Category: Sexual Orientation

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I’m Black, Queer, and Polyamorous

— Why Does That Matter to My Doctors?

I deserve the same health care as you.

By Gabrielle Smith

I’m Black, queer, and polyamorous. These things shouldn’t affect my quality of health care but, unfortunately, they do. Because my life is labeled as “alternative,” I run into endless stigma at the doctor’s office.

I’ve been slut-shamed when seeking birth control. I’ve been scrutinized for my non-monogamous lifestyle. I’ve been side-eyed when I mention I have sex with women and men. I can’t donate blood because I have sex with queer men. So often my concerns have been silenced because doctors don’t listen to Black women. And don’t get me started on how difficult it was to find a therapist who took my insurance and also didn’t discriminate against me.

So when it comes to casting my ballot, you best believe I’m paying attention to a candidate’s health care policy. President Donald Trump has failed LGBTQ Americans in that respect — and in so many other ways. The current administration imposed a ban on transgender folks serving in the military. It rolled back protections within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), ones that previously banned the discrimination of LGBTQ couples seeking adoption. And lest we forget, it also rescinded Obama-era guidance on how schools should treat transgender students’ bathroom usage.

In terms of health care, the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010 by the Obama administration, was a landmark victory for so many. It insured and extended coverage for 20 million Americans and also clarified and extended protections for the LGBT community. One study found that after the ACA was implemented, the rate of uninsured LGB adults decreased significantly, dropping from 19 percent in 2013 to 10 percent in 2016.

Ever since the ACA passed, though, the Republican party has been trying to tear it down. Most recently, they’ve urged the Supreme Court to declare the bill unconstitutional. Bottom line: Under the Trump administration, we’ve seen a litany of changes in health care legislation that specifically, and negatively, affects folks in the LGBTQ community.

LGBTQ Folks Are Discriminated Against, Underinsured, and More Often Ill

Unsurprisingly, marginalized people are marginalized. That includes the LGBTQ community — an estimated 11 million U.S. adults, according to a 2018 Gallup report.

In May 2018, the Kaiser Family Foundation (a non-partisan, non-profit organization focused on analyzing national health issues) released a comprehensive report on the state of health and access within the community, and found that, overall, LGBTQ folks are more likely to face challenges finding adequate care and to experience physical health issues, chronic conditions, and early onset of disability. That’s not all. They also found: LGBTQ folks are two and a half times more likely to have depression, anxiety, or substance abuse disorders; almost one in six bisexual women reported experiencing “serious psychological distress” in the past 30 days, with a little over a quarter having considered suicide; bisexual adults are significantly less likely to have adequate access to care compared to other sexual orientations; and almost half of transgender folks postponed medical care because they couldn’t afford it.

In addition, the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, released a research brief on the status of LGBTQ folks and COVID-19. It found that they’re more likely to work in at-risk environments such as food service (see: the cute blue-haired barista at your local coffee shop who knows your order by heart, or me, the bartender who asks if you want to do a shot together). LGBTQ folks are also more likely to be poorer than those of other sexualities, and as a result not be able to afford regular medical care.

Finding adequate care goes beyond considering financial means — it includes navigating a minefield of discrimination. In a survey conducted by Lambda Legal (an LGBT legal and advocacy organization), 56 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual respondents reported instances of providers denying care, using harsh language, or blaming their sexual orientation or gender identity as the cause of an illness; that jumps to 70 percent for transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals.

It’s pretty clear: Queer folks are far more likely to need the healthcare system and are more likely to be failed by it. While the ACA helped millions of Americans, for so many queer folks, it still didn’t do enough.

Attacks On LGBTQ Protection via Section 1557

The ACA was one step forward for LGBTQ health care, but the Trump administration continues to go after its policies — most importantly, those that prevent medical discrimination.

For folks in the LGBTQ community, one of the most important changes from the ACA was that Section 1557 added language to include gender identity and sexuality toward the protected class of “sex.” This is significant because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared it unlawful to discriminate against people on the basis of sex, and thus, adding gender identity and sexuality to the definition of sex protects LGBTQ folks from discrimination as well. It specifically addressed important aspects of care, such as: health care providers must treat individuals consistent with their gender identity, they cannot deny sex-specific treatment due to gender identity (ex: trans men cannot be denied care for HPV or ovarian cancer, etc.), and the explicit exclusion of trans-affirming care (ex: hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgeries) is considered discriminatory.

So, you know, treat people like people. Make sure they don’t die and whatnot. While it seems wild to think that doctors would deny life-saving health care like prostate exams for trans-feminine individuals… some folks would rather see trans folk die. In these cases, a transgender person would need to find care from alternative providers. While this sounds simple, they risk having to go out-of-network or go without.

The HSS, under President Trump, eliminated these protections and others related to LGBT care, which means trouble for queer folks all around. The Supreme Court and a few district courts have sought to uphold some of these protections or block the new regulations, but the chipping away at these protections allows room for anti-queer action by local, state and federal governments, as well as by individual medical providers.

This isn’t the only way the current administration has undermined the ACA, and thus, put marginalized folks at risk. It also passed a ruling to allow “short-term health insurance,” which could leave those faced with sudden health issues to deal with massive medical bills. Short-term health insurance allows people to feel like they have coverage, but in reality, these plans are allowed to bypass ACA requirements like covering pre-existing conditions. This is notable not only because of the community’s predisposition to chronic illness but also because HIV is an especially large concern in the LGBTQ population.

In the 2020 election, we must hold leaders accountable. Vice President Biden says he plans to uphold the Affordable Care Act if elected — and also promises to build on the act and make it even more accessible, according to his campaign. He told NBC News he wants to create a public insurance option and allow Americans to keep their private insurance if they choose, as well as cap medication prices and out-of-pocket costs.

If that’s the case, members of my community will be hoping for the resolution of other health care hurdles as well. Many insurance providers still do not cover facial feminization (cosmetic procedures to affirm gender) for trans-feminine individuals. This can be lifesaving medical care considering the rate at which trans women are murdered; allowing someone to affirm their gender via procedures like this not only allows them to outwardly present the way they identify, but also helps protect them from hate crimes or acts of intolerance. Not to mention, the intersection of religious freedom and LGBTQ rights is consistently used as justification to discriminate against queer folk. In 2018, the current administration created an office of “Conscience and Religious Freedom” within the HHS, which gives individual people, providers, and health care entities more leeway to discriminate against LGBTQ people based on religious beliefs.

Maybe these issues don’t affect you. Maybe you could care less. But think about your loved ones and peers, as well as your fellow Americans. If this country is as great as it’s proclaimed to be, shouldn’t everyone feel comfortable walking into a doctor’s office? Imagine your child couldn’t receive a pap smear because of who they date or how they identify. Then imagine your child gets HPV, the most commonly transmitted STI, which can become cancerous without care. Or imagine your child was like me, faced with the knowledge that an ex-boyfriend’s partner received an abnormal pap (meaning he could have then transmitted potentially-cancerous HPV to me), but unable to receive care due to lack of insurance. This shouldn’t be the reality. Yet, it prevails.

Advocating for equality is a frustrating, exhausting, and terrifying fight. I dream of the day I can walk into my doctor’s office and not fear the details of my sex life will impact the quality of my treatment. Until then, I’m looking for rainbows on the door of my doctor’s office and looking toward this election for a glimmer of hope.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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“How lockdown helped me discover my sexuality”

For some, lockdown provided an important space to reflect on their sexuality and gender identity.

By El Hunt

What did you learn about yourself during lockdown? Besides discovering that I have a worryingly forensic knowledge of Sex and the City’s finest plot details and a surprising talent for line-dancing, I also twigged how much I was on guard in pre-COVID times. The truth is LGBTQ+ people have been staying alert long before it became a lurid yellow and green slogan, and when life began slowly inching back towards something that more closely resembles normality, I realised how exhausting it is.

Skipping the streets of Soho recently, visibly queer once again due to my quite staggering levels of pandemic-date-PDA, the homophobic comments, wolf-whistles and leery requests I unfondly remember from before the lockdown were back in full force. Before the pandemic, I was practically a professional when it came to shooting icy looks at men who swaggered up in the middle of dates to ask if they could “join in” or shoving my hand safely into my pocket after catching a stranger glaring at me holding hands with a woman – these daily interruptions were so routine that it was practically muscle memory. Now, it feels more jarring, because for a few blissful months I’d mostly forgotten that homophobia even existed.

I’m lucky enough to share a flat with a fellow queer, and so my lockdown was completely free of the anxiety that comes with encountering rogue bigots in everyday life. Having that extra space surprised me. I thought I’d just knock together a few sourdough loaves, and puff my way through Couch to 5k with the help of Sophie Ellis Bextor’s greatest hits. Instead it ended up becoming an important place to experiment with how I wanted to express myself.

I’ve always preferred dressing like a especially garish character from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 and shopping in the men’s section. But in the past, I’ve deliberately toned it down honestly, to avoid drawing attention to myself. But during lockdown, I sort of stopped caring about what other people think. This was no doubt helped along by months without the pressure of being looked at by strangers. Plus, it’s given me more time to think more about what I actually want from relationships when this pandemic finally ends.

I’m not alone in going through this period of reflection and experimentation, either. For many queer people, it seems lockdown and the pandemic has given them to space and time to think about their identities.

“It gave me a chance to think about queer means for my gender identity”

says Alex*,32, from East London

For years, Alex has worked in diversity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ organisations and has long been vocal about standing up for other people and their experiences. Growing up in Yorkshire, “I always knew that I was attracted to everyone,” they say. None of the labels that people applied to Alex early on felt right and bi and lesbian didn’t fit. Then they heard the word queer, and thought, “that works for me.” Up until recently Alex had only considered queerness in terms of how it related to sexuality. “I never had a chance to think about what the word queer means for my gender identity,” they say. A couple of weeks ago they began using she/they pronouns.

“It was life without any kind of binary 9-to-5… or binary anything”

Alex has been living with their girlfriend during lockdown, “and that’s been a really supportive and safe space to have conversations and explore,” they say. “One day I put on my girlfriend’s dress and wandered around the house in that and it felt quite good actually! It’s only through being in the house that I’ve been able to not worry so much about it anymore. Besides, everyone’s queuing for Sainsbury’s in their slippers. Nobody’s going be looking at me in a dress.”

Alex reckons that stepping away the bustle of everyday London life – with its sardine-like commutes and endless pub trips – presented a rare opportunity. “It was life without any kind of binary 9-to-5, or binary anything,” they say. “It’s given me a chance to think about life without binary sexual orientation, or a binary gender. You can just be everything, anything or nothing and that’s OK.”

