Blog

The Texas GOP platform is riveting(ly bad) political reading
I could not tear myself away from it. The Texas GOP’s “Temporary Platform and Resolutions” packs in a huge amount of religious superiority, prejudice, and self-contradiction.

January 6 — and transphobia — make some people feel empowered
They enjoy the illusion that they’re the deciders. Post-2020 Trump supporters believe they have the power to decide how others already voted—and, if they don’t get their way, they’ll force it.

Why the Republicans chose Mike Johnson
He’s been made House Speaker because he’s serving their goals. Their goal is patriarchy, white Christian nationalism, and unfettered environmental destruction. They will make elections obsolete if they can.

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.