Category: Trans
Trans kids are found in history, too
Histories of the Transgender Child by Jules Gill-Peterson. Adults should acknowledge that ‘trans childhood is a happy and desired form .’ It’s not a new phenomenon. It’s ‘richly, beautifully historical.’
Did lady pirates button their shirts?
Yes. Art you may have seen to the contrary wasn’t realistic. Just because you’ve seen a naked image of a trans person doesn’t mean trans people walk around naked. Pirates too were motivated to button their shirts.
Liberation projects, art appreciation, and perceptions of the past
From my June 2024 reading list. The bird has flown, but the stone has not yet been thrown. Perhaps in the future it will come to mean something.
Is it about time, bodies, or both?
‘Trans Talmud’ by Max K. Strassfeld. Is this a question about time —what we think we know about the past and future? Or is it about bodies —how we sexually classify them? Or both?
‘Overawed by the marvel’ of trans
A new miniprayerbook. When we sanctify something, it changes. I think Heschel would understand and would like to continue to live and change and cast and reflect light.
When the Nazis criminalized gay men
A story of persecution in ‘The Men with the Pink Triangle’ by Heinz Heger. The Nazis viewed gay people as weakening the gender binary. Gay men could be punished for “lewdness,” including simply hugging each other: prison or death.
Will SCOTUS let parents and doctors support trans kids?
The case over youth gender-affirming care: United States vs. Skrmetti. Tennessee still claims science backs its position when demonstrably it doesn’t. The ACLU & Biden admin say this is discrimination against trans people.
Once again, it’s not about sports
Why trans allies objected to Seth Moulton’s comments last month. This ‘idea’ is not fully baked because it’s not consistent even about whether it would regulate adults or children. This is not about sports.
Anti-trans feminism since the 1960s
After a couple of recent essays by Sophie Lewis chronicling this movement. Particularly because the anti-trans movement is fond of suggesting that trans people sprang into existence yesterday, I’m fascinated with timelines.
Would you work with the ‘Alliance Defending Freedom’?
A 2022 Bindel–Joyce debate in which Joyce calls my gender ‘an attack on the whole institution of civilization’. She thinks she’s preserving ‘the Enlightenment,’ ‘evidence,’ ‘stable meanings,’ ‘how you do science’, ‘the whole institution of civilization.’
LGBTQ+ people are not going back: No sham elections
Getting real with ourselves and with our leaders. We need autonomy. We need livable outcomes. If a candidate supports who we are and how we live, we may be able to support them. If they don’t, we can’t.
I’m not reading this type of U.S. election postmortem
Trans people shouldn’t be blamed. Yes, Republicans spent lots of money on ads. On the level of the horse race, I don’t care why Trump won the election. I care that trans people will survive.