The Conversation

How the early internet created a place for trans youth to find one another and explore coming out

Written by Avery Dame-Griff, Visiting Assistant Professor, Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies, Appalachian State University

In the late 1980s, trans youth started going online to connect with others experiencing gender dysphoria.non157/iStock via Getty Images

Follow coverage of trans issues, and you’ll hear some people say that teens who change their gender identity are participating in a fad, and that social media is the culprit.

As one proponent of legislation...

How the bulletin board systems, email lists and Geocities pages of the early internet created a place for trans youth to find one another and explore coming out

Written by Avery Dame-Griff, Visiting Assistant Professor, Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies, Appalachian State University

In the late 1980s, trans youth started going online to connect with others experiencing gender dysphoria.non157/iStock via Getty Images

Follow coverage of trans issues, and you’ll hear some people say that teens who change their gender identity are participating in a fad, and that social media is the culprit.

As one proponent of legislation...

Why widespread health woes could follow from pandemic-driven job losses

Written by Jennie E. Brand, Professor of Sociology and Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles

Empty stores and restaurants in Beverly Hills, California, closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.Getty Images

Being out of work isn’t bad just for your finances: It’s bad for your health. Losing a job can cause depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. Research also consistently shows that job loss and unemployment –...

Pain of police killings ripples outward to traumatize Black people and communities across US

Written by Denise A. Herd, Professor of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Each headstone in Minneapollis' 'Say Their Names' cemetery represents a Black American killed by police – deaths that create a ripple effect of pain felt in Black communities nationwide. Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

It’s been one year since George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer set off the largest...

Western fires are burning higher in the mountains at unprecedented rates in a clear sign of climate change

Written by Mojtaba Sadegh, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Boise State University

The Western U.S. appears headed for another dangerous fire season, and a new study shows that even high mountain areas once considered too wet to burn are at increasing risk as the climate warms.

Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. West is in severe to exceptional drought right now, including large parts of the Rocky Mountains, Cascades and Sierra...

Despite federal moratorium, eviction rates returning to pre-pandemic levels

Written by Benjamin Larsen, Research Associate, Idaho Policy Institute, Boise State University

Outside Columbus, Ohio, a bailiff signs a writ of eviction for a tenant on March 3, 2021.Stephen Zenner/Getty Images

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Idaho, like many states across the country, faced rising housing costs, low home-vacancy rates and increasing efforts by landlords to evict tenants.

Thanks to increased unemployment benefits, federal...

Suit seeks to limit anti-Muslim speech on Facebook but roots of Islamophobia run far deeper

Written by Caleb Elfenbein, Associate Professor, Departments of History and Religious Studies; Director, Center for the Humanities, Grinnell College

President Trump's ban on immigration from several mostly Muslim countries was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court. President Biden revoked it on his first day in office.Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

A civil rights group is suing Facebook and its top executives in federal court over the company’s failure to crack down on hate speech against...

Faith in numbers: Fox News is must-watch for white evangelicals, a turnoff for atheists...and Hindus, Muslims really like CNN

Written by Ryan Burge, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Eastern Illinois University

Fox News has a faithful audience.AP Photo/Richard Drew

Fox News possesses an “outsized influence” on the American public, especially among religious viewers.

That was the conclusion of the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute in a report released just after the 2020 presidential election. It noted that 15% of Americans cited Fox...

The obscure, unelected Senate official whose rulings can help – or kill – a bill's chance to pass

Written by Charles Tiefer, Professor of Law, University of Baltimore

Bills have a long journey that includes going through the parliamentarian's office in the Senate. Here, a corridor in the Senate.dkfielding/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough raised the profile of her largely invisible role in February 2021 when she ruled that Senate Democrats could not include a hike in the...

578,555 people have died from COVID-19 in the US, or maybe it's 912,345 – here's why it's hard to count

Written by Ronald D. Fricker Jr., Professor of Statistics and Senior Associate Dean, Virginia Tech

A November 2020 memorial in Washington, D.C. consisted of thousands of flags, each planted to remember someone who died of COVID-19.Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

When the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington released its estimate that COVID-19 had killed 912,345 people in the U.S. by May 6, 2021,...