Blog
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.
Does ‘woke’ mean saying — or not saying — certain words?
In any case, careful speech—including refraining from speaking — can build trust. When the right wing refers to “woke,” they may want to prevent others from saying certain words—or to reserve certain words for themselves.
It’s not ‘free speech,’ it’s bigotry
If they really believe in free speech, this is how we’ll know. There are many reasons why people have prejudices and why they devote their speech to expressing bigotry. Not high on the list: commitment to free speech.
‘Gyre’: A novel about how we’re called into being
‘The deduction came in a rush: I had been alive before’. ‘I could just as easily have held my tongue, or saved my comment for another time. This realization came, as always, too late,’ Abby says in ‘Gyre’.
In 10 days, four anti-trans exec orders & a bathroom ban for fed employees
Keep looking up. Trump 2025 has been in office for a bit over a week. These will affect trans people intersectionally or in unexpected ways. There’s a lot of material, so I’ve listed the executive orders with clickable images.
Tonight’s ban on adult gender transition (yes, 18-year-olds are adults)
By executive order, the federal government will not support transition. ‘Maiming’ is unspecific. ‘Sterilizing’ is generally untrue. ‘A growing number’ is fact-free; if the president had numbers, he’d provide them.
You’ve been trying. I see it.
What’s happening now isn’t because of who you are, dear readers. Let’s continue to try. So you consumed too much ice cream, got wicked creative, were fascinated by death, made decisions with your gut, wrote inappropriate film dialogue. And?
Am I the right kind of gay and trans for you?
Why our identities matter so much to us, why we bring them up, and why we use our favorite labels. My identity isn’t a bargaining chip. It’s an intangible. Try to touch it. It’ll vanish. The label denotes the space through which breath and fire passes.
Republicans to change Title IX to deny trans kids’ genders
It hurts everyone. If they abolish the Dept. of Education, no one will have sex discrimination protections. If the Education Dept. disappears, no student can make any discrimination claim. Girls won’t have sex discrimination protections. Who will hear them?