Essays

Blog

La palabra lo encaja todo, atrapa posibilidades. Nos atrapa a nosotros. Image: inside a red box is a snail with a multicolored shell. its mouth is hanging open. inside its mouth is a tiny human figure.

Secretamos la concha / We secrete the shell

October 23, 2024

Un ensayo ilustrado sobre el conocimiento / An illustrated essay on knowledge. Mini-illustrations about not grabbing too tight and instead growing that which we’ll carry with us. In English (plain text) and Spanish (in images).

Latin text in black and red ink with a blue and red illustration of a bearded man holding a book and a tool like a hatchet

Why do politicians ‘swear in to office’ on a Bible?

October 23, 2024

Doing so is supposed to appear solemn, but it can’t really bind them to their promise. The politician may not believe God holds them accountable for promises on a Bible. Swearing in on a Bible only shows the cultural power of Christianity.

person with long hair and sunset, wearing lace under a white shirt, raising hands in a field of tall grass glowing with sunset

Two Duggar memoirs: Jill and Jinger as adults

October 23, 2024

Neither their abusive older brother nor the IBLP Christian fundamentalist organization is part of their lives now. The IBLP not only opposes women’s rights and no-fault divorce, it also promotes the idea that husbands are the leaders of their wives and children.

Top Posts

The Living Cathedral of Knowledge

Everything Around Us? It’s ‘The Surround.’

Green Birds Are Birds

What will the U.S. Supreme Court decide about our genders?

January 15, 2026

Yesterday’s SCOTUS hearing on trans belonging (and sports). Will they let us keep autonomy and privacy to live in our genders, or will they transfer more power to institutions and laws to verify and enforce our sex?

bottom half of a bearded face, a selfie shared on WhatsApp. The recipient left a laughing emoji on the selfie.

Arkansas lawmakers want you to sue over your childhood haircut

December 24, 2025

Behold! I espouse my gender identity with scissors and comb. Or lack thereof. Will the people who all this time had only ‘reasonable concerns’ please speak up? Surely they wish to allow girls to roughhouse and boys to play with dolls.

Screenshot of a photo embedded on a webpage. The photo caption in small print says Sylvia Rivera at Age 18 in New York City, 1969 laying back and posing on the edge of a water fountain. At a young age Sylvia began fighting for gay and transgender rights while also helping homeless young drag queens, like herself, gay youth, and trans people. She was a co-founder of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha P. Johnson. Photo by Kay Tobin / New York Public Library

Sylvia began fighting for gay and rights

November 22, 2025

No, it’s not a typo. It’s 🏳️‍⚧️ erasure. Sylvia Rivera began fighting for gay and transgender rights. Hold the flickering candle of that sentence. We know what the Stonewall National Monument said.

cartoon sketch of a woman appearing surprised. many people would perceive her as white. she has curly or wavy hair, cut short. she has plucked eyebrows, a tiny nose, and is wearing earrings.

Why is anti-trans talk on the rise? A new history book analyzes roots

November 19, 2025

‘Enemy Feminisms’ by Sophie Lewis. The sex binary, which is furthermore a sex hierarchy (men on top), is part of capitalism. It has been a central theme of bourgeois feminism.

simple sketch of a saltshaker floating on a psychedelic colored background

My gay and trans identity isn’t a little magic saltshaker

November 19, 2025

But it is nonetheless a favorite TV show, so keep tuning in! You can’t have someone else’s identity because you can’t be them. Even if you could have it, sprinkling their identity on your work wouldn’t guarantee cash.