You already know, and you already know what a woman is too — A paragraph in one of Doc Burford’s essays drew my attention today and sparked thought in a different direction. When we use the word “book,” Doc says, sometimes we’re talking about an object (i.e., bound sheaves of paper on the shelves) and other times we’re talking about what makes one…

It doesn’t mean the person is strange — By design or by accident, the system always leaves someone out. Is the person left out because they are strange? No. It’s the system that’s strange. The Difference Between ‘Generation X‘ and ‘Millennial’ Here’s a U.S. perspective on two generations. The concept of “generations” is ultimately imaginary, of course. Generation X was born in the ’60s and…

She ‘would’ have marched with us, but when? — On June 6, 2023, we solemnly observe the third anniversary of J.K. Rowling’s pledge to march for trans rights.

Deciding where to go next — A “wake” is water displaced from under a moving boat. In one of the late motivational speaker Wayne Dyer’s talks in his seminar How to Get What You Really, Really, Really, Really Want, he asked: “Is it possible for the wake to drive the boat?” No, he declared. As we…

Somtochukwu’s ‘And Then He Sang a Lullaby’ and Erebia’s ‘Pedro & Daniel’ — For Pride Month, here are two beautiful novels about gay men who face life-threatening crises and are challenged to accept themselves and each other.

OK, said the pack of hungry tigers — When I was small, we had the Free to Be…You and Me children’s cassette tape in our house. (I’ve written about it before.) One of the numbers was a mini-fable: “Ladies First.” For those who don’t have three minutes right now to listen to it: In this story, a…

Because they’ve never talked to real trans people — Online transphobes make inflammatory statements. Trans people often reply. Many platforms implicitly reward such interactions, and many people feel encouraged to engage in them, especially when they can be anonymous. Occasionally, some people reply to bigotry and discrimination with violent imagery. Generally speaking, this is unfortunate. The whole situation is…

The ‘soup can logic’ of using ‘trans’ but not ‘cis’ — Recently, I saw a couple comments here—I believe the person was trolling—posted by the same user only a few weeks apart. I paraphrase: No one should use any labels at all because identities don’t matter. The label ‘cis’ is unnecessary because we don’t need to describe the default, whereas the…

Judith Butler’s 2021 interview in The Guardian — In 2021, Judith Butler gave this analysis of the people who claim to oppose “gender ideology” or the concept of “gender” itself. They’re an “anti-gender movement,” Butler calls them. In Butler’s words, today’s “struggle against fascism” is linked to “struggles against racism, nationalism, xenophobia and carceral violence,” and in this…