, and educational environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and questioning people of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage in the Boston and New England area. Bisexual Resource Center (BRC) is a national organization committed to providing support to the bisexual community and raising public awareness about bisexuality and bisexual people. Address: 29 Stanhope St, Boston, MA 02116 Phone: (617) 424-9595 Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders They are New England’s leading legal rights organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status and gender identity and expression. Address: 30 Winter Street, STE 800, Boston, MA 02108 Phone: (617) 426-1350 LGBTIQQS HELPLINE AND PEER LISTENING LINES LGBT Helpline (25+): Phone: (617) 267-9001 Toll-Free: (888) 340-4528 Peer Listening Line (25 & Under): Help lines are anonymous and confidential. No matter what is on your mind, we are here to encourage and ensure you that you are not alone. Phone: (617) 267-2535 Toll-Free: (800) 399-7337 The Trevor Project crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. 24/7 Trevor Lifeline: 1 (866) 488-7386 A Virtual Awakening: Closed online AA meeting for women, trans, and non-binary people Recovery literature, speakers, open discussion; Sun, Mon, Wed, Fri at 8:30pm EST, Thurs 1:00pm EST; https://zoom.us/j/4822208285 Greater Boston PFLAG A group of parents, families, friends, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people offering support groups in different locations throughout Massachusetts. Help line: 866-427-3524 YOUTH AND YOUNG ADULT Boston GLASS Community Center A drop-in center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning young people between the ages of 13 and 25. You can get something to eat, use the computers to build a resume, or talk to a staff person and get help or support on everything from housing issues to health care. They offer group meetings titled: Gender Identity Group, Coming Out Group, Women’s Group, and Men’s Group. Phone: (857) 399-1920 The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Here are Local resources in your community. 24/7 Trevor Lifeline: 1 (866) 488-7386 Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center provides safe, non-judgmental care for young people ages 12–29 who may not feel comfortable going anywhere else. They provide medical care, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment, STD testing and treatment, women’s health care, transgender care, and provide sensitive, respectful and appropriate care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBT) youth and young adults. Address: 75 Kneeland Street Boston, MA 02111 Phone: (617) 457-8140 Waltham House is a group home program is designed to provide a safe and supportive living environment for up to 12 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) youth ages 14-18. Waltham House offers residents a safe environment to live while they prepare for family reunification, independent living and future self-sufficiency. Phone: (781) 647-9976 Safe Homes is a program of The Bridge of Central Massachusetts. It is a program for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning young people between the ages of 14 and 23, and is led by youth, professional staff, and volunteer adult advisors. They offer support and resources in a safe and nurturing environment. Address: 4 Mann Street Worcester, MA 01602 Phone: (508) 755-0333 The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth Support Project Their mission is to ensure safe and supportive communities for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning (GLBTQ) youth. The GLBT Youth Support Project provides training and on-going support for educators and health and human service providers to assist them in implementing welcoming and appropriate programs, policies, and services for these young people and their families. Address: 942 West Chestnut Street Brockton, MA 02301 Phone: 1 (800) 530-2770 The Cape and Islands Gay and Straight Youth Alliance is a community-based alliance of young people from 14 to 22 that exists to improve the lives of LGBTIQQS (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning and straight) youth on Cape Cod and the Islands by addressing key risk factors such as the self-hate, isolation and fear. CIGSYA works toward eliminating all forms of discrimination based on differences through education and training, and by providing a space where young people can come together free from judgment and harassment. Address: 56 Barnstable Rd. Hyannis, MA 02601 Phone: (508) 778-7744 Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgender Youth (BAGLY) is a youth-led, adult-supported social support organization committed to social justice, and creating, sustaining and advocating for programs, policies, and services for GLBT youth 22 and under. Phone: (617) 227-4313 Find an AGLY near you! Merrimack Valley Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth (McVAGLY) aims to provide LGBT youth from the Merrimack Valley a safe environment to gather weekly to discuss issues that may not be adequately addressed elsewhere. These issues may include coming out, safe sex, the effectiveness of high school and middle school GSA’s, suicide, and GLBT rights in the community. All meetings are facilitated by high school and college students and chaperoned by adults 25+ yrs. Supporters of Worcester Area Gay and Lesbian Youth (SWAGLY) provides a safe space for all gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning youth and their straight allies, ages 14-23 to socialize, learn and share. Their weekly meetings consist of social time, introductions, community announcements, and a structured conversation about issues facing GLBTQ youth today. These include coming out, coping with stress, working with relationships, and various discussions about drug abuse and safer sex Phone: (508) 755-0005 North Shore Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth (NAGLY) is a welcoming and safe place for youth ages 14 – 21 who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. Their mission is to create, sustain and advocate for programs, policies, and services for the LGBT youth community, through regular support meetings, and by defending and enhancing the human and civil rights of LGBT youth on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Phone: (617) 927-6088 Phone: (781) 913-3747 OUT Metrowest The mission of OUT MetroWest is to support the health and emotional well-being of LGBTQ teens in the Boston MetroWest area by offering youth-led and adult-supported social and educational programs. Umbrella is a peer group specifically intended to provide additional support for transgender and gender-nonconforming youth. Nexus is a program for middle school youth that meets monthly in a safe space to explore questions relating to sexual orientation and gender identity. Phone: (508) 875 2122 Boston Area Transgender Support is a peer-run support group for transgender young adults in and around Boston. They are inclusive of both female-to-male (FTM) spectrum and male-to-female (MTF) spectrum individuals, gender queer persons, intersexed folks, and of those questioning their gender identity. Meetings emphasize group participation and mutual respect, and all. Discussions are confidential between members. GLSEN- Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) is a national organization making schools safer for ALL students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. Since homophobia and heterosexism undermine a healthy school climate, they work to educate teachers, students, and the public at large about the damaging effects these forces have on youth and adults alike. Address: GLSEN MA PO Box 51243, Boston, MA 02205 Phone: (617) 684-5736 Youth on Fire (YOF): a program of AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, is a drop-in center for homeless and street-involved youth, ages 14-24, located in Harvard Square, Cambridge. The primary goals of YOF include responding to the basic and urgent needs of homeless and street-involved young adults at highest risk of communicable diseases and victimization, and connect homeless and street-involved youth to age-appropriate services including on-site behavioral health and medical care through strengths-based case management. Please note that the information provided on this page is not an endorsement of services nor is it a substitute for due diligence. While every effort is made to keep the information updated, there is no guarantee of its accuracy. To report an update, changes, or broken links for any content on this web page, please email

Whata€™s the very best queer matchmaking software correct? People, weary of swiping through profiles with discriminatory language and frustrated with protection and confidentiality issues, say it’sna€™t a dating application in any way. Ita€™s Instagram. This could be rarely a queer seal of approval for its social websites platform. Instead, ita€™s a symptom that, from inside the view of a lot of LGBTQ anyone, larger online dating apps were weak us. I am certain that sentiment properly, from both revealing on dating technological innovation and my own practice as a gender non-binary individual swiping through app after software. In true early-21st-century elegance, I satisfied my favorite present mate directly after we matched on multiple software before agreeing to an initial time. Positive, today’s say of matchmaking search okay if youa€™re a white in color, younger, cisgender gay dude investigating any hookup. Regardless if Grindra€™s lots of issues have got turned one switched off, you will find vying choices, such as, Scruff, Jacka€™d, and Hornet and comparative novices particularly Chappy, Bumblea€™s homosexual sibling. Main-stream going out with software a€?arena€™t made to meet queer goals,a€? reporter Mary Emily Oa€™Hara informs me. Oa€™Hara went back to Tinder in March if the girl latest partnership ended. In a personal experience other lesbians need noted, she encountered some directly men and people falling into them benefits, so she searched exactly what several queer women claim is a problem thata€™s forcing them away from the most popular internet dating application in America. Ita€™s one of the most significant understanding retaining Oa€™Hara from logging over, way too. a€?Ia€™m essentially staying away from cellular going out with software nowadays,a€? she claims, Tattoo dating apps choosing rather to get to know promising fights on Instagram, exactly where progressively more people, notwithstanding sex identity or sexuality, move to look for and get connected to promising couples. An Instagram levels may serve as a photograph photoset for lovers, an easy way to interest enchanting welfare with a€?thirst picsa€? and a low-stakes site to interact with crushes by over and over responding to their unique a€?storya€? postings with heart-eye emoji. Some find it as a tool to add dating programs, that enable people to connect her social networking records on their kinds. Others keenly look reports just like @_personals_, with switched a large part of Instagram into a matchmaking services focus on queer females and transgender and non-binary individuals. a€?Everyone i am aware obsessively reviews Personals on Instagram,a€? Oa€™Hara states. a€?Ia€™ve out dated a couple of men and women we achieved when they uploaded advertising present, as well experiences features believed much close.a€? Things Instagrama€™s adult company possess searched to take advantage of by rolling on a program referred to as facebook or myspace matchmaking, which a€” surprise, affect a€” integrates with Instagram. Except for many queer everyone, Instagram simply appears like the least terrible selection in comparison to dating programs in which they document having harassment, racism and, for trans consumers, the chance of getting immediately prohibited with no reasons other than who they really are. Despite the tiny ways Tinder has taken to help its software much more gender-inclusive, trans customers nevertheless report acquiring restricted arbitrarily. a€?Dating applications arena€™t actually efficient at appropriately taking non-binary sexes, not to say shooting all the nuance and discussion that goes into trans attraction/sex/relationships,a€? says a€?Gender Reveala€? podcast variety Molly Woodstock, just who uses singular a€?theya€? pronouns. Ita€™s depressing since the queer area helped to pioneer online dating regarding requirement, from analogue days of personal advertisements around the earliest geosocial speak software that permitted effortless hookups. Best over the past number of years keeps online dating sites emerged due to the fact No. 1 technique heterosexual people see. Because the regarding online dating programs, same-sex partners have got overwhelmingly satisfied inside the digital globe.

-The Fund, supported by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Humble Bundle, and the Scholarship Fund Community, offers students a $10,000 grant as well as industry mentorship, internship access, and more- RALEIGH, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#GMGSF–LearnDistrict Inc. today announces the first recipients of its four year college scholarship fund for women and non-binary people aiming to join the games industry. LearnDistrict Inc. is the educational media company behind Girls Make Games, a renowned STEAM development program for girls and non-binary students worldwide to learn and develop the technical and artistic skills required to enter the interactive entertainment industry. The Girls Make Games Scholarship Fund (GMGSF), established in Fall 2022, combines professional development and financial support to ensure underrepresented students have the opportunity to access STEAM programs at an early age. The first three recipients (Nichole Lin, Allena Oglivie, Monica Paredes) of the fund will each receive a $10,000 grant ($2,500/year) for a four year time frame and be directly sponsored by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Humble Bundle, and the GMGSF community respectively. In addition, the recipients will receive industry mentorship, internship placement support and career-readiness and job placement assistance as a fund recipient. “Giving every girl and woman the opportunity to discover their potential through game development is at the core of Girls Make Games’ mission,” said Laila Shabir, founder of Girls Make Games. “With the Fund and the support of our industry partners, we are extremely proud that our first College Scholarship recipients can now bridge the financial, knowledge and community gap that our alumni have experienced over the years.” “At Sony Interactive Entertainment, we’re committed to improving equity and fostering a diverse workforce and we’ve worked closely with Girls Make Games to inspire young girls and women to enter STEAM fields through hosting workshops and outreach opportunities,” said Jennifer Clark, SVP Communications at Sony Interactive Entertainment. “Extending our support through the Girls Make Games Scholarship Fund is a natural step towards a diverse pipeline of women talent and we’re excited for the first recipients to accomplish great things and explore their interests in gaming.” Kamini Tiwari, vice president of social impact and chief of staff at Humble commented, “Girls Make Games Scholarship Fund continues to pave new paths forward in increasing representation for women in the field of game development. We’re proud to be able to support their inaugural college scholarship program and help them provide young women with opportunities to build the foundational skills they need to create tomorrow’s gaming experiences.” Details of GMGSF The GMGSF launched in Fall 2022, provides further access and career pathway opportunities to girls, women, and non-binary students in the United States aged 8 to 24 to develop skills required to enter the gaming industry so they can access educational opportunities such as game development summer camps, workshops, and higher education degrees. The Fund will through financial and other assistance aims to provide access to STEAM opportunities to 100,000 girls, women, and non-binary students by 2026. For more information on the College Scholarship Fund, eligibility requirements and the details of the first three recipients visit https://www.gmgsf.org/college-scholarships About Girls Make Games Since 2014 Girls Make Games (GMG), a program from the educational media company LearnDistrict Inc., has been providing STEAM development programs to girls and non-binary students worldwide who are interested in gaining skills required to enter the video game industry. GMG’s vision is to increase the number of girls and women in the gaming industry by empowering underrepresented talent ages 8 to 24 to enter STEAM fields through their passion for play and game design. It has reached more than 23,000 students in nearly 150 cities across 20 countries through its workshops, summer camps, tutorials, and games. Its Girls Make Games Scholarship Fund (GMGSF) is a 501(c)(3) organization registered in North Carolina. For more info visit https://gmgsf.org/

A Selection of Work by Westman's LGBT2SQ+ Community Opening Reception: Thursday June 13, 7:30PM Together with Brandon Pride, the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba is pleased to present the second biennial of Making Our Mark. Showcasing works in a variety of mediums by self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, queer, asexual, and non-binary artists in the Westman region, this exhibition explores how individuals of this community express themselves, challenge mainstream understandings of queer identities, and put a unique stamp on representation through art. This year, participating artists were encouraged to create work that expressed the past, present, and future—where they have come from, who they are now, and where they hope to go. Making Our Mark 2 is an exciting transformation to the AGSM’s Community Gallery, debuting proudly during Brandon Pride Week 2019.

Austin ISD kicked off LGBTQ Pride Month this week by raising the Pride flag during a ceremony at the district’s headquarters. The Pride flag will remain in place for the week of June 3rd and will also fly over the courtyard the week of October 7th, in honor of AISD’s district-wide Pride Week. Over the past year, members of Informed Parents of Austin have voiced concerns about the district’s lack of communication around AISD’s past Pride Weeks, as well as the lack of enforcement of individual schools’ participation in the district-wide Pride week. We are hopeful that AISD’s May 31 press release, which details their increased commitment to this year’s October 5-11 Pride Week, marks an important first step in its commitment to amplify and support AISD Pride and actionably demonstrate their #AllMeansAll and #NoPlaceForHate values. Here is an excerpt from that press release (full release at bottom of post): “The district is also pleased to announce that funds generated from the rental of the AISD Performing Arts Center have been designated for district and campus Pride activities, including participation at the annual Austin Pride Parade, marking the sixth year of continued support and participation in the parade happening Saturday, Aug. 10. PAC rental funds will be used for costs, such as transportation and other expenditures, associated with both the Pride Parade and the district’s celebration in October. In addition, the district’s LGBTQ+ Affinity Group will be coordinating a districtwide event on Saturday, Oct. 5, at the AISD Performing Arts Center where LGBTQ+ students, staff, and families will be celebrated marking the beginning of AISD’s Pride Week, Oct. 7-11.” Since August 26, 2018, Austin ISD has been renting the PAC to Celebration Church, an organization which explicitly discriminates against LGBTQ individuals. Due to public outcry, the AISD school board began investigating options for discontinuing this partnership. As a result, on September 21, 2018, Jeffrey Mateer, First Assistant Attorney General to Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, sent a letter to AISD Superintendent, Paul Cruz. This letter threatened legal action if AISD denied rental opportunities to Celebration Church and cited multiple religious freedom cases. In the letter he states, “…the district should welcome churches who want to rent its facilities after school and on weekends, not discriminate against some of them based on their beliefs about marriage. In fact, the Constitution and state law require the District to provide churches with equal access to facilities it opens to community organizations. The District should reject the calls of its trustees to alter the facility use policies, and maintain its longstanding, cooperative relationship with churches in the community.” Because Celebration Church has a “Marriage and Sexuality Policy” that excludes members who are LGBTQ, The Informed Parents of Austin supports any legislative actions to introduce new bills or amend existing existing laws that would ensure a school district’s power to deny rentals to any organization that discriminates based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Our organization also seeks to ensure that AISD fulfills Superintendent Cruz’s promise to use the funds earned through its rental of the Performing Arts Center (PAC) to Celebration Church to fund inclusion and equality programs in AISD. We estimate that after forty weeks of rental at $6,000 per week, AISD currently has $240,000 available to commit to such programs, yet we are still waiting the district’s accounting for the rental of the PAC. We believe it is important that every penny of rent earned from anti-LGBTQ organizations goes towards countering the harmful effects of discrimination against LGBTQ students and staff, like that preached at Celebration Church. We would like to see these funds used to provide training for AISD staff concerning inclusion and equality, mental health services for LGBTQ youth, and programs to ensure the next generation of straight, CIS-gender kids are allies instead of excluders. Just some of the suggestions we have put forth, and will continue to request, to the AISD Board of Trustees for the Celebration/PAC funds are: - LGBTQ ally training for parents and community members. - LGBTQ ally training for students. - LGBTQIA training for all leadership involved in making decisions about and/or has the potential to impact student welfare, such as principals, school nurses, AISD campus police, and AISD board of trustees. - All training should include preparedness in dealing with gender identity and gender expression issues as well as intervention strategies around harassment and victimization of students due to their gender identity or expression. - Revising school forms to be gender neutral so same-sex parents, foster parents, single parents, non-binary parents and more, don’t need to work around gendered/mother/father blanks on forms. - Supplement collections of LGBTQ books for each school’s library and dedicated sections/displays for LGBTQ titles. - An AISD messaging campaign which communicates that AISD leadership unequivocally protects LGBTQ students, families, faculty and staff from homophobia and transphobia, and that AISD does not share the values with Celebration Church. - Additional counseling resources and counselor training to deal with supporting LGBTQ students, specifically dealing with challenges faced by students who identify as transgender or gender-nonconforming. - District resource for collecting and disseminating best practices and for building community with GSA (Gay Straight Alliances) across the entire district. - Each school should provide gender-neutral bathrooms to help transgender and gender-nonconforming students feel safe, comfortable and welcome at school. - Pride flag to be displayed prominently at the Performing Art Center. - Pride flags to be hung with flag collections at schools and during Pride Week. - An LGBTQ scholarship fund. We would love your feedback regarding how you would like to see the PAC funds allocated. You can share your ideas for us to consolidate on our Facebook Group, and we encourage you to also share you thoughts on why LGBTQ+ Inclusion programs are important to you with Superintendent Cruz and the Board of Trustees at [email protected] and [email protected] Sign up for future Informed Parents of Austin updates here:

Welcome to the first installment of YWCA Q&A – a semi-regular feature on our blog tackling issues that matter to us here at YWCA Hamilton. Today, we’re getting into the topic of encampments – an issue that intersects with our work in homelessness and housing that has been the subject of intense debate here in Hamilton. What are encampments? Encampments can refer to any area of the city where one or more people live in non-permanent shelters, usually tents. Encampments can be made up of a single tent or a group of tents. According to the City of Hamilton, there are currently roughly 20 known clusters of tents scattered around the city. Who lives in encampments? Encampments are populated by people who, for various reasons, have not been able to find housing elsewhere. Some are unable to afford to pay rent or cannot find affordable housing; others face addictions or mental health issues; and some may have had difficult experiences with the shelter system, or their needs are too complex to access shelters. For many folks, encampments are often a last resort – particularly for women and non-binary people. Women are more likely than men to rely on precarious or dangerous housing, including couch-surfing or exchanging sex for housing. As a result, as YWCA Hamilton Director of Operations Medora Uppal pointed out to the Hamilton Spectator, when women are living outside, it’s usually because they’ve exhausted all other options. “When we do see women on the street homeless, it’s the most desperate of situations,” she said. Why do encampments exist here in Hamilton? Hamilton is currently facing several crises that have led to a rise in visible encampments across the city. Hamilton currently faces a waitlist of over 6,000 people for affordable housing, which translates into a three to five year wait. Hamilton was also recently ranked as North America’s third least affordable city behind Vancouver and Toronto. The lack of available housing for low-income Hamiltonians is a key factor that has influenced the uptick in encampments. Hamilton’s shelter system is also over capacity, particularly for women and non-binary people. A recent city report showed that shelters serving women, transgender people, and non-binary adults have remained at full or over capacity since 2018. While the city has made hotel rooms available to people living in encampments, there are limited mental health, housing, and addiction services available there – and the services that are available are often short-term and crisis-oriented. Many folks also avoid shelters due to restrictive rules, such as curfews and no pets, and concerns about drugs, theft, and personal safety. Others may not be able to access shelters because their needs are too complex. According to the City of Hamilton, roughly 25 to 30 per cent of Hamilton’s homeless population have more complex needs that can lead to them being turned away or restricted from shelters. Why have encampments become the focus of debate? Encampments have become a flashpoint in Hamilton early in the pandemic, after several encampments were cleared using bulldozers and large crews of city staff. Advocacy groups in Hamilton, including HamSMART and Keeping Six, say some encampments were cleared without notice and the residents’ belongings were destroyed. They also pointed out that the encampments allowed outreach workers to connect vulnerable populations with the supports they need, particularly during Covid-19. The debate escalated when in July 2020, a group of doctors, harm-reduction advocates and lawyers secured an injunction that barred the city from forcing people to move. In September, a settlement was reached between the city and the coalition of advocates that included protocols related to encampments, including limiting encampments to five tents and requiring individual outreach with all encampment residents before clearing the site. How do encampments connect to our work here at YWCA Hamilton? Encampments continue to be an issue here in Hamilton and beyond, and are symptomatic of larger, systemic issues that YWCA Hamilton works to address every day. Through our programming – particularly Carole Anne’s place, our overnight drop-in centre for women – we see the high needs of our homeless population every day. At YWCA Hamilton, we continue to advocate for increasing available affordable housing; individualized supports for high-needs Hamiltonians seeking housing; and a compassionate, human-based approach to complex housing issues.

in my opinion by one of my girlfriend’s siblings. They identified as non-binary and announced to you 1 day that they are additionally polyamorous. Sharing using them life in a residential district that will be currently a minority, we felt like i will need grasped their own enjoy above I became effective at at that time. All i really could believe ended up being “that must call for that folks not have issues with being jealous.” It’s interesting in my experience, the notion of passionate several couples immediately, and revealing those associates together. In my opinion I’m so fascinated because we’re lifted in a monogamous community that ignores the potential for such a thing outside it. We also are primed together with the notion that having sexual intercourse beyond a committed connection try cheating, and not only do a bit of think about that a sin, however it is furthermore indicative that you have no admiration your other person. I can’t assist but ponder though: is actually devotion mainly for monogamy? Precisely why can’t we become committed romantically to multiple folks in a relationship that will be healthy and functional? Immediately after which thinking further, we began to question: let’s say my girlfriend’s sibling in a polyamorous relationship is obviously better off cultivating themself as one than I am within my monogamous partnership (and perhaps limiting my self)? Data of polyamory is relatively. Its defined as engaging in numerous romantic interactions. I want to earliest target the reason why it is important to care and attention. The reality that no more than 5% of society is also taking part in consensual non-monogamy is so small–and we realize, but few individuals participating does not limit the advantages. Many of us here at Goucher can relate solely to not-being at ease with the heteronormative objectives of one’s culture, and considering the fact that fact, I believe like members of the LGBTQ+ community have actually unique explanation to increase all of our horizons and work to de-stigmatize polyamory. Mathematically, its people in the LGBTQ+ area that happen to be more likely to feel polyamorous, and while that does not imply the LGBTQ+ neighborhood needs to get control of polyamory, it really is worth taking into consideration the oppression many of us undergo for just who and how we like others. In a way, united states of all of the group should empathize with any stigmatization close adore and gender; with polyamory, though the stigma is not who you love, it is how many group you like. Many battles which happen to be connected with are gay go over into research practiced within polyamorous populations, too. One study by Alicia Rubel and Anthony Bogaert confirmed that polyamorous everyone is no longer expected to need STIs that monogamous someone. Wild correct? It’s practically as though the manner in which you express their preference in interactions doesn’t have actually a correlation with whether or not you may have an STI. Surveys make sure 97.5percent of men and women playing a polyamorous partnership Inside the U.S., we tend to base the authenticity of our interactions off of exactly how monogamous these are generally. When Obama ended up being operating towards legalization of gay marriage, a large assist towards the vast majority service ended up being arguing these particular interactions become genuine and appropriate mainly because to the fact that members maybe “committed” their one mate. Countrywide, we thought engagement as straight dependent on power to stay monogamous in a relationship, but we challenge the line we suck between those two ideas. Can’t some body getting committed to numerous anyone simultaneously? It surely seems workable with many correspondence and confidence. Most of the time, individuals who challenge non-monogamy feel just like the condition of envy would overtake the possibility of happiness between by themselves yet others for the partnership. This makes feel to me; however we review a few viewpoints from people that be involved in these affairs and I thought myself opening up to understanding their unique horizon. Graham, who was simply questioned by Deborah Anapol in her book Polyamory during the 21 st millennium: adore and closeness With many Partners, explained their feel as “freeing how you love and keeping their heart ready to accept the probabilities that lifestyle may push is a very powerful method to living. Being able to take a look at somebody and feeling an outpouring of emotion and love for all of them, but without a necessity is possessive or controlling, is actually truly life switching.” Graham as well as others from various root all comprise determined that telecommunications is key to achievements in polyamorous affairs. These affairs need count on and openness—just like a monogamous relationship—which shows willpower. Ultimately in affairs, the objectives of partners need to be communicated and agreed upon for shared comfort and understanding; this is the backbone of success. Staying in touch with each partner’s requires for pleasure and putting apart the idea that one spouse can complete every dependence on another respectively starts the doorway to dialogue regarding how needs is generally fulfilled outdoors. Prefer is not special; its a shared experience and something that realistically could be provided amongst folks in the exact same power than it may between two. After the afternoon, polyamory appeals to a small percentage associated with the U.S. populace, but we should bear in mind as teenagers to force our selves to comprehend items that we would perhaps not typically happen elevated to agree with. Our company is a fresh generation with brand-new agendas, and in case we believe that admiration is actually prefer, we must believe that totally. Polyamory can cultivate gorgeous affairs within men present which should really be respected, perhaps not stigmatized. In many ways, I believe like I am able to learn from polyamory. As I believe jealousy towards my lover, i could make sure you concern me first: What are I therefore uneasy with? What’s the resource? And was we deciding on their particular feelings within? Looking at polyamorous views is generally beneficial and worth studying. Whether it’s anything we application or simply continue on the radar, we all can better our selves from a widened perspective.

We’ve all heard plenty about the characteristics of the so-called “Millenial” generation. They’re lazy, they’re entitled, they’re activists just looking for a cause. Personally I’ve always felt the labels given to this generation are unfair and judgement passed upon them are even more so (especially since it was my generation that created them). What often goes unseen is their prevailing level of desire for social justice. In the area of all things gender identity related in particular, they’ve taken on a far more open minded view than traditional culture. In fact, this generation seems to actually vilify those who do not share their viewpoint, and it seems they’ve taken it to an extreme. I’ve watched as my eldest child (who identifies as non-binary themselves) has blasted potential allies who simply were trying to understand but asked the wrong question or asked it in an inappropriate way. It’s this almost belligerent approach to demanding acceptance that I want to address. I’ve heard all the arguments about why we as trans people shouldn’t have to put up with this. It’s not our job to educate people, why do we have to be understanding of them when they’re understanding of us, etc. I agree with the validity of these viewpoints but the fact is we in the transgender community are the ones with something to lose. We’re the ones that seek equality and justice. Indeed if you look back at every social justice movement in the history of this nation, each was only won when the marginalized group stood up and worked together to be heard. Long held social preconceptions had to be overcome in each case and that could only be done through educating those who may be sympathetic to the cause if they understood the facts. This is no different today when it comes to transgender people. It’s not the ideal world, if it was we’d already have equal treatment. The fact is while this type of education of others can be burdensome and repetitious, if we’re not willing to put in that work we’ll never achieve equality. We have to work to build allies because ultimately the transgender community or even the larger LGBT community will not win this battle on our own. We need allies in the form of heterosexual cis-gender people whether they be black, white, Asian, Arab, whatever. If we look at those previous historic examples of struggles for equal treatment, their progress only began in earnest when members of the dominant social groups began to see the value of their cause and support it. Our enemies are master manipulators. They drive a message of whining minority groups who want special treatment and aren’t willing to play within the socially accepted processes. They fabricate stories of violent and hypocritical lashing out from our ranks in order to erode sympathy we may gain for our cause among the masses. When someone who is open-minded enough to potentially become an ally, parrots one of these stories or expresses concerns consistent with that falsified message, responding with venomous indignation only play’s into the manipulation that has been perpetrated against us. It is incumbent on us to play the “bigger person” role and exercise extreme levels of restraint in order to overcome the messaging of those who hate us. But that is our path to success. I’ll detail two recent stories from the last month that illustrate how often times those that may seem like enemies can be converted to allies through just a little education. The first was one of my in-laws. While not hateful toward me, she expressed many of the prevalent anti-trans biases that we hear in the media today. We were talking about bathroom bills and she of course parroted her concern over supposed threats to women and young girls if “men” are allowed to use their bathrooms. Calmly and quickly, I pulled out my phone and pulled up a recent picture I had seen of a trans-man in a bathroom. He was of muscular build, had a full beard and was wearing a cowboy hat, the traditional “man’s man” if such a thing there ever was. In a very cool and collected tone, I showed her the picture and asked, “so you would rather that this person use the women’s room from now on?” Of course she balked and said no. However, when I pointed out to her that this person was born with a female body and based on the wording of current and proposed laws in North Carolina and Texas, would be forced to use the women’s room, her tone changed completely. Suddenly she was open to hearing more about the transgender experience. By the end of our conversation she stated that we have separate stalls, so what does it even matter. The second story comes from Facebook. I received an alert that a friend had commented on a story about a cis-male and trans-male couple that were pregnant. I looked as his comment and found it incredibly offensive but it also exhibited the type of ignorance that plagues are society in terms of transgender issues. I calmly started a messenger session with him and suggested he view a video I had posted the previous day in which a professor discussed in detail, the physical characteristics of brain formations in transgender people versus cis-gender people. I respectfully but directly suggested that it might clear up his confusion on how a pregnant trans man is actually a man. Ultimately I got him to agree to watch it. Afterward he admitted it was eye-opening for him and that he didn’t realize science had made such discoveries. We ended up having a long conversation in which he expressed a view that everyone should be free to do what they need in order to be happy as long as they don’t harm others. He still mentioned his fears about straight men in women’s bathrooms, but I figured I had still made a huge dent so I calmly disagreed but left it at that. Now sure, these to anecdotes are kind of a best case scenario. Not everyone is so open minded. However, not everyone we perceive as close-minded and ignorant is really a lost cause. Some respond well to scientific facts which we have on our side. Others I’ve found respond well to the opinions of medical doctors and mental health professionals, again on our side. Sometimes just the social dignity aspects are the key to opening someone’s heart to our need for equality. However, the surest way to reinforce the false stereotypes these people harbor, is to assume they’re bigots and react with anger or disdain. Sometimes all it takes is the patience to determine how we can best appeal to their sensibilities and leverage that with some factual education to enlighten them.

A collection of stories from women and non-binary life scientists and nature enthusiasts This project seeks to bring together a community Black women and non-binary people to create a book that illustrates our broad experiences, in nature, at work and in our research. This book amplifies the often quiet or silenced voices. Publication goal: end of 2021. We are looking for writing contributions from women and non-binary scientists from all walks of life and stages of career development. We are open to any style of creative writing–prose, poetry, satire–our goal is to represent as much of the diversity within Black femininity and gender diversity as possible. We especially seek to highlight intersectional experiences. Final pieces will be ~2500 words. We’re framing the book around the arc through science-based careers: inspiration, exploration, evaluation, connection and prediction. For more information, check out the video below. Details are in the application The Writing Sample We’d like potential contributors to send us a short writing sample (500 words) demonstrating the style of writing they’d include in the book. Learn more in the video.

Hey my name is Grey and me and my bro Jay (hey look, it rhymes) are starting a blog. So to start of I thought I would try and for a FAQ on questions no-one has asked because they don’t know we exist. Grey, Why did you want to start a blog with Jay? Well I love doing collaborative projects where I talk back and forth with people via video or blog posts. I started a few but they all failed dismally, due to one of us getting bored or all the effort it takes to make videos and time to work on them. Jay and I are best bros tho and they seem just as excited as I am. Are you guys boys or girls? We are neither, we are nonbinary people who identify neither as male nor female. Thats why our blog has the word “enby” in it, that is the letters NB for non-binary turned into a more phonetic and literary friendly term. I choose to present as male on a day to day basis, but thats different from my Identity. Are you guys going to post much? I, Grey am going to try and post every friday minimum, at the start I might be super enthusiastic and post more. Single, Date Me? I am not single, I have been with my gorgeous SO for a quarter of a decade now. (gosh that sounds like a long time). What do you do, what is the point of you? I am an Information Systems (I.T.) student and a Beauty Therapy student, I have a minor addition to oblivion atm (the game before skyrim). I like catching trains and the point of me is for you to decide. I want to email you with real questions and ideas for topics/rants? PLEASE email us, we are so lonely [email protected] So jay, do you have anything to add?

Anything said but the plain truth can be confusing for those without a firm grasp of it. In the current climate of the pronoun wars regarding gender, those who actually buy into the fluidity of sexual nature – male or female or one of the several made-up genders – telling the truth can get a student suspended from school. The freshman student – only identified as M.P. in court documents – was discussing the difficulty of addressing a non-binary person in Spanish with his friends on the school bus when another student interjected to argue when M.P. replied, ‘There are only genders.’ After the short discussion on the bus, the students engaged in a debate over gender and sexuality in text messages. Those messages were turned into school administrators who suspended M.P. for ‘not respecting pronouns.’ The lawsuit filed on November 4 in Rockingham Superior Court, and obtained by DailyMail.com, said that the one-game suspension of the student in September was in violation of the student’s constitutional right to free speech and the New Hampshire Bill of Rights because he expressed his religious Catholic beliefs. The student is seeking nominal damages against what the lawsuit defines as New Hampshire School Administrative Unit 16 (SAU16) – a New Hampshire school district that includes Exeter High School in Exeter, Rockingham County – and Exeter High School Assistant Principal Marcy Dovholuk. Thankfully someone has some sense in this particular mess. Please make sure to share our website and articles with your friends, family, and fellow patriots to help us spread the truth!

On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) approved of legislation that drops ‘transgenderism’ from its list of mental disorders. The decision was described as having the “potential to liberate trans and non-binary people worldwide” and may trickle down from the international stage to national policies. Metro reports an “evolving scientific understanding of gender” along with numerous advocates and transgender activists from around the world who had “spoken up for the lives of trans people” were instrumental in seeing the new law passed. In an interview, Graeme Reid, the LGBT rights director of Human Rights Watch, told Metro the following: “The WHO’s removal of ‘gender identity disorder’ from its diagnostic manual will have a liberating effect on transgender people worldwide. “Governments should swiftly reform national medical systems and laws that require this now officially outdated diagnosis.” “Transgender people are fighting stigma and discrimination that can be traced in part to medical systems that have historically diagnosed expressions of gender non-conformity as a mental pathology. “But it’s the stigma, discrimination, and bullying—and not anything inherent in gender nonconformity—that can inflict mental health problems in transgender people.” Transgender Europe, a network consisting of “different organizations of transgender, transsexual, gender variant and other like-minded people to combat discrimination and support trans people rights,” reports citizens in the United Kingdom must still undergo a mental health diagnosis in order to change their “gender marker.” Various groups in the UK have recently campaigned to follow the lead of neighboring European countries, such as Ireland, France, Greece, Portugal and Norway, which permit individuals to self-identify their gender. In America, trans rights vary from state to state. In California, for example, people can apply for a new ID card or driver’s license through self-certification. At the other end of the spectrum, states including Ohio will not change a person’s gender on their birth certificate under any circumstance, according to Metro. Image Credit: The Times Support our work!

On Creative Collaborations And Performing For 48 Hours: Linzy Beltran Linzy Beltran is is a writer and improviser based out of Austin, Texas. She is a member of such troupes as SheSheSheShe, Minority Report and Migas, which performs improv comedy in Spanish and English. Linzy is also a writer/producer/director of Trance, a sketch comedy duo with her friend (and soulmate) Kim Tran. Beltran will be performing and exhibiting an interactive film performance at our BABES FEST film showcase on August 31, 2018 at the Austin School of Film. Interview conducted by #bbatx committee member Cristina Flores How would you describe your work? My work is a little my mom with a little Broadway with a lot of drama with a little bit of comedy and a lot of Latinx magic. It's not trending or cool, but it commands attention and offers empathy, nostalgia and heart. From comedy to musical improv, to your work as a producer and performer on Jazz Kween where you jazzed up Bidi Bidi Bom Bom—you're a chingona! What inspired you to combine music and comedy? I work in the music industry and two of my badass coworkers/besties/singers, Sarah Marine and Jessica Pyrdsa, joked about having a night with a piano and a mic and queens. I told them, "this should happen," and we should combine comedy, since improv is such a huge part of both jazz and comedy. I love that Jazz Kween introduces comedians to new musicians (and vice versa) and all are produced and performed by badass women. We hope that it one day becomes a full day jazz and comedy music festival. What are some challenges you experience in producing comedy or musical sketches in the Austin theater/improv scene? The biggest challenge I've encountered is finding the time to be able to fit it in with my full-time insurance-having, money-paying job and producing shows/musical sketches/scheduling nights where I can just write. But if Queen Bey can do it in 24 hours, so can I. How do you choose projects you want to be a part of or produce? Being vulnerable in my creativity is terrifying. Creative partnerships are like relationships—find yourself someone who you can be 100% raw and real with. I've been fortunate that I've found ladies/partners that make me feel comfortable with being insecure, who I can disagree with, who I can be cranky around, who I can laugh with and who I love to pieces. Earlier this year you performed in the 48-Hour Improv Showcase where you had to improv for 48 hours straight. How was that process?! I was so terrified going into it because of the toll that it would take on my body, but it was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had. It made me feel invincible—I did 48 shows, in a row! I laughed so hard, bonded with my fellow marathoners, felt like the funniest person and got to play my dad, Juan Beltran, in about 20 different shows. Also, it makes for a good icebreaker in situations where you run out of "fun facts" about yourself. You’re also working with some rad artists like Kim Tran on some successful collaborations. What advice do you have for women and non-binary creatives as they venture out and create together? I met Kim Tran at an All-Ladies improv jam and went up to her and asked her out (to be creative with me). She was my first relationship—seriously. I'd never had a boyfriend before that. I say if you find someone you admire and you feel a bond with and love, ask them to work with you. We live in a city that cultivates art and talent.

Canadian, b. 1989 Exploring gender, sexuality, ritual, and the search for identity, Nomi Chi’s artworks have a potent narrative. Often comprised of fantastically-constructed animal-human hybrids, Chi uses this imagery to tell personal stories and to create a new mythological canon for his tattoo clients. Chi’s art frequently contains multi-limbed, androgenized creatures who exemplify constantly shifting interpretations of self and other. Chi is a tattooist currently living in unceded Coast Salish, Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, Tsleil-Waututhlands, also known as Vancouver, Canada. He is a non-binary person who uses they/he pronouns. I came out as a trans person in the past couple of years and have been thinking around representing the body … about gender nonconforming mythologies and how gender nonconforming creatures and people can be scapegoated within particular cultures … I'm thinking around the feminine as monstrous particularly … and delving into Chimeric images and thinking of the self as fragmented and a hodgepodge of all these different monstrous parts.

