Bill McKibben: 'We're the volcano now'

"This year in North America has been about as close as we’ve ever come to a year without a winter—the geological obverse of 1816, the year when an Indonesian volcano put so much sulfur into the air that there was no real northern hemisphere summer," Bill McKibben writes today.

"We’re the volcano now, and the gases we produce increase the temperature: it was 70 degrees in Chicago yesterday, in February—which was also the day that the Windy City decided to join other American cities in suing the fossil fuel industry for damages. But that was just one of a hundred heat records broken in the course of the day, from Milwaukee to Dallas (94 degrees). But it wasn’t a single day of heat—it’s been an almost unrelentingly warm winter, with by far the lowest snow coverage for this time of year ever recorded (13.8 percent of the lower 48 as of Monday, compared with an average of more than 40 percent) and with the Great Lakes essentially free of ice."

Moose by Lisa Kennedy from Pixabay

McKibben: "In Maine, which has the largest moose herd in the lower 48, ninety percent of calves died last winter because they were sucked dry by ticks that can now last all winter long. Biologists find moose with 90,000 ticks; they rub their hair off trying to shed the pests. “Ghost moose” is what they call these hairless beasts."

Furthermore, "the deepest patterns of our lives — the ways our bodies understand the cycle of the seasons and the progress of time — are now slipping away."

Cold air: 2020–2024 news stories

Ice shelves propping up two major Antarctic glaciers are breaking up and it could have major consequences for sea level rise, Helen Regan, CNN, September 15, 2020

Ice that took roughly 2,000 years to form on Mt. Everest has melted in around 25 Angela Dewan and Danya Gainor, CNN, February 3, 2022

Arctic Sinkholes, NOVA, Season 49 Episode 1 | 53m 17s, PBS, Feb 2, 2022

Antarctica will likely set an alarming new record this year, new data shows Rachel Ramirez, CNN, February 18, 2022

Greenland’s ice is melting from the bottom up – and far faster than previously thought, study shows Isabelle Jani-Friend, CNN, February 22, 2022

Extraordinary Antarctica heatwave, 70 degrees above normal, would likely set a world record Caitlin Kaiser and Angela Fritz, CNN, March 28, 2022

Antarctica’s majestic underwater world is trying to adapt to a warmer planet Allison Chinchar, CNN Meteorologist, May 7, 2022

Greenland ice losses set to raise global sea levels by nearly a foot, new research shows, Rachel Ramirez, CNN, August 29, 2022

Temperatures on Greenland haven’t been this warm in at least 1,000 years, scientists report, Rachel Ramirez, CNN, January 18, 2023

Antarctic sea ice hit record lows again. Scientists wonder if it’s ‘the beginning of the end’ Laura Paddison, CNN, February 21, 2023

90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade, Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, March 1, 2023

‘Shocked’ by the loss: Scientists sound the alarm on New Zealand’s melting glaciers, Laura Paddison, CNN, April 6, 2023

‘An extreme record-breaking year’: Scientists see impact of climate change on Antarctic sea ice, Euronews Green with Reuters, Sept 26, 2023

Scientists found the most intense heat wave ever recorded — in Antarctica - The Washington Post Rapid melting in West Antarctica is ‘unavoidable,’ with potentially disastrous consequences for sea level rise, study finds, Rachel Ramirez, CNN, October 23, 2023

A mysterious force under Antarctica is changing how its ice melts

Greenland’s northern glaciers are in trouble, threatening ‘dramatic’ sea level rise, study shows Laura Paddison, CNN, November 7, 2023

A heatwave in Antarctica totally blew the minds of scientists. They set out to decipher it – and here are the results. Dana M Bergstrom, The Conversation, January 9, 2024

Scientists discover an alarming change in Antarctica’s past that could spell devastating future sea level rise Laura Paddison, CNN, February 8, 2024

Anti-trans people fake being trans and it does not prove whatever they believe it proves

Yesterday, Beth Bourne published this essay on a website called "Reality's Last Stand":

"I Pretended To Be ‘Nonbinary’ To Expose a Medical Scandal at Kaiser Permanente: Kaiser gender specialists were eager to approve hormones and surgeries, which would all be covered by insurance as 'medically necessary.'" Feb 26, 2024.

In this essay, she identifies as "a 53-year-old mom from Davis, CA." She said that, five years ago, her "intellectually mature but socially immature" 8th-grade "daughter," along with a few classmates, began identifying as trans and asked to be called by he/him pronouns at school. She and her ex-husband refused to help their child get gender-affirming care, and told their child it would be up to him to do so when he became a legal adult. At 17, the child cut off contact with Bourne. "I began publicly voicing my concerns about what many term as 'gender ideology.'"

So basically, instead of trying to fix her relationship with her child, she leaned harder into her own anti-trans ideology. As she clarifies: "While this estrangement brought me sorrow, with my daughter living full-time with her father, it also gave me the space to be an advocate/activist in pushing back on gender identity ideology in the schools and the medical industry."

This was the assignment she gave herself:

"Could I expose the medical scandal of 'gender-affirming care' by saying and doing everything my daughter and other trans-identifying kids are taught to do? Would there be the type of medical safeguarding and differential diagnosis we would expect in other fields of medicine, or would I simply be allowed to self-diagnose and be offered the tools (i.e. hormones and surgeries) to choose my own gender adventure and become my true authentic self?"

It's a rough start, because gender-affirming care isn't a medical scandal, it's something that has existed in the United States for about a century.

Bourne wanted to show that "anyone suffering from delusions of their sex, self-hatred, or identity issues" could receive "body-altering hormones and surgeries" (as opposed to hormones and surgeries that don't alter your body? headscratcher), and that it would be "all covered by insurance."

THANK YOU FOR LETTING TRANS PEOPLE KNOW WHERE YOU CAN GET ALL YOUR GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE COVERED BY HEALTH INSURANCE

Most trans people do not have that kind of coverage. We should, but we don't. Again: Such coverage isn't a problem, partly because most people don't have it, and partly because it would actually be a good thing if we did have it.

"I decided to go undercover as a nonbinary patient to show my daughter what danger she might be putting herself in—by people who purport to have her health as their interest, but whose main interest is in medically “affirming” (i.e., transitioning) whoever walks through their door."

"My feigned gender transition," Bourne says, lasted 231 days.

"I was able to instantly change my medical records to reflect my new gender identity and pronouns." Of course. That's her doctor's notation indicating how she'd like people to understand her and refer to her when speaking about her.

She received "a prescription for testosterone and approval for a 'gender-affirming' double mastectomy from my doctor. It took only three more months (90 days) to be approved for surgery to remove my uterus and have a fake penis constructed from the skin of my thigh or forearm."

Her beliefs about autonomy

Shouldn't she have "adult bodily autonomy" to do this? No, she says, because autonomy applies — she claims — to "purely cosmetic procedures" that aren't covered by health insurance and supposedly don't "compromise health." (Famously, "breast implants, liposuction, and facelifts" have no potential side effects?)

For some reason she doesn't explain, she believes that if a procedure on one's body is deemed "medically necessary" or "lifesaving," if it's covered by insurance, and/or if it might have a side effect, she should not have autonomy to make her own decisions about her body.

Also, for some reason she doesn't explain, she seems to believe a child would have the same kind of interactions with their doctor as she did at age 53.

Also, while being (presumably) neither trans nor delusional, and while making an intentionally timewasting and fraudulent request for hormones and surgery she didn't actually want, she presents this as what a person could get if they were not trans but actually delusional, and (I guess) assumes that the person would be ignorant of what they were asking for and would regret it, and thus should not have autonomy to ask for it.

I think she thinks she was successfully cosplaying a self-destructive cis person, rather than successfully cosplaying a happy nonbinary person.

She also implies that her own fake request is somehow equivalent to her child's request. Her article does not explore the possibility that, while her own performative request was in bad faith, her child's request seems not to have been. From the information she gives, whereas Bourne lied about her own gender to her doctor for 10 months and asked for hormones and surgery she didn't want, her child has been asserting a gender for five years now and could actually just get whatever hormones and surgery he wants. As an adult, he's free to do so.

