We want to hear from people of different ages, genders, and sexualities about how they finally got off.

Orgasms are great — when you can manage to have them.

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But the truth is, orgasms can be really freaking elusive or are a lot harder for some people to have than others.

Which, frustrating as hell.

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So we want to know: What were you doing when you finally had your first noteworthy orgasm, either with yourself or a partner?

Tell us (in a few sentences to a paragraph) in the anonymous form or in the comments below and your answer could appear in an upcoming BuzzFeed Health post. Don’t be afraid to go into detail, get explicit, and have fun with it. Your response can be 100% anonymous!

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Dave Chappelle performs to a sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Palladium on March 25, 2016, in Los Angeles.

Lester Cohen / WireImage

I have fond memories growing up in Buffalo, New York, listening to my dad, grandmother, and uncles sitting around the kitchen table sipping coffee after dinner, sharing stories of navigating a racist world. My grandmother would talk about the camaraderie she had with the all-black kitchen staff she worked with at hotels and on trains. Many times, these stories were accompanied by raucous laughter, but sometimes, they were followed by painful silence. My mother would make fun of our hood-ass family members who could never stay out of trouble. The first time I felt like I saw experiences like theirs reflected in the mainstream media was when Dave Chappelle’s sketch comedy show, Chappelle's Show, launched in 2003. He hilariously captured and exaggerated stories like these, crowning him a titan of comedy and a pop culture icon.

The "Racial Draft" sketch on Chappelle's Show.

Comedy Central

Chappelle was known for crafting jokes parodying racial stereotypes and the absurdity of racism. “The Mad Real World” flipped the script on the popular MTV reality show Real World by putting “one white person around the craziest black people we could find.” And the “Niggar Family” skit, featuring a white family with the last name Niggar being praised for using stereotypes about black people, played with language and racist ideology. The sketches stood in stark contrast to SNL’s stale slapstick shenanigans and awkwardly clumsy skits. Chappelle's Show, which ran on Comedy Central until 2006, was nuanced, politically smart, and hella black. However, Chappelle abruptly ended the show during production on the third season after signing a $50 million contract for two more seasons. Citing stress and manipulation, Chappelle took a sabbatical in South Africa and then went home to his farm in Ohio.

Many black artists are leery of being deliberately thwarted by white folks, whether due to systemic manipulation or cultural appropriation. Several hip-hop artists, like Lauryn Hill, Frank Ocean, and even Jay Z, have criticized the corporate cultural machine that exploits music for capital. Legends like Nina Simone and James Baldwin fled the United States for France, weary of America’s specific brand of racism and bigotry. Black folks understand the emotional toll of microaggressions and the nuances of racism in each generation. We respected Chappelle’s departure, yet mourned the loss of one of the greatest sketch comedy shows ever. This week, Chappelle returned to television with the much-anticipated debut of two of three Netflix stand-up comedy specials, The Age of Spin: Live at The Hollywood Palladium and Deep in the Heart of Texas: Live at Austin City Limits.

Stand-up comedy is unique in that the performance is essentially personal: It reveals how a comedian thinks about the world, then reorganizes the disappointments, injustices, and humiliation into comedic fodder. This is why Chappelle’s transphobic jokes in Deep in the Heart of Texas are that much more disappointing. I’ve appreciated his take on race and the voice he’s had in pop culture. Although he could be misogynistic at times, and has prefaced his multiple gay sex jokes with a disclaimer that he has nothing against gay people, I've still respected him. Many outspoken cis straight artists I love struggle with intersectional politics, but after all this time, I wanted Chappelle to be better than that. Instead, he's two Hidden Colors DVDs away from ashy hotep foolishness. Basically, Chappelle is a Black Lives Matter kind of guy — if those black lives belong to straight cisgender men.

Eddie Murphy in his HBO stand-up special, Delirious.

HBO

In the first two minutes of the Austin special, Chappelle references “dykes” in flannel and jail rape. Gay jokes are just as passé and lazy as black jokes, but from Eddie Murphy’s notorious opening of his classic stand-up special Delirious to Tracy Morgan’s epic tirade about stabbing his son to death if he were gay, a lot of straight cis comedians will go there. But these jokes aren’t only the provenance of comedians — gay sex jokes, mocking of femininity, and men pretending to be women for laughs are all longtime staples of straight male culture. The pervasiveness of these jokes reveals that many cisgender men choose to define themselves by what they are not. If Chappelle’s jokes at queer people’s expense were accompanied by a Pop Up Video–style parenthetical, they would say something like, "This guy wants you to know that he’s definitely NOT gay.”

When straight cis men aren’t denigrating queer people to affirm their masculinity, they might be paying lip service to women’s rights only as a ruse to get some ass. Chappelle jokes about asking two women about Janay Rice — who was notoriously knocked unconscious by current husband, then-boyfriend Ray Rice in an elevator — and feigns concern, only to preserve the prospect of having a threesome with them. He later strings together a few skits about the word “pussy” and male gynecologists, who, according to Chappelle, shouldn’t practice gynecological medicine because men can’t help but be a little rapey and out of control.

This is the crux of the cisgender problem — cis people’s tendency to center themselves in the transgender experience.

All of this is the build up to the transgender skit that dampened the whole Deep in the Heart of Texas special for me. Chappelle tells a story about being at a party where a trans girl gets high or drunk and proceeds to get sick and pass out. For Chappelle, “Whatever it was, it was definitely a man in a dress.” He moseys over and unassumingly asks, “Is he okay?” He’s admonished for using the wrong pronoun and now is immediately offended. “I support anyone’s right to be who they are inside, but to what degree do I have to participate in your self-image? Why do I have to switch up my pronoun game for this motherfucker?”

And this is the crux of the cisgender problem — cis people’s tendency to center themselves in the transgender experience. These aren’t your pronouns. They belong to the person you’re addressing. Using the correct pronouns isn’t meant to validate someone’s whimsical sense of self; it’s a basic courtesy and shows respect for who someone is. If Chappelle is clutch-my-pearls offended by incidents like this, it’s not because of our demand to be respected, but because of what that demand says about his own fragile gender identity. The one thing I’ve learned about masculinity as a transgender man is that its power and definition relies heavily on how well it performs away from femininity.

Chappelle performs at the Hollywood Palladium on March 25, 2016, in Los Angeles.

Lester Cohen / WireImage

Masculinity can be compromised and undone by something as innocuous as the color pink or using the correct pronoun — which I promise won’t kill you, straight cis men. The transgender boogeyman isn’t going to steal away your manhood in the dead of night because you had the gall to respect people different from you. Your masculinity is secure, and it costs nothing to rightfully acknowledge people when they tell you who they are. Trans folks aren’t making a personal “self-image” choice about who we think we are in the world — it is our truth. This truth that takes a hammer to the false binary system of gender.

But the less room straight cisgender men create for ideas, people, or language that isn’t masculine, the more intact their perceived manhood will stay.

Chappelle goes on to compare being transgender to putting on an argyle sweater and pretending to be white to get respect and a bank loan. But while race and gender are both social constructs to a certain extent, they don’t operate in the same way. Many light-skinned, light-eyed black folks throughout American history have passed for white to gain access to economic and educational opportunities that were otherwise not afforded to them due to white supremacy — or else they simply abhorred being black. The only time passing for black is a thing is when it’s a creepy social experiment, appropriation, or a harebrained attempt to win a minority scholarship.

Gender identity, however, is not a choice, and being transgender is not an act of passing — it’s a true state of being. My masculinity is tethered to something deeper than social gain, fetish, or privilege. No one has ever thrown themselves in front of a Mack truck because they felt white inside. No one has ever been beaten to death because they really felt they were black. The rhetoric in Chappelle’s jokes fortifies the narrative that trans people aren’t real and are therefore deceiving cis people — and this is almost always the rationale for killing trans people, particularly trans women of color. Seven transgender women have been killed so far this year, putting 2017 on track to be the deadliest year on record for trans people. And according to a report by the Anti-Violence Project, transgender women account for 72% of hate-based homicides.

Allyship and indifference aren’t the same thing, and no one should be proud of not doing harm by not doing shit.

In his Austin special, Chappelle has a set of jokes where he details getting ridiculed by gay bloggers. He’s aghast at the criticism. “I’m your ally, motherfucker,” he says. “I ain’t trying to stop gay people. I got better shit to do.” But allyship and indifference aren’t the same thing, and no one should be proud of not doing harm by not doing shit. This doesn’t make anyone an ally — it makes them a bystander.

The best parts of Chappelle’s legacy involve the intelligence of his social commentary and the genius and originality of his skits: They reflected moments in pop culture and race relations that we hadn’t seen before. He parodied the performance of blackness in his Lil Jon skits without mocking black people. His "Racial Draft" sketch is about the social construction of race — and it's brilliant. I thought he would be better than referring to a trans woman or a genderqueer person as “it.” He still could have been funny and irreverent without reducing our existence to playing dress-up. With allies like this, we don’t need enemies.

