So this week on French class, we reached that special time on the learning of any language where we’re expected to learn how to talk about families. Our textbook brought up familles recomposées, that is, family outside the father-mother-children standards, which the teacher saw as an opportunity to debate same-sex marriage. There’s something about teachers that makes me always expect them to be re... »
If someone asked me one year ago if I knew something was wrong, I’d have said yes. Something has always been wrong, something has always been off, far before the words were officially said, far before the diagnosis was officially handed out to us. Retrospectively, I don’t think there was ever a time when I didn’t know her issues – there was only a time when she was aware enough to not let them spi... »
This semester, I’m taking what is probably the worst course I have to take in order to become a biologist: parasitology. First class consisted of an hour and a half of Ascaris lumbricoides, look it up (or, you know, don’t). First month will consist solely of helminthes, which are worm-like parasites. And the professor comes nowhere near the social issues that are involved or the awareness and educ... »
Today is Darwin Day! I was really lucky and went to schools that taught biology quite well as I was growing up. Not only did I come out of school with a fairly good idea of how evolution works, I even had the opportunity to take a high school biotechnology class in which we did things like very basic DNA testing and learned about what was then (1999) cutting edge genetics research. I have since le... »
This holiday season, a 14-year-old cousin of mine had to have an emergency appendectomy and spent New Year’s eve hospitalized. She had the surgery on Dec. 29th, but she’d been showing symptoms (unbearable pain that refrained her from even walking and inability to keep anything in her stomach among them) since the 22nd. The reason it took her seven days of suffering from a ruptured appendix before ... »
So my parents arrived in town last week to spend the holidays with me and the rest of the family. Every time they come, I spend at least two weeks prior to their arrival preparing myself for all kinds of slightly offensive comments spread out during the day – triggers to constant fighting when we used to live together, and that I have accepted as just a part of them I am going to have to live it f... »
There’s a really cool documentary project going on in Sydney, Australia. Director Maya Newell, the daughter of a lesbian couple, says she “hope[s] that in watching this film audiences will be inspired to interrogate ‘what is family’ and how and by whom it is designed.” You’ll find the video down under… »
Why, hello there. I’m Belle, and I am one of the new writers for Queereka. Will should be along at some point to announce the others and introduce us, but I’m not patient enough to wait to post, the reason being this topic has been on my mind for a while now, and I feel I should share. – I’ve been open about my sexuality since high school. I grew up in a gem of a midwestern town ... »
