So, if Trump insists he won re-election in 2020, technically he's ineligible for a 'third term' in 2024

Seth Meyers on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" (NBC):

"It sounds like his plan is to win the 2024 election so he can redo the 2020 election and win that which would then make him ineligible to win the 2024 election he already won. At which point he starts fading out of inauguration photos Marty McFly-style?"

Seriously, though, this reminder from Seth Meyers:

"You got nothing ... that's over 60 courts and your own lawyers, several of whom have already pleaded guilty and apologized for lying about the election, like Jenna Ellis or Sidney Powell ... In fact, even Rudy, arguably Trump's closest ally when it comes to election lies, admitted: 'We've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence.'"

---

If you like that Marty McFly "Back to the Future" reference in relation to Donald Trump, please see my article: "You Have a Match, and You Know Where the Paper Is": He always prints his name on the matchbook. (14-min read) Medium, Aug 23, 2019. This link is unpaywalled because you are a friend.

Still, in 2025

That theory is wildly wrong (a VP candidate has to be eligible to become president) but why are you tossing him suggestions for how he can violate the Constitution? Who asked this? Is this what we can expect from the new and improved White House press corps?

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— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) October 27, 2025 at 7:37 AM

Read: Trump Won't Rule Out 2028 Bid As He Floats Potential GOP Successors, Marita Vlachou, HuffPost, Oct 27, 2025

Mike Johnson even said it was illegal bsky.app/profile/midd...

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— Middlerage (@middlerage.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 3:45 PM

HUNT: The president is talking about a third term. How seriously do you take that? GALLEGO: I don't take it seriously because he will be in violation of the Constitution and he should be arrested if he attempts to do that

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 28, 2025 at 3:44 PM

On October 27, Trump taunted: "I haven’t really thought about it. I have the best poll numbers I’ve ever had... Am I not ruling it out? I mean, you’ll have to tell me."

The Hill reported:

“Senator, is it constitutional for President Trump to run for a third term? He’s teasing that,” a reporter asked Tuberville in a clip posted to the social platform X Tuesday [Oct 28].

“You know, if you read the Constitution, it says it’s not, but if he says he has some, some different circumstances that might be able to go around the Constitution, but that’s up to him. We got a long way to go before that happens,” Tuberville responded.

“But you’re open to it?” the reporter replied.

“Well, I think that there’s going to ... have to be an evaluation from President Trump’s viewpoint to the Constitution. There will be a lot of legal aspects to it. Will it happen? It’s very unlikely, but don’t ever close the book on President Trump,” the Alabama senator said. [emphases mine]

The same day, October 28, Trump said:

“It’s a very interesting thing. I have the best numbers for any president in many years, any president. And I would say that if you read it, it’s pretty clear. I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad, obviously.” [emphasis mine]

In December 2025, Miriam Adelson, who had given him $250 million for his campaign, said she'd give him another $250 million for a third presidential bid.

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the question to ask about this is, okay, he wants to cancel the midterms. how does he get the VA state board of elections to cancel the midterms? how does he get the georgia board of elections to do it? how does he convince republican house members to quit their jobs and give up their paychecks?

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— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) January 15, 2026 at 11:29 AM

On March 22, 2026, Trump says he's entitled to a third term. He isn't, of course, but who will stop him? Even if an election had been rigged against him, it is not obvious that he is due any particular reparation (since elections are properly about the opportunity to be a public servant, not to pursue gain for oneself), still less is it obvious that the exact reparation due him ought to be the presidency itself at a future moment of his choosing. Never mind that the Constitution says a person can only be elected twice — a rule which, for Trump, would invalidate his current presidency were the 2020 election to be deemed his victory. Never mind all that. Again, the question is — who will stop him?

Trump jokes about serving a third term — and gets laughs at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) July 24, 2026 at 8:37 PM

Conservative Legal Icon Warns Trump Plans To 'Wage The Final Battle' Against Democracy: J. Michael Luttig warned of a “catastrophic end” to the president’s “war against American democracy” next January. Marco Margaritoff, HuffPost, Sep 11, 2026

COP28: A scandal and a new rule

Hey

Look here what we're dealing with:

What sea level rise will look like in cities that have hosted climate summits. Rachel Ramirez, CNN, December 3, 2023

"Ahead of this year’s summit, which kicked off Nov. 30 in Dubai, Al Jaber claimed that there is 'no science' to support the idea that phasing out oil, gas and coal is needed to limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the goal of the landmark Paris climate agreement, The Guardian reported Sunday.

