Category: Trans

100 years from now, transphobia will always have been wrong
A parallel between Wagner’s antisemitism and Rowling’s transphobia. 100 years from now, there could be a mass murder. But that’s not why Rowling’s transphobia is wrong. It doesn’t become wrong in the future. It’s wrong now.

This 1949 examination of fascist rhetoric shows us how we got here
More on the connection between transphobia and antisemitism. Max Horkheimer examined the social and psychological reasons why people become fascist agitators. This book analyzes antisemitic rhetoric in the US.

Transphobia, overt or underhanded
Either way, this behavior is proof of transphobia. Transphobes aren’t interested in trans people’s viewpoints. Instead, they turn trans people into a bad-faith debate. They see it as a publicity opportunity.

Posie Parker won’t tell us about the billionaires
On air, she alludes to a conspiracy theory — and then won’t explain it. In this March 2023 interview on Radio New Zealand, the anti-transgender activist Posie Parker says that billionaires promote the cause of being trans.

The worst transphobic words I’ve seen (this week)
…were also antisemitic. Modern antisemitism and transphobia are fundamentally linked, and the crush of anti-transgender legislation is an attempt to exterminate trans people.

The biggest conspiracy theories are all-consuming
This week’s antisemitism and transphobia—Trump, West, Rowling—is all connected. Donald Trump, Kanye West, J. K. Rowling are billionaires who validate their followers’ hateful conspiracy theories. Antisemitism and transphobia are linked.

New dogs, now, in my own poems
Rereading ‘Mars and Her Children’ by Marge Piercy. Marge Piercy’s poems in ‘Mars and Her Children’, I decided early on, are what I want to sound like when I wrote a poem. I’ve found my voice.

Darned if I can tell you how magic works
But this award-winning novel can: Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton. How do we create our realities? How are you magic? If you haven’t yet read trans literature, I am giving you sage advice: Trans people’s books are magic.

Making an effort toward equal parenting
Written by a gay man, ‘The Equal Parent’ is about gender-inclusive parenting attitudes. Both men are active parents. The nursery has both of their phone numbers, and ‘if they cannot get hold of the dad they called first, they try the other one.’

My two favorite tweets from year-end 2021
The grace of shared joy and success. Seeing your own place change in the rankings often implies there is a rising star in your network. Their success doesn’t step on yours. Share their joy.

A gay self-discovery: Body, desire, but no ‘essence of me’
‘The Flower From a Poisoned Seed’ by Jonathan C. David. The more we want something, the harder we pursue it, and it feels like the reason we’re here. But if we ever reached it, what would be the point of life?

The ‘undecidability’ of life
Freedom and despair in Will Eaves’ ‘Murmur’, about Alan Turing. The novelist directs our moral scrutiny not at the innocent man but at the state that victimizes him. The state destroys him, politically and existentially.