Blog
I have questions, but Chait says I’m not allowed to ask any
Per Jonathan Chait’s NY Intelligencer column, trans people who ask questions are risking the 2024 election. When will we be allowed to speak? Can we speak up after the election? No, as then we’ll be told to start worrying about the next election.
The ‘man’–‘woman’ porridge has gotta stay in the Goldilocks Zone
Transphobes don’t want to be any more, nor any less, specific. They don’t want more specificity about ‘man’ & ‘woman.’ ‘Cis’ is a slur, they say. They don’t want less specificity either. ‘Person’ is erasure, they say.
Sorry, I’m out-of-body right now
I’ll answer your hate mail in another lifetime. Asking fake questions about etymologies and intra-community debates they don’t care about. They’ll follow up with fake theories about floating out-of-body.
Climate change is expensive, but that’s not the point
Why would we calculate how many dollars the planet’s worth? How many trillion dollars? Does it matter? Climate change is very, very expensive. It will make us reassess what it means for something to be expensive.
I’m not debating that
But what’s this article doing, then? If cheese-breads are puffy, why are nut-breads less puffy? No one is asking what bakers are up to! Might be a conspiracy. Maybe nut-breads should be banned.
You won’t be afraid of that book anymore
You’ll feel better when you acknowledge your own reactions. Some people don’t want us to think and feel for ourselves, because doing so is part of what it means to be, and they want us to be afraid.
Green Birds Are Birds
But green is a color. It’s a concept, not a thing you can point to — unless you find a thing or a living being that is green. A bird is a living being you might encounter in the air. You can see it in the world. Birds who are green are green and also birds. They’re green birds.
The living cathedral of knowledge
Secreting a shell. The cathedral is partly mine. Or is it a living snail, creeping ahead of me, of which I had lost sight, with which I am at this moment catching up?
How Many Anti-Trans Laws Were Proposed Last Week?
We need to pay attention to all 50 U.S. states—as well as all countries—but doing all that in the same article makes for challenging storytelling and storylistening. Reed’s article yesterday highlighted five U.S. states, so I’ll go with her approach.