Toxic Masculinity, LGBT Discrimination, Ableism: 6 Articles I’ve Been Reading This Week

From The Players’ Tribune: Man Up

“It’s truly astounding how many awful things that occur in this world because men are afraid of appearing weak.”


From Ebony: Feminism That Fortifies: A Transmasculine Journey

“Feminism is more than just knowing and celebrating the value of women and feminine people, it’s also about being accountable. It’s about speaking back to and challenging misogyny in our culture. It’s examining how I contribute to sexism as a man because being transgender does not preclude me from this.

At the dawn of my transition I was focused on my physical body and coming to a place where my gender identity wouldn’t be challenged or negotiated. Now, 9 years in, I’m intent on refining my manhood. I am becoming a man by my own design and that has meant unlearning and re-learning everything I thought I knew about masculinity and its relationship to the world.

Coming into the understanding that masculinity is not the opposite of femininity but its counterpart gives me a starting point to build authentic solidarity and shift the way we think about the role of women and femme identified folks. We’re only better together and manhood cannot be defined by how “un-feminine” it is but should be invested in creating healthy consanguinity.”


From Michigan Radio: Your Behavior Has A Profound Impact On The Health Of Your LGBT Child

“Over the years, Barbara McCowin has been a member at a handful of Christian churches. And at every one of them, she’s heard the same basic message about homosexuality:

“Basically that it’s an abomination, that you’ve been turned over to reprobate mind and that you’re going to hell. That’s what it always ends in. You’re going to hell if you practice those types of behaviors is what they would call it.”

“Researchers have found that gay and transgender youth move around in the child welfare system a lot more than non-LGBTQ youth. Sarah Mountz, a professor at California State University, Northridge, has studied LGBTQ youth in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. She says often they feel unsafe or unaccepted.

“My theory is that there are all these systems in which these (LGBTQ) youth are over represented, and yet they’re among the most hostile places for these young people to be, and so I feel like there’s just a lot of what I can only think to call a revolving door as youth are looking for just a place to be,” she said.

The program at the Ruth Ellis Center aims to slow that revolving door a bit, and help families better understand their gay and transgender children.  But it’s also training its own staff to better understand the needs of those youth, so they fare better when they do wind up in the system.”


From The Daily Beast: All The Things You Can No Longer Buy If You’re Really Boycotting Trans-Friendly Businesses

“In fact, if you oppose transgender rights, you shouldn’t even be spreading AFA’s petition using their recommended #BoycottTarget hashtag because Facebook, Twitter, and Google all aced the CEI. Every minute spent on those social media giants helps them promote LGBT equality, including the T.”


From The Huffington Post: People Who Are Not Disabled Need To Check Out #AbleismExists Right Now

“Evans is heavily involved in activism and decided to create #AbleismExists when he became frustrated by a few of his friends.

“One disturbing trend I have found is having friends who support LGBT, civil, women’s and other rights for marginalized communities, who were telling me that ableism does not exist,” he said. “I thought that perhaps if enough disabled people were sharing their experiences with ableism, then maybe people would begin to see how absolutely terrible we are treated by a world that often sees us as invisible.”


From SCARY MOMMY: Stop Using Your Children As An Excuse To Be A Hateful Human Being

“If you’re truly worried about child sex abuse, then as a responsible parent, it’d behoove you to know that in three-quarters of sex abuse cases, children are harmed not by pooping strangers, but by members of their own family or someone they know. Furthermore, while girls carry a one in four chance of being sexually abused before age 18, the risk for boys is one in six. If bathroom predators are truly an issue, why on earth would I be worried about my daughter but not my son?

Children learn by example. Through them, we have the power to either make the world a better, more accepting place or to make it worse. When we teach kids to fear people who don’t live like them or to hate what they don’t understand, we make it worse.”

Ubuntu,

From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones, MSW, LLMSW

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I'm a Social Justice Educator and Aspiring Humanitarian who is interested in conflict resolution, improving intergroup relations, and building more equitable and inclusive communities. "Notes from an Aspiring Humanitarian" is my blog, where I write about issues of diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice. By exploring social identities through written word, film & video, and other forms of media, I hope to continue to expand and enrich conversations about social issues that face our society, and to find ways to take social action while encouraging others to do so as well in their own ways.

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