Blog
10 problems with the ‘sex assigned at birth’ essay
They’re in what’s said — and not said. This isn’t a cost-benefit calculation. If we really looked at the term ‘sex assigned at birth,’ we might find that the benefits outweigh the costs.
When trans people are cut out of sports in Nassau County, New York
Republican organizes militia. Democratic Party chair retorts: ‘Does he think we’re going to be invaded by Suffolk County?’ Your neighbors are ‘trained’ to serve someone who marks everyone’s sex as a site of surveillance and regulation. This violence affects everyone.
Oh, it’s about sports, is it?
Nope, it’s not. It’s about constraining transgender lives. I don’t judge sports. I don’t pretend to. But I can detect when someone alleges injury and proposes a false remedy to delegitimize a group of people.
‘Cis’ or ‘biological’?
They’re both adjectives, but we have preferences. No, ‘cis’ doesn’t imply that trans people are better. ‘Cis’ implies that trans people are equal. People who object to this equalization are transphobes.
Biologicals first!
OK, said the pack of hungry tigers. A slogan like ‘Biological first!’ might not work out so well for them. If we’re tied up by hungry cartoon tigers, our best bet is to untie each other.
‘Labels are for cans,’ yet you do see ‘trans’
The ‘soup can logic’ of using ‘trans’ but not ‘cis’. When people aren’t comfortable observing that some people are cis, often their discomfort rests in a belief that trans people aren’t people but soup cans.
3 strategies to fight transphobia
From ‘El terfismo en América Latina,’ an article in Volcánicas. Expose TERF connections to the Religious Right, multinational companies, neoliberal regimes & white supremacy. Give trans people platforms. Keep at it.
Nervous about sharing your uninformed opinion? Then don’t
Feel relieved? Good. But it was never about your feelings. “Just asking questions!” isn’t credible when the speaker is demonstrably not naive. Lots of people know lots of real information about trans kids.
Human rights don’t ‘trickle down’
Why must some discussions be silenced in favor of others? The commission’s name itself is peak Orwellianism. I must admit, sadly, that many rights are alienable. The Commission on Unalienable Rights has come to take them away.