"As a young femme growing up in Manila in the 1990s, Geena Rocero endured shouts of bakla, bakla!, a Filipino taunt aimed at her feminine sway, whenever she left the little universe of her eskinita. Eventually she found her place in trans pageants, events as widely attended and culturally significant as a national sport, going to high school by day and competing by night. When her competitors denigrated her with the nickname "horse barbie," due to...

Bobbie Scopa spent close to five decades working through nearly every challenge a firefighter can face. Scopa was a strike team leader for the Dude Fire in 1990, where six firefighters were tragically killed, and she served at Ground Zero immediately after 9/11. She's worked mountain rescues, city fires, mega-wildfires, and everything in between. While battling conditions and harsh flames on the outside, she also found herself waging a tougher battle...

"Lights up on little Grace Lavery: reformed druggie, unreformed pantie-dropper, and 100% all-natural, synthetically-cultivated female hormone monster. From the moment Grace solves what she affectionately calls her "penis problem" in the parking lot of an abandoned Japanese steakhouse (were the turkeys milling about the handicapped spaces following her?), she begins receiving accusatory letters from an anonymous jabroni, who seems to be a few spices...

"CeCé Telfer is a warrior. The first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA championship, she has contended with transphobia on and off the track since childhood. Now, she stands at the crossroads of a national and international conversation about equity in sports, forced to advocate for her personhood and rights at every turn. After spending years training for the 2024 Olympics, Telfer has been sidelined and silenced more times than she can count....

"In 2007, Pitchfork writer Rob Mitchum described the indie rock band Wilco's new work as "an album of unapologetic straightforwardness. Sky Blue Sky nakedly exposes the dad-rock gene Wilco has always carried but courageously attempted to disguise." The "dad rock" descriptor hit a nerve, as indie peers like The National, Spoon, and the Mountain Goats, as well as generational forebears like Bruce Springsteen, were soon slapped with the same label. Meanwhile,...