racism

Caster Semenya is a gold-medal-winning Olympic athlete from South Africa. She's an incredibly talented runner who's won dozens of gold medals at competitions worldwide. But instead of having her athletic performance attributed to natural talent and hard work, it has been scrutinized and coupled with assertions that she can’t possibly have accomplished what she has without cheating. Who is to blame for this, you might ask? Just the usual suspects: sexism, cissexism, and white supremacy.

STI rates are higher in communities of color. Get the facts so you can fight the stereotypes.

The women of Wakanda both deal with and triumph over sexism. How can we apply Black Panther to our own lives?

People of color can find themselves the target of sexual racism, but what exactly IS sexual racism, and what do we do about it?

Have you ever thought about your body from the point of view of your skin?

What is "respectability politics," and how can we confront it in ourselves?

We explore the dark history of the foundations of surgical gynecology and its "father", J. Marion Sims, inventor of the vaginal speculum, who performed experiments on enslaved women without anaesthesia in the mid-1800's, and learn about the ways in which the legacy of racism and sexualization towards black folks has persisted and developed to have a measurable effect on health outcomes.

What is it? Why would -- or wouldn't -- you want it? What makes it more likely to be a blast or a bummer?

Sade is 17 and works as a youth activist for YWCHAC, a program for and by young women of color that helps foster their development in advocacy training while providing them with the skills to be effective peer-educators to youth on the subject of sexual health. Their mission is to address the increasing rates of HIV infection in young women of color ages 13-24. I got the chance to ask Sade about what she does, why she does it, and what she thinks about some of the issues that impact HIV and young women.

I've known that I am attracted to men for as long as I can remember. I identify as a MSM or as "downe" rather than as bisexual. Being attracted to men didn't bother me as much as how that attraction would play out. There aren't many black MSMs in the media so it was hard for me to reconcile my race and my masculinity with my attraction to men. I felt as though I would be seen as weak or effeminate by others.