Author: mcequality

Indya Moore Speaks Out About Being Sex Trafficked: ‘I Was Just a Kid’

~ mcequality

Indya Moore, star of FX’s Pose, recently gave a candid account to Elle about the horrors of being sex trafficked as a young, vulnerable trans person in the foster care system.

Moore left her parents’ home at the age of 14 after being “overdisciplined” for what her parents saw as refusal to perform traditional masculinity. In foster care, she (the Elle story uses female pronouns, which Moore agreed to for the piece) was placed with a trans woman, who, for a time, shared her hormone replacement therapy treatments.

via Indya Moore Speaks Out About Being Sex Trafficked: ‘I Was Just a Kid’

Ohio's Abortion Bans Have Real Consequences

~ mcequality

Now, some Republicans in Ohio’s statehouse are going one step further, by pushing a new bill that would prohibit private insurance plans from covering abortions, a move that reproductive rights advocates believe would also prevent insurance companies from paying for many forms of birth control, like the pill and IUDs.

“The bill states that any birth control that could act to stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus is considered an abortion,” Jaime Miracle, the deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, told the Statehouse News Bureau.

Republican John Becker, the bill’s sponsor, said that the legislation isn’t meant to target birth control.

via Ohio's Abortion Bans Have Real Consequences

Missouri State Senate Passes a Near-Total Abortion Ban

~ mcequality

Now that Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has signed a near-total ban on abortion into law, Missouri is the latest state to follow suit.

The state’s Republican Governor Mike Parson called for a vote on a bill that would ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy, potentially making Missouri “one of the strongest pro-life states in the country.” After negotiations that continued into the night, the state’s Republican-led legislature passed the bill early Thursday, adding Missouri to the roster of states, including Alabama, Ohio, and Georgia that have enacted punitive abortion rules. As in Alabama, the measure includes exceptions only for “medical emergencies,” not rape or incest.

via Missouri State Senate Passes a Near-Total Abortion Ban

Political Controversies Can Inspire Bullying in Schools, Public Health Researchers Say

~ mcequality

Political controversies that receive heavy media coverage trickle down into classrooms and spark bullying, suggests a new study out this week. It found that children in California reported being bullied more over their sexual orientation during 2008 and 2009—when the contentious Proposition 8, which temporarily prevented same sex marriage in the state, was passed—than before or after those years.

The researchers behind the study, which is published in JAMA Pediatrics, looked at 14 years worth of data from the California Healthy Kids Survey, a statewide survey of K-12 students intended to identify factors that promote (or discourage) flourishing and well-educated kids. In total, they looked at responses from nearly 5 million middle and high school students across more than 5,000 schools in the state.

via Political Controversies Can Inspire Bullying in Schools, Public Health Researchers Say

TripAdvisor Is Launching New Tools to Spot Sexual Assault and Misconduct Allegations

~ mcequality

Two years ago, an expose revealed that TripAdvisor had removed reviews detailing robbery, sexual assault, and rape because they were either flagged as “inappropriate by the TripAdvisor community,” “off-topic” by staff, or were not considered “family friendly.” The site has since admitted it was deleting posts of that nature, rolled out badges on hotel pages with reports of safety issues, grossly mishandled allegations on its platform again, and now, is launching more safety features in an attempt to illustrate that it does take these concerns seriously.

TripAdvisor’s core experience president Lindsay Nelson published a post on Tuesday detailing two new features on the travel site that serve to help users more easily identify safety-related reviews. The first one is a safety filter that surfaces reviews from the last year detailing incidents of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by hotel employees. It also pulls up any new reviews detailing these incidents as well as death, drugging, sex trafficking, armed robbery, and physical assault.

via TripAdvisor Is Launching New Tools to Spot Sexual Assault and Misconduct Allegations

Survey finds 70% of LGBT people sexually harassed at work | UK news | The Guardian

~ mcequality

Nearly seven in 10 lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people have been sexually harassed at work, according to research for the Trades Union Congress revealing a “hidden epidemic”.

The survey, published on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia on Friday, found that more than two in five LGBT people (42%) said they had experienced colleagues making unwelcome comments or asking unwelcome questions about their sex life. More than a quarter (27%) reported receiving unwelcome verbal sexual advances.

Two-thirds (66%) said they did not tell their employer about the harassment, and a quarter of these said it was because they were afraid of being “outed” at work.

The survey found LGBT women were more likely to experience unwanted touching and sexual assault at work. More than a third (35%) reported experiencing unwanted touching, for example hands placed on their lower back or knee.

via Survey finds 70% of LGBT people sexually harassed at work | UK news | The Guardian

Study Shows Black Girls Feel the Impact of 'Adultification'

~ mcequality

Research has already shown that black girls are seen by adults as less childlike than white girls. This phenomenon, known as “adultification,” was first documented two years ago by researchers at Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality. Now, a followup study reveals that, not surprisingly, black girls and women sharply feel the impact of “adultification.” As one study participant put it, “[T]o society, we’re not innocent. And white girls are always innocent.”

In an earlier 2017 study, Georgetown Law researchers found that black girls, even those as young as 5 years old, were seen by adults as less needing of comfort, nurturing, protection, and support than white girls. The researchers also found that black girls were perceived as more independent and knowledgeable about sex. In this latest study, researchers set out to understand how black girls and women experienced this “adultification” through a series of national focus groups.

via Study Shows Black Girls Feel the Impact of 'Adultification'

Senator Introduces Do Not Track Bill to Block Companies From Collecting Your Data

~ mcequality

A new bill is trying to create a program similar to The Do Not Call list, except it would stop companies from tracking your online activities.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, announced on Monday he is introducing the Do Not Track Act. If approved, the bill would allow people to block companies from collecting data on their activity “beyond what is indispensable” for whatever services the company provides online.b

In 2009, internet activists first introduced the idea of putting “Do Not Track” message in HTTP headers, alerting companies that the user denies permission to track activity. The next year the Federal Trade Commission supported a Do Not Track program. But even though millions of people use Do Not Track—it doesn’t do anything, because there are no fines for breaking a Do Not Track request.

via Senator Introduces Do Not Track Bill to Block Companies From Collecting Your Data

Halsey Tweets About Supporting Sex Workers

~ mcequality

Over the weekend, Halsey posted on her Instagram stories with the #supportsexworkers hashtag. This is controversial. This is controversial! THIS IS CONTROVERSIAL. Clearly, because soon after, she wrote in a tweet that has since disappeared, “getting a lot of shit because I posted #supportsexworkers on my story last night.” She followed up: “Just to be clear. I DO support sex workers. I support consenting humans in the field. My statement obviously excludes people forced into sex work. It all comes back to autonomy and choice.” It is not so obvious to many people.

This is so often how the “debate” over sex work goes: Even the use of a supportive hashtag is swiftly strong-armed into a discussion of the evils of sex trafficking.

via Halsey Tweets About Supporting Sex Workers

Muhlaysia Booker, a Black Trans Woman Who Was Brutally Attacked in April, Has Been Killed

~ mcequality

In April, Muhlaysia Booker, a black trans woman, was brutally beaten in broad daylight in an attack that was captured on video. This past weekend, she was shot and killed in Dallas. Booker was 23 years old.

According to the Dallas Police Department’s Vincent Weddington, officers responded to a 911 call early Saturday morning and found Booker “lying facedown in the street, deceased from homicidal violence.” She was identified a day later. Booker is at least the fourth black trans woman to be shot and killed in 2019, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

via Muhlaysia Booker, a Black Trans Woman Who Was Brutally Attacked in April, Has Been Killed