Search Results for: LGBTQ

Educating Women: A History of Access, Exclusion and Backlash

The war against “radical gender ideology” has been staggering. The ascent of President Trump brought calls for the elimination of women’s and LGBTQ centers, rollbacks on Title IX protections, the exclusion of trans women from college sports and the purging of gender and sexuality studies from college curricula across U.S. higher education. These actions signal a massive backlash against decades of progress—and are inseparable from a broader assault on civil rights-era protections for people of color.

However, this moment is nothing new. It echoes an earlier race- and gender-based backlash over a century ago, when growing numbers of white middle-class women began to attend college. Against the backdrop of Black emancipation, increased migration and the expanding feminist movement, women’s education was cast as a threat—not just to patriarchy, but to the future of the white race.

Today’s backlash is the latest attempt to restore the status quo—to draw boundaries around who is entitled to higher education and to reinforce a racial and gender hierarchy that has always shaped access to learning in the United States.

(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)

Mr. President, If You Care About Families, Stop Cutting What They Need to Survive

Some conservative policymakers and analysts have tried to use proposals like “Trump accounts” and medals for motherhood to frame the administration’s agenda as “pro-family.” But in reality, that framing is centered on an overly narrow definition of family: a married husband and wife, with the wife ideally staying home to care for children. (Some conservatives have also long touted the idea that public assistance is destroying the “traditional” American family.) Many of these policies make it harder for families of all types to care for their children.

Genuine support for families looks like meeting families where they are and helping to ensure that they have the resources they need to succeed. This includes policies that support everyone’s reproductive decisions, family planning goals and ability to raise children in safe and healthy environments. Access to healthcare and food assistance improves children’s chances of graduating from high school and college and leads to better health as adults. When parents facing financial hardship have access to cash support or rental assistance, they are better able to afford basic essentials for their children like housing, diapers and school supplies. 

We can help families thrive by strengthening vital supports and services, rather than cutting them. Both federal and state policymakers can play a critical role in helping families thrive.

These Fathers of Trans Children in the U.S. Are Deconstructing Their Own Masculinity to Become Better Parents

The Dads, a new feature-length documentary, follows the fathers of trans, nonbinary and gender-expansive children as they weather the rapid escalation of anti-trans legislation in the United States over the past two years. Directed and produced by Luchina Fisher, the film debuted last month at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.

The film bears witness to parents’ struggle with whether to stay in the United States or move abroad in face of bans on restrooms, sports and gender-affirming care for trans youth.

In the end, The Dads is about faith—faith in the experiment of the United States, faith in dads to know who their children are and how best to protect them, and faith in all dads to grow and learn who they are. 

Pulling a Page From the Confederacy: Trump and Birthright Citizenship

Transcript: Dr. Michele Goodwin:  Welcome to On the Issues with Michele Goodwin at Ms. Magazine. Now, as you know, we report, rebel, and we tell it just like it is. And in this special episode, we are unpacking the birthright citizenship case. It’s Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship, which echoes a Confederate playbook, as, sadly, […]

Ms. Global: Energy Crisis in Cuba, Feminist Activist Assassinated in Iraq, Gay Asylum-Seeker Deported and More

The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to healthcare. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This month:
—Seoul holds the 41st Women’s Strike in South Korea for International Women’s Day.
—Hospital patients suffer during Cuba’s three major blackouts.
—The U.S. is at fault for the missile strike that hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School in Minab, Iran, on Feb. 28, killing 175 people.
—Yanar Mohammed, a leading Iraqi feminist and human rights defender, was killed in an armed attack in Baghdad.
—IOC restricts transgender participation in Olympics.
—Amid widespread displacement, poverty and institutional collapse during the ongoing war in Gaza, families are increasingly turning to child marriage for their daughters.

… and more.

The Antidote to Despair Is Finding our Role in Community Building

In my daily life and organizing, I encounter people of various ages and backgrounds who feel stuck or unsure of what to do in this America. That’s when I recall Mr. Rogers’ wise words: “Look for the helpers”—particularly, the helpers most impacted and closest to the issues. In the quest for basic human rights and justice, I look for the everyday people in my community, across the country, who are carving paths of resistance—often with limited recognition or resources—who hold steady even when comforted with extreme pushback.

