Blog
The biggest political donation in U.S. history is funding anti-trans laws
Anti-trans strategy isn’t invented by ‘concerned parents.’ It’s paid for. Laws against gender-affirming care aren’t the result of a concerned parent movement. They’re a well-funded political strategy.
What does Twitter think ‘destroy transgenderism’ means?
When Matt Walsh said it, what did his Twitter followers hear? Children are ‘but one phase in the overall war,’ Walsh said. He means he does not accept transgender adults either. And he is waging war on everyone.
CPAC Transphobia, March 2023
When they can’t possibly be worse, they find a way. He’s still on that horse, and so is the whole Republican party. At CPAC, Trump warned that the country has plunged into a ‘filthy communist nightmare.’
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.