It’s no secret that transgender people have been badly represented in media. Transgender people are often still used in films and television as the butt of jokes and/or as people who are dangerously deranged. Outside the United States depictions if anything are even worse. The understanding of transgender people in anime and it’s depictions in Japan are often much much worse than even within the United States. This is further complicated by the fact that gender identity is often associated with sexuality within Japan. Because of this many anime and manga series portray transgender people as falling into a number of harmful stereotypes including: the Okama an extremely feminine behaving but often foppish masculine looking gay stereotype, a “Fuka,” a cisgender woman in all respects except with a huge dick (TMI: most medically transitioning transwomen don’t have stallion sized dicks) ((big shocker)), or the deceptive “trap” character that is trying to “trick,” viewers and/or “fools,” the cast into thinking they are women. These types of characters present transgender and gender non-conforming characters as jokes or shallow people to be mocked, rather than fleshed out characters. I wish all these stereotypes die in a firey blaze! Example: “Trap”-Hideyoshi Kinoshita Example: Okama-Bentham (Mr.2 Bonclay) This isn’t to say that all depictions of transgender people in anime are bad (if that were true, I wouldn’t be writing this article), some anime and manga series have had depictions of transgender people that are light years ahead of even most United States portrayals. I have been inspired by several transgender and gender non-conforming anime and manga characters that were portrayed as deep, representative, and fun without being objectifying. While some characters of these characters mainly inspired me as a form of well needed wish fulfillment such as Ranma Saotome, in this article I want to focus my work on the characters that best represent the transgender experience. While a few of these characters will be flawed representations (especially the early ones), I want to highlight different characters that made a difference to me as a transgender person and that as a transwoman I found inspiring, rather than looking at cringe worthy characters that made me want to throw my book, tv, or computer against a wall in frustration. Haruhi is a rare example of a fleshed out non-binary character. After Haruhi is mistaken for a boy and accidently knocks over a priceless vase they are roped into a becoming a host at a wealthy high school host club (a club where wealthy men entertain women). When it is soon discovered that Haruhi was originally registered in the school as a girl, Tamaki the clubs flamboyant leader both falls in love with them and flips out (as Tamaki always does) that Haruhi is continuing to participate in the all-male host club. Haruhi’s response to Tamaki after putting him in his special corner is to state, “Listen, Senpai, I don’t really care whether you guys recognize me as a boy or a girl. In my opinion it’s more important for a person to be recognized for who they are, rather than what sex they are.” This is followed by Haruhi being irritated once again by the club member’s fascination with every day “poor peoples” products such as instant coffee. Haruhi is a person anyone should take after. Not only do they distain the wealthy just like you (unless you are wealthy, you rich snob XD) and me, but they are also won’t let anyone define them. Even in the United States many people still try to define others from birth, with pink for “girls,” and blue for “boys,” nurturing and dolls for “girls,” and violence and machines for “boys.” Haruhi says FUCK THAT, if boy’s wants to play with dolls and be loving, or girl’s wants to enact giant robot wars LET THEM (I love dolls and giant robots). People should be allowed to be who they need and want to be, and to do what makes them happy as long aren’t harming others. Letting people be themselves is an important lesson for all children and adults, and makes the world a better place for everyone, especially transgender people whose identity often doesn’t or didn’t fit into a box. There are a number of characters in Ranma ½ that appeal to transgender people. The first and most obvious example of a character transgender people can relate to is Ranma himself. Ranma’s transformation from a male body to female body serves as an important wish fulfilment for many transgender women (such as myself) and nonbinary people, and many transgender men can relate to an extent to Ranma’s situation. Ranma however doesn’t really serve as a strong or detailed example of realistic transgender character or role model. A much more important character for transgender representation in Ranma ½ (at least for me) is Konatsu Kunoichi, a beautiful transgender woman and female ninja. Konatsu was one of the first characters I could really relate to as a transgender woman. She was beautiful, funny, and her identity was generally accepted by those around her. While there is some humour revolving around Konatsu’s gender identity, Konatsu’s gender is portrayed primarily in a positive light with characters respecting her. The jokes surrounding Konatsu’s messed up nature (EVERYONE in Ranma is messed up) tends to mostly surround her hyper femininity (she is seriously one of the most absurdly and traditionally feminine characters ever), her unwavering and naïve loyalty, and her extreme poverty rather than her gender identity. Konatsu always regards simple things in life as a great luxuries like sleeping in a bed or having a decent meal and is sometimes a major nuisance for her boss Ukyo, despite working for almost nothing. She also has amusing loyalty to people, even to those she resents and to those who resent her. Even when she tries to burn down the remains of her bizarre wicked step sister’s (it is never exactly clear what they are other than extremely evil and ugly) “tea house,” with them inside, Konatsu is polite about it and apologizes profusely after being caught by them. Konatsu’s portrayal is just as funny and engaging as the rest of the Ranma ½ cast due to her odd personality. Konatsu is also a great character because she is someone who knows herself better than anyone else does, and has no problem being feminine, a lesbian, and a woman who is unashamed of her identity. She is herself within a cultural where to be trans or a lesbian is considered to be outside of the cultural norm, and where fitting in is considered important (not that anyone in Ranma really fits in though XD). Even when other people attempt to define her and get her to dress more in a more masculine way she ends up finding a way to accidently subvert and fuck up the request by dressing up like a glitzy male impersonator from an all-female Takarazuka Revue theatre. Even in this outfit she remains one of the most feminine character in the series despite being assigned male at birth. While Konatsu only appears briefly, only in the manga series, and might be considered dated by current standards of gender identity in the US; Konatsu is still an incredible early example of a transgender character and often steals the spotlight in the stories where she appears. She was one of the first positive and important examples of a reoccurring transgender woman character that I read, and seeing her being herself and happy even though she is a goof ball made her wonderful character that was both really inspiring and also hilarious. The Entire Cast of Wandering Son Wandering Son is the gold standard for transgender representation in anime and manga. The series stars two transgender children (one a transboy, another a transgirl) who are growing up in Japan’s strictly gendered society. Wandering Son is a series that is all about presenting detailed representations of transgender people within Japan. If you want to know what it actual is like for transgender people and kids living in Japan then this is the series to watch and/or read. It is the single greatest representation of transgender people within anime and manga, is free all the stupid trans stereotypes found in some other works, and feels genuinely real. If you are only able to view or read one representation of transgender people in Japanese media this should be it. This is the type of series I wish was around when I was a kid. Despite the geographic differences, I really feel like I personally related to the transgirl Shuichi Nitori. I know what it was like to feel different as a transperson, but to also feel unable to talk about it with others except close friends. When I was first transitioing I had a lot of trouble initially knowing what to say, and how to tell my parents about my gender identity and transition. While I cannot speak for the experiences of those outside of my identity, I feel like Yoshino Takatsuki the transboy character would be just as relatable for transmaculine people with their struggles with a changing body and being recognized. Wandering Son not only presents transgender people and their supporters in a realistic way, it also makes likable. Shuichi and Yoshino have a varied of interesting and important friends and relatives, including the jealous and depressive classmate Saori Chiba, Nitori sister Maho who is a child model and the only one in the family to initially know about her secret, and the transgender woman mentor Yuki and her husband. With beautiful art and a beautiful story that will literally give you the feels (and cry a lot), you owe it to yourself to watch Wandering Son on crunchyroll and/or track down the manga. Aoi Futaba is the one of those characters that I can’t help but admire. Not only is she beautiful, smart and kind, she is also one of the first fully fleshed out examples of a transgender character in anime and manga. Originally part of the male undercover operation, Aoi discovered that she was actually a woman after disguising herself during a rapist sting case. Despite how highly gendered Japan is Aoi’s gender is not seen as a big deal in her department. Aoi is woman and her co-workers don’t dispute it. She does her job and is a valued member of the team, and is often seen as more feminine than any of the non-transgender women. Aoi’s depiction is also notable because of the challenges she faces as a transgender woman, and her challenges incorporating who she become through transition with how once was perceived. Despite her co-workers kindness and her transition, Aoi still struggles with questions as simple as where to use the bathroom. This is something transgender people often struggle with, especially early in transition. Often it feels scary and/or uncomfortable to use gendered bathrooms, and to find non-gendered bathrooms (if there are any) ((usual there aren’t)) you have to go to a secret bunker located two countries away. It’s also difficult to know who to tell about your identity if your trans without having to deal with a shit head or someone with questions they should not ask or just google (usually about your junk or if you really are the gender you are). These problem are especially bad though when dating, where just saying your trans will often either have people running screaming from a room as though you have the plague and lit them on fire or asking to fuck you like some blow up sex doll they want to hide away from their friends and family (especially if they are already married or in a relationship which has many times been the case when they were trying to solicit me XP). Aoi experiences these struggles when a famous actor falls for her and she doesn’t know what to do, and fears being rejected. She eventually rejects him despite her feelings for him, because she doesn’t know what else to do. Aoi is a remarkable character because she is so ideal yet relatable, and she continues to be a huge role model for me and many transgender women and femmes. Ruka from Steins;Gate in many ways is a tragic figure. Despite being born as beautiful and feminine, Ruka was assigned male at birth. Things are further complicated for her, as she falls in love with Rintaro a self-proclaimed “mad scientist,” who is seeking out a way of sending messages to the past and to time travel. Things start looking up for Ruka though when Rintaro is able to change her past causing her to be born as a cisgender woman. This change also allows her to finally feel comfortable confessing her love to Rintaro. This change however comes with a terrible cost, as it is revealed that Rintaro’s changes to the past have led to an inevitable death of their close friend Mayuri, and the only way to save Mayuri is to undo the changes Rintaro made. Ruka is forced to make the painful choice between the life she desires and the life of her friend. Ultimately she decides to make the ultimate tragic sacrifice in order to help save her friend Mayuri from death. Despite some uncomfortable transgender jokes (“the he’s actually a man har har har,”) ((no SHE’S not)), Ruka clearly is portrayed as an amazing woman, because she is willing to give up something that many people dream of having an expression of love and a feeling of comfort with your own body (even non-transgender people struggle with to an extent and something many people can relate to). She has to give up her body, memories and confession of love to do the right thing, which is deeply tragic. I can’t image what going through a major sacrifice and choice like Ruka would be like. Giving up your deepest dreams is something most people couldn’t do (I know I would have a lot of trouble doing so). Despite some poor representation and uncomfortable transgender jokes, I applaud the series serious portrayal of Ruka and her struggles. It’s really surprising that the popular shonen series Hunter X Hunter gets transgender identity so right. Unlike series such as One Piece (whose depict of transgender identity is as accurate as the Rocky Horror Picture show) Hunter X Hunter has a transgender character that although minor, is depicted with sensitivity. What is also interesting about her depiction is that her gender is so rarely brought up. It is implied that previous Alluka was assigned as male at birth, but Alluka has always had a female gender. Alluka is more noted in the series due to her power involving wishes then her gender. She is possessed by a strange spirit that makes powerful requests of people. If the person complies with her requests they can get a wish to come true, if they refuse her requests however bad things happen (really bad things, the type involving violent death). Alluka is an unusual trans character because her gender really isn’t central to her character, where as her powers and love for her big brother is the most important aspects of who she is. While this might erase some of the impact of her identity, it is still noteworthy that she is treated like any non-transgender character would be and that her gender isn’t her only defining aspect. As transgender person it is sometimes very important to be defined by something other than my gender identity. Alluka helps to demonstrate there is so much more to transgender people then just their gender identity. Seiko is a great Shojo example of a transgender character. Unlike many other depictions of transwomen Seiko has an assertive, bright, and energetic personality. She is also always there to support her friends even when she considers them rivals in love. Seiko is a great friend and breaks the mould of the typical passive, unhinged or troubled trans character. Despite worrying about her body Seiko is someone who tries to not let her body get in the way of her life. The one time in the series it briefly does cause her to struggle it is a realistic problem that many transgender women actual face, and she eventually resolves it. Seiko is a fighter, which is something I can definitely relate to. Often non-trans people don’t realize the struggles and fights transgender people deal with on a daily basis, especially transgender women. Transgender people often are get accused of trying too hard to conform to gender stereotypes or that they are not trying enough to represent their gender identity. Trans people are also often considered “ugly,” or people that would be hard for non-transgender person to date or grow romantically close too. I personally have had to struggle with these contradictions, and to block out these negative thoughts and not internalize them. Seiko’s willingness to strive for love and to overcome these barriers is really remarkable. Despite her body being different from her classmates, Seiko’s portrayal is clearly isn’t as a person who is ugly or that people should be ashamed of liking. Seiko also believes in people’s ability to overlook what she feels is a wrong body, but still at the same time still has realistic worries that she will be rejected for being trans and be seen as gross when she discloses to the boy she likes. This fear of strong rejection is also all too real and has made it hard for me to feel safe pursuing a non-transgender partner. It’s hard for me to feel like I if I did that I would be valued, affirmed and loved, and that I wouldn’t be judged negatively for being trans and rejected and/or treated poorly. I can’t even begin to recount all the rejection and pain I’ve already had to take on the road of life, and all the fear I’ve had that I’m not worthy of love I’ve had to quest to destroy. I applaud the portrayal of Seiko as someone who has the courage to pursue her authentic self even though it is very hard, and to face these challenges. If you are looking for a strong, realistic, and affirming approach to a trans character within a movie, Tokyo Godfather’s Hana is your best bet. After Hana is abandoned by her parents as a baby she ends up being taken in by a drag queen named Mother who loves and supports her. After an incident with a rude customer she ends up leaving her job at Mother’s bar, ending up homeless along with the rest of the cast. While Hana is sometimes a comically dramatic character, she is also portrayed as an intelligent and loving person who cares deeply for others. The detail in her character makes her feel like a real person with real feelings, conflicts and depth. What makes Hana such a wonderful role model is her ability to take on hardship, while still pouring love into helping others. When the characters in Tokyo Godfather’s find an abandoned child, Hana immediately jumps into action naming the child Kiyoko meaning “pure child,” and declaring that the child is a gift from God. After this she agrees to help find the child’s mother, when it is pointed out that the mother might be looking for her child. Hana loves and cares for Kiyoko along with her homeless companions, showing a serious commitment toward helping the child in any way she can. She goes to great lengths to find Kiyoko’s her mother, even going on a wild adventure with her two homeless partners in order to help the child. Despite being homeless Hana and her friends are portrayed as real people, with real needs, hopes dreams, and desires. Though she is usually forgotten or stigmatized by the world around her, Hana keeps up hope and doesn’t give up on the world. She continues to do everything she can to help others, even though her own situation is dire. Hana is a character that has brought me a lot of hope, and is a touching example of someone who doesn’t allow her situation drag her into despair. As a transgender person I’ve heard so many tragic life stories of and from people who were abused, abandoned, and/or mistreated. What often is even more amazing with these stories though is how these people continue to strive for better lives for all people, and don’t end up instead punching everyone in the face. I personally don’t think I could be nearly as amazing as these people are, and I do everything I can to make sure their voices, life experience, and stories are upheld and reach others. Hana represents a more realistic homeless trans experience; she isn’t glamorized her as a person, nor is she a mentally unstable villain or a tasteless joke, she is someone that feels real and meaningful. Don’t let the Bride was a Boy’s title fool you, this isn’t a story of some steamy Yaoi romance and gay wedding story, but rather one of the sweetest transgender based love stories you will ever read. The Bride was a Boy is the autobiographical and educational account of how the author Chii ended up meeting and falling in love with her husband. Chii shares her experiences of what it is like to transition in Japan, and what her relationship with her husband and relatives are like. Chii is a role model because of how her manga both presents a beautiful love story, which also educating the reader. Chii tells a positive and triumphant story about how she found love, and how she successfully transitioned in Japan (where transitioning is like jumping through flaming hoops backwards while blind folded) Not that it is much easier in the US. Where as many narratives about transgender people are about heart ache and struggle or about what a joke transgender people are (FUCK these narratives with a silver spade), Chii’s personal narrative is one of happiness and success. If any community deserves a happy narrative it would be transgender people, and to read a cutely designed book where a transgender person personally finds happiness and success was an amazing experience for me. While Kino is not a transgender character, she is a great example of a gender non-conforming character. Most female characters in anime and manga are clearly defined. Whether it be by skirts or dresses, long eyelashes, big eyes, or a prominent chest, in most anime series it is usual clear when a character is a girl or woman. This isn’t true however with the character Kino who is androgynous, and adopts the life style, name, and outfit of her male namesake in order to follow in his footsteps and travel the world. Kino is someone who values travel, seeing the world, and the freedom travel brings. She doesn’t have time for the impractical and feels that traditionally feminine clothing such as dresses would just get in a way. Kino is important to transgender people, because she is a character that dresses in a way that suits her needs and doesn’t concern herself with a gendered appearance. Kino’s gender is not a major part of her character, and in fact is something she seems to be just as happy erasing. Kino is Kino, and doesn’t need or want anyone to tell her how to live her life. There is something about the freedom to self-define that is special for all people. No jerk is going to define Kino, and likewise as a transgender person when someone tries to define me I also tell them to “Fuck Off” (unless I’m at work). People should be able to live their own lives and define themselves (unless they are a Nazi, in which case they should be shunned and punched in the face). Kino does so, travelling a fantasy world even though it is difficult and dangerous.

* This presentation was originally recorded in English. Closed captioning is available in both English and French. Canada’s blood donation ban for sexually active "men who have sex with men" has resulted in lawsuits and boycotts, and has left many gay, bisexual, trans, and queer men, and Two-Spirit and non-binary people (GBT2Q) feeling discriminated against and stigmatized. These negative impacts also intersect with trans and Black communities. Caught in the middle of this policy terrain are people who rely on blood products and access to a safe and sufficient blood supply. Ongoing research and advances in HIV are revealing a new landscape around this controversial policy. It is time to start talking about what alternative policies can be implemented in order to end Canada’s current discriminatory blood donation bans. This session will be a facilitated discussion between various stakeholders engaged or impacted by blood donation bans. Join us in developing policy directions that will protect blood recipients, while correcting the stigma against historically oppressed communities. Panellists: Dana Devine (Centre for Blood Research), Nathan Lachowsky (CBRC, University of Victoria), Paul MacPherson (University of Ottawa, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute), Robert Alsberry (Black Gay Men’s Network of Ontario), Osmel B. Guerra Maynes (Capital Pride, All Blood is Equal), OmiSoore Dryden (Dalhousie University) Moderator: Rob Higgins (University of Victoria)

Black Women Talk Tech Announces Return of In-Person Roadmap to Billions Conference The 6th Annual Conference Takes Place June 15 to 17 in Brooklyn, New York NEW YORK, April 8, 2022 (Newswire.com) - Black Women Talk Tech, a collective of Black women tech founders identifying, supporting and encouraging Black women to build the next billion-dollar business, officially announces its 6th Annual Roadmap to Billions conference. The conference will be held June 15-17 before Juneteenth Weekend at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York. The event will be hybrid, offering virtual activations and livestream content for the online audience. This is the largest tech gathering for Black women in the World. 2,000 founders will be in attendance for the only annual tech conference created exclusively by Black women tech founders for Black female and non-binary founders and allies. The conference is built from the perspective of women and the goal is to showcase the brilliance of Black women in tech, create a stage for their experiences, foster deep connections, and create real funding opportunities. Attendees will gain insight and valuable lessons to inspire and guide them on their entrepreneurial and executive journey through the tech landscape. There are four different programming tracks this year: Culture + Marketing, Finance + Operations, Leadership, and Product + Technology. Activations this year include an Opening Night Pajama Jammy Jam, live crowdfunding, and an NFT + Crypto Corner. Tickets for this year's Roadmap to Billions conference are available at the following link. Early bird pricing is available now and prices will increase closer to the conference: https://bit.ly/3xagTiT Confirmed speakers so far include Carla Harris, Vice Chairman and Managing Director at Morgan Stanley; Dee Tuck, CTO at ARRAY; Janis Bowdler, Counselor for Racial Equity at the US Department of Treasury; Kelly Ifill, Founder and CEO at Guava; David Williams, Assistant Vice President- Automation at AT&T; and Kenneth Ebie, Executive Director & Chief Development Officer, Black Entrepreneurs NYC. "We are thrilled to be back in person for our sixth annual Roadmap to Billions conference," says Esosa Ighodaro-Johnson, Co-founder of Black Women Talk Tech. "There have been many success stories from this event, but there is much more work to be done to enrich the Black community and build for the culture." Regina Gwynn, Co-founder of Black Women Talk Tech adds, "The 6th year of the Roadmap to Billions conference will provide something for everyone at every level in their career whether investor, entrepreneur, student or professional. We are helping people create their own seat at the table where people of color often get ostracized." This year's sponsors include Brooklyn Navy Yard, Intuit, Bloomberg, Dell for Startups, Citi, Balsamiq, Lowenstein Sandler, First Round Capital, American Family Insurance, Morgan Stanley, and JustWorks. The Black Women Talk Tech community includes entrepreneurs, professionals, professionals with side hustles, engineers, product development executives and UX/UI designers. Industries their members operate in include fashionTech, medTech, edTech, finTech and entertainment. About Black Women Talk Tech: Black Women Talk Tech (BWTT) is a worldwide collective of black women tech founders who have a unique understanding of the challenges Black women startup owners face in the industry. The organization seeks to identify, support, and encourage Black women to build the next billion-dollar business. To learn more, please visit www.blackwomentalktech.com. Follow BWTT on social media pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Source: Black Women Talk Tech

There's something about astrology that's always been, well, kinda queer. Travel all the way back to the time of Ptolemy (AD 100) and there you'll see him, using the stars to divine wisdom about gender norms and identity. Once the science of kings, astrology has become an outsider's spiritual practice — beholden to no prescriptive theology and no major religious leader, just the wisdom of the charts. No wonder, then, that astrology has had a resurgence in the past few years. "Astrology always comes to the forefront whenever there's a great change," says Christopher Renstrom, a gay astrologer and the author of Ruling Planets: Your Astrological Guide to Life's Ups and Down. "Whenever there's a revolution or change or when institutions fail, there's astrology." If the president won't protect the LGBTQ community, there's always the stars. Barely a day goes by in which some digital media outlet doesn't draw a meaningful connection between millennials and astrology. Take Marketwatch's "Why millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology" last December; the Atlantic's "Why are millennials so into astrology" in January; and just two months later, "Why astrology is turning to millennials" in the Guardian. Slightly less attention has been paid to the growing population of queer and trans astrologers. Yet there's always been a powerful connection between the stars and the LGBTQ community, Jessica Lanyadoo, San Francisco-based astrologer, tells Mashable. It's just gotten stronger in recent years: "Queers are always ahead of the trend!" Lanyadoo says. "I've been a self-employed astrologer since 1999, and I've always worked with queer people, artists, and social workers more than anyone ... Let's thank the internet, too. More people of color and more queer people can now self-publish their views as astrologers and spiritualists." Everything happens for a reason. It may be a sh$t reason, but there’s value to be gained from even the worst of things. . 🔐 Don’t let the stuff that’s out of control define you; your responses & actions are yours and yours alone. Show up for life’s upsets and gifts with the same presence willingness to shine, not allowing either to determine who you are, my love. #sunconjuncturanus It's not that astrologers couldn't self-publish before the dawn of the internet (where my zine folks at?). It's just that social platforms, especially visual ones like Instagram and, previously, Tumblr, are able to attract much larger audiences than when astrologers were only able to publish in print. There's no need to rely on Cosmopolitan or local, mostly broke newspapers for clients when astrologers can take to the world wide web. Forgive my optimism, but sometimes these platforms are just ... good. Because Instagram is used predominantly by women (38% of American women use the app, compared to just 21% of men), women astrologers have been able to find a home there. Love it or hate it, the platform is simply more adept than print when it comes to supporting diverse voices, including LGBTQ ones. But, as any astrologer worth their salt will tell you, the relationship between astrology and queer and trans folks goes back. Waaaaay back. So how did it all start? Renstrom loosely locates the beginning of the relationship between queers and astrology with Ptolemy, who examined planetary configurations to predict human behavior. In fact, much of his work centered on the relationship between planetary behavior and sexual behavior. Renstrom argues that the beginnings of astrology were thus optimized to be non-prescriptive and inclusive (i.e. good for trans and queer folks): "A number of ancient texts referred to astrology and ... it wasn't associated with finding solutions. It wasn't saying, 'Hey, you've got a problem that needs to be rectified.' It was about looking at the astrological chart and examining what's going on." Astrology remained popular throughout the medieval and Renaissance eras, with people studying the art in universities and then serving as highly educated astrologers in the court. "Astrology has been used to chart different times in history based on the interaction between two planets," Jaelissa Sipress of Obsidian Moon Astrology, says. "Historically, the greatest political leaders had personal astrologers." "Church was the main corporate sponsor of astrology until the 1600s!" Renstrom concurs. Some lay Christians of the period viewed astrology as a means of conjuring the divine in their everyday lives. For them, astrology was a way to access spirituality without the distant rituals and strange sacraments. It wasn't long, however, before both scientists and the church ganged up on the practice, fearing it had become too powerful — either as a fossil science or heretical spirituality. Thereafter, astrology became something of an "intellectual refugee," as Renstrom calls it. It didn't disappear entirely. Instead, it became an outsider's art, or in more mainstream contexts, a shallow, commercially viable fun hobby. This position — mainstream enough to reach diverse audiences and stigmatized enough to be treated as something of an academic "other" — made astrology ripe for embracing by LGBTQ folks, including QTPOC communities, in the 21st century. "There's not a religious value system attributed to astrology," Lanyadoo says. "There's just a real openness that organically resonates with queer people. There's something greater than ourselves." A non-discriminatory universe Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Astrology didn't always embrace queer communities. Nor were previous astrologers the community's best advocates. In 2000, gay astrologer Peter Clamp wrote a piece entitled "The Astrology of Homophobia," enjoining fellow astrologers to be more inclusive of the queer community, both in their personal practice and in their readings. Of gender identity and sexuality, Clamp had this to say of astrological symbols: "[They] should not necessarily be solely aligned in human terms with physical men and women. Indeed, there is a little bit of man in every woman and woman in every man and a whole lot of Universe within each of us." The conclusion resonated. Others who came after Clamp voiced similar concerns, all organized around the same principle: that the planets embraced queer and trans people for who they were. Anna Facci is a queer, non-binary astrology fan living in the heart of the Bible Belt — Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. For Anna, astrology is the practice that "called them home" to live in their conservative state, even though a traditionally liberal city might be more welcoming: "In places like Oklahoma," Facci says, "where so many of us queer folks have horror stories around being cast out of communities or having biological kinship ties severed because of conservative religion, queer astrology gives us space to be reminded that we're holy and connected to the stars, even if there are people who don't see us that way." Chani Nicholas is one of the internet's most famous queer astrologers, with 19.6 thousand followers on Twitter, more than 88,000 people following her on Facebook, and a record 117,000 tracking her on Instagram, perhaps the best platform for budding astrologers. "Queer astrology gives us space to be reminded that we're holy." For years, Chani has explored the connections between astrology and the queer community. Like Anna, Chani agrees that astrology's expansiveness — "there are as many manifestations of gender as there are people on the planet, and there are stars in the sky" — is key to its appeal to oppressed groups: "Queer, trans, and gender nonconforming folx, and many marginalized communities, in my experience, have always been attuned to wisdom traditions, art practices, mythologies, and story-telling that explores the value of life beyond the normative conditions we've been given, but cannot exist within joyfully." The math is simple. As the practice becomes more diverse and its practitioners more inclusive, the number of people included ... grows. The Trump-trans-queer astrology effect Astrology's growth among all kinds of communities is impossible to neatly quantify. But Ashley Brockington — a life-long astrologer and tarot card reader at MINKA, a Brooklyn-based "healing and wellness space" that focuses on "representing Practitioners of Color, immigrants, and folks from the LGBTQIA+ community" — has observed its booming appeal among everyone from queer people of color to white suburban moms in the past two years. Now 46, Brockington, "a black cis female identified Aquarius femme" has been working with astrology since 1992. That's when she realized, "Life has meaning and is awesome. And I'm not living awesomely." She's seen the practice grow both as a trend and as a healing modality. While popular culture may have relegated astrology to the back pages of magazines, Brockington chooses to instead highlight its transformative spiritual potential, especially for people at the margins and in times of great chaos: "We're all pretty traumatized. All of us. Queers specifically," Brockington says. When Trump was elected: "I didn't want to succumb to the fear of Trump. This was a challenge: How do we rise to that challenge AND continue our own spiritual growth? We queers have had the [historical] ability to take our own growth, healing, and protection into our own hands." That kind of DIY spirituality — combined with a strong sense of solidarity — has animated a number of astrology-based practices and Instagram accounts in the past few years. Brockington began some of her work at Harriot's Apothecary, a "black female-centered collective of cis and trans women healers." She sees even more black mystics achieving cultural prominence at this moment. Astrology is a radical, personal-meets-spiritual-meets-political step forward. Astrology might not be the most direct path to justice, but for many of its queer and trans practitioners, it's a radical, personal-meets-spiritual-meets-political step forward. "I have seen my business steadily grow over the past seven years," Nicholas says. She adds, "After the inauguration, however, there was a noticeable spike in the need for content that was proactive, consoling, encouraging, grounded, explicitly political, and critical in its analysis of system oppression." "The idea that the spiritual is not political is wildly inaccurate," Lanyadoo concurs. "The spiritual and the political are interwoven. It's not possible to be silent in the face of injustice as a spiritual person." Astrology is with us. For now For whatever reason, whether it's Trump, Instagram, or some combination of the two, it's clear that astrology, once considered an "intellectual refugee," is regaining some measure of respectability. Fans don't seem to care that many scientists are skeptical of the practice. Scientists are often wrong, some claim. And they're not exactly asking for Politifact to review the evidence. Astrology serves a different spiritual need, the argument goes, especially for queers and trans people who've often been denied the right to a spiritual life. As with any trend, these things are cyclical. It's very possible that the demand for astrology will diminish over time and fade into the background, especially if Trump leaves office and some sense of peace is restored. Alternatively, astrology could become too mainstream and too commercialized, and lose the emotional credibility it once had among people at the margins. Fans of the practice aren't exactly worried. They're happy to have more people in their community, even if it's just temporary. "It's a beautiful language!" Brockington exclaims. "The more people speak it, Hallelujah."

JK Rowling (Pic: Landmarkmedia) In the wake of the JK Rowling transgender rights controversy, the DA Rainbow Network has responded to concerns about social media posts on the issue made by some figures in the party. The Harry Potter author recently saddened and infuriated many of her queer fans by making comments that suggest that she does not support the idea that transgender people are fully the gender with which they identify. “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased,” Rowling wrote. “I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.” These comments and a subsequent open letter sparked a massive backlash against Rowling and calls for a boycott of the Harry Potter books amidst accusations that she is transphobic. Many of the stars of the hugely successful Potter films, including actor Daniel Radcliffe, also spoke out to affirm their belief that Rowling was wrong and that “transgender women are women.” MambaOnline was subsequently sent screengrabs of Facebook posts by figures in the DA that appear to offer support for Rowling’s position. Chief of Staff to the Federal Leader, Ryan Smith, for example, applauded the author for “being brave enough to raise this difficult issue” and spoke out against “cancel culture” which he said had led to a “witch hunt” against Rowling. MP Ghaleb Cachalia also commented on an article denying that Rowling is transphobic for stating her views, writing that it “makes sense, this…” Of further concern were very problematic posts made in 2017 and 2019 by Jacques Maree, a party speechwriter, who warned that transgender women may be predators in women’s prisons and school bathrooms and that he did not want his “girl to shower with boys who say they identify as female.” MambaOnline contacted the DA’s Rainbow Network for comment on the posts, especially in light of the DA positioning itself as a pro-LGBTIQ party which has actively sought the LGBTIQ vote. Councillor Lucky Dinake from the DA Rainbow Network responded to our query. While he argues that the party believes in the freedom and right to debate these issues, critics will point out that these discussions are often used to invalidate and delegitimise transgender identities. These debates also often dangerously position transgender people’s claim to their identity as some form of sinister excuse for potential predatory behaviour – a belief that has no legitimacy. The reality is that trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people are among the most vulnerable members of the LGBTIQ community and are much more likely to be the victims of abuse, hate crimes and discrimination. Below is Councillor Dinake’s email in full. RESPONSE FROM DA RAINBOW NETWORK Thank you very much for reaching out to the DA to provide you with some clarity on the screengrabs sent to you. Let me begin by saying outright, that the DA is and will always be an LGBTIQ+ affirming party and stands in solidarity with the transgender community as we continue to fight for the rights of all South Africans to identify as they choose, and to love whomever they choose. At liberalism’s core are the rights of the individual and these are non-negotiable. So it goes without saying that when it comes to transgender equality and identity, the DA stands firm as a party protecting and promoting these rights as we strive to build a tolerant and inclusive South African society. The Democratic Alliance has the largest number of openly LGBTIQ+ individuals serving as MPs, MPLs, councillors, and public servants in South Africa, and we continue to fight anti-gay legislation across the African continent. We are a long-standing supporter of Pride in South Africa, and support a number of LGBTIQ+ shelters and safe havens in our country. That being said, we are also a party which protects and upholds the right to freedom of speech, as this is also central to the rights of the individual. The screengrabs of social media posts are accurate, but in no way are they necessarily endorsements reflecting the views of the DA. These posts by individuals in their personal capacity are part of the greater discussion surrounding the legislating of shared spaces for the LGBTIQ+ community, which may also have unintended consequences for cisgender and heterosexual individuals. We understand that this is a delicate and difficult topic to discuss, but these conversations are crucial to building a future which is inclusive of us all. Both outside and inside the LGBTIQ+ community, there is a prevalent culture of thought-policing which we reject outright. We may not always agree with the points made in any given discussion, nor with ideas presented, but as liberals, we will fight for the right of people to express themselves freely without fear or favour, to create a conducive and safe environment for the exchange of ideas for the greater good. For reference, I have attached additional screengrabs of part of the discussion on Ryan Smith’s Facebook post, of what he found to be a very enlightening and constructive engagement [included below]. In short, we remain an LGBTIQ-affirming political party in South Africa, as evident in our structures and governments across the country, but we also remain supporters of freedom of speech and expression and, most importantly, critical, rational, and robust debate and discussion. We understand that the transgender debate is a highly charged and sensitive topic, but that should not grant anyone the permission to censor any part of this discussion. Cllr Lucky Dinake DA Rainbow Network

Equaliser Levels Up Equaliser is a more than just a good time. Encapsulating their beautiful ethos of inclusivity and diversity, Equaliser strives to live up to its name by making the club scene a more equal and open zone. Before their launch night at Wharf Chambers kicked off, Equaliser hosted an evening of DJ workshops exclusive to non-binary and self-identifying female DJs, where they could develop their skills without fear of prejudice or judgement. Proving there’s no shortage of girls who know their way around a turntable, it’s DIY movements like Equaliser that inspire a future for female and non-binary DJs to be visible and celebrated for their talents, regardless of social conventions. Brudenell Groove resident and Equaliser creator Ranyue Zhang was the first of the all-female line-up, soundtracking the night with an eclectic mix of tracks, all weaved together by her effortless fluidity. Slow burning with a laid-back and care-free atmosphere that encapsulates Leeds’ grassroots culture, Equaliser was the perfect night to let loose with friends with zero fear of judgement. As a prosecco bottle that had been chilling in a saucepan was popped open, Brilliant Corners resident Donna Leake took to the decks. Weaving through soul, afrobeat and jazz, Leake created the perfect atmosphere where an hour felt like a quick ten minutes. Wharf Chambers is a place where anyone can feel at home, with its dingy basement vibes softened by fairy lights and a smoking area that feels like your best mate’s back garden. Yet, with the Equaliser crowd, it never felt more welcoming and safe, with truly beautiful people having a truly beautiful time.

hen Desiree Akhavan’s first movie was launched in 2014, she found by herself having to carry out interviews for the first time. As an actor, creator and movie director, there have been a number of prefixes readily available, but she started initially to observe that when she had been introduced, it actually was as another thing. “Always as âthe bisexual film-maker’, âthe bisexual copywriter’,” she recalls. It wasn’t that it was untrue; the film involved a bisexual character and Akhavan wasn’t covering her own bisexuality. “but also for some cause, once I heard it, it simply thought seriously embarrassing and private, like, âthe bedwetter Desiree Akhavan’. I guess i desired to produce a thing that chased the reason why.” To examine those thoughts, Akhavan came up with The Bisexual, an excruciatingly amusing and honest brand new six-part Channel 4 comedy crisis, whereby distress runs like a river. It follows a woman within her early 30s, Leila (played by Akhavan), as she makes the woman sweetheart (Maxine Peake) and starts to date males. Akhavan states that, towards end of her very own long-term union with a lady, she realised she encountered the makings of “an extremely fantastic reverse coming-out tale … And my father, who was so hard ahead over to, was actually out of the blue love, think about your own audience?” She laughs. “You built a distinct segment for yourself as a lesbian, what a betrayal. And that arrived to it a large amount. It really is funny, because afterwards I fell deeply in love with a woman immediately, but at that time it had been like, oh, you’re definitely going to betray this lady for men. That was the understanding that every person had.” In 2015, an extensive YouGov review found that 23% of British individuals would establish themselves as something other than 100percent heterosexual. When 18 to 24-year-olds had been asked, the number increased to 49per cent . But despite figures that advise desire is not quite because directly and thin as it might as soon as were, adverse perceptions towards bisexuality persist, actually inside the LGBTQ+ community. In the 1st episode of The Bisexual, Leila locates by herself awkwardly agreeing with a team of lesbian friends who call out directly or interested girls in homosexual groups as “sex vacationers” and drunkenly test each other to mention an authentic bisexual. “I’m convinced bisexuality is a myth produced by offer managers to sell flavoured vodka,” Leila nods, half-heartedly, and just a little sadly. Brands could be a complicated online game, and slide in and out of vogue. In the last couple of years there were many famous people, especially those who work in their particular 20s, who have been in both opposite gender and same-sex relationships in the community vision, but whom decrease to mark on their own. Simply take Kristen Stewart, eg, whom told Nylon magazine 36 months ago that she felt you should not mark herself: “It’s just, like, analysis thing.” Among more youthful figures from inside the Bisexual casually says to Leila that she, too, is “queer”, to which Leila replies: “everybody under 25 thinks they’re queer.” Akhavan states it’s a question of semantics. “In my opinion many people who does have defined as bisexual today determine as pansexual or queer. Versus investing in that phrase [bisexual], it seems elbowed out, and I also actually planned to go through the pain with that phase particularly, since it suggests some thing really certain. âQueer’ and âpansexual’ tend to be more umbrella terms and conditions, plus it implies that bisexual guidelines out trans or genderqueer individuals, that we don’t believe it does. I do believe those terms can be found since there’s distress with bisexual.” She believes this might be, to some extent, right down to the fact that it’s impossible to end up being visibly bisexual at any offered time: if you are a woman holding arms with a man, you appear as direct, and when you are a female with a lady, you appear to be homosexual. “and then we reside in a superficial globe where if I can see something and associate it with goodness, this may be’s great. If I see it and associate it with badness, its bad. And I can not see anything for bisexual, as a result it simply doesn’t exist.” In earlier times, television has not had an exceptionally healthy relationship using its bisexual characters. Riese Bernard could be the president and editor-in-chief of , a pop music society and way of life website for lesbian, bisexual and queer ladies, and non-binary men and women. “I got trouble recalling initial bisexual ladies we watched on tv, that’s fairly telling â generally speaking a bisexual female’s sexual positioning ended up being either seldom dealt with, or only existed for a âsweeps week’ storyline or event,” she says. (Sweeps week could be the duration when US networks tot upwards television ratings, and is also known for forced, outlandish “must-see” times.) “they would date a woman or kiss a lady so that you can three symptoms, right after which continue dating men for ever and a lot more, like Marissa on , or Samantha on Gender in addition to City From inside the OC, Marissa internet dating Olivia Wilde’s character, Alex, ended up being an instant of teen rebellion about on a par with a nostrils piercing. The L Keyword , a reveal that pioneered lesbian figures on television but remaining small room for subtlety or nuance when it stumbled on all other iterations of need, had Alice as a bisexual journalist at first, although the woman destination to guys was quietly fallen after a period roughly. Another type of this “bi-erasure” uses bisexuality as a transitional time on the way to homosexuality, a tentative research that’s just ever short-term, an attitude neatly summed up by Friends, when Phoebe croons certainly her ditties to a group of kids : “Sometimes males love women/Sometimes guys like men/And you will also have bisexuals/Though some merely say they are kidding themselves.” Sex additionally the City’s Samantha, at the same time, had a short affair with a female, although eventually it played into the label from the proven fact that she’s thus highly sexed that she just can’t get an adequate amount of anyone. In the last couple of years, but the outdated cliches tend to be showing signs of failing. Naomi de Pear, executive manufacturer for the Bisexual, claims you will find merely more of an appetite for distinction. “i believe the landscaping has evolved, in the same manner that there’s even more opportunity to inform a lot more varied tales. In reality, there is a requirement to tell a lot more varied tales, since people assert they absolutely would like them.” She says that programs , in addition to unflinching way they mentioned the messy truth of gender, interactions and need, truly paved ways. That feeling of development worked on really for TV’s bisexuals. “i believe television is starting to become much more prepared for the potential for portraying completely fleshed out, vibrant, interesting and unoffensive bisexual figures than it actually was in past times,” says Bernard. Along with the Bisexual, that is regarding point as the subject, we have witnessed well-rounded bisexual characters in The Bold Kind Jane the Virgin Getting Away With Murder , and others (Autostraddle not too long ago collected all of them into a post, 17 Bisexual Ladies television Characters Whom Thwarted Tropes and Won The Cardiovascular System “what is actually important about Rosa [Diaz, on Brooklyn Nine-Nine], and about Kat Sandoval on , is that their own storylines were created with input from the stars themselves, who are also bisexual,” contributes Bernard. “there has been a massive drive from people of colour and LGBTQ watchers to have their stories told a lot more authentically, and for that reason experts’ areas were a lot more prepared for input from actors who are able to communicate with the encounters the writers are trying to show.” Whilst the indicators might be good for women, bisexual males on tv are as unusual as a hard-nosed television investigator without an ingesting problem, as soon as they do look, they are either insatiable or perhaps in assertion. ‘s legal manager Darryl could be the different to that norm, developing as bisexual with a tune known as , a happy ode to their recently uncovered orientation, delivered with gusto to a wall structure of brilliantly annoyed work colleagues. Akhavan discloses that they decided a male bisexual bond within the Bisexual, as well, it had been dropped since they simply didn’t have for you personally to fit it in. “to visit on a limb and state, I’m the sort of guy who is able to pull cock,” she laughs, “and anticipate globally to however take you as a person that is generally palatable for ladies, for whatever reason, is actually impossibly tough. I really appreciate a person who can do this, who can just say âfuck you’ into the norm. That in my opinion, will be the supreme manliness.” Just like crisis and comedy have begun to open up to a global beyond tired outdated stereotypes, dating programs have also had a component to play in how LGBTQ+ people are viewed on display screen. â which looks like an intermittent punchline during the Bisexual â have placed bisexual matchmaking into individuals living spaces. Katie Salmon had a relationship with other contestant Sophie Gradon on , although the Vietnamese form of The Bachelor not too long ago moved widespread worldwide, after a couple of their feminine participants chose to leave collectively , in the place of utilizing the qualified guy they were truth be told there to woo. This month, pull king and Celebrity Big Brother champion Courtney operate will host The Bi Existence , a brand new reality/dating tv series “for all the multitude of teenagers today, anything like me, that attracted to multiple gender”, operate told E!. “i really like internet dating programs,” Akhavan says. “i love they’ve had a few bisexuals on [very first Dates]. Whenever they have a lady few thereon tv show I get therefore thrilled. I wish that they’d understand how excited and also have a lot more. Its like an ice-cream sundae. It’s so comforting to see a version of yourself on screen, or life as you know it on screen.” TV’s brand-new bisexual characters tend to be providing just that objective. They have been sidestepping the once-standard layout for the bisexual as an over-sexed, duplicitous villain, in denial about just who they fancy, and they’re finding the crisis rather inside the complicated business of being, merely, men and women. The Bisexual starts on Channel 4 on 10 Oct

Music Tech Fest is back, bigger and more exciting than ever - taking place in Stockholm in partnership with KTH Royal Institute of Technology. With Creative Labs, Performances, Demos, in Conversations and Family activities, there’s something for everyone at this festival of innovation and experimentation, including Imogen Heap launching her Mycelia World Tour, work from Scanner, Robyn, Lula Mebrahtu and more. Tickets for the public days 7-9 September are available from the Music Tech Fest website. A mystery tour of experimental electronics in Denmark New festival We Are Robots presents an amazing line-up at the Old Truman Brewery in London from 2-5 November. Focusing on the ‘future and innovation of music’ it features performances, installations, workshops, discussions, technology, and an industry conference, and includes leading names and exciting newcomers, with Daniel Miller DJ-ing at the after party. Tickets to the main exhibition are free, with performance, panels and workshop tickets available separately. Roland had some great new gear on show at NAMM - I talked to David Ahlund in depth about the SYSTEM-8 and the DJ-808. The first WITCiH festival is an absolute ‘don’t miss’ and takes place in London 26-28th September featuring electrifying female and non-binary artists. WITCiH - The State of Gender? hosts four audio-visual premieres and includes a lecture from Gazelle Twin who has just released thrilling new album Pastoral. Tickets for the event at The Barge House in Dalston are available here What does a Sound Engineer do, especially when working in a historic Gothic masterpiece? Ahead of the ReBalance International Women’s Day music industry meet up and live show on 8th March at Union Chapel you can find out with this interview the award-winning music venue has done with Isabella Di Biase. She’s a great sound engineer we’ve seen in action at many gigs including Nasty Women UK festival. Bishi’s incredible WITCiH Summer Salons are a magnet for talented innovators, and the June edition was a classic, with amazing insights from Imogen Heap, Bishi and Rachel Wingfield from Loop.pH. The next salon is on Wednesday 12th July at The Barge House in London with Rebekah Ubuntu, Jenn Kirby, Bishi and Kat Five.

