More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Support for improving mental health is just as vital as with physical health. However, stigma surrounds speaking about mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression, especially for parents who struggle with these disorders. For this reason, its effects are criminalized and resources are limited to privileged communities.
Earlier this month, a jury of ten men and two women was unable to come to a unanimous decision after a week’s deliberation. They were judging the trial of former correctional officer Darrell Wayne Smith, nicknamed “Dirty Dick,” accused of 15 counts of sexual misconduct. Smith was the last correctional officer to be charged with abuse at the now-shut-down FCI Dublin, as part of a sprawling federal investigation that convicted seven officers, including the prison’s warden and chaplain.
A military mom on the heartbreak of watching her country strip away the rights, safety and dignity of her trans child:
“In recent months, lawmakers voted to strip military families of the right to access life-saving, evidence-based medical care for their trans loved ones. In a one-two punch, the House and Senate then voted to ban trans girls and women from playing on teams that align with their gender. Since then, President Donald Trump has signed multiple executive orders targeting trans kids, including language erasing our child’s existence, prohibiting access to medical care, and directing schools to call my child by the wrong name and pronouns. … As a result, my child is no longer able to live as freely as other children.
“We tried therapy, new pronouns, and ways to socially transition James, but it wasn’t enough. We took the next step and met with specialists to begin a low dose of testosterone. … James is flourishing, despite living in a country seemingly intent on erasing kids like him.”
Front & Center began as first-person accounts of Black mothers in Jackson, Miss., receiving a guaranteed income. Now in its fourth year, the series is expanding to explore broader systemic issues affecting Black women in poverty, including the safety net, healthcare, caregiving and overall well-being.
“My name is Jasmine, and I’m 33 years old. I’m a mother of three—there’s Nehemiah, my oldest, who is 13. Then there’s my daughter, Harmoni, who is 9, and my youngest, Joshun, is 8 years old. …
“Finding reliable childcare has always been a struggle. There were times when I couldn’t get a job because I couldn’t find childcare or the process of securing a childcare voucher took too long. … My mom isn’t able to help due to being ill, and I don’t hear from my dad much. So, I don’t have a lot of people I can rely on.”
Feminist writers have long argued that there is an intrinsic relationship between patriarchy, rape and colonialism. The seizure of land by force is comparable to the seizure of a woman’s body—and historically rape and war have often gone hand-in-hand.
In order to get a better understanding of how Donald Trump’s attitudes towards women might be related to his foreign policy, I reached out to Dr. Judith Herman, a world-renowned expert in trauma studies.
“The rules are pretty straightforward: The strong do what they please because they can. The weak submit because they have no other choice. And the bystanders are either complicit or too terrified to intervene, or just don’t care. These are the same rules whether we are talking about international relations or whether we’re talking about intimate personal relations.”
Whether it’s lending or borrowing a cup of sugar, or providing others bare necessities when the power goes out on your block for two weeks, it is essential that we break our prolonged isolation and build relationships across differences.
Building face-to-face relationships across differences is the first act of resistance—and the foundation for community defense, disaster response and democratic revival in the South.
(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund.)
When I lost my job while on maternity leave, I never expected I’d soon be in a hospital while my infant underwent emergency surgery. As my life became a highwire act, Medicaid became a safety net for my family.
Our Medicaid plan provided 100 percent coverage for what would’ve been thousands of dollars in hospital and surgical bills. It covered my baby’s follow-up appointments with specialists and his prescription formula. It covered all of our basic health needs. It covered my therapy.
Elon Musk and Peter Navarro are having a public slap fight. And while any other administration or workplace would be embarrassed by public outbursts, the White House seems to think it’s fine—because “boys will be boys,” according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The thing with people who brush off male bad behavior, though, is that they rarely extend that patience to girls. While Leavitt was noting the White House would “let” Musk and Navarro’s “public sparring” continue, she—and the rest of the MAGA right—had no such forbearance for Amy Coney Barrett, who committed the cardinal sin of siding with the Constitution over the president in a recent Supreme Court decision, from which she dissented. The MAGA reaction was swift and ugly. Coney Barrett was a traitor—evidence that women are too empathetic to serve on the Supreme Court.
An excerpt from Off the Spectrum: Why the Science of Autism Has Failed Women and Girls by Gina Rippon:
“Maybe we can (gently) deconstruct the elaborate camouflages that have allowed autistic girls to ‘fly beneath the radar,’ to ‘hide in plain sight.’ We must listen to these lost girls so that autism researchers, autism therapists, autism advocates, and the wider general population will have a much clearer idea of what we should be looking for, what we need to explain, so that we can better understand the autistic world.”
Federal judges ordered the reinstatement of workers terminated based on their probationary status—a blow to the Trump administration. But for many fired feds, this welcome news does not mean a return to work. For me and most of my colleagues in HHS’ Administration for Children and Families, for instance, we will continue to receive our pay and benefits, but we won’t be allowed to work. One might think that this is a pretty good deal—but only if you don’t know federal employees.
Some of my colleagues shared with me their stories of uncertainty, loss and an unfinished mission to serve the public.
—My first colleague, a change management specialist, was nervous about rumored changes to the federal workforce, but buoyed by the encouragement of his mentors who said, “This is your dream. The way you light up, this is the thing we want in federal employees. Roll the dice, go for it.”
—Another, a policy analyst specializing in children’s issues, said she was living out her dream job. When she found out she was fired, she was on bedrest for a high-risk pregnancy. In a cruel twist of fate, it was Valentine’s Day … and also the anniversary of her previous stillbirth.
The justification is always the same: fiscal responsibility, foreign policy recalibrations, shifting political winds. But on the ground, the reality is much more cutting. When aid disappears, people die. Not theoretically. Not eventually. Immediately.
Aid is not a line item to be slashed when convenient. It is a commitment: to humanity, to protecting women, to the belief that no life is worth less simply because it exists beyond our borders. It is the difference between Judith finding safety and Nyamal being forced to return to her abuser. It is, quite literally, life or death.