Women Of Star Wars + Onion Headlines

Sorry to everyone who’s enjoyed the last 130 years of science and culture journalism, but Disney needs the money to fund Toy Story 9

‘International Pony Theme’ by International Pony is my new jam.

Frog Murder Christmas!

‘The Magic Number’ by De La Soul 3

‘Bubble Dragon: A Bubble Bobble Tribute’ by 7bit Hero I've always been a sucker for the Bubble Bobble music, but this is really something special #EXTEND

‘Ashes To Ashes’ by David Bowie fun to funky

people really love to say “no one is pro abortion” and I’d like to clarify that I’m very pro-abortion. I think abortion is good and we should make it super accesible and easy.

Amazing TED talk on the way the strict gender binary harms us, by XY intersex woman Emily Quinn

Here’s an extract of her talk:

“I have a vagina. Just thought you should know. Just thought you should know. I look like a woman. I’m dressed like one, I guess. The thing is, I also have balls….I’m not male or female. I’m intersex.

“Most people assume that you’re biologically either a man or a woman, but it’s actually a lot more complex than that. There are so many ways somebody could be intersex. 

In my case, it means I was born with XY chromosomes, which you probably know as male chromosomes. And I was born with a vagina and balls inside my body. I don’t respond to testosterone, so during puberty, I grew breasts… I don’t actually have a uterus – I was born without one, so I don’t menstruate, I can’t have biological children…

“We put people in boxes based on their genitalia. Before a baby’s even born, we ask whether it’s a boy or a girl, as if it actually matters; as if you’re going to be less excited about having a baby if it doesn’t have the genitals you wanted; as if what’s between somebody’s legs tells you anything about that person. 

Are they kind, generous, funny? Smart? Who do they want to be when they grow up? Genitals don’t actually tell you anything. Yet, we define ourselves by them. In this society, we love putting people into boxes and labeling each other…

“But there’s one really big problem: biological sex is not black or white. It’s on a spectrum. Besides your genitalia, you also have your chromosomes, your gonads, like ovaries or testicles. You have your internal sex organs, your hormone production, your hormone response and your secondary sex characteristics, like breast development, body hair, etc. 

Those seven areas of biological sex all have so much variation, yet we only get two options: male or female. Which is kind of absurd to me, because I can’t think of a single other human trait that there’s only two options for: skin color, hair, height, eyes…”

Listen to the whole talk here. Believe me, it is worth your time!