We are delighted to announce our 2024 Film Programme Team as well as our team of Programme Consultants and Advisers, who will be selecting films for our 31st edition, taking place 12 - 17 June. Our Creative Director Raul Niño Zambrano leads our programming team and is supported by Film Programme Producer, Mita Suri, who has been with the festival since 2019, and Short Film and Community Programme Curator. Jamie Allan, who returns to our programming team for the fourth year running. We also welcome a team of 5 Programme Consultants and 15 Programme Advisers, whose expertise and perspective spans the full spectrum of the documentary industry. “Our upcoming festival edition in June is on the horizon, and I am thrilled to introduce our exceptional team of program advisers and consultants. Their remarkable perspectives, extensive expertise, and unwavering commitment to the documentary art form are truly extraordinary. We can’t wait to share the harvest from the films we have received and those that are still on their way. Stay tuned for an unforgettable celebration of documentary storytelling” – Raul Niño Zambrano, Creative Director Meet our Film Programme Team Raul Niño Zambrano - (he/him) Raul Niño Zambrano joined Sheffield DocFest in 2021 and was confirmed as Creative Director in 2023 ahead of the 30th edition of the festival. Prior this, he was previously Senior Programmer at IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) from 2008-2021. During his tenure at IDFA, Raul conducted a ground-breaking study on the position of women within the documentary world The Female Gaze (2014) and initiated the IDFA Queer Day (2013, ongoing). In addition to being a lead programmer on the overall selection, he curated such programmes as Emerging Voices from Southeast Asia, and Cinema do Brasil. He has participated in many international festivals as a juror (Hot Docs, DocPoint, Morelia Film Festival) and as an expert/tutor (DocMontevideo, FESPACO, Brasil CineMundi, If/Then Shorts Global Pitch, DMZ Docs). Raul followed his true passion for documentary film, studying Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam, after working in the Netherlands as an engineer specialising in wind energy. Raul introduced last year at Sheffield DocFest the Podcast Pitch and the First Impressions strand championing first episodes of documentary series, showing his commitment to present all the spectrum of the documentary form. Mita Suri - (she/her) Film Programme Producer With a background in community cinema exhibition, Mita Suri started working at Sheffield DocFest as a volunteer, then supported the DocCircuit tour as a Distribution Trainee, moving on to be the Film Programme Coordinator and now the Film Programme Producer, where she supervises the delivery of the Film Programme for the festival. She is primarily responsible for DocFest’s many external relationships including filmmakers, national film institutes and distributors; she also manages the submissions process, runs the Youth Jury Programme and leads on DocFest's year-round screenings programme across the UK. She was a programmer for the 2021 Sheffield DocFest Northern Focus film strand. Jamie Allan - (he/him) Short Film and Community Programme Curator Jamie joined Sheffield DocFest in 2021 as the Curator of the DocFest Exchange and now heads up the festival’s short film programme and wider community programming. With a background in documentary filmmaking and community cinema, he is passionate about how collective filmmaking practices and transdisciplinary collaboration can create space for alternative forms of storytelling and exhibition. Previously he was Curator of the Artist Film programmes at HOME, Manchester’s centre for international contemporary art, theatre and film. He has a Masters in Documentary Film Directing from the DocNomads itinerant film school in Lisbon, Budapest and Brussels, and a Post-Masters in Collective Practices from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. Meet our Programme Consultants Alfredo Mora Manzano - (he/him) Ecuadorian documentary film producer, programmer, and writer with over twenty years of experience in the Latin American cinema field. Alfredo has produced the feature documentaries Abuelos by Carla Valencia (nominated for Best First Feature at IDFA), Territorio by Alexandra Cuesta (FIDMarseille, BAFICI), The Great-grandmother has Alzheimer's (DOCTV, Cartagena), and The Beach of Enchaquirados (premiered at IDFA International Competition and awarded at DocLisboa, Major Docs, Guadalajara and Lima), both by Iván Mora Manzano. Until 2020, he served as the Executive Director of EDOC (Encounters of the Other Cinema), the longest-running and most prestigious film festival in Ecuador. He currently resides in Quito, where he is producing the feature documentaries The Movement of Things by Alexandra Cuesta and Compadre Fannie by Iván Mora Manzano for La República Invisible and Tóxica Films. Carmen Thompson (she/her) Carmen is a programmer, curator and creative producer based in Edinburgh. Her interests centre around cinema from the African continent and the Black diaspora, perhaps most specifically at their intersections with non-fiction storytelling. She currently works as Programming and Audience Manager (UK/International) for award-winning film exhibition and distribution company We Are Parable, and as a programme consultant for both Red Sea Film Festival and Durban FilmMart. Carmen also sits on the boards of British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) and Glasgow Film, and is chair of the board of Document Human Rights Film Festival. She is a voting member of BAFTA Scotland. Chloë Roddick (she/her) Chloë has been a film programmer and writer for nearly 15 years. Currently based in Mexico City she is a Senior Programmer for the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), where she works on both international and Mexican cinema strands. She is also currently Head of Mexican Documentary for that Festival. Between 2019 and 2021 she was the Director of Programming for the Tulum International Film Festival (FICTU). She is a programme consultant for Sheffield DocFest and watches docs for Ambulante and SXSW. Chloë writes about film for Sight & Sound, and also curates and assists on programmes of Mexican cinema for festivals and institutions like Il Cinema Ritrovato, the BFI, MoMA and the Cinémathèque française, among others. John Badalu (he/him) John Badalu has been working in the film industry for over 20 years. Badalu has worked as a Festival Delegate and Programmer for festivals such as Berlin, Shanghai and Tallinn International Film Festival between 2011 to 2019. He co-founded numerous film festivals back home in Indonesia including Q! Film Festival., a festival that opened dialogues on LGBTQ+ and Human Rights issues. Badalu is also an independent producer with films that have premiered in Cannes, Sundance, Locarno, Rotterdam and Busan. The last 3 films that he produced and co-produced have screened at Cannes (Basri & Salma in A Never-Ending Comedy), Busan (Where The Wild Frangipanis Grow) and IDFA (Under The Moonlight). Kim Young woo (he/him) KIM Young woo studied visual arts & TV at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, US. He worked for the selection committee of Busan International Film Festival as a programmer in charge of Asian cinema until 2019, and worked for DMZ DOCS Korea as a programmer until 2021. KIM is a board member of the Seoul Independent Film Festival and currently works as a programmer. Kim is also working for Red Sea International Film Festival as a programmer in charge of Asian/Korean cinema and has been working as a program advisor to LOCARNO, IDFA, and other festivals in the EU. Meet our Programme Advisers Aderinsola Ajao (she/her) Aderinsola Ajao is an arts manager and film curator based in Lagos, Nigeria. Her work cuts across the creative and cultural industries, and her writing has appeared in publications including Chimurenga, Africiné, Awotele, MUBI’s Notebook, Glänta, The Sun, La Furia Umana and The Hollywood Reporter. She was previously Programme Officer at Goethe-Institut Nigeria, and is currently Regional Programme Manager for West/Central Africa at the Johannesburg office of Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council. She has participated in the Fespaco/Africiné Critics’ Workshop; the Berlinale and Durban Talents Press; CICAE’s Arthouse Cinema Management Workshop, and the Southern Africa – Locarno Industry Academy. She has been on film juries at DOK Leipzig, Márgenes Film Festival, Film Africa, and CPH:DOX. She was a guest curator at the 15th Go Short International Film Festival. Aderinsola is also the founder and curator of Screen Out Loud, an independent cinema programme organized in partnership with Alliance Française Lagos. Clodagh Chapman (she/her) Clodagh Chapman is a writer, director and programmer for theatre, film, and television. She has previously been part of the programming teams for Sheffield DocFest and BFI Future Film Festival, run sold-out events for BFI London Film Festival, BFI Flare and HOME Manchester, and had new film writing commissioned by Open City DocFest. As a writer and director, Clodagh work has played in competition at BAFTA-qualifying festivals worldwide, and toured to major venues across the UK. She is currently developing projects with HOME Manchester and Little Stitch Productions, and has previously been selected for talent development with BFI NETWORK, Young Vic, Box of Tricks, and Rope Ladder Fiction. Clodagh is also a reader for the Bush Theatre, and co-creates new work with young people for the National Theatre and The Lowry. Deepthi Pendurty (she/her) Deepthi was the festival manager for Dharamshala IFF from 2018 until 2022 and oversaw various aspects of the festival including operations, partnerships, programming, submissions process and building the year round programme, and until 2023 managed and built programmes that provide training, project accelerators, support and development resources for producers at ProducerLAND in Goa. Deepthi also has over 9 years of experience in television programming & production in Hyderabad and Mumbai, and is the co-founder of Hyderabad Children’s Theatre Festival. She has a Masters in Communication from the University of Hyderabad. Edwin Mingard (he/him) Edwin Mingard is a visual artist, filmmaker and curator. He has founded several organisations at the intersection of film and social change including Deptford Cinema (London) and Satellite, an artist-led production company and commissioner. He is a Curatorial Advisor for SIDE Gallery (Newcastle Upon Tyne). Edwin was a 2020 Bloomberg New Contemporary, and longlisted for the 2021 Aesthetica Art Prize. He is currently developing a new feature length film with support from Chisenhale Gallery, Arts Council England and Freelands Foundation. Fahd Ahmed (he/him) Fahd Ahmed is a British/Pakistani editor and producer based in London. He is the founder and creative director of Studio Amorem, a studio located in East London. He was the producer on the leading multi-series Arab Ramadan show, Kannak Tarah. He has edited for the BBC and was a story editor on the PBS-funded 3-part docuseries, A Town Called Victoria. He has been an editing fellow in the Gotham Edit Lab, Close-Up Initiative Edit Lab and the prestigious Sundance Story and Edit Lab. Recently, he co-produced and edited the feature documentary - Q (Jude Chehab, 2023.) Q has been awarded the Albert Maysles Award (Tribeca), the Grand Jury First Feature Award (Sheffield Docfest) and was named by Vogue as one of the best documentaries of 2023. He is currently nominated for an IDA Award for Best Editing. Harry Kalfayan (he/him) Kalfayan is a film programmer, channel manager and editor from London. He has been a part of the programming team at DocFest for the past three years, and currently works at Channel 4 on their long-form distribution on YouTube. He co-founded the non-fiction film platform Opensources, who have organised events at the ICA, Autograph ABP and HKW in Berlin. Previously he worked across post-production, production and film marketing at Al Jazeera, Little Dot Studios and Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Festival. He is a trustee at the Independent Cinema Office and is on the screening committee for True/False Film Festival 2024. Lesedi Oluko Moche (she/her) Lesedi Oluko Moche is a film festival programmer, creative producer and documentary film advisor. She is the former festival director of the Encounters International Documentary Festival and has programmed documentary films for the Durban International Film Festival and Curated films for the European Film Festival. Her experience as producer includes television talk shows, non-fiction podcasts, and independent documentaries. Lesedi finds joy in places and spaces where storytelling, in all its forms, reigns supreme. Mariana Hristova (she/her) Mariana Hristova a Bulgarian film critic, cultural journalist and programmer, with a special interest in the cinema of the Balkan countries and Eastern Europe as well as avant-garde, amateur and underrepresented cinema. She is a regular contributor to Cineuropa, Klassiki Journal, Kino Magazine and Filmsociety.bg, holder of the Balkan film website Altcine.com's film critic award, and member of FIPRESCI. She currently lives in Barcelona, Spain where she programs for various festivals and institutions. She also works as an indexer at FIAF - the International Federation of Film Archives. Martijn te Pas (he/him) Martijn te Pas studied Psychology, English and Film & Television Studies at the University of Amsterdam. From 2000 onwards until 2019 he was part of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) as senior programmer. He was an advisor for the IDFA Bertha Fund and also read projects for the IDFA Forum. Between 2000 and 2020 he travelled to many film festivals as a guest or jury member. Martijn also was a documentary advisor of the Dutch Mediafund (currently NPO Fund) between 2007 and 2013. In 2019 Martijn moved from Amsterdam to Stockholm and in 2020 he was Guest Documentary Programmer at Nordisk Panorama. Currently he is a programmer and festival advisor of MIRAGE - a hybrid/documentary festival in Oslo. April 2020 Martijn started e u R O P E doconsultancy which is aimed at directors and producers and offers tailor made SWOT analysis of films both at development and edit stages. Martijn also offers expert advice and guidance on curation, festival and distribution strategies. Martijn is an advisor of Eurimages, worked for SFI Talent to Watch in 2023 and is an EAVE and Sources 2 alumnus. Occasionally he writes reviews - and interviews filmmakers for Business Doc Europe. Mathy Selvakumaran (she/her) Mathy is a creative producer, writer and activist. Working in the intersection of the arts and disability activism, her greatest passion lies in finding and amplifying character-driven narratives of disability and illness, particularly stories told from within the community and from the lens of those lived experiences. She consults for organisations such as Unlimited and The Writers Lab, and has spoken on panels for Slate/Eclipse and the National Paralympic Heritage Trust. As a disability activist, she has been featured on BBC television and radio, in national newspapers and on online platforms such as HuffPost, and has been invited to speak in Parliament with Muscular Dystrophy UK. She also produces youth-led filmmaking programmes in educational settings. In recognition of her dedication to championing diversity in the creative industries, Mathy has been recognised as a Trailblazer of the Future by Campaign Magazine, and is an alumna of the Rare with Google Leadership Academy. Having worked at DocFest in various roles in the Industry and Programming teams since 2017, she is excited to come back to the festival as a Programme Adviser. Rachel Pronger (she/her) Rachel Pronger is a writer, curator and producer. She is a programme adviser for Sheffield DocFest, BFI London Film Festival and Aesthetica Short Film Festival, and a team member of SiNEMA TRANSTOPIA. As co-founder of archive activist feminist collective Invisible Women, Rachel has co-curated screenings for BFI Southbank, Cinema Rediscovered, HOME Manchester, BalkanCanKino Athens, London Short Film Festival and Glasgow Film Theatre. Her writing has been published by outlets including Sight & Sound, The Guardian, MUBI Notebook, Art Monthly, Little White Lies and BBC Culture. Originally from Bradford, she is currently based in Berlin. Tara Brown (they/them) Tara Brown is a Film Curator and Creative Evaluation Consultant. They describe themselves as a Black fat queer non-binary trans disabled femme. Inspired by the principles of Disability Justice their primary goal is to ensure that cinema is as accessible, diverse and brilliant as possible! Currently they are a Trustee for Reclaim The Frame, an Assistant Programme Advisor for London Film Festival and Programmer for Fringe! Queer Film + Arts Fest and London Indian Film Festival. From a background working in community events and art education, they have been lucky to work with Bernie Grant Art Centre, Barbican Centre, Lewisham Council, BFI, Wellcome Collection, Fringe Queer Film + Arts Fest, London Indian Film Festival, Home, Whitechapel gallery, the vacuum cleaner and more. Toni Lee - they/them Toni Lee is a programmer, filmmaker and impact producer based in Leeds. They are part of the organising team at the annual Leeds Queer Film Festival and have previously worked at Journey's Festival International, on a dedicated programme of films made by and with Asylum Seeker and Refugee Filmmakers. Their film work is concerned with the idea of Queer identity and expression, as well as forming a dedicated Film Unit on organising and social liberation in West Yorkshire. Toni works as an Impact Producer at Reclaim the Frame supporting the work of filmmakers from marginalised genders and their fullest expression through meaningful community engagement. Zeynep Kaserci (she/her) Zeynep is an artist-researcher and producer with a background in visual anthropology. For the past two years, she has worked as a producer at Close Up, a non-profit NGO dedicated to working with emerging documentary filmmakers from Southwest Asia and North Africa. Recently she participated in the EU funded project ‘Alexandria: (Re)activating Common Urban Imaginaries’ as an artist-in-residence, investigating urban and social processes in Alexandria through its connection to the wider Mediterranean region. The project resulted in a publication that was showcased at MUCEM, Bozar, and Citadellarte. Previously, she conducted fieldwork on the relationality between embodied work and experiences of gender inequality in Turkey, and her short documentary Ocak shot as part of this research was screened at festivals and art galleries such as the RAI, Jean Rouch Film Festival, William Morris Gallery. Currently, she is based in London and works as a cultural programmer. Zinha Morgan-Bennett (she/her) Emma "Zinha" Morgan-Bennett is a native New Yorker living in London. Zinha first discovered her love of documentaries through her undergraduate studies in Anthropology and Black studies, and she has since embarked on a career as a director and programmer interested in stories surrounding race, reproduction and apocalypse in both nonfiction and fiction narratives. She is a graduate of Goldsmiths University's Documentary Masters, a 2020 Marshall Scholar, and currently in residence at Birmingham Open Media.

As a person of many mixed identities, I’m in another routine rebirth crisis, since we are constantly rediscovering ourselves. Since a friend put a safety pin in my ear nearly 20 years ago, I’ve had many more holes made in my ears and face, plus a dozen tattoos. People will ask empty questions like “What does it mean?” but a stamp of a time in your life that makes you feel seen, beautiful, changed, or whatever it is, doesn’t need some “cool story” to be powerful and self-validating. My tattoos have become a sort of ritual. They give me strength to carry “all this.” My most recent is also among my boldest, though funnily enough it is common: The Hebrew words for “If I’m not for myself, who will be for me?”. Mine is loud since it is right across my throat in abstract calligraphy. Some of my inks were quite painful, but as I get them I always think to myself, “This is easier than it was being homeless,” or “There’s a Nazi out there who could handle this, don’t let him beat you.” When I came out as non-binary nearly a decade ago, it was still something many people fought me on. My “secret” to finding acceptance is also a deep shame: I tried to dress like I was wealthy and would disproportionately talk about the white side of my family. That’s what it took to find acceptance in a white queer community, one that touted all the left-leaning values. In addition to tokenizing me, well respected figures in my queer-peer community would casually say things that were antisemitic, then tell me I was just “being sensitive.” When I saw that my acceptance had been conditional, I became disconnected. But being given the unwelcome foreigner treatment liberated me. With this freedom I moved on in life to heal old pains. I am the grandchild of an unlikely marriage between a Baghdadi woman and Iraqi-Kurdish man who were bonded by their Jewish faith. Their children would survive the Farhud, become refugees in Israel before the Anfal genocide, then later parent me. I was fated to cycle break or perish. My tattoos give me the strength to carry and tell my story.

20 Dating Sites Designed for Foreigners that may Stone The Coming Year However , it’s relaxing to know that all one user profiles are personally verified and this your money will go towards a great upscale fraudulence detection program. As being a of the trusted and dearest relationship sites, Match. com has used all their 23 years of existence to convey collectively a huge selection of couples. Associated with getting merged up with a catfish causes lots of hesitation from people new to online dating sites. (Throwback to the Match. com scammer we talked about several paragraphs in the past. ) Most of the upstanding sites remain littered with criminal accounts, and nobody using a busy job wants to spend time sifting through that BS. EliteSingles cases to yourself confirm their profiles in order to avoid pretend accounts using SSL encryption and fraud diagnosis know-how. If you’re sense like most of the people you match with have a tendency end of wanting just like they do with their profile, discover science to again that up. A examine of eighty over the internet daters uncovered two thirds of users humiliated about their fat by 5 various kilos or perhaps extra with no correlation as to whether the person was male or perhaps feminine. Having this data in your once again pocket can be helpful while rolling through Tinder or eHarmony and end in more suits and long term connections. All of us spent more than per week screening greater than a dozen in style seeing apps and websites figure out that are the most efficient, inexpensive and the end the overall greatest dating apps. That meant monitoring three made-up profiles for 24 hours, accumulating match mail order wives knowledge and making use of the every function a marriage web site or perhaps app is sold with. It is a absolutely free relationship iphone app however then you can definitely still pay money for a VIP standing badge that comes with incentives which you will discover fairly within your dating journey. Rather than individuals needing to scan a large number of profiles and ship announcements to all of them, courting sites have made all of it simpler. The search features and top-notch communication features assist the member to find ideal matches. A lot of have also an extra obtain than China and tiawan allowing courting in Taiwan designed for foreigners or relationship in other Asian districts. - (Throwback to the Meet. com scammer we mentioned a couple of sentences in the past. ) Most of the upstanding websites continue to be affected by faux accounts, with out one using a busy profession needs to spend some time sifting by using that BALONEY. - EliteSingles promises to physically verify all their profiles to keep away from faux accounts utilizing SSL encryption and fraudulence detection abilities. - Tinder is actually a geosocial on-line courting request that permits consumers to swipping anonymously upon different single profiles inside a sure radius to safe complements. - The possibility of obtaining blended up with a catfish causes plenty of hesitation coming from individuals new to on-line dating. - Since it has launching news, Tinder has got turn into probably the most in style courting apps throughout the world. Online dating sites websites and apps have remodeled how we discover romantic lovers. You can now check out the background of a lot of of potential companions just before even speaking with certainly one of all of them. Mixed via the internet reviews produce it difficult to justify that value level, although. Fits could be extra away than you indicated within your mile selection and, unfortunately, it’s hard for EliteSingles (or any marriage website) to verify that someone makes the sum of money that they declare to make. Plus, you’ll certainly be able to’t go incorrect with the free dating internet site that’s answerable for creating extra lengthy-term relationships and marriages than its competition. The fact that it was lately bought by Momo, one of many largest social networking apps in China, causes it to be even larger with better performance. This is likely among the relationship applications in Chinese suppliers that include an English version. It can be straightforward to work with with simple issues just like swapping right when thinking of someone and swapping remaining if not really. If a couple specific an curiosity in a single another while swiping through user single profiles, they’re matched up and qualified of start out chatting. There exists even a “double take” function where you can get yourself a second possibility to swipe proper over a profile at the time you by accident skip it although scrolling. HER, obtainable free of charge in every single the Apple App Store and Google Perform, serves as a spot the place feminine-identified and non-binary folks can join to find both affiliates and occassions. You can sign up utilizing your Facebook or Instagram bill and swipping through background to seek out folks close to you. The software is also an area to put together and discover queer incidents like group and meetups. Online courting is the most basic and finest approach to meet native you, arms down. A lot of courting websites also provide free studies and/or absolutely free memberships that embrace these kinds of useful search tools and instant messaging. For each of our pretend dating profiles, we all counted just how many matches and email we received in one day.

Black Trans People are Sacred, updated for 2024! The art features a transfemme Black person, a transmasc Black person, and a non-binary person! Created for a billboard sponsored by SaveArtSpace in 2020 that was displayed at W Burnside Ave & Davidson Ave, the Bronx, NY! Black Trans People are Sacred Print 8x10 inch Glossy Photo Print. Square prints are printed with a border on 8x10 paper. 50x61 inch Polyester Tapestry. 57x57 inch Polyester Tapestry for square prints. Print Care: Hold prints by edges to avoid fingerprints. Use a microfiber cloth to clean off any fingerprints or dust. Tapestry Care: Cold gentle machine wash, line dry. Do not bleach.

Pronto Comics is open to working with all creators at all levels. Here are some of our top producing creators: Writer – Cross Creator Dennis Knight has been creating comics for over six years. On the suggestion of his penciler, he decided to submit his book Cross to Pronto Comics. Fusing science fiction with urban living, Knight’s book has been greeted with accolades on the convention circuit, leading to a special kind of alchemy between Pronto Comics and Cross. You can learn more about his book Cross here. Writer/Artist – Anarchy Dreamers Comic artist, writer, historian, part-time grad student, full-time punk, native New Yorker. My work has appeared in advertisements, educational comics, the award winning Dirty Diamonds anthology, and several up coming projects! I have a BFA in Fine Art and Art History from the Fashion Institute of Technology and am (ever so slowly) working on my MFA at the School of Visual Arts. When I’m not doing my own work, I’m teaching history through comic art! I run several History Comics Clubs in elementary and middle schools. Kids are the future, show them how great comics are! You can see more of her work at anarchydreamers.com. Robert J. Sodaro – ‘Bob Sodaro’ Writer – Hot Girl and Totally Hot Girl, First in Flight, Perspectives Robert J. (“Bob”) Sodaro is an American born writer, editor, and digital graphic artist. Sodaro was born in Norwalk, CT and is best known for writing as a journalist for numerous local and national publications both inside and outside of the comicbook industry press during the ‘80s & ‘90s. He currently contributes stories to a number of independent comicbook publishers including, Red Anvil Comics, Main Enterprises, Pronto Comics, Atlas Unleashed, Free Lunch Comics, and others, including created and writing for the online webcomic publisher Inkbot.com. He covered comicbooks, films, local events, and literature comics, for Examiner.com and now writes for Hubpages.com. He is the creator of a number of intellectual properties including Agent Unknown, Wülf Girlz, Girl Skout Wars, The Adventures of Hot Girl & Totally Hot Girl, and others. Currently he is writing a pair of ongoing comics for Red Anvil Comics, Cyberines and Owlgirls. You can learn more about Bob on comicbookdatabase.com. Writer/Artist – Cyclops girl Alexa Cassaro is a non-binary ace comic artist and writer from the NY, NJ area. Much of their work is YA LGBTQAI related consisting of very strong sassy female characters, sensitive males, and curious genderless characters existing in an emotional and dramatic world. They support all the angsty confused teens and hope the readers can relate to Alexa’s work and not feel alone or misunderstood. Their influences include shoujo manga, anime trash, bad girls, scientific illustration and true crime. Writer/Artist – Slice of Life, Hackers of Fate, I was a Hippie Cartoonist, Coming to America (TPB), Don’t Laugh, Rhode Island Rumbler, Deathskool (coming soon) Simon Petersen is a writer, artist and teacher. He lives in Denmark… this weird country that mixes socialism and capitalism like it’s no big deal. I mean, education is free? you saw it on Oprah. His work focuses on dark humor and social satire. His hero is, who else, Jack Chick. No, just kidding, it’s Crumb. He’s been published by Pronto Comics for over 6 years and will continue for at least 6 more. You can read Simon’s blog at sajmonsays.blogspot.dk. Artist – Cross ZANIS is a Brooklyn-born illustrator who obtained his BFA in Cartooning from the School of Visual Arts. When not collaborating with other artists on video games and storyboards, he is found collaborating with his favorite writer Dennis Knight on the sci-fi crime thriller, Cross. Writer – Strange Stories “The Creation” Dez Demise is a writer who hails from the far and distant land of California. She enjoys the finer things in life such as Comics, video games, cats and wine. She spends most of her time writing silly tales of dream worlds of magic, doing the mom thing and occasionally knitting. “Let us Create”https://www.facebook.com/MsDezDemise Artist/Writer – Nap Boy, American Monsters Chris Brimacombe is a comic book illustrator from Canada, now living in New York city. He got his MFA from the School of Visual Arts and has published several stories through Pronto comics including American Monsters, and Nap Boy.

The new musical starring Rachel York, Jeremy Kushnier, and Peppermint officially opened July 26 at the Hudson Theatre. According to Variety: And a cute story it is, too — young lovers losing one another in the woods, dallying with substitute lovers, but reuniting with their own true loves at the end. As Sir Philip and Shakespeare told it, the twinned lovers were all boys and girls. In this modern version the gender identities are much more fluid. And PlayBill describes it this way: Head Over Heels is the bold and fierce new musical comedy from the visionaries that rocked Broadway with Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Avenue Q and Spring Awakening. Set to the iconic music of the 1980's all-female rock band The Go-Go's, it includes the hit songs “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Vacation,” Belinda Carlisle's “Heaven is a Place on Earth,” and many more! It's a hilarious and sexy celebration of love in all its infinite varieties, told through the story of a royal family that must embark on an extravagant journey to save their beloved kingdom and find love and acceptance. Peppermint, a beloved fixture of New York City's drag performance scene and the runner up of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s ninth season, is making her Broadway debut with the production. She is also making history as the first performer who identifies as a trans woman to originate a principal role on Broadway. It's a historic milestone for trans and non-binary artists, who have spoken out about under representation on stage and screen. Watch This YouTube clip

Programs & Workshops The BeaYOUtiful Six-Week Confidence Program invites girls to join our self-love journey alongside inspirational mentors. BeaYOUtiful Foundation is now offering a hybrid of both ONLINE and IN-PERSON BeaYOUtiful Programs and Workshops for female and non-binary youth ages 8 to 14. Our goal is to continue to impact and inspire our youth with accessible means of communication. Look out for our new Mental Wellness Program! We are so excited to launch our new Mental Wellness Four-Week Program for girls across Canada in Fall 2022! This program will focus on topics such as overcoming fear, working through change, and coping mechanisms for different emotions- all taught by inspirational mentors. As a Charity, we ensure every young girl can attend our programming. BeaYOUtiful programs are free or by donation so that they can attend despite financial situations. If you want to sponsor a program, please contact us at [email protected]. Our programs wouldn’t be possible without our amazing donors. What Makes Us Different Inspired by HER Conference A day of celebrating confidence and building impactful, positive relationships Inspired by HER, presented by the BeaYOUtiful Foundation, is a city-wide conference rooted in self-love, purpose, and confidence building amongst young girls. Complied of three workshops, the conference addresses various issues throughout the day including body image, positive mental health, nutrition, and learning to redefine the standards of beauty. Students take part in open floor discussions, variations of artistic expression (i.e. dance, painting), media literacy activities, and goal setting workshops, while learning in a public pedagogy that invites them to critically engage with new forms of social and cultural expression. Inspired By HER 2023 has ended. Thank you to the 150+ young girls that joined us in Toronto on May 27, 2023 to celebrate a day of confidence and self-love! Stay tuned for our conference coming to Tornto, Calgary and Vancouver in 2024! To learn more about Inspired By HER, please visit the conference website: inspiredbyherconference.com Upcoming Events in the Community We throw confidence parties and have fun doing it! Looking for an empowering day focused on self-love and friendship? You have come to the right place! The BeaYOUtiful Foundation hosts single day workshops and weekly programs focused on building confidence and igniting dreams and goals. Want to bring a program or single day workshop to your school or community? Connect with us today.