A white clock hangs up near the ceiling of the quiet, light day room at the heart of the Sussex Beacon. Sitting on a nearby sofa is a man in his fifties who stands suddenly, removes the clock, and turns it over. On the back it says: “Tim Smith 1996”.

He is Tim Smith. He made it in a workshop when he first came here as a patient 21 years ago. It was after he lost the man he calls his soulmate, and when all that was certain was that he would soon join him. There used to be lots of workshops here: encouraging the patients to focus on arts and crafts, a distraction from the inevitable. The clock is ticking again now, not on Smith’s life – the pneumonia never won – but on the centre that saved him again and again.

Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed

It is a Friday afternoon when the Sussex Beacon’s chief executive, Simon Dowe, and clinical services director, Jason Warriner, show BuzzFeed News around. The centre sits right up on a hill on the outskirts of Brighton – a building for the forgotten. The wind swirls around the courtyard, blustering over the curves of the South Downs as it rolls out to the horizon.

They used to lose four people a week here, when AIDS cut through the town like a flashing blade. The basement was a morgue. Today, deaths are a fraction of what they were in the early 1990s when the purpose-built centre opened to offer dignity to men and women facing the end.

But people still die here, looking out at life below, cradled by staff whom the patients call a family. No one calls it AIDS any more. And those who survived the epidemic are often marooned, cut off from loved ones or employment; life severed by illness and loss.

The Sussex Beacon still shines, tending to the sick, struggling, and dying, but cuts to funding could soon mean the light goes out – cuts that are fanning out across the HIV sector.

It is one of only three facilities left in Britain that provide specialist residential care for those with the most complex conditions resulting from the virus. And it is the only one outside London that combines inpatient care with a day unit. The fight to save the Beacon has begun.

In the week that BuzzFeed News visits the centre – a charity funded partly by the NHS and the local authority – new data is revealed by the National AIDS Trust, following a series of Freedom of Information requests: Despite more than 100,000 people still living with HIV in the UK (a number that increases by several thousand each year) and approximately 300 HIV-related deaths per annum, expenditure by local authorities on HIV support services in England was cut by 28% between 2015/16 and 2016/17. In Wales it fell by 34%.

Some councils outside of London slashed funding to zero. NAT’s chief executive, Deborah Gold, described these reductions as “extremely alarming”, “short-sighted”, and “dangerous”. She accused the NHS of not fulfilling its duties, of leaving the vulnerable exposed.

The standard of service provided at the Sussex Beacon is not in doubt – the Care Quality Commission rated it “outstanding” last year. The doubt that does echo around this place, however, raises cold questions about our time: Are we still prepared to afford the best for those who have endured the worst?

As the afternoon unfolds, as Tim Smith and the staff talk, what emerges is that there is more to his story than first appears – and more to the story of this centre’s fight for survival.

Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed

The Beacon was built in 1992 on the site of an old tuberculosis hospital. TB patients were sent up here to be away from people, so they couldn’t infect others, and so the hillside air could cleanse their lungs. Out of town, the patients were also out of sight. As we move from room to room, parallels of such invisibility return and return.

Upstairs is the inpatient unit. Dowe, the CEO, and Warriner, the clinical director, open a door into a currently vacant room. It is compact but pristine, with a hospital bed, a bedside table, and a balcony overlooking the pretty, well-kempt garden – volunteers tend to it.

Each inpatient has their own private room, with bathroom and balcony, explains Warriner: They can look out but no one can see in, in order to “maintain privacy and dignity”. There are 10 rooms.

At any one time they normally have about eight rooms that are occupied, he says – full capacity would make it impossible to do deep cleans, or to enable emergency cases to be admitted.

“We take referrals from local GP services, social services, mental health professionals,” says Warriner – as well as from the local hospital. The reasons for a referral, he adds, are numerous and often pertain to the interplay of medical, social, and psychological issues facing people with HIV.

While most with the virus now live normal, healthy lives, enjoying – thanks to modern antiretroviral drugs – the same life expectancy as HIV-negative people, Warriner says that there are about 10% struggling, with everything compounded by stigma. These are the people who come through their doors.

“Some have brain-related impairment, cognitive impairment, or the early signs of dementia,” he says. Left untreated, which was always the case until 1996 when combination therapy (the first effective treatment) arrived, HIV enters the brain and at an organic level can trigger cognitive problems as well as depression.

We walk through to the main medical room; there are oxygen cylinders, an ECG machine, full resuscitation equipment, a defibrillator, and all the HIV drugs.

Other inpatients, he explains, are treated for an array of different cancers, many of which are more prevalent in HIV-positive people. “They might be starting chemotherapy or radiotherapy,” says Warriner, and so the Beacon looks after them with “initial support to keep the HIV stable so they can continue with the cancer treatment”.

As people with HIV age, a range of other related health problems arise more commonly than with HIV-negative people, and at a younger age. Combined with the grim side effects of early versions of antiretrovirals, some of which were highly toxic and insufficiently tested in trials, long-term survivors battle on several fronts: from organ damage and bone density problems to high blood pressure. So, says Warriner, there are patients at the Beacon with “a lot of conditions around cardiac care, and diabetes” as clinicians continue to fire-fight.

Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed

“We’re learning every day about how HIV affects the body,” he says. “We’ve got the highest cohort of HIV outside London and a large number of those ageing with HIV.” Brighton is known for its prominent LGBT population and is particularly popular among older members of the community.

Psychological and substance-abuse problems also bring people to the Beacon for treatment, says Warriner. “A lot of people thought they’d be dead – if you got diagnosed in the 1980s you would see your friends dying, your partners, and the big question is: Why did I survive? There might be post-traumatic stress, and feelings of guilt.”

Some patients’ are suffering psychologically, and in turn physically, following changes to the benefits system over the last five years, he says. And some come for medically assisted drug and alcohol detox.

As well as nurses who work at the centre, there is a doctor, a mental health nurse available, and access to local counselling services. The first cut that came recently, however, saw the end of an onsite psychological service for cognitive behavioural therapy.

But the centre is still receiving occupational therapy and physiotherapy services and, crucially, is still able to offer end-of-life care. Sometimes this can mean a stay of several weeks.

“People who choose to come here [to die] do so because they feel safe here because they’ve accessed services here for years,” says Dowe.

“We had a patient here last year and his wife had died and he didn’t want to die on his own, so we had a member of staff with him all the time,” adds Warriner. “When he died there was a member of staff holding his hand.”

They try to make hospice care as individual and personal as possible. “Another patient loved gin and tonic and every day he got his gin and tonic,” says Warriner. “It’s staff responding to things like that, and understanding. That is a good death for someone.”

But everything comes down to money.

The 10 residential beds are funded separately, by different clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). The problem now looming over the operation is the changes to funding made by some of those CCGs. So for example, says Dowe, last year, the three CCGs in East Sussex stopped funding one bed in a constant block-booking, and switched to a night-by-night basis.

Simon Dowe and Jason Warriner

Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed

But, says Dowe, even if a bed is empty you need the same staffing levels, and “they capped it at half the level we had previously. We had £50,000 cut from East Sussex. And we’re still running a 10-bed inpatient unit whether they’re paying for it or not – and that’s when it becomes unsustainable.”

A spokesperson for High Weald Lewes Havens CCG tells BuzzFeed News that "demand for the beds for people from East Sussex has been low... and in 2015/16 East Sussex patients used just 20% of contracted bed nights. It is vital that we make the best use of our resources.”

And a spokesperson for the other two East Sussex CCGs tells BuzzFeed News: “As public bodies, we have to ensure our funds are spent in the most effective way for all of our population” and that “£50,000 cap is a guide, and where necessary we will fund beyond that amount to ensure we are paying the full cost for our patients who are being cared for and we have agreed to fund over that cap for the year ending 31 March 2017.” That year runs out on Friday.

And it could be about to get worse.

“We are in discussions with West Sussex [CCGs] because we think they’re going to go the same way,” he says, “which would mean we would have to shut upstairs.” And if that happens, “it will never reopen; that will be it – the end.”

This is amid a quagmire of funding fragmentation, which affects many charities and healthcare services but particularly in the sexual health sector, following the changes made by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which divided up funding responsibilities.

“If you sat down and tried to make it more complicated you couldn’t,” says Warriner. “HIV is commissioned nationally by NHS England; sexual health, contraception, and HIV prevention is done through local authorities, and abortion through the CCGs.”

The situation facing the Beacon, therefore, is that money could in theory be available if funding structures were simpler.

Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed

One option could be to open the inpatient unit up for referrals across the country, rather than only within the county of Sussex, but that requires individual CCGs to agree to contribute, when many are cash-strapped.

Funding for the day service, meanwhile, is equally tangled. Most comes from the local council, but, says Dowe, because that money now comes out of a general public health budget, whereas before it was a specific HIV/AIDS budget, it is no longer ring-fenced.