(And hopefully he'll remain free to do so, despite the pending U.S. legislation to eliminate the right to gender-affirming care for adults as well as children.)

Takeaway

Your doctor will recommend you for hormones and surgeries based on the thing you said. If you lie to your doctor, you can get what you lied to get.

Also, if you commit insurance fraud for nearly a year and blog about it in detail, you can get whatever the consequences of that may be.

This is probably not the way to convince your trans kid to talk to you. But if you're more interested in "publicly voicing my concerns about what many term as 'gender ideology,'" you have the blog post you wrote, and may it keep you warm.

Trans visibility isn't the same as trans safety: Chase Strangio's Feb 2024 NYT column

It's rare that the New York Times publishes something to fully affirm that trans people need safety and dignity, but here's a recent beautiful examle: Trans Visibility Is Nice. Safety Is Even Better. Chase Strangio, New York Times, February 15, 2024

Strangio, an ACLU lawyer, opens by saying:

"In my childhood, trans representation was largely confined to sensationalized daytime talk shows — think 'Jerry Springer' — and fictionalized stories of cisgender people reacting with disgust or violence upon learning someone was trans — think of the movies 'Boys Don’t Cry,' 'The Crying Game,' even 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.'"

(For a bit more context on more on Jerry Springer, see Blackthelma on that topic.)

Today, by contrast:

"Films like 'Will & Harper' allow cisgender people to see trans people’s full humanity, and they give trans people a welcome chance to see ourselves onscreen. Visibility is a gift when you grow up thinking your existence is impossible. But being invisible can also bring protection. I might not have seen myself onscreen in childhood, but neither did I have to deal with dozens upon dozens of bills filed each year questioning my right to use the restroom that matches my gender, have access to health care, learn about the history of trans people in school or worry about which sports teams I was allowed to play on. Though representation of transness onscreen is crucial for building empathy, trans visibility has also contributed to a false sense that the community possesses a degree of stability and power that, in reality, continues to elude us."

There is a legislative assault against trans people in the US.

"The underlying aim of this legislative assault is clear to trans people: It amounts to the slow erosion of our legal protections and attacks on our dignity, our humanity and our ability to live safely and participate in public life. Those of us who are trans or who love someone who is trans wake up every day wondering: Will we be able to get the health care that has enabled us to survive? Will our children be taken from us by the state because we are trans or because they are? Will our children be able to go to the right bathroom at school, participate in field trips or join sports teams? Will we be outed when we show identification?"

"These laws," Strangio says, "structurally impair my ability to fight back against them." In other words, they disempower trans people so that it is harder for us to fight to regain our power.

The problem is: "Each bill contributes to a political movement that imagines a world without us."

The question is: "Will there be anywhere safe in the United States for trans people in the near future?"

Boom! Lawyered episode: Calling to 'eliminate transgenderism' is the same as calling to eliminate trans people

Please watch this episode of Boom! Lawyered. March 6, 2023.

YouTube description: "In this week's episode, Jess and Imani get into the ways anti-trans advocates, including legislators and Supreme Court justices, want to erase LGBTQ folks from society. And it's all from a familiar anti-abortion playbook."

Imani Gandy begins by saying that her team "really needs cisgender people to stop both-sidesing the ongoing trans genocide."

Jess Pieklo says that Rewire News Group is "expert repro journalism that inspires you to stand up for trans folks." If the NYT really wanted to get out of its own agenda and find out more, Pieklo suggested, they could "bring on a trans reporter to talk about the issues at hand." But of course they don't.

In this podcast episode, Gandy and Pieklo say of Republicans:

They're trying to repeal nondiscrimination protections and make it legal to discriminate against someone at work, in housing, medical care, in a cake shop, wherever.

They're saying that teachers have to call home to out a student to their parents if the kid might be somehow trans.

They're threatening that the state will take away trans kids from their affirming parents and will criminally charge the parents with child abuse.

Racist gerrymandering and voter suppression makes it harder for people to vote for politicians who affirm their needs.

It's the anti-abortion playbook.

They even suddenly pretend to care about women's sports, when all they're doing is preventing trans girls and women from playing sports, potentially outing them, and drawing harassing attention to them. These Republicans have never cared about women's sports and will continue not to care about them. Title IX, what's that? They're not going to fund girls' sports in schools. Their attitude is: "we need to peer into your child's underwear to make sure that they have the appropriate genitals." Despite their own behavior, Republicans "have the nerve to call trans people 'groomers'!"

They're talking about "parental rights" for their children not to hear words like "gay" in school. They're talking about "religious freedom" as an excuse for prejudiced behavior. They're saying people can excuse themselves from classes if they object to the content, and if more than half the class objects, the curriculum will be canceled for everyone — so it's majority rule for religious prejudice.

Oklahoma is talking about banning gender-affirming care up to age 26.

They're doing this to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

They're talking about charging doctors with felonies and taking away their medical license.

They're against pronouns, even though that's what people use to talk. That's banning language.

They're talking about "pronouns by committee," saying that a teacher needs permission from a student's parents to use pronouns that don't reflect the students' assigned sex at birth, and furthermore that even if the parents want the teacher to use certain pronouns for their child, the teacher has the right to refuse.

Gandy says: "The goal is to punish trans people for existing, to make life difficult for trans kids to exist. It's pure cruelty for cruelty's sake. And I have to say, in light of the sort of discourse that has gone on since that jackass Michael Knowles stood up at CPAC and said, you know, we have to 'eradicate transgenderism.'" And "the well-meaning centrists":

"...are like, 'I mean, he didn't say that he wants to kill transgender people. He said he wants to eradicate transgenderism.' Well, ha! First of all, as I said earlier, transgenderism is not an ideology. There's no such thing as being as transgender-ism, just like there's no such thing as Black-ism. But you know, in addition, it just seems to me that people are parsing language, they're splitting hairs, they're playing semantic games because they are too chickenshit to take a strong stand. And why are they too chickenshit? Likely because they have conservatives at their Thanksgiving table or Republican friends or people who are 'just asking questions.' They don't quite understand why trans people exist. And so they're 'just asking questions.' They're not necessarily 'transphobic.' So when you say 'eradicate transgenderism,' you're not necessarily calling for the killing of people, but you are. And if you're not calling for the killing of people you're calling for, for imposing mental harm on them and mental harm, if you look up genocide, if you look at the UN's definition of genocide, imposing mental harm or bodily harm on a group of people counts as genocide. How are you gonna 'detransition' trans people? That's what they want. They want trans people to 'revert,' quote unquote, back to their biological sex. How you gonna do that, forcibly? What if trans people refuse?" (42:12–44:01)

To that, Pieklo says sarcastically: "I don't know, Imani, these same centrists told me the Court would never overturn Roe."

Gandy: "That's a good point. Yeah, yeah. So these folks are always right about everything, all: 'Oh, don't worry your pretty little head, Roe's not gonna go anywhere'. 'Oh, don't worry your pretty little gay head. Obergefell v. Hodges isn't going anywhere'. Meanwhile, Iowa has just introduced a bill to eradicate same sex marriage."

---

The podcast aired one year ago. The speakers were correct. Today, the legal situation in the US is worse.

Tim Dunn: Anti-transgender efforts

Please read this long article

The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy: The state’s most powerful figure, Tim Dunn, isn’t an elected official. But behind the scenes, the West Texas oilman is lavishly financing what he regards as a holy war against public education, renewable energy, and non-Christians. Russell Gold, Texas Monthly, March 2024

In which you will learn

"A 68-year-old oil billionaire, Dunn seeks to transform Texas into something resembling a theocracy. If you ever wonder why state laws and policies are more radical than most Texans would prefer, the answer has a lot to do with Dunn and his checkbook. ... He has built his own caucus within the Legislature that is financially beholden to him."