As the strictest restrictions have lifted, Alex has found it jarring experiencing homophobia for the first time in months. Recently a stranger shouted abuse when they were out on a walk with their girlfriend. “My brain has been able to rest from it. I wasn’t on high alert wondering whether we can walk down this street together. It feels a bit like I’ve taken back the time I’ve spent in the past being anxious and feeling edgy. I’ve used that energy to think more about myself.”

“I’ve finally realised who I am”

says Steffe, 34, from Huddersfield

For Steffe, a mum of three who lives in Huddersfield, lockdown has been a difficult journey. Before the pandemic hit, she worked as a nurse in the NHS, but was signed off from work just before the lockdown. Five months ago, her nine-year relationship with the father of her two youngest came to an end. They had been struggling to make things work, and in February they reached breaking point. Steffe proposed on a trip to London, and her ex said no. “I always thought marriage was what I wanted,” she says. “ I tried to put a plaster on my relationship.”

The upheaval led Steffe to reflect on what she actually wanted. “I’d been with a few girls before I got with my ex. I’d always wanted a threesome, but actually I think it was more about me wanting to be with a girl. Now I’ve started to think about what’s actually important, and what my core values are. And loving who you love – that’s a massive core value.”

“It has been a really hard time, with a lot of transitions.”

In lockdown, Steffe found space to experiment. She shaved her hair, and has been trying out different colours. Cut off from LGBTQ+ venues, lesbian accounts on TikTok became an important outlet where she could be herself. “I’ve not got any LGBTQ+ friends,” she says. “So I’m finding it really difficult in the pandemic. I want to have some fun but I’m stuck in straightville. It’s no fun there!”

When Pride came around in June, Steffe decided to come out on social media “I posted that I was bisexual, but to be honest I don’t know what I am at the moment,” she explains. I’m still on that journey. I don’t want to put a label on it.”

She doesn’t view her time in lockdown with rose-tinted glasses. “People say we’re all in the same boat, but really, we’re all in the same storm, in different boats. Some of the boats have a hole in,” she points out. “It has been a really hard time, with a lot of transitions. I had to really figure myself out. But I’ve had time to think, and I’ve finally realised who I am. I know that I can shape my own future now.”

“To feel safe in a space that isn’t your home is worth its weight in gold”

says Bec, 30, from Doncaster

At the beginning of this year, student Bec was just beginning to think more about their gender identity. Before the pandemic effectively bolted the doors of every club in the country shut, they would go to south London LGBTQ+ venue The Chateau almost every weekend. “Being in that space gave me a lot of confidence,” Bec says, “because I was around a lot of people I could see were like me. Not having that during lockdown has been really hard. To feel safe in a space that isn’t your home, that really is worth its weight in gold.”

Earlier this year, Bec lived with their sister and a queer friend in a flatshare in south London. At home and out at LGBTQ+ venues they felt safe, but also felt slightly wary towards other public spaces. “For ages I felt very uncomfortable in the clothes that I owned,” they explain, “but I didn’t know how to swan back into uni wearing something totally different. I think I was worried about feeling noticeable to people.” The extra space afforded by lockdown changed things, Bec says. “I’ve had a shield to be myself, for nobody else but me.” The earlier restrictions around meeting up also “opened up pockets of space,” to speak to friends one-on-one about their non-binary identity and using they/them pronouns.

Around a month ago, Bec ended up moving in with their parents in Doncaster – a financial choice because of the impact of the pandemic. “In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have chosen this,” they say. “My mum is White British, and my dad is Congolese. Culturally for my dad, gender isn’t spoken about that much within his immediate family. There’s a religious aspect with both of my parents as they’re Christians. And so there was an added layer of nervousness coming home.”

The first couple of weeks were uncomfortable. Their parents were inadvertently using the wrong pronouns, and Bec wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. Then their dad brought it up over dinner and noticed that they were “dressing very differently.”

“Once it did come up, he responded quite well,” Bec says. “He’s really trying and putting in some work. When he comes downstairs he usually says, ‘Hi girls’. The other morning he said, ‘Hi humans’ instead. We all had a laugh about that.”

Months on from the initial lockdown, our lives remain drastically different – and it’s taxing for many LGBTQ+ people being isolated from their community. Virtually every queer venue in the country remains closed, and any return to normality feels a long way away. But for some of us, perhaps this unexpected time away from the daily grind has also shown how restrictive “normal” life really was sometimes. Forget about the new normal – when all of this eventually blows over, I’m planning on focusing more on the new me.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Term ‘Sexual Preference’ Is Outdated, Offensive, and Incorrect

By Erin Bunch

During Tuesday’s confirmation hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump‘s latest nominee to the Supreme Court, utilized the term “sexual preference” in discussions surrounding LGTBQ+ discrimination. Specifically, she stated that she “would not discriminate on basis of sexual preference” if confirmed.

While Barrett, 47, is not alone in deploying this phrase to describe different types of attraction (physical, romantic, or emotional), it is an antiquated term; in fact, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has been recommending its eradication from our vocabularies for at least 20 years.

“Sexual preference” is not just old-school lingo, either. “It’s offensive because it’s used by anti-LGBTQ+ activists to suggest that being gay, lesbian, or bisexual is voluntary or a choice and therefore ‘curable,’ like through debunked conversion therapy, which actively harms LGBTQ+ people and should be banned everywhere,” says Barbara Simon, head of news and campaigns at GLAAD. According to research, more than 700,000 people in the LGTBQ+ have been subjected to this form of abuse. It is not condoned by any major medical organization, and no studies have shown it to be effective in changing sexual orientation.

Use of the term “sexual preference” is a microaggression that gaslights the lived reality of LGBTQ+ folks while endangering their physical and mental wellbeing. The accepted phrase to use instead, according to GLAAD, is “sexual orientation” or simply “orientation.”

If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community and want to correct someone who’s used this term, Simon recommends the following template: “”Sexual preference’ is not a thing. What I think you mean is ‘sexual orientation,’ and it’s a scientifically accurate term for a person’s enduring physical, romantic, and emotional attraction to members of the same-sex, or if you are straight, to members of the opposite sex (being straight is a sexual orientation too!). Sexual ‘preference’ is an inaccurate, outdated, offensive term. Being gay is simply how I’m oriented and who I happily am.’”

Simon also points out that Barrett does indeed have a personal history of discrimination based on sexual orientation—as lawyer and Well+Good contributor Jill Filipovic tweeted Tuesday, and as evidenced by Barrett’s views on marriage for same-sex couples and gender identity. While this doesn’t necessarily mean she would rule according to her personal values as a Supreme Court justice, this history—and the judge’s use of a discriminatory term while on the most important public stage of her life—does not exactly paint her as an LGBTQ+ ally that, if appointed, will allow the LGBTQ+ community to rest easy in the knowledge that their rights will continue to be expanded or protected.

After all, Barrett is a lawyer and a judge and as such, her words are not accidentally spoken but rather carefully chosen. It’s important to hear them as they are intended to be heard.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Biphobia Is Killing the ‘B’ in LGBTQ. Literally

Bisexual people have poorer mental, physical and sexual health than either heterosexuals or homosexuals. We explore why.

by Suryatapa Mukherjee

Bisexual+ people often feel like the protagonist of the Robert Frost poem The Road Not Taken. It feels like we are standing at a fork in the road, with two paths before us, one leading to the life of a heterosexual, the other taking us to the life of a homosexual. We are told this multiple times by our family, our friends, the queer community and mainstream society. We must make a choice, they say. But this notion of “choice” is what I believe lies at the root of all our problems. It is a false dilemma.

Both of these paths are traps.

Bisexuality+ is an umbrella term inclusive of anyone who experiences attraction to more than one gender. And no, it does not mean “50 percent gay and 50 percent straight” as many still believe. To say that bisexuality+ implies a choice, is to do a great disservice to the legacy of Chinnu Sulfikar whose death just some months ago brought the practice of conversion therapy to mainstream conversation. Her parents forced her into conversion therapy—a dangerous, illegal and inhuman practice that targets LGBTQ youth and seeks to change their sexual or gender identities—after she came out to them as bisexual.

I myself tried to make that “choice” and pretended to be straight for as long as I could. But that was essentially like inflicting emotional violence on myself. The pain of living a lie reached a crescendo and I eventually came out to my teenage boyfriend amid sobs. Even though my path to self-acceptance was paved with anxiety and trauma, I internalised the message that I had some sort of privilege over other queer people, because I could “go back” to the straight life.

There are bisexual+ people who come to the queer community finally expecting acceptance and understanding. In its place though, they often are faced with biphobia—a dislike or prejudice against bisexual people. Biphobia can range from invalidating the legitimacy of bisexuality as a real sexual orientation, stereotyping bisexual people, to perpetrating physical and sexual violence against them. The biphobia comes from both, straight people who think bisexuality is just an excuse for “keeping options open”, and from the queer community who often think we are “queer enough” only if we’re in same-sex relationships. In a way then, many bisexual people step out of the straight closest and find themselves to then be in a gay closet.

It is this double discrimination from both homosexuals and heterosexuals that’s often the cause for bisexual people’s poor mental health. A study found that 77.6 percent of bisexuals had contemplated suicide as compared to 11.7 percent of the general population.

Biphobia usually begins with our mind but it gradually wreaks havoc over our body. Bisexual+ people suffer more often from gastrointestinal problems, arthritis, and obesity than monosexuals. Additionally, bisexual+ men are less likely than gay men to be screened for HIV which could lead to undiagnosed or accidental transmission. The social isolation and psychological distress caused by biphobia leads people to engage in sexually risky behaviours, substance use and the avoidance of prevention services, thus increasing HIV/STI risk.

“I always pick and choose different parts of myself I can share with different people,” says Harjeet*, an HIV+ divorced man, who tells me he has never completely been himself with anyone. “I never told my ex-wife that I am bisexual+. I didn’t want to lose her because of it.” Harjeet is open about his sexuality with his gay friends but they are not exactly supportive. “They say that bisexuals just want a ‘hole’. They say I must pick a side.” When he had tested positive for HIV back in 2018, he’d seriously contemplated suicide. Thankfully, the HIV+ community rallied alongside him and made him believe he can have a long, healthy life.

Part of the reason behind bisexual people suffering from the laundry list of physical and mental ailments is also “minority stress”—the excess stress that people from stigmatised social categories experience as a result of their social position. It is the reason lesbian and bisexual+ women are 27 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than heterosexual women.

However, such research does not include non-binary and transgender people. “Quite a few times, female friends distance themselves from me after I say that I’m pansexual,” says Yasha Juneja, a 25-year-old non-binary person with diabetes. “It doesn’t matter if I say they are not my type. It’s as if they are so straight that even being close to a non-straight person would stain them.” Peer rejection has stuck with Juneja like a thorn in their side. Such panphobia, along with gender dysphoria, has deeply harmed their mental health, and Juneja too has struggled with suicidal thoughts.

