Blog
Three books that tell us to smash our categories
Recommended nonfiction by Miller, Fox, and Waters. Nonfiction recommendations: A 2020 book about David Starr Jordan, a 2023 book about William Beebe, and a 2024 book about Avery Brundage.
The indispensable history of ‘sex testing’ in sports
Waters keeps the book focused on the 1930s, with the history told in such a way that it’s crystal clear how it’s relevant today. The moral panic over trans people in sports continues not to be about sports.
As Berlin held the 1936 Olympics, these athletes changed their sex
Assigned female at birth, some went on to live as men. Eugenicists, sexists, racists, and fascists held power. Possibilities were disrupted when the Nazis rose. And the 1936 Olympics belonged to Hitler.
What will the U.S. Supreme Court decide about our genders?
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?
Arkansas lawmakers want you to sue over your childhood haircut
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.
Sylvia began fighting for gay and rights
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.
Why is anti-trans talk on the rise? A new history book analyzes roots
‘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.
My gay and trans identity isn’t a little magic saltshaker
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.
Early 1990s document formatting: Excellent margins, please
Did your school have this procedure for your homework? A digital file wasn’t the ‘real thing.’ The text became real when it was on paper.