For book lovers, there is no better place to work remotely than in the local public library. Even a fellow Rioter has commented on how the trend of “co-working spaces” actually fits what public libraries have been for ages.
In January 1966, The Washington Post ran a four-part series on how women in the Washington area obtained abortions. At the time, abortion was illegal with few exceptions in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Now, nearly a half-century after Roe v. Wade, new abortion restrictions are being imposed in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Utah and other states. Below is an abridged version of The Post’s four-part series, edited to highlight personal experiences.
What should I think when someone I’ve been flirting with all night tells me they’ve only dated cis women, but lately have considered “opening that up to trans women”? At the end of the night when they don’t kiss me, how do I know if that’s because of me or because they decided tonight wasn’t the night to get adventurous? This is not a rare occurrence.
These days, headlines about gay penguins or genderqueer lions seem to pop up all the time. These circulate wildly, and are effective clickbait for curious (or outraged) straights and celebratory queers alike. But these headlines are only effective because of the assumption that nature follows the rules of heteronormativity. As it turns out, however, what we call “queerness” is the norm in nature, not the exception. From toads to nematodes, from dolphins to fruit flies, same-sex sexual behaviors are found in every corner of the animal kingdom. Once you look beyond animals to all of life on earth, well, things get even more queer.
Imagine a group of people who believe that manatees are destroying civilization.
Even though there is abundant evidence showing that humans endanger manatees and not vice versa, this hypothetical group continues to insist that manatees are a menace.
Imagine further that reporters are assigned to cover this group. But instead of including facts about manatees in their articles that would contradict the claims of this anti-manatee lobby, they don’t.
Instead, they quote someone who hates manatees, quote an environmentalist, and then as media critic Jay Rosen might say, just “leave it there.”
That would be a ridiculous dereliction of journalistic duty.
This is the kind of reporting you get when LGBTQ writers and reporters are cut out from mainstream media. It turns our everyday experiences into fodder for pundits, cranks, and transphobes. Phony or inconsequential organizations like “Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics” are elevated to legitimacy by publications who think their readers need to hear “both sides” of an issue, even when one side is composed of hatred. Many in mainstream print media have fallen into this sort of lazy both-sides-ism which ends up promoting the junk science and wild conspiracy theories of the anti-trans and larger anti-LGBTQ movements.
Je crois qu’on enseigne avec soin aux Blancs à ne pas reconnaître le privilège blanc, tout comme on enseigne aux hommes à ne pas reconnaître le privilège masculin.