TRẦN THANH TÂM

Happy January! Not just the first month of the year, January is also Cervical Cancer Awareness Month. How much do you know about cervical cancer? It’s important to take preventative measures, but do you know how to do that? What Causes Cervical Cancer? Those assigned female at birth are typically born with a cervix , which connects the uterus to the vagina . While cervical cancer most often affects people as adults, there’s a super effective way to prevent it starting when you are young (more on that coming up). You may be wondering—what even causes cervical cancer? Well, the majority of cases are caused by something called Human Papillomavirus, or HPV . HPV is a sexually transmitted infection that most sexually active people will get at some point. Many of them will clear it from their bodies without even knowing they had it; there are over 150 strains of HPV and most of them will not harm you or cause any symptoms at all. However, some strains of HPV can lead to complications,...

Author:  Zoe Mendelson and María Conejo What's up with so many people experiencing what sure seem like side effects of hormonal birth control methods, but so few studies seeming to find or report those same effects? This excerpt from the book version of Pussypedia breaks it down and backs it up with a giant pile of research. At the very pushy urging of the doctors at my college’s health center, I started the pill the first week of my freshman year. It made me feel terrible. I was emotionally unstable, sad, and disconnected from myself. Once, I cried hysterically in the cafeteria because I waited in line for some chicken but the person before me got the last piece. That moment was a relief actually because it gave me an objective measure of my emotional reactions: something was off. I know with absolute certainty that I don’t love chicken that much. But when I went back to the doctors, they twice assured me that it was just freshman year of college—not the pill—making...

For almost half a century, those living in the U.S. have had the right to choose abortion as an option. We have Roe v. Wade, which turns 49 on January 22, to thank for this. With the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court recognized that the choice between carrying out a pregnancy or having an abortion belonged to the individual, affirming that access to safe and legal abortions is a right protected by the U.S. Constitution. Today, Roe v. Wade is at its most vulnerable after being under attack for years. Most recently, Texas passed a law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. But did you know that at six weeks, many people don’t even realize they’re pregnant? Barriers to Abortion Say you’ve just missed your period. You visit the doctor, who informs you that you’re already more than four weeks pregnant, as pregnancy is calculated from the first day of your last period. And now, depending on where you live, you may have less than two weeks to find somewhere to get...

Author:  Gabriel Leão "Folks, the main thing I hope to realize is that you are a very powerful social creator, no part of human culture exists without humans creating it and you literally have the power to do that. Of course, you don’t have all the power, but listen: power is not just out there in some kind of blob form, power is inside of everyone of us. We don’t have all the power but we have our power and we can decide how to use it." Adolescence often presents many challenges to self and self-image, and all the more so for LGBTQIA, fat and other marginalized young people, and those who have survived or are experiencing sexual abuse .  Finding real and good conversations about these intersections isn’t easy. But someone spearheading these kinds conversations is veteran author Kimberly Dark . An abuse and incest survivor, Dark is a force living and working as a writer, sociologist, professor and storyteller and deftly revealing and challenging the hidden s...