He is patriarchal, anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-public-school.

"He now lives in a mansion, hidden within a roughly twenty-acre walled compound on the northern edge of Midland," and everyone he doesn't like seems to him to be a satanic marxist, coming to take away his stuff:

"Throughout its history, Texas has seen plenty of influential men who have shared their message from the pulpit. And a steady march of rich men have opened their wallets to get politicians to do what they want. But we’ve never seen the two archetypes merge in quite this way. Dunn has said he believes we’re in the midst of a holy battle that pits Christians against those he refers to as Marxists, who he claims want to control all property and take away freedom. Marxists “are increasingly becoming bolder and more brazen in their quest for tyranny,” he has warned. “It is becoming clear they want to kill us.” The founder of Marxism, he argued, wasn’t Karl Marx. It was Satan."

"Until recently his main tool for exerting influence has been the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, to which he has given at least $9.85 million since the beginning of 2022. This is nearly all the money he contributed to Texas races over that span and the majority raised by the committee."

"A Dunn-affiliated organization lets lawmakers know how it wants them to vote," and if they comply, they are "likely to remain in Dunn’s good graces."

And "through [his financial vehicle] Hexagon Partners, Dunn invested $7.5 million in a company affiliated with Brad Parscale, who worked in San Antonio targeting swing voters with digital advertising before he became manager of Donald Trump’s failed 2020 presidential campaign. That firm plans to build a “Christian-based” advertising agency that will use artificial intelligence to precisely target consumers with commercial and political messages."

He's also associated with Pipeline Media.

CrownQuest operating: Also him.

He is anti-transgender

He's been an anti-transgender pioneer since at least 2017:

"The schism came to a head over the 2017 “bathroom bill,” which would have targeted transgender Texans by requiring them in some instances to use restrooms associated with the gender listed on their birth certificate. Dunn backed the bill, but the business lobby opposed it, fearing a backlash that would’ve harmed their companies’ profits. The old guard prevailed."

And:

Dunn’s campaign cash washes through multiple political action committees and helps support various bands of right-wing political activists. The Texas Voice reported that shortly after Thanksgiving a little-known group called the Texas Family Project blasted out text messages that attacked select Republican lawmakers. The messages claimed that those legislators voted in favor of funding to help transgender Texans transition from the gender they were assigned at birth. This was hogwash.

All of the targeted Republicans voted for Senate Bill 14, a law passed last year and signed by Abbott that banned gender-affirming care for transgender youth; further, it required Texas to revoke medical licenses for doctors who didn’t comply. Their apparent transgression was not voting for an anti-transgender amendment on an unrelated bill, creating a gossamer thread of truth to the text message’s claim. In reality, these Republicans were singled out and castigated not for their position on transgender Texans but for having the gall to vote independently. (In late January, the same outfit sent anti-Muslim mailers assailing several Republicans in the Legislature.)

Trans rights are bound up with climate action

One reason:

"Dunn’s influence goes well beyond campaigns and politics. His résumé is lengthy. He is vice chairman of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing think tank located a couple of blocks south of the Capitol. TPPF generates policy proposals—from severe property tax cuts to bills that impede the growth of renewable energy—that are often taken up by the Texas Legislature and emulated in other red states."

Trans dignity is everyone's dignity: Jamelle Bouie's Feb 2023 NYT column

One year ago, the New York Times published Jamelle Bouie's opinion column There Is No Dignity in This Kind of America (Feb. 10, 2023). Though the newspaper has been generally unhelpful to trans people, this publication was a happy exception.

Bouie points out that Trump, if elected, will "target transgender adults as well" as transgender youth. How do we know? Because Trump explicitly said he he would. The overall political attack is "a direct threat to the lives and livelihoods of transgender people," and it's "no accident."

Over the past year, we have seen a sweeping and ferocious attack on the rights and dignity of transgender people across the country.

In states led by Republicans, conservative lawmakers have introduced or passed dozens of laws that would give religious exemptions for discrimination against transgender people, prohibit the use of bathrooms consistent with their gender identity and limit access to gender-affirming care.

In lashing out against L.G.B.T.Q. people, lawmakers in at least eight states have even gone as far as to introduce bans on “drag” performance that are so broad as to threaten the ability of gender-nonconforming people simply to exist in public.

Bouie also gives us this important commentary, which I happily receive as a book recommendation:

"Douglass observed 'that although dignity seems to be woven into human nature, it is also something one possesses to the degree that one is conscious of having it,' the historian Nicholas Knowles Bromell writes in 'The Powers of Dignity: The Black Political Philosophy of Frederick Douglass,' 'and one’s own consciousness of having it depends in part on making others conscious of it. Others’ recognition of it then flows back and confirms one’s belief in having it, but conversely their refusal to recognize it has the opposite effect of weakening one’s confidence in one’s own dignity.'"

* * *

'A democracy,' Douglass’s work suggests, 'is a polity that prizes human dignity,' Bromell writes. 'It comes into existence when a group of persons agrees to acknowledge each other’s dignity, both informally, through mutually respectful comportment, and formally, through the establishment of political rights.' All of our freedoms, in Bromell’s account of Douglass, 'are means toward the end of maintaining a political community in which all persons collaboratively produce their dignity.'"

---

By the way, I wrote on dignity, on humility, and on decency for JewishBoston in the context of transgender rights. That's one specific connection with my own thinking on this topic.

---

Bouie concludes: "And like the battles for abortion rights and bodily autonomy, the stakes of the fight for the rights and dignity of transgender people are high for all of us. There is no world in which their freedom is suppressed and yours is sustained."

Bonus

Hil Malatino (Trans Care, 2020) might have "critiques of identity and the institutional regulation of gender," yet doesn't believe that any opinion they might hold personally would make it OK to disrespect trans people. That's because Malatino won't "prioritize theoretical rightness over the well-being of actually existing human beings." Regarding university students: "I won't misgender them, at least not consistently or intentionally. I certainly won't wield the rhetoric of 'free speech' and 'reasoned debate' as a justification for doing so. I won't attribute the insistence of students to be referred to by the correct gendered pronouns as an example of 'toxic call-out culture.'"

Renewable energy (February 2024 headlines)

Recent headlines on renewable energy

Across America, clean energy plants are being banned faster than they're being built Elizabeth Weise & Suhail Bhat, USA Today, Feb 4, 2024

On February 6, 2024, the European Commission (part of the EU’s executive government) "announced one of the world’s most ambitious goals to slash planet-heating pollution ... backing a 90% cut in carbon emissions by 2040, from 1990 levels, taking a stance that is likely to set a benchmark for developed nations around the world. ... The announcement will kick off months of talks that could take up to a year before the European Parliament rubber stamps the target."
— The EU just unveiled one of the world’s most ambitious climate plans. But can it deliver? Angela Dewan, CNN, Feb 6, 2024

"Anchored to the seabed by a cable and connected to the power grid, the kite, which measures about twelve meters from tip to tip of the wings and weighs about 28 tons — actually, that corresponds to the Dragon 12 model, although there are smaller ones — navigates by taking advantage of predictable tides and currents describing a figure-eight or infinity-shaped trajectory, allowing it to move its propeller and generate up to 3.5 GWh of electricity annually."
— Tides and energy: why the best ideas are usually the simplest, Enrique Dans, Medium, Feb 13, 2024

How communities can benefit from being - literally - invested in big renewables Overseas projects show community co-investment can build social licence for large scale renewable energy projects. Jarra Hicks, SwitchedOn, Feb 19, 2024

Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power: AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up. Evan Halper, Washington Post, March 7, 2024

A coal billionaire is building the world’s biggest clean energy plant and it’s five times the size of Paris Diksha Madhok, CNN, March 20, 2024

Previously

Germany puts up $8 billion to rescue huge green energy company Anna Cooban, CNN, Nov 14, 2023

‘Renewable’ natural gas may sound green, but it’s not an antidote for climate change, Emily Grubert, theconversation.com, Jul 6, 2020

When to take a social media break

Burning out?

