Blog
Green Birds Are Birds
But green is a color. It’s a concept, not a thing you can point to — unless you find a thing or a living being that is green. A bird is a living being you might encounter in the air. You can see it in the world. Birds who are green are green and also birds. They’re green birds.
The living cathedral of knowledge
Secreting a shell. The cathedral is partly mine. Or is it a living snail, creeping ahead of me, of which I had lost sight, with which I am at this moment catching up?
How Many Anti-Trans Laws Were Proposed Last Week?
We need to pay attention to all 50 U.S. states—as well as all countries—but doing all that in the same article makes for challenging storytelling and storylistening. Reed’s article yesterday highlighted five U.S. states, so I’ll go with her approach.
Can you do your political work if Trump is elected?
Think of his indictments, Christian Nationalism, and the climate crisis. Think of how we’ll organize. Trump faces criminal indictments. If you’re an organizer or an activist, this general situation and this specific timeline may affect your work.
A Texas bounty on trans people
Big prizes! Win $10,000 and up for reporting a trans person! Two updates from Texas and Pennsylvania, plus a roundup of five essays on anti-trans bathroom bills. Stop trying to take our money. Stop looking.
I want to see every erased word celebrating our city’s sexual health hotline
I’ll repaint the mural myself if I have to. As a gay and trans adult, I have to show responsibility toward other queer people in this city. If we don’t stand up for each other, who will?
‘Compensation is zero’ in the DOGE working group
It isn’t a real federal department anyway. You’d be the unpaid assistant and loyalist of the richest man in the world, who in turn is a loyalist of Donald Trump, who acts as though he’s the richest.
If you can’t campaign on it, how can you achieve it in office either?
You can’t shove aside an inconvenient group of people during a campaign and expect to be able to address their needs in office. My gender & body aren’t an ‘interest group’ nor ‘tactic,’ aren’t ‘rigid mores and vocabulary of college-educated elites,’ aren’t a ‘set of related issues.’
We’ll need to heal from this years-long torrent of insults
But we don’t need to fix or forgive those who continue to hurt us. It’s each person’s responsibility to choose good, and our choices are our own work to do. No one can redeem or heal anyone else. We can set boundaries.