When a bisexual+ person is transgender, their risk for poor health—often resulting from substance use, depression and suicidal thoughts—rises higher. “Growing up, I battled an eating disorder along with depression and suicidal thoughts,” says Daman Halder, a pansexual trans man who is hurt more by transphobia than panphobia. However, even within the transgender community, his sexuality is not always welcome. “At a meeting of activists, a trans woman had asked me about my romantic interests. When I came out as pansexual, she reacted with shock, saying, ‘You’re a man so you should act like a man. Why do you want to fluctuate?’”

It is interesting how biphobia morphs with the intersectionalities of its target’s identity. Noor*, like many bisexual+ women, says that straight men think of threesomes when she comes out to them. Data shows the grim consequence of this stereotype. Nearly half of all bisexual+ women experience rape and three-quarters experience sexual violence. Researchers say its cause is the hypersexualisation of bisexual+ women, along with biphobia.

One of the reasons Noor’s ex, a lesbian, left her was her sexual orientation. “She said bisexual+ women can’t be trusted and they ultimately choose men due to familial pressure,” Noor says. Her ex preferred a lesbian over her. Noor is prone to self-harm, and sees a therapist to manage her anxiety.

All of these experiences lead to an inner turmoil and internalised biphobia. Harjeet is one of many who’d like to wish his bisexuality+ away. “I think bisexuality is the problem, not biphobia,” he says to me at the end of our conversation. “If I wasn’t bisexual, I’d be able to choose one path.”

I ask Harjeet to imagine a third road in the woods. What if he didn’t have to perform a “gay side” with his gay friends and a “straight side” with his straight family? He pauses. When Harjeet was a teenager, his grandfather had caught him with a boy on their terrace. The incident had inspired such shame in him that he had run a high fever back then. “Maybe if my grandfather had not scolded me, I wouldn’t have felt that shame. Maybe I would’ve told my ex-wife about my sexuality.” Harjeet tells me how this is the first time he has shared all parts of his story with someone, and that this has been therapeutic for him too. “Rejection teaches you to lie,” he tells me. “Rejection teaches you to reject yourself.”

*Names changed for anonymity

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Are Not The Same

by Dyuti Gupta

There are a lot of people out there who are confused as to how sexual orientation is different from gender identity, myself having been one of them for the longest time. It’s a common misconception that both are connected when they are really not. In fact, the meanings of these two terms don’t even intersect at any given point. For example, many people automatically assume that if someone is a transgender person, they must also be gay. However, that is not the case. So what exactly is the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation?

What Is Gender Identity?

According to the Human Rights Campaign, gender identity is defined as the “innermost concept of self as male, female, a combination of both or neither–how individuals perceive themselves and accordingly, what they call themselves.” In layman language, gender identity is one’s internal and personal sense of being a female, male or as someone outside of that binary. There are more than a dozen of genders, outside of just man or woman, that people can identify with. One can be gender-neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these. People’s gender identity can mirror what they were assigned at birth, or be entirely different. And accordingly, they might or might not want to be referred to with certain pronouns—it all really depends on what they identify as.

Usually, cisgender is the umbrella term used to describe people whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their chromosomal and phenotypic sex, while transgender is the larger umbrella term used to describe people whose sense of personal identity does not correspond with the sex assigned to them at birth.

What Is Sexual Orientation?

According to the Human Rights Campaign, sexual orientation is defined as the “inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to other people.” In simpler terms, it’s who one is interested in dating and being intimate with. A person might identify as straight, bisexual, pansexual, queer, asexual or use a host of other words that reflect their capacity to be attracted to more than one sex or gender or to not feel sexual attraction at all. Sexuality is a complex phenomenon and attraction can manifest very differently for different people. This emerging language illuminates a complex world in which simple either/or designations such as gay or straight are inadequate. Categories are commonly used to understand our attractions, but they aren’t always inclusive of the vast variety of expression that makes up human sexuality. Hence, one would notice that the language about sexuality is constantly evolving.

The Difference

Perhaps no one can put the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity in simpler terms than the Youtuber Brendan Jordan who identifies as gender fluid: “[Sexual Orientaion] is who you go to bed with, but gender identity is who you go to bed as.” Sexual orientation really doesn’t have anything to do with gender. Therefore, the next time you meet someone who identifies outside the binary system, don’t ask questions like, “because you don’t identify as a female, does that mean that you’re gay?” “How can you be straight when you identify as a transgender?”

People having different sexual orientations, i.e. who are straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, etc., are cisgenders if they identify themselves as the birth sex assigned to them. On the other hand, transgender people can be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and so on. For example, a person who has transitioned from the gender identity of a male to a female and is attracted solely to men would typically identify as straight as far as their sexual orientation is concerned. The truth is that both gender and sexual orientation are essential components of who we are, and how we live our lives. But even so, the two, in any scenario, are not the same, and that’s a crucial fact we need to remember.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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From Graysexual to Heteroflexible

– Here’s A Big List Of Sexualities In 2020

by Stephanie Barnes

When it comes to sexuality, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, which explains why there is already such a long list of terms to describe sexual orientation, with more popping up every day. For someone who is searching for the perfect word to describe their sexual desires, this could take them a step closer to finding sexual liberation. For others, these terms can be a little bit confusing, and that’s OK if you feel that way.

Most people are familiar with the widely recognized acronym LGBTQ+, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus anyone who doesn’t identify as straight but also doesn’t fit in under the definitions of the other letters either. But the acronym is really just the tip of the rainbow iceberg. Here’s everything you need to know about sexuality, plus a fuller list of some of the most common sexualities in 2020.

Sexuality is an umbrella term describing the parts of your identity that deal with how you present yourself to the world, who you love, and who you find yourself attracted to or not attracted to. According to sexologist Carol Queen, Ph.D., it’s the way a person feels and expresses their relationship to sex, desire, arousal, and eroticism.

“It can include a lot of varying elements (what kind of person you’d want to have sex with, specific preferences, and more), but often we use this term as shorthand for sexual orientation and the number of ways people may express both desire and identity,” she explains. She also points out, “Sexuality can be fluid in a person’s life, so its elements may change.”

How many sexualities are there?

There’s no definitive number of sexualities since new words are constantly being conceived and integrated into popular language as the way we talk about sexual orientation evolves. This isn’t to say that new types of sexuality are being “invented” out of the blue; rather, people are creating new language to describe nuances of sexual attraction and behavior that have always existed. These terms serve as a way for people to feel seen and find communities of like-minded people. They also help with describing one’s identity, communicating with others about what you look for in relationships, and establishing compatibility with potential partners.

While there is no finite number of sexual orientation types, there are a handful of terms that you’re likely to see more than others.

The term allosexual refers to anyone who experiences sexual attraction. Those who identify as allosexual can also identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, or any other orientation, because allosexuality isn’t linked to gender but simply attraction. This is as opposed to asexuality, described below.

Someone who is androsexual will find themselves sexually or emotionally attracted to folks on the more masculine side. For some people, this attraction has very little to do with biology; it’s more about having a masculine identity or gender presentation. Alternatively, some people also use the term androsexual to refer to attraction to any folks with penises, though still with a focus on people with more masculine presentations.

An asexual individual typically doesn’t experience sexual attraction to any gender. However, it is possible for an asexual being to be romantically attracted to people of other genders or the same gender, and some asexual people do have sex in certain circumstances.

Have you ever wished there were two of you so you could have sex with yourself? If you answer yes, then you might be autosexual, aka someone who is sexually attracted to themselves.

Bi-curious refers to someone who is looking to explore or has already begun exploring bisexuality. There’s some disagreement about whether this term has roots in biphobia, however.

Someone who is bisexual will likely find themselves romantically, sexually, or emotionally attracted to more than one gender. It can sometimes overlap with pansexuality, which is the attraction to people regardless of gender. (Here’s more on how to know if you’re pansexual, as opposed to bisexual.)

Closeted, also referred to as “in the closet,” refers to anyone who is a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, but they have yet to publicly acknowledge this truth. These people typically have good reasons to keep their sexual identity to themselves, such as for safety from an intolerant community or to avoid discrimination associated with being “out” of the closet. Some closeted people may or may never “come out.”

Demisexual falls on the asexual spectrum. It describes someone who only experiences sexual attraction to folks they already have established a strong romantic or emotional relationship with.

Some people describe themselves as sexually fluid. A person who is fluid experiences their sexuality or sexual identity as changing over time or in different contexts rather than having one finite way they experience attraction.

The word gay is used to describe someone who is sexually, romantically, or emotionally attracted to people of the same gender. In some cases, women who date other women prefer to use the word lesbian, while others opt to use queer.

Graysexual people are all about the gray area of the sexuality spectrum and tend to experience limited sexual attraction. This means they’ll rarely experience sexual attraction, and when they do, it’s usually not very intense.

Gynesexual people are attracted to women and folks with more feminine gender presentations, as opposed to androsexual people who are interested in the masculine. Alternatively, some people also use the term gynesexual to describe attraction to people with vaginas, breasts, and a more feminine physical presentation.

Heterosexual or straight refers to people who are only attracted, whether sexually, emotionally, or romantically, to people of the “opposite” gender—i.e., men who are attracted to women exclusively, or women who are attracted to men exclusively.

Heteroflexible or homoflexible

A heteroflexible person is mostly straight (heterosexual) though occasionally is attracted to the same gender or other genders. A homoflexible person likewise is mostly gay (homosexual) though occasionally is attracted to the “opposite” gender. For example, a homoflexible man might primarily date and sleep with men but occasionally date or sleep with a woman. Like bi-curiosity, there’s still ongoing debate over whether these terms are rooted in biphobia.

The term homosexual is a bit outdated, but it refers to anyone who is attracted to people of the same or a similar gender.

A lesbian is a woman who is mentally, physically, and emotionally attracted to other women. Some women who date women prefer to be called gay or queer. Some people who don’t identify as women but do have more feminine aspects to their gender—for example, a more feminine-leaning nonbinary person—might also use the term lesbian to describe themselves and their relationships with other feminine people.

Someone who identifies as pansexual experiences attraction to folks regardless of sex or gender identity.

The dictionary defines queer as something “odd, strange, or weird,” but the word has since been reclaimed and redefined. These days, queer is an umbrella term that is sometimes used to describe anyone within the LGBTQ+ community. The term also provides a sense of community for those who may not fit into one of the other categories specifically but also don’t identify as straight or cisgender. 

Someone who falls into the questioning category is someone who is questioning their current sexual identity and curious about exploring different aspects of sexuality or gender. For example, this could apply to someone who has always identified as a lesbian but is now wondering whether they’re also attracted to men.

You might be seeing this word used in social media and dating app bios more often these days. A sapiosexual person is someone whose attraction is based on intelligence rather than sex or gender.