Scoring 'imaginary points'

"It’s the personal interactions, or the lack thereof, that make me feel done, feel more drained than I ever expected. It’s the inability to share my thoughts without seeing countless bad-faith critiques, even from people who fundamentally agree with what I’m saying. It’s the shallowness, the hollowness, the desire to score imaginary points placed above solidarity or building something or even constructive criticism. It’s the endless encounters with raw and misplaced anger with nowhere to channel it. It’s the fury and frustration shot out into the void, or directed at would-be friends."

I'm burnt out on social media: A reflection for supporting readers. Joshua P. Hill. New Means (Substack). February 18, 2024.

'Curating personhood' inside an algorithm

Wanting to take a social media break wasn't due only to the agitation, distraction, the urge to buy things for no reason, the inattention to what is taken and the unmindful plastic waste that resulted, the exposure to angry online trolls. It was also "perception gulfs" like:

"Once, having read of a friend’s mother’s death — movingly detailed in social media posts — I saw that same friend in real life and somehow did not process that she was still grieving.

Conversely, I ran into a friend who seemed happy online, but realized quickly after talking to her in person that she was actually in a very dark place."

There is a "labor of curating personhood in algorithmic space."

"I savored and cultivated something which nobody has figured out how to monetize: A sense of private delight. Indeed, I felt a new sense of private wonder."

"Here’s a phrase that came to me somewhere during my time off: You have a real life, not an advertisement for a life. "

"If I go back online, I only want to post and share what I would want to rain down on me, or a friend, or on the neighbor who one code calls me to love like a self."

Opinion: It’s the first weekend of spring. It’s totally okay to unplug: Tess Taylor, CNN, March 24, 2023

U.S. humanists & atheists: Urge Congress to reauthorize USCIRF

From the Center for Freethought Equality, the advocacy and political arm of the American Humanist Association, in an email today:

"The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), statutorily-established by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, is charged with examining religious freedom violations and making recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress. ... Each year, USCIRF publishes an annual report that provides designation recommendations to the State Department on how to best assess the state of religious freedom in every country. ... Congress will soon be considering whether to approve the continuation of this very important Commission. The bills (respectively H.R. 7025 / S.3764) simply reauthorize USCIRF through Fiscal Year 2026. You may read the House bill here, and the Senate bill here."

Tell your representative and your senators to reauthorize USCIRF.

Trump: I mix up other people's names intentionally

If you provide wrong information on purpose, that's called a lie.

This is in reference to Trump having made remarks in January that confused former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (a Democrat) with presidential candidate Nikki Haley (a Republican).

On February 14, Trump said "I purposely interpose names." He lamented: "It’s very hard to be sarcastic when I interpose." (HuffPost)

Well stop making the joke if you're not good at making the joke.

All of us need to be real. He didn't transpose, juxtapose, substitute, whatever. There was no sarcasm. He just said something false. How do we know it's intentional? Because he has the option to prepare for his remarks or not give them at all. It's his choice to run for president. He told tens of thousands of documented lies during his presidency, and he continues to tell lies today in his 2024 campaign. He runs his mouth continuously, and he does not care if he produces false information. When he's called out on his falsehoods, he says it was a joke that we didn't get, but also that it's "hard" for him to tell good jokes. He's been having these sorts of "rallies" for nine years. In my opinion, he can learn to tell good jokes or else be accountable for his lies. For Trump, there are no accidental falsehoods or bad jokes at this point. If there were ever a grace period, it was in 2015. This is 2024.

The nature of a lie isn't only in the speaker's intention just before he speaks. What makes a lie can come afterward, based on how he doesn't correct inaccuracies once he becomes aware he has misspoken or based on how he doesn't provide adequate context when others let him know they didn't get his "sarcasm." And that can be a worse type of lie, because it perpetuates the false information and the harm it causes.

If he's unable or unwilling to be accountable, then he's not only a liar — he's a liar who doesn't accept responsibility.

Which we've known for years and years and years.

90,000 trans people in a 2022 survey

Katelyn Burns for MSNBC a few days ago:

"A survey of over 90,000 trans people in 2022 found 94% reported being 'very satisfied' with their transition-related medical care — a remarkable result, experts say, given that such a high satisfaction rate is rare for any medical treatment, much less one that has been the subject of so much political division over the years.

Even though the survey respondents were self selected, it’s still a remarkable result. Such a high satisfaction rate is rare for any medical treatment, much less one that has been the subject of so much political division over the years.

One possible reason for such a high satisfaction rate is that gender affirming care, especially surgical procedures, is still somewhat difficult to obtain for the average trans person."

Unfortunately, some people in "the burgeoning anti-trans grift economy" suggested that people "wholesale discard the data because detransitioners weren’t included in the sample." However, Burns says, "a similar survey of detransitioners by one of the leading anti-trans researchers was only able to find 100 respondents. Adding another hundred people to this 90,000 person survey wouldn’t move the needle in terms of satisfaction rates."

And by the way, Burns adds: "knee surgeries have a regret rate of up to 33%, yet we don’t see an international campaign to ban knee surgeries in the name of those who regret it."

That's from an MSNBC article

The U.S. Trans Survey proves the inaccuracy of this right-wing talking point: Why you shouldn’t let the abundance of poorly sourced anti-trans rhetoric fool you. Katelyn Burns, MSNBC columnist. Feb. 12, 2024

Also, see USA Today

The survey has good-quality information that can put an end to fearmongering.

Why the largest transgender survey ever could be a powerful rebuke to myths, misinformation. Susan Miller, USA TODAY, February 23, 2024

The survey

2022 U.S. Trans Survey: ustranssurvey.org

Medical groups that support gender-affirming care (MSNBC graphic)

• American Medical Association
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• American Psychological Association
• Pediatric Endocrine Society
• American Society for Reproductive Medicine
• World Health Organization
• World Medical Association
• American Society of Plastic Surgeons
• American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
• American Counseling Association
• American Nurses Association
• American College of Physicians
• USPATH (US Professional Association for Transgender Health)
• American Heart Association

I took the screenshot from this article:

The U.S. Trans Survey proves the inaccuracy of this right-wing talking point
Why you shouldn’t let the abundance of poorly sourced anti-trans rhetoric fool you.
Katelyn Burns, MSNBC Columnist
Feb. 12, 2024

Adversaries have portrayed this as a 'debate' since the 1970s

"And similar to the 1970s, opponents of trans medicine today frame gender-affirming care as a 'debate,' even though all major U.S. medical associations support these practices as medically necessary and lifesaving."
— Pseudoscience has long been used to oppress transgender people: Three major waves of opposition to transgender health care in the past century have cited faulty science to justify hostility. G. Samantha Rosenthal & The Conversation US. Scientific American. February 12, 2024.

Update: American Psychological Association

The APA has long supported gender-affirming care for youth. Now, they've also made clear that government shouldn't ban it.

On February 28, 2024, as Erin Reed writes, "the American Psychological Association announced in a historic policy resolution that it opposes gender-affirming care bans for transgender youth. The association, the largest psychological organization in the world with 157,000 members, declared, “Government bans on gender-affirming care disregard the comprehensive body of psychological and medical research supporting the positive impact of gender-affirming treatments,” and resolves the organization’s support for the necessity of that care for transgender youth and adults."

— World's Largest Psych Association Passes Policy Supporting Trans Youth Care By Massive Margin: The American Psychological Association, representing 157,000 members, has issued a resolution calling for an end to trans care bans and misinformation around care. Erin Reed, February 28, 2024.

Look at what evidence there is

"Cornell University has compiled over 50 studies supporting the benefits of gender-affirming care." (The Myth Of "Low Quality Evidence" Around Transgender Care, Erin Reed, August 8, 2023)

Pamela Paul's Feb 2, 2024 screed

I wrote this article: Why this trans person is tired of Pamela Paul’s columns (10-min read, unpaywalled friend link) She could just stop talking about us. She could talk about anything else.

