Gender Equality
Latina Veteran Pursues Healing Through Poetry
For Iraq War veteran Lucky Garcia, poetry has become a form of therapy and fuel for her activism in Kansas City.
Say Their Names
Kansas Citians who work with or identify as transgender share some common misconceptions about the transgender community.
Getting Out, Staying Out
Missouri and Kansas are struggling to reduce recidivism, which is a major contributor to overcrowded prisons.
‘It’s a full-contact, mixed-gender sport’
Founded in 2016, the semi-professional club exists on principles of inclusivity and a strong sense of community. If Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley happened to watch the Kansas City Stampede play quidditch in the Major League Quidditch Championships in Richmond, Virginia in early August, they may have thought the Muggles have once again…
Making Gender Parity a ‘We’ Conversation
When Rania Anderson, a Kansas City-based business and management coach, heard it would take another 217 years to reach worldwide gender equity, she was appalled. That’s more than 300 years after women gained the right to vote in America and 271 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination. “One of the interesting…
Sex, pregnancy and foster care
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teen pregnancy costs taxpayers more than $9 billion a year in health care and other costs. Ironically enough, those other costs include foster care. The irony lies with the fact that foster kids themselves are often the ones responsible for teen pregnancies. According to a…
Two Kids And A Job: Former Foster Youth Struggles To Fit In Education
Kierra Kinton began living with her grandmother at the age of 3. When Kinton was about 13, her grandmother decided she couldn’t manage the teen any longer, and Kinton began her path through Missouri institutions. Her grandmother sought help through a handful of behavioral health organizations, including Crittenton Children’s Center and Synergy Services, both of…
Sympathetic Vibrations | Setting the Record Straight
For many musicians, writing and performing music for the public is a privilege. And though artists rights typically don’t factor into the general perception of being a kick-ass rocker, that doesn’t mean those rights should be ignored. But safeguarding those rights can often be more difficult for female artists. In my time as a practicing…
Chef Lidia Bastianich’s New Autobiography Recalls Life as a Refugee
As migrant children were recently being separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, Lidia Bastianich’s own refugee story has an eerily familiar ring. The accomplished Italian chef and restaurateur takes a break from award-winning cookbooks to unpack her own immigrant story in the just-released “My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food.”…
‘Feminine Energy’ Infusing Faiths
Well before this #MeToo era of unmasked sexual misconduct — with its appalling revelation that an admitted sexual predator can be elected president — faith communities began to recognize that they have been complicit in the sin of misogyny. Today that recognition is turning into constructive action as people of faith across the nation, including…