Posts Categorized: Uncategorized
Disabled People Have Sex – Get Over It
Deaf U dropped on Netflix a few days ago and as a person who falls somewhere on the deaf spectrum, it was a series I was pretty reluctant to watch. The series revolves around the lives of a handful of students who attend school at Gallaudet University in Washington DC, the oldest Deaf serving institution of higher learning in the United States. From the first few minutes of the show, we know hearing people are the target audience; since the editing made it impossible for those fluent in sign to track the conversation, the captions were superimposed onto the show, and plotlines centered around petty drama rather than what it means to be a gen-Z capital-D Deaf in our world. While representation in mainstream media is always a nice thing… Read more »
Resonance is Radical
If you were to ask me a month ago what the most fundamental aspect of relationship building is, I would’ve said relatability- aside from intentionality. Relatability helps us build connection and understanding within our interpersonal relationships, in a hyper-individualistic and capitalistic world that leads many of us to believe that our struggles are solely our own to bare. Sometimes, in moments of distress or uncertainty, simply hearing “I can relate to that because…” can move us to be more open and transparent about our struggles. As someone who has endured a great deal of hardship, trauma, and calamity, I find myself connecting with people through those shared experiences often. To me, relatability has always been synonymous with comfort. By being relatable, I believed I was doing a fine job at… Read more »
Breaking Glass Ceilings In Public Not Private
A feminist is an individual of any gender who “believes in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes.” Feminism has come in several waves over history, with the current fourth wave placing a focus on the intersectional issues faced by women of color, disabled women, or other women experiencing another axis of oppression. While there is still much progress to be had, society has made impressive strides towards gender equity over the past decades. More and more women are pursuing male dominated careers like law or medicine, keeping their last name in marriage, or making the previously unthinkable reproductive choice to not have children. Women should, by and large, be afforded the same societal opportunities as men, and sexism is generally recognized to be an unacceptable form of… Read more »
Greece is Burning: the Impending Death of Fraternities and Sororities
(tw: rape, sexual assault, alcoholism, racism, lynching, mentions of suicide) “He planned on being somebody.” Denise Johnson exclaimed, her voice cracking with emotion. “No one wants to send their child to college and have them come back in a body bag.” San Jose, California isn’t the first city that comes to mind when discussing racism in the United States. Nestled in the Silicon Valley, the city is known for its forward-thinking mentality in terms of both technology and social progress. San Jose State University was seen as no exception to its host town’s reputation, boasting an incredibly diverse student body and proudly claiming civil rights icons Tommie Smith and John Carlos as distinguished alumni. Their reputation as a safe space for students of color is what made the suspected lynching… Read more »
Living Vicariously Through the Black Image
As many in my generation do, I find TikTok to be very addicting. I usually find myself on there for hours at a time, ignoring most of my responsibilities, for the pleasure of watching a compilation of clips that only last a few seconds. And if we’re being honest, I enjoy these moments of light thinking and “immaculate vibes”; being able to disconnect myself from reality for a few hours a day has become an essential part of my de-stressing routine. And, honestly, I’d say that’s the case for many others that spend an ample amount of time using the app. Either that… or it’s all just an excuse for our lack of productivity and procrastination. Regardless of the reason, with the amount of time I spend scrolling through Tiktok,… Read more »
Birth Control Access Gave Me Peace of Mind
The first time it happened, I was terrified: my period was late. Although I can’t remember when it was exactly, it must have been sometime around the beginning of my sophomore year in college. I had been lucky for a few months of having protected sex with my boyfriend at the time, but I thought that it was finally my time for my life as I knew it to end because I was pregnant. Even though my period was only three days late the first time, I was much less lucky in the later months. Stress from school, work, and my other activities caught up to me and delayed my periods by up to a full week. Once, I went so far as to take a pregnancy test just to… Read more »
Forgotten: Give Women of Color the Credit They’re Due
With celebrities such as Ariana Grande and Emma Watson blazing headlines with outspoken rhetoric about sexual health, rights, and bodily autonomy, it can be easy to overlook the women of color who made such conversations possible. Dialogue and discussion of reproductive justice among the general population is guaranteed to foster uncomfortableness surrounding the challenges female-identifying individuals face with their sexual relationships, bodies, and the heavily influenced social stigmas against their entities. When these talks are fostered by a certain type of woman – slim, fair-skinned, and conventionally attractive – ears who would pay no mind if western societal standards of attractiveness were not present suddenly become attuned to reproductive justice-isms spoken by allies. Ironically, these women use what restrains us from social equality as a plus to encourage the opposite… Read more »
Not Just Pregnancy Prevention: #FreeThePill Will Free Us
By: Sarah Michal Hamid Birth control is not always used for pregnancy prevention, and that’s OK! What is not okay, is only centering pregnancy prevention in #FreeThePill discourse. There are multiple uses for birth control beyond pregnancy prevention, which is why we need to urgently improve birth control accessibility by bringing it over the counter. Centering pregnancy prevention in #FreeThePill narratives alienate QTBIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ people who may not use the birth control pill for pregnancy-related reasons, but still rely on the pill. LGBTQ+ people depend on contraceptives for a variety of reasons, and we should not be an afterthought in the movement for reproductive rights. By utilizing a reproductive justice framework within the #FreeThePill movement, reproductive rights advocates can adopt language and tools that seek to center LGBTQ2S+ folks,… Read more »
Forced Sterilizations, and the RJ Struggle of the Latinx Community in California
By: Kirsten Hernandez It’s no secret that Black, Asian, Indigenous, and Latinx people throughout American history have struggled harder than others to gain autonomy over their bodies. What was a secret, however, was the lengths to which many states went to ensure these people were stripped of their rights. Eugenics is a dirty word, as it should be. Modern eugenics came about in the early 20th century and was used to justify horrific acts of racism across the globe. The most prominent example, of course, was the holocaust, in which the Nazi party attempted to justify their human rights abuses by claiming that there was a biological imbalance between the aryan race and the other ethnic groups they demonized. The US fought a war, rightfully claiming that such programs were… Read more »
Life Without Interference
By: Lily Stewart Recently, I saw my doctor for a yearly wellness visit. We spoke about my health, my habits, and my medicine—the usual. The doctor asked how I was liking my birth control pills, noting that I had mentioned severe pain due to endometriosis during previous appointments. I nodded, saying that my pain had become much more manageable, and other endometriosis symptoms were no longer as noticeable. She was happy to hear that and said, “You know, if I were in charge, I would see that all students have access to birth control pills. You just don’t have time for pain or pregnancy.” I nodded, and we went on with the checkup. After the appointment, I thought more about what she had said. She was right; many students simply… Read more »