Alteration of cultural thinking OIT oral immunotherapy essay standing just before after the intervention have been furthermore regarded as evidence of group good results. Outcomes show that instructor scaffolding along with existing college student functions served to amplify one another reciprocally. The particular teacher enhanced profitable sociable some social norms read more after they have been current, which in turn served to stimulate successful cerebral effort. Nonetheless, whenever productive party standards were not found, the tutor got increasing control of the viewers, which usually further affected profitable interpersonal and also mental friendships.Technological comprehension regarding the psychological effect with the COVID-19 international crisis is in it’s nascent point. Prior research suggests that will demographic aspects, including gender as well as get older, are connected with greater problems throughout a global health crisis. Much less is well known regarding how feeling legislation influences degrees of problems after a pandemic. The present examine aimed to spot predictors of subconscious stress during the COVID-19 crisis. Participants (In Equals A couple of,787) offered age, history of negative child years experiences, current dealing techniques (utilization of implicit as well as very revealing feeling rules), along with present subconscious distress. The general prevalence involving scientific amounts of anxiety, depression, as well as post-traumatic anxiety was more than your frequency exterior a new pandemic and it was higher than costs noted amid medical personnel and also children involving extreme intense respiratory system syndrome. Young members ( much less then Forty-five a long time), females, along with non-binary people documented larger prevalence regarding signs across just about all steps associated with problems. An arbitrary forest machine learning formula was applied to identify the most effective predictors associated with stress. Regression bushes have been developed to identify people from greater risk pertaining to nervousness, major depression, as well as post-traumatic tension. Somatization and much less reliance upon adaptive defense mechanisms were associated with higher stress. These findings emphasize the importance of evaluating people’s bodily encounters regarding psychological hardship and also feeling regulation methods to aid emotional wellbeing suppliers tailor checks and therapy within a global well being turmoil.Individuals see confronts naturally as opposed to as a immunocompetence handicap pair of separate capabilities. Earlier function demonstrates that some people are better with this holistic form of control than these. Here, many of us reveal that you’ll find exclusive personal differences in alternative processing involving distinct Mooney confronts. Many of us operationalized the elevated futility of spotting a encounter any time inverted compared to upright being a measure of the amount that individual Mooney encounters have been processed naturally simply by person observers. These studies has recognized guaranteeing p-cresol manufacturing inhibitors in whose growth might lead to beneficial therapeutics that assist to regenerate colonisation weight and thus slow up the likelihood of CDI relapse. Anastomotic ulceration right after intestinal tract resection is definitely an under- acknowledged symptom in pediatric medicine. All of us focus on the appropriate novels regarding this problem. Anastomotic Ulceration right after colon resection is often a possibly life-threatening reason behind refractory anaemia. Evaluation should include a static correction involving micronutrient deficiencies along with endoscopic evaluation simply by lower and upper endoscopy and also little colon endoscopy if necessary. First therapy by medical care may include anti-inflammatory brokers along with prescription antibiotics to treat modest colon microbial over growing Hepatic metabolism . Surgical resection might be of interest when refractory to be able to remedy. Anastomotic stomach problems throughout child fluid warmers patients E-64 chemical structure together with small colon resection should be considered as being a cause of refractory an iron deficiency anemia. Endoscopic examination should be performed to watch out for evidence anastomotic peptic issues. Surgical resection should be considered when medical therapy neglects.Anastomotic Ulceration following intestinal resection is a potentially life threatening reason behind refractory anaemia. Assessment will include modification associated with micronutrient deficiencies as well as endoscopic assessment simply by lower and upper endoscopy as well as modest colon endoscopy if required. Preliminary remedy simply by medical therapy may include anti-inflammatory providers and also anti-biotics to take care of modest colon bacterial over growing. Surgery resection should be thought about in case refractory to treatment. Anastomotic ulcers throughout pediatric patients together with tiny intestinal resection is highly recommended like a reason behind refractory a deficiency of iron anaemia. Endoscopic analysis must be carried out to consider evidence anastomotic ulcers. Surgical resection might be of interest when medical therapy does not work out.A full knowing in regards to the photophysical qualities of an fluorescent tag is crucial to get a reputable along with foreseeable efficiency throughout biolabelling applications. This kind of is true not only for the selection of any fluorophore generally speaking, also for the correct interpretation of information, with the complexness associated with organic situations. In the frame of your case study concerning irritation image resolution, we all document the particular photophysical depiction of four fluorescent S100A9-targeting materials regarding UV-vis assimilation as well as photoluminescence spectroscopy, fluorescence quantum makes (ΦF) along with fired up state the world’s (τ) and also the evaluation of the radiative and also non-radiative price constants (kr along with knr, correspondingly). The probes had been synthesized using a 2-amino benzimidazole-based direct framework together with available for public use inorganic dyes, masking a large color cover anything from green (6-FAM) around fruit (BODIPY-TMR) to Disease biomarker red (BODIPY-TR) along with near-infrared (Cy5.Your five) engine performance. The effects regarding conjugation with the targeting structure had been tackled in comparison from the probes with their related dye-azide precursors. Moreover, the 6-FAM as well as Cy5.A few probes were measured in the existence of murine S100A9 to discover whether protein binding has a bearing on their own photophysical components. In addition, the general Sigmoidal model could accurately hold the characteristics in the romantic relationship among powerful modulus as well as reduced regularity and get very good prediction consequences in the larger frequency Eeyarestatin 1 datasheet assortment.This kind of timely editorial cardstock outlines a few of the major appearing investigation on engineering subject areas upon health insurance schooling ways to Web use-related problems before and throughout the starting of coronavirus condition 2019 (COVID-19). The goal would be to give a brief overview to help an immediate extensive as well as sensible method of these kinds of brand-new tendencies in promoting study, interventions, education, and elimination. Principal results outlined scientific studies which in turn somewhat scientific, which has a relational type associating certain addicting issues with person and some contextual factors within grown-up people. Psychometric scientific studies with regards to weighing scales are generally widespread, yet predictive as well as combined approaches types are beginning to be able to arise, together with evaluations with regards to conceptualisation, calculate, treatment method, and also avoidance. From the arrival of Internet, each of our organizations get incorporated in the global tradition that has affected health and academic websites. World wide web use-related dependency problems have got throughout the world come about and common understanding, developments, and strategies occur to beat problems that are turning out to be tested, as well as avoidance awareness provides arisen in a widespread situation with world-wide health problems naturally tackled.From your birth involving Internet, our own organisations possess converged Emerging marine biotoxins in a world-wide tradition that has impacted health insurance and educational internet domain names. Internet use-related dependency issues possess internationally emerged and customary expertise, advancements, and strategies can be found to get over issues that happen to be starting to be examined, and also prevention awareness provides developed within a crisis scenario along with international health problems naturally handled.Ufasomes are unsaturated essential fatty acid liposomes made up of oleic along with linoleic acids, normal components required in different organic procedures. This kind of nanocarrier is seen as an easy as well as vibrant composition which is capable of improve the bioavailability regarding unsaturated essential fatty acids. The goal of this particular analysis ended up being to examine ufasomes while normal substance supply techniques to deliver oleuropein as well as boost it’s antioxidant activity. Oleuropein is a phenolic substance mainly contained in olives and olive oil, with several natural Antigen-specific immunotherapy properties, like the de-oxidizing task. Nevertheless, to further improve their particular biological exercise, de-oxidizing ingredients will be able to mix cellular membranes along with evenly integrate inside tissues. Due to the fantastic likeness among his or her constituents as well as cell filters, ufasomes could be beneficial companies pertaining to oleuropein delivery. Continual hard working liver condition is often a acknowledged danger factor to add mass to liver organ cancer malignancy, along with the progression of microRNA (miRNA) hard working liver remedies continues to be affected from the difficulty of providing miRNA to be able to damaged tissues. Lately, clinical studies demonstrate in which hepatic stellate cell (HSC) autophagy and also exosomes perform a crucial role in maintaining liver organ homeostasis along with ameliorating lean meats fibrosis. Furthermore, the particular discussion between HSC autophagy and exosomes may also affect your continuing development of lean meats fibrosis. In this cardstock, we all evaluate the research progress involving mesenchymal base cell-derived exosomes (MSC-EVs) full of specific miRNA as well as autophagy, along with their linked signaling walkways throughout liver fibrosis, which will give you a much more reputable foundation for the utilization of MSC-EVs with regard to therapeutic supply associated with miRNAs targeting the continual liver organ illness.Studies have established that nursing staff (NPs) deliver principal treatment just like doctors in cost and quality, but many concentrate on Medicare health insurance, a course which reimburses NPs less than doctors. Within this retrospective cohort review, we evaluated the high quality and value effects associated with obtaining main attention through NPs compared to medical doctors within 18 claims that compensate NPs in the State medicaid programs fee-for-service (FFS) medical professional rate (my spouse and i.e., pay out parity). We linked country wide company and use info with Medicaid information with regard to grown ups with diabetes and youngsters using symptoms of asthma (2012-2013). Many of us attributed sufferers for you to major proper care NPs along with physicians according to This year examination & operations statements. Using 2013 files, all of us created claims-based major treatment quality steps along with condition-specific fees associated with care for FFS enrollees. We approximated the result of NP-led attention on good quality and costs utilizing (One particular) weighting in order to stability seen confounders and also (A couple of) the critical adjustable (Intravenous) investigation employing differential distance coming from patients’ households Phage time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay to be able to major attention techniques. Adults with diabetes mellitus gotten similar top quality regarding attention coming from NPs as well as medical doctors from equivalent charge. Measured final results confirmed simply no distinctions in between NP- along with physician-attributed people inside invoice involving cancer precision medicine advised care or even diabetes-related hospitalizations. For kids together with bronchial asthma, charges associated with NP-led care were decrease nevertheless high quality studies were blended NP-led care ended up being associated with lower using appropriate drugs far better rates of asthma-related crisis section learn more trips however similar prices associated with asthma-related hospitalization. Intravenous looks at exposed absolutely no proof variations in top quality between NP- and also physician-led attention. Our own results declare that within states together with Medicaid pay out parity, NP-led care is just like physician-led take care of grownups with diabetes, although interactions between NP-led attention along with high quality have been blended for the children together with symptoms of asthma. A dozen molecular fingerprints through PaDeL-Descriptor have been computed with regard to design coaching. 3 equipment learning methods which include excessive incline increasing, assistance vector regression, and multilayer perceptron had been pertaining to constructing brand new predictive functions (PFs). The meta-ensemble arbitrary forest regression, named StackBRAF, was made in line with the Thirty six PFs. The StackBRAF product achieves reduce mean absolute error (MAE) far better coefficient regarding dedication (R2 and Q2) as opposed to individual base line designs. The putting collection learning model offers very good y-randomization benefits, indicating a solid connection between molecular functions along with pIC50. A good applicability website in the design by having an satisfactory Tanimoto similarity rating was also identified. Moreover, a large-scale high-throughput verification associated with 2123 FDA-approved drug treatments from the BRAF health proteins was efficiently proven while using the StackBRAF formula. Therefore, the particular StackBRAF product proven valuable being a medicine layout public biobanks formula regarding BRAF chemical substance breakthrough discovery and also substance advancement.This study supplies a comparability of different commercially available low-cost anion change walls (AEMs), a microporous separator, the cation trade membrane (CEM), with an anionic-treated CEM because of their program in the liquid-feed alkaline primary ethanol energy mobile or portable (ADEFC). Moreover, the effects about functionality was looked at taking two various modes regarding procedure Sitagliptin mw for your ADEFC, with AEM or CEM, under consideration. The actual walls have been weighed against respect with their actual and also chemical substance qualities, including cold weather and compound balance, ion-exchange capability, ionic conductivity, and also ethanol leaks in the structure. Your impact of such aspects on functionality and also resistance was firm through polarization curve as well as electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS) sizes inside the ADEFC. In addition, the actual affect of a pair of diverse business ionomers on the construction as well as carry properties Flavivirus infection of the prompt level and on the actual performance have been analyzed along with deciphering electron microscopy, individual cellular tests, as well as EIS. The actual applicability boundaries in the membranes ended up described, and the excellent mixtures of membrane and ionomer for that liquid-feed ADEFC achieved electrical power densities around 70 mW cm-2 in 70 °C.With all the improve with the funeral degree from the absolutely no. Several fossil fuel seam from the Zhengzhuang minefield involving Qinshui Pot, making surface area fossil fuel bed methane (CBM) top to bottom water wells ended up being minimal. By using theoretical evaluation and precise calculations, the cause of reduced output of CBM straight water bores ended up examined from the areas of reservoir actual physical components, development technologies, stress problems, as well as desorption characteristics. It turned out learned that the high in situ strain situations and also anxiety point out changes had been the primary handling components from the low production inside the industry. With this foundation, the procedure of growing production as well as water tank arousal was discovered. In line with the advantageous benefits obtained from case reports on several cannabis-based drugs and also a pair of modest randomized managed studies employing delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), all of us hypothesize that this cannabis acquire nabiximols can be regarded as an alternative new and risk-free treatment method approach throughout TS. Objective To check inside a twice window blind randomized medical trial, whether treatment with all the cannabis draw out nabiximols is superior to placebo in patients along with continual tic problems. Individuals and techniques This can be a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo managed, parallel-group, phase IIIb tryout, that aspires to enroll Ninety six adult patibe of higher health-economic relevance, want . substantial amount of sufferers employs marijuana (unlawfully) as self-medication. Conclusion The CANNA-TICS demo can clarify whether or not nabiximols will be effective and also risk-free in the management of sufferers using continual tic problems. Clinical study Sign up This tryout can be registered at clinicaltrialsregister.european (Eudra-CT 2016-000564-42) as well as clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03087201).Qualifications Sufferers being affected by dependency can be a prone group amid COVID-19, consequently his or her medical is regarded as crucial. With this document, the particular steps and reactions of the Drug abuse Support Community associated with Castile and also Leon (DAACYL) in Spain in the cannulated medical devices initial About six weeks in the COVID-19 crisis tend to be spelled out. The goal are these claims encounter may be attractive spots exactly where this challenge will keep and may help upcoming surgery. Approaches A mobile phone study has been completed because primary strategy, to gather info for the following firm and also repercussion about specialists along with people. This is completed by the actual brains of the 16 DAACYL products. Among the interventions utilized, the following jump out implantation of telemedicine methods, limitation regarding everyday methadone meting out, insides associated with urine regulates as well as initiation regarding attention applications for that displaced. Results As a result of these types of interventions, the experts noticed Ventral medial prefrontal cortex in which people are much less stressful along with mainly steady, having a low area of goes back. A rise in every day alcohol as well as valium have been reported as increasing numbers of typical amid individuals who backslide. Furthermore, the particular epidemic regarding COVID-19 contamination from the trial is actually minimum; consequently, diverse hypotheses might be of interest being an description (infra-diagnosis, immune system utilized to violence, achievable anti-inflammatory aftereffect of several psychotropic medicines as well as a greater perception of threat versus an infection compared to basic populace). Conclusions The particular rapid version and profitable execution of selleckchem DAACYL also have satisfactory benefits. However, preventing the wide ranging boost in the creation of behaviour addictive problems and the utilization of homemade medications should be considered. The goal was to conduct a illustrative review with the renal vascular pattern noticed through the dissection involving cadavers created for educating functions. Any illustrative and observational research of kidney vascular anatomy ended up being performed by taking apart 07 renal hindrances from 8-10 cadavers contributed to science and useful for educating in the School of medication of the College associated with Zaragoza. The actual frequency associated with arterial versions was 75% (56.3% with regard to total kidney veins, Twelve.5% for pre-hilar branching and Some.25% with regard to dual speaking arterial posture) and also venous was Sixty two.5% (A dozen.5% with regard to total renal veins, 25% for delayed venous confluence, Half a dozen.25% pertaining to triple kidney spider vein and 18.75% regarding double circumaortic kidney spider vein). We all determine that this kidney vascular defects happen with good rate of recurrence; for that reason, understanding of these types of defects is really important for the right planning OSMI1 of numerous medical-surgical actions.Diabetes leads to cognitive disability, and also the hippocampus is vital for long-term and also long lasting storage purpose. Nonetheless, your system with their interaction remains to be unclear. In this research, rat models of diabetes ended up produced by the one shot regarding streptozotocin (STZ). This research aims to research the modifications in myelinated fibres in the hippocampus associated with variety One diabetic rodents. The actual fair stereological strategies and indication electron microscopy were utilised to search for the complete amount of your hippocampus, the total amount of the actual myelin sheath, the entire length of the myelinated neural fabric, the syndication from the period with some other diameters from the myelinated materials, and the submitting in the length with different breadth with the myelin sheath. Stereological analysis says, to this from the management class, the whole myelinated materials amounts and also the complete myelinated fibers duration have been decreased slightly, even though the complete size along with the thickness of myelin sheaths ended up considerably decreased from the diabetic party. Lastly, when compared with your control team, the complete length of myelinated materials within the all forms of diabetes team has been considerably lowered, using diameters including Zero.7 to a single.A single μm along with thicknesses involving myelin sheaths from 2.16 to Zero.19 μm. This study supplies the initial fresh proof through stereological ways to demonstrate that myelinated nerve fibres would be the deep sternal wound infection main factor within psychological problems inside all forms of diabetes. Several accounts purchased pigs to establish models of meniscus injuries. Nevertheless, accurate info on the cause, course, as well as Immunochemicals gain access to in the arterial blood vessels supplying the menisci stays cloudy. This post is vital that you steer clear of detrimental crucial veins when coming up with your meniscus damage model. Each of our research can give rise to not simply understanding the procedure involving infectious particle creation but also helping the vector method regarding orthobornaviruses.Alzheimer’s parenteral antibiotics is often a intensifying neurodegenerative condition recognized neuropathologically by existence of extracellular amyloid plaques composed of fibrillar amyloid experiment with (Aβ) proteins and also intra-cellular neurofibrillary knots. Post-mortem as well as in vivo studies implicate HSV-1 an infection from the human brain as a stressfull element in disease/pathology start. HSV-1 infection of two-dimensional (2D) neuronal ethnicities causes intra cellular piling up involving Aβ42 peptide, however, these Two dimensional models don’t recapitulate the particular three-dimensional (Three dimensional) structure of mental faculties muscle.All of us used individual caused pluripotent stem cellular material (hiPSCs) to compare patterns regarding Aβ42 deposition throughout HSV-1 contaminated 2nd (neuronal monolayers) and 3 dimensional neuronal civilizations (mental faculties organoids). Akin to earlier research, HSV-1-infected Second cultures confirmed Aβ42 immunoreactivity throughout cellular material revealing your HSV-1 antigen ICP4 (ICP4+). On the other hand, accumulation of Aβ42 inside ICP4+ cellular material within afflicted organoids has been hardly ever seen. These kind of outcomes highlight the importance of consie product to investigate your effort associated with HSV-1 inside the beginning of Advertisement pathology.Acinetobacter baumannii is amongst the most scientifically critical nosocomial infections. The entire world Well being Company relates it to its «critical priority» class to build up fresh techniques for powerful treatment. This organism can perform generating structurally diverse capsular polysaccharides (CPSs), which usually function as main receptors for the. baumannii bacteriophages having polysaccharide-depolymerasing nutrients. With this review, eight fresh microbe viruses that particularly taint A new. baumannii traces belonging to K2/K93, K32, K37, K44, K48, K87, K89 and K116 capsular varieties were remote and recognized. The entire genomic structure indicated that these kinds of viruses are generally reps with the Friunavirus genus in the household Autographiviridae The actual straight line double-stranded DNA phage genomes involving Forty-one,105-42,402 bp discuss higher nucleotide series id, except for genes computer programming architectural depolymerases or even tailspikes which usually decide the web host specificity. Deletion mutants lacking N-terminal domain names involving tailspiof the particular genetic tablet loci is liable for your noticed higher structural selection from the CPSs. On this examine, many of us illustrate ten book lytic phages who have various tailspike depolymerases (TSDs) determining the connection from the infections along with related Any. baumannii capsular kinds (K-types). Furthermore, many of us elucidate the constructions associated with oligosaccharide products Valaciclovir purchase acquired by bosom of the CPSs by the recombinant depolymerases. We believe in which since the TSDs establish phage uniqueness, the range with their buildings should be taken into account since variety conditions regarding inclusion regarding particular phage prospect to the beverage built to manage Any. baumannii with some other K-types.COVID-19 vaccines are rapidly produced and human studies are on-going. The majority of these types of vaccinations have already been built to Root biology stimulate antibodies aimed towards spike protein associated with SARS-CoV-2 within expectation regarding overcoming activities. Schneid., Sophora flavescens Ait., Cnidium monnieri (D.) Cusson, and also Dictamnus dasycarpus Turcz., had consequences for the paths on immune system along with fat burning capacity methods not the same as WM. The benefits exploit the potential part involving CHM upon treating Advertising, specifically for mild as well as reasonable Advert.The benefits take advantage of the potential position involving CHM on the treatment of Advertising, especially for mild and also average Advertising. Lythrum salicaria D., also referred to as crimson loosestrife, offers customarily been utilized as a medicinal seed to help remedy interior Recurrent urinary tract infection problems, including stomach issues as well as hemorrhages. Its content has quite a few phytochemical materials, which include orientin, and contains already been reported to get anti-diarrheal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidising, and also antimicrobial attributes. The end results associated with Lythrum salicaria M. in weight problems haven’t been discovered. Consequently, we looked into the particular anti-obesity outcomes of Lythri Herba, your air point about this place, within vitro plus vivo. Making use of sanitized water, Lythri Herba water concentrated amounts (LHWE) were made by taking out Lythri Herba with 100°Ϲ. The items in orientin throughout LHWE have been identified making use of Top rated Water Chromatography (HPLC) examination. To judge the particular anti-obesity aftereffect of LHWE, 3T3-L1 adipocytes plus a high-fat diet program (HFD)-fed these animals were utilized. Oil-red E yellowing had been performed to examine your anti-adipogenic effects of LHWE inside vitro. Your histological alterations in epididymal whitened advertising linked to essential fatty acid corrosion (FAO), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α and also carnitine palmitoyltransferase One out of 3T3-L1 adipocytes and epiWAT. Furthermore, LHWE significantly up-regulated the actual phosphorylation regarding selleck inhibitor AMP-activated necessary protein kinase throughout 3T3-L1 adipocytes as well as epiWAT. Ingredient Kushen (Sophora flavescens Aiton) Injection (CKI) is often a Oriental organic shot produced from ingredients associated with Kushen and also Baituling (Heterosmilax japonica Kunth), made up of matrine (Sparring floor), oxymatrine (OMT) and also other alkaloids along with substantial anti-tumor action, and is also widely used just as one adjuvant answer to cancer within The far east. SRs/MAs associated with CKI adjuvant therapy regarding cancer-related diseases had been researched within four English vocabulary listings PubMed, Embase, Net involving Scientific disciplines, along with Cochrane Selection, most from the moment associated with data source building for you to Oct 2022. 5 experts separately conducted books research along with detection according to the introduction standards, as well as the files in the ultimate novels have been separately taken out, and lastly the actual AMSTAR Two application, PRISMA declaration and Quality PCR Thermocyclers classification were utilised to guage your methodological excellence of the integrated SRs/MAs, your deveness should be verified by a lot more high-quality evidence-based health-related data.CKI is a possibly successful substance for the adjuvant management of neoplastic illnesses and could be genuine for that adjuvant treatments for non-small cell cancer of the lung along with digestive system tumors; nonetheless, due to minimal methodological and also evidentiary excellence of the present SRs, their usefulness should be validated by much more high-quality evidence-based healthcare evidence. Country wide checking involving police-public make contact with doesn’t prolong below grow older 07 along with few research has looked at associations using young mental wellness. We explain the submitting associated with law enforcement officials stops in a country wide representative cross-sectional test regarding young people age groups 14 to be able to Eighteen years inside the Panel Review of revenue Dynamics Little one Advancement Dietary supplement 2004 along with 3 years ago (n=2557). Many of us employed survey-weighted race/ethnicity-stratified and gender-stratified regression models to check interactions involving the frequency regarding police prevents and both depressive signs and also summary well-being (mental, emotional and cultural). We all adjusted for a number of socioeconomic covariates and also looked at influence changes by simply parental time in jail. All of us believed in which 9.58% of young people were quit 2 or more instances. Even with less law enforcement officials prevents compared with kids, Black and White young ladies who had been stopped at least two times within the last 6 months experienced increased common depressive disorders scores when compared with young ladies who were not stopped (Dark 2.Thirteen (95% CI 3.3 to a few.Fifty three), Bright 2.17 (95% CI A single.’07 to a few.27)) and these organizations ended up better between women whose mom and dad was incarcerated. Police halts have been drastically associated with greater depressive ratings with regard to White, although not Black, males (2+ vs 3 prevents White One particular.Thirty-three (95% CI 3.31st to two.Thirty six, Black Zero.53 (95% CI -0.31 to at least one.Thirty-four)). Interactions among very subjective well-being along with authorities halts had been more robust amid non-Hispanic African american compared to White women, although with regard to guys, organizations different around fuzy well-being subscales. Nationwide checking data and also public health research must analyze young authorities contact in younger age ranges stratified by both race/ethnicity and girl or boy to be able to better comprehend their romantic relationship using CID44216842 chemical structure young mental well being.Country wide overseeing info and public well being study Organic bioelectronics need to examine young authorities get in touch with from youthful ages stratified simply by each race/ethnicity and also gender so that you can greater recognize it’s partnership using young mind wellbeing.Sphingolipids (SLs) are very important structurel components of mammalian mobile or portable filters. We not too long ago established that this common anaerobe Porphyromonas gingivalis provides its SLs for hosting tissue which draught beer R. gingivalis to be able to synthesize SLs limits the actual elicited web host inflamed reaction through mobile an infection. While S. gingivalis robustly makes outer tissue layer genetic linkage map vesicles (OMVs), all of us hypothesized that will OMVs be the delivery automobile for SLs, how the SL standing in the OMVs might affect shipment loading to be able to OMVs, and that SL-containing OMVs restrict elicited web host inflammation just like that witnessed by simply primary microbe challenge.

ALBUM REVIEW: Dream Nails – Dream Nails Photo Credit: Marieke Macklon “I FEAR NOTHING AND NO ONE EXCEPT THE TEMPTATION TO HOLD BACK.” What would you do if these words rang true in your head every morning? Dream Nails might just have the answer with their self-titled debut full-length release. Dream Nails have produced one of the most fun and colourful punk albums this year, which nevertheless refuses to compromise on any of their political messages or determined stance against heteronormative patriarchal ideals. There is energy and enthusiasm exuding from every syllable, every scream, every solo. Even in its moments of rage, this album will remind all listeners that punk should always be about having fun and doing whatever you want, whilst sticking it to the man at every moment possible. Punctuated by skits and interludes which highlight the manifestos of this band – self love, down with capitalism, and women and non-binary people to the front – this album sounds rough and raw in the best way possible, saccharine sweet vocals from Janey Starling spitting out witty double entrendres and political statements alike. Highlights include the rally cries of Corporate Realness (“you are not a job/work is not your life!”) and DIY, an ode to empowerment at the expense of capitalism. Lightning speed, blink and you’ll miss ‘em lyrics are paired with joyous instrumentation and uplifting energy. The song ends with a cry of “you are good enough, you are strong enough, you are smart enough,” and we defy any listeners not to smile. Payback is another album standout, featuring throat-ripping screams, and then followed immediately in a double sucker-punch move by Kiss My Fist, inspired by the incident on a bus in Camden where a lesbian couple were beaten up for refusing to kiss in front of a group of men. This is clearly the most personal and upsetting track for this band of wonderfully queer ladies, and their sadness and determination can be heard behind the anger in this track. This band isn’t just here to make noise and then leave – their messages and statements are in it for the long haul. Dream Nails could suffer from a drop in energy when we reach the stretch of the album with the less-politically inclined and less humorous tracks, like Swimming Pool and People Are Like Cities, but no. Each song on the tracklist is attacked with such a ferocious attitude and unapologetic confidence that you immediately want to get up and start dancing (and/or rioting). Dream Nails have produced an album which harkens back to the heyday of the Riot Grrrl movement, with all the rough and ready aspects one might expect from that scene. However, the energy and fun and rage interjected at every single moment updates the sound to be utterly fresh, making this one of the most exciting punk records of the year. Unapologetically queer, often funny as hell and more outspoken than anything else on the scene right now, Dream Nails’ debut is a truly promising start. Standout Tracks: Payback, DIY, Corporate Realness For Fans Of: Bikini Kill, The Ramones, Petrol Girls, Nova Twins Written by: Rosie Esther Solomon

EPIC Occurrences @ Our TINY Operation! Effective Spring 2020, WeeWelcome Doula and Lactation Services has combined forces with THE PERFECT PUSH to create the PNW's premiere service for perinatal support. Find out more about WeeWelcome Doulas @ The Perfect Push here! CARE in the time of COVID-19. What is support through our doula team looking like now? Wondering how you'll get through labor, even after reading books and taking classes? Never fear, your doula is here! We will meet before your wee one arrives to plan how our team will best work together to ensure that you feel confident and cared for when the time comes, and are also ready to care for your new babe once they have arrived earthside. The Birth Day! When the time comes, I will be by your side throughout your labor and delivery. I will arrive with my bag of tricks and stay on through your labor...no shift work here. I am there for every moment, offering emotional and physical support to you and your family. Afterward, I'll be sure baby is feeding, parents have questions answered, and everyone is ready for a nice long nap! You won't be alone after your little one arrives...a birth package includes postpartum support, so I can check in and see how things are going... everything from breast/chestfeeding guidance to being on the lookout for PMAD symptoms. I am also a postpartum doula, however, and can be your Gal Friday for as long as you need after you get home, in whatever capacity works best for you...sort of like a new family's fairy godmother. Lactation Support from a CLE Feeling a little nervous about feeding that new baby? You're not alone! Yes, nursing is natural...and it takes some learning for everyone involved. We will begin with education, support, and guidance before your little one arrives to give you both a head start. I'll be there with more support and guidance in the first few hours, days, and weeks...and I'm just a phone call (or text!) away any time you have a question or concern. Bottle feeding? Pumping? Tandem nursing? I'm here, and we can figure it out! Are you adding a new baby to the family, and worried about how your older babies might feel? With a background in Human Development, many years in Early Childhood Education, and three kids of my own, I'd love to work with you to bring sibling harmony to your growing family. it won't always be simple, but there are definitely things we can do to make the transition easier, on everyone! (Read a little bit here.) I also have experience working with neurodivergent kids and their families. In my doula practice, I enjoy working with ALL kinds of families having all kinds of births in all kinds of situations. EVERY birth can be a with the right support. Sounding good? Let's meet to talk over your ideal birth/postpartum plan. Initial consultations are always free. BS, CD(PALS), PCD(NAPS), CLE I have a BS in Human Development and discovered my passion and talent for caring for others in college. I spent several years each in the fields of medical office management and Early Childhood Education, always with an eye toward eventually working, somehow, in the field of childbirth. I love working with and supporting families. I personally had three wonderful births that were each quite different from each other. In 2016, I did my birth doula training with Big Belly Services (certificate May) and my postpartum doula training at Bastyr University (July). I am currently a certified birth doula with PALS, a certified postpartum doula with NAPS, and am working toward full-spectrum certification with Birthing Advocacy. I am also a Certified Lactation Educator (Evergreen Perinatal Education) currently working toward my IBCLC. In the rest of my life, I am: Mama to 3 smart, funny, and interesting adult humans (girl, boy, and trans* non-binary kid); partner to a kind, gentle, brilliant husband; straight-passing queer; amateur zoo keeper (dogs, cat, chickens, snake, fish...); organic gardener; coffee, bourbon and beer snob; reader of literary fiction; karaoke dance-party starter; gourmet camper; feminist, activist, and oppressive systems dismantler; foodie; family COO/CEO/CFO; builder of both community and structures; daughter, sister, auntie, cousin, friend; lover of life; traveler; adventurer.

THANKS FOR A GREAT 2019 MARCH! Thank you so much, we’ll see you next year! What do we mean by dyke? Dyke identity represents the reclaiming of a term historically used to oppress masculine presenting women and/or lesbians, or women/womyn/womxn attracted to other women/womyn/womxn. The term dyke now encompasses a multitude of sexual orientations and gender identities including, but not limited to the following: queer, lesbian, bisexual, trans* and cisgender women/womyn/womxn, and gender non-binary folx. For some, dyke identity speaks to one’s romantic and/or sexual attractions and behaviors and for others it also takes on a more political meaning. Most importantly, it is about how the individual identifies.

I think about being out a lot. Two things always pop into my head: - “I would like to see every gay doctor come out, every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up, and let that world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody would imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights.” - Harvey Milk - The story about Justice Powell’s gay clerk during Bowers v. Hardwick. For those unfamiliar, Justice Powell famously said that he had never met a homosexual when signing onto the anti-gay majority opinion in Bowers, later overturned by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas. He had a gay clerk at the time. (It’s possible that he was lying to protect his not fully out clerk. ) To be out is a privilege as well as a burden. It is both an act of courage and the least we who are safe enough can possibly do. Times have changed since Justice Powell and Harvey Milk. I come out regularly as queer, and although my chest tightens every time I talk about my girlfriend with someone new, I am lucky enough to exist in environments where such a statement is no longer controversial or remarkable. Bisexuality, although often invisible, no longer represents the bombshell that it did even when I was in high school. I am so grateful for that. As folks who know me have seen, I’ve been inching towards coming out as non-binary. Talking to friends. Using different pronouns at events. A Facebook post. Changed pronouns at school. Changed pronouns in my Twitter bio. Talking about non-binary issues and experiences at conferences. A new website with an FAQ about gender. For a while, I thought it was fine to only use “they” pronouns in professional contexts. I cared (and care) more about being publicly out as non-binary than about private pronoun usage. But a lot of thought and a number of recent events have convinced me that it is not enough to only ask my professional contacts. For better or worse, people take gender cues from the people closest to someone, not from their Twitter bio. I don’t care any more if I seem inconsistent, or flighty, or if, god forbid, I am making things hard for people. If even one law student, politician, teenager or judge sees me and thinks “there is someone like me” or “I’ve met a non-binary person,” it will have been worth it. So to be clear: I’m non-binary. My pronouns, for now, are they/them. If you’re confused about the mechanics, I have a FAQ here. I ask you (yes, you!) to use those pronouns. I ask you to correct other people who don’t use those pronouns. I ask you think about the ways you assume the gender of others, and the way your language reinforces the notion that there are only people of two genders. I don’t only ask you to do this for me. I ask you to change for the many other people you may know who haven’t come out yet, who haven’t figured themselves out yet, or who may never figure themselves out. We, together, can achieve our rights.

Hamilton, Pretty Woman and Caroline, Or Change stars to feature in MTPRIDE Casting has been announced for Queered, the first of several events a part of MTPRIDE. MTPRIDE celebrates Pride past, present and future through performances from Musical Theatre stars who are also members of the LGBTQ+ community. Beginning the festival, Queered reframes existing shows and reimagines classic MT moments in completely new contexts to explore queer histories, lost stories & personal experiences. The showcase, directed by Matt Powell, will blend live performances and spectacular recordings to create an evening that celebrates and interrogates what queer representation in Musical Theatre can be. The performance will be streamed on the MPTheatricals YouTube Channel on Wednesday 24th June, at 8pm BST. The cast will feature west end performers including Hamilton cast member Waylon Jacobs, Soho Cinders’ Michael Mather, Footloose star Evie Rose Lane and Bring It On’s Roshani Abbey. Other cast members include: Roly Botha, Lucy Dickson, Jo Eaton-Kent, Eleanor Faye, Ashley Gibbins, Conor Gormally, Kaidyn Niall Hinds, Matthew Jacobs Morgan, Alan Lewis, Freddie Love, Jordan McMahon, Emily Qualmann, Faye Wheeler, Elliott Wooster, Aitch Wylie and Charlotte Elisabeth Yorke, Adam Raymont, Harrison Knights, Joash Musundi & Richard Davies. MTPRIDE have also partnered with Musical Theatre Network and Mercury Musical Development to host a panel discussion about the future of LGBTQ+ Musical Theatre in the UK. In recent years there has been a slight increase in the diversity of LGBTQIA voices and characters represented in new musical theatre, including stories with trans protagonists and non-binary characters: this panel asks what changes in LGBTQ+ representation musical theatre audiences can expect to see in the next decade. The panel will take place at 5pm on Monday 29th June, and will feature practitioners from all corners of the LGBTQ+ Community including Olivier winner Sharon D Clarke (Caroline, or Change), Susie McKenna (Associate Director at The Kiln), JBR (JBR Management), Rikki Beadle-Blair (Team Angelica), Harrison Knights (Trans Voices Cabaret), Gus Gowland (Pieces of String) and Dr. James Lovelock (Lecturer in Musical Theatre at the University of Wolverhampton). (Subject to Change). Full details and schedule can be found at www.mtpride.co.uk. All events will be available on a Pay What You Can basis as MTPRIDE believes it is vital that queer focused works are easily accessible, particularly for younger LGBTQ+ viewers. All proceeds will be split between UK Black Pride, Gendered Intelligence, and a support fund for the artists involved. More information on each performance, how to watch and support MTPRIDE can be found at www.mtpride.co.uk. Curators: Lucy Dickson (she/her), Meg McGrady (they/them) & Matt Powell (he/they) Technical Production Partners: Adam Lenson (he/him) & Chris Czornyj (he/him) MTPRIDE artwork by William Lloyd (@william.lloydart)

9:35am PT by Jackie Strause Blowing Up the Binary: How 'Transparent' Season 4 Is Personal for Jill Soloway [Warning: This story contains spoilers from the entire fourth season of Amazon's Transparent.] Jill Soloway isn't sure which came first. The Transparent creator now identifies as gender non-binary and prefers to be described with the gender-neutral pronouns of they, them and their. On the fourth season of the Amazon comedy, which was released in full on Friday, the youngest of the Pfefferman clan, Ali (Gaby Hoffmann), is on the brink of identifying as non-binary after years of questioning her identity. Soloway's parent coming out as transgender in 2011 inspired the writer to create Transparent, something they now refer to as an "imaginary" world where the starring Pfefferman family functioned like "some dolls I could play with, with the therapist." Through a controllable version of their own family, Soloway grew introspective while making their art, questioning their own gender. After watching Ali's journey on the latest season — one that leaves her alone in Ramallah, opting to stay behind when her family returns to the U.S. after an enlightening trip to Israel — the link between Soloway and Ali truly starts to merge. "I’ve lost track of what comes first," Soloway tells The Hollywood Reporter of whether they consciously or unconsciously wrote themselves into Ali's on-screen story. "Do I have an idea that I don’t want to wear makeup anymore? Is it the same time that I write that for Ali? Is it after, is it before? It’s very weird." The fourth season of the award-winning series begins with Ali joining "moppa" Maura Pfefferman (Jeffrey Tambor) on a work trip to Israel. During the trip, Maura makes two startling discoveries: Not only is her father, who abandoned their family when she was a child, still alive, but he informs Maura that she isn't the first transgender person in the family (something viewers were clued in on through flashbacks in earlier seasons). While Maura is grappling with the lifelong secret that was kept from her, Ali links up with Palestinian activists and begins her own self-discovery off the beaten path. When the rest of the Pfefferman family joins them and Maura's long-lost father tours them around the Holy Land, Ali splits away to nearby Ramallah, where she confronts her own binary identities as a Jewish woman while opening her eyes to what is across the border. Soloway has described this season as being about personal and global borders and boundaries: "The boundaries create a space for love and the borders keep people from each other. The [Pfeffermans] are all trying to figure out how the idea of God resonates in relationship to their own bodies." For her part, Hoffmann says she and Soloway do not directly talk about the correlation between the character and Soloway's personal story. "We're all always in conversation about ourselves and each other, feelings and ideas, life and politics," Hoffmann tells THR. "There's just a flow to it that's integrated in every step of the process. I can't even remember a conversation over the four years where Jill and I were sitting and talking about Jill and Ali. There's Jill in all of us and none of us are in any way a comprehensive representation of Jill at any point in their lives." Below, in a chat with THR, Soloway explains why they decided to layer the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over those inside the Pfefferman family, discusses her personal journey as it parallels to Ali's story and says of the future of the series (which has already been renewed for a fifth season): "The Pfeffermans are just getting started." This season, the Pfeffermans went to Israel. The season was shot in Los Angeles and the actors never traveled there, but you and the writers did go there for research and to capture B-roll footage. Was your trip there as transformative as what plays out? Yes. Over the past year, I went twice. None of the actors went to Israel. That was all in L.A. A lot of what the Pfeffermans do on the trip is what we did as writers. We asked for the straightforward: what happens when American Jews go to Israel? Then as we began writing the season, we started to get to know some of the queer members who are active in some of the social justice movements in Palestine. And we slowly but surely started to understand that there was no way to do an Israel story about the modern-day queer Jewish people without talking about the way that intersectionality really often pushes people to have to choose. It’s really hard to think of yourself as a radical queer activist and be able to defend Israel. I don’t mean defending Israel’s army or policies. I think it’s pretty common among young, queer people that a lot of people don’t stand behind certain military policies. But wanting to still love Israel or the idea or county of Israel, I think, is a longing that a lot of young people have and they’re looking for a way to experience and understand how little they understand. Ahead of the season, you joked that people would probably react by saying, "If they weren't in enough conflict to begin with, they went to Israel — what were they thinking?" Why did you set up that challenge? We always knew we wanted to go to Israel. I met an activist who told me that it’s really interesting to watch what happens when American Jewish people feel their American Jewish privilege peeling away. Starting to understand what the cost is of the idea of Israel. I was really interested in what this activist meant and we then really wanted to begin to weave that into the story. Even humanizing people from the West Bank is something our generation, our parents and their parents, haven’t considered doing. You began filming in the spring. How much of this season did you have in your head already and how much was influenced by the election and life after? It wasn’t so much about the election. We were influenced more by what happened after the election, which this kind of rage amongst liberal folks about the state of the world. Israel has always had a big part in that. When you think about Trump and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, American power and Jewishness and vulnerability and safe spaces, it all just got that much more intense after Trump became president. You challenge the binary on several levels — identifying as male or female, as Israeli or Palestinian. What was your hope with this season? We have been slowly but surely returning to this notion of the problematic binary. So it doesn’t matter if you’re saying: Pick, you’re a woman or a man. Pick, you’re Jewish or not Jewish. Pick, you’re straight or gay. Pick, your trans or cis. We just kept noticing that all of these things could really be disappeared if you get rid of the binary and realize that people really like the idea of safety. Knowing, this is what men do and this is what women do. Sometimes I liken it to the chaos of being alive. A group of people are about to get on an elevator, the elevator doors open — who goes on first? Everybody knows: Women go first. People are so dependent on these little ways of using the binary to diminish the way of life. And then it happens in the big way where people use the binary to diminish the chaos of dying and the fear of war. "I won’t die because I’m Jewish" or "I’ll be safe because of something else." Whatever these things are, they’re about safety and fear. Are you saying society should do away with the binary? It’s impossible to get rid of the binary and I’m not saying to get rid of categories, I’m not saying to destroy the category of male and female, or the category of straight and gay. I’m just saying that there is a third category. There is a place in between and a lot of people are in between on a lot of issues. That in betweenness is a mushy place. I think what Trump showed is that when you pick one side and you defend that one side really hard with strong borders, you go, "All of us 'good white people' are over here and we need to protect ourselves." That feeling of "that strong man is coming to protect us" gets people really excited. What about everybody else? What can get them excited? What can get us excited? What can excite all the people who are other, who feel in between or not served by those hard borders? Ali (Hoffmann) is the biggest vehicle for those questions this season. From the start of Transparent, Ali has always questioned her identity. Behind the scenes, you also have been questioning your own identity since writing this show, now identifying as gender non-binary. I know. Even coming back to launch a new season and do press, and looking at the pictures of what I looked like two or three years ago. How have you been writing through the character of Ali? The whole show becomes this almost psychic version of my life. A lot of artists are writing things before they move from their unconscious into their conscious. A lot of people are like, “I wrote a script. It wrote itself!” And then they realize a year later that they were writing their wish, or something that was about to happen. "I couldn’t get a divorce so I wrote about a divorce." I’m really aware of that and always have been. But it is a really weird sensation when a writer goes, "I really like this for this character or it wrote itself." That’s usually because the unconscious is about to push something out. In what ways have you seen your own unconscious come onto the page? I’ve lost track of what comes first. Do I have an idea that I don’t want to wear makeup anymore? Is it the same time that I write that for Ali? Is it after, is it before? It’s very weird. And also, addressing how certain aspects of the binary bugged me. I felt like Shelly’s [Judith Light] whole "Mario" persona [during her improv class, Shelly adopts the persona of an older Italian man] is a whole thing I’ve been going through. How do I want to sit? How do I want to stand? What am I allowed to eat if I think of myself as more masculine? Can I have more access to my appetite? Can I have more confidence? Can I eat a big sandwich? And shame and femininity and desire. Are we ashamed of our appetite more when we’re female and if we think of ourselves as male, even in an improv class, what does that allow us to do? So, yeah, I have a pretty busy mind when it comes to all these ideas and now I can put all these things together. The Pfeffermans are like dolls and these doll versions that we’re playing with can act out these real questions. Ali's journey to non-binary is portrayed in a way that hasn't been shown on TV. Two scenes come to mind. The first is when Ali is hooking up with the activist, Lyfe, in Ramallah and realizes, "I never even thought about keeping my bra on during sex." Why was it important to show the curiosity, the steps that she goes through and why did you stop short of having her fully identify as non-binary in the end? By the end, we got close. I think we had written that Ali was going to be identifying as non-binary by the end of the season, but then as we started to really write it and live it, it just felt fast. But I think it’s interesting because when people come out as trans or gay and are asked when they knew, people say, “I knew when I was 3.” When people come out as non-binary, no one really knows what that looks like. How does that journey begin? I’m living it. I think my sister is living it a little bit. We’re both like, “What if non-binary had been an option for us as children?” Can you imagine your mom saying, “You might be a boy. You might be a girl. You might be something that is sort of in between and both and neither.” I think we would have both been like, “Ok, we’ll take the both, in between and neither. We’ll see what happens and I’ll let you know later.” That may be an option for a lot of kids in the future. So when you realize that there are so many young people who identify as gender non-binary that it may end up being a real gender designation and you start to think about who you would be had you had access to that genderlessness, or that ungendering of your own self, you can’t help but reconsider how your whole life would have been. That also happens with Maura (Tambor) making this family discovery, when she says, “I was alone in this. Why didn’t anyone tell me?” This season explores identity through genetics and family. Do you believe it is inherited? I think it’s both. I think there are genetics that are gender noncomforming. I think there are people in generations and generations of family when people look back and think, “Oh, yeah. All of my aunts were very man-ish.” There are so many ways of being gender nonconforming. There are a whole bunch of intersex conditions that don’t even go under the transbrella right now. But so many people who are born with intersex conditions, their parents keep it a secret from them, doctors do surgeries on babies and some don’t even know. People don’t like the idea that somebody could be of both genders genetically, physically and biologically, so doctors do all these things to normalize the binary. Imagine who we would be and who intersex children would be if they were able to be born into a world that said, “Fantastic! How lucky you are, mom, to have this kid who is this, who are themselves!” I find myself often drifting into intersex arguments because there is physical evidence so people can see, “Oh, this person is intersex.” Or there is a blood test and you can see this person has both chromosomes. How close do you think society is to recognizing this in betweenness, or what you are calling a third gender? It’s not that I’m advocating for blood tests for transness but people are very suspicious if they can’t see something with their own eyes, and yet there are all kinds of conditions and ways of being different and special that there are no blood tests for. I really think we’re on the verge of people being able to identify as a third gender within that identification. It could be transness, it could be intersex, it could be non-binary. Just this third option. And, what would that third option offer people, emotionally? For me, it has so many potential results. I’m thinking about consent, and I think about consent all the time. Why is it always a woman who is disbelieved and a man who is believed? Josh’s [Jay Duplass] line this season, when he says, "An erection is not consent." That was such a huge notion when we thought of it and it’s true. People think that men are consenting 100 percent of the time and people when they think about rape with men, they think it involves some sort of forced intercourse. Or how the family immediately jumped to Lyla's [Alia Shawkat] defense and assumed her relationship with Sarah [Amy Landecker] and Len [Rob Huebel] was Len’s choice and that he did it all. People laminate "doing" unto men. They laminate "done to" unto women. That’s just regular Western thought. What would a third gender do to those notions? The other scene I was referring to above is when the family is in the Dead Sea and finds out from Maura that Ali is non-binary. They have a very honest chat about using gender-neutral pronouns. Is that something you’ve experienced in your own life? I use non-binary pronouns but I’m never touchy about them. While promoting the show on a panel, everyone was gendering me female and I didn’t stop them because it happens all the time. It’s so hard for people to get and to use the “they” pronoun. It’s hard for me to remember. For me, using non-binary pronouns is almost an ideal world. When people do it and remember to do it, I get all excited. I’m like, “Oh, yeah. That’s right!” They, neither, both. I can be either, both, neither and all the time, I can be switching. It always feels like a kind of cool, respectful space to live in. Almost like a fantasy future space. But I never give people a hard time about it. You have half-joked about doing 10 seasons of Transparent. You said you don't map it out in your head, so do you look at what this season gave you and then think about how much more story there is for you to do next? Yes. I definitely am starting to see season five already and so are the other writers. We left Ali in Israel, so we have to figure out what’s happening to her. I don’t know if she’s staying there — I don’t want to tell you! But the Pfeffermans really are totally generative. They give birth to so much and I really do feel like they are just getting started. Maura is definitely just getting started. She’s just figuring out who she’s attracted to and it’s complicated when your gender changes. I don’t think trans people really want cis people asking right away, “If your gender changes, who are you attracted to?” That happens to me all the time. People who know I’m non-binary want to know, “Are you still attracted to men? Are you still attracted to women?” People who want to talk about their gender quickly get forced into talking about their sexuality for people who want to understand. The two are pretty unrelated. Maura does end up identifying as a "heterosexual woman" and introduces boyfriend Donald (John Getz) to the family. Can you explain how she got there? When my parent first came out, that’s what a lot of people wanted to know. “Does this mean your dad is gay?" I would say, "No, she’s a woman." And then get asked, "Who is she sleeping with?” Why do people need to know this? She’s the same person she always was. It’s the same with Caitlyn Jenner. She was attracted to women, she’s still attracted to women. So that’s something trans people want people to understand. Just because you change your gender, it doesn’t change who you are attracted to. Yet, once you get deeper and deeper into trans life, and you start to understand all the iterations, what Maura said was true. Some people are actually heterosexual. If you’re heterosexual and you transition, now you’re actually going to be attracted to the opposite sex — but you’re still heterosexual. So, it’s complicated. You have to go really deep in to understand the nuances. There are no right answers and there are no mistakes because the train is moving so quickly and people are learning so much. I just feel lucky that we get to be making art in the midst of so much. Transparent is now streaming all 10 episodes on Amazon Prime Video. Tell THR what you think about the new season in the comments below and check back in with Live Feed for more from the cast this week.