More regarding her Feb 2 screed:

Jerry Coyne, of Evolution is True, acknowledged it on his blog.

In the comments, someone points out Erin Reed's critique. Coyne's first rebuttal is that it was "written by gender activists." (I do believe that pointing to the author generally constitutes a fallacious counter-rebuttal. Also, it's a circular complaint, given that "gender activist" doesn't mean anything except someone who maintains a position with which anti-trans people disagree.) OK, suppose it's his context note, rather than his rebuttal. His next rebuttal is that the person who invented the concept ROGD managed (after one retracted attempt) to submit a paper that wasn't retracted. This is a very, very low bar for deciding what is true. People publish papers about all sorts of things, and they are wrong, as Coyne, the author of a book Why Evolution Is True, ought to be well aware.

A commenter presents his theory of what a "transgender activist" is. They're either non-transgender people who believe that trans people need more rights than they currently have...

...or they're transgender people who "assume that what worked from them will work for everybody."

This is nonsense, but very telling nonsense. Trans people do need more rights than we currently have. Also, I don't know any trans person who assumes that our own transition will "work" for "everybody," whatever that means. Every person has a unique way of living out their gender, and trans people know this well. What trans people do commonly tend to believe — and it is this to which "gender-criticals" react so intensely — is that everybody should have the right to decide for themselves what to do with their own bodies. Children grow up at different speeds, adults remain on our own timelines for our advancing maturity and occasional epiphanies, and we have the right to do things in our own time, in our own way, because it's our own lives, because we want to try it, even if it might not work out. This sort of autonomy is what they feel is "radical."

What people — oh NO, the ADF — are saying

Not even a week after she published it, the ADF cites it in a court filing.

Again...who's an 'activist'?

On February 8, Erin Reed and Evan Urquhart write: "Paul has responded to our journalistic criticism directly by dismissing us as "activists," a label that does not accurately describe the work she is responding to."

Paul praised the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) as "one of the most reliable nonpartisan organizations dedicated to the field." However, Reed and Urquhart point out:

"SEGM has received significant funding from the same sources that support the partisan Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation, organizations known for drafting anti-trans legislation. SEGM is closely linked with anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ extremist groups, a connection mapped out by the SPLC’s analysis. Its founder, William Malone, was part of an anti-trans working group in 2019 where members asserted that 'god's will' is being enacted through passing trans bans. In this group, he stated, 'It might take years, but we're going to get them.' If that is not activism, what is?"

Why does the NYT publish Pamela Paul?

"Hiring Paul was clearly a decision to bring on a hired gun to take the Times‘ side in this 'culture war.'"

— Julie Hollar, "Pamela Paul’s Gender Agenda," FAIR, December 16, 2022

They make more money from paid subscriptions (people who tend to like the articles) than from random web visitors, even including those who already believe the opposite and don't intend to be persuaded but do click to see what was said. "I think you can take them [the NYT] at their word that they publish the people they publish because they think their contributions are valuable and important," says Osita Nwanevu.

"Paul’s piece made it into a conservative legal brief in Idaho within four days. Last April, the state’s Republican governor Brad Little signed House Bill 71 into law, making it a felony offense to provide gender-affirming care to trans youth. The following month, the ACLU sued Idaho on behalf of two anonymous trans teenagers, alleging that HB 71 is unconstitutional. A U.S. District Court granted a preliminary injunction against HB 71 in December 2023, meaning that the law cannot be enforced while litigation is ongoing.

In January, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the injunction to stay in place. But the state, represented by the right-wing Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, is challenging that decision. The legal brief they filed on February 6 cites many sources as backup for their argument, and Paul’s is one of them."

— The NYT’s Latest Op-Ed on Trans Kids Has Already Been Cited in an Anti-Trans Legal Brief: The 4,500-word article has been widely criticized as misleading and misinformed. James Factora. Them. February 9, 2024

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"The ability to succeed in this work" as a newspaper columnist, Hamilton Nolan assures us, "depends not on education or intelligence or good character, but on having a particular personality type that causes you to always be thinking about stuff, along with an accompanying personality deformation that causes you to want to share those thoughts with the world."

"The best columnists lean into their good ideas and minimize their output the rest of the time. Most columnists sink into a comfortable bath of hackery, spitting out work that is acceptable enough to fill space on a page, yet rarely worth taking the time to read. Their careers are like room temperature bowls of cream of wheat left on a table, still edible but not appetizing. Other columnists are gifted with a fountain of ideas, but all of their ideas are bad. Thomas Friedman is the Platonic Ideal of this type: taken seriously by important people and utterly full of shit. Will smart phones change the Middle East? Thomas Friedman will most certainly coin a phrase to answer that question, and his answer will be wrong. This sort of columnist is actually malicious, but hard to uproot.

* * *

Paul is often criticized for her tiresome obsession with campus politics and bad faith gender issues...and she will not stop writing until her fan base is exclusively made up of idiots.

* * *

Bad writers with strong ideological convictions, like me, at least have a burning sense of political grievance to fuel their output. Not so with Paul. Decades ensconced in bourgeois antechambers have drained her of the ability to access true anger at the state of the world. This is always a dangerous affliction for elite columnists, who tend to live not in the normal world but instead in a world of nice offices and speaking gigs and Atlantic Ideas Festivals and therefore have a very hard time imagining what sort of complaints regular people might have. Hence the omnipresent spectacle of well-paid columnists fuming about airline delays and the annoyances of social media."

"The existence of these uninspired and uninspiring people occupying the very best jobs in their industry is evidence of the limits of the ideals that liberal society purports to value." More specifically: "There is no reason for there to be even one shitty New York Times columnist. They can hire anybody they want. Anybody. The existence of shitty New York Times columnists," Nolan continues, exposes "the myths of meritocracy. The most self-assured liberal institutions are in some ways more profoundly corrupt than some of the more raffish institutions that they look down on."

The NYT chooses what narratives to publish

Example: Joe Biden ran for U.S. Senator in Delaware. The year was 1972. He was almost too young, but he turned the minimum age of 30 between the election and the beginning of his Senate term. His age has been known since then. He was elected President in 2020.

On February 11, 2024, the NYT pretended to have suddenly discovered that the president is 81.

Credit: This screenshot appeared in Margaret Sullivan's Substack.

President Biden's age is a non-story.

If you can't imagine speaking to a trans person

Here's a principle of civility (of a good sort):

"Whenever you are weighing in on politics, society, and culture, ask yourself: Would you feel comfortable making this argument directly to the face of the people whose lives, rights, and dignity are most immediately affected by the issue in question?

I can’t quite remember where I first encountered the idea that we ought to approach politics through this lens at all times. It has profoundly shaped my perspective."

— Domination or Dissolution, Rule or Ruin: The Right is fantasizing about secession, “national divorce,” and civil war – because they will not, under any circumstance, accept pluralism. Thomas Zimmer, Democracy Americana (Substack), Feb 7, 2024

One reason I believe many people feel comfortable with suggesting anti-trans restrictions is that they don't know any trans people and thus can't imagine themselves making the argument to any trans person's face. They can't imagine what it would be like to speak to a trans person. So, regarding what they say about trans people, they give themselves no intellectual constraint based on what they'd be willing to say to a trans person. The latter is not a concept they have; it cannot constrain them.

Zimmer brought up this topic in the context of the increasingly serious proposals for Texas secession or other versions of a 'national divorce.' It's wrong, he says, because you wouldn't say it to someone's face. For example, "would you feel comfortable making this argument – let them go do their own thing! – to the tens of millions of people who happen to live in those Republican-led states, who want nothing to do with the reactionary project, but would suffer most under authoritarian white Christian patriarchal rule?" Also, "the analogy simply doesn’t work." It's not a divorce because you couldn't have "amicable split"; you'd have "disastrous political, economic, and social consequences." Also, the image of a divorce falsely implies "a defensive posture on the Right, as if they just wanted to do their own thing, unbothered by an encroaching government or totalitarian progressive elites."