“There are no guarantees,” says Dowe. “What we’re trying to do is tighten our belt and look at ways of saving money.” Reducing staff is one potential consideration, he says.

On the ground floor, offices are arranged around the living area: a day room with sofas, a TV, and a dining room table. This is where activities, group work, and socialising take place. The workshops have been replaced with DVDs, jigsaws, and board games. Through the doors is the garden, with a pond in the middle and plaques for some of the patients who have died here.

Sitting on one of the sofas near Tim Smith, who made the clock, is a 50-year-old called Stewart Francis. He is a bricklayer, very slim, and speaks with a wheeze in his voice, the remnants of a long-running chest infection.

He was only diagnosed aged 42; it came as a shock, he says, because he had been careful, vigilant, for so long. “It was the only time I let my guard down.” Five years ago, everything started unravelling; a process that led to his referral here.

“One of the reasons I got into depression was the government and the way they were treating me: form after form,” he says, referring to the benefits applications he had to fill in after he became too weak to continue such a physical job.

His sentences start to fragment as he describes the spiral on which he found himself descending. “I just…it just created so much…and that’s when I wasn’t eating properly and my weight dropped and I started drinking. My appetite wasn’t great, so my food intake wasn’t great, so I wasn’t physically capable of doing certain things.”

When some benefits came through, totalling £48 a week, it didn’t spread far enough, he says, so he ended up using food banks. “It used to upset me because I would listen to things on the television and they made you out to be a scrounger and that has a mental effect on you. It makes you feel not only that you’re a second-class citizen but you’re a third class or lower.” He stops and looks down for a moment before inhaling, the wheezing catching his breath.

Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed

As Francis’s condition worsened, a community nurse paid him a visit. “He saw me and said, ‘You need to go in.’” Walking through the front door of the Beacon for the first time was overwhelming.

“I got really upset,” he says. “This place was just…it was like a paradise. They showed me to my room, you’re allowed to settle in, I wasn’t interviewed, I was seen that day. They came to your room and knocked on the door as if it’s your home for a week. You became personalised. You actually felt you weren’t in the way.”

The staff and other service users soon started to have an effect on him. “Everyone is relaxed – there’s a pace here and once you start to come down to that pace you start to get better; you feel that you’re somewhere where you’re going to recover.”

He begins to reflect on what is offered here – a level by no means enjoyed by everyone accessing the public or charitable sectors. “I think this sets the standard. As human beings, this is the model, this is the way forward,” he says, pausing for a moment. “I realised after my first visit that this isn’t a high standard; this is exactly the right standard.”

Even the sound makes a difference, he says. “In hospitals, there’s noises and distractions and you’re constantly awake to everything. When I walk around this building, all I hear is the water running in the garden.”

Francis has had three stays here. He says he loves to work, and after each period at the Beacon he has returned to his job before ill health beset him again – most recently with the chest infection, but he is determined to return in a sustained way, so he doesn’t have to rely on either benefits or the Beacon.

But knowing that it is there as a safety net, he says, makes a huge difference to him. He has no partner, and no family nearby. At Christmas, when the chest infection first started, he said to a friend who came to visit, “If it gets back I’ll go into the Beacon and they’ll look after me.”

Without this place, he says, he never would have had the same determination to return to work. On the simplest level, being here makes him happy. “And if you’re smiling, you’re getting better. It’s good for the immune system.”

Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed

We’re looking for more than a quick fondle.

So we want to know what you like to do during foreplay — or what you like done to you during foreplay.

NBC / Via giphy.com

Maybe you just like to cuddle with your partner and kiss, touch, or massage their body.

You might start by stroking their hair or rubbing their back before slowly working your way down to other parts of their body. Maybe you even tease them a little and take your time so that they'll crave you more.

Paramount Pictures / Via giphy.com

Or perhaps it's a striptease that enraptures them.

Maybe there's even a little roleplaying and dirty talk involved.

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Sir John Randall

Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

A former MP has made a heartfelt apology for voting against same-sex marriage, on the eve of the third anniversary of the first weddings taking place in England and Wales.

Sir John Randall, who represented Uxbridge from 1997 to 2015, issued a statement to BuzzFeed News explaining his decision at the time, and his remorse now for opposing the historic legislation.

“There are not many things that I regret about my time as an MP but almost as soon as I voted against same sex marriage I knew I had made a mistake,” he wrote.

The reason he gave his children for voting against it, Randall said, was that opposite-sex couples could not enter into civil partnerships. He said that because he was a teller (who count the votes in parliament, and whose own are not usually included in the total), it wouldn’t have affected the outcome. But, he added, “That was not courageous."

Randall, who was the Conservative party’s deputy chief whip at the time, said: “I think I was just not ready for this step, conflicted between many of my age group and those of the younger generation whose views I wanted to understand.”

Leon Neal / AFP / Getty Images

In a withering aside, Randall added that he knew he was “going to be on the wrong side” because those who supported same-sex marriage were “some of the nicest people I came across, something that couldn’t be said about those opposing”.

Randall ended by reflecting that in hindsight he wished he had spoken to a fellow MP before the vote who "said to me that it was something that wouldn’t affect him at all but would give great happiness to many people”. And he concluded: “Three years on I can honestly say I was wrong and I am sorry not to have been able to see it at the time.”

Sir John Randall's apology in full:

There are not many things that I regret about my time as an MP but almost as soon as I voted against same sex marriage I knew I had made a mistake. Of course I recognised that it was going to go pass anyway so my vote was not crucial and I was wavering. I excused myself with my children with the excuse that I would have voted for it had civil partnerships been allowed for heterosexuaI couples and I still think that should be actively considered but in the end as a Government Whip I was a teller and therefore technically didn’t vote one way or the other. That was not courageous.

I think I was just not ready for this step, conflicted between many of my age group and those of the younger generation whose views I wanted to understand. Ultimately I think I knew that I was going to be on the wrong side as those who wanted to me to vote for were some of the nicest people I came across, something that couldn’t be said about those opposing. With hindsight I wish I had spoken to a very good friend and colleague before the vote. He might easily have been expected to oppose the move to same sex marriage but he said to me that it was something that wouldn’t affect him at all but would give great happiness to many people. That is an argument that I find it difficult to find fault with.

So three years on I can honestly say, I was wrong and I am sorry not to have been able to see it at the time.

The apology arose after BuzzFeed News emailed every MP and former MP (apart from those whose email addresses are no longer publicly available) who voted against same-sex marriage to ask how, three years since the first weddings, they felt now.

The issue proved highly contentious during its passageway through parliament, prompting fierce debates in the House of Commons in early 2013. David Cameron, then prime minister, championed the cause for marriage equality, much to the chagrin of large parts of his party.

Leon Neal / AFP / Getty Images

At the third and final vote in May 2013, 161 voted against the marriage (same-sex couples) bill compared to 366 who voted in support of it. Conservative MPs voted 133–117 against the bill.

This was despite concerted attempts by the bill’s architects, from both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, to quell concerns regarding the potential for same-sex weddings in places of worship. The legislation contained a “quadruple lock” preventing the Church of England from conducting weddings.

MPs across all parties were allowed a free vote. In Scotland same-sex marriage was introduced a few months later, but in Northern Ireland it remains illegal.

Most of the MPs who voted against the bill and were contacted by BuzzFeed News did not respond.

YouTube

But as well as Randall, two other MPs also said they had changed their mind. Sir Simon Burns – a Tory who served as a minister under Cameron, and a second cousin of David Bowie – revealed this for the first time.

“I no longer oppose same-sex marriage,” he told BuzzFeed News, although when asked to explain his reasons, he declined.

A representative for Andrew Griffiths MP, also a Conservative, forwarded an article he wrote in December 2016 expressing his regret for opposing same-sex marriage, in which he said: “There is one decision that causes me great pain. That was my decision to vote against gay marriage. It is a decision I wish I could change, and one I deeply regret … I was wrong to do so.”

Over the last four years, since the vote, a small number of other MPs, including Nicky Morgan and Caroline Dinenage, have also stated that they have changed their mind.

In response to BuzzFeed News’ request, other MPs who voted against the bill, including Stewart Jackson, the Conservative MP for Peterborough, and Kwasi Kwateng, another Conservative, replied in ways that were not explicit in either their support or opposition.

Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

Another Conservative, David Davies, responded in a way that suggested he had not changed his personal view on the subject.

“Everyone should accept that a majority of MPs voted for gay marriage and in a democracy that is that,” he wrote. “I am surprised that some gay rights groups seem to want to demand that MPs who voted against the gay marriage act carry out some sort of mass apology and mea culpa even though I think it has been largely accepted.”

Davies added: “At the same time nobody wants to talk about the work done by Trevor Phillips [former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission] which suggested that a large proportion of British Muslims have very negative views about all aspects of gay rights.”

