Just Because the Election Is Over Doesn’t Mean the Work Is (Bitch Media) 

Evette Dionne urges readers to stay politically-engaged after the election: “The more than 74 million Americans who voted for Biden—the most in the history of U.S. elections—might be breathing deep sighs of relief at the prospect of ejecting Trump from the White House. But that was never the entire goal: There’s still a lot of work to be done to address the worldwide impact of Trump’s four years in office, and to ease the pandemic-exacerbated suffering that the most marginalized among us have always experienced.” Read more.

The Problem With “Privacy” (Jacobin) 

Firmin Debrabander argues that the fight to protect the right to privacy should be collective: “We require privacy, they insist, to feel safe and free to consider ideas that are controversial—or offensive—to some. Expansions of liberty, which are later taken for granted, start with controversial ideas. If privacy is inviolate, people will feel uncoerced and empowered as free-thinking, self-determining citizens. But privacy advocates largely endorse an agenda—giving individual consumers more control over their data—that does a disservice to the liberties they aim to protect.”
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Meet the Educators Helping Indigenous Communities ‘Own Their Pleasure’ (Rewire News Group) 

Cassandra Corrado discusses sex ed in Indigenous communities: “Across the United States, those of us who got sex education in school likely only received instruction covering abstinence, pregnancy prevention, and STI prevention. But abstinence-only (or abstinence-favored) sex ed programs don’t actually give people the skills and tools they need to live sexually healthy lives. That’s especially true for Indigenous people, whose access to culturally relevant health services is fraught with centuries of abuse and neglect at the hands of the U.S. government.”
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Our Genders Are More Than Our Bodies: Affirming Trans Identity Beyond Appearance (Wear Your Voice) 

Holly A. affirms trans identity beyond appearance: “Even as knowledge on trans identities and trans folks becomes more widespread and accessible, a perilous hyperfixation on trans people’s bodies remains. We are vilified and harassed everyday in our homes, our schools, or in our places of work for how we might look or present. Trans folks are consistently shamed, marginalized, and oppressed under cisheteropatriarchy and through its actors for failing to adhere to colonized, cisgender binaries and gender roles and expectations, especially with regards to our presentation and our bodies. [...] But in truth, we are more than our bodies. Our genders are more than bodies.”
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A Class Action Lawsuit Is Challenging West Virginia’s Ban on Trans Medicaid Coverage (them.) 

Nico Lang writes about a recently-filed class action federal lawsuit regarding West Virginia’s Medicaid coverage for trans folks: “In a case before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, plaintiffs Christopher Fain and Zachary Martell claim that West Virginia’s refusal to cover medically necessary care for trans patients has created extreme hardship in their lives. Fain, a student at Marshall University who works part-time at a clothing store in Huntington, has been forced to pay out of pocket for testosterone, which can cost as much as $500 per month, depending on the type of treatment.”
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The Last Children of Down Syndrome (The Atlantic) 

Sarah Zhang investigates prenatal testing in Denmark and its future implications: “Denmark is not on its surface particularly hostile to disability. People with Down syndrome are entitled to health care, education, even money for the special shoes that fit their wider, more flexible feet. If you ask Danes about the syndrome, they’re likely to bring up Morten and Peter, two friends with Down syndrome who starred in popular TV programs where they cracked jokes and dissected soccer games. Yet a gulf seems to separate the publicly expressed attitudes and private decisions. Since universal screening was introduced, the number of children born with Down syndrome has fallen sharply. In 2019, only 18 were born in the entire country.”
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You Think Being a Trans Chinese Sex Worker Is Easy? (OZY) 

Jacob Yang writes about being a trans Chinese sex worker online: “People could watch me, record me and then rewatch those clips, which I didn’t want them to have, as often as they wanted. Even if I chose to stop working online, my body could be downloaded to hard drives in perpetuity. [...] Becoming an online sex worker has been and still is scary. I don’t know how sustainable it is for me. All I know is that COVID-19 forced me to pivot my entire business to a virtual model and that for now I can’t go anywhere else.” Read more.