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Chely Wright, Who Lost Fans When She Came Out in 2010, Has a New Album and No Regrets

H/T: Slate

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One of the Most Important Crosswords in New York Times History

Tausig’s crossword is a so-called Schrödinger puzzle, named for the physicist’s hypothetical cat that is at once both alive and dead. In a Schrödinger puzzle, select squares have more than one correct letter answer: They exist in two states at once. “Black Halloween animal,” for example, could be both BAT or CAT, yielding two different but perfectly correct puzzles. Only 10 such puzzles have now been published in Timeshistory.

It’s the theme of Tausig’s puzzle, though, that makes it special. Four entries in Thursday’s crossword can include either an “F” or an “M.” Both are correct; neither is wrong. For example, “Part of a house” can be either ROOF or ROOM. The long “revealer” answer, tying those select entries together and spanning 11 squares smack-dab in the middle of the puzzle, is GENDER FLUID.

H/T: Slate

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After Orlando, the Iconic Silence = Death Image Is Back. Meet One of the Artists Who Created It.

H/T: Slate

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This 18th-Century Italian Painting Proves Gender Nonconformity Is Far From a Modern Invention

H/T: Slate

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Gender- Reveal Celebrations for Babies Can Be Cute. They Also Help Explain the Trans Bathroom Panic.

It’s accepted among progressives at this point that gender is a kind of performance within constraints—something we actively create from the limited cultural materials we encounter. As such, it matters enormously for older children and adults as a way of making sense of themselves in (and for) the world. But it’s also a type of performance that babies and toddlers lack the neural connections to deliver—they are genderless, and thus destabilizing, and so we steady ourselves by, for instance, affixing hair bows on people who might not even have much hair.

A gender reveal will tell a future baby’s loved ones precisely nothing about what is actually important about her first months and years on Earth: her temperament, her response to food, the ease with which she sleeps and self-soothes and explores her expanding world. Babies and toddlers are mysterious; you really have no idea who they are, but you get the sense that they know you inside-out. A fetus is even more mysterious; you don’t even know what she looks like, and yet there she is, closer to you than any person could ever be. It’s understandable, I suppose, why some parents want to grab onto an either-or marker of certainty in the fundamentally uncertain situation that is pre- and early parenthood. But gender isn’t really there for the grabbing.

H/T: Slate

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slate.com

Sappho Goes to Hollywood: Lesbian Movies From Desert Hearts to Carol

A group of young people sits in a claustrophobic women’s studies class circa 1994. The professor approaches the board, chalk in hand, and says, “Let’s make

The sheer size and scope of [Carol] represents a new era in lesbian filmmaking—an era Hollywood has seemingly claimed for itself. Whether the big push behind Carol is a trend destined to wither or whether it marks a genuine, long-term interest in lesbian narratives is unclear. Either way, lesbian narratives are more visible than ever, and after almost three decades of relative exclusion, that’s a good thing.

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slate.com

The Anti-Trans Bathroom Nightmare Has Its Roots in Racial Segregation

An ad that aired frequently in Houston this past month depicted a man accosting a young girl in a bathroom stall. Its purpose was to convince voters about

Oppression is intersectional and our past informs our present. Check out this piece on the history of race, gender, and sexuality in discussions about bathroom access from Slate!

The conservative idea that civil rights protections sexually endanger women and children in public bathrooms is not new. In fact, conservative sexual thought has been in the toilet since the 1940s. During the World War II era, conservatives began employing the idea that social equality for African-Americans would lead to sexual danger for white women in bathrooms. In the decades since, conservatives used this trope to negate the civil rights claims of women and sexual minorities. Placing Houston’s rejection of HERO within the history of discrimination against racial minorities, sexual minorities, and women reveals a broader pattern: When previously marginalized groups demanded access to public accommodations, conservatives responded with toilet talk to stall these groups’ aspirations for social equality.

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In The Gay Revolution, Faderman takes on our collective LGBT history from the pre-Stonewall days through to now. It’s a massive undertaking and Faderman approaches it with diligence, tenacity, and just the right touch of awe. These are stories we should all be familiar with, but since they aren’t taught anywhere but the random college gender studies course, how could we? Even those of us, like myself, who are assiduous students and writers of LGBT history will find new data in The Gay Revolution.

via Slate

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slate.com

Sally Ride’s Partner Wrote a Children’s Book That Should Inspire Gay (and Straight) Kids

A week before Sally Ride passed away, Tam O’Shaughnessy sat next to her on their bed. They had converted it hospital-style, with medicine and oxygen hook-ups. Although O’Shaughnessy knew the end was near, she never said the word die out loud. Instead of discussing traditional funeral arrangements, she told Ride...

Positive representations of LGBT people, history, and events in school curricula can help LGBT students feel more valued in schools and can also provide role models for students interested in STEM fields, as we know from GLSEN’s 2013 National School Climate Survey. This LGBT History Month, we are proud to celebrate Sally Ride’s life, and we look forward to reading Tam O’Shaughnessy’s forthcoming children’s book!

Ride’s first shuttle lifted off two years before I was born. But in second grade, I discovered her through the book Sally Ride: Shooting for the Stars. I carried it around in my backpack for months and wrote her name down when teachers asked us to list our heroes. The idea of her pressed into my mind with almost gravitational force: a woman, an astronaut; it was possible, here was proof.

Before I read the book, astronaut existed only as a concept—as fuzzy as the helmeted faces that I couldn’t resolve from my perch on the swingset. But here in this book was someone. Someone like me—or, more accurately, someone I could imagine myself being like.