The News You Need To Start Your Day

Trans men's experiences with abortions, putting QR codes on informal dwellings in South Africa, and a deadly battle at a nuclear power plant.

This is an excerpt from Incoming, BuzzFeed News’ morning newsletter dedicated to making sense of this chaotic world we live in. Join the club here.

Trans men share why they got abortions.

illustrated shadows of a person's profile and a handprint

Trans men are speaking out about their place in conversations about reproductive health — and reevaluating their medical needs now that abortion is no longer a constitutional right.

For trans men, being forced to carry a pregnancy to term could also mean having their rights to transition-related care taken away. “If I got pregnant, I would not live through that experience. ... The amount of dysphoria that it would induce ... is very sickening to think about,” Jaden, a 19-year-old college student in Los Angeles, told BuzzFeed News.

A 2017 study found that about 500 transgender and nonbinary Americans got abortions in a clinical setting that year. But the actual number is probably higher, since clinics don’t collect data on gender, and many trans and nonbinary people self-administer abortions outside of clinics.

Trans people “already face the greatest barriers to accessing care,” said reproductive health scientist Heidi Moseson — including financial struggles, higher rates of being sexually assaulted, and anti-trans discrimination at doctors’ offices and abortion clinics. Now that abortion is criminalized in some states, Moseson thinks trans people might be disproportionately targeted for arrest.

But even as trans men fear for their health and safety in the post-Roe era, many are still coming forward to raise awareness about trans and nonbinary people who rely on abortion access.

“Reproductive rights are for everyone, period,” said Oliver, a trans man who got an abortion when he was 19. “It doesn’t matter what kind of genitals you have, what identity you have.”

The deadly battle at a major nuclear power plant

  • Both Russia and Ukraine are accusing each other of shelling the largest nuclear plant in Europe, the Guardian reports. Russia took over the Zaporizhzhia plant in March, but Ukrainian workers remain on site at the facility.

  • The UN has called on both parties to withdraw from the plant. According to CNN, international leaders fear that continued attacks will cause a devastating nuclear accident.

Snapshots

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has formally apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native American woman who famously took to the Oscars stage in 1973 on behalf of Marlon Brando and refused to accept the Best Actor prize in protest against Hollywood's depictions of Indigenous people. "It is profoundly heartening to see how much has changed since I did not accept the Academy Award 50 years ago," Littlefeather responded in a statement.

A popular baby swing is being recalled after a baby got tangled in its strap and died. More than 2 million MamaRoo baby swings and rockers have been pulled from the market for posing threats of strangulation.

A$AP Rocky has been charged with assault for allegedly shooting at a former friend. He was arrested in April and now faces two counts of assault with a firearm.

Cape Town is adding QR codes to informal settlement cabins. Residents and privacy experts are worried.

on the left: an aerial view of cape town informal settlements. on the right: a qr code

South Africa’s second wealthiest city is piloting a new plan for the 146,000 households in its informal settlements: QR-coding their homes.

“Informal settlement” is South African parlance for the urban areas of unauthorized dwellings where 23% of South Africa’s 60 million residents, most of them Black, still live. The program is being piloted in Mfuleni, a poor and majority-Black informal settlement of Cape Town where enforced removals and high unemployment are an oppressive reality.

City officials say the plan is to help residents get access to government services like welfare and provide an alternative to a formal street address so they can more easily get packages delivered or hail a taxi. But privacy experts warn that the city isn’t being clear about how the data will be stored or used, and the digital identification of poor Black residents could lead to retreading Cape Town's ugly history of discrimination.

South Africa is the world’s most unequal country, according to the World Bank, and Cape Town is considered the country’s most segregated city. Although the city stressed that data will not be weaponized against the people who live in informal settlements, critics point out that Cape Town is notorious for punitive bylaw enforcement regimes like allegedly confiscating tents, HIV medications, and homeless residents’ IDs, rendering them unable to vote.

Pete Davidson's single again. Here's who he should date next.

Pete and Kim are no more, Scaachi Koul writes. After nine glorious months of stressing me out, they broke up, citing impossible schedules. I get it. I’m busy too. Last week, I had to go to the post office.

Who will Davidson date next? Memes and speculation abound. It’s a fun game! The world is his horny oyster because it seems this slime puppy can have anyone he wants. The question is where he wants to go.

Look, I could continue to wax poetic about all the people Davidson should go out with, but the answer is right in front of me. It’s me. It’s obviously me. I’m perfect.

I have everything, and yet nothing at all. I’m 5’5”, 175 pounds of pure bile, and mean as shit. I have an atrocious astrology chart and I am terrible at parties. Davidson’s routine of dating leggy white women is fine, but it’s mundane and predictable. Why not throw in a swarthy ethnic who routinely looks at a new pubic hair she’s grown and says, “Well, how did you get all the way up here?”

Still reading, eh? Seems like you might want to get this in your inbox. No pressure though. Just some food for thought.

Topics in this article

Skip to footer