The Fixx: Bathrooms, Beards and Birth Control
The Fixx is a weekly editorial roundup for humanists. It includes our favorite articles, happenings and opinions.
Hormone free, seaweed-derived birth control beads in development
A new contraceptive option may soon be available to women, reports Science Translational Medicine. ZP2 peptide beads, when implanted in the uterus, trick sperm into binding with them instead of real eggs. The decoy egg beads are coated in ZP2, the peptide surrounding ovulated eggs that sperm recognize and bind to during fertilization. Just smaller than the human egg, almost eight million of these beads fit comfortably inside a womb.
In trial, the beads were effective at preventing pregnancy in regularly mating mice. The beads might also have an application in improving IVF. ZP2 could be used to find the best swimmers when selecting sperm, something we can’t do extremely well right now. Fewer hormones/better babies? Here. We. Come.
Lady chefs sweep top honors in this year’s James Beard Awards
The James Beard Awards happened Monday in Chicago and for the first time since 2004, the Outstanding Chef, Outstanding Pastry Chef and Rising Star Chef awards all went to women. Suzanne Goin of Lucques in LA won Outstanding Chef, Dahlia Narvaez of Osteria Mozza in LA won Outstanding Pastry Chef, and Daniela Soto-Innes of Cosme in New York won Rising Star Chef.
Goin is the fifth woman to win Outstanding Chef in the 25 year history of the awards. Her food combines “deep knowledge of French cuisine with California’s unparalleled produce.” She owns multiple restaurants with her business parter, Carolin Styne, and her husband.
Men protesting “sexual predation” by acting like predators themselves
Last month, Target re-affirmed its commitment to trans inclusivity amidst recent LGBT backlash across the country by welcoming “transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.”
Since then over one million people have signed the American Family Association (AFA)’s petition/call to boycott Target stores. The AFA is a Mississippi-based “pro-family,” pro-biblical values organization that believes “Target’s store policy endangers women and children by allowing men to frequent women’s facilities.” The Southern Poverty Law Center deems the AFA a “featured hate group.”
Sandy Rios, the AFA’s director of government affairs, said on the radio this week, “We’ve already had people testing this, going into Targets, men going into bathrooms.” And it’s true — here’s proof. Surely, Target and trans women are the true predators here.
BONUS: All the looks from the Met Gala, this year themed “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.”
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