Is Nepal’s progressive queer rights movement bracing for a setback?When Bhumika Shrestha travelled overseas holding a passport with her gender marked as ‘O’ for ‘other’ for the first time in October 2015, she made international headlines as the face of Nepal’s third gender movement. When Bhumika Shrestha travelled overseas holding a passport with her gender marked as ‘O’ for ‘other’ for the first time in October 2015, she made international headlines as the face of Nepal’s third gender movement. Although it came after years of campaigning and advocacy, Shrestha said she acquired the changed passport, correctly identifying her gender, through self-identification, and without any court papers or medical proofs. But that may change—if the draft bill to amend the Citizenship Act in Parliament is not revised. The new bill registered by the Home Ministry demands proof of gender transformation to obtain new citizenship. The queer community has strong reservations about the clause, which according to them is vaguely worded—and can result in further discrimination against sexual minorities. “The ‘requirement of evidence’ definitely suggests submission of proof of a sex change operation to obtain citizenship with a changed gender, and it is undoubtedly a regressive step,” said Pinkey Gurung, chairperson of Blue Diamond Society, an advocacy organisation working for the rights of the LGBTIQ community. According to Gurung, there are many layers to how this provision can be discriminatory towards the queer community. First, it undermines an individual’s “right to have one’s own identity” and pushes them farther from self-identification. Second, it only caters to those who can afford to have sex reassignment surgeries; and third, it asks for evidence of such medical procedure that isn’t even available in Nepal. Shrestha, who underwent a breast enhancement surgery in Thailand in 2011, agrees with Gurung. “I travelled to Bangkok for my breast surgery because the procedure wasn’t available in Nepal at that time. Even back then it cost me around Rs300,000. It must have become more expensive now,” she said. Although she successfully underwent the top surgery, she said she has never visited a counsellor or undergone hormone therapy till date. No team for transition The internationally approved medical procedure for the transition of transgender individuals is to have their psychiatric evaluation by a psychological counsellor, after which they undergo hormone therapy. Then, with further consultation with medical professionals, they undergo top and bottom surgery to avoid possible side effects. But these numbers and types of interventions applied may differ from person to person as explained by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health in their clinical guideline ‘Standards of Care’. According to the protocol, many health professionals have recognised that many individuals need psychotherapy, hormone therapy and surgery, while others may only need one of these treatment options—the treatment has become individualised. Dr Ansumali Joshi, an endocrinologist at Alka Hospital, said that although there should have been a standard procedure, there are none available in Nepal. When a trans patient visits him for hormone therapy, his team makes them sign a consent form in order to avoid any legal consequences. “There is no clear law in Nepal about these procedures. As an endocrinologist, I am aware of these issues, but I agree that due process has not been followed,” he says. Pratik Thapa, a transman who is undergoing hormone therapy with Joshi, said he came to know about the possibility of hormone therapy in Nepal through Rukshana Kapali, another transgender activist. “When I realised that I want to transition, I went to Dr Joshi and he prescribed testosterone dosages. I did go to the counsellor but it was post the hormones, and that too the counselling was more for my parents,” Thapa said. As Thapa started transitioning, his physical attributes started to change significantly—from his appearance to the pitch of his voice. In order to adjust to the new look and new identity, he felt that it was important for him to take his parents into confidence. That is when he went to Bijaya Bijukchhe, a psychosocial counsellor at Abbal Women Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd, a psychosocial counselling centre. Like Dr Joshi, Bijukchhe does not specialise in transitioning individuals or does not deal with cases of gender dysphoria. But Bijukchhe said they cater to such individuals as they are initially diagnosed with depression or anxiety. “People who come to me rarely identify themselves as a transgender in the beginning. Most people visit us in reference to their deteriorating mental health and through multiple therapy sessions on emotional and behavioural cycles, they are able to recognise their issues, which for some is related to gender issues,” said Bijukchhe. Her role, she said, is only assuring them of their gender. Seeking further procedure is purely an individual’s decision—she, or her team, does not prescribe them any kind of treatment. According to Joshi, due to the lack of clarity and standard procedure in dealing with trans issues, there are many patients who stop coming. For instance, male hormones work faster than female ones due to which more transwomen opt out of the prescribed hormone therapy. In the absence of the facility of regular counselling and easy over-the-counter accessibility of female hormones, this trend is on the rise. “Male hormones are only accessible in injectable forms while female hormones can be easily found in oral forms. This has led transwomen to self-medication, which can have grave consequences in the future—from metabolic changes to rise in haemoglobin levels to risk of contracting cardiovascular diseases and even cancer,” said Joshi. Many countries around the world have the provision to demand a medical certificate or to limit the validation of the government-issued document. In the United States, the validity of passports (from 10 years to two years) depends on the ‘appropriate clinical treatment for transition’, with the individual’s physician determining the clinical treatment. Similarly in the United Kingdom, an individual has to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria and should have lived in the acquired gender for at least two years to be eligible to apply for Gender Recognition Certificate. But Gurung believes the policies practised in developed countries may not be applicable in Nepal’s context. “These [developed] countries have appropriate medical services, with a few European countries even providing free surgeries,” she said. “What is Nepal government’s plan or strategy to create a safe space for or provide LGBTIQ friendly medical facility?” Eshan Regmi, an intersex man, said he has faced discrimination even in the hospitals where it is mandatory to disclose his identity to receive correct treatments. His citizenship mentions his gender as a female whereas he identifies himself as a male. “There aren’t enough medical services that cater to us and even where there are services, the awareness level is very low,” he says. He is not the only one who has experienced humiliation from people working in the medical sector. It was also difficult for transgender activist Kapali to buy hormonal medication in many pharmacies in the Capital during her early days of transition. “The pharmacists used to give me a confused and judgmental look even when I used to give them my prescription. They were not at all aware of these issues and I had to explain to them my situation in detail,” she says. Even medical professionals are not sure how they can testify or certify an individual’s gender identity without a clear law. “We have been providing hormone therapy to people who have asserted their identity themselves. It is their choice,” said Joshi, the endocrinologist. Additionally, gender reassignment surgery internationally requires medical professionals to follow certain clinical protocols. But in Nepal, the only medical Act that deals with the alteration of body organs through surgery is ‘The Human Body Organ Transplantation Act 1998’ and it is silent on the issues regarding gender reassignment surgery. And while some hospitals and clinics have started providing top surgery, there is still no provision for bottom surgery at any medical facility in Nepal. Consent is key On December 21, 2007, when the Supreme Court of Nepal acknowledged the third gender, the move was commended all over the world not only for recognising the rights of the LGBTIQ community and the umbrella term ‘third gender’, but also for moving away from the traditional binary identity of male and female, creating a much broader space to accommodate even the non-binary community. More than a decade after the decision was taken in Nepal, a US federal court just recently in February 2019 ruled for the first time that a passport be issued to a non-binary person with a gender marker of ‘X’. In this context, Nepal has been one of the most forward-thinking countries for LGBTIQ rights. But with the proposed bill stating that people need to present a proof of sex change, it seems that the country is taking a step back. On the other hand, while the LGBTIQ community may have gained recognition under the umbrella term of third gender, there are no awareness mechanisms by the government to discuss and demonstrate diversity within the community. Over the years, many transgender individuals were able to change their gender marker from what they were assigned at birth to ‘other’. But there were many individuals who preferred to change their gender to male or female rather than be marked as ‘other’. “Within the queer community, individuals may describe themselves as gender non-conforming, unambiguously cross-sexed or genderqueer and mandate for the ‘other’ gender marker. But many may not identify as such—the underlying principle being how the individuals describe themselves,” says Regmi. Similarly, following the principle of self-determination, the proof of gender change is also not a feasible solution as not all people require or desire medical services. According to Regmi, not all people within the intersex community need medical attention and it is also an individual’s discretion to seek medical services. It cannot be intrusive but should always be based on consent. Likewise, according to Gurung, many transgender individuals cannot undergo medical procedure due to their health complications—or simply because they choose not to.

Transition Without Hormones | MTF Transgender Transitioning from male to female is a deeply personal journey. While hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can help feminize the body, it may not be right for everyone. In this article, transgender woman, Naiah Nikole, shares her experience about transition without hormones. What is Hormone Replacement Therapy? HRT for transgender women typically includes three medications: - Anti-androgens - These suppress testosterone production and prevent further masculinization. - Estrogen - This hormone leads to breast growth, softer skin, and changes in fat distribution for a more feminine figure. - Progesterone - Helps advance breast tissue growth and regulation of the menstrual cycle. It's important to work with a doctor when starting HRT and not self-medicate, as the medications can be dangerous if misused. HRT is Not Required for Transition There is a common misconception that all transgender women must take hormones to transition. However, this is not the case. HRT is completely optional and depends on your personal goals. For example, some trans youth may not be ready to develop breasts or other feminizing effects at their age. Individuals who identify as non-binary may only want subtle changes. Not everyone needs or wants the same effects from HRT. What to Expect from HRT If you do decide to start HRT, be patient. It takes 3-6 months to see significant physical changes. HRT will not alter your voice or cause other overnight transformations. The medications work gradually over time. Some effects of HRT include: - Breast growth - Decreased muscle mass - Softer skin - Slowed hair growth - Decreased libido and erectile function - Be sure to discuss all potential changes with your doctor beforehand. Naiah Nikole’s Transition Without HRT Naiah Nikole chose not to undergo hormone replacement therapy during her transition from male to female. Instead, she relied on surgical procedures like facial feminization surgery, body contouring injections, and breast augmentation to achieve the feminine look she wanted. She also had laser hair removal treatments and worked on vocal training to feminize her voice. For Naiah, taking estrogen or anti-androgens was not needed to make her outer appearance match her female gender identity. She was able to transition to her true self through means other than hormones. Consider Your Options Carefully The decision to take hormones is highly personal. Before starting HRT, be sure to consider how it may impact your fertility, sex life, and health. Work closely with a transgender-affirming medical provider. Not all trans folks need or want HRT. Focus on what feels right for you. Know there are many paths to transition - do what makes you feel most comfortable, happy, and authentic.

Organisers of an event at the University of Edinburgh about gender identity in schools have said LGBT+ organisations have declined to take part, leaving only gender-critical panelists lined-up as speakers in December. ‘Schools and Gender Diversity’ is being hosted at the Teviot Lecture Theatre in the capital on 11th December and is billed as a gathering of views on the updated schools guidance supporting trans young people and a discussion about the safeguards required to “help inform the ongoing public debate in Scottish education”. The main speakers are prominent gender-critical women, Prof. Michele Moore of London’s South Bank University, and the Founder of Transgender Trend, Stephanie Davies-Arai. If no other speakers step forward, there is likely to be a lack of diversity in views, especially from those with experience supporting trans young people in schools. University of Edinburgh Senior Lecturer, Dr Shereen Benjamin, told us that LGBT groups were invited to attend, but either declined or failed to respond: “A range of speakers were invited to take part in this event. We asked LGBT Youth Scotland, and the University of Edinburgh Staff Pride Network, both of whom declined. We also asked the Scottish Trans Alliance to take part, but they did not respond. I am disappointed by these reactions, given that dialogue and debate are key to understanding these complex issues.” Neither LGBT Youth Scotland or the university’s LGBT Staff Network provided a statement before our publication deadline, despite efforts to contact them. The university faced a backlash in June this year from its internal LGBT staff network, who all resigned following the announcement of an event on women’s sex-based rights, featuring controversial speaker Julie Bindel. Elliot Byrom, the trans and non-binary officer with the university’s Student Union, released a statement on Twitter, saying: “As with the event in June, neither the panel nor the framing of this event are balanced, and the perspectives articulated by the speakers pose a real threat to the safety and wellbeing of trans people, particularly young people currently in education.” “Education is a fundamental human right, and trans students – whether at school, college or university – should be able to access education without fear of harassment or discrimination. A culture of support and inclusion benefits all student, trans and cis.” “It is frustrating that, despite extended dialogue between ourselves and the University, they have allowed this event to go ahead, even in the knowledge that it will have a significant negative impact on trans members of our community.” The university itself has faced criticism online, including a number of people upset that the event is being hosted within the university grounds, with bosses sticking to an argument of freedom of expression in this case, regardless of the feelings of trans students or staff. A spokesman for the University of Edinburgh said: “Freedom of expression within the law is central to the concept of a university. The University of Edinburgh recognises and upholds the fundamental importance of freedom of expression, and seeks to foster a culture that enables it to take place within a framework of mutual respect.” Pride Edinburgh, Scotland’s longest running Pride event, use the Bristo Square and Teviot complex for their annual festival, with more than 10,000 people attending earlier this year, just yards from the proposed seminar venue. Brett Herriot, Chair of Pride Edinburgh, told us: “We are saddened and highly disturbed with the upcoming seminar to be held at the University of Edinburgh on 11th December. Whilst the event is being advertised as an open debate on transgender inclusion in schools, if it only features those with outspoken negative views on transgender issues then what’s the point? It seems obvious that this event will be purely negative about trans experiences and one-sided.” “All sides in this ‘debate’ have called for a higher standard of engagement and discussion, away from social media, but this example isn’t how debate should work. We urge the organisers to rethink the panel to create a balanced discussion, featuring experts with lived experience of supporting trans young people in Scottish schools. If that cannot be achieved, then for the sake of the university’s integrity, the event should not take place at all.” “We, as always, stand with the trans community as one.”

New Michael DeForge. We've got some bookplates to go with it. Come in to get one, while supplies last. #QuimbysBookstore A photo posted by Quimbys Bookstore (@quimbysbookstore) on Jan 20, 2015 at 1:11pm PST First Year Healthy by Michael DeForge (D&Q) $14.95 Zines Infinite … Gendrfailz #1 the First Appointment by Alix Kemp Published by Trans Oral History Project Zine Distro 20p, b&w, 5.5"x8.5" Kemp details jumping through medical hoops to have access to prescription testosterone. A great resource not only for its personal account, also for its record of standards, questionaires and definitions Kemp had to negotiate as a non-binary person engaging doctors with staunchly set gender reassignment paths. -EF

I can’t start this week’s blog without a recognition of the horrific attack in New Zealand, in sadness of how extreme views, of division rather than acceptance and inclusion have gained such ground recently. It filled my feed over the weekend (no mean feat considering I live in a trans echo chamber most of the time thanks to algorithms) and was the main item on the news as I drove into work. Yet again the media is brought into question, and I am reminded of CN Lester’s talk the other month where they reminded us that sharing hate-filled articles, even to condemn them, is to feed the machine. Acceptance perhaps doesn’t sell newspapers but it sure as anything reduces violence and discord. Chrysalis has supported transgender people since 2005 and their significant others since 2012. We have a wealth of experience in the power of acceptance. Of self-acceptance. We know that people who are accepted are happier, healthier and live more fulfilling lives. We know that hatred doesn’t work and so we will continue to work towards a society where everyone is more aware of the experiences of others, of the ways that we are similar as humans rather than the outward differences. I’m sure you’ve noticed how much easier it is to like someone when you experience empathy for them. The #TransInclusivity conference is a great opportunity for everyone to find out just that bit more, seven hours Continuing Professional Development and lunch for £40! Equality is for everyone, not just those who can afford it. https://www.facebook.com/events/2256821084602479/ for more information and tickets. As always the week has been a busy one, both Tiny Car and my feet put on some serious miles, on Wednesday I managed nearly six miles just walking around London! What a great day though, a chance to meet up with Octavian from Stonewall Housing and then with Margherita from the International Observatory of Human Rights. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous of the view from their office, how many people get a chance to look down on the Tower of London? On Tuesday the National Lottery Community Fund announced some fantastic news, they awarded Chrysalis, Mermaids and many other LGBT+ charities vital funding, recognising the importance of our work supporting and advocating for LGBT+. The support of the Lottery and generosity of the players means the world to Chrysalis, enabling us to continue with our lifesaving work and our own period of growth and transition. The rest of the week was filled with work on the conference, with Julie on developing our Bournemouth support and with Julie and Max on developing our training and Devin on #ArtSOTrans, check the events out on Facebook, there’s a whole week’s worth of good things next week @TheArtHouseCafe. Which reminds me – did you see we now have lanyards for transmasculine, agender, genderqueer and non-binary identities as well as the more common transgender flag? Give the office a message if you want to buy one, they are £2.50 each. What’s on for this week? Well I wouldn’t want to try to predict the wider world but for Chrysalis? Well that’s perhaps a bit easier. Today we travel to @SolentUni to meet with David and Ani about the conference, it’s getting close now! Tuesday I have some more one-to-ones and then Wednesday Carole and I are conducting counsellor interviews. Everyone who comes to Chrysalis can access one-to-one, open ended counselling with counsellors trained in transgender matters giving everyone the opportunity not only to meet with peers and attend workshops but also to explore anything and everything that is on their mind. Our counsellors will never expect you to speak about any one particular subject, but they will work with you to find out why something is important to you. Skilled in relationship building the counsellors are there to provide a safe, non-judgemental environment for personal development and acceptance. The more we understand ourselves the more we come to accept ourselves and believe it or not the more we come to love ourselves, even the most unloveable bits, and to accept others. Thursday is a Basingstoke focus day and then Friday is more of those volunteer one-to-ones, rounding off the penultimate week in March quite nicely.

Batwoman will make history as the first superhero live-action TV series to feature a gay title character, and it’ll also star the non-binary lesbian actor Ruby Rose in the title role. As we can see in this teaser for the show, it seems like brooding in a cape is a family trait. We were first introduced to Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane in the crossover event Elseworlds late last year, and with the news that series was picked up, along with a bunch of other shows, it’s no shock that this teaser wasn’t far behind. Ruby Rose didn’t blow me away as Kane, but there was little for her to do besides look cool and brood a little, which are two things she’s good at. I’m looking forward to seeing what the show does and whether it will honor Kane’s Jewish background and give us some really solid LGBT representation. Despite the many criticisms I may have about The CW, I cannot deny that it has been one of the most inclusive networks and already hosts a lot of other LGBT characters. In that regard, there is actually less pressure for Batwoman to be perfect like other shows. It will have the freedom to not feel like representation must mean perfect LGBT characters. I’m here for more gay baddies. Along for the ride is also Meagan Tandy as Sophie Moore, a private security agent who helps protect Gotham; Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox, A Batman loyalist (aka fanboy) who keeps Wayne Tower secure in his absence; Nicole Kang as Mary Hamilton Kate’s stepsister who serves Gotham’s underserved communities; Rachel Skarsten of Lost Girl fame as Alice, leader of the Wonderland Gang; Dougray Scott as Jacob Kane, Kate’s father who hates vigilantes; and Elizabeth Anweis as Catherine Hamilton-Kane, Kate’s stepmother and one of Gotham’s wealthiest citizens, a bullheaded defense contractor. Personally, I’m loving that this is gonna be a diverse cast of characters and I want to see more Batman-universe characters show up because the Batfamily is a solid bunch with or without Batman and I’d love to see what they can come up with pulling in more from the Batman canon. I mean it can’t be as bad as the Birds of Prey television show (which I love, but still). What are some Batwoman characters you are looking forward to seeing coming to life in this adaptation? (via Yahoo! News, image: The CW) Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site! —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.— Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Riot Nrrd by RJ Edwards is a webcomic about nerds and geekdom with an emphasis on LGBT, genderqueer, and other minority nrrds. It’s smart, funny, and sharp, so you should totally go read it now. RJ’s book Child, Friend, Kin, Queer: Coming Out as Non-Binary is also a great introductory read for those interested in genders and identity. I’m sure by now that everyone on earth has heard about the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. I found myself genuinely moved and saddened by his passing. My first computer was an Apple IIc in 1987; since then, I’ve gone through a PowerBook 145B, one of the original bondi blue iMacs, one of the original Titanium laptops, a later version of the Titanium, and now have a MacBook and a MacPro (along with an iPad and an iPod Touch.). Basically every book I’ve ever written, including some really awful stuff from high school, was written on an Apple product. In response to Jobs’ death, the despicable Westboro Baptist Church announced that they will picket his funeral. Of course, they made this announcement via an iPhone, which they later claimed was created by the Christian god and not Jobs. Which, now that I think about it, is probably the logical outcome of their anti-science stance; no one actually ever discovers or invents anything, it just miraculously appears at the store for you to buy. My head hurts. The artist known as ceruleanvii on deviantART paints exquisitely beautiful men (and a few women), usually with a fantasy flair. You won’t be able to see all of her works if you don’t have a deviantART account, but there are still plenty to feast your eyes on.

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On April 2, 2020, Mitch Johnson co-presented a webinar on “Best Practices for Virtual Board Meetings During COVID-19,” along with Dottie Schindlinger, Executive Director of the Diligent Institute, and a founding team member of BoardEffect. In this blog post, Mitch shares his insights on several of the questions asked by the audience of over 700 webinar participants. Tips for Board Engagement Q: “I have a very small board, and I feel like during the COVID-19 situation there are decisions that need to be made rapidly and it’s difficult to gather board members to make a decision from day to day, even virtually. What might help my board become more engaged right now?” A: Right now, we all have an anxiety-inducing array of demands on our time, attention, and psyches – and that is as true for board members and organizational leaders, as it is for front-line staff and volunteers. We’re all living under the specter of a serious illness befalling ourselves or someone we love. We might be struggling to secure enough basic provisions for our households, and many people have had to suddenly take on roles like teacher, coach, chef, care-giver and job-seeker in addition to all they were doing before this crisis. It’s not too surprising that your board members are distracted – they are only human, after all. But this is the very moment when organizations need strong leadership, and your board has a fiduciary obligation that cannot be ignored, particularly not in the midst of this crisis. This could be an opportunity for your board chair and chief executive to recommit to one another and work in tandem to galvanize the rest of the board to take action. Even when times are calm, the board chair and chief executive work together in a strategic partnership – serving as a check and a balance for one another, but also helping to game plan what needs to happen across the rest of the organization. Now is no different; only the need is greater. Get the board chair and chief executive director talking (daily if needed) until they create a clear plan to get the board’s attention back on addressing the needs of your organization. Q: “How can we engage Board members and be more inclusive during virtual meetings?” A: Virtual meetings can be tough to navigate, but as they have replaced face-to-face meetings for the time being it is vital to keep those attending engaged. The first tip would be to plan your agenda carefully. For many the default approach is to simplify virtual meetings and make a one-way flow of information, but your board is your governing partner during this crisis and you need to plan for engagement. Rather than trying to cover all topics on an informative level, choose those that are most mission critical and could benefit from board participation. Having fewer items on the agenda will set you up for more discussion during your meeting. Secondly, use the tools provided by your virtual meeting platform. Most platforms use polls, chat, and other non-verbal feedback features such as a raise-hands feature. For many board members using these tools could even increase their involvement over an in-person meetings, giving those who often do not speak up a chance to give their input. In many ways virtual meetings can be a great opportunity to increase the inclusivity of your meetings. For the deaf and hard of hearing many virtual platforms support Closed Captioning which can be captioned by a capable staff member or through a 3rd party professional captioning service. It is also important to consider those who are visually impaired and may not be able to use or benefit from the visual platform. Make sure you are prepared with instructions for call-in only participants to be able to mute and unmute their phone lines, and providing them an opportunity to speak up if you are primarily using the chat feature for Q&A. Finally, encouraging all participants to include pronouns along with their name in the platform is a great way to encourage inclusivity for transgender and non-binary participants. Q: “What feedback did you receive from your boards of directors after the virtual meeting?” A: We received quite a bit of feedback on how we were able to pull off a meeting so quickly and with so very few technical issues. However, we had a solid plan and had prepared our staff and board members for the virtual environment. So technical issues, while I am proud we did not encounter them, were secondary to planning an engaging agenda. The best feedback came from those who let us know how successful the content was. One participant wrote, “Thank you all for the thoughtful and incredible turnaround on this meeting… This was the medicine we all needed – to connect with this community that continues to give us so much – in this challenging moment in history. Thank you for bringing us all together and energizing us this way!” That is really the feedback you want and should look for from your meeting. Tips for Meeting Protocols & Procedures Q: “Please speak about meeting protocols, including do you mute everyone during presentations and only allow questions during Q&A? Do you unmute everyone during Q&A? How do you control the flow of questions and allow everyone to feel engaged in the discussion?” A: It is easy to lose control over time and flow when you open a virtual meeting up for questions, but there are some easy steps to help mitigate that valuable time from being wasted. An important tip: begin every meeting by laying out the meeting protocols. Inform participants that they will be muted on entry. Let them know how to mute and unmute their line, but encourage them to use the non-verbal tools within the virtual meeting platform. Encourage all questions to be posted to the meeting chat. Using this tool, staff and board leadership are able to work many answers into their presentations, and prioritize and reorder questions to keep the best meeting flow. Secondly, encourage the use of the “raise hands” feature as a way for a board member to indicate they would like to add verbally to the conversation. Board leadership or staff can then call on those who’ve “raised their hands” for timely comments. Finally, at the end of all Q&A sessions, open the lines and give everyone the opportunity to speak. This way, everyone is able to participate, even if they have been unable to use the chat or other features. Following this strategy minimizes board members speaking over each other or asking questions that side-track the conversation. Q: “How do you handle executive session (a.k.a. ‘in camera’ or ‘closed’ sessions) where staff aren’t present?” A: Closed or executive sessions can be one of the most important agenda items for an engaging virtual board meeting. We discussed having one staff member, such a board relations manager or liaison, remain on the call and continue to manage Q&A sessions and provide technical support. However, after debate we decided it was more important to honor the closed session time with no staff present. In order to do this successfully, you should plan a “run–through” with your board leadership prior to the meeting to make sure they fell comfortable with the chat feature and meeting controls. Then during the meeting, model this style of discussion and Q&A. By the time your board comes to “closed session” at the end of the meeting, the board chair should be comfortable taking control. Staff members are able to drop off the call, but remain reachable via text in case any technical issues or questions arise. Tips for Using Virtual Meeting Tools Q: “Did you kick people out of the virtual meeting if you couldn’t identify who they were?” A: Yes, we were upfront with board members that our sessions are confidential, and that no unidentified individuals would be allowed into the meeting. In some virtual meeting platforms there is a “waiting room” feature. We were able to use this feature and only admitted board members into the meeting. It is important that board members be well informed of this plan and know how to properly identify themselves in the meeting. They should also know who to contact for acceptance into the meeting if they are not initially allowed in. In our case, we had a board phone contact list and were able to quickly match up the numbers of the few members who were not able to login. Q: “Can requiring pre-registration, where people enter their full name in advance and receive a unique Zoom login link, also help identify attendees and reduce the risk of ‘Zoombombing’?” A: Yes, if set up properly, requiring pre-registration can help alleviate some of the issues faced with “Zoomboming,” but the extra step does require some considerations. First, pre-registration can have a manual or automatic approval. Using an automatic approval does not really solve the “Zoomboming” issue. However, requiring manual approval could require you to have an additional staff member monitoring an approval list for board members who may have forgotten to register until the last minute. It is also an extra step to troubleshoot should a board member have technical issues. Another option to consider is password-protecting your meeting to remove the chance of “Zoombombing,” but once again it creates an extra step that could create issues for your board members trying to join the meeting. For HRC’s board meetings, we tried not to require these additional steps. We want to be able to just send the board member a link or call in number and then use the “waiting room” to screen participants. If your board meeting is a manageable size, using the waiting room feature might be a better option. Mitch Johnson is the Board and Volunteer Relations Manager for HRC, the Human Rights Campaign. In this role, Mitch is responsible for strategic and logistical support for both the HRC and HRC Foundation Boards of Directors, including planning all board meetings and calls. He coordinates with staff and board members on a regular basis, across all HRC departments and plans, manages and directs the annual Equality Convention, HRC’s largest volunteer leadership and training event. Mitch also serves as the key liaison for all communications with board members, acts as a conduit between staff and board leadership, and provides staff support to Board Development Committees.

North Shore LGBTQIA+ Resources No matter their age or demographic, LGBTQIA+ community members should have access to health, social, and support resources. Programs and resources exist in Massachusetts to help those looking for safety, aid, and support. This page lists some of the resources currently available in and North of Boston. If you see something missing, contact us. - The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH)’s Safe Spaces for GLBTQ Youth Program: The Safe Spaces program consists of community-based organizations currently working with LGBTQ youth, to provide services that are trauma-informed, founded in Positive Youth Development, and are culturally appropriate and specific to LGBTQ youth. - Fenway Health’s Violence Recovery Program – provides counseling, support groups, advocacy, and referral services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and anti-LGBTQ hate violence. VRP staff have specialized training and experience in working with LGBTQIA+ individuals. - National LBTQ Health Education Center – Provides educational programs, resources, and consultation to health care organizations with the goal of optimizing quality, cost-effective health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and all other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQIA+) people. Violence and Suicide Prevention - Trevor Project – 866-488-7386 – The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. - HAWC – HAWC (Healing Abuse Working for Change) strives to help abused women, children, men, and nonbinary people live free from violence and fear. As a leading domestic violence agency in Massachusetts, HAWC provides a domestic violence helpline, emergency shelter, legal services, advocacy and counseling services to more than 2,500 families in the North Shore area each year. - The MA Transgender Suicide Prevention Working Group – a collaboration of the DPH, the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Fenway Health, Samaritans, and the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention - LGBTQ Support/BrAGLY (a program of Health Imperatives) – provides crisis counseling and advocacy services for LGBTQ youth who have experienced trauma, including sexual or relationship violence, bullying, or harassment. They also offer a weekly support group for Brockton area youth called BrAGLY. Safety, Suicide Prevention, and Support Hotlines Community and Support Services - nAGLY: North Shore Alliance of GLBTQ Youth – 978-224-2102 – nAGLY is a place where youth can discuss issues of importance to them, to explore their identities, to build self-awareness, and to learn skills for being safe and healthy. nAGLY is Run by both peer leaders and trained adult advisors who are mandated reporters and are trained to refer participants to outside resources. - Project Out – (857) 228-4911- provides support and financial assistance to transgender and gender non-binary individuals who do not have access to life saving gender-affirming services & products that allow for authentic living. - The Rainbow Times – Boston-based, The Rainbow Times is the only minority-owned (partly women, partly Hispanic, partly transgender) publication dedicated to the LGBTQ community and its allies. - BAGLY: The Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth (617) 227-4313 – a youth-led, adult-supported social support organization, committed to social justice and creating, sustaining, and advocating for programs, policies, and services for the LGBTQ+ youth community. - GLSEN – works to ensure that LGBTQ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment. - The Bisexual Resource Center – raises awareness and builds bridges within the LGBT and ally communities, and fosters bi-supportive social and political space wherever it can. - PFLAG: Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays – through support, education, advocacy, and their Safe Schools Project, they work to create a safe environment for LGBT students in our schools and communities. - The National Resource Center on LGBT Aging – offers bereavement support groups, caregiver support groups, a speaker’s bureau, meal programs, community education seminars, and cultural competency trainings. Through education, advocacy, and outreach, they help LGBT elders grow older with the dignity and respect they deserve. Political Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations - Human Rights Campaign – The largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans, the Human Rights Campaign represents a force of more than 3 million members and supporters nationwide — all committed to making HRC’s vision a reality. - The Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ youth – The Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ youth advises others in state government on effective policies, programs, and resources for LGBTQ youth. - MassEquality – MassEquality is the leading statewide grassroots advocacy organization working to ensure that everyone across Massachusetts can thrive from cradle to grave without discrimination and oppression based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. - GLAD – Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders – through strategic litigation, public policy advocacy, and education, they work in New England and nationally to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation. - The Family Acceptance Project™ (FAP) – a research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to prevent health and mental health risks for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) children and youth, including suicide, homelessness and HIV – in the context of their families, cultures and faith communities.

Festival Review : ‘We are the Light,’ by Women of Colour The Ending of the Lux Magna Festival –A Scintillating Night Full of Poetry and Music As the nocturnal art festival came to an end, Shades Lawrence, Montreal-based DJ, rapper, poet, and curator, successfully created a space where the musical talents and artistic performances by women of colour could shine bright and centred. On Jan. 27, Montreal women of colour mounted Casa del Popolo’s stage for Lux Magna. The spotlight showered over artists such as Janette King, Emma Maryam, Claudia Edwards, Shanice Nicole and Lawrence herself. Their songs and poetry occupied the dimly lit backdoor theatre the entire night. As the women emanated their voices, the crowd listened in moments of silence and of celebration. In the first act, performance artist Claudia Edwards knelt down and began rubbing brown sugar all over her hands. Eventually, her arms, neck, and rib cage were crusted over completely in brown sugar. The artist stepped beneath the stage light to present her thought-provoking artistic performance piece called Dumaruni. As part of her performance, she proceeded to wrap her sugared body parts in plastic wrap as if attempting to protect them from anything that would brush off the grains. - Strange Froots Call For ‘the Motherland’ at the Lux Magna Festival - Emergent Rappers Refresh the Local Hip-Hop Scene - Festival Review: Lux Magna Brightens Up Montreal’s Art Scene During her performance, she fused poetry, movement, and sound to present her artful performance. In the end, Edwards served members of the audience sliced mangoes sprinkled with pepper and brown sugar. While they were invited on stage to take a slice, they had to read quotes that she provided, out loud. “I usually tend to highlight traditionally underrepresented communities,” said Lawrence. As a hip-hop artist, poet and curator, Lawrence made it her mission to expose talents that she connect with the most. “Those with a history of mental health challenges, Black-Indigenous people of colour, women, and non-binary folks ‘cause those are all identities that speak to me and that I identify with,” she said. “I hope to gain a stage and create a platform for women of colour to express their art and to be exposed to a variety of audiences.“— Shades Lawrence Next, Lawrence passed the microphone to emergent singer-songwriter Emma Maryam. The 19-year-old siren strummed her guitar as she sat on a centered stool sporting pink velvet socks. Maryam had performed for Lux Magna before, but this evening was special. She explained that this time was liberating, because this was an event that strived to put “women of colour to the forefront and [represent] us in a music industry that we’re not usually represented in.” Throughout the rest of her set, her fingers and voice lulled the audience with her music. Last year, Maryam released her first music video for her song, ‘‘Ophelia.’’ In the video, she embodied the Shakespearean character Ophelia from the play “Hamlet.” Throughout the footage, her head is immersed underwater. She highlights in the music video description that, “Ophelia ties together the contradicting themes of suffocation and peacefulness, as well as mental health and heartbreak.” Shanice Nicole then began her set with the poem “Sisters in Motion.” As a feminist poet, Nicole explores themes of race, health, and sexuality. As she passionately echoed her series of poems across the venue, she had to wipe lipstick off the microphone. “I know, for me, what I am writing about is what I am thinking about, or what I am experiencing, or what I’m witnessing in my life,” Nicole said. “I think those themes come up in our work because they come up in our life.” Her poetry is deeply personal and unfiltered, compared to her day-time educator role at McGill University as an Equity Education Advisor, specializing in anti-oppression and anti-racism education. Nicole brought up a question that she has attempted to grapple as an educator, “What does it mean to sit in that discomfort? To be open to what’s on the other side?” She believes there should be room for people to discuss and listen to difficult subjects. With her extensive background in education, she started leaning towards poetry in 2015. The poet and educator made sure to emphasize that the subjects and themes within her poetry have been around for a long time. “[…] Everything I’m talking about, none of it is new. All the people before have been discussing, challenging, fighting that same fight,” Nicole explained. The spoken word poet also said that she hopes to continue having an impact through her poetry. “I feel that [impact] in the room and I also feel that in my body.” she said. Next up was Janette King, a producer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and DJ. As she transmitted her soulful vocals, bodies began to move with King’s tune. The artist said that her work is “an expression of my experience on this Earth. It’s also a way to connect with people. I think that when I hear that a person has been touched by my music, that makes it all worth it you know?” As the singer played her set, her house up-tempo beat with an R&B blend spread positivity and good vibes. She said that she only hopes to touch more people. “I hope to travel the world with my music, I hope to play a lot of big shows, I hope to help them connect to themselves and the people that they are surrounded with. And I hope to be a role-model to people who feel like they cannot accomplish things. Be like, ‘no, you can. Anyone can. If I can do it, you can do it.’” According to King, her music attempts to touch the heartbroken. Lawrence mentioned that as a curator, “I hope to gain a stage and create a platform for women of colour to express their art and to be exposed to a variety of audiences. And, I hope to provide quality music, quality poetry, quality art for the wider public.” After being approved by the Lux Magna board and processing a full-recruitment of Montreal artists, Lawrence managed to host and execute the event. The evening materialized into a space where the raw talents of women of colour went noticed. “I believe we become stronger as a society when we include rather than exclude,” Lawrence said. By commenting on this page you agree to the terms of our Comments Policy.

