Blog
Can an identity be true and not true?
On ‘constitutive tension’ in our concepts. Picking apart someone else’s identity? First ask: Why do you want to? What would be gained? And lost? What happens to your own identity in the process?
Gödel is sure Bach, and trans people are sure their gender
Reflections on the Pulitzer-winning ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’ (1979). Their objection is an infinite regress. They’re laying a trap. If we needed rules about rules about rules, none of us could ever use language at all.
How do we know who we are?
Do we learn it from a crystal ball—or from our guts? How do others state with certainty that they know who they are? Do they have a crystal ball? Of course, we’re jealous. How can we know ourselves, too?
Choosing what you won’t regret
Ask ‘Will I regret not taking this step?’ and feel confident you’re making the best choice for yourself.
The false narrative of regrettable transness
One function of ‘regret’ in anti-trans narrative. It’s the ‘good queer’/’bad queer’ distinction. The scapegoater projects; do they accept their own queerness? The idea of trans people is a scapegoat.
Why transphobia teaches us to be terrified of regret
What if you start to change your gender and regret it? Modern transphobia is a fascist cult. It is related to the destruction of the planet. Both kinds of oppression are related to the concept of Regret.
In myth, the extra-binary thing explains everything
‘Fabulous monsters’ are boundary-crossers that reconcile opposites. Trans people right now are the bridge fascists stomp on with their boots. Fascists need the bridge and also like to complain about it while stomping.
Everything is subjective and contains its opposite
This is not a reason to reject trans people and their language. They’re using shared language in an off-center way because the shared language doesn’t center them . Not their fault. Should they reinvent language?
Transphobia speaks in the voice of surveillance capitalism
It believes it knows, and can shape, who we are and what we’ll do. Surveillance capitalists believe in determinism, not free will. Transphobes, taking their cue, reject the gender freedom by which some of us are trans.