Trans and gender non-conforming folks have not been at the forefront of rights and access discussions in the United States as much as they are today. Much of these discussions and this attention has been good, with more and more people coming out as trans or gender non-conforming and more and more people supporting them and pushing for laws to protect them. Unfortunately, many … [Read more...]
How Abled Folks Can Support the Disability Movement if Obamacare Is Repealed
As I write this, there are people in this terrifying administration still actively trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act – the only reason that I, and many other disabled and chronically ill people in the US, have access to health insurance. If the ACA is overturned, we’ll return to the old system: one in which insurance companies can charge whatever they want, their … [Read more...]
Witnessing Beauty on Purpose: 5 Small Ways To Make Someone Feel Visible
Given the current political climate, it can be hard to believe that the small acts of our lives can make a difference. I too woke up the morning after the election swimming in a sense of helplessness. How could I keep writing now? Then I remembered something. At an event some months ago I was listening to a poet read but something distracted me out of my peripheral vision. A … [Read more...]
On Moving the Ego Out of Allyship: Doing the Work Even When No One Commends You
Edit note: The use of lower-case is intentional and the writer's preference. nearly every marginalized person with the platform to do so has already said this, but in case anyone might have missed it: there is no reward for being a good ally, and there is no threshold of welcoming that the marginalized need to maintain for you to care about them. put another way: if you … [Read more...]
“How Can I Best Support You?” and 6 Other Questions To Ask When Your Friend Is Suffering
When I hit rock-bottom in my drug addiction and mental health, I spent a whole year and a half recovering. Six months of that time, I slept almost every day until two or three in the afternoon. I would not say that I had nothing to live for, but I felt there was nothing in my immediate future to work towards. I did not even see it as time to “work on myself” because I was … [Read more...]
In Solidarity: How Non-Black Women of Color Stand Upon the Shoulders of Black Women
I am a woman of color, and I am an intersectional feminist. These terms of identity were both coined by black women. “Intersectionality theory” is a concept named by scholar and professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, first discussed in her 1989 treatise “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and … [Read more...]
Black Liberation Demands Queer Liberation: How the Black Community Must Step Up to Support the LGBTQ+ Community
I’ve been an activist with Black Lives Matter for two years now. My inspiration to found the second Black Lives Matter chapter in Canada stemmed from a desire to bring the lives (and deaths) of Black folks into the Canadian imaginary; to encourage white Canadian settlers to acknowledge their ancestors’ involvement in slavery, colonialism and segregation and to celebrate … [Read more...]
