The rise of transgender. Around the world, clinics that specialize in gender-identity disorder in children report an explosion in referrals over the past few years. Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who runs the most comprehensive gender-identity clinic for youth in Toronto, has seen his waiting list quadruple in the past four years, to about 80 kids—an increase he attributes to media coverage and the proliferation of new sites on the Internet. Dr. Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, who runs the main clinic in the Netherlands, has seen the average age of her patients plummet since 2002. — The Atlantic

Guns n’ Roses back with a track– but November Rain it ain’t. A full seventeen years after their last album (The Spaghetti Incident doesn’t count), Guns n’ Roses – well, Axl Rose, anyway — is finally set to unleash a new album on the world … Whether or not the wait will be worth it is still unclear — the track available on the band’s website won’t blow anyone’s mind — but at least we will soon be able to move on with our lives. — Lost at e minor

L.A. has weather people, it’s just … subtle. Of all the clichés applied to Los Angeles—and I do think we’re hit with more than most cities—the claim that we have “no weather” strikes me as the most risible. What people mean, of course, is that because we don’t experience great fluctuations in climate, L.A.’s seasons are indistinguishable, our falls blurring into our winters, our springs into our summers. L.A. autumns are not marked by leaves dropping to the ground; L.A. winters are not defined by snow and ice. But to say we have no seasons is wrong. We have jacarandas bursting out purple in May and June, their blossoms, sticky and electric, blanketing the ground. — Kit Rachlis, LAmag.com

Confessions of a sushi model. Be still, rogue toe. Please! Don’t you dare surrender to that muscle cramp. Now is not the time. Lying here diagonally across the top of a dining table in the back room of Ambassador Wines and Spirits, naked except for the scallop shells covering my nipples and the silk scarf sheltering my crotch, while guests gorge on sushi and sashimi pieces plucked from my torso, I require your cooperation. — Vanity Fair