Other MPs restated their opposition to same-sex marriage to BuzzFeed News. Labour’s Stephen Timms, an evangelical Christian, replied: “My thinking remains as I set out in the debate at the time, but those who contacted me then to oppose the bill have not been back in touch about it since.”

The DUP’s Sammy Wilson said in reply to BuzzFeed News’ email: “I would still vote the same way... On this issue which I believe is an important moral issue and I am not influenced by public opinion but by my own beliefs which have not changed and were the issue to be brought back to the House of Commons tomorrow I would vote in the same way as I did before.”

Sir Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, who has been married three times, said: “I hold firmly to the view, which I expressed at the time, that marriage is a union in faith between a man and a woman and that all else is a civil union. That is why I proposed that ALL civil Unions (including Registry Office Weddings and all other unions) should be rolled into one all-embracing Civil Partnership for legal purposes.”

The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act allowed only for civil ceremonies. However, Gale said that as a Christian, for him “a marriage in church between a man and a woman is ‘until death us do part’ which is why, as a re-married divorcee, I married my wife in a Registry Office and not in Church.”

David Nuttall, the Conservative MP for Bury North, replied: “I would still vote the same way today because of my religious beliefs, I voted the way I did because I believe we should not change the definition of marriage i.e. that it was a union between a man and a woman.”

Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee – the faction of MPs to the right of the Tory Party – said: “I thought it should have been in the manifesto. It came out of the blue and I thought that was unfair to many of my constituents who felt blindsided by it. I never had a fundamental objection but I thought it was done in the wrong way and pushed through too quickly.”

Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

And Labour’s Roger Gidsiff, who had previously voted for several pieces of LGBT equality legislation, wrote: “I remain concerned that there is not ‘equality’ and whereas gay people can opt to have either a civil partnership ceremony or a gay marriage heterosexual couples are not allowed the option of a civil partnership.”

The legal fight for heterosexual civil partnerships failed in the Court of Appeal last month.

The other Labour politician to respond was Steve Pound, MP for Ealing North, who also supported a slew of pro-LGBT measures in Parliament before opposing same-sex marriage – a voting record for which, he told BuzzFeed News, he received “considerable levels of abuse locally”. Much of the abuse, he said, was “frankly, deeply troubling and concentrated on certain acts anent to lovemaking that seemed to me to dwell on the subject in obsessive levels of detail and indicate an element of denial".

But the MP, who is a Catholic, explained his reasons for not backing same-sex marriage: “I was constrained both by the assurance of many colleagues at the time of the civil partnership legislation that there would be no more beyond this to marriage, and by the comments of many gay friends who both felt that there were far more important issues affecting the gay and transgender communities than the issue of religious ceremonies.”

Pound added, “I wonder what actual difference the Act has made...” and described it as “symbolic legislation”. While, he said, “there is a good case to be made for a symbolic gesture of solidarity … it detracts from the really serious issues that still prevail in terms of immigration law, homophobic bullying and the global anti-gay prejudice which is often expressed murderously.”

We’d like to share your stories with others who may have experienced something similar.

Each year, there are (on average) over 320,000 victims of rape and sexual assault in the US.

Nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men have been the victim of rape or attempted rape, according to data from the CDC.

Instagram: @thejohnnies / Via instagram.com

The lasting psychological and physical impacts of sexual assault can be debilitating.

Psychologically, this can include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and feelings of shame, numbness, or isolation. Physically, victims might be forced to deal with sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancy, and loss of desire.

rainn.org / Via Facebook: RAINN01

Victims of sexual assault may find it particularly difficult to imagine enjoying sex and intimacy again.

That's why BuzzFeed Health wants to share your stories of healing, recovering, and relearning how to feel safe, sexual, and whole again. We want to hear how you reclaimed your body or overcame sexual dysfunction brought on by your assault — or if you're in the process of doing so now.

Instagram: @consentnation_ / Via instagram.com

What would you like to tell other victims of sexual assault about taking back control of your sexuality and your sex life?

Maybe you found a professional, a group, or an online community that specialized in supporting survivors. Maybe you have some helpful advice for others who are feeling numb, shocked, or afraid. Maybe you found something that helped you appreciate and celebrate your body or put you back in touch with your sexuality. Or maybe you have some solid advice for learning how to trust and love again.

Casey Gueren / Via BuzzFeed News

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*cries because cute but also jealous*

This is Ashley Cooper and Brandy Dawley, a Toronto couple who've been together for just over a year. And for their anniversary, Dawley planned a proposal that will warm your geeky little heart.

Ashley Cooper

It all started on Saturday when Cooper showed up for lunch with a friend, only to be handed a giant bag of stuff.

Inside was a Link dress and hat, a Hyrule shield backpack, leggings, and an umbrella.

A note told her to put it all on, because her journey was about to start.

Ashley Cooper

Another note said, "You were supposed to have dinner with your princess tonight. But she has instead sent you on a quest to prove you are worthy of her love for another year!"

She was told she had to meet four "keepers of the gate" and collect four stones to assemble the Triforce and complete the quest.

It all started at the restaurant where they'd first spent time together before a Prince concert, and the clue said to head over to the diner where they shared their first milkshake.

Ashley Cooper

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People are sharing selfies, coming out stories, and a whole lotta pride for the bisexual community.

People were quick to join in on the action by sharing selfies, words of encouragement, and a whole lot of pride for a community that is so often overlooked.

Twitter: @carocracked

So many beautiful selfies.

Twitter: @Shrfh_alia98

Seriously, there are a lot.

@baaastee

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Emery P. Dalesio / AP

North Carolina lawmakers announced Wednesday night that they have reached an agreement to repeal a law that banned transgender people from certain bathrooms as well as cities' ability to pass laws against LGBT discrimination.

The agreement came after months of failure among lawmakers to reach a compromise on repealing the controversial law, known as HB2, which had drawn national attention. State legislators announced the agreement late Wednesday, adding that a new bill would be voted on Thursday.

The new bill prohibits the state from regulating bathroom access. It also bans cities and local jurisdictions from passing laws "regulating private employment practices or regulating public accommodations" — such as the now-repealed law in Charlotte that aimed at banning discrimination of transgender people.

State Sen. Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore did not answer questions, but they said the bill would be considered by the state Senate at 9:15 a.m., then move to the House to be passed by a concurrence motion. It wasn't immediately clear if the legislature would support the deal; previous compromises to repeal HB2 have failed.

If passed, the law would go into effect immediately and expire Dec. 1, 2020.

In a statement, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he supports the compromise.

"It's not a perfect deal, but it repeals House Bill 2 and begins to repair our reputation," he said.

The vote will come just before a Thursday deadline reportedly set by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for North Carolina to address the issue or lose out on its chance to hold college championship games. The NCAA has said it will not hold events in locations where athletes and sports fans are discriminated against.

"If HB2 has not been resolved by that time, the NCAA will have no choice but to move forward without the North Carolina bids," Scott Dupree, executive director of the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance, said in a statement. "The NCAA has already delayed the bid review process once and has waited as long as it possibly can, and now it must finalize all championship site selections through spring of 2022."

An AP analysis determined that fallout from the bathroom law would cost the North Carolina economy $3.76 billion over the next dozen years.

Read the compromise bill here:

LINK: North Carolina Legislature Fails To Repeal Bathroom Law After Deal Breaks Down

LINK: North Carolina Poised To Repeal Bathroom Law

LINK: North Carolina Enacts Law To Allow LGBT Discrimination

They are also more likely to identify outside the traditional gender binary compared to older generations, according to a new GLAAD survey shared exclusively with BuzzFeed News.

Young people between the ages of 18 and 34 are twice as likely to openly identify as part of the LGBT community compared to the generation before them, according to a survey conducted and released by GLAAD today.

GLAAD's third annual Accelerating Acceptance report, which was created in partnership with Harris Poll, surveyed 2,037 US adults (ages 18 and older) in November 2016. The survey found that 20% of millennials identify as openly LGBT, while only 7% of the baby boomer generation (ages 52–71) would openly label themselves as such. Acceptance of the LGBT community was also found to be at an all-time high.

"America is the most accepting that it has ever been. Having 20% of millennials identify as LGBTQ is pretty groundbreaking," Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD's president and CEO, told BuzzFeed News. "What I want to see is that they continue to flourish and blossom as their true and authentic selves."

Comedy Central

While the Acceelerating Acceptance survey questions shift each year, the goal remains the same — to measure how comfortable or uncomfortable the public is with the LGBT community.

"It’s important to understand how comfortable people are with certain situations – everything from how people feel about their neighbors being LGBTQ or having a transgender child on a sports team with their own kid," said Ellis. "You can’t change what you don’t measure – and so this report is critical to the work that GLAAD does."

GLAAD

The survey also found that 12% of millennials identify outside the gender binary, as either transgender or gender-nonconforming.

That nearly doubles the number of transgender and gender-nonconforming people reported from Generation X (ages 35–51).