Someone who is sex-repulsed is repulsed or disgusted by sex or sexual behavior. This person falls on the spectrum of asexuality.

Skoliosexual is one of the newer terms on the sexuality scene, and it refers to a person who is attracted to anyone who isn’t cisgender. This means a skoliosexual will usually find themselves drawn to people who are trans or nonbinary.

A spectrasexual is sexually or romantically attracted to a wide range of sexes, genders, and gender identities.

You might’ve heard the saying “Sexuality is a spectrum” before. The sexuality spectrum is the idea that all sexuality exists on a spectrum with binary “absolutes” on each end, explains sexologist Tanya M. Bass, Ph.D. The spectrum most often referenced is the Kinsey scale, which describes sexuality as existing on a spectrum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. Any individual can fall anywhere on this spectrum.

Here’s every stop on the Kinsey scale:

0 – Exclusively heterosexual

1 – Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual

2 – Predominantly heterosexual but more than incidentally homosexual

3 – Equally heterosexual and homosexual

4 – Predominantly homosexual but more than incidentally heterosexual

5 – Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual

6 – Exclusively homosexual

X – No socio-sexual contacts or reactions

Bass points out that there are other spectrums of identity as well, such as the gender spectrum, which views gender identity as existing on a spectrum from maleness to femaleness. Any individual can fall anywhere on this spectrum. Asexuality is considered another spectrum, where people can experience varying degrees of asexuality or fall somewhere on a spectrum from asexual to allosexual.

“Spectrums describe sexuality as fluid related to gender, orientation, attraction, and expression,” Bass explains. “It can often challenge the binary for both orientation, expression, and identity.”

Sexual orientation versus romantic orientation.

A person’s sexual orientation can sometimes be confused with their romantic orientation, but the two things aren’t quite the same. Your sexual orientation is linked to who you want to have sex (or some sort of erotic experience) with, while your romantic orientation refers to who you want to love or be in a relationship with.

“You can have sex without being in a relationship; you can be in a relationship without sex. So these things explain two elements of sexuality that can be teased apart or are always experienced together—depending on the person. And they don’t even need to match. Plenty of people fall in love with the other gender but like to have sex with people of their own gender, for example. And vice versa,” Queen explains.

The prefixes a-, bi-, pan-, hetero-, and homo- can all be attached to either element. For example, a biromantic asexual person might be someone who’s open to romantic partnerships with more than one gender, but they do not want sex in those relationships. Panromantic, biromantic, and aromantic are examples of other variations of romantic orientation.

When you put sexual and romantic orientation together, you learn more about the specifics of the person embracing the identities.

There’s a lot of nuance when it comes to sexual identity, which can be both exciting and overwhelming. Remember that these words aren’t meant to be prescriptive or frightening: They’re here to make your life simpler by making it easier for you to tell people who you are and what you want from your relationships. If you were searching for your word, we hope you’ll find yourself one step closer.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How prison and police discrimination affect Black sexual minority men’s health

by Rutgers University

Incarceration and police discrimination may contribute to HIV, depression and anxiety among Black gay, bisexual and other sexual minority men, according to a Rutgers led study.

The study, funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, examined associations between incarceration, and law enforcement discrimination and recent arrest with Black sexual mens’ psychological distress, risk for HIV and willingness to take pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention.

“Evidence suggests Black sexual minority men in the United States may face some of the highest rates of policing and incarceration in the world,” said lead author, Devin English, assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health. “Despite this, research examining the health impacts of the U.S. carceral system rarely focuses on their experiences. This study helps to address this gap.”

“We examined how incarceration and police discrimination, which have roots in enforcing White supremacy and societal heterosexism, are associated with some of the most pressing health crises among Black sexual minority men like depression, anxiety, and HIV,” English added.

The researchers surveyed 1,172 Black, gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men over the age of 16 from across the U.S. who reported behaviors that increased their risk for HIV over the previous six months. Participants reported on their incarceration history, experiences of police and law enforcement discrimination, anxiety and depression, sexual behavior, and willingness to take PrEP.

They found that 43 percent of study participants reported police discrimination within the previous year, which was most frequent among those with a history of incarceration. Respondents who faced high levels of police discrimination within the previous year also tended to show high levels of psychological distress and HIV risk, and a low willingness to take PrEP compared with their peers. The study also found that respondents who were previously incarcerated or recently arrested had a heightened HIV risk and lower willingness to take PrEP.

“These findings transcend individual-level only explanations to offer structural-level insights about how we think about Black sexual minority men’s HIV risk,” says co-author Lisa Bowleg, professor of psychology at The George Washington University. “The study rightly directs attention to the structural intersectional discrimination that negatively affects Black sexual minority men’s health.”

The article states that the findings support the need for anti-racist and anti-heterosexist advocacy and interventions focused on reducing discrimination in U.S. society, and the carceral system specifically.

“Despite experiencing a disproportionate burden of violence and discrimination at the hands of the police, and extremely high carceral rates, Black queer men are largely invisible in discourse on anti-Black policing and ,” says co-author Joseph Carter, doctoral student of health psychology at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. “Our study provides empirical support for the intersectional health impacts of police and carceral that have been systemically perpetrated onto Black queer men.”

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How Quarantine Helped Me Overcome Stigmas Surrounding Queer Dating

By Meggie Gates

I’ve been out since I was 19, and insecure since the day I was born. I’ve shied away from intimacy my entire life, something psychologists label “avoidant attachment” and my mother calls “frustrating.” I am 26, I do not like to be touched, and incidences of sexual assault have only heightened that feeling, narrowing an already limited number of partners I’ve had in the past. I’m sex positive, I support whatever anyone else does sexually, but I can’t go about the act without some wine notched under my belt, something I consider leveling my anxiety and something my therapist describes as “bad.” I rarely know how to approach casual sex. How the heck do I fit in to In a community where sex is constantly, seemingly, on the table?

I live in Chicago, and in Boystown, there is a sign—an advertisement for a dating app with two shirtless, hunky gay men rubbing bodies in boxer briefs. In Wrigleyville, there is a friend—a person regaling hookups on Grindr every time I see them, years of casual lovers. In the queer community, there is commercialization—the kind we celebrate with plenty of skin showing at Pride festivals come June. Condoms are handed out and dental dams are distributed. It is good, safe, serves to destigmatize, and celebrates what years of hate has told us not to embrace. It is beautiful and poetic and deserved of that celebration, but it is not me.

The perceived stereotype of casual sex in the queer community can make some hesitant to date. The questions of casual sex looms overhead in the queer community and that stereotype can affect many people’s approaches to exploring their sexual identity. The pressure sex puts on the queer community can be isolating for some. Worse, it can feel invalidating. In their article “Mr. Right Now: Temporality of Relationship Formation on Gay Mobile Apps,” professors Tien Yeo and Tsz Fung write about the pressure queer people can feel to compromise sex for love.

“For those seeking more durable relationships, tensions arising from the specific temporality of app use that privileges casual sex but which also maximizes the pool of potential partners versus the temporal norms prescribing friendship and long-term romantic relationships become a major source of frustration,” write Yeo and Fung. “Ultimately, these tensions resulted in users conform to routine patterns of interactions, developing alternative modes of interactions on apps that decelerate relationship development, or (temporarily) deleting the apps.”

For people who buy into hypersexualized LGBTQ+ media representation, the anxiety and doubt surrounding conversations on sexuality can feel like another reason not to pursue meaningful connections. In a society focused on hook-up culture, it’s hard trusting someone will have the patience to get to know me. The conversation of how good you are at sex circles the internet; the question of how queer you are hinging on past relationships focused on binary. Sitting across from women on a first date, anxiety constantly creeps up, making me wonder how the night will end.

Quarantine has changed the game for dating across the board. People must decide whether someone is worth putting their life (and the lives of others) at risk. Zoom dates can be awkward, uncomfortable, and the lack of intimacy can be hard. Building a relationship over FaceTime is seemingly impossible. But, strangely, this is the first time I’ve felt truly comfortable approaching dating in years. Why? Because without the expectation of kissing or sex following a date, I’m confident having conversations I’d usually never have regarding my sexuality and gender. It finally feels like dating in a way that’s truer to myself.

Without the expectation of kissing or sex following a date, I’m confident having conversations I’d usually never have regarding my sexuality and gender. It finally feels like dating in a way that’s truer to myself.

I met Ana through Hinge two months ago, another app in a sea of apps geared toward dating. From our first date, I let her know of the anxieties I foster when it comes to queer dating. I ask if my slowness warming up to intimacy makes a difference to her, if my lack of history with people of the same sex erases me in her mind as legitimately queer. She responds surprised, shocked I’d even ask. “Your past doesn’t matter and if someone makes you feel bad for that, you’re better off without them,” she says. “The queer community isn’t a contest.”

It’s no secret gay love has, and still is, stigmatized in many parts of the world. Religion, race, gender, and class all play a part in the need for people to hide their sexuality for different reasons. Being ostracized, ridiculed, or neglected creates a desire for many queer people to feel loved and attractive, resulting in fast connections of momentary fulfillment. Casual sex has many benefits for those who enjoy it. You can share a strong connection with someone for a passing period and go your own way, no strings attached at the end of the night. For me, the anxiety of waking up to someone I barely know overshadows all pleasure. I feel I’m missing out on my 20s as I watch friends stumble out of bars with others. This is what TV said adulthood would be like, but it’s never been that way for me. I miss all the nuance of feeling fun and alive in a city because I’m too focused on my shoes whenever someone asks for my number.

I walk through an obsolete Boystown recounting memories of all the love Saturday nights once held. The avenue is painted with the past of people who carried themselves over the rainbow boulevard looking for a home in someone else, a late-night rendezvous heading out of Berlin hand-in-hand. I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss Red Bull vodka shots at midnight and making out with strangers whose names I don’t remember; how a photo strip of a girl in passing isn’t poetry that spans the lengths of years.

Relationships take a toll and farther into heartbreak we get, the easier it is to run at the sight of something new. Flings that are fleeting outweigh tangling yourself in something messy and complicated. Dating hardly takes off for me because I’m too stressed about the motions, if I’ll be critiqued for the physical instead of the emotional. Now, there’s nothing but time to explore one another as the world around us stops shifting. After two months talking, Ana and I finally met. My family encourages me because they “like her” and think she’s “a good match for me.” We’re slow and have found a rhythm that suits us, one grown from patience and time.

For once, I’m trying to walk rather than run.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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7 LGBTQ sex facts you probably didn’t learn in high school sex ed class

By Canela López 

Comprehensive sex education in the US has been a point of contention for decades, with former Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders even being asked to resign from her post in 1991 for endorsing sex education and masturbation.

