Imagine living every day of your life in fear, afraid to venture into public places because you do not know if and when you could become the next victim of a hate crime solely because of your sexual orientation. Every 26 seconds, a woman is raped in South Africa. As this disturbing trend becomes more [...]

The US House of Representatives recently voted to repeal the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. The Pentagon will first have to conclude a study about the effects of the policy before the repeal can happen, but the vote makes it all but inevitable that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is on its way out the [...]

Rihanna released her music video Te Amo yesterday. Much to my dismay, I was left shrugging and mumbling “Me disgusta” as Rihanna fell into the new fad of homoerotic homophobia among female pop stars. Rihanna’s video depicts the age-old tale of a heterosexual female entertaining the attention of a homosexual female only until things get [...]

As a high school comedy-drama celebrating the outcast community, Glee has its roots in 80s shows like Fame and Square Pegs, as well as 90s favorites My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks. There are times when Glee is best enjoyed as a 40s or 50s era MGM musical: don’t worry so much about the [...]

  In the waning days of the 2009-2010 television season, as finales full of time-traveling islands, extreme budget cuts, and triple weddings approach, this avid TV fan would like to take a moment and reflect upon the successful first year of one of this season’s few sitcoms to garner both critical acclaim and significant audience [...]

Are you persuaded that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is not gay, and that it should never have mattered anyway? Good, because we can now move on to her next supposed shortcoming. “The Supreme Court needs more moms,” proclaims the headline of Ann Gerhart’s story in the Washington Post. I don’t mind Gerhart making her [...]

People who are single account for 45% of the population of Americans 18 and older – that’s 104 million women and men who are divorced, widowed, or have always been single. The numbers in the LGBT community are much smaller. Yet our cultural conversations about same sex issues are far more lively (and at times, [...]

It’s happened so many times now, it’s (almost) not even funny anymore. Another anti-gay rights activist has been outed by a male prostitute.

  This week UNICEF hosted the 5th annual International Conference in partnership with the Global Program in International Affairs at the New School in New York City. The topic was global trends of adolescent girls. I would like to share with Conducive Chronicle readers my thoughts on the conference and topics covered.

This time, it was discrimination that got bashed. By now, the latest victory has probably been reported in every major news source. The New York Times story began like this: “President Obama on Thursday ordered his health secretary to issue new rules aimed at granting hospital visiting rights to same-sex partners.”

When I wrote the first draft of Singled Out, one of the sections I was most uncertain about was about taxes. Could it really be true, as I was discovering by running through all the calculations, that a single person (not living as part of a couple) ALWAYS paid more in income taxes on the [...]

In 2004, the Japanese government enacted the Gender Identity Disorder Law, which allowed transgendered people to finally change their sex on official identification. Although some argue that defining a change in gender identity as a disorder is wrong-headed and biased, the law does at least allow for people to live in society as their true [...]

The hardest part about finding someone to date is…finding someone to date. In a society where most women are judged to be straight before assumed to be gay, it is even harder to meet that special woman by chance, in person. Though some people are sketchy about looking for love online, online dating can be [...]

Girls crushing on other girls is the latest trend. A lot of women seem to be curious nowadays. Stars like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and even Tila Tequila illustrate a three-pronged understanding of what it means to like other women. When I see stars like the three mentioned above, questions swirl in my mind. As [...]

I love the Huffington Post. I’ve been blogging there for years. But even at a progressive site such as that one, singlism still gets perpetrated. Take, for example, an essay that was just posted today. The blogger, author and journalist Michael Rowe, excoriates a certain tall, blond Republican woman over the course of more then [...]

Female genital cutting is the practice of mutilation of a woman’s genitalia for non-medical purposes. The Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project works to educate and fight against the practice of FGC. This procedure is still performed in villages and countrysides around the world. Due to the unsanitary conditions of the procedure, many women suffer infection to their genitalia. These procedures are carried out by midwives and untrained medical personnel often without anesthetics. Women are already at a higher risk than men for HIV transmission because the mucous membrane that lines the vagina is porous, and FGC increases the already high risk of HIV transmission. Doctors assert that there are no medical benefits for the girls and women who undergo the surgery. It is an unsafe and painful process that scars young women mentally, emotionally, and physically for a lifetime.

You have been there. You meet who you believe to be the woman of your dreams, and you move full speed ahead. Friends become lovers, dates become sleepovers, your place becomes her place…then one day you are suddenly crying your eyes out, face down in the pillow wondering where did it all go wrong and [...]

To open the door of marriage to gays is to let them in on the one resource that opponents are most reluctant to share – their own sense of moral superiority.