Blog

15 common features of anti-trans troll comments
They really pack ’em in. They didn’t read my article and don’t care about my perspective. They act as though I’m the one who didn’t do the required reading.

30 terrible ways to express ‘skepticism’ of transgender people
I will tell you how I generated this list. It’s not random. For people who have been bothered by these arguments, who want to see them unpacked, and who will gladly avoid repeating or amplifying them in the future.

Skeptical of trans people above all
They could have been skeptical of science denialism and supernaturalism instead. Some theories, beliefs, and agendas are false, and their falseness merits skepticism. But trans people are real. We shouldn’t be the object of skepticism.

Climate change, predicted (three decades ago)
Returning to an environmental classic: ‘The Ages of Gaia’ by James Lovelock. We don’t yet know what it will be like when the forests are gone. But we should live in a way that prevents this outcome. We must support our own survival.

The Industrial Revolution: All of it has to change again
Trains represent where we’ve been & where we‘ll go next. Steel, aluminum, concrete; fossil fuels; electric light; transportation, communication, refrigeration, medicine. Do we know what we have to change?

Tadpoles teach us in Kern’s ‘Real Sugar’
Stories for those who feel ‘fragile about frogs’. We can grieve “all the frogs that aren’t.” Some of our stories going forward, though, have to be about the frogs that are. Which will those be?

How we’re here now: Poems of California
Poems in ‘Rift Zone’ and ‘Last West’. We know in our bones what being is. Because we are. ‘To be’ is to exist in a place, to grow, to break off, to feel how this ties us to past and future.

We know who’s responsible for orange sky
We need to hold them accountable. It’s Exx-smog and Shell-smoke. The big orange cats must be held accountable, and there’s more than one. Each of us has a role to play.

Designing a town people can get around? Repeat this exercise.
Anna Zivarts reminds us how we can take an hour to try harder. Sometimes we lack empathy for each other’s transportation needs and preferences. We have no idea because we haven’t stopped to try.