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.

genderwarriors:

The Jim Collins Foundation raises money to fund gender-confirming surgeries for those transgender people who need surgery to live a healthy life, but have no ability to pay for it themselves.

The Jim Collins Foundation will be accepting applications from April 1st – August 1st, 2p3.

For more information and selection criteria, visit their website.

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/

waterraining:

“Oh Wellesley that all girls school”

*actually I like to think of it as a historically all-women’s college and no our student body is not all female but thanks for playing*

This is a tough but exciting question for me to be asked, anon. I represent only one kind of femme - that is, myself. There are many kinds of femmes at Wellesley.

My femme experience at Wellesley has been pretty difficult, but is getting better. Having been femme most of my life, I came to Wellesley and experienced the visibility crisis - which was huge for me because I had been out for a while (6 years) and was very visible in my hometowns, so it was strange to go back into the closet, so to speak.

If you survey pictures of me during my time at Wellesley, you can see me go from slightly femme with really long hair to rather masculine with long hair, then with short hair, and then back to femme with short hair. This exemplifies my process - I did a deep exploration of my femininity and my gender in the face of queer culture at Wellesley. I’m sorry to say that I’ve found queer culture at Wellesley does the same thing that many other queer communities do - it glorifies masculinity over femininity. I can think of less than 10 femme-identified queers off the top of my head (and let me tell you, I don’t have many straight friends).

So to answer your question - yes. It can be hard, but I do think we’re moving around fairly well in queer spaces (once visible). Luckily I have developed and embraced my femme by being friends with some lovely femme ladies (Lily, mostly). We are visible if you look for us. For femmes who date other femmes? I’ll have to get back to you on that one (as a femme who dates other femmes, I have yet to do so at Wellesley).

More info for you, Anon! (things I didn’t know because I am not bi/pansexual and cannot speak for these communities)