In the era of encrypted messaging and social media, mutual aid groups and meal trains offer different ways to plug in and engage. Each of us can play a role, based on our interests and strengths, in co-creating a world where we all thrive across identity, geography and difference.

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)

War on Women Report: Georgia Woman Arrested for Self-Managed Abortion; Idaho Forces Teachers to Out Trans Youth; Ohio Bill to Force Doctors to Report Pregnancies to the State

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—More restrictive abortion laws in a particular area are linked to a higher risk of depression for women residents.
—Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales has dropped his bid for reelection after the House opened an inquiry into his sexual relationship with Regina Santos-Aviles, a subordinate (Gonzales’ Uvalde district director) who died by suicide last year. Texts between Santos-Aviles and Gonzales show her attempting to deter her boss’ advances.
—An Ohio appeals court dealt a final blow to Senate Bill 27, permanently blocking the state’s attempt to mandate the burial or cremation of fetal tissue.
—New Mexico legislators passed a first-of-its-kind bill ensuring fully funded universal childcare for families of all income levels.
—More than 8 million people worldwide took to the streets for the third No Kings protest on March 28, protesting Trump, ICE raids and the war in Iran.
—Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is spearheading a legal offensive to criminalize the mailing of mifepristone and misoprostol into the state. 
—In Georgia, 31-year-old Alexia Moore, an Army veteran and mother of two, has been arrested on murder and drug charges for an alleged abortion in December.
—In Montana, 20-year-old Charles Felix Jones has been charged with planning to shoot and kill a Missoula abortion provider.
—The latest installment of rePROs Fight Back’s annual 50-State Report Card finds that access to sexual and reproductive healthcare in the United States remains deeply unequal and increasingly under threat, with the nation once again earning an overall failing grade.

… and more.

14 Powerful Lines From Justice Jackson’s Dissent on Conversion Therapy: ‘Like It or Not, Treatment Standards Exist in America’

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth, ruling the law likely violates the First Amendment—a decision advocates warn will put young people at risk.

In a rare and forceful move, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivered her dissent from the bench.

We’ve pulled the most powerful, incisive—and yes, spiciest—lines from her 35-page dissent. Read, share your favorite line, and help lift up a dissent that refuses to mince words about what’s at stake.

We Need a Word for What’s Happening to Jewish Women

Ever since I’ve been writing about slut-shaming, I’ve been called a slut and a whore.

In the 1990s, the age of doorstopper phone books (the kind with white pages and yellow pages), I received alarming letters delivered to my mailbox. In the early 2000s, the letters morphed into emails. And when I began posting on Instagram, the insults followed me there, too.

Over three decades, the insults were consistent: I was called various synonyms for prostitute and vagina, and an ugly pedophile for good measure. The hatred was misogyny—targeted, specific and designed to put me back in my place.

Then Hamas brutally attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel retaliated in a devastating war in Gaza. The insults changed. I am no longer a regular slut and a whore; I am a “Jewish whore,” a “chosenite supporting the porn industry,” and a “whore” whom everyone could agree was bad apart from “tribes who hate Jesus.” 

I call it “misogynam” (mih-SAH-jih-NAHM)—the intertwined violence of anti-Semitism and misogyny directed at Jewish women.

Equal Pay Is Getting Pushed Further Away. We’re Pushing Back.

Amid the celebrations of Women’s History Month, it is a bitter irony Equal Pay Day—marking how far into the year women must work to earn what men did in the previous year—has been pushed back to March 26. The end of the month is shadowed by the knowledge that the gender pay gap still exists and is widening.

Black women, women with disabilities, moms and all women of color are paid significantly less than white men in comparable positions. Affordability is already a concern, with prices rising at the gas station and the grocery store. The pay gap is compounding these concerns to create further financial disparities for women of color.