While some states have moved away from an abstinence-only curriculum, only 29 states mandate some kind of sex education curriculum. And the problem of proper sex education is even worse for LGBTQ teens. 

According to Dr. Sara C. Flowers, vice president of education for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, only 9 states and the District of Columbia include LGBTQ-inclusive sex education in their curriculum.

“Queer young people are often left out of the conversation altogether,” Flowers told Insider. “This can result in a lot of misinformation about their identities, bodies, and health — leaving them without the skills or resources they need to have healthy relationships or safe sex, if and when they make that decision.”  

Gina Desiderio, director of communications for The Health Teen Network, told Insider that not only does this do a disservice to LGBTQ youth, it actually worsens their mental health. 

“Research shows that LGBTQ+ young people report disproportionate experiences of depression, bullying, and feelings of unsafety at school — and these experiences are even more common among LGBTQ+ youth of color,” Desiderio said. “However, queer youth that do receive inclusive sex education are less likely to feel unsafe and report lower levels of victimization because of their identity.” 

Insider compiled a list of the most critical queer sex education facts left out of the classroom. 

Some people using hormones aren’t sure what protection to use, but there are some creative solutions.

Barriers like condoms are not just used to prevent pregnancy. They serve an important role in preventing the spread of STIs like gonorrhea, chlamydia, and HIV.

According to Flowers, they should be used regardless of you or your partner’s genitalia. However, oftentimes condoms are framed as the only option. Dental damns, latex gloves, and other alternatives can better suit the needs of different people.

“If you or your partner has an enlarged clitoris from taking testosterone, you can create a barrier method using a latex glove by cutting off the fingers and placing it over the clitoris, or by cutting the glove or a condom into a dental dam that leaves extra space in the thumb for the clitoris,” Flowers said.

Even if you’re performing non-penetrative sex, these kinds of barriers should be used.

Use barriers on your sex toys as well.

Barriers are important even if you’re using a sex toy on a partner.

If you use sex toys on multiple people (like yourself and your partner), putting a condom on them can help keep everyone involved safe.

“Condoms can also be used on sex toys to reduce the chance of passing STIs between partners,” Flowers said.

You can still get pregnant even if you or your partner are taking gender-affirming hormones.

Sometimes, trans and non-binary people undergo Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), and take gender-affirming hormones like estrogen and testosterone. 

While these hormones change the body, affect fertility and even eliminate periods for some, they are not a form of birth control. People on HRT can still get pregnant or impregnate another person. 

“People taking gender-affirming hormones like testosterone and estrogen can still become involved in a pregnancy,” Flowers said. “To prevent pregnancy, consider non-hormonal birth control options, including the copper IUD or barrier methods like external or internal condoms, which still work while taking gender-affirming hormones.”

‘Losing your virginity’ isn’t necessarily penetration between a penis and a vagina — it can look like many things.

Oftentimes, sex and losing your virginity is framed as having penetrative sex between cisgender man with a penis and cisgender woman with a vagina.

But sex and losing your virginity can look like a variety of ways for people and certainly doesn’t have to involve penetration.

In addition to penetrative sex being centered, sex in many sex ed classes is oftentimes from as a means to an end to have a child. Not only does this undermine the importance of pleasure in cisgender heterosexual sex, it completely erases many queer people who cannot have sex that results in a pregnancy.

“Too often, sex education casts all adolescent sexual activity in the narrowest, most sex-negative of lights: potentially dangerous at best, and catastrophic at worst,” Desiderio told Insider. “This failure to integrate sex positivity matters to queer and straight, cisgender young people alike.”

Desiderio told Insider instead educators should be openly talking about pleasure in the context of sex.

“Having frank, open conversations about sexual pleasure acknowledges people have sex for reasons other than reproduction, affirming the identities of LGBTQ+ people too often erased by curricula infatuated with the nitty-gritty details of when sperm meets egg,” Desiderio said.

It’s important to be aware that homophobia and transphobia can drive low self-esteem. And that can affect relationships.

According to Flowers, dating violence is oftentimes mentioned in the context of cisgender and straight relationships, but it’s crucial for LGBTQ youth to understand dating violence can happen to anyone, regardless of gender identity, presentation, or sexual orientation.

In fact, because LGBTQ people are at risk of being rejected by their family and facing homophobia or transphobia in their day to day life, they are more at risk of falling into toxic relationships.

“LGBTQ+ young people deserve sex education that helps them learn how to identify healthy and unhealthy relationships, teaches them about consent, and lets them know they deserve to be supported if they are in an unsafe or unhealthy relationship,” Flowers told Insider.

These are some good techniques to consider when coming out to your family.

While the decision to come out differs from person to person, having the proper language to talk about sexual orientation and gender identity is necessary for a young LGBTQ person to talk to their family.

“Including tips for coming out about gender identity or sexual orientation in classroom instruction is one way to de-center heteronormative relationships and ensure all young people are getting what they need from sex education,” Flowers said. 

Here are some tips Flowers suggested that can make you feel more comfortable and prepared:

  • Choose a private location
  • Plan what you’re going to say ahead of time
  • Prepare for questions about your sexuality or gender identity

Pay attention to politics. Race, gender, ability, and class all affect your access to sexual health.

The way we have sex, and access sexual healthcare, can be greatly impacted by our gender, sexuality, or race. For example, HIV/AIDs still disproportionately impacts Black and Latinx queer men in the United States.

That’s why it’s important to understand the challenges you personally face in life, beyond in the bedroom, according to Desiderio.

“These factors combined affect the health and well-being of LGBTQ+ and gender nonconforming youth, as evidenced by high rates of attempted and completed suicide, unplanned pregnancies, and HIV and sexually transmitted infection diagnoses,” Desiderio said.

At school, Desiderio says, there should be open discussions about each child’s identity, so they can be prepared for oppression and the barriers they may face in life.

“Institutions organized for the dominant population too often marginalize, ignore, or erase the LGBTQ+ experience and queer sex,” Desiderio said. “Young people face vast systemic inequities and structural barriers to ensuring their health; affirming, inclusive sex education is one way we can support and empower young people to thrive.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What LGBTQ-Positive Sex Ed Should Look Like

Sex education should give students the tools to take ownership of their lives and bodies so that they can feel empowered. And that includes LGBTQ students.

In many states, sex ed curricula isn’t required to be comprehensive or medically accurate; abstinence-only is the norm; consent doesn’t need to be mentioned; and instructors emphasize the benefits of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.

By Cassandra Corrado

I’m a sex educator, but my own experience with sex education wasn’t great.

I went to high school in Florida, which is one of many states that doesn’t require sex education—the decision is left up to individual school districts. For schools that opt to teach sex ed, the curriculum isn’t required to be comprehensive or medically accurate; abstinence-only is the norm; consent doesn’t need to be mentioned; and instructors emphasize the benefits of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. Imagine the turmoil this messaging could cause young LGBTQ students.

It was clear to me early on that talking about sexual health wasn’t a priority for the people who made decisions about our education, even though almost everyone I knew was having some type of sex.

That all changed my first year of college, when I went to a sex ed workshop hosted by the Center for Sexual Pleasure & Health. In three hours, I learned more than I did in all of my middle and high school sex education classes combined. I can point to that workshop as a true point of transformation in my life—it helped me take ownership of my sexuality and boundaries, and changed my career path. (I later interned and then worked at the center in an education role.)

It was also the first time I had ever seen queerness centered, normalized, and celebrated in an educational setting. It was the first time I ever felt like sex ed really applied to me. That workshop changed my life for the better, and that’s what sex education should do: give students the tools to take ownership of their lives and bodies so they can feel empowered. And that includes LGBTQ students.

But here’s the thing: You shouldn’t be 18 the first time you feel included in the conversation, or learn about consent, or have your sexuality affirmed. All of those things should happen much earlier.

So, I had a conversation with two other LGBTQ sex educators to figure out what we really want for our students when it comes to LGBTQ-positive sex education. Here’s what we wish all students learned in school.

Fluidity is the norm

When I say that queer-centric sex education benefits everyone, I mean it. Everyone can benefit from an education that celebrates different identities, represents the many ways that people can love, and talks about health inclusively.

According to Cindy Lee Alves, a queer, nonbinary femme sexologist, the main difference between curricula that simply references LGBTQ folks and curricula that centers LGBTQ folks is shame. “Many curricula think about sex ed solely as disease prevention, and that doesn’t do much for us,” they said. “What would it look like if we taught folks from a young age that things in all parts of your life can be expansive and that you don’t have to pick a lane right away? How much shame would that remove? When you couple inaccurate information with shame, it makes people small.”

Any education that says “this is how things always are and always will be” teaches shame, Alves said. Sexuality and gender identity are fluid, so rather than be prescriptive in what we teach young people, we should teach that it’s okay and expected to explore who you are a little bit. It’s also normal for those things to shift, which doesn’t invalidate any part of your past, present, or future identity.

Sex is all-encompassing

When many people think of sex, they’re thinking of one thing in particular: penis-in-vagina intercourse. But sex is much more than that. Sex includes oral, anal, and vaginal sex, as you might have expected. But it also includes acts typically categorized as “foreplay,” like handjobs, fingering, using toys together, and more.

Everyone’s definition is different, but the way that you define sex matters, because that definition will likely influence your sexual boundaries, the contraceptives you use, and who you choose to do it with.

LGBTQ-positive sex ed doesn’t just teach heteronormative sex; it recognizes that sexual behavior is expansive and affirms that no type of sex is less important or relevant than others.

Sex and gender are not binary

Sex and gender are different things, and both are more expansive than we’re currently taught. You may have grown up thinking the terms were were interchangeable (I know I did), but they’re not, and learning this distinction can make a huge difference in how you approach sex education at home and in the classroom.

Sex is a label you’re given based on your genitals, chromosomes, or hormones—or a combination of these factors. What’s on your birth certificate is the sex you were assigned at birth, which is usually based on what your genitalia looked like. But chromosomal pairings and genitalia don’t always match up, and there is an entire spectrum of biological sex.

Some people are intersex, meaning they have sex characteristics (genitals, hormone levels, and chromosomes) that don’t fit the typical definitions of male or female. So the argument that “there are only two sexes” is wrong. Intersex people are proof of biological variation and that nature hates binaries.

Truly LGBTQ-positive sex ed would celebrate gender diversity, accept all bodies, and positively represent all genders.

On the other hand, gender isn’t determined by anything bodily—it’s the way that you situate yourself in society. While your body parts might affirm that placement, they don’t define it. If someone’s gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth, they’re cisgender. If someone’s gender identity doesn’t align with the sex they were assigned at birth, they’re gender nonconforming or transgender.

Many people who are teaching sex ed aren’t trans and may not even be familiar with what it means to be gender nonconforming. Because “folks who actually identify [these ways] aren’t creating the content, there are going to be blind spots,” said Jimanekia Eborn, a queer sexuality educator and trauma specialist. Those blind spots aren’t small, either, and they can be really harmful.