"We’ve seen at GLAAD for years that youth are more and more identifying outside the binary — so the data itself isn’t surprising," said Ellis. "But we are very pleased to see that more and more youth are feeling like they can freely express who they are."

etsy.com

But although more young people openly identify as LGBT, the study found that non-LGBT millennials are less likely to know someone who identifies as simply “gay” or “lesbian."

Older people in the LGBT community are more likely to use more traditional binary terms, such as "gay/lesbian" or "man/woman." Young people have vastly expanded the vocabulary.

Amberlaneroberts / Getty Images

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Gay Star News published the picture on Thursday afternoon; it featured a series of celebrities – including Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Christina Aguilera – under the hashtag #ThrowbackThursday. For each of these, along with Rihanna, Adele, and Demi Lovato, a picture of the star as a child was used under each name.

But in the case of Nicki Minaj, a baby chimpanzee was pictured under her name. For Madonna, what appears to be a cave painting was used – a reference to her age that readers deemed misogynistic.

The posting of this meme by such a high profile news outlet has attracted widespread condemnation on social media, with many accusing Gay Star News of racism.

The criticism prompted Gay Star News, whose editor Tris Reid-Smith was formerly the editor of Gay Times, Britain's longest-running LGBT publication, to swiftly apologise and remove the post.

"We apologize an offensive meme was posted on our Twitter feed," Reid-Smith said. "We didn't look closely at all the images in it and it won't happen again."

GayStarNews

This did little to quell the offence caused. One Twitter user, Albert E Wallace, sent the site a series of tweets to comment on what had happened. "To any & every person behind @gaystarnews: Realize your privilege, realize your impact, realize the shit you've internalized. Do better."

He follow it with: "And then, when you think you can do better, @gaystarnews? Come back, share what you've learned with the class, and MAYBE we'll listen."

The storm follows a wave of criticism against LGBT media, in particular magazines and websites such as Out and The Advocate, for ignoring black and minority ethnic people, prompted in part by rapper Mykki Blanco calling out LGBT titles for their whitewashing of the community. This spurned the hashtag #GayMediaSoWhite.

Reid-Smith told BuzzFeed News: "We are gutted. It was a moment's mistake because someone didn't look. This is something we shared and totally failed to look at properly. It is totally vile. The person who made the mistake is mortified as am I. It was up for just a few minutes and then deleted as soon as he saw."

He added: "We instantly and unreservedly apologised on Twitter and I would like to repeat that we are desperately sorry. This was purely because we didn't spot it. This has never happened before and will not happen again. We will not only say sorry but will work to make amends. We are strongly anti-racism and this really matters to us."

“If she can’t go to my prom, then that prom is not worth going to.”

17-year-old Paula Goodgame and her girlfriend, Anjali Persad, have been dating for about four months. Like many high school students, they have been busy preparing for one of the biggest events of any student's high school career — prom night.

Goodgame, a junior this year, is a recent transfer student to St. Petersburg Catholic School in St. Petersburg, Florida, while her girlfriend attends a nearby private school.

Twitter: @anj_ovies

But on Wednesday, the Florida student tweeted out some bad news. She had discovered she wouldn't be allowed to take her girlfriend to the big dance as her date, according to an email she received from her school guidance counselor.

Twitter: @paula_goodgame

Goodgame originally reached out to a teacher via email after a student warned her she wouldn't be able to bring her girlfriend as a date. The Catholic school's official posted prom guidelines state that "escorts must be of the opposite gender," but Goodgame — as a relatively new student — was not aware of this rule.

In her email, provided to BuzzFeed News, she reached out for confirmation from one of her teachers.

"I just transferred here and I don't exactly have too many friends, and that added on with the social anxiety of prom makes me feel like prom would be awkward for me. Because of that and news I heard from my friend, I was asking for confirmation if I could bring my girlfriend to prom. That way I could have a familiar face in the crowd and be with my date."

When the teacher didn't respond, she then emailed her guidance counselor.

Goodgame shared a screenshot of the counselor's email response along with a photo of herself and her girlfriend. "It's not like we already bought what we were gonna wear or anything," she wrote.

"I took the response as a huge surprise because of how rude it was," she said of the email. "Especially because it was coming from someone I'm supposed to confide in."

BuzzFeed News has reached out to the school for comment regarding the prom date policy.

Her story quickly caught people's attention. Goodgame's tweet has been shared well over 3,000 times since being posted on Wednesday.

@paula_goodgame

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Last year on November 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, Shinta Ratri and her students set up a charity stall offering free hair cuts and selling cheap rice to the people of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Ulet Ifansasti / Getty Images

Ibu Shinta, as she is known – Ibu is the Indonesian equivalent of ma'am, or lady – runs Al Fatah, an Islamic boarding school for Indonesian transgender women known as waria.

At the school, waria, who are often excluded from mainstream places of Islamic worship, come together to pray, and grapple with how their identity fits into Islam.

"We study Islam, and pray together, and share our lives," Shinta told BuzzFeed News. "We do not choose to be transgender people, this is given by God."

The Yogyakarta community is used to the school, which runs community activities such as the free haircuts. "They accept us," Shinta said.

But the show of visibility came at the end of a difficult year in which Al Fatah was forced to close its doors from February to June after threats from the Islamic Jihadist Front.

Starting in January 2016, a series of derogatory comments from government officials unleashed an unprecedented wave of violence and hate against LGBT Indonesians.

Violent acts were committed with impunity; demonstrations were shut down by Islamic fundamentalists; and LGBT organisations were forced to moved premises out of fear.

"We don’t have time to breathe," an Indonesian activist told BuzzFeed News at the time.

Shinta and Al Fatah were casualties.

"At that moment, all of Indonesian society had hate issues with LGBT people," she said.

Now, the furore has subsided and the daily attacks in the media halted. The national attention has been averted elsewhere. But there are lingering ramifications.

"Life is more difficult for LGBT people," one Indonesian man, who lives in Jakarta and asked only to be identified as TI, told BuzzFeed News.

"Many LGBT people are living in constant fear, thinking of what could happen next. For many others, this is the reason why they should conceal their identity."

The government's silence in the face of attacks, or even its participation in them, lent legitimacy to anti-LGBT sentiment sweeping the country, TI said.

"[LGBT people] saw the state, instead of protecting their rights, become sources of hate and discrimination through statements made by public officials."

In January, the Research, Technology, and Higher Education Minister, Muhammad Nasir, said LGBT groups should be barred from university campuses: "There are
standards of values and morals to uphold. A university is a moral safeguard."

He later backtracked on social media, but the comments had already spread, and other senior officials chimed in.

Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said LGBT groups were "converting" poor middle school kids; Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu used the analogy of war to say LGBT people were a threat; and the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Yuddy Chrisnandi said it was "inappropriate" for civil servants to be gay: "Having more than one wife for a man is still normal…but LGBT is another issue."

"It opened the eyes of more LGBT people that they are living in a homophobic society and it has become worse," TI said.

Dede Oetomo, the founder of Indonesia's first LGBT rights group Gaya Nusantara, told BuzzFeed News that LGBT activism in Indonesia was largely underground.

"Last year at this time, every day, there was an attack, a verbal attack from this politician or this cleric, and that has actually calmed down," he said.

"But for activists, when we organise an event, it has to be clandestine. Usually what people do is they announce there is going to be a film screening or this or that, but the venue is not mentioned.

"There’s usually a WhatsApp number or something that people can check, and people are screened. Of course it means that fewer people know about these things."

Event screening is not new for LGBT Indonesians, but it has now become standard practice. Venue bookings are another source of worry – LGBT groups try not to give their names to hotels and function rooms.

In Aceh, where same-sex intimacy is criminalised and punishable by 100 public lashings, the situation is even worse.

Goh Chai Hin / AFP / Getty Images

Tama, a transgender man in Yogyakarta, is part of People Like Us Satu Hati (PLUSH), an organisation that keeps a record of violent incidents against LGBT people.

Prior to the 2016 backlash PLUSH recorded an average of one a month. The number now sits between three and five.

"We know threats will come again and again," Tama told BuzzFeed News. "We want to make sure that people know what to do when they get threatened or attacked. Strengthening the community is our main strategy."

To this end, PLUSH distributes information to the community on what to do if they are threatened or attacked. The flyers outline basic rights and provide numbers for PLUSH and a legal aid service.

However, at a time when it is critical to increase understanding about what being LGBT actually means, PLUSH is seeing some mainstream human rights groups back away from the community, fearing retribution from fundamentalists and the loss of government funds.

"Before the crackdown we have a lot of networks in Yogyakarta working for human rights, LGBT rights," Tama said. "Now more than half of them do not invite us any more."

TI called for more allies to speak up about LGBT rights – particularly those in religious institutions and the media.

"Media played a significant role in spreading the hate to LGBT people in last year's backlash," he said.

One opportunity for LGBT people to gather is on Car Free Day – a Sunday morning tradition where major streets close to all motor vehicles.