Cops Don’t Keep Us Safe: When Survival Is Made Criminal Police are there to keep you safe and prisons are built to keep the bad people away. But what if this weren’t true? What if the police were the source of violence, and prisons a method of social control? Who gets to decide who the “bad people” are? And how does this affect migrants, people of colour, and sex workers? This panel will discuss the intersections between prison abolition and state violence, and break down who exactly is targeted by these structures. To view a pdf of the transcript for ‘Cops Don’t Keep Us Safe: When Survival Is Made Criminal’ please. To download a word document version please. Aviah Sarah Day (Sisters Uncut), Melissa (SOAS Detainee Support), Niki Adams (English Collective of Prostitutes), Ru (London Campaign Against Police And State Violence), Kelsey M (CAPE) police violence, racism, state violence, violence against women, sex work, migration, police, prisons Aviah Sarah Day (ASD) - Sisters Uncut; Melissa (M) - SOAS Detainee Support; Niki Adams (NA) - English Collective of Prostitutes; Ru (R) - London Campaign Against Police And State Violence; Kelsey M (KM) - CAPE. 00:00:00 ASD My name is Aviah Day. I’m part of Sisters Uncut, and welcome to this panel, ‘Cops Don’t Keep Us Safe: When Survival Is Made Criminal.’ It just seems like there’s never been such an important time to have this conversation. The fact that the prison population has more than doubled over the last twenty years, the fact that eighty per cent of those in women’s prisons are survivors of domestic or sexual violence, on top of that, fifty per cent of those who are incarcerated children are from the care system, and recently it’s come out in the press that private prisons are exponentially more violent than public prisons. It seems like a really important time to start having these conversations and start talking about the intersections between violence, survival and the prison industrial complex. So welcome to this really sick panel, where we’re going to start unpicking that. Hey! You alright? So, we’ve got, Kelsey, from Sisters Uncut and Empty Cages. We’ve got R, from London Campaign Against Police and State Violence. We’ve Niki, from English Collective of Prostitutes. And we’ve got Melissa, from SOAS Detainee Support. And I going to let them introduce themselves and the organisations that they come from. So, first of all, do you want to… are you ready to start, or do you want…? [Laughs] 00:01:28 ? Do you want to start on that end? 00:01:29 ASD Yeah! [laughs] We’ll start maybe with Melissa. Do you want to pass that down? If you just tell us, each of you, give a little introduction of who you are, what’s your name and where do you come from? [Laughs] 00:01:40 M Hi, my name’s Melissa. I am representing SOAS Detainee Support on this panel. We are a group that supports people in immigration detention, so people who are locked up because they don’t have the correct immigration status in the UK. So what we do as a group is we visit people who are in detention and provide them with emotional support and case work support. And we basically try and get them out of detention and try and not get them deported, because that happens a lot. So, yeah, that’s what I’m going to be speaking about loosely, and how that relates to prisons, and how cops are absolutely fucking terrible for everybody, but specifically for immigrants. 00:02:27 Niki Yeah, I’m Niki. I’m replacing Laura, because we had to move around a bit, because a couple of us were ill. I’m really glad to be on this panel first of all just because to put together the whole issue of policing and survival, and the criminalisation of survival, I think is really needed. The English Collective of Prostitutes is a long-standing sex worker organisation—back from the seventies actually, we started—and we’re a group a women working both on the street and in premises, women from different backgrounds, and non-binary people. And we do a lot of day-to-day support and advice on issues like trying to report violence, what to do when you’re raided, arrested, persecuted on the street, which of course particularly targets migrant sex workers, and especially now in the wake of Brexit, that has really increased. And so, we try to focus on kind of practical ways to deal with that kind of situation in the context of campaigning for decriminalisation and for economic alternatives, so that we can get out of prostitution if we want to. 00:03:49 R Thanks. I’m Ru. I organise with a group called the London Campaign Against Police and State Violence. We’re actually mostly based in South London, unfortunately, for people based in North London. But we organise against mostly racialised police violence—so, things around stop and search. We do ‘know your rights’ training sessions. We support people making complaints against the police—not that we believe that making complaints against the police allows people to get access to justice, but more so to demonstrate how inherently messed up the system is. And we do outreach stalls, meetings, and support other campaigns that are organising against state violence, where we may not have the kind of resources and capacity do it ourselves. 00:04:35 KM Hi, I’m Kelsey. Sorry about being really late! So I’m part of Sisters Uncut, and also the Empty Cages Collective. I came to this organising through like an anti-violence perspective, and that’s where Sisters Uncut also started and what they’re focused on in terms of… Sisters Uncut was started as a response to austerity cuts to domestic violence services, but as politics and as our learning has developed, we’ve looked more and more at the criminal justice system and the ways that survivors themselves are criminalised. And the more that we’ve developed that kind of intersectional thinking, it’s been really clear that in order to fight for survivors, particularly who are people of colour, we have to look very critically at the criminal justice system, and the violence that the state perpetrates itself, and all of the ways that survival and just existing is criminalised. So, with the Empty Cages Collective, we’re a prison abolitionist group, and we run workshops and campaigns around prison abolition and supporting people to start campaigns around various issues from an abolitionist perspective. So, for example, we’re at the moment working around these secure schools that they’re starting to build, which are new children’s prisons, and there are various groups who are, you know, it’s really obvious that the people who are affected by criminalisation and incarceration at a very young age are people who are excluded from education, people who are from backgrounds that are disadvantaged by these societal structures. And so, people are being criminalised from a really young age just for existing. Yeah, and I can talk a bit more about that later, but that’s kind of what we’re focusing on at the moment, and that’s what I’m doing. 00:06:42 ASD Cool, thank you. So, I’m going to ask the panellists a few questions to kind of unpick some of these ideas that we’ve touched on already, and then we’re going to go to the audience and get you to ask some questions to our panellists. So first off, one question I have is, what are some of the ways in which you see survival being criminalised? So you’ve touched on it a little bit, but if you could go into a little bit more detail. Maybe we can start with Niki. How is survival criminalised? 00:07:14 NA Well, the fact—I mean, most, as has been said in the previous panel, people go into sex work for survival. I mean, they have this whole inquiry at the moment in parliament called, ‘An Inquiry Into Survival Sex’, and when they asked us about giving evidence, it was like they were expecting us to distinguish between people that were working for survival, and the rest of us, which is absurd because everybody’s working for survival, and usually the decision to go into sex work is because it’s your best option out of a set of very bad options. That’s true of most of us. And the fact is, is that, those levels of prostitution have massively, massively risen in the last, well, since 2010, since the austerity cuts, which have mainly targeted women—eighty-six per cent of the cuts have targeted women—and what we’ve seen from our organisation is a really big rise, particularly of mothers, going into sex work to support themselves and families. But also, people going back into sex work who had managed to get out or having to work much more frequently and in more riskier situations. And the laws, as they stand at the moment, criminalise you if you work on the street and also together in premises. And then there’s a whole raft of other laws, like the trafficking law that is particularly used to raid, arrest and deport migrant sex workers. And things like the social orders, the Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, and the Public Space Protection Orders, have now kind of imposed another whole massive raft of measures that are used to criminalise people. And it’s been sneaky in some ways because the authorities have been able to say, “Oh, well, actually loitering and soliciting prosecutions have gone down," well that’s because ASBOs—I mean, they’re not called ASBOs now—but all that kind of raft of anti-social behaviour civil orders have increased a lot, and they think that it’s so insignificant that they don’t even keep figures on how many people, how many sex workers have been caught under those orders, and what has been the impact on people’s lives. So people are now going to prison for breaching an order which is a civil order, and they bring it in with hardly any evidence that’s needed whatsoever—it’s virtually the word of a single police officer—but then if you breach it, you face a prison sentence. So that’s happening on the one hand, and then in relation to people working inside premises, they’ve also said that brothel keeping prosecutions have reduced, but it’s not even true, because what they do now is they just come round and they say, “If you’re not out of the premises within three days, we’re going to arrest you.” So of course, what happens, everybody moves on. So even though there may not be an official prosecution, you know, literally thousands of thousands of mainly women, but others as well, are being targeted under the criminal justice system, and hundreds of cautions are being given out in some areas. We keep figures, we keep a, we do a bulletin regularly, which is really useful because if you look at the national figures, they say that for prostitute cautions it’s maybe a hundred a year, whereas if you count as they’re happening, you’ll find that a hundred have been given out in just Ilford. And I don’t think Ilford counts as the whole of the UK. So, you can really see how they’re slipping and sliding, pretending, trying to maintain this idea that policing is aimed at helping and supporting sex workers, that sex workers are somehow going to be characterised as victims and not prosecuted. But in fact, the actual reality is something very different. 00:10:57 ASD Yeah, that sounds absolutely atrocious. Actually, I live near Ilford, and it’s one of the most horrible and reactionary places when it comes to sex work. Such a dangerous place for sex workers to be, honestly. Melissa, do you want to answer that? The question was, “What are some of the ways in which survival is criminalised?” 00:11:16 M Yeah. So one of the most in-your-face ways that survival is criminalised for immigrants is the hostile environment, wherein that makes everything impossible if you don’t have the correct paperwork if you need to have right to rent. So, even if you somehow have all the money to pay London wages in your bank account, you’re not allowed to do that unless you have documentation that your landlords are now obligated by law to check, and the government has made a really lovely website for people to sign on to it to check whether or not papers are legitimate. The same goes with studying, the same thing goes with accessing any sort of healthcare. Hospitals and GPS now are asked, and there are some organisations doing some really amazing work around this, but it is now law to have to ask for papers when accessing healthcare. The same thing goes for working, which is, like, one of the most necessary things in order to survive is to make money because we live under capitalism. And if you don’t have the right papers, then you’re not allowed to work. Which isn’t to say that people don’t work, because obviously people do work; they end up in precarious, exploitative labour. People getting paid £3 an hour to clean toilets in nightclubs, or getting paid £5 an hour for a twenty-four hour carer shift. It’s often women of colour that are doing this kind of labour, and it’s often women of colour that end up doing sex work because they make more money than getting paid £3 an hour for cleaning toilets. And the way that this is all criminalised, it doesn’t even need cops most of the time. Like, I know the panel is called, ‘Cops Don’t Keep Us Safe’—which they don’t—but like, oftentimes you won’t even face a cop, because the government is so focused on making ordinary people border agents. You know, you go into a school and the school asks you where you were born and give that data over to the Home Office. You go into a hospital, and they ask you for your passport. You try and find somewhere to rent, and again they’re like, “What kind of visa do you have? And when does it expire? And how did you get it?” So even before entering the criminal justice system, or facing cops, like even before immigrants face cops, which is something I’m going to talk about more later, you have all of these barriers that are pushing you into the margins of society, and labour that is exploitative and insecure, and housing where you end up having six people sharing one room in a three-bedroom flat where every other room also has six people. And that’s even before reaching the police or ending up in detention or all of these things that further criminalise your existence. There’s also the idea of—one thing that I wanted to mention about what happens when you do end up in the criminal justice system, is the idea of being a foreign national offender. So this is a government term for somebody who is not from here and has committed a crime. If you are… if you end up in prison for more than twelve months, then you are immediately liable for deportation, no matter what your crime was, no matter if you’ve been here all your life, or even if you are a refugee from a place that it’s unsafe to go to. And so, lots of people end up having a twelve-month prison sentence, and then immediately from there transferred into detention where they face imminent deportation. 00:14:49 ASD Ru, do you want to [inaudible 00:14:51]? 00:14:53 R Yeah. Thank you. I’m unfortunately going to start with a tiny history lesson. So, the Metropolitan Police, for those that don’t know, was founded around the late 1820s; so quite late in the day, not a thing that existed since feudal times. And a thing that existed when slavery was abolished—that was around, what, 17 something. Obviously not a good history teacher. Don’t worry, I don’t teach children. Around the time that slavery was abolished, people that were slaves were then called apprentices, and they continued to work on plantations in the colonies, and instead of plantation owners beings the ones that enforced the law for these slaves, the state employed a set of individuals that were like judiciary and basically cops to continue to control the behaviour of people that were formally enslaved who, under the law, were free, but they were still apprentices working on this plantation. So when they were doing things like taking too long doing something, or you know not doing something to a particular standard, they were still facing punishment. The reason I’m talking about that is because we can see when we’re talking about survival being criminalised—and Melissa made the point of people’s existence being criminalised—the very formulation now has arisen out of slavery logic and colonialism. And that’s really important to think about, because especially when you’re thinking about reforming the police versus abolishing the police, fundamentally the police are never going to exist in a way that isn’t inherently violent, specifically to people that are racialised as non-white, but certainly to working class communities, survivors of violence, people that have a precarious immigration status, because foundationally how it’s built. So—sorry, to go back to the 1800s—so the police were formed in Britain, I think the first police force was in Glasgow and then London, and the Met kind of became the blueprint for how we see policing in this country now. So, where it was these informal networks before, mostly protecting property and kind of merchants and making sure people didn’t get robbed, and that then became a kind of formalised structure that was enforced by the state through a series of successive legislation. And we know that the police, from its beginnings, was about protecting property, and specifically rich people’s property, and it was specifically about enforcing social order for communities that are considered to be disordered, inherently disordered. So, certainly, migrant communities again, racialised working class communities, there’s never going to be a way in which those of us that exist in these spaces are not going to be a threat to the police because it’s inscribed on our bodies, especially for those of us that aren’t white. So, anyway, talking about how existence is then criminalised, thinking about this imperialist history, and then how it has kind of fed into the policing that we see now, we have the sus laws, which were a way of being able to stop somebody if they looked like they might be able to, they might be about to perpetrate a crime. They got rid of that around the ‘80s, and then what we saw in the ’90s was introducing stop and search laws, which was inherently pretty much the same as sus, but they had a few more rules about it, so outwardly it looked a bit different. And what we’re seeing now is obviously returning very much to that kind of punitive, you know, young black people, specifically young black boys can’t go out in public without being stopped and harassed wherever they’re going, and regardless of age, right? We know there’s organisation like Stop Watch that do a lot of work around stop and search, where they have had research that finds that young people as young, well, you know, below the age of ten, eight years old, being harassed by cops from a very young age. What does that mean for those people, that form of physical violence that police represent? The sexual violence, like being man-handled by police in public, and also the kind of psychic violence, like what does it mean when you know it’s not safe for you to go outside? And again, I’m speaking about it through the prism of people that are non-white and racialised, and specifically black communities, but it’s exactly the same for sex workers, it’s the same for someone who’s 00:18:57 a precarious migrant. There’s spaces, there’s ways in which police control our ability to exist in the outside world. So, yeah, I mean, just to really reiterate, it’s not just about survival being criminalised, but it’s inherent in the existence, being criminalised—and I will get a chance to talk about this later—but when you understand that is why the police exist, and why, and the logic in which policing exists, I think it makes it much easier for us to understand that we can’t just be reforming the police, because they will never be accountable to us. We have to abolish the police. But we can get on to that later. 00:19:35 KM I mean, I think all of you have covered a lot of the main parts of the aspects of survival being criminalised. I guess the only thing I could add is around the way that all of these people who are more vulnerable to that criminalisation also then makes them more vulnerable to interpersonal violence, and that feeds into then being trapped in violent relationships, and that it just all kind of feeds into itself. So the more marginalised you are, the more you are likely to be in precarious housing, therefore unlikely to find different housing if you need that space because there is violent people there; more likely to experience violence within the workplace, or exploitation, all of these things, because of your precarious living circumstances. And the way that the state is responsible for creating that experience for so many people, because of the criminal justice system, as Ru made the point, the point is not to protect us. The point is to force and control marginalised people, and that means that experience of violence, whether you’ve been criminalised yet or not, is in your kind of daily life. And the more that we have discussions, and more research, and all of that that comes out about the experiences of violence, of women of colour particularly, as well as trans and non-binary people, is that, when they’re not supported by the state, obviously you are more likely to be trapped in those situations, but you’re also more likely to then—basically, the people who have been criminalised for murder and homicide, who are held in women’s prisons particularly, are very often people who have been in abusive relationships for a very long time. And the criminal justice system does not allow for a nuanced understanding of that kind of violence, and what self-defence is. And so, people are just branded as violent, people are branded as criminals, from just based on their identity, and not actually on what has happened to them in their lives and who they actually are. If that makes sense? I’m a little bit all over the place, here. Yeah, I think I’m going to stop there, because we have more. 00:21:56 ASD Yeah, so I’m going to go into some questions more about prison abolition and abolition politics, which some of you have touched on, maybe starting with Melissa. Can you say like what is the value you see in prison abolition, or the abolition of policing, and how is it relevant to your work with SOAS Detainee Support? 00:22:19 M So, yeah, just to start with the very simple fact that just prisons don’t work. Like even using the sort of narrative and logic of nation states and governments, the point of prisons in their eyes is to sort of, you know, “You’ve done a bad thing. Don’t do that bad thing again.” But that doesn’t happen. Like, they’re not, prisons aren’t a place of healing, they’re not a place of reforming, if that’s language you want to use. Like, you don’t just end up in prison and then, all of a sudden, all of your problems that led you to do the thing that you did are gone, and great, you’re a functioning member of capitalist society. That doesn’t happen. So just even using that logic, like abolish prisons, do things differently. In terms of SOAS Detainee Support—SDS—where I work, it’s… we don’t think, we are abolitionists in every sense. We don’t think there should be borders, and therefore we don’t think there should be detention because what is the point of locking somebody up for not having the right papers. It’s almost as… it’s ludicrous. And the thing about immigration detention is that, you know, supposedly you get charged with the crime and you do sort of, there’s a process, and you end up in prison. But the process is bullshit, but you at least you’ve had a process. When you are put in immigration detention, there is nothing. A border guard finds you, either because you are working without papers and somebody’s reported you, or you’ve reported a crime to the police, and the police have asked for your papers, which something I’m going to touch on later, or through loads of different ways. And they find you and they say, “Oh, well, you’re now in detention.” And then it is your responsibility to prove that you’re not supposed to be there. So it’s the opposite of… it is literally guilty, and then you have to prove that you’re innocent. Why? And also, even using the Home Office’s logic, the point of detention is that you’re there because deportation is imminent. You’re supposed to be kept there because they have a plan to send you back to wherever it is they want to send you back to. But, in practice, people are in detention for months, sometimes years. Even using their own logic, that doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make any sense to lock somebody up for eighteen months because deportation is imminent, when if you haven’t been deported in eighteen months, deportation is clearly not imminent. We don’t think, we think detention should be abolished, because it makes no sense, in any way, no matter how you look at it. And, like Kelsey was saying, the people who end up in detention—well, she said prison, but like the same thing with detention—you don’t just end up in detention. I am an immigrant myself, and the likelihood of me ending up in detention is really, really, really low, and that’s because I have access to lots of, I am not, you know, I didn’t flee a war-torn country, and I didn’t experience the kinds of violence that the people in detention experience. I speak fluent English. There’s lots of things that end up making you more marginalised and therefore ending up in detention, and then when you’re released from detention, that has a massive impact on you, as a person, and in your ability to just continue on with your life. If you’re whole existence has been criminalised, and you’ve just had this sort of stint in this—I mean, we call it detention to make a difference between being in prison for a crime, and being in prison for detention, but it is basically a prison. Like, it’s, you’re not allowed to leave, and you’re locked up in there, so it’s prison. The only difference is, you know, you have access to a computer, and you get to have a basic phone—you don’t even get a smartphone. [Laughs] So, yeah, I mean, going back to the question of what we believe, why we believe in abolitionism, it’s because we believe that you should not lock people up, regardless of their immigration status, regardless of what crime they’ve committed. 00:26:19 ASD I often wonder if thinking about detention is quite, hopefully, sometimes a good way of thinking about abolition generally, because detention, the way in which immigrants are detained, and how much more criminalised they are, like that’s happened really, really quickly, and it’s not like much has changed about society as a result of heavily criminalising. And that’s happened in people’s lifetimes, that in living memory. So I often wonder if maybe talking about abolition through the prism of detention and how much has changed so quickly in that respect, and what difference has it really made. 00:26:56 M It’s also a more palatable way of getting people to, sort of, pushing people toward abolitionism, because you can say things like, “These people aren’t criminals”, which to me makes no difference, but these people aren’t criminals, they’re literally just people who are trying to live their lives, they haven’t committed—because, you know, one of the biggest questions that people ask when you talk about prison abolition is, “What about the murderers? And what about the rapists? What do we do with them?” And that’s a whole other question, but it’s like, okay, but these people aren’t murderers and rapists, they’re just people trying to live their lives. And you’re right that, if you link that, and you can say to people, “But actually there are people who’ve literally done nothing wrong who are currently in a prison,” then that’s a nice sort of easier way to get people to want to burn everything down, which is the main aim 00:27:49. 00:27:49 ASD Hopefully. Niki? 00:27:55 NA Sorry, I don’t quite know where to start. 00:27:55 ASD Do you want me to repeat the question? 00:27:56 NA No, I don’t. It’s just I’m distracted by the whole detention thing, because I actually do a lot of work with women asylum seekers, the All Africa Women’s Group is based at our women’s centre, and I do work with Legal Action for Women, and we’ve done a self-help guide and we have a lot of kind of self-help collective workshops. And, I’ve been distracted by the issue of detention, and I’m supposed to be in the sex work bit, but— 00:28:19 ASD You can do both! 00:28:19 NA —there is a lot of overlap, obviously, and I think one of the things that really strikes me, I suppose, on the question of abolition: yes, absolutely, we are for the abolition of prisons, as we are for an end to detention, as we are for an end to prostitution. And before I get quoted, saying I’m an abolitionist, I mean in the context in of the end of all work, you know, in that way, of us all having to sell our bodies and our time, which happen to be our lives, in order to survive. And I think the question for us as a movement is, how do you get from here to there? In a way—and the first thing has to be is that you have to be focused on building a movement, and insuring the people are able to be as active on their own behalf as possible. And it’s an issue that you’re always wrestling with because if you go out there and say, okay… you make your most uncompromising demand, you, sometimes it’s not even relevant practically to the situation that people are in, and sometimes what you’re ending up having to do is really focus on ensuring that people are strengthened, but also that people stay alive while we’re fighting. And so, I know with the whole issue of the restorative justice movement, I think there is a question there about the fact that it’s being kind of envisaged under capitalism, and that is really problematic because what do you challenge? You have to start by challenging who gets even labelled a criminal in the first place. Why is Sir Phillip Green not in prison? You know, why is Tony Blair not in prison? Why are we in prison and not them? Kind of thing. So, but practically, in terms of how it impacts on us, we do campaign for safety. And we have actually actively campaigned to put a rapist in jail. Not just one, many, over the years. And we actually took a private prosecution because the Crown Prosecution Service refused to prosecute against a serial rapist who was attacking women at knife point, and they dropped the case. And the guy of course was let out of prison and came back to try to attack women, threatened their family, and they came to us, and we took—with Women Against Rape—we took a private prosecution. It was a massive piece of work, and it was a very educative process, because at some point the people who were most on our side was some local police officer who actually thought that it was pretty outrageous that violent men were allowed to stay free and attack sex workers. He was a creep, and demanded free sex from sex workers, so you know not a comrade, by any means [laughs]. But that’s what we had to do in order to deal with that situation because, you know, the previous the previous panel spoke about how, one of the questions was about the project workers saying that sex workers, who are in the most chaotic situations—I never quite know what that means; I think they would consider me to be pretty chaotic—but you know don’t really want decriminalisation. But actually, sex workers do want decriminalisation, and how we express it is we express it in many different ways. And sometimes we say, “I want the police off my back. I don’t want the police out there, waiting for me, strip-searching me in the street, racially abusing me, the rest of it,” or “I want to be able to work together with a friend,” or “I want justice when I come forward and report this violence,” or “I want that rapist in jail.” And that is all part of our movement for change, and I think that we have to—but I think what we’re looking for is we’re looking for levers of power or a step that takes us in the right direction, and some of what is proposed as preliminary goals or intermediary steps I do not think does that. So, for example, the voluntary sector demand for a limit to twenty-eight days in detention, I think is a regressive step. I think it’s behind where the movement is at, which is demanding an end to detention, and I think that it is a proposal that’s put forward that does not, that leaves the whole of the detention estate and all the corruption and profiteering that that embodies in place. And it is one of those—people spoke about demands being dictated by funding priorities, and you really feel that that’s one. You feel like it’s the one that people have gone to their funders for and said, “We’ve found an achievable aim.” And I think that our job as a movement is to clarify when a so-called intermediary step is going to take us in the right direction and actually address the concrete situations that we’re in, and keep us safe, and keep us alive, while we fight for something better, and the demands that take us backwards and undermine our movement. 00:33:20 ASD I’ve got a slightly different question for Ru and Kelsey on the question of abolition. So what are the alternatives to prisons and policing, and how do we build them? And I guess another personal question is, when we’re talking about abolition, are we talking about revolution? Is the language of abolition kind of… is that what that means? Is that, you know, is the language of abolition kind of replacing revolution? Revolutionary language? Or… yeah. 00:33:48 R Okay, so things we can do. First of all, yeah, what about the rapists? I used to get so annoyed, because people would always say, “Oh, what do you mean, like, you’re just going to let the rapists roam free.” And I actually I think we should start with the difficult arguments first, and we shouldn’t go for the easy ones of, “These people aren’t criminals,” or whatever. Let’s go for the people that we think are criminals. Do we think rapists are in prison at it is? No. What is the conviction rate for sexual violence? It’s like four per cent? Six per cent, right? So, people that perpetrate rape are already not in prison. People that are powerful are already not in prison. People that perpetrate violence against masses of people who are deemed to be not important by societal standards are already not in prison, so this system already doesn’t work. So when we’re talking about abolition, especially when someone makes that dickhead point, it doesn’t work anyway, so what are you actually talking about? What people are actually talking about is, “But policing and prisons protect this like sense of safety that I feel I have,” and obviously we know that sense of safety is classed, it’s racialised, and it’s obviously gendered. When we’re talking about policing—and to get on to solutions, but really quickly—when we’re talking about policing—and Melissa made this point—police don’t just exist, or immigration enforcement, like on the street, they don’t just exist going around in vans, they exist in schools, they exist in healthcare, we have NGOs that collaborate with them—the point that Niki was alluding to. So when we’re talking about abolition, we’re not just talking about, “You just get rid of a prison,” or “You just get rid of the police,” it means radically transforming everything about how we operate as a society now to get to a point where the thought of having police and the thought of having prisons doesn’t even make sense. So, again, another really irritating question I always get is, “Oh, what do you mean? We’re just going to get rid of the police tomorrow?” If only! I wish! That’s not going to happen. What is going to happen is, what we’re building towards, what groups like ours are doing, is building the foundations for what we want to see in the future. So we’re envisioning the future that we want to have, whether that comes through mutual aid, so the sort of support that a lot of us are doing, whether that comes through building accountability into our movements, which we haven’t even touched on, but we have to reproduce the sort of behaviours that we want to see in the world. We’re talking about restorative justice; one of the reasons that doesn’t work often is because it’s about a transactional exchange. A lot of people talk about transformative justice, like completely reimagining the models, not in this punitive way when we’re talking about accountability, but also making sure those structures actually work, where there are consequences for things that people do. Because certainly on the left, there’s a lot of ways in which people use transformative justice to basically let their friends get away with doing really shit. And what we need to do is actually talk about, what is accountability, which isn’t just a punitive way of punishing people, but actually say that, when you do things that harm people, there is going to be something that happens as a result of that. So, yeah, when we’re talking about abolition, I just really want to stress, there’s a lot—I mean, in America, this kind of thinking is a lot more advanced than here, which I think there’s specific reasons about the violence being so evident there. Not that it’s worse than here, but it’s just so much more evident that people are able to theorise around it more. But people talk about abolition as building something that’s positive; we’re building a future. Let’s not talk about abolition as taking something away, but actually, radical transformation—what does that mean? What are the steps that we have to put in place? And sorry, yeah, really quickly, best ways to do that now would be accountability, refusals to engage with police—there’s already groups that do that, but when something happens and the crime has been perpetrated against someone, actually think about whether calling the police is going to make them feel less safe or not, and more safe, rather, or not. Setting up mutual aid groups, around housing, around things, like sex work or precarious immigration, or policing. Sharing tips on how to evade police surveillance, which of course doesn’t just happen on protests; it happens on social media, it happens through a lot of things that people take for granted. Think about who’s at risk when you’re sharing people’s details, even for an event like this. Getting—if you’re part of a union, or part of the Labour Party—I’m not judging you—but you can do things within that. You can be disaffiliate—pushing those groups that disaffiliate with policing groups. There’s certain unions that represent police; think, get them to think more critically about what they’re doing there. And community self-defence—that’s what we do as a group—and actually supporting people to mobilise against police violence. And really quickly, just to finish with, someone that I go on about a lot: Marion Kärber 00:38:12, an American organiser around police violence and transformative justice. If you haven’t heard me rabbit on about her, or if you have, don’t already read her stuff, go and look it up. But she makes a really important point, which is there are already communities that exist that live in an abolitionist society. They happen to be powerful, they happen to have money, they happen to be white. They’re the sort of communities where they can get accountability when something is perpetrated against them. They can mobilise policing logics and policing support. When someone is a victim of violence, or suffers with mental health issues, they can get access to the support that people struggle to get from the state. So when we’re talking about abolition as well, let’s make it really important to stress that there are already people living that future that we want to see, they’re just not the rest of us. They’re usually the people that have the resources to do it. So anyway, yeah, abolition, think about it more positively and get rid of the police. 00:39:07 ASD Kelsey, you’ve got like four, five minutes before we open it up to our questions. 00:39:11 KM I mean, thank you for that. That was very comprehensive, and really, really insightful. Yeah! In terms of abolition, yeah, I think you’re absolutely right, it’s about thinking about the transformative approaches and the creative solutions that we can take. And when we’re talking about, when people ask us about, “What about the rapists? What about the murderers?” And it is about… people are worried about violence, people are worried about their safety, and there’s certain people who already feel supported by those structures, and there’s certain people who’ve been existing without the support of those structures this entire time. And those people, regardless of whether you want to get rid of the police or not, those people still need support, and I think we don’t talk about healing and what that looks like enough. And I think often what we do… what we look at with criminal justice solutions and punishment is that’s the framework we use for how we’re going to take an issue seriously, and we really need to question that punitive thinking in the ways that we take things seriously, because often, when I’ve had these discussions with people who are trying to work on hate crime legislation and these kinds of things that are like, “Oh, well, so if this is a crime, then this needs to be a crime, because otherwise I don’t feel like misogyny is taken as seriously as racism,” or “disablism isn’t being taken as seriously,” but actually what we know is that if those people are at risk of violence, they’re also at risk of state violence, and the police are not the people who are going to be the ones to help them. So criminalising that is not actually going to lead to support. What we’ve seen with misogyny, hate crime legislation, is there is a slight rise in reporting, but no more convictions, because people are not going to be going to prison for cat-calling, and that’s not a productive use of our resources. What we need to do is to shift the culture that makes people think that it’s okay to just yell sexual things at you for no reason. You know, all of these things, like why are these behaviours happening in the first place, why is violence happening in the first place. Criminal justice and prisons and policing do not answer any of those questions; they just feed into a binary of there’s good people and there’s bad people, there’s people who perpetrate violence, and we know that those lines are actually not as clear as we want them to be. And that people behave in certain ways because of their experiences and the conditions that they are living in, and they make choices that are informed by a culture that creates violence, that creates rapists, that creates murderers, all of these things. And so, we need to really look at unpicking our own punitive logics that we use in schooling, in parenting, all of these things, and we need to think about what healing actually looks like. I think like a really clear example of this, if I have time to quickly share an anecdote that I think really visually summed this up for me, was that there’s some CCTV footage where you see someone, a women, being cat-called by a man; she responds, basically tells him to ‘fuck off’—I assume we can swear here— and essentially, he gets violent, and this is all on CCTV outside of a café. As soon as he gets violent, and then starts walking away, everyone at the café gets up and walks to the perpetrator and starts telling him off, trying to restrain him, trying to stop him. But in that moment the woman is just standing there on her own, and it’s just like it was a really clear sort of visual example of how criminal justice and how our ideas of we want to show that we’re really concerned that someone has been hurt, we’re really concerned that someone has been violent, but we don’t finish that thought and think about that person has been violent and so that person has been harmed, and what can we do about that harm. And I think even sometimes our own punitive impulses are that this person has hurt me, so I want them to suffer. That’s not necessarily what makes us feel better, and that’s not necessarily what justice will look like in the end because sometimes you know people do get convictions and they don’t always find that that is actually the end of their trauma. And what we need to look at is long-term trauma support, what we need to look at is ways that we can heal and ways that we can prevent violence in the first place. And I don’t think the criminal justice system is really answering any of that. And we’re actually putting so many resources into it! Like, I hate economic arguments, but even if you were to look at that, like the amount of money and resources that is spent on policing and prisons and all of this compared to the cuts that we’ve seen and the under-resourcing of all of our welfare services, all of our trauma support services, mental health services, and even just community spaces, housing, all of these things. Abolition—this is what I mean about an abolitionist perspective to all kinds of campaigns as well, is that you can be an abolitionist whether you’re fighting within racial justice and feminism and the obvious things, but also in housing, in mental health, in healthcare, in education, all of these things can be done from a abolitionist perspective. And we can be not feeding in to criminal justice narratives, and good and bad people narratives, all of that. We can be hyper aware of that within our campaigns, regardless of what the topic is, and that will lead to the ultimate abolition. And also like, what you were saying is like—to quote Angela Davies—the obsolescence of prisons, right, is to create a world where they’re not looked at as a solution, because we have all of these other things in place. 00:44:55 ASD Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you for quoting Angela Davies. 00:44:58 KM Yeah, always. 00:44:58 ASD You’re new friend. [laughs] 00:44:59 KM Our good friend. 00:45:01 ASD So, I’m going to open it up to questions from the audience. Don’t be shy. The panellists are very kind. Everyone get your hands up really, really high because I can’t really see that well. Yeah, anyone else as well? Yeah? Do you want to start here and there? Yeah? And can I just point out that if anyone knows these panellists by other names than are on here, please just use the names that they’ve written on there. So I’ve got Melissa, Niki, Ru and Kelsey. 00:45:31 Q1 Yeah, so I’ve got a friend that basically came to London from Pakistan and started, studied, did a Masters, then after they’d done studying, they had to find work, found work, was going, was sponsorship, was going through the Home Office process. Thing was that the supervisor who was responsible for getting her sponsorship was basically sexually harassing people in the office and was—really wanted her to be his girlfriend. And it got to the point where he actually lied on her form to the Home Office, so basically said that she’d been doing forty hours a week, when in fact she’d been doing thirty-eight hours a week, and that put her just below the threshold where she gets… So, anyway I found it really kind of—well, it’s ironic that she’s come to a country that supposed to be better for women, and then is being treated this way. But yes, so she lost her right to work and she’s not sure what’s going to happen, and I just wondered if there’s any resources I should direct her to or, and how she might, who she might complain to about that case, basically? 00:46:52 M Yeah, that sounds like every other case that I hear every other day when I’m working. Unfortunately, those things are just not in any way uncommon. There are—the first thing I would say is to try and get a solicitor. I know that’s a big thing—we can talk more about that if you just find me after the panel, we can talk more how to go about doing that later. There’s groups like Rights of Women, who have a helpline that you can call on Mondays and Thursdays, that do free immigration advice. And there’s also a group called Migrant Help that you can call, that you can, yeah. And just to, that you can call, and you can talk to me more about that because actually just like a list of groups that I can name to you. Just to use that example as an example of somebody who did everything right, and is still suffering under this hostile environment, immigration bullshit thing that we live in. Like this person got a job, is contributing, paying their taxes, like they’re doing, for all intents and purposes, everything right, and yet now she can’t work, and her status might be taken away. Which, like Ru was saying, kind of goes into in order to abolish police, and in order to abolish prisons, we also have to abolish immigration controls, and borders, and all of these things that make it impossible for even somebody who is on paper doing everything right to thrive. Yeah, but come find me, because yeah. 00:48:28 ASD I think we had another question— 00:48:28 NA Did you mind if just add something, just a very thing. 00:48:28 ASD Go for it. 00:48:28 NA There’s a very similar situation that’s gone on in a number of London colleges—probably what you’re referring to as well—and what some of the women there did is first of all they looked at what evidence they had about the number of hours that they were studying to be able to counter what that information that was given. But they also got together with other students and built a bit of a dossier against the particular supervisor or lecturer that was responsible for that, and went to the college with it, and then people also went to their member of parliament. I know that going to your member of parliament is very limited in many different respects, but sometimes your member of parliament actually has a bit added clout on immigration cases, and even because you’re plugging into the so-called ‘me too’ movement, which I know has many, you know, weaknesses, there’s a chance that you get more of a hearing on those issues now than you may have done maybe a few years back. And then finally I’d say Rights of Women are very strongly abolitionist on sex workers, and so if they’re judgmental about sex workers, I would recommend them in terms of not being judgmental about other sectors or people. 00:49:39 ASD I think we’re going to go to the person there? Over there? Yeah. 00:49:43 Q2 Hi, so, I moved to London from, I lived in Bradford, and certain communities had set up their own, the police had been cut—which I don’t think is a bad thing, but anyway—and they’d set up their own community police in which was essentially a vigilante group, and I guess like, how do we control that not happening? So, we abolish the police, which is a good thing, but white powerful people aren’t going to give up their perceived entitlement to have their possessions protected. So how do we get rid of the police, which is a oppressive negative force, but not have an even worse unregulated one pop up? And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try because this may happen—that isn’t what I’m saying. I’m just… how can we control that situation? 00:50:37 ASD Good question. Ru, do you want to…? 00:50:39 R You abolish whiteness. I’ve got a quote here from an American academic called Ruth Wilson Gilmore where she talks about race as— somewhere, I’ve got it written down—oh, yeah—oh, no, where has it gone? Sorry. Oh, yeah, here you go: “race is the state sanctioned or extra-legal protection exploitation of group differentiated vulnerability to social death.” In normal people terms, there’s ways in which not just the state, but logics that inform the state, and also society, mark people out as being more likely to die in the society we live in. And we how that works out in not just policing, but access to healthcare, et cetera. Again, we’re talking here about abolition. We have to radically transform how those things exist. We will not continue to have powerful white people that can mobilise their whiteness if we’re imagining a future that has no police. But also, I mean I don’t know the context that you’re talking about that in, but it is really important, actually, especially places like Bradford, around Leeds, places like Rotherham, where communities are facing racist violence. In particular in Rotherham, right, where the far right has actually been bringing in people from across the country to be protesting in the centre of town every weekend. There was an old man that was killed two years ago, coming back from the mosque in Rotherham, where they were shouting racial epithets at him. So, yeah, I mean, of course it’s dodgy if you suddenly mark up your, I don’t know, like, your Mondeo as a cop car or something, and start driving around trying to apprehend people, but we do need to talk about, what are the rest of us doing to support communities that are already facing sustained violence? And that doesn’t mean creating a private security force, but it does mean we do actually have to have these difficult interactions about how are we protecting those people? What is happening with people where they go to their religious institution, go to a mosque, or whatever, and face violence? What is reasonably is thing that we can actually do to support these people? What resources can we give them? And actually, in the time that we’re existing in right now, that mightn’t 00:52:46 require some form of things that we don’t really want to have to deal with in the future, like a form of security. So, yeah, this stuff has a lot more nuance. It’s not a one-size-fits-all at all. I think actually, also—and we can actually talk about this more—but I think about this a lot, and I have a lot of ideas on it, but I don’t think I’ve got the answers to it, because I can’t, because the system that we live in at the moment pervades every aspect of our lives in the that we think about how things work. But thinking about something that’s totally revolutionary and different—to come back to when you were talking about revolution—is still quite difficult, even for those of us who dedicate a lot of time thinking about it. So, I certainly wouldn’t say I have the answers to what we would do in that. I would hope that we would firstly abolish the things that you’re talking about. So yeah. 00:53:35 NA Yeah, I mean I think what you’re talking about is: how do we stop shit happening? I mean, it’s kind of a question, your question is about a particular situation, but it’s applicable to many. And it’s also a question of: how do we stop our victories being used against us? Ultimately. And that scenario, as soon as you describe it, it raises—I mean, it’s majorly problematic. You know, in Ilford they’ve got this street watch group, and it is basically a group of vigilantes. It’s called the same thing as the group of vigilantes that were in Balsall Heath, about fifteen years ago, and they were defending property values by attacking sex workers and trying to hound sex workers out of that area in order to be able to buy up women’s houses at a very low down, you know, price, and profit. And they had the backing of the police, they had the backing of politicians, and in some ways in that situation the only thing you can do is organise. You just have to organise. You have to spell out what the impact is, you have to really tell people what’s going on. And we’re often really up against it. I mean, I feel like the strength of this event is for us to put the policing of sex work in the context of the policing of everybody, because it is the same police. When we talk about the things you’ve been describing, and everybody’s been describing, of our experiences of the police, that’s the same police that are policing sex workers. And the only reason I have to stress that is because when it come to sex work, suddenly, the police are presented as social workers. And the abolitionists who we’re up against, who are campaigning for an increase in criminalisation, in the form of criminalising clients, as a gender equality progress, are calling for increased police powers. And it’s important to stress that, because it means that on the left, so called, we have to get our heads straight; we have to know that we’re not supporting the Nordic Model, because that’s increasing police powers and increasing police discretion that isn’t just going to be used against sex work, it’s going to be used against everyone. It’s not an accident that the people that have been arrested under the so-called new, the offence of paying for sex with somebody coerced, have largely been men of colour. And you know that’s—and of course, the anti-trafficking laws are used to arrest and deport migrant sex workers, and the prostitution laws on the street are described by sex workers as the sus law for women in the way that the sus laws are used against men of colour in particular. So, it’s a massive strength for us to be connected in that way, because it cuts through what we’re up against. And it really helps us, because we are up against an NGO sector who have been much too cosy with the police. And they’ve got a red umbrella project in Liverpool, funded by the police—bloody outrageous—and I think people in Scotland are complaining of something else similar. And all the actions against sex workers that are often done in the name of saving us from rape and violence are actually vehicles for surveillance and control and prosecution. So, we face saturation policing, but we don’t get any protection in terms of—and when we do come forward and report violence, we get threatened with arrest ourselves. And so, there’s really a lot to deal with, but it’s so clarifying to be on a panel where the policing of sex workers is seen in the context of the policing of everyone. 00:57:02 ASD Yeah, go for it. 00:57:05 KM In terms of your question as well, I think the—and coming back to what you were saying, as well, and like, yeah, revolution, basically, and that if we want to focus on creating a world that has no prisons and police, but also focusing on a world where we’ve dismantled the big three, which is patriarchy, white-supremacy and capitalism. [Laughs] Yeah, so, and I think that while we’re unpicking our punitive impulses and not trying to just recreate the police in various different ways, we’re also going to be self-reflecting and recreating a culture that isn’t based on these hierarchies and these power structures, so that it’s not just that then a different group ends up being the ones in power perpetrating exactly the same things as, we’re not recreating whiteness in a different way. All of these things, it’s going to take a lot of dismantling all of that kind of thinking in order to, yeah, not be coming across that issue. And I think that often—like, there’s something interesting about harnessing that urge for people to want to get involved and protect their communities, and things like that. There’s something there, because at the moment, neoliberalism is very individualistic and people, they don’t intervene when they see violence, and all they do is just want to outsource that kind of thing. Like I, in our workshops, we do some exercises of like, how would you deal with this issue without prisons and policing, and often more privileged people end up reinventing the police in some kind of way, or they just want to outsource it, where it’s like, “Well, if there was this other entity that had all of this training to deal with this issue…” And it’s like, “Well, why couldn’t you have that training? What if we spent time because we’re not all trying to make money in jobs that we hate to survive, we actually have time to gain the skills to support our communities and to actually figure out how to do that? And why can’t we do that ourselves? What is so special about someone else who’s had mental health first aid training, and why can’t you have it and all of these things?” So, I think there’s something about harnessing the people, we do want community accountability, and we want communities to come together to support each other, and community-led approaches, but we don’t want them to be recreating the same violent tactics and oppressive structures as what currently exists. 00:59:39 ASD Yeah, the example you brought up, Niki, of Ilford, which is near where I live, immediately came to mind when you were talking about these vigilante kind of, or community grasses [laughs], and like basically jumped-up middle class curtain twitchers who’ve taken it upon themselves to police women. But yeah, I guess, there was like, there are good vigilantes and there are bad vigilantes, and the Black Panther Party for self-defence comes to mind as a positive example of actually building communities that are resilient and can defend themselves—not only against the police, but against white supremacists and all kinds of violence. So, you know, I think maybe sounds like an expansive understanding of what that means. I think we had a question down here, and then over there, and there. 01:00:24 Q3 Hello. Yeah, so, it’s for the person from ECP. It follows on quite nicely from what you were saying, because I’m thinking about my situation in Leicester. So, I work with women on the street, and a lot of them—so when we’re driving around, we’ll always see the police, and a lot of them work very closely with the police, and that’s because they give, the women give the police information about drug sellers in exchange for their freedom, essentially. And so, I’m in a situation where I want to protect them as much as possible, so I need help doing that, and I don’t know where to start or what to do. Because they want to work with the police, because they feel like that’s their best option, and so I don’t know about the relationship there is really disturbing. 01:01:09 NA Yeah, it’s a really good question to raise. I mean, we’ve faced it as well in many different areas. We have a very big network in Soho, Central London, and for years we were saying to women, “Don’t let the police in.” And they were saying, “No, you know, it’s alright. You know, they come in for a cup of tea and thing and thing.” And then others, outside of that, like the projects, would say, “Well, look, you know, the women want, they want to have a close, or they work, they’re friendly with the police,” and you’re saying, “There’s no such thing as friendship between the police and a criminalised group of people. You know, there’s no basis for friendship or an equal working relationship. And what we, the thing that we did is that we tried to just make sure that people knew what their rights were. So we did have to kind of go on and on and on and say, “Look, you don’t have to let them in.” And what happened ultimately is that, I’m afraid, people had to learn by experience. They let the police in, they, over a period of eighteen months, the police came in on these so-called welfare visits, they asked women, “Who are you? Who are you working with? How often do you come in? How much do you earn? What are your clients like?” Friendly, friendly, loads of cups of tea, and then eighteen months later they came in mass raids, breaking down women’s doors, handcuffing women on the floor, telling women’s families that they were working—just gratuitously, you know, completely just to mess people up—and then tried to close down all the premises. And there was a very big community struggle, and it was a really big powerful moment, in that sex workers in Soho organised, led the struggle to reopen those places. It was not easy. People were very divided between different races; between who was a maid, who was a worker; who was migrant, who was not. But we did manage to keep it together, and fought over about eight months, and we got every flat reopened apart from two. And it was a massive blow against gentrification, and against police abuse, and what came out of that is that most sex workers in Soho don’t open their door to the police anymore. You know, it’s like that’s the way that you—so I think in your situation, I think that looking to see how you can strengthen women’s hand, if that’s who you’re working with, so to make them feel, to kind of point out the ways in which they’re entitled to refuse. And then also look at the other organisations that are reinforcing that idea that women have to relate to the police, and tackle them, and say, “No. Get off their back. Let people work this out for themselves.” And then, the other thing I think is really important for the projects is to really publicise the police abuse, because I think that there is a conspiracy of silence that goes on among sex work projects to hide the fact of how much of the abuse that we face as sex workers comes from the police and not from clients, local clients. So I think that’s another thing that you can do because that changes the terrain, and it really puts those that want to collaborate with the police from a position of power on the back foot. 01:04:24 ASD I think we’ve got, yeah. 01:04:25 Q4 Hi. I suppose this question is more aimed at Ru, because Ru mentioned something earlier about community self-defence. Obviously, you can tell from my accent, I’m from the States, so it’s full criminalisation for both buyer and seller there. I was just curious—and this can go for anybody if they have thoughts, of course—but like, what would community self-defence and community organising look like in that kind of context, when even identifying as a sex worker, or in being public about it, is not only just stigmatising but also criminalising yourself, and then also even just organising with other sex workers is criminalised? So what could that look like? And obviously that’s a huge question. I understand if you don’t have a direct answer, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Thank you. 01:05:08 R I can begin, but I can pass it on. Sorry, yeah, first of all, just to really quickly pick up on the point that Niki finished with, which was conspiracy of silence—a really useful way of putting it—that happens generally with how the police behave, and how people respond to it in public. So the first thing I would always say is, not only doing ‘know your rights’ workshops with people that are affected by police violence—so we do them around stop and search, and I’m sure there’s groups that do that with sex workers as well, so first of all people that know their own rights, but also for those of you that may witness police behaving in a certain, knowing how you can support that person. There’s kind of two elements to that, and the latter one I think, actually, I think people fall down on quite a lot, and I don’t think that’s good enough. I think any time you see police in the street, particularly speaking to anybody and asking them questions and harassing them in some way, we should always be stopping. You don’t need to address the police officers but have a conversation with the person that is being spoken to. The ways the police operate is knowing they can do things with impunity, and it happens in daylight on the street. So, for instance, if I see a stop and search happening, and these days I think you’re going to see them more and more on the street because of the context of what’s happening around so-called serious youth violence, making sure you’re having a conversation with that young person. And of course, the police will often—and it’s the same with immigration enforcement. We do, well, I do workshops around this on immigration enforcement as well. You know, they’ll tell you to get back, you’re obstructing, whatever. There’s ways that you can do that safely—filming the interaction, do so with the permission of the person, and actually supporting them after the fact with even getting accountability for if they were being racially profiled when they were stopped in the first instance. So yeah, I would say, first of all, challenging police presence wherever you see it, and that doesn’t mean you have to engage with them, it’s to do with showing them that there are people that care about the ways that they’re treating other people, because they do get by by people just saying, “Oh, they’ve got a uniform. They’re an authority. They probably know what they’re doing.” And of course, there’s enough deaths of people in custody in this country that have happened because of that, because people have assumed that whatever the police are doing over there, when they’re using excessive restraint against somebody, that is a justified thing to do, because they know what they’re doing. So it’s challenging that, and also, not just within yourself, but also asking those questions of people around you. A thing that I really quickly wanted to say was around abolition. We need to normalise this more around people that we know. So it’s all very well us sitting in a room talking to people that are probably fairly like-minded. How about your family members? How about your parents, whatever? Talk to the people where this stuff, you can get through to them on these simple interactions of just make sure when you see something happening in public that you are asking questions. And yeah, know your rights, and I’m sure you’ll have more specific ones. 01:07:51 NA Well, just very quickly, actually. I mean, it’s true that it’s not illegal to sell sex here, but everything you do, in terms of associating with everyone, with anyone else, is criminalised. And for us, as sex workers, what that means practically is that all the safety mechanisms that we would like to employ actually put you at risk of arrest—working together with someone else, you know, having CCTV—I mean, all that stuff, it’s all criminalised. And specifically, there’s women in our group who are working in a place that’s nearby other flats, and one woman went ‘round and said, “Well, why don’t we put our wages up today? Why don’t we put our prices up?” And she was threatened with controlling prostitution for that kind of organising to improve our working conditions. Somebody that helped a woman with a website got actually prosecuted for controlling, you know, so the laws are very draconian. And I think it’s a crucial question of how do you, as a stigmatised and criminalised set of people, organise. And when we started, it was very different from how it is now. And we employed all these kind of little tactics. First of all, we would always do this mysterious thing where we would say, well, we don’t say whether we’re working or not. I mean, on the one hand, we say, “Oh, we’re a sex worker collective.” But then we don’t say whether we’re working or not. You know, it’s like, “Fuck off. I’m not telling you about my own personal circumstances,” because we saw how people then got picked up and attacked personally as soon as they were public. And also, it did allow women with less power in society to speak publicly, because otherwise you were going to be in a situation where the only people that could speak were the ones that had immigration status, that didn’t have kids, that had secure housing, you know, all the other things. So we tried to turn it on its head like that. And then we did things like, if we spoke in public, we would say, “My friend…”, and do your whole speech as if it was your friend. You know, so we kind of adopted loads of things. But I have to say that things got much better, and a load of other women within our organisation started to be able to be a bit more public in different kinds of ways, and then things got worse. After Brexit, all the migrant women—at some point, I would say two thirds of the legal cases that we were fighting were of actually migrant sex workers, you know, fighting various things after Brexit, and now we’re at the point where not one migrant women in the ECP can afford to be public in any way. And that really tells you how the climate has changed. But I think you have to just try and keep becoming, being as creative as you can, and making alliances with other people, and using their power to enhance your own as a criminalised group is very good. You know, we work very closely with Women Against Rape, and it’s really helpful to be able to say to the authorities, “You’re supposed to be concerned about safety. Why are you not concerned about sex workers’ safety?” You basically try every trick in the book, really, and try—but people’s safety is our absolute first priority. So we never do any media or anything like that if it’s going to put anybody at risk, because we know that journalists are unprincipled and unscrupulous and only interested in the story. And it’s just not worth it, you know, the consequences are too severe. 01:11:08 ASD I was going to ask you, Niki, on the question that came from the person here, you talked about some of the case examples of where women and sex workers have trusted the police. Have you got, is that written down anywhere? Because I just thought it might be good to like, if people wanted to publicise that, distribute that among sex workers who were thinking about working with the police, to actually be able to see where people have done that in the past and what the results have been might be quite useful for the person here. 01:11:34 NA Yeah, you’re, that’s really good, because luckily I can say, “Yes! We’re doing it!” [Kaughs] Usually, I kind of go, “Oh, no, sorry. We haven’t.” But actually, we’re putting together, it’s called a Soho scrapbook, because when we looked at it, we realised that we’d been actually organising sex workers had been organising in Soho since, I don’t know, 2000 at least. Like, mass raids, over and over and over again. So we’re actually putting it together and we’re hoping it would be ready by July, so watch this space. 01:11:58 ASD Yeah. Look out for that. I think we had had… a question here? Anyone else putting their hands up? Okay, do you want to…? Okay, here, and then here. Yeah. 01:12:09 Q5 So for those of us who have friends, or perhaps I ought to say acquaintances, who happen to work as police officers, or maybe their, I don’t know, lawyers, but they are part of the present justice system as it exists now, is it safe to have conversations with them about this sort of stuff? Not just for ourselves personally, but also maybe if I were to say something to that powerful person and they then react to that by going on to hurt someone else who’s more vulnerable, and maybe I don’t know about that. And how could that be productive, if we could do it at all? 01:13:02 AVI Anyone want to… How do we talk to cops? 01:13:06 R Unfortunately, you’re going to have to disown any member of your family that’s affiliated with the police in any way. It’s the only thing you can do. I mean, I think there’s ways, I think, I was actually going to say, there’s ways you can work with people that have very different aims, political ideas to you. Even within our group, there’s people that are abolitionist, there’s people that believe in reform, it doesn’t mean that we can’t work together. There’s ways that you can get through to people, and certainly if it is somebody that is your family member that you can convey to them, hopefully, in certain terms. I’m not taking that as a given, of course; there’s sometimes ways in which you can’t communicate with family. But yeah, I don’t know, it’s always useful actually when you can have access to somebody that has some sort of access to a lever of power. I don’t think that that should be the end-point of anyone’s kind of organising, but also, there’s ways you can get through to people on certain things. You were making the point that getting solidarity from somebody for a campaign that you were doing that has wildly different political ideas to you. There’s way that people are drawn to stuff that you might not think is a great route for them to get into it, but they are, and they’re willing to support something, and I think we should—and when we’re talking about building alliances, it doesn’t mean that you have to get everyone round to your way of thinking, but at least you can agree to a point that you want to get to. So—and of course, you don’t have to like… you can convince someone about stuff without saying, “So, on this street, I know that there is basically a bunch of people that are doing sex work, and maybe this door number.” You know, you don’t have to give specific details about stuff, but certainly talking about things in general terms that aren’t going to potentially put people at risk I think is actually a really good thing to do. 01:14:45 ASD Did you…? Kelsey? 01:14:47 KM I mean I was just going to really say, “Don’t be friends with cops,” but, if possible, but there’s ways. So I think lawyers, for example, can be really useful. They are like potentially responsible for whether someone ends up in prison or not in loads of ways, so like have as many lawyers as possible whose mission is for people to not go to prison is useful. And there’s like various people within the criminal justice system who, if they were to take a more abolitionist, or at least a perspective that’s focused on decarceration, that they can definitely be useful. And so, yeah, there’s definitely, talking about these kinds of politics is useful anywhere that you go. I’ve found like so when parliament is consulting on new legislation or whatever, they’ll bring people from lots of different perspectives, and sometimes the police will be in on the same meeting that someone who’s an abolitionist is there. And so, there’s something really important it feels like about in those rooms saying like, “Well, guess what? There’s all of these people who are not going to be safe engaging with the police. What other solutions do you have?” And being that person in as many spaces as possible, I think, is really useful, pushing people to consider other solutions that aren’t criminal justice, even if they love the police—which lots of people do, particularly people in power—and they like to think of that again as being the way that they take things seriously, pushing them to be always thinking about what are the other things that they’re doing as well, that can be a good way of kind of getting past these things as well. 01:16:35 ASD There’s a really cool podcast called ‘Beyond Prisons’ that I’ve been listening to recently, and the people in that—I think the States is quite different, but they talk quite a lot about everyone having a responsibility to look at the way in which their lives are connected with enforcement, incarceration. I think the States are quite different because law enforcement and prisons are such a huge employer in the States that many, many, many families will be in some way connected with that system, and the prison-industrial complex. And many black people are employed by that, and that’s like where the families get money from. 01:17:11 K? And good government jobs [inaudible 01:17:12]. 01:17:12 ASD Yeah, exactly, so like I think, from their perspective, from the States, they’re kind of thinking, well, if we’re in many ways connected to the people incarcerated and the people doing the incarcerating, getting reflective about that, and where you’re personally situated in that, and whether you’re benefiting from that, and how you are, and how people in your family life community are, and how you can start to challenge that. Like I said, it’s slightly different here, but I think it’s still very good to learn from that. But yeah, ‘Beyond Prisons’ is a really cool podcast. I think we had a question here, and then might be finishing up. Yeah. Okay, we’re finishing up! [Laughs] Cool. 01:17:51 ? [inaudible]. 01:18:02 Q6 Thanks. Yeah, just to follow up from what you were saying there, Ru, about if you see people being stopped by the police, and say you get their name and you record what goes on, and they get taken away, and it’s clear that in their minds they’ve done nothing wrong, where would you recommend, is there like an organisation you’d recommend reaching out to straight away when that happens? And who is that? 01:18:24 R Yeah, so, with immigration, you can do it first of all, because they often take people to a police station before they might then try and detain them. I mean, for instance, a group that I’ve set up with friends in South London, we literally would follow the vans [laughs] and then risk being arrested. But, what you can do is try and get that person’s details, or at least speak to them and say, “Is there a phone number of anyone that you want me to contact for you?” That could even be a family member, or if they happen to have a lawyer. If it is someone that has been arrested, what I’ve done in the past is, again you can try and do that, or you can… if it’s the case of, they were being profiled by police, there’s organisations, like there’s an app called Y-Stop around stop and search, which actually, if you download it, it tells you what people’s rights are in a stop and search, but also you can record stuff on there and actually send it to them if the person has grounds to make a complaint. Or, in the past, I’ve actually rung up lawyers, who’ve then rung the station where we think that person might be, to say, “I’m willing to represent this person.” But sometimes that’s hard if you don’t know their name. But yeah, we’ve kind of had some success of that in the past. And just, yeah, really, drawing that back to these aren’t activist things you need to do. I used to work with someone who’s mum is in her mid-eighties and has lived in Brixton for many, many years, and when she used to see young men being stopped in the street back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, she’d carry a notepad around with her to get their phone number, get a family name or friend, get a number for her to contact, and say to them, “I’m going to get in touch with that person for you, and let them know what is happening.” So, that’s like a basic thing that you can do. That’s what I would suggest. 01:20:00 M Just like as a really quick add-on to that, just watching the police is really, really effective. I have seen instances where people have literally been in handcuffs, about to be put in a police van and taken to whatever police station, and they’ve been released, because there’s been a group of five or six of us just watching the police, and talking to the person who’s in handcuffs, and asking things like, “Under what power are you arresting this person? What crime have they committed?” Or “Is this person even under arrest?” Because actually people get put in handcuffs and they’re not under arrest. They get put in handcuffs so that the police can search them. And once they know that you’re watching and that you even sound like you know what you’re talking about, even if literally have no idea, you have a phone on you most of the time that will tell you what the police are supposed to be doing and not. If you look a little bit respectable, if you’re white, or if you have a posh accent, or you can put on a posh accent, or even if you’re none of those things, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about, like, they don’t know what they’re talking about, they’re often not following their own rules—which, obviously I don’t agree with, but they’re not following them—and it fucking scares them to be watched. They get shaky, and they get confused, and they call their supervisors, and they step onto the side, and they radio their whoever, and are like, “What do I do now?” Like, it is really, really effective to just make them feel like they’re being watched. And the more that that happens, the more likely it is to continue happening. We have to normalise that. We have to normalise the fact that the police are supposed to be accountable to us, and they’re supposed to be protecting us, and we know that’s all bullshit, but we can do things about that. 01:21:37 ASD Just to add to that, I think it’s if you’re white as well, you should really feel an extra responsibility to take on that kind of role, because you are much, much, much less likely to get an aggressive and hostile response from the police, and involved in loads of things where black and brown people have done that and have been, but I think genuinely, I think, yeah. All of us in our communities need to be thinking about how we approach this stuff, and especially if you’re in a really privileged position, you should be thinking about it even more. 01:22:12 NA Sorry, just before we finish, we have a campaign, Make All Women Safe, that is, got a government petition calling for the implementation of a parliamentary committee—sorry, this sounds so reformist. [laughs] Anyway, it’s calling for the implementation of a parliamentary committee’s demand, so… which would decriminalise sex workers on the street and in premises. It is not the revolution, okay, we know that, but it is a first step, and one of the things that would happen is that, if we got that, is that we would be in a better position to be able to fight for our rights and change the world. So, if you are able, please sign the petition. We’ve got eight thousand signatures; we need at least ten thousand, if not more, because the government is looking at research into sex work, and by the time that comes back to parliament, we want a bit of a groundswell of a presence of people demanding decriminalisation. Thank you. 01:23:06 ASD Thank you. Can we just give a round of applause to our panellists. Thank you so much. That was so sick. [End of the recording]

