Blog
What does drive the boat? On truth
Miscellaneous reflections on truth, flowing through me. I like to think my own versions are truthful. And why not other versions too? That to which others testify is likely to bear truth.
Moses is trans
My trans teaching for Passover. In Exodus, the Egyptian king assumes that men are a threat and that everyone can tell which babies will grow up to be men. Just look at the baby, he says.
‘Black Hole Science’ experiments to stay warm after snow
My second entry for the 2026 Trans Rights Readathon. A college course that excited me was on religious themes in literature. My favorite part of ‘Black Hole Science’ is called ‘Lives of the Saints.’
Beast, in or out of a net
Art by Tucker Lieberman. Everything moves in the twilight: the beast, the net, the Moon, the Earth it orbits, you. Nothing dances in the same place twice.
Political meaning is not only ‘what happened’ but how we’ll change it
It’s bad, but we can’t lose hope, which means we must aspire. A binary allows us to say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ even as we seek to dissolve the questions. Asking new questions is part of envisioning a radically new future.
A hinge that opens the heavens
A small reflection on my daily reading. You’re at an apparent end due to a failure of wit. You can’t imagine what comes next. But you’ll recover wit, you’ll find horizon, and universe won’t end.
6 things mystified me in the trans film ‘I Saw the TV Glow’
This 2024 movie is tough to crack, but finally I think I get it. In art, opaque describes a substance you expect to see through but can’t: paint, glass, a thin layer. Metaphorically, it’s something you can’t understand.
Why are you trans?
Will they be mad that they were given a reason? If so, why did they ask? Trans people didn’t invent gender stereotypes. Collectively, we don’t reinforce them any more than anyone else. We navigate societies that stereotype us.
Jeffrey Epstein said ‘you might want to focus on transgender biology’
He suggested this to evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers in 2019. ‘Little public interest’, Epstein warned, ‘where genetics would be helpful. I’ll do no harm and won’t give you drugs if you ask because it’s bad for you.’