"You just say, meet on Car Free Day, near this building, wearing your rainbow flag, sometimes even placards and stuff," Oetomo said. "But it has to be really impromptu."

Tatan Syuflana / AP

There is another threat "hanging over our heads right now", says Oetomo: criminalisation.

Two separate processes could see gay sex criminalised for the first time in Indonesia. One is a proposal to the Constitutional Court from the anti-gay Family Love Alliance, and the other, the drafting of Indonesia's new Criminal Code in the parliament.

Yuli Rustinawati, from the LGBT group Arus Pelangi, told BuzzFeed News she is concerned the court's decision will be a green light for violence against LGBT people.

"The proposal is to criminalise consensual sex [outside of marriage], including LGBT sex," she said.

"If the judges say yes to the proposal, we predict there will be more violence, because the intolerant groups will use the decision of the court."

A Human Rights Watch report from August 2016 documented numerous instances of police interactions with LGBT persecution and found, at best, a blasé, blind-eye, attitude, and at worst, active cooperation.

When Shinta initially reported harassment from the Islamic Jihadist Front to the Yogyakarta police she was told: "Oh you can go home, the people who came this morning were just visiting you. You should treat them like a good Javanese person welcomes guests."

In one incident in Medan, activists reported a policeman standing and watching as a group of religious men harassed a lesbian couple at their home. "If you don’t let us in the room, we will force our way in and rape you," the men reportedly said, as the officer stood by.

TI and Tama are fearful that a court decision would embolden this relationship between Islamic fundamentalists and the Indonesian police.

"It’s totally obvious in Yogyakarta that the police and the fundamentalists are working together," Tama said.

"When society hears that the government is planning to criminalise us, society will really think we are criminals, and it’s OK to do bad things to criminals."

"It's not the criminalisation we are afraid of... it's the influence of hate."

Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

All of it – the backlash, the government silence, the threat of criminalisation – has set back the Indonesian LGBT rights movement.

According to TI there was one shard of light in the darkness of 2016: the galvanising effect of widespread discrimination.

"More LGBT people became aware that unless they fight for their rights, the situation will not change," he said. "I see more new people, particularly young ones, become more interested in joining the LGBT causes, or at least take part in events promoting diversity."

Oetomo said activists now have a more longterm view of LGBT rights.

"[We] used to think that with government democratisation, things could move ahead. Now, people think maybe ten years from now we can start again," he said.

"If you ask me what’s going to happen in the next 20 years, we don’t know. It’s going to take a lot more work at the grassroots level, and education, and work with politicians eventually. But it’s going to be a long haul."

Shinta hopes education will eventually lead to the peaceful co-existence of LGBT people and those of faith.

"I dream that in the future all Indonesians will accept LGBT people, that the people are well [educated] about gender and sexuality," she told BuzzFeed News. "That they have their religion, but do not leave their humanity."

“We’re not here to be feared.”

After coming out as transgender three and a half years ago, filmmaker Sam Matthews threw herself into volunteering and hanging out with the Adelaide trans community.

View Video ›

Facebook: video.php

She told BuzzFeed News that being around people who understood her journey was invaluable – and that it inspired her to focus some of her work on the community.

"I had met so many wonderful people in recent years, that I decided I wanted to use my experience in the media industry to help them share their unique stories," she said.

Matthews hopes her new video, We Are Visible, released on the annual Transgender Day of Visibility, will allow others to gain the confidence to be who they are.

"I grew up in a time without trans role models and that largely contributed to feelings of depression and isolation," she said.

"For a long time I thought that being wholly me, while sustaining relationships and a career, was impossible."

Sam Matthews

The video shows transgender and gender diverse people from South Australia talking about their experiences.

"We're not here to be feared," goes one part of the script. "We're your neighbours, your colleagues. We're your sisters and brothers. Your fathers and mothers. We're your teachers, we're your social workers, we're your writers, we're your football players, your charity volunteers. We're ordinary people, just like you."

"It's not safe for all of us to be open about being transgender. But we choose to be visible in the hope that one day it's safe for everyone," goes another line.

The message to people who aren't transgender, Matthews said, is to recognise that trans people are not defined by their gender identity.

"We’re as varied in our ages, backgrounds, personalities, jobs and interests as the general population. We’re people with equal need for respect, consideration, and participation in public and political discussion."

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“You are beautiful, you are brilliant, and you are worthy of love.”

Amos Mac / BuzzFeed News

To celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility, Instagram, GLAAD, and genderqueer advocate Jacob Tobia gathered a group of leaders in the trans community to shoot a video in honor of the holiday — but the participants didn’t know what to expect.

View Video ›

Facebook: video.php

Inspired by Jimmy Kimmel’s celebrity "Mean Tweets" but with an uplifting twist, the unsuspecting participants were filmed reading kind comments posted from their followers to their Instagram accounts.

Instagram

Trans leaders involved in the video, which was shared exclusively with BuzzFeed News, included advocates and activists ranging from YouTuber Gigi Gorgeous to Transparent actresses Trace Lysette and Alexandra Grey.

Trace Lysette by Amos Mac / Via instagram.com

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Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images

More than five-dozen Democrats in Congress urged the Trump administration in a letter on Friday to figure out how many LGBT people live in the United States when conducting the next Census, a proposal that had been considered and then scrapped earlier this week.

Lawmakers cited what they saw as hypocrisy on the part of John Thompson, director of the Census Bureau, who has said he wants a “complete and accurate census.”

“If this is indeed the goal, then the availability of data on the size, location, and circumstances of the LGBT population should be taken into account,” said the letter led by Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin along with Reps. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and Adam Schiff of California.

“Additionally, we are deeply troubled that in follow-up statements, Director Thompson claims that the rationale for excluding LGBT identities is that there is no federal need for such information," they add, noting, "We write to express our strong disapproval of the Census Bureau’s decision."

The letter, which also asks about the American Community Survey, was also sent to Mick Mulvaney, who leads the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

Congressional Democrats and several federal agencies during the Obama era —including the Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Justice Departments — asked that questions about sexual orientation and gender identity be included along with dozens of other questions. A preliminary draft of questions released this week for the 2020 Census included them; however, a final draft sent to Congress on Tuesday did not.

The Census Bureau issued a statement the next day saying there was an "error" in the early draft, and that to count populations, officials needed "a clear statutory or regulatory need for data collection."

Censuses over the past decades have not asked about sexual orientation and gender identity. The next one will inquire about the marital status of single-sex couples, per a 2013 decision under former-president Obama, but the lawmakers on Friday said that is not enough.

“The fact remains that we know little else about the social and economic circumstances of the LGBT population at large,” their letter notes, adding that LGBT people disproportionately experience discrimination in housing and employment.

“There is also compelling evidence that many, particularly transgender people, are at greater risk of being victimized by violence and experience significant health disparities and vulnerability to poverty,” the lawmakers continue. “Expanded data collection on LGBT people is needed to help policymakers and community stakeholders understand the full extent of these disparities, as well as identifying the needs of these communities so they can be better served.”

The members of Congress ask the administration to explain their decision, “including justification for stating there being no federal need for data on the LGBT population.”

Brian Beard

A few weeks ago, I was erased for about the thousandth time.

It was during a Channel 4 News interview with feminist novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She suggested that while trans women might be women, they are different from cis-women because they have been raised in circumstances that afforded them male privilege prior to transitioning. “It’s difficult for me to accept that then we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning as a woman and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are,” she said.

At best, it was a gross oversimplification. I was assigned male at birth, but I didn’t feel any male privilege as I was repeatedly verbally and physically assaulted because of my feminine gender expression during my childhood and adolescence. But I’m also not a trans woman. In fact, Adichie didn’t talk about me at all.

I am non-binary. I am neither a man or a woman. And despite a refusal from even some feminists to see gender beyond the binary, I am not going away.

To exist as non-binary is to endlessly reassert ourselves in the face of those who reduce us, again and again, to the binary of men and women. I'm made to float between the truth of my identity and a fiction imposed upon me. It’s the people who refer to me as sir, or use he/him/his instead of my gender-neutral pronoun, they/them. Or referring to me as Josh despite my constant reminders that my name is Joshua.

I have to reassert my visibility over and over. In the face of that, just being seen is hard work. I take selfies, I shoot short videos on my iPhone, and I write essays like this, all to claim a space where I exist. It’s a battle and it’s tiring, which is why people like me tend to get used to being resilient. But it’s made even harder when those who would be our allies don’t see us.

Joshua M. Ferguson

I work in the arts industry, a space full of prolific feminist filmmakers and scholars — powerful and autonomous women have inspired me since my childhood. I assumed I’d be welcome here. But, even here, like so many other feminist circle where cis-women have the floor, I feel excluded.