While some curricula might try to take on gender, they often fall short because they talk about gender as a binary when it simply isn’t—nonbinary, genderqueer, two-spirit, and agender people exist, along with so many more identities. You might not have the words for them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real.

Truly LGBTQ-positive sex ed would celebrate gender diversity, accept all bodies, and positively represent all genders.

You can’t separate the issues

When you try to teach sex ed as if sex happens in a vacuum that isn’t affected by other parts of one’s life, you’re doing a disservice to your students. Queer and inclusive sex ed “centers folks who are system-impacted,” Alves said. “I think about intersectionality. If we’re bringing up queerness, we have to bring it up with other identities, too.”

Race, class, and neurodivergence are three areas that must be woven into sex education curricula. There are many ways to do this, but it starts with talking honestly about the history of sexuality in the United States, from the forced sterilization of people with disabilities to reproductive control over women of color.

“All of the roots are connected, and some people want to just focus on their one tree. But it’s our responsibility to show up for our young people and get their needs met,” Alves said.

From the photos and anatomy tools you use to the cultural examples and historical figures you turn to, representation in sex ed matters. Students need to be able to see themselves in what we teach.

Queer people deserve healthy relationships

Violence prevention and healthy relationships workshops can too often leave students thinking that victims of violence are always cisgender women and that perpetrators are cisgender men.

That just isn’t true. Interpersonal violence, including sexual assault and dating violence, can be committed and experienced by people of any gender or sexual orientation. In fact, queer and trans women experience higher rates of violence than cisgender, heterosexual women.

“Often, evidence-based curricula will use nongendered names or not give a lot of context clues about people’s identities,” Alves said. “That doesn’t do much for queer youth. Outright including and centering someone’s identity in a lesson plan offers the opportunity to discuss how their identity might affect their other experiences.”

When the lessons we learn about consent, boundaries, and healthy relationships only show one type of relationship dynamic, we’re passively telling our LGBTQ students that this information isn’t relevant to them.

And while we’re here, remember that there’s no one right way for a relationship to be structured. Monogamy isn’t right for everyone, so when you’re talking about healthy relationships, make sure to include ethical non-monogamy, too.

“Often, evidence-based curricula will use nongendered names or not give a lot of context clues about people’s identities. That doesn’t do much for queer youth.”
– Cindy Lee Alves

Asexuality isn’t a problem to be solved

Some sexualities are completely ignored in sex ed, like asexuality—an umbrella term that encapsulates many different identities that are defined more by a lack of sexual attraction or desire than who the person is attracted to.

At its core, asexuality means the absence of sexual attraction, but it’s a bit more layered than that. Demisexuality, for example, means only experiencing sexual attraction after forming a deep emotional bond (not necessarily romantic) with someone. Gray asexuality means experiencing sexual attraction rarely or occasionally.

While some asexual people might also be aromantic (not experiencing romantic attraction), plenty of sexual people have romantic relationships. Sex isn’t a requirement for being in a relationship. Asexuality can also be combined with other sexual orientations, so someone might identify as both bisexual and asexual. I’m queer and demisexual (and happily married).

Just like any other sexuality, asexuality isn’t a problem to be solved, so sex educators should never treat it that way. Asexual people still need education about consent, healthy relationships, and sexual wellness, even if they never have partnered sex.

Condoms aren’t the only option

When it comes to barrier method contraceptives for STI and pregnancy prevention, people often think of external condoms (the type that goes over a penis or sex toy), but there are so many more options. As a sex educator, you should educate students equally about all types of barrier methods, because queer students might not have a need for external condoms.

When you teach about condoms, also educate students about internal condoms, dental dams, finger cots, and gloves. They can all be used as safer sex tools, and you can save your exploratory students a lot of confusion if you just go ahead and teach about them now.

We deserve to be empowered, not ashamed

Those of us who teach pleasure-positive sex education know how deeply shame and fear root themselves. Shame does weird stuff to you. It only takes one comment to make someone feel bad about who they are, and that one comment can have ripple effects throughout your lifetime.

Things have changed for young queer people in recent years. But for all the empowering messages, there are still parents, teachers, peers, and media that will pass on that shame. When I was in high school, my internalized homophobia ran so deep that I refused to acknowledge that I might not be straight. I was afraid to not be straight, and that fear led me to have sex with people I shouldn’t have and not set any boundaries for myself.

Queer people deserve to grow up feeling empowered to set boundaries, make their own decisions, advocate for themselves, and explore their sexuality in a way that makes them feel good. Straight people deserve that, too. We all do. We all want “love, pleasure, and to be seen, heard, and respected,” as Eborn said.

Sex education can change and even save lives, but empowerment must be at the heart of our work. Otherwise, we’re missing the point.

“The people who have the access and the power have to make these changes to center our young people and their experiences—we can’t rely on our old expertise; we have to make these shifts,” Alves said.

We all deserve better sex ed.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Gay Rights Movement in WWI

In the winter of 1915, a German soldier died in a field hospital in Russia. We don’t know his name, but he helped revolutionize the way people advocated for gay rights.

German infantrymen aim machine guns from a trench near the Vistula River in 1916.

By Laurie Marhoefer

One of the World War I’s most enduring legacies is largely forgotten: It sparked the modern gay rights movement.

Gay soldiers who survived the bloodletting returned home convinced their governments owed them something – full citizenship. Especially in Germany, where gay rights already had a tenuous footing, they formed new organizations to advocate in public for their rights.

Though the movement that called itself “homosexual emancipation” began in the 19th century, my research and that of historian Jason Crouthamel shows that the war turned the 19th-century movement into gay rights as we know it today.

A death in Russia

In the winter of 1915, a German soldier died in a field hospital in Russia. The soldier, whose name is missing from the historical record, had been hit in the lower body by shrapnel when his trench came under bombardment. Four of his comrades risked their lives to carry him to the rear. There, he lay for weeks, wracked by pain in the mangled leg and desperately thirsty. But what troubled him most was loneliness. He sent letters to his boyfriend whenever he could manage it.

“I crave a decent mouthful of fresh water, of which there isn’t any here,” he wrote in his final letter. “There is absolutely nothing to read; please, do send newspapers. But above all, write very soon.”

This soldier, who had to keep his relationship hidden from those around him, was just one of the approximately two million German men killed in World War I. His suffering is not unlike what many others experienced. What his loved ones made of that suffering, however, was different, and had enormous consequences.

His boyfriend, identified in surviving documents only as “S.,” watched the man he loved go off to serve in a war that he did not fully endorse, only to die alone and in pain as S. sat helplessly by hundreds of miles away. S. told their story in a letter to the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which published it in April 1916.

The Scientific Humanitarian Committee was then the world’s leading homosexual emancipation group, boasting a membership of about 100 people. The soldier’s story took a cruel twist at its very end: S.‘s loving replies were lost in the chaos of the war and never reached the soldier.

“He died without any contact from me,” S. wrote.

Demanding the rights of citizens

After the war, many believed the slaughter had been for nothing. But S. saw a lesson in his partner’s suffering and death.

“He has lost his bright life … for the Fatherland,” wrote S. That Fatherland had a law on the books that banned sex between men. But the sodomy law was just the tip of the iceberg: S. and men like him generally could not reveal their love relationships in public, or even to family members. Homosexuality meant the loss of one’s job, social ostracism, the risk of blackmail and perhaps criminal prosecution.

S. called it “deplorable” that “good citizens,” soldiers willing to die for their country, had to endure the status of “pariahs.” “People who are by nature orientated toward the same sex … do their duty,” he wrote. “It is finally time that the state treated them like they treat the state.”

A new phase of gay rights

A magazine put out by the League for Human Rights in 1930.

Many veterans agreed with S. When the war ended, they took action. They formed new, larger groups, including one called the League for Human Rights that drew 100,000 members.

In addition, as I argue in my book, the rhetoric of gay rights changed. The prewar movement had focused on using science to prove that homosexuality was natural. But people like S., people who had made tremendous sacrifices in the name of citizenship, now insisted that their government had an obligation to them regardless of what biology might say about their sexuality.

They left science behind. They went directly to a set of demands that characterizes gay rights to this day – that gay people are upstanding citizens and deserve to have their rights respected. “The state must recognize the full citizenship rights of inverts,” or homosexuals, an activist wrote in the year after the war. He demanded not just the repeal of the sodomy law, but the opening of government jobs to known homosexuals – a radical idea at the time, and one that would remain far out of reach for many decades.

Respectable citizens

Ideas of citizenship led activists to emphasize what historians call “respectability.” Respectability consisted of one’s prestige as a correctly behaving, middle-class person, in contrast to supposedly disreputable people such as prostitutes. Throughout the 20th century, gay rights groups struggled for the right to serve openly in the military, a hallmark of respectability. With some exceptions, they shied away from radical calls to utterly remake society’s rules about sex and gender. They instead emphasized what good citizens they were.

In 1929, a speaker for the League for Human Rights told an audience at a dance hall, “we do not ask for equal rights, we demand equal rights!” It was, ironically, the ghastly violence and horrible human toll of the World War I that first inspired such assertive calls, calls that characterized gay rights movements around the world in the 20th century.

It would take nearly a century for these activists to achieve one of their central goals – the repeal of sodomy laws. Germany enjoyed a 14-year period of democracy after World War I, but the Nazis came to power in 1933 and used the sodomy law to murder thousands of men. A version of the law remained in force until the 1990s. The United States struck down its sodomy laws only in 2003.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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13 Necessary Queer Literary Classics For Every Bookshelf

From Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room to Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple and Ocean Vuong’s 2019 debut — the queer literary landscape is vibrant, expansive and ready to be explored.

By Rosalind Jana

The history of queer literature is a long one. From Greek poet Sappho to Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, many writers have approached the challenges and pleasures of the LGBTQ+ experience with great depth and imagination. This hasn’t always been an easy endeavour; often, it’s been a history read in gaps and implied meaning, with obstructions for those depicting the nuances of sexuality and gender identity without censure. Thankfully, this has slowly changed, and the queer literary landscape is now both vibrant and expansive.

In fact, this list of 13 queer classics offers just a handful of the books that could have been chosen. For every inclusion, there is another notable absence. E.M. Forster, Ali Smith, Audre Lorde, Christopher Isherwood and numerous other novelists aren’t listed here, but have all written fantastic fiction that has helped both shape and pluralise the stories that now make up a queer canon. Think of these suggestions as a starting point — a handful of bold and brilliant books perfect for picking up at any time, with lots more to discover when all is read and done.

