Blog
Two things ‘cancel culture’ refers to
On ‘speaking first’ and the meaning of ‘engagement’. You can decline to “engage” online. Think quietly somewhere else. That’s not “cancel culture.” Rewarding someone for being wrong serves no one’s interests.
High school debate judges have their own opinions
They want an inclusive, non-hostile environment. Oppression can be systemic. We know our own experiences. These are obvious facts. How can we pretend not to know them when we make any judgment whatsoever?
A hostile critic isn’t impartial
They complain about our greatest strengths. In real life, when our enemies point out our ‘faults,’ we don’t always need to take it to heart. They don’t have our best interests in mind.
A surgeon for WWI and WWII vets also helped a trans man
The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris. Harold Gillies “never shied away from a surgical challenge ,” Fitzharris writes. Gillies agreed to perform phalloplasty for a trans man in the late 1940s.
Trans kids are found in history, too
Histories of the Transgender Child by Jules Gill-Peterson. Adults should acknowledge that ‘trans childhood is a happy and desired form .’ It’s not a new phenomenon. It’s ‘richly, beautifully historical.’
Did lady pirates button their shirts?
Yes. Art you may have seen to the contrary wasn’t realistic. Just because you’ve seen a naked image of a trans person doesn’t mean trans people walk around naked. Pirates too were motivated to button their shirts.
Liberation projects, art appreciation, and perceptions of the past
From my June 2024 reading list. The bird has flown, but the stone has not yet been thrown. Perhaps in the future it will come to mean something.
Is it about time, bodies, or both?
‘Trans Talmud’ by Max K. Strassfeld. Is this a question about time —what we think we know about the past and future? Or is it about bodies —how we sexually classify them? Or both?
‘Overawed by the marvel’ of trans
A new miniprayerbook. When we sanctify something, it changes. I think Heschel would understand and would like to continue to live and change and cast and reflect light.