Lots going on at BTB. First, a belated welcome to new writers silverscreened and [f]embody -- terrific first posts. Silverscreened will be writing about movies & tv with a genderlens, and [f]embody is our resident queer/female/feminine/gender/lived experience columnist. A few more writers are also in the works, and they're definitely going to be wicked.

This month also marks Below the Belt's one year birthday! It's definitely hard for many of us founding editors and writers to believe, but a year has passed since BTB started kickin'. Looking back, we began as a largely self-reflective community of 6-7 friends talking about gender...and now we represent a community of over 20 writers and podcasters, and a readership history of over 15,000 unique individuals from around the world. For a bunch of gendery geeks, that's pretty amazing!

So please join me in celebrating BTB's birthday, and join me in congratulating both our writers and our readers for their amazing work and ability to start informed, constructive dialogue about important issues facing our world and its people.

For you readers out there, please also take this opportunity to consider your place as a member of the Below the Belt community. We'll be doing a lot of growing in the coming months, and I know that this forum can only operate successfully when its members decide that they have a voice that needs to be heard. Apply to serve as a contributor! We <3 you.

Sincerely,
ts