Blog

Pamela Paul isn’t sympathetic to trans adults either
Yes, Republicans threaten the rights of trans adults. No, I don’t believe Pamela Paul really cares. Is there any specific legal right, specific type of access to resources, or specific type of respect she believes we should have? Tell me if you know.

Why this trans person is tired of Pamela Paul’s columns
She could just stop talking about us. She could talk about anything else. I could write a book she’d enjoy, except she wouldn’t love a book by an author she knew to be transgender. This is what I mean by transphobia.

How to argue transphobically that you’re not transphobic
Pamela Paul’s most recent NYT op-eds. People are signing a letter asking the NYT to stop being transphobic, but the NYT keeps publishing Pamela Paul’s disparaging drivel against trans people.

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.

Three books that tell us to smash our categories
Recommended nonfiction by Miller, Fox, and Waters. Nonfiction recommendations: A 2020 book about David Starr Jordan, a 2023 book about William Beebe, and a 2024 book about Avery Brundage.

The indispensable history of ‘sex testing’ in sports
Waters keeps the book focused on the 1930s, with the history told in such a way that it’s crystal clear how it’s relevant today. The moral panic over trans people in sports continues not to be about sports.

As Berlin held the 1936 Olympics, these athletes changed their sex
Assigned female at birth, some went on to live as men. Eugenicists, sexists, racists, and fascists held power. Possibilities were disrupted when the Nazis rose. And the 1936 Olympics belonged to Hitler.