Blog
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?
Why there’s still an argument about NYT coverage of trans people
The New York Times is digging in its heels on institutional transphobia. The NYT open letter has been signed by ‘over 1,200 New York Times contributors and over 34,000 media workers, Times readers, and subscribers.’
A trans person is trans everywhere we go
We belong to the world. If he agrees with the ACLU statement that trans people belong everywhere, why is he arguing with it? What are ‘those heights’ that trans people cannot hit?
On trans kids, ask people who know
Try looking where the answers are. How does the New York Times know what it thinks it knows? Is it influenced by its peers? Is it what it says it is? Is it ever going to change?
‘Hate’ isn’t an element in H2O
Hate isn’t part of the water. We can see it. Transphobia and racism are harmful and wrong, even if they’re technically legal where we are. We can recognize them and know why they are wrong.
Jesse Singal detransitions
He’s packed up his comments, hooray. If your main gig is scaremongering about the idea that somewhere a hypothetical child is changing their sex, please detransition away from that activity.
Wanting to see and know: Positives and negatives of trans visibility
A tiny Chanukah reflection. Our terms, the formal definitions we’d give if asked, the way we informally use words: these are the detectors with which we make our way through the world.