While anti-transgender bathroom bills have only recently gained momentum, gender-segregated public restrooms have been sites of gender inequity for over a century. Cultural anxieties about bodily secretions, disease, sex, shame, and power — codified into law and reinforced by Hollywood — have allowed the segregated institution to stand. But should we let it?
Fifty years ago, Rona Barrett forged a Hollywood gossip empire. Then she left it all behind, her innovations attributed to others, her legacy almost entirely overlooked. But as she nears 80, there’s very little Miss Rona regrets.
A push for marriage equality is building in Japan, but same-sex couples aren’t leading the charge. J. Lester Feder reports from Tokyo.
Abusing foreign “guest workers,” stealing their wages, even threatening their lives: There is almost no workplace abuse so extreme that the U.S. government will not reward employers with the chance to do it again.
They talk on Telegram and send viruses to their enemies. BuzzFeed News’ Sheera Frenkel looks at how ISIS members and sympathizers around the world use the internet to grow their global network.
This week for BuzzFeed News, Marisa Carroll meets one of Snapchat's most controversial stars. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed and around the web.
After almost a decade chasing fame, plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer has struck gold Snapchatting boob jobs and butt lifts as Dr. Miami. But can this Orthodox Jewish father of five take his gimmick mainstream and still preserve his identity?
She's directed Mel Gibson, Jennifer Lawrence, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and herself. Here's what Jodie Foster has learned along the way.
A cache of internal documents shows that despite growing revenue, Palantir has lost top-tier clients, is struggling to stem staff departures, and isn't collecting most of the money it touts in high-value deals.
When Boko Haram snatched 276 schoolgirls from a school in Nigeria, their families led a global campaign to bring them back. Two years on, distraught relatives live in hope they will return, but also fear that they may have lost their daughters to the group's brainwashing. Monica Mark reports from Abuja for BuzzFeed News.
It’s boom time in Tijuana, with upscale restaurants, farmers markets, and galleries attracting Americans to cross the border. But gentrification has come at the expense of the city’s poorest residents, many of whom were deported from the U.S. Karla Zabludovsky reports for BuzzFeed News.
Jasha McQueen is battling her ex-husband for the embryos they froze nine years ago. Will her fight — which has now reached the Missouri State Capitol — threaten reproductive rights across the country?
Last summer, explorers in Poland claimed to have discovered tunnels built for trains carrying plundered Nazi gold, only to be debunked a few months later. But for the true believers who've been hunting for this treasure for decades, this merely proved what they've thought all along: Inside these mountains are secrets and stories that some would rather stay buried.
In recent months, hundreds of Canadian Indigenous people have tried to kill themselves, with 11 people attempting suicide in a single night in April. As the crisis intensifies across the country, the residents of one Cree reserve try to make sense of it while tracing the decades of injustices that led them here.
The easiest way to maintain your fame while revealing nothing of your private life? Hide in plain sight.
In Provo office parks and Salt Lake City startup incubators, tech is increasingly making a home for itself in the Beehive State. But not everyone's happy about tech’s impact on the Utah way of life.
This week for BuzzFeed News, Sarah A. Topol searches for buried treasure. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed and around the web.
The woman who devoted herself to the creation of a national holiday to honor overworked, underappreciated mothers regretted the commercial juggernaut it became. Was Anna Jarvis stubborn and crazy, as many came to believe, or misunderstood?
The position of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says, "should always be toward inclusion and equality." From Black Lives Matter to transgender protections to efforts at improving the lives of people released from prison, Lynch tells BuzzFeed News how she is working to give effect to that mission.
In the wake of the Charleston church massacre, a mother searches for a way to talk to her children about how to stay safe in America.
How one woman creates safe spaces for her clients — and herself.
This Week for BuzzFeed News, Aram Roston and Daniel Wagner uncover The Don's lesser-known D.C. dispute. Read it and these other great stories from BuzzFeed and around the web.
When foreign fighters join ISIS, they are asked to provide the phone numbers of family members back at home. They are mothers, brothers and cousins, and these are their stories.
Internal emails offer a peek behind the scenes of the peculiar and little-known organization that oversees the development of a weird new universal language.
After raising Detroit's ghosts in her critically acclaimed novel, The Turner House, this debut author suddenly has everyone's attention.
“The Trump people said all the right things,” said a former member of his team. “He never intended to stick with it. He thought, 'Well, let’s get to the next phase and then we’ll do what we want to do.'” A BuzzFeed News Investigation.
In Ecuador, some prisons are taking a unique approach to rehabilitating inmates: giving them radio shows. BuzzFeed News goes inside one such program to see how it's changing incarcerated women's lives.
One year after Nepal was devastated by an earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people and left a million more homeless, the situation on the ground is bleaker than ever. Anup Kaphle returned home to find a country that has been failed by its government — and ignored by the world.
This week for BuzzFeed News, Adam Serwer dismantles the myth of the black Confederate soldier. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed and around the web.
You may not realize it, but the person on the other side of your customer service phone call might be transgender. On calls, Filipino workers can safely adopt women's voices, names, and clothing, all while earning a decent wage. But their success at work doesn't protect them from the discrimination they face outside of it.
Lifetime’s grown from “guilty pleasure” to a critically acclaimed home for groundbreaking television. How? By hiring women. Here, a feminist history of “television for women.”
Over his decades-long career, Prince granted very few interviews. But that didn't stop journalists, critics, and fellow musicians from writing about him.
Sexual assault, domestic abuse, and attempted murder are among the crimes recently captured on live video services. BuzzFeed News uncovered one apparent incident of a rape aired in real time and asked what it means for the companies that host this content.
A 160-year-old tintype depicting Andrew Chandler and his slave Silas, both in Confederate uniform, has long been used as evidence that slaves willingly fought against the army that aimed to free them. Following the national backlash against Confederate iconography, Silas's descendants seek to debunk this once and for all.
More than 11 years in the making, Nina has been accused of racist casting and wounded by behind-the-scenes fighting. Here, the filmmakers reveal how it all went so wrong.
This week for BuzzFeed News, Joel Oliphint studies a mysterious illness and the patients who suffer from it. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed and around the web.
This medical mystery — a byproduct of common nasal surgery — has stumped many doctors and scientists, some of whom suspect the suffocating condition may just be imaginary. But that isn't making the people who feel suicidal over its horrific symptoms feel any better.
It’s far easier to join ISIS than to leave. Members of a hidden community of ISIS defectors recount how they were pulled into the grip of extremism — and their struggle to escape. Mike Giglio and Munzer al-Awad report for BuzzFeed News from the Syrian border.
In 1993, 14-year-old Adam Gray confessed to, and was later convicted of, setting a fire that killed two people in Chicago. But thanks to disproven arson-investigation techniques and recanted testimonies, he may now have a chance to go free.
The "Tik Tok" singer insists that she only wanted to pay tribute to Bob Dylan and had no plans of mentioning her legal battle with producer Dr. Luke.
A tourist said he put the animal in his car at Yellowstone because he thought it was cold, but later realized his actions were wrong. The calf later had to be euthanized.
If U.S. banks or competitions were affected by the scandal, Russian leaders could face criminal charges in the U.S.
A new Obama administration policy will give low-income high schoolers access to the federal financial aid system.
With Brussels spearheading two investigations into Google’s search and Android businesses, a decision overseas could embolden U.S. regulators to take action.