I have felt the impact of this exclusionary feminist perspective in the media arts world where people like me are ignored or simply erased. Some women’s organizations, film festivals and grants created for women-identified people exclude non-binary trans people from their mandates and eligibility criteria. Why aren’t they fighting for people like me, too? I have had experiences with festival programmers, leaders of organizations, and granting officers who told me that I am the first person raising the issue of including non-binary people in their mandates. Which, fine. But those moments of realization aren’t turned into moments of action.The opportunities to recognize us are there — they’re just not being taken. But this moment of realization should be used to make change instead of further denying to recognize us. Some non-binary people experience forms of misogyny, in ways similar to the misogyny experienced by woman-identified people. Masculine presenting non-binary people may be read as failed women and experience discrimination and violence as a result. Not only that, this exclusion is compounded by other intersections of our experiences: By racism for non-binary people of colour and by ableism for non-binary people with disabilities.

We are underrepresented, our work is underfunded, and the resources and funding opportunities made available by women-centered organizations are not open to us. Of course, women are also impacted by gender discrepancy in the Canadian film and television industries and in other countries. A recent report by the Canadian Unions for Equality on Screen in the fall of 2016 highlighted that women directors make up less than 20% of directors getting jobs in Canada. I can only assume the percentage of non-binary directors getting jobs in Canada wouldn’t even register.

I was not born in the wrong body, which is how some trans men and trans women describe their dysphoria. I do not have a static sense of my body or my gender in the first place.

Perhaps part of the problem here is that non-binary narratives are often excluded from mainstream understandings of trans people. I was not born in the wrong body, which is how some trans men and trans women describe their dysphoria. I do not have a static sense of my body or my gender in the first place. My body and the relationship that I have with my gender is constantly shifting. My transition story is one you might not have heard of yet. For me, transition is not a linear one-way direction with a beginning, middle and ending. I will likely never arrive at the end of my transition. My gender is fluid and my sexed body shifts with my gender identity and expression.

The recent TIME magazine’s cover story entitled “Beyond He or She” suggests that we are new. But non-binary people have always been here, you just didn’t see us before. A 2015 comprehensive survey conducted by Transgender Centre for Equality in the U.S. reported that one-third of trans people identify as non-binary. The emergence of non-binary visibility is setting the stage for a gender revolution that will inevitably change the mainstream understanding of gender as only and always a binary. Cultural, historic and, yes, scientific studies call into question the binary-based system of sex and gender.

Here in Canada, the politically motivated delays of Bill C-16, which would afford human rights protections to trans Canadians, has been discouraging. But there are bright spots, like Ontario’s recent decision to allow a gender neutral sex marker on driver’s licenses. And in the US, states like California and Oregon are recognizing non-binary gender. These decisions are setting precedents for non-binary legal recognition in North America.

The author with writer, co-director, and co-producer Florian Halbedl at Limina's Private Screening event last summer

Preston Emerson

We’ve also seen key moments in the last year for non-binary recognition. Asia Kate Dillon became the first non-binary actor cast in a non-binary role in Showtime’s Billions, gender-fluid actor Kelly Mantle made history when the Academy Awards accepted him into both male and female performer categories, and my film Limina made history in Canada when our lead gender-fluid identified actor Ameko Eks Mass Carroll, a young gender-fluid performer, was accepted into both male and female categories at a major awards organization.

These changes matter, because non-binary people should be counted in society. We shouldn’t have to constantly fight for recognition. We should be seen and heard in the movements that are already striving for equality, particularly feminism. Feminist perspectives that work to exclude trans people, trans men, trans women and non-binary people, are one of the major barriers in recognizing the truth that gender is more than just the binary.

Feminism needs to name and alter transphobic and non-binary exclusionary practices. We need to label trans-exclusionary policy and practices as anti-feminist, and reject the notion that one can be both a feminist and contribute to the erasure and discrimination that is perpetrated against trans people, including non-binary trans people.

I imagine a time when all people are recognized for our beautiful diversity.

I imagine a time when the myth of human simplicity washes away and the fear is stripped free to welcome people for who they are rather than who you tell me to be.

I imagine a time when you see me.

We are neither men or women and we are not going away.

Joshua M. Ferguson is a non-binary trans and queer filmmaker, writer, activist, indigo with a love for magic.

March is Women's History Month in the US, and March 8 is International Women's Day.

Rebecca Hendin / Getty / BuzzFeed

But is a single day or month each year really enough to note the progress we've made on women's rights, highlight where things are still unequal, and celebrate all the trailblazing women who've left their mark on the world? Nope.

So here's a collection of dates to celebrate women all year round: birthdays, important "firsts," books, films and fictional heroines that changed the way women are portrayed in society, and much more.

All the dates are in the calendar, which you can download here. (Note: It's meant to be an evergreen collection, not a 2017-specific calendar, so you'll want to keep your appointments somewhere else.)

We see this as a starting point, not a definitive resource. There are blank spaces you can use to add in women we missed and dates that are personally significant for you or the people you love.

What other women in history inspire you? What dates make you want to celebrate equality and women's rights? Tell us in the comments!

Here's a preview of some of the dates featured each month. You can see the full list here and save it to refer to throughout the year.

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January 16, 2006: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf becomes president of Liberia. She was the first female democratically elected leader of an African country and went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.

January 19, 1981: Buffy Summers, aka Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is born. Yes, she's a fictional character, but even TV heroines have birthdays. And for many women, Buffy was a symbol of female empowerment.

January 22, 1973: The Roe v. Wade ruling by the US Supreme Court legalizes abortion in the United States.

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February 11, 1916: Flo Kennedy is born. In 1951, she became one of the first black women to graduate from Columbia Law School, and went on to represent the Black Panthers, sue the Roman Catholic Church over abortion, and found the Feminist Party in 1971. She called herself "radicalism's rudest mouth."

February 19, 1963: The Feminine Mystique is published, addressing what its author Betty Friedan called "the problem with no name": the uneasiness and sadness experienced by (primarily white, middle-class, suburban) housewives. The book is considered one of the starting elements of second-wave feminism, though it isn't without its flaws.

February 27, 1922: Two years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the US Supreme Court upholds women's right to vote.

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March 1, 1987: The US Congress designates March Women's History Month.

March 8, 1917: Russian women strike "for bread and peace," sparking the Russian revolution. March 8 is also International Women's Day, not "women's day," as some call it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It was first observed in 1911.

March 22, 1913: Sabiha Gökçen is born. She was the first female combat pilot in Turkey and one of the first in the world.

March 24, 2002: Halle Berry becomes the first black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Monster's Ball. Her achievement came 62 years after Hattie McDaniel, the first black Oscar winner, collected her award in a segregated hotel.

March 27, 2017: The first Muslim Women’s Day, organized by website MuslimGirl, is celebrated online to highlight the achievements of Muslim women.

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April 7, 1805: Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman from what is now Idaho, begins interpreting on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. She'd given birth to her son Baptiste just two months before.

April 9, 2009: Parks and Recreation premieres on NBC. Amy Poehler plays the very feminist small-town official Leslie Knope, who knows EXACTLY how to deal with male chauvinists.

April 19, 1966: Roberta "Bobbi" Gibb became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. After the organizers rejected her application on the grounds that "women are not physiologically able to run a marathon," Gibb showed up anyway, wearing a bathing suit under her shorts, since sports bras were not then available. The Boston Marathon remained officially closed to women until 1972.

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May 10, 1872: Thirty-three-year-old Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman candidate nominated for US president, running for the Equal Rights Party. Her running mate was ~technically~ Frederick Douglass, but he didn't actually consent to be on the ticket and campaigned for Ulysses S. Grant.

May 6, 1981: Twenty-one-year-old architecture student Maya Lin wins a nationwide competition for her design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. (She got a B for her design in class, but beat out her professor, who also entered the contest.)

May 17: International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, or IDAHOT for short. Why this particular date? On May 17, 1990 the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

May 29, 1851: Former slave, abolitionist, and feminist Sojourner Truth delivers her famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, which includes the lines: "If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone, dese women togedder ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now dey is asking to do it, de men better let 'em."

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June 5, 1646: Elena Cornaro Piscopia is born in Venice, Italy. In 1678 she became the first woman in the world to receive a doctorate, which she earned in philosophy (after being prohibited from taking the doctor of theology degree due to her gender).

June 9, 2014: Laverne Cox, who plays Sophia Burset on the series Orange Is the New Black, becomes the first trans woman to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

June 18, 1858: Rani Lakshmibai, the queen of Jhansi state in northern India, dies in battle fighting the British, with her young son strapped to her back.

June 26, 1945: The United Nations Charter, signed in San Francisco, recognizes the principle of equality between men and women.

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July 2, 1951: Trans activist Sylvia Rivera is born in New York. She fought for the inclusion of trans and gender-diverse people within the LGBT rights movement, and is known for her famous quote, "Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned," among many other things. She died in 2002.

July 15, 1907: Chinese feminist, poet, and educator Qiu Jin is executed for plotting to overthrow the Qing dynasty. As she wrote, “Don’t tell me women / are not the stuff of heroes," and today she's celebrated as a national hero in China.

