Between 2022 and 2025 the United States transgender population grew 80% (Williams Institute 2025). In that same time period, state and federal anti-trans bills considered by the United States government increased 668%. This growth spike peaked in 2023 when proposed bills grew over 3.5 fold from the year before (Trans Legislation Tracker 2026). The growth […]
Facing Struggle & Finding Oneself as a Disadvantaged Student at an Elite College Dedicated to my former gifted teacher, English teacher, and high school counselor Mrs. Harms. Your support and care helped me become someone I am proud to be wherever I am. One fateful March evening, after intense preparation, anxiety, and hope, I was […]
Transphobia – negative attitudes, prejudice, and discrimination towards transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people – has been increasing in the United States (The Economist 2023). It is increasing in popular media, social media, local and national legislation, and in the attitudes of the general population. It is especially visible through the increase in hate crimes […]
Colleges with need-blind admissions policies present this approach as a great equalizer for lower-income students in higher education. Under this system, colleges and universities promise to not factor in a student’s ability to pay tuition when considering admissions, acting as if they are “blind” to a student’s need. Roughly 100 U.S. colleges and universities currently […]
When I returned home from college in the summer in 2025, I was met with a completely different version of my hometown than the one I left. Gone were the expanses of open farmland and cornfields that had once defined Wooster, Ohio. In their place stood new mid-priced, high-density housing developments and large grocery store […]
Despite my love of making crafts for my friends and family, I often feel hesitant to share my love of sewing. For many non-sewers, sewing evokes the image of a 1950s housewife and homemaker, making interest in the craft seem like a nostalgic return to a more restrictive past for women. Yet, interest in sewing […]
I was first cast as a “dumb blonde” in seventh grade. A few years later, that typecast grew into the kind of character who was still stupid, but also used her desirability to get ahead. This typecast has yet to fully disappear. There have been moments where I have caught myself accepting this stereotype as […]
While many people credit an influential teacher or parent as a pivotal influence, for me, it was something different. For eighteen years, I grew up alongside Tabby, a scrappy rescue from the South who taught me how to be a better person. She helped me develop empathy and emotional awareness, and even influenced my career […]
Siblings share toys, they may share clothes, do they also share mental illnesses? I am the youngest of five children born to two teachers. The five of us, four girls and one boy, were born and raised on a small boarding high school campus where my parents worked. Our house was always filled with tension […]
Greetings from the USA! I landed at John F. Kennedy Airport as an 18-year-old Chinese student from the opposite side of the world, with three heavily packed suitcases, ready to enter a new world of unknowns. Though my heart was racing with anticipation, I soon realized that things would not go as smoothly as I […]
Cancer ostensibly affects approximately 1 in 5 people during their lifespan (WHO 2021). Including loved ones and caregivers of cancer patients, 6 million more are impacted by this disease per year (Broom and Kenny 2021). More than an individual disease, cancer is a public and relational ailment. Despite the prevalence of cancer cases, I never […]
Barrier-breakers pictured around the Autism Acceptance logo (clockwise): Greta Thunberg, Breanna Clark, Sia, Satoshi Tajiri, Susan Boyle, Temple Grandin, Dan Aykroyd, Morgan Harper Nichols “Start collecting a check. He’s a lifer.” That’s what my parents were told by doctors when I was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. I would have no chance of going to […]
I can’t recall my first gymnastics class – I started at the age of two. My parents and coaches fueled my participation and skill development, encouraging my passion and striving for success. By the second grade, I eagerly practiced twenty-five hours per week and competed at state-level competitions. As my career progressed, attending practices felt […]
When asked his biggest fear, popular social media influencer Jon Brannon, also known as Jon Skywalker, responded “dying skinny.” Brannon and many other fitness influencers encourage a culture of toxic masculinity through steroid usage. In his Tik Tok bio he even describes himself as a “TREN-SETTER”, or a trendsetter in the fitness industry, as well […]
Dark comedy has allowed misogyny to stay mainstream (Ford et al. 2007: 168). It’s easy to find recent examples of jokes that went too far. For example, in 2016, a leaked tape of former President Donald Trump joking with a male friend about sexually harassing and “grabbing [women] by the pussy” went viral. Trump dismissed […]
Caitlin Clark is reshaping the landscape of women’s basketball. Leading her Iowa Hawkeyes team to the championship game of the popular March Madness tournament in two consecutive years and breaking dozens of records along the way, Clark has grown the women’s game in unprecedented ways. Through what has been deemed as the “Caitlin Clark Effect,” […]
Picture this. You are walking down 135th street in Harlem. On your right, you spot a park in the distance. As you walk closer, you can hear a basketball bouncing and kids yelling. It’s a small, outdoor court, well-maintained with fresh paint and a sturdy chain-link fence surrounding it. The game is intense, with everyone […]
