Eric Garner was killed by the people who should have helped him, but those representing his murderer are blaming his fatness. This essay ...
Main Content
Race
Within a White Supremacist System, Eric Garner’s True Crime Was Being Fat
What It’s Like Being a Black Woman in the Legal Cannabis Industry
It's the fastest growing industry in the country, but am I profiting from an industry that is doing nothing positive for my community? By ...
Body Politics
Robbie Tripp Put the Final Nail in Body Positivity’s Coffin With His ‘Chubby Sexy’ Music Video
In “Chubby Sexy,” Tripp capitalizes on his wife’s “thickness” while using a poor approximation of AAVE to deliver heavy-handed fat jokes. By ...
How Postpartum Bodies Are Affected By Fatphobia
Being pregnant is complicated and societal standards for postpartum bodies can breed parent to child resentment. Parents struggling with image ...
LGBTQ+
Taylor Swift ‘Embraces’ LGBTQ People While Ignoring Her Nazi Fanboys
She may be trying to become the next queen of the gays, but Swift will remain an erstwhile “Aryan goddess” until she forcefully proves otherwise. ...
Non-Binary People Share Their Self-Care Tips
For trans and non-binary people, self-care starts with finding your environment, your home. When it comes to self-care, finding sources ...
Culture
The Magic of ‘Fast Color’ and Everything It Is Up Against
“Fast Color” is a welcomed far cry from the status quo. This review contains minor spoilers for “Fast Color” and a brief interview with ...
In ‘Booksmart,’ The Pussy Hats Come Home to Roost
In 'Booksmart' the characters of color are flattened and serve purely as plot devices for the white leads. By Noor Al-Sibai If you read ...
More
Prison Abolition is a Key Component of Reproductive Freedom
The prison industrial complex looms large as one of the single biggest institutions which perpetuate and exacerbate unequal access to reproductive care. “From forced sterilization to family separation, the ...
As Gay Marriage is Legalized in Taiwan, Trans People Continue to Face Violence Across Asia
Marriage is not by any stretch of the imagination a barometer of progress for the majority of queer and trans people. This article contains mentions of transphobia and transphobic violence Last week, Taiwan ...
Lena Waithe and the Obligations of Leadership
This has been a teachable moment for Waithe but I regret greatly that Tiffany Boone and Ayanna Floyd’s bodies, minds and safety were the sites for her lessons. This article has been re-published with permission ...
Reproductive Control is About Far More Than “Women’s Bodies”
Insisting that this is only about "women's bodies" erases a whole host of other things that abortion rights are inherently about. This essay contains mention on r/pe and some discussion of reproductive and state ...
Gentrification: Rich Black People Pushing Out Poor Black Folks Won’t Solve Anything
Gentrification is, in fact, a structural and cultural phenomenon that specifically and disproportionately targets low-income Black communities. April 26 was the reopening of New York’s Webster Hall. It was also ...
#QueerCripRollCall Helped Me Feel Seen By The People I am Kindred to
Seeing Black disabled people affirming their identities, practicing radical transparency, gives me permission to move in my full selfhood. By Aurielle Marie “I’m curating a show for disabled poets, and I think ...
‘Pleasure Activism’ Delves Into The Politics of Sex and Desire
adrienne maree brown’s "Pleasure Activism" offers its readers so much to think about and grapple with. by Josie Pickens Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good is a collection of essays, ...
The Fight Against Reproductive Rights Targets the Most Marginalized People—Here is How You Can Help
Those disproportionately targeted by state violence for autonomy over their own bodies are fighting for reproductive rights and have been for a long time. “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle ...
My Vow of Celibacy Helped Me Find Sexual Liberation
My sexual accessibility has never been up to me, and this was a crucial and painful epiphany to have. Content Warning: this essay mentions depression and instances of sexual coercion. It's not that I haven't ...
The Whitney Museum’s Biennial Silence and Its Culture of Oppression
The Whitney Museum chooses silence in an effort to displace, downplay, and negate valid public outrage regarding their policies, ethics and leadership. By Jamara Wakefield May 17th marked the start of the ...
Daenerys Was Always A Narcissistic, Power-Hungry Colonizer
Dany’s descent into genocidal horror was an undeveloped turn of events, not an undeserved one. By Nylah Burton This essay contains spoilers for HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and discussion of r/pe On the latest ...
Title IX is Harming Transgender Youth: Here’s What We Can Do
If our youth don’t feel safe in our society, then what kind of society are we? According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, suicide rates and tendencies for TGNC youth are at ...
Blackness is Heavy: Attending A Conversation Between Kiese Laymon and Tressie McMillan Cottom
Kiese and Tressie both wrote for, to, and about those of us who carry Blackness with us everywhere we go. The thin white woman beside me folds her legs all the way up and gathers her knees to her chest. ...
30 Tips from Trans and Gender Nonconforming People on How Cisgender Folks Can Be Better Allies
In understanding the way power dynamics work in favor of cisgender people, those who are allies for the TGNC community should take care to better understand the ways in which they can support us. Navigating my ...
Alyssa Milano’s Call for a Sex Strike is Peak White Feminism
How does it help people who need safe access to abortion to further limit our sexual autonomy? There is a constant, unrelenting war against women, LGBTQ+ folks and Black, indigenous and people of color, the poor ...
On Black Widow and The Expendability of Childless Women
Natasha’s “sacrifice” sends the detestable message that the only value that childless women have to our larger society is in death. This essay contains spoilers for Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame and previous films ...
Why We Need To Free Black Mamas for Mother’s Day and Beyond
America’s criminal justice system is one that continually targets and disrupts the lives of Black mamas and caregivers everywhere. By Gloria Oladipo Black mothers in the United States are constantly under ...
