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What we can learn about Helen Joyce in two sentences

A young white woman making an "ewww" face and throwing both hands up.

That second paragraph on the book jacket of ‘Trans’. Whose feelings matter? It’s a premise of Helen Joyce’s book ‘Trans’ that cisgender people’s feelings matter the most. It’s right there on the book jacket.

I’m disappointed in the ‘Witch Trials’

witch on a broomstick flies by a huge full moon

J.K. Rowling’s image-polishing podcast doesn’t grapple with the real problem. When someone accuses Rowling of transphobia, her team’s refrain is: When has she ever been transphobic? At this point, I hear it as a running joke.

The misrepresentation of compassion and solidarity

A woman writing the word Don't in red lipstick on a window

No, J. K. Rowling’s 2020 blog post wasn’t compassionate to trans people. ‘Gender critical’ ideology typically promotes hostility and ignorance. GC, of course, claims to be kind to trans people. But that’s disinformation.

QAnon fights imaginary cabals

Detail from the cover of Will Sommer's book Trust the Plan showing a black flag with a Q on it.

Explained in Will Sommer’s ‘Trust the Plan’. To its followers, QAnon seems to explain the world. It’s also their community. Normal policy can wait until the vampires are vanquished.

What is a Bible?

large black book with spine stamped Holy Bible resting on a lectern

You already know, and you already know what a woman is too. We don’t have to keep asking what ‘transgender’ essentially is, nor what ‘woman’ or ‘man’ essentially are. There is no essence. But we know what they are.

‘Radical gender theory’ is itself a social construct

Christopher Rufo's website has a section called "A Parent's Guide to Radical Gender Theory," offering a pamphlet for download.

The people who’re making it up do not have good intentions. This isn’t a serious intellectual project. There’s no scholarly substance. Chris Rufo just wants to organize the right-wing to make noise and hurt LGBTQ people.

The right wing wants to stop adults from being trans

chain link fence

Knowles: ‘You have to ban transgenderism entirely’. Michael Knowles wants to ban people from being transgender. His ‘love’ for the Kansas bathroom bill is because it ‘aggressive[ly]’ excludes trans people.