Al Jaber on Monday [December 4] attempted to walk back the claim, saying he supports climate science and arguing his comments were taken out of context, but not before scientists condemned them as 'farcical' and climate change deniers celebrated.

* * *

'A phase-down and a phase-out of fossil fuel in my view is inevitable. It is essential,' he later added. 'But we need to be real, serious and pragmatic about it.'

The exchange, a video of which The Guardian included in its reporting, grew increasingly tense.

'The science is very acute now,' [former UN special envoy for climate change Mary] Robinson said. 'We don’t have any time.”

'You’re asking for a phase-out of fossil fuel,' Al Jaber responded. 'Please, help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.'

* * *

Al Jaber stressed he 'respects the science in everything I do' and said he’s been 'quite surprised at the constant attempt to undermine this message' and the work of the COP28 presidency.

* * *

His November remarks stand in stark contrast to what U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told COP28 attendees on Friday: 'The science is clear: The 1.5 C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe.'"

— "Head Of Global Climate Summit Manages To Deny Science In Pro-Science Comment." Sultan Al Jaber says his statement on fossil fuels was "taken out of context," but a full, unedited video of his comments suggests otherwise. Chris D'Angelo. HuffPost. Dec 4, 2023.

See also: Climate summit leader defends controversial comments that alarmed scientists and sent shockwaves through meeting, Laura Paddison, CNN, December 4, 2023

"Hilda Heine, a former president of the Marshall Islands, on Friday [December 1] resigned from the main advisory committee of this year’s United Nations climate summit, citing allegations that the conference president tried to use the international talks to strike oil and gas deals.

Heine’s resignation, first reported by Reuters, came just one day after the summit kicked off in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The Centre for Climate Reporting and the BBC reported Monday on leaked documents that purportedly show Sultan al-Jaber — the controversial president of the 28th Conference of the Parties, or COP28, and the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company — planned to leverage his role at COP28 to boost fossil fuel exports from the UAE."

"Ex-Marshall Islands President Resigns From Climate Summit Post Over Oil Scandal." Hilda Heine said allegations of backdoor fossil fuel deal-making "undermine the integrity" of the international climate talks. Chris D'Angelo, HuffPost, Dec 1, 2023.

Also:

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said:

“The 1.5-degree limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels.
Not reduce.
Not abate.
Phaseout – with a clear timeframe aligned with 1.5 degrees."

Of this, Bill McKibben explained that oil companies "want to 'abate' the damage of their product. It doesn’t really work..." Carbon capture is "so [cost-] prohibitive that no coal or oil or gas company or utility wants to pay for it themselves — instead, they use their political power to make taxpayers foot the bill, so they can keep selling their product. In order to secure Joe Manchin’s vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden had to lard it with billions of dollars in funding for this particular boondoggle." When you hear US climate envoy John Kerry advocating the Group of Seven's April 2023 agreement for "phase-out of unabated fossil fuels," he means abatement, not phaseout. That wording implies that there's something that can be done to fix fossil fuels so it won't be necessary to phase them out; only the unfixed products would be phased out. But the product can't be fixed. McKibben says:

"The point of the COP — the point of all climate efforts — should not be to produce a deal. Let me repeat myself. The point of climate negotiations should not be to produce a deal, no matter how many pixels are spilled about that prospect over the next two weeks. It’s to stop the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And Guterres is right: there’s one way to do that, and it’s renewable energy. Phase out fossil fuels period, and stat."

—

'Unabated': A single word can derail climate progress. Bill McKibben. The Crucial Years. December 2, 2023.

The Inflation Reduction Act, contains a little known provision of $1.5 billion for the US Forest Service to plant and maintain trees across American cities.. This is 40 times bigger than the agency's typical annual urban tree budget. https://buff.ly/3TYkw5X #ShareGoodNewsToo

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— Ada Palmer (@adapalmer.bsky.social) October 6, 2024 at 6:02 PM

Also:

"The Biden administration has finalized a rule to significantly cut the US oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, a powerful planet-warming gas that scientists and climate advocacy groups have pressed nations to rapidly reduce as global temperature soars.

The announcement came amid a wave of commitments at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai on Saturday, including a pledge from at least 117 countries to triple renewable energy by 2030. Vice President Kamala Harris also announced the US was committing another $3 billion to global climate action.

