Blog
How the far-right comes for trans people
Violent far-right U.S. groups are ‘hugely and deeply’ anti-transgender. Anti-transgender rhetoric isn’t “just asking questions!” or curiosity or nuance. It is hateful; it is organized; it foments organized violence.
Donald Trump casts aspersions on trans people in his NRA speech
He told the pro-gun group that transgender people are violent. It’s nothing to do with academic curiosity nor concern for anyone’s well-being. This is yet another way he encourages violence toward a minority group.
How Trump self-scored 36 points on LGBTQ rights — and why it’s a failing grade
The administration has done nothing whatsoever to support LGBTQ rights. The Trump administration has done nothing whatsoever in favor of LGBTQ rights. Don’t repeat its lie to the contrary. It causes pain and stress.
Atheist-theist encounters
If you’re pretty sure there’s no god, when may you tell theists they’re wrong? Sometimes knowledge is best cultivated through personal encounters rather than intellectual demands. We see each other, and we’ll also know the world.
Moral analysis of what is ‘at stake in this story’
Naomi Kanakia on discussing novels. How to discuss a book itself and also let our learning transcend the book? To see the book as art, and to see it as a tool for our growth?
We are the book we’re talking about
And we are what’s at stake in truth-telling. If the interlocutor opposes me because of who I am, will they be impressed that I read a book? No. Even if it is a book they have heard of? No.
Humility: A needed balance
On early modern philosophers and online trolls. In Lewis Carroll’s ‘You Are Old, Father William,’ a young person asks: ‘You balanced an eel on the end of your nose - / What made you so awfully clever?’
What is human dignity?
Where does it come from? How do we know it exists? Does dignity need to be pinned to God, or can it have secular grounding? Is it about humility, pride, or both? What does interdependence have to do with it?
When we disagree on politics and I lose a friend
I have to be a good person, and even then, it’s up to someone else if they want to be my friend. They don’t owe me what I gave as a gift, and certainly they don’t owe me what I never gave at all.