‘Giovanni’s Room’ by James Baldwin (1956)

Giovanni’s Room condenses an incredible sweep of emotion into its scant length. Detailing the fraught relationship between American David and Italian bartender Giovanni, the former narrates the tale of their time together over a night leading “to the most terrible morning of my life”. This terrible morning, we soon discover, marks the day of Giovanni’s execution. With this looming, David recounts the trials and tumult of their love affair, and, in doing so, sketches a complex portrait of masculinity at war with itself. It is an astonishingly vivid novel, grappling not only with the heady contours of desire, but also the disturbing consequences of shame and self-loathing.

‘The Line of Beauty’ by Alan Hollinghurst (2004)

Nick Guest has left university and summer is in full swing. Living in the Notting Hill house of an affluent school friend whose father is a Conservative politician, the book opens with Margaret Thatcher’s second election victory in 1983 and skilfully interlaces questions of politics, class, and sex. At first, Nick’s sexuality is largely hidden from the upper-class world he drifts into — with trysts in gated gardens and behind closed doors. But as time passes and the AIDS crisis develops, this no longer becomes possible. Taking aim at the hollow allure of wealth and the moral vacuum of Thatcher’s rule, Hollinghurst’s novel is sumptuous and increasingly sombre.

‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ by Jeanette Winterson (1985)

“People like to separate storytelling which is not fact from history which is fact. They do this so they know what to believe and what not to believe.” Jeanette Winterson’s debut, rooted in her own experiences of growing up as a lesbian in a Pentecostal adopted family, is structured around the religious texts that permeate protagonist Jeanette’s upbringing. Delving into what happens when the expected narratives — both theological and personal — are rejected, Winterson’s voice is fresh, startling, and funny. It’s a brilliant novel, illuminating the consequences of a devout and claustrophobic mother, and an institution that punishes nascent love with cruelty. For a follow-up, try Winterson’s 2011 memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?.

‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf (1928)

Some novels are dialogues with difficult questions. Others aim to capture a particular history: cultural, collective, individual. A few are love letters. Orlando is all of the above. Inspired by and written for the magnetic, imposing Vita Sackville-West, with whom Virginia Woolf had a long affair, it follows the titular protagonist through three centuries of history, several romantic liaisons, one gender switch, and a very lengthy poetic project. It is a giddy read, full of humour and warmth as well as searching examinations of gender, sexuality, power and artistic process.

‘Paul Takes The Form of a Mortal Girl’ by Andrea Lawlor (2017)

What would happen if you transplanted Orlando to 1993 and added dozens more explicit sex scenes? The result would possibly look something like Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes The Form of a Mortal Girl. This raucous novel follows the adventures of Paul — also known as Polly — whose body is malleable, metamorphic, and endlessly hungry for pleasure. Able to physically transform at will, Paul revels in the sexual and romantic possibilities offered by numerous adjustments in face, height, torso, genitals, and more. Slipping between guises and identities, the polymorphous Paul offers a lucid look at trans identity — as playful as it is serious.

‘Dancer From The Dance’ by Andrew Holleran (1978)

Holleran’s book — dubbed ‘The Gay Great Gatsby’ — takes its title from a Yeats poem. It reads: “O body swayed to music, O brightening glance / How can we know the dancer from the dance?” It’s an apt reference, given the book’s preoccupation with observation, as well as the physical intimacies and distances found in a social whirl. Set in New York in a pre-AIDS era, Holleran brilliantly captures a generation of men for whom hedonism is never-ending, while desire, loneliness, and a restless wish for love continually jostle.

‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker (1982)

A devastating, but ultimately hopeful narrative told in a series of letters from protagonist Celie to God and her sister Nettie, Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple in 1983. Detailing the stark realities of abuse, misogyny, and racism in rural Georgia, Walker’s novel offers both a damning indictment of institutionalised and culturally encoded oppression, and the tremendous potential found in reclaiming one’s life for oneself. With the introduction of blues singer Shug Avery, it also becomes a love story — one in which pleasure and passion is reciprocated, and female solidarity provides great solace.

‘Carol’ by Patricia Highsmith (1952)

Published under the pseudonym “Claire Morgan”, the formerly titled The Price of Salt swiftly became a runaway hit. Inspired by a “blondish” woman in a mink coat who had made her feel “odd and swimmy in the head” while working at Macy’s (and influenced too by her relationship with heiress Virginia Kent Catherwood), Highsmith conjured a love story full of erotic charge. Documenting the unfolding relationship between 19-year-old Therese and thirtysomething Carol, it is a crisply observed story in which desire simmers and the constrictions of nuclear family life are stifling. At the time, it was praised for its open-ended suggestion of a happy future. In recent years, it’s enjoyed a renaissance thanks to Todd Haynes’ stylish film.

‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ by Ocean Vuong (2019)

Language, lust, addiction and inherited trauma coalesce in Ocean Vuong’s debut. Written in the form of a letter from a son to a mother who can’t read it, Vuong combines the precision and lyricism of his poetry with the varied forms of intimacy that exist between lovers, between parent and child, and between the ill and well. Growing up with a Vietnamese mother and grandmother for whom war and violence have left deep imprints, the novel’s speaker Little Dog approaches the question of survival with searching intensity. Combining fragmented memories of childhood with an account of his first troubled love — Trevor, the 16-year-old son of a tobacco farmer — Vuong’s narrative of growing up gay and escaping is tender and heartbreaking.

‘America is Not the Heart’ by Elaine Castillo (2018)

Hero goes by several names. Named Geronima De Vera, in the Philippines she is known as Nimang. But on arrival in Milpitas, near San Francisco, her seven-year-old niece dubs her Hero. It’s a nickname both uneasy and fitting for a woman whose life has taken several distinct turns, from a wealthy upbringing, to a decade as a doctor in the New People’s Army, to two years of torture, to a new beginning in the US. Arriving with broken thumbs and a brittle exterior, Hero’s affections unravel slowly. Castillo’s book is sprawling and energetic: sharp in its interrogations of language, immigration, and class, and bold-hearted in its depiction of Hero’s frank, unsentimental approach to sex and love — with things complicated and transformed by local beautician Rosalyn.

‘Stone Butch Blues’ by Leslie Feinberg (1993)

“The law said we needed to be wearing three pieces of women’s clothing. We never switched clothing. Neither did our drag queen sisters. We knew, and so did you, what was coming. We needed our sleeves rolled up, our hair slicked back, in order to live through it.” Leslie Feinberg’s novel is a blistering and incisive depiction of lesbian and trans experience. Exploring the life of Jess Goldberg, a working-class gender-queer butch lesbian growing up in 1950s Buffalo before moving to New York, Feinberg sheds light on horrific police brutality and queer networks of community and care, and asks what it means (and what it takes) to resist.

‘Under the Udala Trees’ by Chinelo Okparanta (2015)

In 2014, Nigeria’s then-President Goodluck Jonathan signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act with incredibly serious sanctions ranging from imprisonment to death. This sobering fact forms the author’s endnote in Chinelo Okparanta’s moving, sparingly written novel. A coming-of-age tale taking place against the backdrop of the Nigerian civil war, it focuses on a young Igbo woman named Ijeoma who struggles to reconcile faith, family, and her sexuality. Coming to terms with being a lesbian in a culture hostile to homosexuality, Okparanta skilfully weaves between resignation and revelation — unstinting in her focus on the horrors of both war and deep prejudice, while offering a fragile note of hope.

‘After The Parade’ by Lori Ostlund (2015)

As Aaron Englund leaves his older partner after 20 years, his life packed up in the back of a truck, the past constantly infiltrates his chosen future. Relocating to San Francisco, disturbing recollections from childhood mingle with examinations of his time with Walter — a quiet, ordered man who wished “to serve as benefactor to Aaron’s wishes and ambitions, and so bind Aaron to him.” In breaking free of all that has tethered him, Aaron finds room to unravel a complex web of trauma and loss. After The Parade is a stunningly written book, deft in its understanding of love and alienation.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How To Raise Kids To Be LGBTQ+ Allies

When They’re Growing Up In A Heterosexual Home

by Stephanie Kaloi

This month, you will probably be hearing a lot about one very spectacular celebration: June is Pride Month, and communities across the world will be celebrating.

As a parent, you might also be wondering how to navigate the month with your kids, and you might be extra curious about how you can raise your children to be LGBTQ+ allies if they’re growing up in a heterosexual home.

If you’re nodding along, trust: I get it! My son’s dad and I are both straight, and our self-identified genders correspond with the biological sex we were born with. We are huge allies of the LBGTQ+ community and have so many friends we love and cherish who are part of it.

As such, it’s been really important to us that our son is a fierce ally and friend to this community and really to everyone who isn’t bigoted.

If you don’t have friends who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, it might feel extra hard to figure out how to have a conversation about being an ally with your child. After all, one of the best ways to foster empathy is to know and love the people you are empathizing with. With that in mind, I thought it would be helpful to put together a list of ideas and resources for heterosexual parents who are hoping to raise LGBTQ+ allies.

1. Have honest conversations about sexuality early.

My first tip is this: Start talking about sexuality, gender identity, and sexual preference early in your child’s life. And I really do mean early: There are totally board books for babies that cover these topics and ideas. The earlier you normalize the many ways people live and love on this planet, the easier it is. Once you get started, I think you’ll be amazed by how little of a big deal this has to be.

For example, a lot of us already have built-in expectations about gender identity and gender performance due to how we have been socialized, so you can start by examining the ideas you already have and believe. Then identify the areas where you need more growth and learning. From there, find the words that you’re comfortable using with your kids.

Tip: Keep in mind that LGBTQ+ is about way more than just being gay or straight. The community encompasses a huge range of sexual expressions and preferences, and it’s important to give all of them equal weight.

2. Recognize that your children might also be LGBTQ+.

While you’re learning and having these conversations, realize that your own children might actually be part of the LBGTQ+ community, or they might not know if they are and be interested in exploring it. You don’t want to talk about all of this as if it’s something that is distant and removed from your own family. It’s normal and healthy for your kids to explore sexual identity and preference, and if they feel safe and supported in their home (and are raised loving this community of people), then they’ll feel like they can talk to you about those explorations and questions.

Plus, they’ll never have to doubt whether or not you love them.

3. Challenge gender and sex-based stereotypes all the time.

If there is one thing I know about myself, it is that I am relentless. A friend recently asked me how often we talk about racism with our 11-year-old son. I told my friend every single day. They were surprised, but when I explained that either someone we love experiences racism every day, or there’s a story in the news, or we watch or read something and racism is present in it, it started to make sense.

We also talk about other -isms every single day, such as sexism and ableism. We talk about bigotry and anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes and beliefs every day. These aren’t always big, scary conversations about subjects and events that are hard. In fact, more often than not, we’re having celebratory chats.

It can be tempting to only bring up these topics when the news “forces” us too, but I found that deliberately making it part of everything that we do in a day eventually made it come quite naturally.