July 18, 1995: Tejano music superstar Selena's album Dreaming of You is released just months after the 23-year-old singer's murder. She remains an inspiration to fans today, especially the US Latinx community.

July 26, 1990: The Americans With Disabilities Act is signed into law. Women activists were instrumental in its passage, including Patrisha "The General" Wright.

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August 1, 1929: Roller derby icon Ann Calvello is born. She was a legend in the sport for her brightly-colored hair, foul mouth, tattoos, and general badassery.

August 6, 2009: Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as the first Latina justice on the US Supreme Court.

August 11, 2016: 20-year-old Simone Manuel becomes the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual swimming event.

August 26, 1970: A nationwide Women's Strike for Equality takes place in the United States, marking the 50th anniversary of women's right to vote.

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September 2, 2013: At age 64, Diana Nyad becomes the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a protective shark cage. She'd wanted to do it since she was 8 years old, and we're pretty sure the dictionary definition for "goals" is just a picture of her face.

September 5, 1939: Claudette Colvin is born. Though Rosa Parks is celebrated for kicking off the Montgomery bus boycott, Colvin, then just 15 years old, refused to give up her seat nine months before Parks did. In an interview, Colvin said she was inspired by the black history she'd been learning in her segregated school: "It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn't get up."

September 7, 2013: Nova Peris becomes the first Indigenous woman elected to Australia's Senate. Before getting into politics, she was the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic gold medal, and the first Australian mom to win one since 1956.

September 19, 1979: Hermione "Badass" Granger is born.

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October 9, 1992: Bikini Kill, the riot-grrrl band fronted by Kathleen Hanna, releases its first EP.

October 10, 2014: Pakistani girls education advocate Malala Yousafzai becomes the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize at age 17.

October 16, 1916: Margaret Sanger opens the first US family planning clinic in Brooklyn, New York. (It was raided by the police 10 days later.) Sanger went on to found Planned Parenthood.

October 24, 1975: Ninety percent of Icelandic women participate in a general strike called "Women's Day Off." They did it again in 2008, and on October 24, 2016.

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November 1, 1848: The first medical school for women opens in Boston. (Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the US, had been accepted to an all-male institution the year before ~as a joke~.)

November 6, 2012: Mazie Hirono is elected the first Asian-American female Senator, representing Hawaii. Hirono immigrated from Japan as a young child.

November 10, 1236: Razia Sultana becomes the first female ruler of the Muslim kingdom of Delhi Sultanate.

November 20, 2015: Carol, a same-sex love story based on a 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith, is released in US theaters. Notably, the two lead characters, played by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, manage to avoid "Dead Lesbian Syndrome."

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December 6, 1927: Patsy Takemoto Mink is born in Hawaii. She was the first Japanese-American woman and the first woman of color elected to Congress, beginning her first term in the House of Representatives in 1965. She was also instrumental in passing Title IX.

December 12, 2015: Women in Saudi Arabia vote for the first time.

December 14, 1985: Wilma Mankiller becomes the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation.

December 16, 1775: English novelist Jane Austen is born. She wrote in Pride and Prejudice: "There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me." Words to live by.

This post was adapted from French, and the English version is inspired by many sources, including Today in Women's History (Saints, Sisters, and Sluts) and the National Women's History Project.

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Gilbert Baker, the man who created the rainbow flag — an iconic symbol of the LGBT rights movement — died Thursday. He was 65.

Baker's death was announced on Twitter by activist and author Cleve Jones, who called him his "dearest friend in the world."

"Gilbert gave the world the Rainbow Flag; he gave me forty years of love and friendship. I can't stop crying. I love you forever Gilbert Baker," Jones wrote on Facebook.

Baker was born in Kansas in 1951 and served in the US Army from 1970 to 1972, stationed in San Francisco. After he was honorably discharged, he stayed in San Francisco and taught himself to sew. During the beginning of the gay liberation movement, Baker was tasked by friend Harvey Milk with making banners for gay and antiwar street protests.

Milk rode under the first rainbow flags that Baker made on June 25, 1978, at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Months later, on Nov. 27, Milk was assassinated, lest than a year after becoming the first openly gay elected official in the US.

On his website, Baker credited Milk with “inspiring his work with the message of hope.” He re-created the banners and flags for the Oscar-nominated film Milk, which starred Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, and Emile Hirsch.

Baker continued his designs and worked for the Paramount Flag Company in San Francisco, creating flamboyant window displays. His clients included then-mayor Dianne Feinstein and the presidents of France, Venezuela, and the Philippines, as well as the king of Spain, according to his website.

He later moved to New York City and created a mile-long rainbow flag for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots of 1969.

The GLBT Historical Society asked that rainbow flags around the world be lowered to half-mast in Baker's memory.

Meanwhile, tributes to Baker flooded social media thanking him for his contributions.

BuzzFeed News has reached out to Baker's estate.

Candice E. Jackson (far right) with Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, and Kathy Shelton at the Oct. 9, 2016 presidential debate in St. Louis, Missouri.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

An attorney who has long worked to highlight sexual misconduct accusations against Bill Clinton has reportedly been tapped to help lead the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Candice E. Jackson has accepted a position as deputy assistant secretary for civil rights and also will serve as the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, according to an announcement by Pepperdine University, her alma mater. Jackson said she had accepted an appointment to work with the Education Department but did not specify what that role would be.

If Jackson steps in as acting assistant secretary, she would bypass the Senate confirmation process to take the reins of the Office for Civil Rights, the agency that investigates schools for race, disability, and gender discrimination issues, until President Trump puts forward a permanent nominee.

The White House and the Education Department have made no announcements about Jackson’s appointment, and neither would comment on Monday. Jackson also would not comment to BuzzFeed News. Pepperdine referred any further request for information to the Education Department "on how they would like to handle the announcement of her appointment."

Jackson is a lawyer based on the West Coast who previously worked at Judicial Watch, a conservative group that often focuses on illegal immigration issues. She has not worked in government before, but she played a prominent role in the last presidential campaign by focusing attention on Hillary Clinton’s defense of Bill Clinton against sexual misconduct allegations.

Jackson traveled with four accusers — Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, and Kathy Shelton — to the second presidential debate, where they held a press conference with Donald Trump before sitting in the audience. Broaddrick and Willey accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, while Jones said the former president harassed her. Hillary Clinton was a court-appointed defense attorney for a man accused of raping Shelton when she was a child.

The Office for Civil Rights is the primary federal agency that investigates K-12 schools and colleges for mishandling sexual assault cases. During the Obama administration, it drew attention to racial disparities in school discipline.

For the better part of the past year, Jackson spent a considerable amount of time criticizing how Hillary Clinton allegedly intimidated the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual impropriety and rape. Jackson wrote a book in 2005, Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine, that detailed sexual misconduct accusations against Bill Clinton.

Jackson disclosed when the book was released that she is a rape survivor. Within Their Lives, Jackson described herself as a libertarian feminist and criticized policies that liberals generally support, like affirmative action. She wrote in her book, “liberals place much emphasis on helping racial minority groups and women. Under the guise of ‘equal rights for all,’ leftist policies usually end up going far beyond removing actual barriers that have subjugated members of these groups and attempt to provide extra assistance or protection for such groups.”

Jackson also took on sexual harassment laws in the book. She criticized them broadly, saying they caused men to “self-censor themselves to avoid being accused of sexual harassment,” and that institutions removed “valid expressions of art” for the same reason. Laws to combat sexual harassment, Jackson wrote, gloss over “the reality that unwanted sexual advances are difficult to define.”

Kathleen Willey, left, Candice E. Jackson, and Juanita Broaddrick, right.

Mike Wintroath / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jackson’s position at the Education Department would put her in charge of enforcing federal laws designed to combat sexual harassment in schools.

After her book’s release in 2005, Jackson held events at the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum with Broaddrick and Willey “to draw attention to Bill and Hillary Clinton's treatment of women,” they said at the time. In 2016, Jackson began publishing excerpts from her book on various conservative websites. She then began accompanying Broaddrick for interviews, and Jackson wrote articles for conspiracy websites like InfoWars — which promoted the false “Pizza Gate” theory — and World Net Daily — whose writers have insisted repeatedly that Barack Obama was secretly gay.

In October, Jackson began promoting on social media a nonprofit called Their Lives Foundation, where she served as the executive director. The foundation spent much of its time accusing Hillary Clinton of mistreating women throughout her career, including the women who lobbed accusations against her husband.

After several women started to come forward in the waning days of the presidential campaign to accuse Trump of sexual assault, Jackson stood with the GOP candidate. The accusers were lying “for political gain,” Jackson wrote on Facebook, and “evidence is piling up that shows these recent accusers against Trump are, frankly, fake victims. Falsely painting yourself as a victim is not only horribly unfair to the person wrongly accused; it's also an insult to real abuse victims.”