Blog
Is your clothing the wrong gender?
A proposed Texas law would classify you as a drag performer. A proposed law in Texas says there’s a proper, legal way to wear clothing and makeup—and to have a body. You must look like your “gender assigned at birth”.
You’re an individual who has identities
Robyn Blumner defending Richard Dawkins. Let’s not keep falling back on the idea that certain men are pre-approved to say whatever they like. Their free speech isn’t a stand-in for everyone else’s.
It takes two people to go on a first date
You may want info before a first date, but that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to have it. If someone isn’t allowed to have their gender at a key moment, they aren’t really allowed to have it at all. Cis people don’t own trans people’s info.
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.