Whenever we out of cash the question straight down by app, the amount of users in connections were within the low-to-mid kids for each and every software except Grindr (30%) and OkCupid (21.7%). Almost all of our very own respondents — 69.4percent — mentioned yes. Once more, though, items have murkier as soon as you digest situations by sex. Although 74.3per cent of women stated using a dating software while in a relationship was seriously cheat, best 63.3% of males did. That amounts dropped further for non-binary participants. Just a third of these would describe online dating app use in a relationship as positively cheating. There was gray areas exactly how far a software consumer might go before crossing a line. For some people, checking is OK: Almost 20% of males — and over 25percent of non-binary customers — mentioned utilizing a dating app was only cheating should you delivered flirty communications, versus 16.8% of women. Among people, 8.6% believed that using an app was just dirty if both parties found upwards face-to-face, compared with 4.1% of women. For non-binary respondents, 14.8percent said that emails are fine, but meet-ups comprise cheating. Some individuals watched not a problem whatsoever with making use of a dating software in a commitment. Roughly twice as lots of (8.4percent) people as girls (4.7%) believed that internet dating app usage surely ended up beingn’t infidelity. And 25.9% of non-binary participants saw no problem with making use of a dating application while in a relationship. But for these participants, possibly conventional monogamy isn’t an integral part of the connection to begin with. Like other brand new technology, dating programs provoke a substantial amount of hand-wringing about modern lifestyle. They apparently mirror all of our strongest insecurities about our selves: Are we as well dependent on constant recognition? Need we missing the ability to relate solely to various other live, inhaling individuals? Were we also glued to your mobile phones? The solution, as you’re able nevertheless mark their relationship on Facebook, try “It’s advanced.” Based on the information, progressively college-aged Millennials are downloading online dating programs, while the stigma of finding like online — long a deterrent — features generally vanished. You’ll find alternatives for just about any lifestyle and choice, from hookups to true-love. And yet even as consumer data spike, over 95per cent of our own surveyed students however would like to satisfy potential lovers off-line. When it comes to like, it appears we’re nonetheless a bunch of romantics. We performed a message research of university students across various campuses in the usa, receiving almost 5,000 complete feedback. The research initially expected participants to test containers adjacent to the internet dating programs they use or perhaps to write in any app maybe not offered. The 3,500 participants which showed utilizing one associated with the provided selection, typed in the term of a specific application perhaps not noted, or mentioned these people were not currently making use of a dating application but called particular matchmaking programs that they had found in the past, made up the bottom of online dating application users for our testing. If a respondent showed utilization of several apps, these people were within the review each application they detailed. Apps that did not have enough interviewed consumers for further analysis about practices comprise fell (Zoosk and Hinge). The ‘What’s the Goal?’ question expected participants to position causes by benefit. We thought about just the portion of individuals who ranked each as his or her main reason for using online dating applications. When It Comes To Rentable Rentable had been based during the early 2012 for a simple reason: house searching inside our home town of Madison, WI, had been simply excruciating. We have expanded the suite look program significantly over time and also have helped an incredible number of renters get a hold of their then apartment in smaller than average large places alike.

Minnesota votes: with COVID-19, for racial justice, from Trump to Green Party and for the community Mike Featherston stands on top of his “Patriot Pop-up.” He voted for Trump. Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer. Minnesota voters are poised to set an even more impressive turnout record in 2020, with many saying they felt this is the most important election of their lifetime. Before polls even opened on Tuesday, the state had accepted a whopping 1.8 million absentee ballots — more than half of all votes cast in 2016. As the day progressed, voters in Minneapolis surpassed their 2016 turnout record with hours to spare. Elsewhere election officials needed to call for more ballots and ran out of the coveted “I Voted” stickers. Tensions were high leading up to Election Day with reports of armed citizens planning to “guard” polling places and recent litigation creating anxiety about whether all mail ballots would be counted. For the most part, however, voting happened across the state without major conflicts or technological problems. “It has been a superb day,” Minnesota’s Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a news briefing Tuesday afternoon. Although President Donald Trump may have been the main motivation for most voters to get to the polls — for and against him — much more than the presidency is at stake. The party that controls the Capitol in St. Paul will determine how Minnesota confronts a looming budget deficit, historic unemployment, the redrawing legislative districts, police reform, marijuana legalization, health care costs and more. All 201 seats in the state Legislature are up for grabs this year, but the balance of power will likely be determined by just a handful of state Senate seats. Here are some voters we talked to at polling places across the Twin Cities metro: Occupation: Student at University of Northwestern in St. Paul Liam Craig tested positive for COVID-19 last week, but he was still able to cast a ballot in person. He says he’s been feeling much better recently and doesn’t think he’s contagious. To be on the safe side, his uncle went into the polling place and requested for him to vote curbside. An election official brought Craig’s ballot to his car and he filled in the bubble next to Donald Trump. Craig said he is anti-abortion rights, which is why he voted for Trump. But he did split his ticket for state Senate. He voted for Rep. Matt Little, DFL-Lakeville, who’s in a tight race against Zach Duckworth. “I met him a few years back. I’ve read through his beliefs and I like what he stands for,” Craig said of Little. “And I didn’t want to be a one-sided voter.” Little relies on voters like Craig splitting their tickets. In 2016, he won by one point, the same year his district went for Trump by nearly 17 points. Part of his success can be attributed to his inroads with young voters through TikTok, though Craig says he hasn’t seen any of Little’s videos. Occupation: IT Professional Hometown: Fairfax, Virigina Terin Mack said his vote was driven by dislike for the current president, not support for the Democratic candidate. “We just need to get Trump out of there,” he said at a polling station near the University of Minnesota. “I don’t like Biden either, to be honest. But he’s the lesser of two evils.” Mack said he worries about the economy and the environment, and disagrees with many of Trump’s actions as president, like the ban on travel from majority-Muslim countries. “If (Trump) gets another four years, it’s going to suck. It’s going to be cool for all the rich one-percenters, but I’m unfortunately not one of them,” Mack said. Occupation: Carnival operator/Trump merchandise salesman Mike Featherston bought an old school bus a couple months ago — the “Patriot Pop-up” — and set it up next to I-35 to sell Trump merchandise after the pandemic killed his carnival business. “I earned zero income this summer until I opened the Trump bus,” Featherston said. Featherston’s family has been in the carnival business for five generations. They own 50 rides and travel around the state to the fairs in Scott, Steele, Ramsey, Carver, Olmsted and Washington counties. But that legacy came to a screeching halt as the pandemic forced fairs and festivals across the state to close. He took some time off on Tuesday to cast his ballot in Elko, about 45 minutes south of the Twin Cities. He voted for Trump because he said he believes in personal freedoms — he’s against mask mandates — and in law and order. “I can’t believe we abandoned a precinct,” he said. “It’s a historic election. Every generation has a historic election and this is mine,” Featherson said. Brittany Simpson, 29, joined the voting line wearing a blue face mask with “BLM,” spelled out in red and white sequins. She participated in the peaceful protests after the killing of George Floyd. “I feel the same way I felt when I was out there. Something needs to change.” pic.twitter.com/wTLeFyLEj2 — Jared Goyette (@JaredGoyette) November 4, 2020 Occupation: Student at the University of St. Thomas School of Law Hometown: Viroqua, Wisconsin Payton Yahn said she was undecided when she arrived at her polling place in the Marcy-Holmes neighborhood of Minneapolis. At the last minute, Yahn opted for a write-in presidential candidate with the American Solidarity Party, a relatively new Christian party. She said neither of the major parties align with her views as a recent Catholic convert who supports police reform, opposes abortion rights and worries about the plight of immigrants at the U.S. border. Originally a Bernie Sanders supporter, Yahn voted Republican in the state’s House and Senate races. “I believe in a consistent life ethic, which means womb to tomb, you can’t kill people. And to me, both major parties put people’s lives at risk,” she said. Occupation: Nonprofit employee Hometown: north Minneapolis Kamillah El-Amin, who voted on Tuesday in person with her son, said she frequently votes with her community in mind. As a longtime north Minneapolis resident whose family is very civically active, she said she wants to see policies enacted that benefit the community, particularly in education. “We want to give our community what we deserve,” she said. “Elected officials make sure that (public) dollars are spent for a better quality of life, a real quality of life. We don’t want to just survive. We want to thrive.” El-Amin said she voted straight Democratic on Tuesday, despite holding some Republican views on certain issues. “I’m definitely Democratic all the way right now,” she said. “There are some values of the Republican Party that mesh well with me; however, I’m sorry, we have to get Trump out of there.” Xylus McCoy just voted in his first presidential election. He’s 20, and said that George Floyd’s killing and racism in America were on his mind when he cast his vote for Biden. — Jared Goyette (@JaredGoyette) November 3, 2020 Samantha Twite and Tyler Olson Occupations: Nonprofit worker, Airforce contractor Ages: 26, 28 Couple Samantha Twite and Tyler Olson both voted for Trump in 2016, but this year they went green up and down the ballot. They voted Green Party for president and for members of the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party in local elections. (They can’t remember the names of who all was running.) “I’m sick of the left and right. I want to see a change,” Twite said. “When I first voted I was more Republican, but now I don’t have my parents trying to influence me so I can do my own research.” Olson and Twite say they aren’t entirely displeased with the job Trump has done but are turned off by his constant provocations. “You never know what [Trump] is going to do on Twitter,” Olson said. “The whole time he’s been president, I’ve been traveling around the world, and it’s crazy how much other countries think he’s crazy.” Age: “Over 70 but under 80” Diane Meyer said she is sticking with President Donald Trump because she is against abortion and because “the Democrats are socialists.” “Trump needs to close his mouth sometimes, but at this point in time he is what our country needs,” Meyer said. She also said she was repelled by the sometimes hostile protests which have swept across the state this summer following the police killing of George Floyd, including a rally in Hugo in front of Minneapolis Police Federation President Bob Kroll’s house. DFL state House candidate John Thompson yelled obscenities in the street and protesters burned pinata effigies of Kroll and his wife Liz Collin, a WCCO reporter. “Protest in itself isn’t bad, but you add all the violence,” Meyer said. “It was loud, noisy, vulgar. I didn’t listen to them. But it was kind of terrifying to the neighbors. They should not be in a residence like that.” Hometown: northeast Minneapolis Andy Hansen, 33, voted close to where he grew up in NE Minneapolis. He wants police to be be demilitarized and did not vote for Trump. — Jared Goyette (@JaredGoyette) November 3, 2020 Occupation: State government worker Hometown: north Minneapolis Brad Hasskamp left North Community High School on Tuesday having voted for former Vice President Joe Biden for president. He said he was motivated to vote this year to help support nonwhite members of his community. “I felt obliged to vote for dignity and respect for all the people that are in my community,” he said. Hasskamp said he trusted Democrats generally to handle the pandemic better, saying he believed Biden and other Democrats would strike a better balance of supporting the economy while keeping Minnesotans safe from COVID-19. On police reforms and racial justice, he said Democrats were more in line with his views despite some issues with how they handled the civil unrest that erupted in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. “A lot of our community members have not really seen true justice,” he said. Occupation: Student at UW-River Falls Ty Gabrielson cast their first vote for president for Joe Biden. A senior at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, Gabrielson said gender and marriage equality was their top concern. “I wanted to make sure that I could still get married,” said Gabrielson, who identifies as non-binary and pansexual. “I know with Amy [Coney Barrett] getting appointed to the court, it could risk my ability to marry the person I love.” Gabrielson followed up by email to the Reformer listing 17 other issues important to them and why they voted a straight Democratic ticket, including racial equity, abortion rights, universal healthcare and stronger background checks for gun owners. Occupation: Unemployed, previously worked in social services Hometown: north Minneapolis Jazmin Floyd, whose job was affected by the pandemic, said her top issues this year were increasing affordable housing, ensuring everyone had access to health insurance and immigration. Raised on a Native American reservation, Floyd said she grew up voting Democratic but holds some Republican views, particularly on immigration, favoring policies that reward people who follow immigration rules. “It’s been embedded in me to vote Democratic, however, I do have Republican views,” she said. “If we could get a Republican in (the White House) who actually wasn’t a racist, a bigot, a liar, I would be voting (for a Republican). I didn’t want to vote for Joe Biden, but Donald Trump has to go.” Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

This August, a group of queer and trans women and non-binary people of color aged 25 to 35 will set out on a week-long healing retreat in the woods of Pennsylvania at a historic site of the Underground Railroad. Healing is just one of the trip’s purposes, though: the retreat is also part a new Afro-Surrealist documentary called "Wild Darlings Sing The Blues, And It’s A Song of Freedom," from the mind of filmmaker Nova Scott-James. For the 25-year-old, who was born and based in Harlem, it’s high time the world sees images of women of color in nature in empowering ways. To that end, she and her fellow wild darlings will document their experiences as they create a healing sanctuary to process grief and pain rooted in their experiences of racism, rape, colorism, and other issues linked to patriarchy and colonialism. A multigenerational groups of facilitators will be on site to guide them through different types of somatic and spiritual healing work. They’ll each have a camera to film one another throughout the week, and — inspired by the stories, emotions, and memories that come to light — they’ll write and re-enact scenarios for video art pieces to be filmed by an all women-of-color crew. "May all curses upon our lineages be broken, now," Scott-James recites in a teaser for the film. "May we remember the pain so that we also remember what came before the pain: love." Together, she says, they will rewrite the record. With just over a week until their August 14th departure, the team is hard at work raising the necessary funds to get them to the woods. Scott-James took a few moments to sit down with Shondaland.com at her mentor’s home in Harlem to talk about the stories behind the film and what she hopes viewers take with them. Shondaland.com: Tell us about yourself. Nova Scott-James: My name is Nova. That is a name that I’ve chosen myself. It feels like an important piece of my story. I chose the name initially as a senior at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. It came out of this space of learning about liberation movements and black feminist theory. I was studying film and a lot of work that came out of the intersection of filmmaking and social justice and sociology. Out of that space I had a personal awakening.Since then, I’ve really grown into that name. In Latin, Nova means "new." And so that idea of looking at what it means for something to be new manifests in my self-expression as a creative energy. We’re always creating, and that’s what makes being alive this constant newness. Anyone that I can make an impact [on by] being fully self-expressed, creatively and spiritually, that is my mission. My name speaks to my mission. SL: How has growing up in Harlem influenced your work? NSJ: I’m so inspired just walking down the street and moving through different spaces. There’s an aliveness that’s really unique. For me, somehow the spirit of Africa is alive in Harlem. That’s my relationship to it. There’s something really sacred and special about that. SL: What kind of films did you make before "Wild Darlings"? NSJ: When I was a junior in college I studied abroad in Botswana. Being there was so transformative. There was a woman on my study abroad exchange trip who also went to my college. We met and we fell madly in love. She was working an apprenticeship at this women’s pottery collective in the village of Tamaha. I was working at a production company in the capital, Gaborone, and I pretty much begged them to let me take a camera there. I ended up making a short film, a straightforward documentary, about the women’s pottery collective. Then my senior year I made two surrealist shorts that were avant-garde, loose narratives. What I’m doing now is a combination of both of those. I don’t think one just jumps to, "Oh, I’m going to make this surrealist, avant-garde documentary." For me it came out of exploring each of those separately. One of the pieces I made in college is called "The Hopeless Dream of Being." The title is based on this Ingmar Bergman film, "Persona," where there’s this whole monologue where Bibi Andersson’s character, Alma, talks about "the hopeless dream of being." It’s words, but there’s really like a whole world in those words. And there was also something about the queerness of "Persona." I had just gotten back from Botswana; I’m dating this woman, and we’re so in love. It was such a beautiful time and experience. It was a really healing relationship for me. That was the first time I really realized I was queer. I was processing that, too. That film was part of me processing that. And then after that I made this short called "Astro liberation." It’s about these two black college students that go to an all-white party where all of the kids are dancing to trap music. These two black kids feel really alienated and sad. They go upstairs and they summon this spirit that’s their ancestor and she guides them through this whole psychedelic journey. SL: What kind of work have you been doing since college? NSJ: I graduated in 2014. For like a year and a half I worked doing freelance camera operating, filming events, working on small crews in corporate settings, on TV shows, in the camera department. I learned a lot from all of that. I was definitely always in really white spaces, always surrounded by white men. They were beautiful humans and people that I formed friendships with, but it was a challenge. When you’re in a workplace but also feeling so other-ized and just looking around and saying, "Why is there no one that looks like me, even remotely?", [it] can be really challenging. Even some people I’ve worked with that I appreciate and respect, I don’t see them making an effort to hire other people of color. I’m not interested in shaming people for that not happening. I am interested in starting conversations about that needing to happen. As I’m saying this now, I’m thinking, "Hmm, I should really talk to some industry folks that I know." I should ask them, "What are you doing to diversify the industry? What actions are you taking?" I don’t think it’s for lack of caring, but sometimes if it’s not brought to someone’s attention, maybe they don’t know. It also takes being uncomfortable for a brief moment, like at the start of a conversation. Uncomfortable conversations are a blessing. It might feel funky for a second, but ultimately you transcend that, and you get to a space of aliveness and connection and really creating something with someone else, and creating new possibilities and new visions for the future. To start the visioning you have to get through what’s not working. SL: At what point did the idea for "Wild Darlings" come to you? NSJ: In fall 2017 a lot of things happened. I was reflecting on my own healing journey, and just how far I’ve come, and really releasing trauma through different spiritual work and embodiment work.. I was looking at how nature has been such a big part of my healing journey and connecting with the earth in a very deep and sacred way. A friend of mine was traveling across the country with her girlfriend, camping out and hiking. She posted this picture of her on a mountain top and she’s wearing these short shorts. And she’s thick, and you can tell that she’s thick wearing these shorts. And the caption said, "Yes, these thighs do clap when I hike." And I was just like, "Yes, that is brilliant and beautiful and so inspiring." And in the same moment I was equally inspired by that and also really [conscious of] the fact that we don’t get to see women of color in nature in empowering ways. It’s very rare. SL: What’s the story behind the title? NSJ: The title is inspired by this classic American blues song, "Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues," that was first sung by Ida Cox in the 20s. When the title surfaced it was like the whole project came with it. Even though I didn’t know all the details, I did. Somewhere underneath the iceberg it was all there. I wanted to gather women of color in the woods and just celebrate one another and do healing work and play and mourn. So I started calling women of color that I’m really inspired by, and I just started having these beautiful conversations with them. Something that came out of our conversations was [finding out] that some of these people don’t identify as women; they identify as gender-nonconforming or non-binary. Out of my ignorance, I [had] assumed [they] identified as women.That was a really important moment for me in terms of being aware of the importance of intersectionality and how to put it into action in an effective and inclusive and empowering way. There was this piece missing that I wasn’t initially thinking of due to my privilege as a cis woman. And so it went from "Wild Women" to "Wild Darlings." We were looking at, how can we as a group represent ourselves in a unified and empowering way that prioritizes intersectionality? So the title shifted and the whole project shifted with it. SL: Are you yourself in the film? NSJ: Yeah. It’s very much a movie about community and making a movie. The whole crew will be in the movie. It’s about the community that’s being built, and we’re all a part of that. It’ll look at how communities take shape and what’s possible when we work in community. SL: What do you hope folks will take away from the film? NSJ: We all have trauma to varying degrees. It’s my hope and my intention that people watch this film and come away seeing access to approaching their pain and trauma with love and community and creativity. I want people to see direct tools and resources that they can use to process their pain. And that, yes, it is difficult, [but] it can also be full of connection and love and community. With the right tools we can really process the trauma and move through it. On the other side of moving through that space, there’s so much liberation and love that’s possible. This interview has been edited and condensed. Alyssa Klein is a film journalist living in New York City. She is previously the Social Media Director of Women’s March and Senior Editor at OkayAfrica.

