Welcome to my new blog, On Gender. Thanks for stopping by. As we move into the new incarnation of Colorlines.com, we’ve been thinking about how to balance and broaden our editorial mix. A focus on gender and race has emerged as an arena where race, politics and culture intersect, sometimes in subtle ways that both empower and constrain us. While a number of "women’s" blogs have emerged lately, often as part of a broader effort to develop niches within the political blogosphere or reach out to a specific demographic, we’re trying to do something different here. Having blogged on race and politics more generally on the old ColorLines news blog, RaceWire, I’d now like to use this space to explore race and gender as two political touchstones that often interact–but just as often, end up driving identity-based social movements that talk past each other. By talking honestly here about how communities of color conceive of gender, we can broaden our lens on reproductive health, civil and labor rights, education, culture and policy. And as an online forum, it’s incumbent upon us as activists and community members to focus on expanding the dialogue, not narrow-casting the debate. There’s no one way to define or understand these issues, obviously, and that’s what we at ColorLines love about this work. So I look forward to shaping this space with you in an ongoing conversation. Stay tuned.