(hell, yeah) Scarleteen

At Scarleteen we’re focused on making pleasure accessible for all, especially for queer folks who are tired of either getting zero sex ed info, or getting info that assumes everyone’s straight, cis, and/or having one very specific kind of sex. Our work also centers community voices, not outsiders telling people what to do.

A lot of sex ed out there skips over queer pleasure and queer dynamics, and dodges the real questions folks have like, how to navigate dysphoria, or thinking about how to have safer sex in ways that go beyond “use condoms.” All of our sex ed is written with queer people in mind, but some of our articles and advice columns dive more deeply into concerns our LGBTQIA+ visitors ask us about—although they’re out here for everyone to read, whether questioning, supporting a partner or friend, or just curious to learn more.

Everyone deserves accurate, compassionate, nonjudgemental information about their own bodies, their options, and their care. 

That means being direct about what abortion is, why people need it, and why access to safe abortions is important and matters in our world. Being honest about abortion isn’t optional for us. It’s part of providing real sex education and real support to folks, especially for folks who may not have another trusted place to turn to. 

Too often, abortion care information is censored, stigmatized, or intentionally hard to find. That leaves people with no useful information about how to access care, what their options are, how to stay safe or what to do if they live somewhere abortion is restricted, criminalized, or illegal.

As a whole, we’ve been fed the idea that abortion isn’t something we’re supposed to talk about honestly and openly. That silence leaves people isolated. It makes it harder to ask questions, hard to support friends or loved ones, and harder to recognize abortion as a common part of healthcare and life. 

Today we’re offering some of our resources on why we need abortion and abortion access, how to support someone having an abortion, how to protect your privacy and prioritize safety, and what each of us can do to help destigmatize abortion and support everyone’s right to it:

How to Access a Safe, Self-Managed Medical Abortion

A Guide to Accessing Abortion Care – Even When It Looks Hard

Abortion and Digital Privacy: How To Protect Ourselves

For example, you could say…

I live with a condition which can make me feel fatigued, so I would prefer an activity that we can sit down for.

My health can vary from one day to the next, can we plan a back-up date activity in case I don’t feel up for this?

As I use a wheelchair, I’d love to suggest this place which I know is very accessible.

My service dog is part of my essential medical equipment and will be coming with me, please ignore him/her. (Scarleteen has tips on dating with a service dog!)

Simply asserting your needs clearly and confidently is enough to set yourself up for a successful date. And anyone who doesn’t respect those needs just isn’t worth your time. Most of the time people are quick to show their true colours!”

If you haven’t come across a trusted source before, you’re in luck: you’re reading one right now! I really recommend looking up zines and other publications by and for trans people, which are more accessible than ever online. Some favourite topics of mine include comprehensive hormones information, sexy sex ed, trans dating and blogs or personal essays about why being trans is cool and hot. Trans folk are such a smart, creative group of people, and there is so much information able to be accessed out there without anything other than an internet connection and, if you want to be really fancy with it, a printer.

Even with information bans and digital restrictions today, we’re lucky that there are so many places that talk openly and honestly about trans bodies and lives. We just need to make sure that what we’re finding is correct (such as on Scarleteen, where content is by and for LGBTQIA+ people and edited to ensure its factually accurate), and that no one we don’t want can find out what we’ve been reading or searching, whether that means deleting your history, searching stuff only on public computers, hiding paper copies somewhere that won’t be found, or whatever method feels safest for you.”

Especially early on in a relationship, you don’t know precisely what it’s going to look like. People throw around a lot of terms to describe things like sexual orientation⁠, attraction, and relationships, and it can be tempting to look for the box you will fit into, but fixating on definitions is putting the cart before the horse. Naming things before you know what they truly are just doesn’t make sense.

You might enter a relationship from the outset knowing that you want something temporary; a night in someone else’s house, perhaps, a brief camping trip, or a longer more casual relationship. Or you might enter a relationship with the intent of making it longer-term. You might know that you’re hoping the other person will be a best friend or family, a sexual partner⁠, or a long-term love. Be clear about where you’re at and what you’re looking for with someone while giving yourself time and space to let your relationship develop.”

That includes providing clear, accurate, compassionate, and nonjudgemental information about it, because everyone deserves the knowledge they need to make their own best decisions about their own body. 

We think, and have always thought, that abortion is good. It’s a stance that – especially in the first two decades of our tenure – resulted in some reproductive health and sex education providers and organizations shunning us, and in constant pushback from people and groups who are anti-abortion. But it’s not an optional stance for us, because telling the truth isn’t optional for us. The truth is that abortion is good: both a personal good and a public good.

Abortion allows people to determine their own destinies. Abortion saves lives. Abortion isn’t some kind of necessary evil but a core tenet of human dignity, freedom and bodily autonomy. It should be safe, accessible, legal, stigma-free, and affordable for anyone and everyone who wants or needs it

Abortion is too often discussed as something that has to be defended or justified. We don’t think it needs an apology. Abortion isn’t something we need to treat as a last-resort moral compromise. We also don’t think that it makes sense to call abortion anything but abortion, something we have in common with the Abortion Positivity Project (APP), who we’re really excited to be collaborating with this week.

We hope you enjoy hearing the folks at the APP explain why saying abortion when we’re talking about abortion – rather than using soft language or other euphemisms for it – can be key to gaining ground in the fight for abortion rights. We’ll also be sharing some of our abortion resources this week for anyone looking for straightforward, supportive information without scare tactics, or judgment: resources that range from explaining what abortion is, how different methods work – including how to engage in self-managed abortion safely and effectively –  and what people can expect before, during, and after an abortion:

From Pro-Choice to Abortion Positive

How to (Un)pack for a Real Discussion About Abortion

All About Abortion

During some parts of the fertility cycle, for a person with a vagina and uterus, cervical mucus is too thick and pasty for those cells to be motile (to move), and the opening to the cervix isn’t open enough for them to get inside of it. Sometimes, sperm cells have to wait within the vagina or other parts of the reproductive system because they got there too soon: an egg, and the other conditions needed, weren’t there for them yet. Sperm cells can potentially stay within the vaginal environment for a few days: they can be the ones waiting for the phone to ring, as it were. Other times, there’s just not enough semen or viable sperm cells in that semen for these next steps. In a lot of ways the vagina, cervix and uterus aren’t friendly to sperm cells: that system even “attacks” some sperm cells to try and counteract them, similar to the way our bodies try to counteract unhealthy bacteria or other potentially harmful visitors.

Even in perfect conditions, less than a thousand sperm cells – of those initial millions! – will make it to the fallopian tubes, and only a few dozen of the sperm cells may wind up reaching the outer membrane of the egg cell, if any do. That’s one reason the body produces so many of them."