When I was filling out paperwork for an appointment, there was a section asking for “preferred” pronouns. My initial reaction was a positive one. I was pleased with this effort by the clinic to be more inclusive but something about the paperwork struck me as a bit odd with the word “preferred.” After thinking about this, I had a realization that nothing about pronouns is preferred.

Pronouns are self-ascribed and therefore a matter of choice rather than assignment. This is because of the way that gender is an internal concept based on how a person identifies. Assuming that the pronouns…

The US Senate must pass the Equality Act in order to finally provide consistent, explicit non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people.

The Need for the Equality Act

While non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people exist at the state level in places like New York and my home state of Minnesota, there is no federal protection for individuals on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. Current civil rights laws have failed to protect LGBTQ+ people due to the lack of federal law which provides explicit protections for LGBTQ+ people. These gaps are allowing for injustices to fall through the cracks.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, the…

Next week the US House of Representatives will vote on The Equality Act (H.R.5), a sweeping amendment to the existing civil rights laws that will end legal discrimination against LGBTQ+ Americans.

What is The Equality Act?

According to the Human Rights Campaign, The Equality Act “would provide consistent and explicit non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people across key areas of life, including employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces and services, federally funded programs, and jury service.”

In May 2019, it passed in the House with a 236–173 vote, with a total of 8 Republican votes in support of The Equality Act. However, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch…

In elementary school, a teacher told me that my comprehension and overall reading skills were terrible. As a result, at the impressionable age of seven, I decided to quit reading for good.

I didn’t read a book cover to cover for another 13 years.

My Journey Started with a New Year’s Resolution

In high school, I never read the assigned books because I didn’t think of myself as a reader. I would start but never finish books because it didn’t seem to matter. Besides… I’m not a reader, so why bother?

I have always been a good student. Taking advanced placement and honours courses throughout high school and…

I thought my headache was from the jetlag. Just 24 hours earlier I had returned to the US from Sweden where I was studying abroad.

The first symptom I experienced was a headache, unlike anything I had ever experienced. Then the body aches that kept me in bed for days started just before I spiked a fever and started coughing. At that point, there was so much unknown about the virus that I was never tested.

In July I donated blood with the American Red Cross and my COVID-19 antibody test came back positive.

I KNEW IT!

This information confirmed…

In an announcement made up of less than 500 words (498 to be exact) the futures of over a million US-based international students have been jeopardized. In a statement released by the US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) stating the following:

“Nonimmigrant F-1* and M-1* students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States.”

This means over a million students are in danger of being deported if their university holds classes online this fall. …

My first taste of minimalism came from an article about a man that kept all of his belongings in a single suitcase. This extreme example of minimalism seemed crazy to me at the time as I read the article from my disastrously messy dorm room. Yet, something compelled me to learn more.

I studied minimalism for several weeks before I made a pile about as tall as I am of belongings I no longer used. I threw all the clothes, linens, and old books into bags and declared myself an aspiring minimalist.

It felt amazing to get rid of so…

In theory, it’s cool to be kind. In practice… it’s not that simple.

For most of my life, I believed that if you were doing well in life you could either be cool (i.e. successful, fashionable, and well-liked) or you could be kind. I tried my hand at stark individualism while having an identity crisis in middle school. I promptly accepted my lack of coolness and decided to be kind in my pursuit of success instead.

This formidable ideology about cool and kind being mutually exclusive is something that continues to shape the antagonistic rhetoric seen online and in-person today.

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