Chloe talks about her year in rom com land over at Jezebel. A new collection of love poems by queer and trans poets called Glitter Tongue just launched. Over at the Nation, Katie remembers Dr. Stephen Levin , an activist and doctor. I’m interviewing lesbian fiction author Ellis Avery about her new book, The Last Nude , at Greenlight Books in [...]

Perhaps no surprise to anyone here that the two Senators also happen to be women. May I conjecture that being able to get pregnant makes you more sympathetic to the case for birth control access?

Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME) — both of whom have sponsored legislation  requiring insurers to offer contraception benefits in [...]

So obviously it’s Valentine’s Day. You’d have to be hiding in a cave, with no access to media or facebook, to be able to avoid it. And if you were in said cave, you wouldn’t be reading my blog post. Anyways, it’s Valentine’s Day and there is a lot to be said about the many many [...]

Today is Black HIV/AIDs Awareness Day. A good article about what’s behind the HIV/AIDs epidemic in the Black community. Some advice from Jezebel about preparing for a pelvic exam if you’re a sexual assault survivor. Republican Congressman thinks Onion story about Planned Parenthood is true . An article in the Yale Daily News covering my event where I talked about my experiences [...]

“Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” the court said. The ruling upheld a decision by retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who struck down the ballot measure in 2010 after holding an unprecedented trial on the [...]

From the AP :

An executive with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer charity has resigned after a dispute over funding for Planned Parenthood. The resignation came in a letter obtained by The Associated Press. Karen Handel (HAN’-duhl) announced her resignation as vice president for public policy in a letter to Komen officials Tuesday. Handel said [...]

Last week, the young undocumented woman pictured above, Yanelli Hernandez, was deported to Mexico. Her community rose up to fight the deportation, in light of the news that Yanelli was at risk of suicide (having one failed attempt) and that deportation put her mental health at serious risk. Despite the response in support of Yanelli, [...]

Pfizer recalled one million packages of birth control due to too low doses of hormone in the packages. Image of Iggy Pop via SlutWalk Toronto’s facebook page . Melissa Harris-Perry’s new MSNBC show , which will be self-titled, premieres on Sunday February 18th. “Seven LGBT African-Americans who changed the face of the gay community ” by Queerty. The Canadian Institute of Health Research [...]

The 2012 election season is now in full swing, and not just for the Presidential race. New York Democratic Senator Kristen Gillibrand was facing a challenge from Marc Cenedella, a Republican and founder of Ladders.com. He just pulled out of the race, according to New York Magazine :

Cenedella’s pulling out in the wake of an  Times article that [...]

Sad news for fans of women’s soccer today. After ongoing legal and financial troubles, the WPS announced that it will skip the 2012 season in an attempt to resolve the challenges and come back stronger in 2013. Maya wrote about these challenges over at Mother Jones in December , when the WPS narrowly avoided a shutdown. It’s obvious [...]

It’s February, and with that annual marker comes Black History Month . It’s such an important moment when the history of an entire community gets elevated, but also such a frustrating reminder of how every other month is white history month. When will get past this kind of marginalization? Despite this, it is good to be reminded [...]

http://youtu.be/fV8vB1BB2qc I was ten when this song came out. I remember it clearly, and how even at that age such a sexual song seeped into our elementary school lives. I still know all of the lyrics, basically by heart, and am compelled to belt out to it every time it happens to play (aka every [...]

I’ve followed Sins Invalid for a few years now, and always lamented that I haven’t been in Bay Area during their yearly performance. They are:

Sins Invalid is a San Francisco/Bay Area based performance project that celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists. Since 2006, our performances have explored themes of [...]

http://youtu.be/fV8vB1BB2qc I was ten when this song came out. I remember it clearly, and how even at that age such a sexual song seeped into our elementary school lives. I still know all of the lyrics, basically by heart, and am compelled to belt out to it every time it happens to play (aka every [...]

So I’m kind of cheating on this one, because I haven’t actually read Hanne Blank ‘s new book, Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality . But I know her work, and I know how fabulously important this topic is, so I’m endorsing it sight unseen. A recent interview with Hanne in Salon gives a flavor of what the book [...]

I know first-hand how extremely difficult it is for survivors to literally open their mouths and speak those dreadful, shocking words: “I was sexually abused.” But I believe that childhood sexual abuse continues to be perpetrated upon young victims because it is an “invisible” offense.I have come to the conclusion that the only way to eradicate [...]