Link Love

It's been a long, long time since I've done a weekly Link Love. Life got a bit in the way, and also social media (where I find most of my links) got a bit infuriating. Life is still in the way and social media can be as infuriating as ever, but I still come across gems and I still want to share them with you.

This talk from Andrew Wilson on gender and intersex. Andrew is asking the question here: “How should we respond to people whose experience of their gender doesn’t fit with their biological sex? Or who have taken measures to change it? Or whose biological sex is unclear? What does love look like?”

This article from Cosmopolitan on an alternative to Planned Parenthood. "There's this pressure that women have to go on the birth control pill. I have to tell you, it's a very empowering when you realize, 'I don't have to put that synthetic hormone in my body. I don't have to be chained to the birth control pill,'" she said. "There's a movement of people for whom the birth control pill isn't organic, it's not green, it's not holistic. We think we're going to fill another niche or a gap that's lacking, actually, at clinics like Planned Parenthood."

This piece by Ron Belgua in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting. I have, in the past, complained about the apparent allergy among conservative Christians to looking at the faces of LGBT people. In talking to friends, I am not the only one who has perceived a gap in the way Christians have responded to other tragedies, and the way they have responded to this one.

This article on Christianity Today about friendships in the world today. There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that friendship in adulthood is harder than it looks. Long-term friendships are a rarity. The reason is that they take work. Most of the time something else becomes a priority, either out of necessity or out of choice. As a result, I go back to dropping the bar of expectation. It doesn’t mean I don’t want good, genuine friends, but it does mean that I can’t necessarily assume that because I have all the right ingredients it’s going to happen.

This from Nicholas McDonald on eight different ways your marriage could function. And because we are complementation, I “won out” in the end: I asserted her desires over mine.