Imagine, then, what this so-called "divorce" would look like. Imagine secession. Imagine war. Imagine leaving your neighbors to unjust laws. Imagine leaving them behind to suffer cruelty.

That's what we'll do if we don't have empathy.

Would you feel comfortable proposing this to the face of someone who would suffer from it?

That's why I'd like everyone to refrain from proposing regulations on trans people's lives if they do not even know a trans person and can't imagine speaking to one.

Violence goes on-air to stoke anti-immigrant hate

It was always going to be like this on Fox. Fox was always headed in this direction.

"Fox News host Sean Hannity’s interview with former GOP New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa took a shocking turn when members of Sliwa’s Guardian Angels group gave — live on air — what Sliwa described as “a little pain compliance” to a person he said was a migrant and who he claimed had been caught shoplifting.

* * *

The camera turned to film the members of the Guardian Angels bringing the unidentified person to the ground. Hannity eventually cut away from the scene but later returned to Sliwa to find out what had gone down."

— Shocking Fox News Moment Sees Guardian Angels Give Man ‘Pain Compliance’ On Live TV: “His mother back in Venezuela felt the vibrations,” the group’s founder Curtis Sliwa boasted to Sean Hannity, adding the man is now “sucking concrete.” Lee Moran, HuffPost, Feb 7, 2024

By the way:

"...the man, according to an NYPD spokesperson, is from the Bronx and police didn’t have evidence to support the claim that he had been shoplifting." (HuffPost) (see also the AP)

Part of the purpose of stunts like this is to foment suspicion of people's nationalities, languages, and races and to encourage violence.

The culture is brutal. We have to find ways to survive.

2024 Anti-Transgender Initiatives in the US: What Is Happening Now?

When we say there's an onslaught of anti-trans and anti-gay legislation in the United States, what do we mean? What are the worst laws?

Well, there are hundreds of laws and proposed laws. Many took effect just last year, in 2023. Many are anti-gay.

For some of the 2023 history, see this article, "The rise of anti-trans bills in the US": Lawmakers in 37 U.S. states have introduced at least 142 bills to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for trans and gender-expansive people this year, nearly three times as many as last year. Four-fifths target gender-affirming care for trans children under 18, while the remainder target adults or anyone regardless of age. Reuters has reviewed the bills, taking stock of where they stand in the approval process, the treatments they seek to restrict and the penalties they would impose. Minami Funakoshi and Disha Raychaudhuri, Reuters, August 19, 2023

These days, there's a special focus on anti-transgender legislation. But these themes overlap. What's bad for trans people is generally also bad for gay people.

Here's an overview.

Flower growing from cracks by svklimkin from Pixabay

For New Year's 2024, 'Them' published this extremely helpful article

Quote:

"After a year of legislation that relentlessly targeted LGBTQ+ Americans, the community is already facing another potentially record-breaking legislative session in 2024. More than 500 bills were put forward in 2023 seeking to restrict rights and protections for queer and trans people, in arenas from public restroom access to gender-affirming health care, and LGBTQ+ advocates do not expect that historic pace to slow down with a presidential election on the horizon. If re-elected to the White House, former President Donald Trump has already floated a federal transition ban — pledging that, on day one, he will sign an 'executive order instructing every federal agency to cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age.'"
— "What’s At Stake for LGBTQ+ Rights in 2024?": Anti-trans politicians will undoubtedly be busy once again this year, but LGBTQ+ activists and advocates have no plans to back down. Nico Lang, Them, January 2, 2024

Of those >500 bills, 14 percent passed.

"Support for these measures has been enabled and propelled by scientific misinformation, which has proven to be a distressingly effective tool in outraging a public that might otherwise be broadly empathetic, or at least uncertain about where to stand." (OpenMind)

Coming out of 2023, already "21 states have passed laws comprehensively banning gender-affirming care for trans youth." Fortunately, "of the 19 trans youth healthcare bans passed in 2023, nearly all are currently being challenged in court."

What did the pre-filed 2024 bills include? (I'm still quoting from the article.)

• In Missouri, to "allow teachers to refuse using trans students’ pronouns and shield doctors sued for refusing to provide gender-affirming care" (and this follows the state Attorney General's rule last April that puts "onerous and burdensome restrictions on trans health care for patients of all ages.")
• In South Carolina, to become the second state "to impose criminal penalties for trans people who use bathrooms that align with their gender."
• In South Carolina and Virginia, to ban gender-affirming healthcare until the age of 21.
• In Oklahoma, to "ban gender-affirming healthcare until the age of 26."
• In Florida, "to expand the state’s existing 'Don’t Say Gay' law to the workplace. If passed, it would ban any mandatory 'training, instruction, or other activity on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.'" This means you couldn't have an LGBTQ-inclusive organization; it means no LGBTQ advocacy organizations. (And that follows the state law last May that "has compromised providers’ abilities to provide gender-affirming care to any patient.")

Already, "eight states currently have “Don’t Say Gay” laws in place."

Only "a handful of GOP-led states, including Georgia and Nebraska, have yet to limit trans sports participation."

And in 2023, "at least six states passed restrictions on public performances of drag." Although "many of those efforts have been temporarily blocked or struck down entirely," Republicans will keep trying.

Furthermore, at the federal level, "House lawmakers reportedly inserted at least 45 different anti-LGBTQ+ amendments into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) budget," including to "prevent government buildings from flying Pride flags and effectively defund gender-affirming care at the federal level." This budget effort failed.

A big risk in 2024 is that

"the GOP will shift its focus to targeting trans people who are forced to travel to affirming states to have their medical needs met. With the rise in restrictions on trans health treatments, at least 14 states (and Washington, D.C.) have enacted laws or executive orders preventing prosecutions against patients who cross the border for gender-affirming care. To stop states from providing that care, Idaho has pushed a bill two years running that would charge parents and guardians with a felony if they leave the state to seek transition treatment for a minor."

Compare maps of trans rights to this map of repro rights, which the Washington Post keeps updated: "States where abortion is legal, banned or under threat"

Judith Butler said (Them, published April 5, 2024) of the anti-trans U.S. legislation: "It’s terrifying to me. I feel like this is a new form of persecution that I don’t think any of us were really prepared for. ...this is rank discrimination. These are really basic issues of democracy, issues of equality, freedom and justice. And so when people say, 'Oh this is just identity politics,' it’s like, 'No, this is the future of democracy. That is what we’re looking at.' It might be our job to show people those links. This is not some small issue; this is fundamental."

The 'Women's Bill of Rights' (anti-transgender)

In 2022, before the midterm election, a conservative group had budgeted nearly $6 million total — up to $575,000 for each of 10 states — for anti-transgender messaging about this bill. Their focus included these nine states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Kansas implemented the bill. According to this informational sheet (PDF) put out by the Kansas Legislature, it defines sex...

In 2023, "Kansas’ so-called 'Women’s Bill of Rights,' which rewrote the state’s definition of sex as defined solely by a person’s reproductive biology at birth." (Nico Lang, Them)

Then it says that state agencies, including schools, must "identify each individual as either male or female at birth."

What happened then: "That move led the Kansas Department of Health to stop correcting trans people’s birth certificates and the state’s attorney general, Kris Kobach, to attempt to block gender marker updates on driver’s licenses." (Nico Lang, Them)

This information will be used to separate people in (quoting from the legislature's fact sheet)

● Athletics;
● Prisons or other detention facilities;
● Domestic violence centers;
● Rape crisis centers;
● Locker rooms;
● Restrooms; and
● Other areas where biology, safety, or privacy are implicated that result in separate accommodations.

"'What I think they’re hoping for is that they get an easy headline that says: Kansas state legislator moves forward ‘Women's Bill of Rights,’' says Branstetter. 'If you ask most people what’s in a ‘Women’s Bill of Rights,’ they might think it includes, say, protections for abortion, from discrimination at work, that it includes equal pay, paid leave, access to childcare, or safety from violence. These laws, of course, do nothing of the sort. They are being proposed and passed by the very same politicians who are banning abortion and limiting access to contraception.'"

