The Face: A Cultural History by Fay Bound-Albert is a fascinating and recently published cultural anthropological project that explores how human societies have interpreted and valued the face over time. Bound-Alberti analyzes how those interpretations influence identity, power, and social hierarchy in the here and now. The face is also something that contemporary gendered and […]
Foster Care for Queer Kids
The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it will no longer enforce a Biden-era policy requiring that LGBTQ youth needing foster care be placed in LGBTQ-affirming households. The Biden policy was ruled invalid by a federal district court in Texas in June 2025, so HHS claims it is merely removing an invalid […]
More Setbacks for Trans Advocates
The Supreme Court ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta, which we also report, is not the only recent legal setback for trans advocates. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a West Virginia law that allowed the state to withhold Medicaid funding for all trans surgeries, including those of adults . In Texas, Attorney General Ken […]
The Neanderthal Within
We all have some Neanderthal genes within us. A study recently published in the journal Science has found chromosomal evidence that coupling between male Neanderthals and human females was much more common than the opposite pattern. This might in part be due to Neanderthals being physically stronger than humans, able to overpower humans in battle, […]
Do You Regret Your Last One Night Stand?
Why do people sometimes regret one-night stands? An international team of researchers studied this question by conducting a survey with 1,044 participants (649 females, 395 males; more than 40 nationalities) who retrospectively evaluated their most recent one-night stand. Only a minority evaluated their last such encounter negatively: women were more likely to do so, but […]
Enough Already! Trans Distraction in Arizona and Kansas
The world is being racked at present by multiple messy global conflicts. Oh, and there’s also theclimate crisis, you know, that pesky little planetary apocalyptic predicament that probably(definitely) trumps anything else humanity must contend with right now. But, don’t worry,American states like Arizona and Kansas are leading the way and fighting the goodfight…against…transgender people?After years […]
The Big Kink Survey
Popular sex blogger and activist Aella has released a valuable research tool based on her database of over 900,000 followers. This sample is not representative of the general population, but it does give valuable insight into those who are highly interested in sexual variations. The tool allows one to perform a variety of demographic correlations […]
HIV Policy from Fiji to Florida
Fiji is in the grips of an HIV outbreak that’s largely fueled by a drug epidemic. It is now the fastest-growing HIV outbreak in the world. Fiji is responding through evidence based harm reduction. To support national action to stop the spread of HIV, a two-day national workshop was held to apply the new WHO […]
Same-Sex Relations in the Animal Kingdom
We noticed a plethora of sex stories about non-human animals in circulation while we were organizing our March 1digest. This extensive study from Nature Ecology and Evolution found that same-sex relations are common in nonhuman primate species, and the research illuminated some potential fascinating reasons as to why this may be the case. The study’s […]
How Big a Threat is AI-Generated Child Porn?
An article in the New York Times in July 2025 reported that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) claimed to have received over 485,000 tips about AI-generated child pornography in the first six months of the year, a dramatic increase relative to 2024. Most of these came from Amazon AI Services. But […]