Sex and gender

within reach: THe transgender community fights for healthcare—Harper's

"On a balmy day last spring, Connor Chase sat on a red couch in the waiting room of a medical clinic in Columbus, Ohio, and watched the traffic on the street. His bleached-blond hair fell into his eyes as he scrolled through his phone to distract himself. Waiting to see Mimi Rivard, a nurse practitioner, was making Chase nervous: it would be the first time he would tell a medical professional that he was transgender."

The Girl King of Boylesque—Hazlitt

"A classically trained dancer with a sweet, expressive face, Lou Henry Hoover is one of the most well-loved personas in boylesque—burlesque strip shows starring male-identified performers, sometimes in drag but typically not—and also one of the most unusual. Lou is the drag persona of Ricki Mason a person who feels female (albeit what she calls 'a real peacock of a butch') in her day-to-day life and male when dancing (and stripping) onstage."

Gay Men in Homophobic Countries Turn to Controversial U.S. Groups for Help—TakePart

"By the time Albert was a teenager, he knew he liked the boys at his boarding school much more than the girls. Growing up a devout Catholic in Nigeria, he hadn’t even learned about sex between men and women, and he’d never heard the word 'homosexual.'"

‘Cat Knows How to Ignore Men’: A Brief History of Lesbian Cat Ladies—New York Magazine

"Adoration of cats is one of the most enduring lesbian clichés out there. These women mention their cats by name in their work bios and write poetry from their cats’ perspective. Their cats sign their holiday cards. They are lesbian cat lovers, an often disturbing, sometimes endearing, caricature of women who love these pets almost as much as each other — and infinitely more than they love anyone else."

Ladies In The Streets: Before Stonewall, Transgender Uprising Changed Lives—NPR

"It was after the bars had closed and well into the pre-dawn hours of an August morning in 1966 when San Francisco cops were in Gene Compton's cafeteria again. They were arresting drag queens, trans women and gay hustlers who had been sitting for hours, eating and gossiping and coming down from their highs with the help of 60-cent cups of coffee."

The Gay Gene Won't Save Us—Vice

"The idea that people are born gay, or that homosexual desire is genetic, comes up most frequently as an argument against discrimination or oppressive laws targeting LGBT people. To those who believe that same-sex desire is a choice, or a deficiency, the 'gay gene' theory suggests these feelings aren't our fault. If we can't help our same-sex attractions, and if we were born this way, it's certainly unfair to punish us for them—no matter how personally off-putting you find our sex lives. For many people, however, being gay is not a biological decree."

The Right-Wing War on a Transgender Girl Scout—Mother Jones

Why a fight to exclude a 7-year-old could mean no Thin Mints for you.

How a Bible-Belt Evangelical Church Embraced Gay Rights—TakePart

In a conservative Nashville suburb, this church is openly embracing LGBT people.

The History of Lesbian Bars—broadly

"Over the past 100 years, women have pursued the company of other women through speakeasies, apartment parties, butch-femme dives, lesbian separatist lounges, and queer dance nights. The slim historical record can hardly tell the whole story. These accounts show lesbian bar life has been as complicated, fraught, and changing as the identities and communities it served."

Clicking the Bean: The History of the Internet's Most Popular Lesbian Blog—Broadly

"It's been 22 years since a New York magazine cover of a brooding k.d. lang challenged America to embrace 'Lesbian Chic.' Today we have lesbian mayors, TV stars, mothers, and CEOs. We have Ellen. But the everyday nuances of lesbian women's lives remain largely invisible in mainstream media. This is why we also have Autostraddle—an online publication exclusively written by and for queer women. Although the site receives around four million pageviews a month according to its founder, few outside the queer community—even heterosexual women with asymmetrical haircuts—know about the site."

This Pill Prevents HIV, So Why Are So Many Women Still Being Infected?—TakePart

A sex-positive advocate breaks down why she’s taking PrEP.