Other states want to implement it too.

Krista Brynn has shared an essay about this. As of February 7, 2024, she says "I count 25" pending bills that are influenced by the so-called Women's Bill of Rights.

Read: "The Dangerous Scam of 'the Women’s Bill of Rights'": One of the biggest trends in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation this year is also the most insidious. Allison Chapman. March 8, 2024.

Early January 2024

I tried to describe what had happened in just the first few days of the year: "How Many Anti-Trans Laws Were Proposed Last Week?": They‘ve been counted, but let’s also reflect on what they mean. - 6 min read - Jan 6, 2024

·

Mid-January 2024 article in Vox

Three times within a year, the Supreme Court "turned away a case asking it to diminish the rights of young transgender Americans," according to Ian Millhiser in "The Supreme Court is running away from transgender rights cases" (Vox, Jan 17, 2024)

Information from this article:

Case #1

Millhiser:

"...[in an April 2023] case called West Virginia v. B.P.J. — the Court decided not to kick a transgender student off of her middle school girl’s cross-country team. A lower court had blocked a West Virginia state law forbidding her from competing with other girls, and the Supreme Court rejected a request to temporarily reinstate that law while the case is being litigated. (This case could potentially reach the justices again in the future.)"

Case #2

Millhiser:

"In December [2023], the Court also announced that it would not hear Tingley v. Ferguson, a case challenging Washington state’s restrictions on “conversion therapy” — a technique that tries to turn LGBTQ patients into cisgender heterosexuals or prevent them from expressing their actual sexual orientation or gender identity."

Case #3

Now, Millhiser reports that, in January 2024, the Supreme Court said it won't

"hear Metropolitan School District v. A.C., a case asking whether public school districts may require transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth, as opposed to their gender identity.

In A.C., the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit [which handles federal cases in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin] ruled in favor of three trans students — so these students may use the bathroom that aligns with their identity."

What they have in common

Millhiser:

"...in all three cases, the anti-LGBTQ side raised a plausible argument that existing law supports their preferred outcome. The Tingley case turns on contradictory language in a 2018 Supreme Court decision, which can be read to support either outcome in Tingley. Meanwhile, the A.C. and B.P.J. cases raise questions that the Court left open in its landmark LGBTQ rights decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020)."

However

Just because the Supreme Court has declined to hear these three cases does not mean it will never hear a case about transgender students. The court is conservative. Three of the nine Justices were nominated by Donald Trump. We don't know how the court might rule.

Grass growing from pavement by Shepherd Chabata from Pixabay

One month into 2024, yes, it's bad

I wrote this update: "How Do You Know the Legislation Is Anti-LGBTQ Without Reading It?": 2023 was gruesomely challenging. 2024 is something else. - 6 min read - February 1, 2024

The ACLU has the count as of Feb 6. The 2024 count of anti-LGBTQ bills is already up to 402. In other words, in just the first few weeks of this year, there are almost as many anti-LGBTQ bills as throughout all of last year. This rate of anti-LGBTQ legislation is unprecedented.

Two months into 2024, it looks like this

If you want more visuals, look up the Movement Advancement Project

The Movement Advancement Project (MAP) has a section about issues affecting transgender people.

For example, this map (screenshotted February 7, 2024) shows 22 states that ban gender-affirming hormones and surgery for trans youth, plus a 23rd state that bans surgery only.

Erin Reed developed a risk map when "bills targeting transgender youth were far more common. Unfortunately over the last year, the transgender youth map has lost all granularity, largely reducing to just two colors: red and blue, a set of states criminalizing trans youth and a set of states protecting them. You can still find this map at the end of the document, and it will be continually updated. The primary map of focus, though, will be the transgender adult map, as bills targeting trans adults have become far more common." (her March 25, 2024 update)

The Human Rights Campaign has info too

One-third of U.S. transgender teenagers live in states where they cannot get gender-affirming healthcare even if their parents and doctors are fine with it, because it has recently been made illegal in that state.

"As of November 2023, three in ten (35.1% or 105,200 total) trans youth aged 13-17 are living in states that have passed bans on gender affirming care." — HRC

A few general things to know about gender-affirming care

• "...every major medical organization in the United States supports gender-affirming care due to the evidence behind it." (share this quote on Bluesky)
• "...multiple judges have determined the evidence supporting trans care is comparable to that of most pediatric care..." (share this quote on Bluesky)
• "...the narrative...about high detransition rates and stories of regret does not stem from careful journalism, but rather, anti-trans activist groups." (share this quote on Bluesky)
• "...these erroneous narratives are now being used to justify legislation aimed at banning transgender [care] 'for everyone.'" (more context: I've written about this)

— Erin Reed and Evan Urquhart, February 8, 2024

Please remember

2024 is an election year. If you know someone who needs to be reminded that Donald Trump did not support LGBTQ+ rights during his term, please send them this inventory of specific ways in which Trump harmed queer/trans people.

• How Trump self-scored 36 points on LGBTQ rights — And why it’s a failing grade (10-min read). The Trump administration has done nothing whatsoever in favor of LGBTQ rights.

Similarly, if you know someone who needs to be reminded about a certain talk show host (who might run as vice president), send them this inventory of his remarks.

• "What does Tucker Carlson say about LGBT people?" (12-min read) The former Fox News talk show host opposes LGBT rights. His remarks demonstrate this.

Don’t repeat their lies to the contrary. Just share the facts of what they've said and done.

Laws and proposed laws are just one aspect of anti-LGBTQ forces

Some hate speech is so intense that it's considered stochastic terrorism — meaning, it increases the likelihood that someone will commit violence. It incites violence, even if it's hard to track exactly how, because it speaks to a mass audience and the effect is statistical. Just today (Feb 7, 2024), NBC News published an article explaining that they'd "identified 33 instances, starting in November 2020, when people or institutions singled out by Libs of TikTok later reported bomb threats or other violent intimidation." Basically, when Libs of TikTok tweets (even vaguely) about a school or hospital, that institution is at risk for threats of violence. I added my own context on this blog.

This is happening

"Legislators have removed books with LGBTQ content from libraries and disparaged them as “filth.” A recent law in Florida threatens trans people with arrest for using public restrooms. Both Florida and Texas have pursued efforts to compile data on their trans citizens. Donald Trump’s campaign platform calls for a nationwide ban on trans health care for minors and severe restrictions for adults."
— Pseudoscience has long been used to oppress transgender people: Three major waves of opposition to transgender health care in the past century have cited faulty science to justify hostility. G. Samantha Rosenthal & The Conversation US. Scientific American. February 12, 2024.

In the state of Georgia alone:

"Sen. Summers's bill, Senate Bill 438 [a bathroom ban], is just one of several bills targeting transgender people this year in Georgia. Another bill, Senate Bill 88, which would enact policies to out transgender youth to their parents, was recently passed through committee while senators only allowed people who supported the bill to speak. Other bills include one that would ban drag, a book ban, and a bill that would end all legal recognition of transgender people in the state."
— Erin Reed, Georgia Senator Vows to Protect Girl, But Then Runs Away After Learning She Is Trans, Feb. 16, 2024

The government may shut down

Erin Reed tells us that on February 21, 2024:

"the House Freedom Caucus published a letter threatening a government shutdown in which it outlines a number of policies that are needed to supposedly avert such a result. Listed among these policies are restrictions on gender affirming care, transgender participation in sports, DEI programs, and defunding Planned Parenthood. This comes after nearly a dozen riders targeting transgender people have been inserted into numerous government spending bills that could result in large scale government shutdowns if not handled by March 8th."

Here is the House Freedom Caucus's letter to Speaker Mike Johnson.

163 Democratic members of Congress said that "bans on gender affirming care, pride flags, DEI initiatives, and discrimination should not be on the table for negotiation."

