gaywrites:

Duke University recently announced that its student health insurance will begin to cover gender confirmation surgery, up to $50,000, for transgender students. Schools like the University of North Carolina are taking note and considering similar measures.

“The addition of sexual reassignment surgery with a $50,000 cap makes Duke’s student health care plan one of the most, if not the most, transgender-inclusive plans in the country,” Sunny Frothingham told The Chronicle. Frothingham is the incoming outreach chair of Blue Devils United, a campus LGBT undergraduate advocacy group.“This is a huge step forward for Duke.”

Blue Devils United President Jacob Tobia said Duke’s decision will help recruit students.

“This is really important symbolically for the Duke community,” said Tobia. “I hope that this will help us remain really competitive as an institution when recruiting students, because I know that in the past we have had transgendered students that have been extremely successful at Duke, including merit scholars.”

Awesome news! Props to Duke for doing the right thing; let’s hope more schools catch on. 

professionalmisanthrope:

☆ﾐ(o*･ω･)ﾉ Asexuals can appreciate good looking people

☆ﾐ(o*･ω･)ﾉ Asexuals are not necessarily sexually repressed or sex-repulsed

☆ﾐ(o*･ω･)ﾉ Asexuals can fall in love and enter relationships

☆ﾐ(o*･ω･)ﾉ Asexuals can have functioning libidos without being sexually attracted to people

☆ﾐ(o*･ω･)ﾉ Asexuality is not necessarily the result of sexual abuse

 

#theAdoesnotstandforally

stethoscopesandsigs:

upworthy:

The Gay Experimental State Of Your Straight State

OKCupid ran a data analysis on their 4,000,000 users and figured out how bi-curious straight people are from state to state. What’s the state of your state? We are apparently kind of bi here.

[Original by OkCupid. You should really read the whole post because it’s fascinating. Found on KNOWHomo.]

/goes to Oregon

Also super interesting article, even if the parameters of the sample make it overly generalized. Go to the “Gay People Like:” and click the female icon. Then die laughing.

pretty interesting. Obviously a biased pool of people, because it’s a particular dating site and stuff, but still interesting.

lemonstolemons:

Shit, tearing up. I like these lines the best:

“Rainbows are just a trick of light,

They make us forget the storm is still happening,
When walking towards the end of the rainbow, it will always move away.”

trigger warning for homophobia, transphobia, transmisogyny, slurs, racism, suicide, and abuse.

Actually it’s about a capitalist society giving benefits to and valuing certain kinds of relationships over others, but… semantics.

Friends, there is something big happening today. You all know about it - the Supreme Court hearings.

Don’t get me wrong, I love marriage. I’ve been waiting to get married for my entire life. When I came out of the closet 7 years ago, one of my saddest moments was realizing that I might never be able to be legally recognized in my relationship.

Seven years later, I still want marriage for myself. However, what everyone I know needs to hear is that marriage is not the end of the fight. It shouldn’t even be the beginning, but it is. You need to hear that by fighting so hard for marriage, but not for changing our society to value relationships other than straight monogamous ones, we are just playing into the hands of those in power. We are BECOMING part of their system (cis-tem), instead of continuing to subvert those ideals that are so ingrained in our culture.

There are people in this country killing themselves, being killed, and living in utterly inhuman ways because we have an idea of what “appropriate” is (hint: white, cissexual, monogamous, docile). And that, friends, is what we should be fighting to change. If you want to make DOMA the first step, fine. But make sure you continue this energy to the NEXT step.

tl;dr fuck the cis-stem, throw it on the ground.

meowmaniaa:

loving all of these super liberal facebook friends coming out of the woodworks to change their fb profile picture to the red HRC logo. thank you for all you do to end LGBTQ oppression!

/sarcasm/

setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain:

esamarimacha:

queeradical:

……not a corporation-sponsored street closing where people buy Absolut and impose Doryphoros-like standards of muscularity on everyone.

and the riot was started by gender-transgressing poor folks of color (many were sex workers too).. not rich white boys appropriating the language/bodies of femmes of color while spending half their day on their smartphones (checking Grindr)

THAT MOTHERFUCKING BOLDED

tendertranstrender:

dizzzynoodles:

ok hi everyone. So as of late, my dysphoria that i thought i was done with, is kind of peaking again and the more and more i think about it the more and more desperate I am for top surgery. Unfortunately, I am nowhere near the amount of funds I would need for top surgery and although I feel really anxious and awkward about this, I am asking for donations to help pay for it. if you can donate anything it would be really appreciated but if not, i understand. thank you so much.

HEY HEY THIS PERSON IS AMAZING AND DESERVES TO NOT FEEL SO DYSPHORIC ABT HER BODY OK? please donate if you can!! and don’t pass her by because she’s not a white trans* dude >:(

delladilly:

ladysaviours:

thesixpennybook:

partysoft:

gaypocalypse:

Pink Therapy director Dominic Davies and fellow therapist Pamela Gawler-Wright posted a video Wednesday on their Facebook page, in which they discussed their decision to move away from the LGBT label.

“LGBT became LGBTIQQA — adding Intersex, Queer, Questioning and their Allies — which was still very limiting,” Davies says in the video. “It still excluded a lot of groups. People who might be asexual, members of the BDSM/kink commnity, people who were in  non-traditional relationships that might be polyamorous or swingers. A whole batch of people who didn’t feel able to go to mainstream counseling organizations and also wouldn’t necessarily be welcome at LGBT counseling organizations.”

In another Facebook post, they go even further:

The point we’re trying to make is not that our community shouldn’t be called LGBT, it’ that actually our community is SO much BIGGER than simply LGBT, that there many other identities, lifestyles, orientations, and relationship models which are between consenting adults and outside the heterosexual norm of monogamy for life, sex in the missionary position once or twice per week and church on Sunday!

Truly, anyone who doesn’t hew to that exact model is SUPER marginalized, and totally part of the queer community!

For some people BDSM is their orientation - the gender of the person they play with isn’t relevant, they get off on the power differences/role dynamics. One might say they are bi and kinky perhaps, but they might see their BDSM as a primary orientation.

Oh, WELL in THAT case.

sigh

FUCK. NO.

our community is not SO MUCH BIGGER

i hate you hippie motherfuckers so much

NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE

LGBT IS “LIMITING” FOR A REASON YOU FUCKERS

What’s wrong with GSM/Gender/Sexual Minority?

There’s nothing wrong with attempting to use terminology that might be less limiting to queer people who don’t or can’t identify with the ‘traditional’ LGBT— non-hetero/non-cis people who are still marginalized and silenced and othered by hetero/cis structures of sexuality.

There is a LOT wrong with attempting to suggest that heterosexual cispeople in, for example, open or BDSM relationships, ought to be included in our queer safe spaces and discourses and terminology because they are “outside the heterosexual norm of sex twice a week” or what the fuck ever.

That is an incredibly shallow and flawed understanding of the ways gender and sexuality are valued and oppressed in our society, and it is really hurtful and belittling to queer people who actually need those spaces, and it’s another example of people with socially affirmed gender and sexual identities making queerness about them. 

polycule:

You have to read this.

wonderwhale:

sqs-tec:

A great article for allies and QPOC. The article examines experiences from different angles and perspectives, with intro terms to folks new to these topics. Pass it along!

hey y’all this is great!