Mark Grattan was never certain where life would take him. After studying industrial design at Pratt Institute, the fledgling furniture designer settled down at a shop in Brooklyn’s Industry City to carve out the inaugural collection for VIDIVIXI, his newly launched studio. A few years later, however, he started feeling smothered by the trappings of New York—exorbitant costs of doing business stifled his creativity (“I only really had access to wood”), and the design community’s nonstop social demands offered debaucherous distractions (“I was partying my ass off!”). After meeting his then-boyfriend, who lived in Mexico City, Grattan decided to uproot his life in Brooklyn. He outsourced VIDIVIXI’s production, gave up the shop, and followed his heart to Mexico. He hasn’t looked back since. Relocating to Mexico City and meeting his business partner, Adam Caplowe, has afforded Grattan the precious space—mentally, physically, and financially—to crystallize VIDIVIXI’s footing in the design industry as an ascendant purveyor of seductive and highly sophisticated furniture infused with sumptuous materiality and global craftsmanship. Perhaps the brand’s most recognizable piece is the Docked en Rio platform bed, which features curved cotton modules that support a walnut frame—a reference to traditional Japanese furniture and an unmistakable statement piece. Grattan, who is black and queer, serves as VIDIVIXI’s leading creative force. He prefers to distance his own narrative from the brand, rarely divulging personal details and instead remaining steadfast in his philosophy that VIDIVIXI’s work speaks for itself. In other words, Grattan exists on his own terms—much like the furniture he masterfully creates. On May 25, George Floyd’s senseless murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officers provoked widespread outrage. Protests against systemic racism and police brutality immediately swept across the United States while discussions about rectifying racial disparities and dismantling white supremacy suddenly became omnipresent. Design media, which often stays blissfully out-of-tune with political discourse, scrambled to join the conversation. Most ended up bundling a hodgepodge of black designers (whom they rarely cover under normal circumstances) into hasty roundups that glazed over their work and achievements. A prominent shelter magazine included VIDIVIXI in a muddled Instagram post of must-follow black designers without seeking Grattan’s permission or discussing his work, which struck a nerve. Being covered in this way, Grattan declared in a separate post, feels antithetical to VIDIVIXI’s long-standing mission of designing furniture with strength, sex appeal, and ingenuity—his blackness, he says, is beside the point. Coincidentally, a few months prior, Grattan was ruminating on how his queer black identity fits into the design industry, which skews overwhelmingly white. According to the 2019 AIGA Design Census, only three percent of designers are Black or African American, a revelation that prompted Grattan to reflect on how he managed to slip through the cracks while so many others are left behind. It’s an intimate—and often harrowing—inner monologue that he experiences in an evocative new photo series, in which he faces himself in VIDIVIXI’s Split Mirror, a standout from the brand’s Spring 2020 collection. Not only do the photographs, masterfully shot by Jorge Abuxapqui, reflect the strength and resolve of somebody still finding his footing in an industry that doesn’t look like him, but it marks one of the first times that Grattan has directly ascribed his identity into the studio’s work. Below, Grattan sounds off on experiences with racism, how the industry can achieve equity, and why design media should stop putting black talent in a box. In Latin, “vidi vixi” means “I saw and I lived.” With regard to the protests against police brutality and systemic racism, what have you seen and how are you responding? I’ve been reflecting on how I was raised with racism and taught to deal with it. My family acknowledged it, but we were always able to infiltrate places we don’t necessarily belong—in other words, the white world. We never used it as an excuse to not have something, but we always knew we had to work ten times harder. I’ve had a habit of ignoring it and trying not to see it, even though it was always around me. These protests have put racism back on my radar. Racism exists, and I need to be proactive and speak up. Many people, including myself, aren’t used to doing that. That said, our intention is to integrate but I almost feel like it’s doing the opposite. I’m now questioning my white friends and their integrity—I’m thinking back to things they’ve done to me and forming new connections and creating hang-ups all at the same time. I have also noticed my “network of color” is expanding, making virtual friends with a lot of the young, gifted, and black. You know who you are and I love you. On a professional level, the past week has been wild. Opportunities are presenting themselves left and right—opportunities that VIDIVIXI has been chasing since we relaunched in 2018. We received a phone call from a gallery in particular we’d been dancing with for ages. During our conversation, the owner understood that there was an elephant present and I respect him for mentioning that he always liked our work but admitted to never really seeing an urgency to fit it within their program… until now. Due to the protests, he said they were responding to their lack of diversity in the program and reflecting upon it. (So be it.) My response was to not include VIDIVIXI because I’m black. It needs to be about the work. It feels like I’m taking two steps back to take one step forward. I realize I need to suck up my pride to get my foot in the door. Once you do that, you have the opportunity to progress. I’ve had to tell myself to not be an asshole, not be resentful, and not put on a show. But in this bracket of design, it feels like I’m the only black person creating furniture on VIDIVIXI’s level. And where are the black women and non-binary folks? I don’t even see them at the trade shows. At ICFF, I never saw black people exhibiting—only a few walking around. That’s a huge gathering of designers with no black people. I don’t get it. The protests have forced the design industry into a reckoning about low representation. What forces do you think are perpetuating this? Those numbers are only for interior design. I don’t know of any numbers for furniture designers. Ultimately, though, this low representation stems from a lack of disclosure. Black children aren’t getting art classes—that’s the first thing cut in these underfunded schools. Those opportunities are eliminated at an early age. As a result, art school isn’t seen as a real option to working-class students. It’s seen as a hobby, or something that you don’t pay for. They’re not getting exposed to it. But I do know how I slipped through the cracks: I grew up in a white neighborhood, I went to a predominantly white art college, and was raised professionally in a white surrounding. You know, the “white place, white time.” I keep coming back to this quote by the fashion designer Kerby Jean-Raymond, who is so beautifully articulate with words. He said something along the lines of “Equality is when black people can be mediocre.” I get that. We can’t be mediocre. We have to be the best. When I was at Pratt, there was one other black guy in the industrial design program. His work was so bad. I took it personally. I couldn’t be affiliated with him. Everything about his poor design work stressed me out. At the same time, I could be friends with the white guy who was doing shit work. It’s an affiliation—if one black guy is bad, we’re all perceived as bad. What forces are making me think like this? It’s a tragedy. What do you think it will take to level the playing field? We need to expose black kids to art studios and get them in the shop when they’re young. Otherwise, they won’t know those opportunities exist. Art schools need to give more scholarships to black kids. Defund the police and put those art programs back in schools. Black people like to affiliate with other black people. If black kids see more black talent in magazines, maybe they’ll think “I can do this too.” Seeing more black around will open their eyes. Most under-exposed black kids probably think these industries aren’t for them. A major driving force behind this is how magazines portray black people. You recently spoke out against a publication that included VIDIVIXI in an Instagram post that rounded up black designers without discussing their work—only that they’re black. I was thinking “Why the fuck do I have 200 new followers in 15 minutes at 10 PM? I found the post later that night and thought it was super sloppy. They only did it because they felt like they needed to. The overall association was painful. I originally wasn’t going to say anything, but I woke up the next morning to talk to a friend about it—she pushed me over the edge feeling just as angry and humiliated. She said “It’s not even my work and I’m dry heaving over my phone screen.” That’s when I knew I had to say something. I brushed my beard, Aesop’d my face, put on a real shirt for the first time in 12 weeks, and pushed record. I wasn’t expecting such a positive response. That was just me on Instagram doing my thing. Two days prior, I was crying like a baby all over my stories—feeling apprehensive about another emotional breakdown. What advice would you give to design media when it comes to covering black talent? Curate it like you would your other projects. Why does it have to look different from the content you’ve previously covered? Why can’t it look as beautiful as the shit you talked about last month? It’s a damn scam and doesn’t articulate authentically, and you know it. Dragging us through the dirt—having everybody looking dumb—you included. I’ll admit that digital editors face intense pressure to drive traffic, but those roundups seem to lack critical thought and ultimately feel counterproductive to the cause. They totally are. It shows a lack of effort. It was so sad to see that post slapped together. They wouldn’t slap anything else together like that. It seems so shallow. It’s not the way. You’ve always been adamant that VIDIVIXI’s work—its design, craftsmanship, and aesthetic—should speak for itself. That still holds true, but has your underlying perspective toward the work shifted at all? The work feels more adult now. It’s more thoughtful. In New York, I had to pay out of my ass for materials besides the ones I had immediate access to, which was mostly wood. Experimenting with different materials and processes was out of the question. Right now, VIDIVIXI doesn’t really have anything in wood besides a dining table. There’s a wider range of possibilities and a bigger production network here. It sounds like moving to Mexico City has afforded you the space, both physically and mentally, to experiment more. The cost of living is less, too. It’s all interconnected—my physical and mental health are both peaking. Let’s just say I can retire my party hat. I prioritized the wrong things in New York. I mean, I was in my 20s, but still. The social scene there can be so smothering. Mexico City is the best in that I preferably don’t have a ton of friends or social obligations. I can stick to myself. Maybe it’s not healthy! [laughs] I’m focusing on myself, my work, my business partner (I see you)… It’s amazing. Everything combined has opened up so many more doors for us. That leads us to the Split Mirror. It’s a perfect vessel for VIDIVIXI’s latest campaign, in which you reflect on being a queer black man in the design industry. I felt like I needed to talk about this even before white America’s recent ass kicking. The idea came from a conversation with an interior designer in New York. A publicist had asked her if she knew any black designers that she could write about. She only knew one, referring to me. I had been oblivious and living in a bubble, but this opened my eyes to what was happening. This conversation had been sitting with me since last fall. I needed to shoot a campaign for the Split Mirror, but didn’t want to stick a plant in the frame or levitate a mysterious object adjacent. At the same time, I wanted VIDIVIXI to be more connected to Mexico. We’ve been anxious to foster a better relationship with the culture here in Mexico City—maybe the industry doesn’t know about us or doesn’t want to know about us. I can’t be sure. My idea was to shoot culturally progressive artists living in Mexico City —a trans woman, a woman who started a modeling agency for dark-skinned folks, a performance artist, a dancer, cultural activist—in front of the mirror and tell a political story. Ultimately, I nixed that idea to shoot myself and think about my own experience, which felt much more appropriate. We shot the campaign in April, ahead of this big cultural uprising, which is the craziest thing. A beautiful coincidence and a much easier platform to catapult this expression. How does the campaign share your struggles as a queer black man in the industry? I don’t really have struggles as a queer man. Being gay gives me more power—it’s the cherry on top. If you’re not a woman or someone who uses their hands, you’re most likely gay in the design industry in my experience. I can imagine I am filed under “he looks like a friendly black guy” for some of you. If I stand out, I’ll draw attention and if my work is strong, I’ll attract the right kind of attention and then maybe they’ll forget about the color, see me for who I am, my skill set, my talent and eventually focus on those attributes. I think about this a lot. Like, Mark, just get your foot in the door and the rest will follow accordingly. I can’t say why, but I feel black mothers have a more prominent role guiding their black children through the waters of racism. I hear my mother’s voice more than my father’s when I think about the topic. “Where is your faith?” she would say. Mexico can’t be excluded from any of this either. I experience racism more frequently than one would expect here.Some days, people are yelling “negro” to me from across the other side of the street. The locals tell me it’s NOT racist. I am still trying to digest that part. Somebody once tried to argue with me that racism doesn’t exist in Mexico, only classism. That’s bullshit. It’s reached every corner of this planet. Blacks can’t escape racism. White people probably brought it to Mars already, I bet. Other times, we’d be meeting with our producers and they would look towards Adam for the final say. It’s hard for people to believe I am driving this bus. But it’s true. I am the creative director and people don’t know how to process this information. Selective hearing. How do you respond to that? I repeat myself! It doesn’t happen anymore and Adam noticed it before I did. (This is me blocking it out per usual.) This photoshoot feels like a intersectional meditation on your identity. Definitely. I’ve always been in places as the outcast—maybe I like to seek these situations and experiences. It’s like I’m having a conversation with myself that’s being photographed. I’m here enjoying my moment privately. The audience could potentially perceive and understand a conversation is progressing but it’s not really anyone’s business to know the tea on that. It is true, a huge component of the campaign is my blackness. VIDIVIXI has never made a political statement like this. It’s less about the work at this moment and more about what’s happening in the image and the person behind it. This strong, damn near naked male figure is almost fighting with this big, dominant mirror. My intention was to pull myself out of focus and more in shadow. You can’t read me because you can’t see my reflection—you only see my back. And of course my muscles contrast with the bra and wig. That’s my homosexuality coming out. We really had to strip this back and make sure we were being true to myself, not some performance of myself. We didn’t realize this until after the photos came in. I looked like a lost circus clown in 690 out of 700 images that were shot. What does this new chapter signify for VIDIVIXI? It’s time for the industry to familiarize themselves with us. We’re here to stay (and we’re not just that one bed). We’re loud and opinionated. We’re translating our ambition through the mood we set and the products we design. We’ll continue to push boundaries and expectations. And we expect to move organically throughout this industry, whether through products, interiors, or spatial design. We’re currently developing a line of products, slated to launch this fall, that will pursue the greater masses in an effort to widen our range of objects. Expect artist sculpture, mass production, and anything in between. Revealing your identity like this was a bold move. I’m into it. I was feeling very confident. We’re in a position to start making provocative statements. We’re still fairly new, but we’ve earned a following that understands we’re not a one-hit wonder. Because we created such a strong foundation, now felt like the time to step out. Of course, we still want people to know the work first.

Okay, so it’s been quite a few years now since the far-right started demonizing trans people. It’s only been recently, however, as of this writing, since right-wing pundits in the US started ridiculing the use of pronouns—as though one could demonize an entire part of speech, one asks? Of course it’s not the use of a part of speech that everyone uses that is the target of course—it’s transgender people themselves, and more broadly anyone who affirms and supports nonbinary, transgender, and other LGBTQ+ folks. In this blog post I hope to unwrap a few layers of this attempted demonization and discuss the roots of it in toxic masculinity and moral and political disgusts as well as fascistic rhetoric. My Background and Standpoint As always, I’m coming at this from the perspective of a pastor’s kid from a right-leaning moderate white Evangelical denomination who went on to become a communication scholar focusing on stress, trauma, and conflict communication. Ah, Those Moral Disgusts! As I’ve written about before, part of my upbringing socialized me to see involvement in politics outside of the “culture wars” issues of abortion and against LGBTQ+ rights as tinged with moral disgust (I talked about this here, here, here, here, and here). Because of that, it’s not surprising that I used to feel moral and political disgust about people on the left as well as the vulnerable populations Democrats tended to be allies for. After all, though my people claimed to be “moderate,” the felt distastes I was raised with were extremely right-leaning. (When I started to analyze these things, that was the best tell that we weren’t actually “independent” or “moderate” as some of the people I grew up with claimed.) Quickly Defining Moral Disgusts Let me unwrap this moral disgust thing briefly, in case you haven’t read my previous articles on moral and political disgusts that start here. In short, neurobiological researchers have come to recognize that our senses of morality are held in the same part of the brain where the taste senses are. Which means that at a basic knee-jerk level, no matter what we say our ideas of morality are, the people and behaviors we find distasteful on a visceral level are those that we associate with immorality. If you think you support a group but have a general distaste for supporting them, then, it’s likely your neurobiological senses of morality are different from what your words are claiming for you. It Gets Extra-Complicated when Wrapped Up with Religious Language Around Morality… The consequence of this on a basic level is that the religio-political teachings that I grew up with hijacked this natural association of morality with distaste to make it so that I would wrinkle my nose especially when people who didn’t fit the gender binary or heterosexual narratives came near, as well as those that supported them. As I’ve discussed before, it took me way more years than I’d like to admit until I got to the point where I managed to retrain my neurobiology to see LGBTQ+ people as moral folks worthy of human rights and equality. Which I can now see was simply getting to the point where I could truly love my LGBTQ+ neighbor as myself on a basic level. How Research on Gender and Shame Can Help Unwrap the Knot Here’s one of the big research findings that helped change my mind: it was one from Brene Brown’s research on shame and gender, as recorded in her book Daring Greatly. After a dozen years of interviews with people who identified as men and women, she identified a huge theme in the interviews from men that showed that the shame message for men related to being told they were like the slang term for the female genital organs. Yup, that’s the same term a certain former president of the United States once said he liked to grab women by. Oh Wait, Maybe It’s Not about God, but About…Male Shame??? Ooops. So yeahhhh, reflecting on this research helped me realize that all of this furor over LGBTQ+ folks, and especially people who didn’t fit with the usual gender binaries, had nothing to do with some sort of healthy interpretation of anything. What it was rooted in was the masculine shame message that transgressing any kind of perceived gender binary was to admit some sort of perceived weakness. Which is incredibly ironic, considering how female genital organs manage to be strong enough to push out entire babies into the world on a regular basis. (Male) Gender Shame as “God’s Will”? Nope, I Don’t Think So. Try Again So yeah, looking at this more closely, I can see how the fear of transgender folks and non-binary folks and their allies is really based really really far from biblical views on gender, or healthy sorts of anything really. On the contrary, it’s based in shame. As Brown notes, shame isn’t a healthy, productive emotion. It’s the kind of emotion that keeps us beating up on ourselves and others in extremely unhealthy ways. As I discussed before, it’s very different from how she defines guilt and humiliation, both of which actually can be healthy emotions. Ah, the Transgender Athletes Question! It was reflecting on this research that helped me realize how unhealthy this culture wars logic was. This especially came home to me when combined with a discussion that my students had about whether transgender athletes should compete in male sports in one of my classrooms that helped me realize how very much this issue was rooted in masculine shame. The discussion was raised by a student group mostly of young men who were trying to facilitate a reasonable discussion on the subject. It was a few years back, before the current spate of policies demonizing transgender folks had reached its current fever pitch, but I still I cautioned the students that it was their responsibility to keep it evidence-based before they started. Hmmm, the Women in the Room Didn’t Actually Care What became clear by the end of the rather heated discussion is that it was only male-identified folks in the room who really had an opinion on whether transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. The men in the room were very passionately against this. But the women in the room really didn’t care. The Men Very Much Did. Even Though They Normally Wouldn’t. That was such an illuminating moment for me. It drove home to me that most of the people I knew who were really adamant about this particular transgender athletes issue were men. Specifically, they were also usually men who weren’t really invested in women’s sports. On to Bathroom Bill Rhetoric… I also realized that the right-leaning women I knew who were concerned about trans issues were more concerned about the bathroom bill issue. If you don’t know about bathroom bills, this was one of the first kinds of anti-trans legislation that right-leaning folks started to support. The right-wing rhetoric around this issue was based in the idea of men pretending to be transgender specifically to assault women in restrooms. You know, much like the same rhetoric these days that argues that it’s LGBTQ+ folks who are “grooming” young people to be gay. Ohhhh So the Common Thread Makes It Really Super Obvious that This is Shame-Based So yeah, the common theme here is this: both of these kinds of anti-transgender legislation are based in rhetoric around men who become feminine (or who purportedly pretend to be) being threats. (Insert all the eyeroll emojis here) Negative Projection, Too! As though it weren’t predominantly white males-identifying-as-males who weren’t out there committing the most domestic violence and mass shootings and the rest of it. As though there weren’t plenty of statistics to show that. Jumping Forward to Today’s Anti-Transgender Rhetoric Considering all of this and fast forwarding to the present day, it’s not surprising that right-wing folks are demonizing the adoption of the practice of asking for and presenting your pronouns to others. When Scapegoating Is the Basis of Policies….Inclusion and Caring (And, Oops, Also Love of Neighbor) Is Seen as a Threat After all, from the shame-based systemically toxically masculine perspective, those who “transgress the gender binary”—and those who support folks who do—are unsafe. And the practice of asking for and offering gender pronouns is an act of inclusion to those who might not fit the normal gender binary. From this perspective, allowing transgender people to have the right to determine their gender is a strike against masculine identity and hierarchy. Connecting the Dots Back to Fascistic Rhetoric If you’ve studied fascism at all, you shouldn’t be surprised at any of this, or the fact that the rhetoric goes back to the identity of keeping bloodlines and sexuality “pure” in some way. These are, after all, themes of fascistic rhetoric, as Jason Stanley notes in his excellent book How Fascism Works. Should Be Ringing a Bell Back to Other Unhealthy Rhetoric Around Racial Issues As Stanley notes, fascistic rhetoric in the US often goes back to white supremacy, and so it oughtn’t be surprising that the same kind of rhetoric accompanied the topic of “race-mixing” throughout American history as well. That is, that even while white slaveowners were regularly raping enslaved women and claiming their children as literal property (see The 1619 Project for more details—I’ve previously talked about this and how it founded the basis for current abortion rhetoric here and here), black men were scapegoated as a sexual threat toward white women. In retrospect, looking at the way both of these issues are framed side by side, it’s not surprising to me that this fascistic racial rhetoric is remarkably similar to the rhetoric surrounding these particular transgender policy issues. Oh, so It’s THAT Kind of Purity Culture War? Ugh. And when you put these things together, maybe it ought not not be remotely surprising that in both libraries and educational systems, books telling the truth about racial history and representing LGBTQ+ people are being seen as threats. After all, in both cases, questions around “purity of identity” are rooted in scapegoating others—specifically those lower on the social hierarchy—for seeming to be threats. Soooo yeah, looking back at this to understand my right-leaning white Evangelical concerns about culture wars “morality” starts to take on a whole new light looking at the issue from this rhetorical perspective. Tying It Back to the Unhealthy Theologies The issue has nothing to do with whether being transgender is “transgressing God’s law.” If that was so, then why would there be such a variety of strange creatures in the world that reproduce in all sorts of interesting ways? I can’t imagine that ALL of them were the “result of the Fall,” as the theobros who make these sorts of arguments claim. But Wait, Patriarchy Is Stated as the Result of the Fall On the contrary, speaking of the biblical Fall, if you look back at Genesis 3, it’s pretty d*mned clear that the condition of patriarchy—that is, where men dominated women—was actually a post-fall condition as stated in the text. So yeah, in that awareness, it seems pretty incredibly clear that those who have been spreading these culture war messages as questions of “morality” are really spreading fascistic moral disgusts that aren’t remotely reasonable or healthy. Supporting and Affirming Transgender and Nonbinary Folks Makes a Positive Difference On the contrary, tons of statistics show that supporting transgender and nonbinary folks by using their chosen names and making space for sharing and using chosen gender pronouns greatly reduces deaths by suicide for LGBTQ+ folks. Jesus=Against Oppression of Vulnerable Folks It’s also really clear that Jesus fought unhealthy societal hierarchies, looking out for the vulnerable and oppressed. Which makes me believe that he would have been on the other side of the culture wars than the side I was raised on. Bringing It Back Around I could go on, but I hope by now it’s clear that it’s not remotely healthy, this right-wing rhetoric that’s seeking to demonize LGBTQ+ folks and those evidence-based practices involved with trying to affirm and support them. What We Can Do to Make Things Healthier! In light of all this, I hope we’ll all work hard to oppose this kind of unhealthy rhetoric and the policies that right-wing politicians have been trying to push through on all levels. And for those of us who were socialized into these kinds of moral disgusts, or dealing with other emotions around helping support transgender and non-binary folks please know that it’s entirely possible to shift our words, behaviors, neurobiological responses, and voting patterns on this issue. It’s been a long slog for me, but I’m living proof that change is possible. A Final Charge Go team #AssertiveSpirituality! Let’s continue to do what we can where we are with what we’ve got to work against the toxic crap, wherever we find it, toward a healthier, more inclusive and equitable world for us all. We can do this thing. Want to help keep this work going? I finally, after more than 4 years of this project, have tip jars set up at Venmo and PayPal so you can help keep the lights on and such (THANK YOU for whatever you can do!). Here’s the info: Looking for more resources toward speaking up for what’s right and dealing with the conflict that results? Boy, do we have got a free “Assertive Spirituality Guide to Online Trolls” for you. It actually helps you with conflict both online and off. To get it, sign up for our email newsletter (either in the top bar or by checking the appropriate box when commenting on this article). Once you’ve confirmed your email address, we’ll send you the link to the guide in your final welcome email. You can unsubscribe at any time, but we hope you’ll stick around for our weekly email updates. As soon as we feasibly can we’re hoping to offer more online courses and other support resources for those advocating for the common good, and if you stay subscribed, you’ll be the first to know about these types of things when they pop up.

But THE GIRL should go way prior being a get together app — which is, devoid of adding pressure to find the romantic partner. Although it can become used to few up and discover regional matches that may you do not ever understood was around, you may also get involved in town LGBTQ occasions, go through LGBTQ news, and also make friends by means of its social-media such as nourish. Among the many dependable and valuable dating sites, Harmonize with. com has applied their particular 23 years of daily life to be able to collect 1000s of couples. Just like Tinder, when you suit a new person, you could chat in the app’s messaging component. Our studies are in accordance with 2016 Consumer Records data that found users were the majority of satisfied with OkCupid over several other dating services. There are also helpful questionnaires that provide you insight in to your private nature and compatibility competencies, meant to support your online dating scene regardless of the web page you end up making use of the most. The website incorporates several ways to discover other people, one of the most useful that is with regular or advanced searches (done by having online, simply by city, by new users, by connections and by favorites). Potential matches are found based on searching rather than match recommendations, providing more control over your web dating experience. OKCupid includes a fun, laid-back feel to it, and users generally adopt the same attitude the moment interacting on the webpage. Ideal Free “Single Parent” Online dating sites ( Having this kind of knowledge within your back money can be useful although scrolling through Tinder or eHarmony and bring about more suits and long-term connections. To get our fake dating users, we counted how a large number of matches and messages all of us received in 24 hours. We also documented whether you might block or report improper behavior, how much time the account setup process was, how in-depth setup questions were, and whether we stumbled upon any obvious bots. Meant for sites that require you to “like” users to get matches, we succeeded to most of the first 40 company accounts we all came about. HER, intended for free of charge in both most of the Apple App Retail store and Google Like, is a place where female-identified in addition to non-binary persons could connect with locate both equally friends additionally to appointments. - For sites that require you to “like” users to get matches, we did so to typically the 1st 30 balances we came around. - A lot more a genuine decision for equally individuals trying to find informal flings, and all all those looking for much more serious, long-term interactions. - OKCupid contains a fun, laid-back feel to it, and users generally adopt a similar attitude when ever interacting on the website. - What a hangover coming from the starting up regarding internet dating internet sites, every time a paid profile into a internet site intended that you were critical concerning negotiating down. The internet internet site hasn’t transformed very much in years, even so rather financial institutions about how functions have to be able to offer singles, which regularly seems to continuously attract and re-attract participants. The internet web page features an easy-to-navigate interface, insightful nevertheless not really obnoxiously prolonged profiles, and a new couple question an individual may reply to aid the site enhance you better also to find that you just important romance. With free of charge dating applications gaining popularity thanks to Tinder, people are gravitating toward online dating apps, and this is one of the best. Fortunately that we possess been looking at online dating sites within the past fifteen years, watching them evolve considering the times. We have now put together a list of the best dating sites and apps for everybody varieties of persons. Online internet dating sites and programs experience transformed the best way we find excited partners. Heck, even stars can now have verified information about there (meaning yes, you may match with among the list of Showmanship Chrises in case you are really lucky). You might get carpal tunnel through swiping thus a lot, although I suppose also makes certain that it’s almost not possible not to find a person who’s DTF. While a person will probably be compensating regarding a month, 90 days, six months or perhaps a 365 days by means of their particular various members, what you experience in return is usually well-worth the investment decision. Meet. com supplies a free kind, but the common consensus is that will you might require a paid membership to have any good bundle of money. What a hangover coming from the starting out regarding online dating internet sites, every time a paid account to a site designed that you were serious about settling straight down. Right now there are definitely paid for features on several internet dating apps that could be worth the value, but I’ve truly but to warrant putting out cash regarding absolutely adore. Of all the internet dating sites and applications out there, OKCupid has become one that singles group to for their first on line dating trial run. Persons also are likely to return throughout their online dating sites journey unless they have seen and settled straight down for good. The service offers male users twenty-one curated matches every day that they will can either just like or spread. Most of the women, in switch, view which guys have liked they will and determine whether or perhaps internet dating sites never to like these people back. “I generally advise Match as I’ve identified that gives you far better top quality, ” boasts Jodi Manfredi, who different writes on the web internet dating single profiles professionally.

Inspiration overload at the end of 2019 for the empower team who were privileged to work with TEDxLondon on their TEDxLondon Women event. We were in awe of the powerful culture created in this volunteer-led team – professional, impactful, supportive, fun and so hard-working. A joy to work with. The TEDxLondon team delivered an amazing event, complete with commitments to accessibility on every level – including the new Relaxed Room, sustainability with a Refill station cutting out the plastic bottles, as well as care taken at each interaction point to ensure attendees have a fantastic time. But of course, the real inspiration lay in the talks. As part of empower’s role supporting the communications team on social media, we got to dive into the biographies and talks of the speakers, and get glimpses of their preparations. Seeing the huge amount of effort and passion that goes into the talks from both the speakers and the TEDxLondon team, made the final results even more powerful. There were 15 brilliant speakers at the December event, and you can watch them now at TEDxLondon. We’d really recommend you watch them all, but below are some of the ones that stuck in our minds “The fairness of the transition to the green economy is not a nice to have, it is the thing that will make this transition happen or not. We will get stuck in protests if we don’t make this work for people.” A passionate environmentalist, Angela, Chief Advisor, Economics and Economic Development at WWF-UK, sees that the key to overcoming the climate challenges we face is proving to the public that transitioning to a green economy can change their lives for the better right now. “It is human relationships that so often get people into hate movements. And it is human relationships that I know can get people out.” Vidhya co-founded Moonshot CVE, using technology to identify people at risk of violent extremism and repurposing advertising technology to intervene and to send out messages of help. By leveraging technology to scale deeply personalised and localised human interactions, Vidhya now has the evidence to prove that real change is possible. “We need you to stand up and show up. We need you now more than ever, because now we’re in a time where the fight against us is so strategic and planned, that we need you to stand with us as we organise ourselves to counter transphobia.” Writer, editor and model Jamie lays bare the terrifying reality trans and non-binary people face today, and calls for genuine, consistent empathy and urgent action from the cis-gender community. “When we judge young mothers, we are feeding a patriarchal narrative that not only has a direct impact on the lives of those young mothers and their children, but also adds to the oppression of other mothers and ultimately every single woman.” Award-winning teacher, and young mum, Poppy Wells dismantles common misconceptions about young mothers, highlights the unfair judgement all mothers face and proposes we all stop equating age as a key factor in determining good parenting. “The onus should never be on the child to have to speak out in order to get protection from child marriage. Child marriage must become a crime.” Payzee, a survivor of and campaigner against child marriage, who also lost her beloved sister Banaz to a child-marriage linked honour killing, tells her powerful story, and calls on us all to end child marriage in the UK – sign here. “The same way we are able to go out in millions for climate change, we can go in millions for refugee rights and the criminalisation of humanitarians. It’s not fair to fight for one thing and leave others behind because these are human souls.” Syrian refugee and humanitarian Sarah, speaks in depth about the experiences of returning to Lesbos to volunteer and what happened when she was then arrested after completing humanitarian work. Photos: Jason Wen / TEDxLondon

Nikola Halcyone Jordan from College of Nebraska at Omaha’s Office of Multicultural Matters will show to all of us on You’re Not Necessarily A Bad Person [Most likely] – Knowing Unconscious Bias. How can we try to dismantle discrimination and bigotry inside our own spheres of influence? Just like anything, the job begins with ourselves. Let’s start to uncover, confront, and try to control your own implicit biases, together. Work of Multicultural Matters in the College of Nebraska at Omaha accounts for developing and looking after programs and services to guarantee the effective recruitment, retention, and graduation of underrepresented students on the campus. Omaha Coding Women (“OCW”) occasions are available to all programmers and coding enthusiasts of abilities and can attend. OCW uses a comprehensive meaning of “woman” and “female,” so we welcome trans women, genderqueer and non-binary people. We recognition all gender identities, races, sexualities, physical structure, economic backgrounds, abilities, faith and overall methods for being human, once we think that diversity of expertise is essential to effective collaborations. All OCW participants, volunteers, mentors, loudspeakers, and team people are anticipated to follow along with this code of conduct whatsoever OCW occasions as well as in all OCW virtual spaces. You should us that OCW occasions are secure and harassment-free for everybody involved. Jordan Peterson: The Dangers of Unconscious Bias Testing tezzo55: 🙂 Beautiful! He said, “Bloody well!” and in a Canadian accent too! How good can it get? Love Jordan, he’s the man! Astral Frost: The one dislike on this video is from someone who didn’t read 1984. Sh*tlord Palmerston: Yes! Another arrow in my quiver when arguing with people who believe that we are inherently racist! Nicolas Bedney: Is there an instance where thought policing is productive?\n\nAre any acts of political aggression or persecution where the target is the majority population destined to end well for the populace? Trying to Figure Life Out: So unconscious bias is a bias that you are not aware of\n\nAnd a bias is a tendency to think a certain way\n\nSo you’re thinking a certain way.. and you don’t know you are\n\nSo someone may think a certain race is incapable of doing a good job. But they don’t KNOW that they think this. And so they don’t hire that race and they provide reasons but those aren’t the TRUE reasons..\n\nSo.. through word associations they are going to figure out if someone is racist? But how does that work? If someone says AFRICAN AMERICAN and I blurt out BAD then that means “there is evidence to unconscious bias” within me?\n\nI guess it’s a good idea on its own.. this unconscious bias… to try and discover what it is someone “truly” thinks.. but how the hell do you do THAT?\n\nSo.. AIUI, Peterson is saying first you can’t do that, you can’t figure it out, and you can’t change it, and even if you COULD, it seemed here he was saying “you seriously want them to retrain how you perceive things?!” .. that makes it sound super BigBrother type.. or maybe more like Big Momma who isn’t just watching you but also tells you how to think.. or is that Big Daddy?\n\nSo on one hand we think “oh goody we get our thoughts to be reprogrammed! But on the other hand it’s , ‘they’re controlling what you think and adjusting it to suit their demands'”?\n\nI mean..personally if someone told me they could do something to remove my racism.. first I would ask how do they know, and if they convinced me I had it, why NOT remove it?\n\nBut how the hell do I trust them if they’re going inside my brain?!\n\nAnd do they have good intentions? \n\nAgh this is confusing! M. Lee: I remember doing the unconscious bias study when I was at the University of Western Ontario. I thought the study was so stupid so I purposely associated negative words to every black person I saw because I thought it would be funny. \nI wonder how many people in these studies were like me. \nAnd don’t get up in a tissy, I’m chinese and not a white male, so its ok for me to do something like this. Hahaha toanthony: Its like George Orwel’s 1984. Jordan Peterson makes so much sense Willhelm Berkly: I love how at 5:36 they both cross their right legs over their left legs. Subconscious mirroring behavior perhaps? DocAmitay: Thank you for sharing, Davie Addison. For those interested in taking the test Dr. Peterson is talking about, here it is: http://www.understandingprejudice.org/iat/ And of course, if you want to see more of his talk in my class, please check out:\nhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTeIGNsA9xdeVDbt7G6nPniejG5uDt3BX Iznaga1420: It’s possible for psyshometricians to get retest reliability IQ scores to about .99, higher than the reliability test measurement for height, on certain subtests. But God forbid you bring up to leftists how impactful IQ is and how relevant heritability is when it comes to cognitive ability. No, IQ tests are racist.\n\nBut Implicit Bias tests have shoddy reliability measures… that’s somehow the gold standard in psychological research for them. It gives them grounds to go beyond what Orwell described as a thought crime. They want to persecute people for unconscious impulse crimes. They’ll use the shakiest evidence to justify it as well, if that.

Squishes and a Journey of Learning and UnlearningPosted: May 13, 2015 Until a few years ago, I believed that I’d had exactly one crush in my life. It didn’t last very long, nothing came of it, and the man I had the feelings for never knew about it. In fact, it wasn’t really like how most people talk about crushes. I never felt like I was “in love” or was giddy or any of the rest of it, it was just an intensity of feeling (which soon faded) that flustered me a bit. If anything, it was like it was the start of a crush that never developed into anything. But I called it a crush because what else would it be if I’m a woman, and a guy made me blush a bit and feel slightly confused when I thought about him? I began reading asexual discourse in 2011 and soon came across the concept of romantic attraction, which is often used as another way of talking about falling in love or crushes. Just as people who don’t experience sexual attraction are asexual, people who don’t experience romantic attraction are aromantic. Reading things that aromantic asexual people had written about their experiences, I came across the concept of a “squish” (platonic crush). That was it! That was what that long-ago incident had been! Given that I had never actually experienced any crushes at all, but only a squish, I realized that I am aromantic. Squish. Aromantic. These were new words, but the existing words had never really worked for me. Before I had “squish” the only way I could accurately describe the feelings I’d had for that one fellow was “failed crush”. Before I had “aromantic”, I had… nothing. I hadn’t even known that was a thing to give a name to. Words are important when you’ve never had a way to describe and explain yourself. Meanwhile, in February 2013, I first wrote in my journal about what I called my “fascinations”. A “fascination” is when I get fascinated with someone’s personality for a while and focus much more on my interactions with them than I do with others. I journaled it because I’d been noticing myself doing this a lot more than I remembered from the past. Later that year, I devoted a long journal entry to analyzing my “fascinations”. I traced them back to at least 2011 (I think now it’s not a coincidence this happened at the same time I was learning to understand myself and my attractions, or lack thereof, better). I noted in passing that all of the people that I was fascinated by were women, but I was more interested in classifying them according to personality type – it seems that opposites attract and I’m often fascinated by extroverted, talkative, self-confident, and impetuous personalities. What, I wondered, did this say about me? I’m still intrigued by how my “fascinations” tend to fall into a small number of personality types and I’ve got a few thoughts on this (a topic for another column, perhaps). They’re still almost all women – my running list has 12 members, of whom 11 are women and one is a person who identifies as having been designated female at birth but having a non-binary gender. Not a single person on the list is a man. This is a pretty strong pattern, yet at the time it didn’t seem significant to me. I noted that I had “fascinations” for women and that old squish on a man, but it was like I was describing a science experiment, not talking about my own feelings. And, even as recently as November 2014, I wrote that I didn’t seem to have any positive gender preference. I had recognized back in May 2012, as I learned about queerplatonic relationships, that I wanted to have a female partner but I believed this was a kind of “negative preference” due to my sex aversion, which is much stronger towards men. Even though, by late 2014, nearly two years had passed from when I first began thinking about the topic, I had never been able to classify my “fascinations” as a particular type of attraction and it never seems to have occurred to me that they might be squishes even though I now had that word at my disposal. In a way, I seemed to be thinking that since I didn’t know what they were, they didn’t really “count”. Recently, I’ve finally started to untangle all of this and understand why I had this particular blind spot. For one thing, it took me over two years to recognize in the first place that there was a persistent pattern of something going on. The feelings that I experience in my “fascinations” tend not to be too intense, certainly not to the point of being intrusive. As well, if the feeling is not reciprocated (and it usually isn’t), it tends to fade out before too long (there also seems to be an inverse relation between intensity and frequency of feeling, leading to a large number of brief “fascinations”). Overall, it’s a pretty quiet feeling that usually doesn’t lead to anything else, and that was hard to discern. But even once I understood that my “fascinations” were an ongoing thing, I still didn’t have a concept to explain them. Part of the problem was that “squish” was just a label I had put on a box with one thing in it. The definition as “platonic crush” was not actually that helpful after all. “Platonic” added no new information – I’m asexual and aromantic so by definition all my attractions are platonic! “Crush” still implied it was like conventional romance. The missing link that I needed was the concept of emotional attraction, which I came across in a post called Identity, Attraction, Relationship Terms. Emotional attraction is, [A] desire for emotional closeness, emotional intimacy, mutual reliance and trust, affection, fondness, caring (emotional and/or physical), mutual support, regular contact and physical companionship. Emotional attraction is what usually holds long-term partners together after the romantic and/or sexual attraction has faded (if it fades) and is… the substance of platonic or queerplatonic partnerships. My “fascinations” are the beginnings of emotional attraction, particularly the desire for emotional closeness, affection, and regular contact. If I define a crush as the beginnings of romantic attraction and replace the meaningless “platonic” with “emotional attraction” then a squish as an emotional-attraction “crush” is actually the same thing as my “fascinations”. Finally, finally, the puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place. Finally, I had the concepts I needed to begin really understanding myself. What I had needed was a whole new language, not just words but new meanings and ideas that those words represented. I needed to break out of putting everything in conventional boxes, to understand my experiences on their own terms. But there was one more thing. Why did I think all that time that I had “no positive gender preference” given how strongly my emotional attraction skews towards women? Why did I have this blind spot? There’s another conventional box I was putting myself in, the box that says that everybody is or should be hetero-oriented. I didn’t think I had internalized this heteronormativity. I was comfortable with myself as asexual and aromantic. Yet I was treating that one squish on a man as if it was more “real” or more valid than the 12 recent squishes on women. (In fact, I think the old squish stuck in my mind for so long precisely because it’s so rare for my emotional attraction to go in that direction.) Being attracted to men is the default for a woman and somehow I still had that default wired into my brain. When there were parts of myself that didn’t fit in the heteronormative box, I tried to make them not exist. It didn’t work. I don’t fit. I’m homo-oriented1. The people I’m emotionally drawn to are other women. The kind of person I’d like to form an queerplatonic relationship with is a woman. It was there staring me in the face all along. Read more by Laura on our site, here. Laura P is a European-American convert to Islam, asexual, and queer. She is a contributor at The Asexual Agenda, a group blog for asexual spectrum individuals, and maintains a personal blog, Notes of an Asexual Muslim. You can also find her on Twitter at @muhajabah. She works in online tech support and volunteers with the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative. 1Despite my dislike of the terminology of “platonic attraction”, the word “homo-emotional” sounds weird, so I occasionally use homoplatonic to describe my emotional attraction to women. Having a word for myself is more important than consistency! Some parts of this post appeared previously at The Asexual Agenda.