Black performers are rarely able to tell their stories onstage in a powerful and authentic way. There are various reasons for this, such as who is writing the stories, who is directing the stories, and which stories are mainstreamed. In the 2018-19 season of New York City theater, Black performers occupied 29% of all available […]
LGTQ+ VS Bisexuals “You’re in your straight era.”“You’re in your gay era.”“If you had to choose only men or women for the rest of your life, what would you choose?” These are all common phrases people around me have told or asked me. Ever since I’ve come out as bisexual, people have always assumed I’m […]
Tinder is the most popular dating app in the world, with 7.8 million Americans who are active monthly users (Verto Analytics 2019). The interface of this app provides a range of profiles that can either be swiped right to show disinterest or swiped left to demonstrate attraction. When two people swipe left on each other, […]
I was born with a progressive hearing loss. My hearing did not worsen until after most of my speech had developed, so I speak with no impediments. Therefore, I am privileged in my experience with this disability. This has been a double-edged sword. While it is indisputable that deafness is a disability, when it isn’t […]
Television distorts, mocks and marginalizes fat people. Fat characters are reduced to caricatures whose stories and identities aren’t developed and don’t matter. TV audiences look down on fat characters because they are made fun of on the shows they are shown in (Himes 2007:713). Not only is the representation of fat people overwhelmingly negative, but […]
An immense amount of work goes into a song’s final product. Record labels and talented artists depend on producers to help them develop and make their music sounds its best (George, 2016). Without them, listeners wouldn’t be able to experience the emotionally engaging songs that are loved and praised so much. However, nearly every song […]
Over the course of the past year, M&M’s have been plastered all over the news, social media, and even Super Bowl commercials. In January of 2022, in a push towards more inclusive marketing, Mars Wrigley, M&M’s parent company, gave the brown M&M shorter heels and replaced the green M&M’s boots with sneakers. What resulted was […]
“If you want to be successful here [in America], you gotta master English. It’s a must… Language is the key… I want my children to know Korean because that’s our heritage, but we are living in America and the language of America is English… I want them to do well in school and go to […]
The “aesthetic” hashtag on Tik Tok has a staggering 172 billion views. An aesthetic in the digital sense of the word refers to a visual representation of an internet subculture that portrays a certain mood, community, or persona through fashion, decor, color palettes, mood boards, and more (Freeman 2021). Two aesthetics, #Minimalism and #Maximalism, have […]
The prevalence of homelessness in New York City makes it impossible for it to go unnoticed, especially by native New Yorkers. While the challenges faced by the overall population of the unhoused are widely known, what about the unique and less visible struggles that homeless women endure? Challenges of Homeless Motherhood Homeless shelters in New […]
As a nine-year-old exploring the streets of Seoul, South Korea, with my family, I frequently felt the eyes of passersby follow me. During my time there, I couldn’t help but notice the long stares and occasional scrunched noses I would receive. My mother, however, who is significantly paler than I and fully Korean, would never […]
The Next Big Thing Flashy sets, petty drama, tears, flowery confessions of love, and a host with quippy one-liners. Perhaps these tropes are familiar– if so, you might be thinking of a reality dating show. Skyrocketing into its current place atop the reality tv roster, dating shows have become the most widely watched form of […]
The sport of distance running is inherently structured around quantifiable measures. Running times, personal records, hours, mileage, and days – these records, quantify and come to govern runners’ lives. When this repetition, organization, and these performance measures feed into athletes’ lifestyles beyond running, the intensive expectations and culture of distance running can perpetuate a culture […]
In recent years the future has started to look grim. The fate of humanity is more uncertain with the presence of climate change, loss of biodiversity, fear of AI, and other existential threats (BBC News: 2019). Alongside the rise in existential threats is the rise of nostalgia. Nostalgic movies and shows from people’s childhood and […]
“Chitalianese!” My relatives exclaimed this term, attempting to come up with a word that could encapsulate my multifaceted identity as a Chinese female adopted by white, Euro-American parents. While their intentions were not malicious, internally, I was jarred. The different remnants of my Asian parents embedded in my DNA and my Italian-American upbringing tug at […]
A Symbolic Pas de Deux A pas de deux, directly translated to ‘step of two’, is a partnered dance in ballet, typically between a man and woman. The stereotypes for both male and female ballet dancers are translated symbolically into the traditional pas de deux. As Foster (1996) elaborates, “Pas de deux offered the female […]
It’s no secret that Broadway has long been rooted in a culture of sexism. Many beloved musicals contain sexist lyrics. “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” from My Fair Lady is a classic case in point along with others depicted above. Plots often center around the typically aesthetic transformation of a woman […]
