By Lion’s Roar Staff — 2016
Meditation teacher Larry Yang recently told his personal story and answered Lion’s Roar‘s “Meet a Teacher” questionnaire; they follow here so that you can get to know him better.
Read on www.lionsroar.com
CLEAR ALL
After generations in the shadows, the intersex rights movement has a message for the world: We aren’t disordered and we aren’t ashamed.
What began as a proud assertion of identity has itself become a trope; the stereotype of a gay man now is one who goes to the gym and takes care of himself.
How misperceptions about disability can prevent people with physical and cognitive impairments from being able to express their sexuality.
Models and best friends Chella Man and Aaron Philip are challenging fashion ideals. The two discuss growing up feeling excluded and invisible and detail the bravery it takes to be the change you want to see.
It’s no secret that certain segments of the gay community hold high, near-oppressive standards of what counts as sexually attractive. Countless gay men have struggled to see themselves within it as a result.
For LGBTQ youth in particular, the Internet can be a refuge—a safe place to feel less alone. For queer youth to feel normal, they need to see, read and hear the voices of others who look like them and use the same identifying labels.
Queer culture and the arts would be much poorer without the presence and contribution of butch and stud lesbians, whose identity is both its own aesthetic and a defiant repudiation of the male gaze.
“Representation and visibility is given to us by larger power structures, but what do we give ourselves? I’m more interested in that. What questions are we asking ourselves to grow and heal? To challenge the ways this world constantly teaches us to hate ourselves?”
We’re exploring what it means to be queer and have a body, with essays about the ways our bodies are legislated and discriminated against, the strategies we’ve used to find belonging in them, and how we’re breaking down the stereotypes, preconceptions, and fetishization that many of us endure.
Body image issues aren’t unique to bi or gay men, but toxic thoughts pertaining to self-worth and physical care have become dangerously prevalent within the MSM (men seeking men) community.