The Birth of Baby Sussex Isn’t The Promise of a ‘New World’ Free of Racism
Baby Sussex is certainly important in terms representation and symbolism, but we have to reckon with the idea that representation alone isn’t anything more than the visibility of a few individuals. Monday ...
I Am Tired of Overcoming Trauma: Does Healing Exist For Queer People of Color?
It seems likely that “overcoming” is a continued exercise without any end in sight and that the exhaustion from it is a part of our lives and our DNA. TW/CW: discussion of depression, suicidal ideation and ...
Fat People Must Become a Priority to the Left
Fat folks carry the weight of the work in these spaces while our bodies and material realities are continually othered and written off. I am a communist. More specifically, I am an ecosocialist. And while I do ...
Wear Your Voice Presents: Summer of Sex — Call for Submissions
We want to explore the myriad of ways QTBIPOC experience sex and attraction. “Not everyone experiences sex and the things surrounding it in the same way, for various reasons. Some of those reasons might include ...
What Gender Is My Brain? The Dangerous Phrenology of “Brain Sex”
History raises cause for concern about the stakes associated with relying upon brain imaging to dictate the source of transgender identity. By Alex Verman When POSE actress Indya Moore tweeted about a ...
What Olivia Munn and Lizzo Get Wrong About Art Criticism
The reality is that celebrity careers rely on the expertise of critics. On Thursday, Olivia Munn tweeted two pages of a response she had in reaction to the fashion site, Go Fug Yourself, run by Heather Cocks and ...
How Thanos Fits Into Real-World Myths of Overpopulation and Scarcity
The Marvel Cinematic Universe may be a fantasy, but it is always worth it to analyze the ways in which media narratives align with, highlight, and bring into question the dynamics of our reality. “Overpopulation ...
‘Women and Femmes’ Is Not As Inclusive As We Want It To Be
It needs to be understood that this fight isn't about a "battle of the sexes" but about revolutionizing our understanding of gender structures. By Danny Reneè It's no surprise, in an age where we spend so ...
TIME Magazine and the Process of Revictimization
The simple act of featuring both Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh within the same pages shows how unwilling society is to dismantle r/pe culture. By Anuhya Bobba This essay contains mentions of r/pe, ...
The Unbearable Weight of Fatphobia: A Conversation with Samantha Irby
"I don't wanna have to teach a lesson on Health At Every Size just to get through every conversation in my day. I'm just trying to live my life.” This interview contains spoilers for season one of Hulu's “Shrill” ...
Five Non-Binary People On Their Favorite Parts of Transitioning
Even within the LGBTQIA community, non-binary issues are largely misunderstood, or ignored altogether. “There were days I felt like a girl and days I felt like a boy, and those days wouldn't always correspond ...
Black Youth Project 100 Launches Campaign Against Gender-Based Violence
Black women, girls, gender non conforming people and femme folk need options beyond the police when dealing with gender-based violence. This essay contains discussions of sexual violence. On April 8, the ...
The Caste System is the Biggest Hindrance to the Feminist Movement in India
It is important for us to recognize those who have been victims of the caste system and strive to uplift them. By Jhilam Gangopadhyay TW: mentions of sexual assault in this article The majority of India is ...
You Haven’t Seen What Arlan Hamilton is Capable of Yet
“Who I work for, who I answer to is that Black woman in the back, who I need to reach with my voice.” You may have already heard of LA-based trailblazer Arlan Hamilton, the founder of boutique venture firm ...
Lori Lightfoot and the Limits of Representation
Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago makes a staunch commitment to the values of her predecessor: the destruction of Black and Brown communities and the hoarding of wealth for Chicago’s 1%. By Gloria Oladipo I wish I were ...
It’s More Than A Check: Understanding Reparations
The reparations movement is not a new one, and conversation around reparations aren't either. In recent news, there has been a lot of talk about reparations from U.S. politicians. From Bernie Sanders and ...
The Transgender and Khawaja Sira Communities: Shared Struggles and Tensions
The issues of the Transgender and Khawaja Sira communities within Pakistan today may be similar, but they are both different communities in their own right. By Manaal Farooqi Conversations about transgender ...
What ‘One Day At A Time’ Meant for the Latinx Family in Media
"One Day At A Time" gave viewers an ode to Latinx women in a way that no other show had. By Lory Martinez This month, Netflix announced the cancellation of critically acclaimed series “One Day at A Time” ...
I Am What They Fear: Healing From Eating Disorders While Fat
I could understand that we share an illness that makes us fear food and desire thinness, but the realities of a fat girl with an eating disorder and a thin girl with an eating disorder are so far apart, it’s like a ...
Florida Lawmakers Are Working Hard to Bring Back Racist Poll Taxes
Aiming to mitigate the impact of a new felon enfranchisement measure, Republican lawmakers are turning to Jim Crow like policies. Republicans typically don't like taxes, unless they’re poll taxes. Last week a ...
The Brilliance of Lupita Nyong’o and Black Womxnhood in ‘Us’
Adelaide's fight feels like a reflection of the stories of countless Black womxn, both known and unknown to me. This essay contains spoilers for “Us” Lupita Nyong'o is the best part of Jordan Peele's latest ...
Queer Black Muslim Women Are Still Kept Out Of The LGBT+ Community
Our bodies are all read within social and political contexts. But, some of us are never read as anything beyond bodies. By Vanessa Taylor “Thank you for coming,” a white person told me as they eagerly shook my ...
KNOW HER NAME: Cheryl L. Bedford is Changing Hollywood for Women of Color
“We are the only ones who elevate everyone.” Opportunities for women of color in film and entertainment are severely limited. The status quo for Black women in Hollywood reflects their realities across ...