"Some factions within the Republican Party have increasingly indicated that targeting transgender individuals is a top priority and may view a shutdown as worth the political risk over transgender issues. Representative Dan Crenshaw stated in June that such bans are the "hill we will die on." It would not be the first time government operations have ground to a halt over transgender issues; in 2023, Republicans refused to move forward with any other bills unless they could pass a ban on gender-affirming care, allowing a filibuster to last for three months. Should this occur at the national level, however, it would represent the most significant impact of anti-trans policies on multiple sectors of government."

— "Republicans Issue New Government Shutdown Threat Over Trans People," Erin Reed, Feb 21, 2024

(March 8 update: The government did not shut down.)

A national ban on transition?

"2024," Jules Gill-Peterson tells us on March 6, "appears likely be consumed by political escalation, by which I mean the Lovecraftian road to a national ban of some sort on transition depending on the outcome of fall elections and the primacy of state legislatures in generating more aggressive legislation targeting classes of trans people already subject to vulnerability by the administrative state."

Biden administration releases new Title IX rules

In April, the Education Department issued new Title IX rules, to take effect August 1, that define sex discrimination as including discrimination that happens on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. (see the 1500-page PDF) The AP reports: "The administration originally planned to include a new policy forbidding schools from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, but that provision was put on hold." Title IX applies to any school that receives federal funds. Now, the AP says, "LGBTQ+ students who face discrimination will be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government."

The AP notes: "At least 11 states have adopted laws barring transgender girls and women from using girls’ and women’s bathrooms at public schools....The laws are in effect in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee. A judge’s order putting enforcement on hold is in place in Idaho. A prohibition in Utah is scheduled to take effect July 1." The Biden administration rule would block laws like this.

A week after the Biden administration announced the new rules, Louisiana’s top education official said Louisiana schools should ignore them, saying it contradicted Louisiana law and other existing federal laws. As the Hill reported on April 22: "Including Louisiana, 24 states have passed laws preventing transgender student-athletes from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity." (The Hill)

However, within less than a week of Biden's announcement, "officials in at least four states — Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina — have directed schools to ignore the regulations, potentially setting up a federal showdown that may ultimately end up in a protracted court battle in the lead-up to the 2024 elections." (Erin Reed, Four States Tell Schools To Ignore Biden's New Title IX Rules Protecting Trans Students, April 25, 2024)

Texas

On February 28, PFLAG National sued the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (a Republican), "rather than hand over information about its support of transgender children receiving gender-confirming medical care." Paxton's office had demanded this information following PFLAG's CEO Brian Bond's 2023 deposition in his opposition to the Texas ban on transgender youth healthcare. On March 1, the judge said that Paxton's demand amounted to an unreasonable search and a privacy invasion. The judge temporarily blocked Paxton's request and set a hearing for March 25.

"On Friday, March 1, Texas Health and Human Services will implement a new rule restricting access to gender affirming care for adults enrolled in the Texas Medicaid program.

Under the new rule, Medicaid will not cover the cost of “Hormone Therapy Agents” for anyone who has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria within the past 730 days. This decision appears to have been implemented with no public hearing and no opportunity for public input, which is usually required. The outcome of this rule shows this was another deliberate attack on Trans Texans and their access to health care."

— New rule will restrict access to gender affirming care for some in Texas, David Taffet, Dallas Voice, Feb 29, 2024

On April 22, Paxton announced a court settlement according to which he will no longer seek transgender people's information from Seattle Children’s Hospital, whose officials "have said in sworn depositions that the facility does not have staff who treat trans kids in-person within Texas or remotely from Washington." (Seattle Children’s Hospital won’t have to provide trans patient records to Texas under new settlement: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suspected the hospital was helping Texas kids access puberty blockers or hormone treatments that are outlawed for juveniles. Karen Brooks Harper, Texas Tribune, April 22, 2024)

Louisiana

"As severe weather shut down nearly every government entity in Louisiana Wednesday [April 10], a legislative committee met and quietly advanced two pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

The Louisiana House Committee on Education advanced House Bill 121 by Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Bossier City, which prohibits the use of transgender and nonbinary youth’s chosen names and pronouns in public K-12 schools without parental permission, along a party line 9-3 vote.

House Bill 122 by Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haugton, which limits discussion of gender and sexuality in public K-12 schools, also advanced on a 9-3 vote, with Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, joining Democrats in opposing the bill.

— "Severe weather doesn’t stop GOP anti-LGBTQ+ bills in Louisiana," Piper Hutchinson, Los Angeles Blade, April 10, 2024

California

A group called Protect Kids California proposed an initiative for the Fall 2024 ballot. It would "require schools to notify parents if a student identifies as transgender, ban gender-affirming care for those under 18 and place other limits on students who identify as a gender other than what they were assigned at birth." They wanted to call it the "Protect Kids of California Act," but the day after they submitted it, Attorney General Rob Bonta renamed it "Restricts Rights of Transgender Youth." They were allowed to begin collecting signatures under this name on November 29, 2023. As of late April, the group had only collected 200,000 signatures to put it on the ballot, and they had only one month remaining to collect another 350,000 signatures. They blamed the name. A judge in Sacramento County Superior Court agreed that the attorney general's title was accurate. (CalMatters)

It is good that the attorney general gave the initiative an accurate name. However, it is bad that there is a group that's trying to make it mandatory for any teacher who suspects a kid is queer/trans to call their parents and out the kid, and that even when the initiative is given the explicit name of "Restricts Rights of Transgender Youth," they can collect 200,000 signatures.

Things you can do

A lot of support is regional and community-based. For example, Jess Kant has "Things you can do right now for Ohio," (January 6, 2024, to be kept updated). Search for "mutual aid" in your area, specific to LGBTQ people if applicable.

Compass by vialevo from Pixabay

Sign up for U.S. legislative updates from Erin Reed, Erin in the Morn (Substack). Yes, you can contribute just a few dollars a month to support her work. If you can't afford it, you can still read her posts. Her paid supporters help make it available for everyone.

Be aware of the relevant advocacy organizations. On January 17, 2024, according to their press release:

"...the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF), two leading national trans civil rights organizations, officially announced their intent to merge and create a new organization called Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE). * * * For more information about the merger, visit: www.transequality.org and www.tldef.org."

Please sign up for the mailing list of one of those organizations so that you'll be on the mailing list of the new organization when it's rebranded: NCTE mailing list or TLDEF mailing list.

If you're a committed organizer who can provide help for people facing really difficult situations, contact the Trans Resistance Network (TRN).

Follow trans and nonbinary people on social media so you're exposed to our individual opinions on various topics, including our reactions to news. Just read, watch, and listen. You're not required to interact. Personally, I'm not a wizard with short-form social media, but you can find me on Bluesky and Mastodon.

Do not interact with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. An exception: If you know someone personally who's expressing ideas that concern you or that you disagree with, by all means take an opportunity to have a personal conversation with them (thank you). But don't engage with unknown anonymous trolls on social media. Unless you anticipate that you have something specific to contribute (e.g., a debunking), don't click their links to read their articles or watch their videos. Don't add to their follower count — just block them.

Read my long-form work if you like. You could buy a membership to Medium (a few dollars a month to have access to everything written by all the writers on the platform) and follow me to read all my articles there — I earn when paying members read my work. I also put unpaywalled "friend links" to all my LGBTQ-related articles — over 300 of them! helpfully categorized! — on my author website. Stop by sometime. If you have a question, it's possible I've written to it.

Read the online magazine Them. It's free. They've got fascinating headlines about transgender topics, timely and accessible.

Buy a book by a transgender or nonbinary person. We need your financial support.

Read a book by a transgender or nonbinary person. The Lambda Literary Awards have a list of nearly 4,000 finalists and winners in various LGBTQ categories going back to 1988. If you filter by Category = Transgender (or another trans-related category, or another...) you'll get over 200 suggestions.