about

‘Hate’ isn’t an element in H2O

illustration of a puffball with narrow cat eyes and pointy teeth

Hate isn’t part of the water. We can see it. Transphobia and racism are harmful and wrong, even if they’re technically legal where we are. We can recognize them and know why they are wrong.

It’s easy for this guy to challenge transphobia

Jon Stewart, seated in a living room, moving his hands animatedly, talking

Listen to Jon Stewart do it. Stewart’s comedic approach regarding Leslie Rutledge, the Arkansas attorney general, was straightforward. He learned to see through organized transphobia. Reporters can learn to do this too. Ask real questions.

Transphobia is a form of denialism

person lifts hand as if to refuse something or ask someone to stop

We have to counter Holocaust denial, and also transphobia. Transphobia is an ideological lie. Certain arguments can identify and deconstruct it. (Transgender atheist Jews, by the way, also have humanities degrees.)

Hate-crimers and their pronouns

person in a formal gray suit, crossing their fingers behind their back

Ignore the Club Q shooter’s statement of gender identity. A homophobic, transphobic murderer says they’re what? Let’s differentiate good-faith and bad-faith declarations, as well as reality and fiction.

Trans people need to ‘exist on our own terms’

Jessie Gender speaking with a glowing green honeycomb background

Jessie Gender talks to us about acknowledging our stories, setting the terms, and framing our success. In this YouTube video, Jessie Gender acknowledges that ‘we constantly fight under the terms set by systems that were never built to enable us.’

There were gay Nazis

detail of the book cover for BAD GAYS, focus on the word BAD

‘Bad Gays’ by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. Weimar-era Germany had LGBTQ society and culture and an early movement for LGBTQ legal rights. Of course, that was lost. And some of the Nazis were gay.

Yet another pro-discrimination argument

Pencil erasers, not used

Always follow the typos. They reveal what editors aren’t researching. Why does a national newspaper pay a columnist for a 2,800-word anti-transgender opinion essay? More mysteriously: If there’s a typo, what does it imply?

‘And you know what that means’

Closeup of a Nandu ostrich head

Is it a dogwhistle? I don’t know what it means. Transphobic essays are fiction. Not the harmless entertainment kind, either. These are lies about brutalizing the elderly and medically intervening on kids.

A bigoted premise sparks an ideology

One hand holds an open matchbox, the other holds a struck match. The matchbox brand label is "transfóboros."

For some, transphobia and homophobia are first principles. Transphobia is an ideology for many, a lens through which they see the world. There are other ways to think without first striking the match of transphobia.

15 transphobias in ‘Trans Totalitarianism’

carved spooky jack-o-lantern with fog coming out its eyes and mouth

Rod Dreher’s August 2022 article in The American Conservative. Low on facts, high on transphobia. Here’s how we recognize that the perspective is transphobic. And here are 15 specific pieces of nonsense.