* * *

Methane emissions surged in recent years, to the surprise of scientists and energy experts, who are now advocating for capping leaks and ending flaring and venting as easy ways to pump the brakes on the pace of global warming."

"US announces rule to slash powerful planet-warming methane by nearly 80% from oil and gas," Ella Nilsen, CNN, December 2, 2023

Meanwhile, this is happening

Are the annual climate summits working? These countries are going to the courts, instead. Ella Nilsen, CNN, November 29, 2023

"Venezuelans voted by a wide margin Sunday to approve the takeover of an oil-rich region in neighboring Guyana – the latest escalation in a long-running territorial dispute between the two countries, fueled by the recent discovery of vast offshore energy resources.

The area in question, the densely forested Essequibo region, amounts to about two-thirds of Guyana’s national territory and is roughly the size of Florida.

Sunday’s largely symbolic referendum asked voters if they agreed with creating a Venezuelan state in the Essequibo region, providing its population with Venezuelan citizenship and 'incorporating that state into the map of Venezuelan territory.'"

— Venezuelans approve takeover of oil-rich region of Guyana. What happens next?, David Shortell, CNN, December 4, 2023

"The world is still off track to limit global warming to the crucial 1.5-degree threshold, despite pledges made by dozens of countries at UN-backed climate talks in Dubai, an analysis by the International Energy Agency published Sunday shows."
— "Pledges from climate talks not enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, IEA says," Angela Dewan, CNN, December 10, 2023

"‘Verge of complete failure’: Climate summit draft drops the mention of fossil fuel phase-out, angering advocates." Angela Dewan and Laura Paddison, CNN, December 11, 2023

An agreement

"Nearly 200 countries struck a breakthrough climate agreement Wednesday, calling for a transition away from fossil fuels in an unprecedented deal that targets the greatest contributors to the planet’s warming. The deal came swiftly — with no discussion or objection — in a packed room in Dubai following two weeks of negotiations and rising contention. It is the first time a global climate deal has specifically called to curb the use of fossil fuels." — "Countries clinch unprecedented deal to transition away from fossil fuels," Washington Post, December 13, 2023

"The final deal at COP28 is technically historic, in that it is the first deal that specifically calls on all nations to 'transition away' from fossil fuels." But calling it historic "convey[s] almost zero meaning. Because when you leave a massive problem like climate change unaddressed for decades, almost anything you do represents 'historic' progress." That's the assessment of Emily Atkin, "On climate deals, beware the word 'historic,'" Substack, December 14, 2023. "So I urge anyone reading climate news, both today and in the future, to keep this in mind: Just because a country or corporation did something 'historic' and 'unprecedented' to slow climate change, does not mean they did something laudable, effective, or in line with their responsibility. It merely means they did more than they ever did — which, in most cases, is very little."

"You can’t expect a negotiation among 198 parties to agree anything deep and substantial, but it can use its legitimacy to send a broad signal about the direction of travel. COP28 did that reasonably well.

* * *

Another signal, less noticed but still helpful, was the formal endorsement in negotiated text of a goal first agreed by leaders of many countries at COP26 two years ago, to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030.

Finally, a different kind of signal was sent by the commitment of $700m to the new ‘loss and damage’ fund – a recognition in all but name of the right to compensation. How much this will help in practice remains to be seen. According to one estimate, that amount of money is less than the losses suffered by the world every two days in extreme events attributable to climate change."

— COP28: signal, noise, and structure: Another one down. 28 of them. 100,000 people shivering in the air conditioning while the world bakes outside. Emissions still going up. What’s new? Simon Sharpe FIVE TIMES FASTER: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change. 13 December 2023