“So where are you from?” a customer asks as I ring up her goods. It is a quiet Sunday shift at Joann Fabrics in Burlington, MA. She is the only person in line. “Oh, I’m from Lexington, it’s a few towns over,” I reply nonchalantly, assuming it’s just some mandatory small talk. She pauses, “Where […]
Most mothers seem to have their go-to remedies for preventing and treating illness in their families, such as vitamin C pills, echinacea tea, or in my family’s case, elderberry. But do these things really work? It can be hard to tell, but the supplement manufacturers selling these products don’t care as long as the consumers […]
When I was eight years old, I started training as a competitive rhythmic gymnast. As the only girl of color on a team composed exclusively of Russian members, I faced a constant struggle for acceptance. I was called unkind words like “kakashki”, which means poop in Russian by my teammates and was even told by […]
After announcing that he was gay at a media event with the New York Times and the NFL, University of Missouri football player Micheal Sam, received countless homophobic tweets. Many people began expressing concerns about a homosexual man playing professional football. Even an old teammate who was previously privately supportive, was publicly unsupportive of his […]
Antisemetic images are not what anyone expects to find scribbled in an elementary school bathroom in a quaint, seaside town just 16 miles north of Boston. But this past January 18th, and again on January 26th, this is exactly what students discovered inside two boys’ bathrooms at Village School in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Then, on January […]
To Be Diagnosed with Pediatric Cancer “Your child has cancer.” These are four words that a family never wants to hear. But cancer is a reality for nearly 400,000 children each year (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital), including myself in 2006. With this diagnosis comes months and years of treatment and surgeries. Patients are treated […]
Pharmaceutical companies push opioids into the public sphere as if they were injecting them right into the arms of the patients themselves. Opioids are made from natural drugs that are found in the poppy plant and are used to treat pain. There are three types of opioids: prescription (like OxyContin and Vicodin), fentanyl, and heroin. […]
As an art major with a concentration in oil painting and a Muslim woman of color, I can confidently say I have never seen art by or been taught about successful oil painters who share these identities. For an assignment in my advanced oil painting class, we had to recreate an oil painting by an […]
Construction on Syracuse’s stretch of I-81 started in 1959, and the project was widely lauded as an exciting opportunity to bolster the local economy; in reality, however, it decimated the 15th Ward, a historically Black neighborhood and initiated a period of “white flight” that would shape the city for generations.
By: Graham Nielsen In this film, I wanted to play with the idea of fast fashion advertising and turn it on its head. I edited two different H&M look books to show what really goes into the garments they advertise and the fast fashion industry as a whole. Today, more than ever, people have a […]
Trust in the American government is currently at an all time low (PEW 2025). As of 2025, only 17% of Americans say they are confident that the government will do what is right “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (15%). Trust among Democrats is especially low: only 9% say they trust the […]
Over the past several decades, the political playing field has leveled for women (Merrefield 2024). Since 1990, the percentage of female senators and House representatives have both increased by 23% (Schaeffer 2023). However, American women continue to wonder, why has there never been a female president? Research points repeatedly to misogyny in the American media. […]
Like a growing number of American families, many weekends of my childhood were consumed by my brother’s soccer tournaments and games. Some weekends were close to home, but others could be a flight away. His practices were also demanding; my brother would often get home at 9 p.m., leaving very little time to eat dinner […]
The 2026 suicide of NFL receiver Rondale Moore was a wake-up call about the mental health of professional football players (Baird 2026). Given his fame and incredible performance on the field, Moore’s story highlights that even the most accomplished football players are struggling with mental health in the NFL (Baird 2026; Grashow et al. 2026). […]
Link to Youtube Video on ICE: https://www.youtube.com/@LiyahKemp-o4k Since returning to office in 2025, President Donald Trump dramatically expanded immigration enforcement efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which includes carrying out raids, detentions, and deportations. Deportation experts estimated above 400,000 people were detained within the first 250 days of Trump’s second presidency. Prior to Trump’s […]
Fast fashion has become a staple in many wardrobes. Fast fashion brands such as Zara, H&M, and SHEIN, that produce inexpensive clothing rapidly in response to the latest trends, have recently gained popularity (Hageman et al. 2023). Despite fast fashion’s accessibility and convenience, brands often use unethical labor practices. They pay workers low wages to […]
Despite how the media and politicians treat immigration as a purely political issue, for families like mine, and millions of others, immigration is instead an issue of well-being—a force that influences how one lives, copes, and ultimately survives in what we must call “home.” Chasing hopes and opportunity in the “American Dream,” my parents arrived […]
