September 25, 2012

Survival Tips for Trans Youth {featured resource}

Young people living outside of gender norms are everywhere. Whether in the process of transitioning from male to female or vice versa; identifying outside boxes; or gender-nonconforming, the spectrum of gender identities is more visible than ever before.

Serious legal and other obstacles abound, however, and these can be especially daunting for young people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming (TGNC). The challenges of changing one’s name, finding access to hormones or enduring police brutality, for instance, demand a distinctly adult set of skills and can take their toll on a young person. Survival Tips for Trans Youth (Lambda Legal)
Lambda Legal is an amazing resource working towards a world without discrimination and inequality. They make the case for equality in the nation’s courts, and through education and policy work. Their work touches on nearly every aspect of life for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people living with HIV of all ages.

Lambda also offers extensive information via their publications including a blog, magazine, tool kits, articles and more. Survival Tips for Trans Youth is an informative four-page legal guide for trans people and their advocates published online at Lambda where you can download it for free (PDF-file).

(Photo from Survival Tips for Trans Youth

September 24, 2012

Sugar on Love, Sex, and Life {featured book}

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar is, despite the cheesy title, an incredibly poetic and powerful collection of personal and profound little essays. Written by Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was also published this past year (in fact, the two books have spent several simultaneous weeks on the New York Times bestseller list recently), these meditations on love, life, family, relationship, and sex are in fact columns published at The Rumpus written in response to readers' letters.

Strayed responds to a diverse variety of questions and concerns, which include dating after divorce, not wanting to settle, cheating, dealing with affairs, healing from child sex abuse, overcoming miscarriage, navigating high school dating dramas, dealing with one's partner's sexual past and fetishes, communicating about sex and our real sexual selves, second thoughts, coming out gay, being transgender, getting over an ex in a time of Facebook and Twitter, what happily after really means, and more.

Strayed's work is well-worth the read. I first picked up her memoir Wild because I so loved Lidia Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water featuring one woman's journey from loss and hurt to empowerment and peace through the rugged path of alcohol, drugs, and a lot of sex, and the two books seemed like they might have some things in common.

September 17, 2012

50 Shades of Obsessing with Spanking

The current Fifty Shades of Grey mania has apparently gotten more women into spanking lately. Sex-toy shops gleefully report an increase in sale of bondage toys; even hardware stores are reporting an influx of new customers — mostly women — shopping for rope.

People are drawn to bondage for all sorts of reasons. In our stressed out culture, surrendering control can appear highly appealing. Others might be drawn to it because a blindfold and intenser sensations can help them focus. Some may be drawn to it as a path of psychological transformation. And to some it may be a fetish that stems from childhood experiences of abuse

September 14, 2012

Shop High-end Pleasure Objects from LELO at Love, Sex, and Family


Love, Sex, and Family is a proud affiliate of LELO, the Swedish brand of high-end pleasure objects. Committed to style, safety, and functionality, all items come with a 1-year warranty and 10-year quality guarantee. Whenever a Love, Sex, and Family reader makes a purchase from LELO after clicking on any of the LELO links on this page, we get a small commission of the sales value.

SMART WAND (MEDIUM), LYLA 2, TIANI 2, ODEN 2

About LELO:
LELO is the world's leading designer brand for intimate lifestyle products. On launching in 2003, LELO transformed the look, feel and function of how personal massagers were perceived, and now applies the same commitment to quality and innovation through bedroom accessories, massage oils, soy massage candles and a premium line of silk intimate apparel. LELOi AB is the Swedish company behind LELO, and also holds the Intimina and PicoBong brands under the LELO group, where offices extend from Stockholm to San Jose, from Sydney to Shanghai.

Why We Must Oppose the Minnesota Marriage Amendment {featured contributor}

By Stacey L. Klempnauer

Stacey L. Klempnauer
This November Minnesotans will vote on the marriage amendment. We will vote on whether or not marriage should be strictly between a man and a woman, and whether we should amend our state constitution to say that a marriage cannot be between two people of the same sex. I will be voting “No” and I want to share with you my reasons why.

First, I am very concerned about the message we are sending to our children. If this amendment passes, we are saying that lesbians and gays are second class citizens, not worthy of the same rights as those of us who are not gay. This message does not serve anyone in a useful way. It’s a message that promotes bullying – an issue that schools are currently battling, poor self-esteem in anyone who is deemed different, and fear in those who already feel marginalized and alone. And unfortunately, we have only to look at Anoka Hennepin Schools to see that an unaccepting attitude can also have an enormous impact on teen suicide.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...