A Beloved Ballroom Queen. A Shocking Murder. Did “Pose” Get It Right?
Mother Jones illustration; FX Warning: This piece contains spoilers. In the fourth episode of season 2 of Pose, the history-making show about ball culture in ’80s and ’90s New York City, the beloved Candy Ferocity is killed by a john in a dingy motel room. This came as a shock: It was the first death…
Planned Parenthood Rejects Federal Funding Over Trump Administration’s “Unethical” Gag Rule
Pro-choice activists and legislators in New York protest the Title X “gag rule” in February. Spencer Platt/Getty Planned Parenthood announced Monday that it will withdraw from Title X, the federal family planning program through which the organization receives about $60 million annually, rather than adhere to the Trump administration’s new rule that restricts grantees from…
Hundreds of New Child Sex Abuse Cases Are Flooding New York’s Courts
ChiccoDodiFC/Getty When 52-year-old Michael Whalen stood up in front of the St. Louis Roman Catholic Church in downtown Buffalo, New York, in February 2018, to tell his story of being sexually abused by a priest as a teenager, it set off a Spotlight-style chain reaction. The accused priest, the Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits, told a…
The Trump Administration Is Trying to Make It Easier to Fire Unmarried Pregnant Women
Syda Productions/Shutterstock The Department of Labor proposed a new rule this week that would make it easier for employers to discriminate against workers who they say violate their religious beliefs, including members of the LGBTQ community, pregnant women who are not married, and others. The proposed rule, published Thursday in the Federal Register, purports to…
“I Couldn’t Afford Anything”: Title X Transformed This Woman’s Life, But It May Not Be an Option for Much Longer
Abortion rights supporters stand on both sides of a street near the Gateway Arch as they take part in a protest in favor of reproductive rights on May 30, 2019, in St. Louis.Jeff Roberson/AP Late last month, Emma Bosley and dozens of Planned Parenthood volunteers and staff members descended on Capitol Hill to plead their…
What If Courts Treated Young Sex Trafficking Victims Like Cyntoia Brown as People, Not Perpetrators?
Maia Boakye One morning in February, Brittney, a baby-faced 17-year-old with short black braids, stands in front of a juvenile court judge in Compton, California, talking about kittens. Brittney had been in and out of the justice system since she was 14, after the state removed her from her physically abusive mother. Diagnosed with post-traumatic…