Bill McKibben said: "For two weeks every December, the giant global climate meeting—this year with at least 70,000 delegates, lobbyists, activists, and journalists enjoying the tacky spaceport that is Dubai—provides a cascade of feelings." He notes that Canada's environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, said: "I’ve been coming to Cop since Cop1 in 1995 in Berlin. It would be the first time in almost 30 years of international negotiations that we can agree on language regarding fossil fuels." McKibben goes on to observe that "it’s taken twenty eight annual sessions to maybe include some language about the thing that is, you know, the source of the problem," which shows that COP is "designed less to solve a crisis than to guard the interests of the world’s powers (both political and economic) as they relate to that crisis." The COP doesn't legislate. "Let’s say, for instance, that Guilbeault manages to convince everyone to include some phrase about phasing out fossil fuels into the text. It will be vague, ambiguous, unconnected to any particular time—and it will have no authority." Language is a tool, but it doesn't automatically "translate into action." Remember that "Donald Trump, currently leading in presidential polls, said last week that he would happily come to work as a ‘dictator’ on the very first day of his presidency, in order to ‘drill drill drill.’ If anyone thinks he will be slowed by the language of an agreement initialed by a bunch of functionaries in Dubai, I’d like to sell you the deed to the world’s tallest building, which as it happens is in Dubai." (The COP is the Scoreboard, not the Game: It's what happens in between meetings that matters, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, December 8, 2023)

Bill McGuire:

"What we needed from the climate summit in Dubai was a binding commitment to cut emissions in half within six years, so as to have any chance of keeping the global average temperature rise (compared to pre-industrial times) this side of 1.5°C, and side-stepping dangerous, all pervasive, climate breakdown.

What we got was a vague intention to transition away from fossil fuels — no timeline, no roadmap. It was the sort of outcome that elicits a chuckle and a shaking of the head in disbelief. But chuckling is a healthy response, even when things seem bleak — especially then, in fact."

— "Opinion: I’m a climate scientist. This is why I’m laughing," Bill McGuire, CNN, December 15, 2023

However, McGuire says: "If you don’t laugh, you will cry."

Heritage Foundation agenda: No nicknames without parental consent, lest they be trans

Please read: "The Christian Right Wants to Force Teachers to Out Trans Kids." Under the guise of “parental rights,” figures like Sonja Shaw want to draft educators into their war against trans students. Melissa Gira Grant. The New Republic. November 30, 2023.

Gira Grant writes:

"Shaw is, whether she claims it or not, in sync with a much larger national effort to rebrand the forced outing of trans kids as “parental rights.” And this effort has the weight of major conservative think tanks behind it. Nearly 90 bills forcing teachers to monitor students’ gender expression—including dress, pronouns, and names—and report trans and gender-nonconforming students to parents were introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2022, according to PEN America’s Index of Educational Intimidation Bills. Five states have adopted these polices into law: North Dakota, Iowa, Alabama, North Carolina, and Indiana. What we are seeing in places like Chino Valley reflects a coordinated national plan, pushing laws and policies that would penalize educators who don’t go along — inverting their roles as mandatory reporters and as potential resources for students facing harassment, neglect, and abuse at home."

In Virginia, "the face of the bill was Michele Blair," whose grandchild was assigned female at birth and has used masculine pronouns and a chosen first name. "Blair also says her grandchild was sex trafficked, and appears to believe that this never would have happened if the school had informed her that her grandchild was trans."

"Promoting the bill named for her grandchild, Blair has said, 'I am not here to tell you how to raise your kids — I’m here to tell you we should not be placing adult decisions on children, especially not behind a parent’s back.' She also claimed that children are now growing up in 'a world where sex traffickers are lurking on every cellphone just waiting to trick your child into their sick game,' and that '[we] must save our children before it’s too late,' neatly combining two moral panics."

Please reflect on the possible consequences:

"Perhaps this is exactly the point: Imagine a trans student who had faced abuse from a parent after trying to come out to them, who then tried to turn to a teacher or school counselor for help."

Project 2025 is organized by the Heritage Foundation. The project's director, Paul Dans, describes the agenda as "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army—aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state."

"Project 2025’s Education directives include statements such as: 'Federal lawmakers should not allow public school employees to keep secrets about a child from that child’s parents.' The model policy includes two provisions that forbid school employees from using any name 'other than the name listed on a student's birth certificate' or a pronoun that is 'different from that student’s biological sex ... without the written permission of a student’s parents or guardians.'"

Got that? No nicknames without parental consent.

Relatedly, about school counselors

On January 24, 2026, Fish Stark, executive director of the American Humanist Association, emailed out:

"In the span of just one week, lawmakers in Kansas and Maryland each tried to push through nearly identical bills: proposals that would insert Christian Nationalist chaplains into public schools, giving them access to children under the false banner of “mental health support.”