4. Know and love LGBTQ+ people in your life.

I am absolutely not saying you need to run outside and find the first LGBTQ+ person you see and make them your new best friend, because that would be rude and gross. What I am saying is that if the only LGBTQ+ representation your kids get is from a book or TV, then that’s not really good enough. I know some people truly do live in very homogenous towns, but a lot of us live in diverse cities and communities and, either on purpose or without realizing it, self-choose to be distant from others who we don’t immediately identify as like us.

If you really don’t have any friends who are LGBTQ+ and you’re doing the work to learn to be an ally yourself, I suggest volunteering with an organization that supports LGBTQ+ people in your community as a good way to get to know the people you’re pledging your time to learn more about.

5. Celebrate diversity in your home in obvious ways.

And finally: I always remind myself that, as much as I would love for him to, my child does not learn through osmosis. I can’t assume he will be a kind, gentle person who is a friend and ally just because I want him to be one, or because I believe I am raising him to be “a good person.” The idea of “a good person” is so general that it’s hard to even know what I might mean — and I am sure that how I define “a good person” is not the same definition another family uses.

Celebrating diversity in your home isn’t too hard. Go to events, go to rallies. Support communities that need your support. Make sure your kids see all sides of the LBGTQ+ spectrum — don’t only bring up stories of pain and oppression; bring up stories of love and joy, too. Everything from the books you introduce to the media you consume to the people you spend time with will impact your children.

And on that final note: If your family and friends are bigoted and homophobic, your kids will see it. If you’re really the ally you want to be, then you absolutely have to speak up and educate the people you allow your children to be around. Otherwise, you’ll be little more than a walking contradiction, and your kids will respond accordingly. It can be tough to have hard conversations, but if you’re armed with the right mix of knowledge, facts, and empathy, you can do it. Lives are on the line, so really … you have to.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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To end conversion therapy, we must understand what it actually means

By Travis Salway

On Monday, Calgary City Council voted, nearly unanimously, to pass a municipal ban of advertising around conversion therapy, which the city defined as “practice, treatment, or service designed to change, repress, or discourage a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.” In doing so, Calgary joined cities such as Vancouver, Edmonton and Fort McMurray, along with provinces including Ontario and, recently, Prince Edward Island, in passing legislation banning conversion therapies.

The discourse at the publicly-broadcast citizen debate before the council vote was polarizing, however, with hundreds of speakers passionately arguing on either side of the issue over two days. Those opposed to the ban argued that they do not want to see their fellow citizens subjected to torture – referencing electroshock and other physically severe forms of conversion therapy – but the proposed law unfairly criminalizes practitioners who are merely offering advice to people who are struggling with “unwanted” same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria.

Opponents of the ban claimed that these well-meaning conversations should not be conflated with “true forms” of conversion therapy. They defended this argument by noting that practitioners targeted by the ban do not try to “convert” anyone but, rather, aim to help people live cisgender, heterosexual lives that are compatible with religious doctrine.

This debate had a cardinal flaw: It didn’t centre on a single definition. As with many contentious social issues, language and meanings matter. By clarifying the intent of conversion therapy practices – their defining feature – we will be better prepared to evaluate legislative action at multiple levels of government, as efforts to end this practice continue.

Conversion therapy is a misnomer: Survivors of conversion therapy are not “converted”, and it is not therapeutic. All forms of conversion therapy – whether practiced in a licensed health care clinic, spiritual support group, pastor’s office or other setting – share a common premise, as described by Canadian legal scholar Florence Ashley: They begin with an assumption that some gender identities, gender expressions and sexual orientations are more desirable than others. More specifically, these practices seek to deny and suppress the identities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirit (LGBTQ2) people.

The practices themselves rely upon a variety of methods, including coaching, counseling, therapy, prayer and conversation. Individuals who undergo it are often left with feelings of self-doubt, anxiety and hopelessness, losing years of their lives that would otherwise be spent achieving a positive sense of self.

From national surveys conducted last year, we know that tens of thousands of LGBTQ2 Canadians have experienced conversion therapy. With the support of conversion-therapy survivors, I and other public-health researchers have been interviewing these Canadians. They frequently describe exactly the kind of “talk therapy” that opponents of the ban seek to protect, where a provider attempts to compel an individual to manage and resist expressions of gender or sexuality that differ from mainstream expectations. And these forms of conversion therapy induce psychological distress just as other more obviously traumatic forms of conversion therapy do.

To effectively prevent conversion therapy, legislative bans must adjust their definitions to clearly state that the defining feature of conversion therapy is not an attempt to “convert” or “change” intrinsic feelings of gender identity or expression or sexual orientation. Rather, the defining feature is the goal of avoiding acceptance and acknowledgement of LGBTQ2 lives as compatible with being healthy and happy. This healthy sense of self is something that all Canadians deserve, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. That sense of self is what is fundamentally at stake in the debates over conversion therapy.

We must also acknowledge that no ban can eradicate all forms of conversion therapy. We need bans at all levels of government – municipal, provincial and federal – and for these legislative bans to share language, so they are all effectively complementary. And bans must be coupled with broader educational efforts.

In Canada, we must promote the affirmation of LGBTQ2 people, particularly to parents and caregivers who may otherwise consider conversion therapy for their children when they are struggling. Continuing legislative debates offer an opportunity for us as Canadians to clarify our position that LGBTQ2 people should be celebrated. Canadians who share these views should make their majority view known – particularly as our politicians continue to consider opportunities to safeguard the well-being of LGBTQ2 citizens.

Calgary’s new bylaw is just one example of an upsurge of proposed and enacted Canadian legislation to prevent conversion therapy. Bill C-8, an amendment to the federal Criminal Code, was tabled by federal government on March 9. While our country has gradually affirmed LGBTQ2 lives through legal and social changes in recent decades – including the addition of sexual orientation in 1995 and gender identity and expression in 2017, as statuses protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – the public debate in Calgary served as a stark reminder: Stigma, fear and hatred of LGBTQ2 people are alive and well. The only way to resist these social biases is by speaking the same language.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Stuck in the middle

Growing into my identity

By Tatum Lindquist

As an empathic perfectionist, conflicts stung me. I used to perceive any conflict as a reflection of my flawed character. It took years of inner wrestling to understand that conflicts were opportunities to grow, not threatening, but nurturing in their tumult.

All too often, humans keep to their comfortable spaces, unwilling to engage in a conflict with those who differ. I do not have that luxury, nor do I want it. I open myself up to you today to push the conversation of sexual identity and religion, not as a destabilizing conflict, but rather a nurturing discussion that extends a welcome to all beliefs and identities.

I felt alienated in religious settings where my questions about the Bible and its origins were dismissed as irrelevant or spiritually weak, and as I learned more in school about the uses of the Bible to validate atrocities throughout history, I lost trust in my religious communities because the Bible wasn’t considered in its historical context or its imperfect translations. Specifically, I remember staying up one night at Christian camp reading Genesis 3, and as I read verse 16 in its NIV translation, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” I cried without really knowing why.

Until, that is, I read Wilda Gafney’s womanist interpretation. In “Womanist Midrash,” the pain of that passage healed as she explored how the Spirit of God uses she/her pronouns in the Biblical Hebrew; how it describes an androgynous being, not Adam but rather the adam, referring to humankind that is then split in two; how “over” translated to “in” and “with” more often, reading instead “he shall rule with you.”

When I stopped living in fear and started letting go and opening myself up to conversations around religion, I found space to wrestle with my identity, my God, and their Scripture, leading me to where I stand today as a bisexual, Christian, cisgender woman.

I may have known my identity for awhile now, but only until recently have I found a sense of representation and visibility through my studies of queer and feminist biblical scholarship. With help from the class “Gender, Sex, and Religion,” I was exposed to multiple approaches to the Bible beyond just traditional biblical studies.

“I think [including more perspectives] just makes for more accurate, more representative, more interesting scholarship,” Mika Ahuvia, an assistant professor at the Jackson School of International Studies, said.] “The more [people] are looking at a text, the more nuances they notice.”

It turns out that biblical authors had no language for sexual orientation and gender identity, but rather viewed sex and gender within patriarchal constructs motivated over the years by different political, religous, and socioeconomic influences.

When the topic of “homosexuality” did arise in the religious circles at youth groups or summer camp, I was told that the Holiness Code of Leviticus in Scripture not only addresses it, but condemns it. Never, however, was I told during these conversations of its historical context, where it fails to mention how these laws merely condemned sodomy — non-procreational sexual acts — not homesexuality itself, nor did anyone explain the cultural beliefs that influenced these laws.

In biblical Israel, there was a cultural necessity to understand the religious and social significance of their bodies and so, procreation was viewed synonymously to achieving immortality and wasting semen was thought to be impure and harmful because it was believed to hold the most crucial role in reproduction.

By exposing myself in a variety of knowledgeable, heavily researched interpretations, queer and feminist biblical scholarship specifically equipped me with a platform and the language to heal. Whether it’s the deconstruction of gender and patriarchy through reinterpreted creation stories in Genesis or the contextualized and researched approach to the Holiness Code of Leviticus, biblical scholarship redefined my relationship with the Bible and deepened my understanding of its authors and how interpretations changed with time, and how they were shaped by and influenced societal constructs of gender and sex.

Regardless, the search for community as a queer Christian continues. Whether it was my faith in secular communities or my sexuality in religious ones, I still don’t know where I belong, a feeling all too familiar in my experience between straight and LGBTQIA+ communities.

While we may be the “B” in LGBTQIA+, the bisexual community still faces health disparities and stereotypes from straight and queer communities for a variety of reasons.

“Our research has found that bisexual people do experience many health disparities, both in Washington state as well as nationally,” Karen Fredriksen Goldsen, a professor in the School of Social Work, said. “For example, we found that bisexual women compared to lesbians have higher rates of disability and are more likely to experience disability at earlier ages

Fredriksen Goldsen especially noted the community’s lack of visibility, where an “increase in visibility could create opportunities to further build and expand communities” as well as reduce stigmas.

“As we recognize bisexual lives, we can begin to understand their distinct experiences,” Fredriksen Goldsen said. “Our research has documented many disparities as well as strengths in this community, as bi people are resilient.”

At the intersection of religious, secular, straight, and LGBTQIA+ communities, if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that the majority of these communities and the unique individuals within them don’t know how to interact with each other. As someone on the receiving end, the lack of dialogue between these diverse communities lends its hand to miseducation, stigmatization, and polarization.

When Ahuvia started teaching “Gender, Sex, and Religion,” she noted that the biggest gap she felt like she had to overcome was between the secular and religious students. Now, four years later, it’s shifted.

Silence and invisibility serve no one, so I will never refuse the challenge to uproot what I hold true, wrestle with it, learn, and grow.

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