Last night a truly hateful video appeared on my Facebook timeline. It was originally posted by something called “Highways and Hedges Ministries”, and it is a rant about the evils of transgender restrooms. The man in the video makes several sweeping statements about members of the LGBT community. They are perverts. They are sinners. They…
Last year, I wrote web content for a facility called Addiction Rehab Toronto. I was working nights at the time, staying up long after the family had gone to bed, doing research, learning heartbreaking things about addiction and reading gut-wrenching real-life accounts written by addicts and their loved ones. Addiction is one of those subjects…
If you’ve spent any amount of time on Facebook over the last few months, you might have seen something called the Black Dot Campaign. The concept is simple: if you see a woman with a black dot in the palm of her hand, she is a victim of ongoing domestic violence and needs to be…
When I left South Africa in 2000, many people assumed that I was wanting to be part of the “brain drain”: a flood of disillusioned young professionals getting out of a troubled country before it was too late. Although there were undeniable problems plaguing the country, that is not why I left. My reason was…
When Bruce Jenner became Caitlin Jenner earlier this year, Facebook erupted with judgmental posts. No surprise there – after all, Facebook has been the venue of many battles, including the Vaccine Wars, the Gay Marriage Wars, the Breastfeeding In Public Wars, and many more. People say all kinds of things from the safety of their…
A few days ago, an eighteen-year-old woman named Sanet – the sister of one of my friends – was brutally assaulted in Cape Town. She got into a taxi to get home after a night out with friends, and the taxi driver and another man pinned her down, kicked her and beat her. She was…
As I sit down to write something about World Autism Awareness Day, I find myself struggling. Part of the problem is the sheer volume of posts out there: I want to say something that hasn’t already been said. I want to offer a perspective that people haven’t yet thought of. Then there’s the fact that…
Last week, Wal-Mart announced that by 2016, all of their employees in the United States will be earning a minimum of $10 per hour – up from their current minimum wage of $9 per hour. While this is more than the federally mandated minimum wage, it’s really not enough for someone to live on. In…
There are some things we need to talk about, not only today, but always. They are important things that tend to get swept under the rug because, for whatever reason, people see them as a source of discomfort or worse, shame. Today is as good a day any to raise the subject, though. In fact,…
It’s not often that I get riled up over things that happen in the news, especially in Canada. Yes, we have some outrageous things happening here, but for the most part, Canadian society is reasonably civilized. However, a story that’s currently unfolding has me feeling a little sick. It is the story of Jian Ghomeshi,…