* * *

Our policy team caught this bill before it went to a hearing, and I worked with them to submit my own testimony in response (I’m a Marylander, after all!), that pulled no punches:

“This is a transparent Trojan Horse designed not to provide all students equally with emotional support from caring adults, but to inappropriately use our public schools as a platform for conservative evangelical Christians to proselytize to students in their most vulnerable moments. Delegate Metzger should be ashamed to have introduced it.”

It is shameful. It’s Christian Nationalism rebranded as “mental health support” for kids.

* * *

The national Christian organization supporting these bills literally tells far-right legislators to:

• Call chaplains “care providers”
• Avoid saying “pastor,” “religious,” or “Christian”
• Pretend this is about compassion
• Use public schools to indoctrinate the next generation

See also: Unveiling the authoritarian roadmap: The Heritage Foundation blueprint for Trump to politicize the administrative state will also undermine democracy. Don Moynihan. May 2, 2023.

Here's what those guys look like (Bluesky).

(Bluesky)

See also my article: "Transphobia, the Interrupting Cow". It's a 12-minute read on Medium.

"There’s no such thing as ‘parents’ rights’," Charlotte Dalwood, Rabble.ca, January 29, 2024

Image of elf ornament from Wikimedia Commons. Taken by Jelene Morris. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

You can see the same idea in this article from the Washington Times (Dec 3, 2025).

The child uses a nickname at school, and no one informs the parents of it — so, if the child is kidnapped, parents can't inform police about the nickname! How will police ever find the child?!

Per this article! -> The parents only know their kid's "incorrect" identity. The "correct" identity is the kid's chosen name! For some reason, the police do not question the child's teachers and friends for any information that can lead to finding the missing queer child! They will only question a queer child's unsupportive parents!

The whole worldview is based in surveillance and control. We can keep our kid inside our house as long as we — and police — know all their possible aliases, ideally without having to talk to any LGBTQ-inclusive community members.

why do you suspect your child would be using another name and keeping it secret from you, huh? if you want to know who your child spends time with and where they might go if they run away, how about forming a relationship with them.

but the queer-supportive teachers should become anti-queer informants on my child

I can't even with that. I've never understood how people think that's supposed to work. And now the motivation is so we can all know the child's correct queer identity. So many headstands :upside_down_face:

Heritage Foundation falls apart

This is a pretty shocking mass exodus. Heritage's legal department is basically a ghost ship at this point. And I have to imagine they'll really have to dredge the absolute bottom of the barrel to restaff it at this point. reason.com/volokh/2025/...

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— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) December 22, 2025 at 3:42 PM

Must shelters out trans kids to their parents?

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Chappelle: 'Only two genders'

Rep. Lauren Boebert tweets a photo of herself with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and the comedian Dave Chappelle: "Just three people who understand that there’s only two genders."

Apparently, Chappelle didn't know she was going to post an anti-transgender message with the photo.

"He said during his standup act at DC’s Capital One Arena that he granted the photo request by Boebert for a human moment to bridge the political divide, but felt 'blindsided' by her, according to a progressive influencers blog.

'It’s a shame she tricked me,' Chappelle said, per Call to Activism."

What do I think?

No sympathy.

1. Context

First of all, context: Chappelle has previously put out transphobic material.

Even while arguing that "it’s not always obvious who is 'punching up' and who is 'punching down'" and that "trans persons themselves" could be part of "a social mob [that] gangs up on a vulnerable person," one commentator still manages to acknowledge that Chappelle makes a "hurtful" joke "comparing trans genitals to plant-based meat substitutes."
— Dave Chappelle, Transphobia And Anti-Semitism. Evan Gerstmann. Forbes. Nov 15, 2021.

(That commentator notes that Chappelle's "joke about making a movie called 'space Jews' in which the Jews come back from an unsuccessful venture into outer space and now want to conquer Earth and take it back...is an old anti-Semitic trope and a very harmful one" and is "anti-Semitism served straight up." He somehow fails to acknowledge that transphobic tropes are also old and harmful. He seems to think that if you invoke a harmful trope, but you "balance it with any warm and empathetic stories" about the affected group, that somehow lessens the blow and makes it OK. No: balanced antisemitism is still antisemitism. Balanced transphobia is still transphobia. The "balance" just means that it's more calculated. More effort has gone into preparing it for market. The appearance of "balance" doesn't make it more true, valid, or benevolent.)

One commenter on Gerstmann's article suggests that the topic of "transphobia" should be approached "with respect, curiosity, and open-mindedness." We should be open-minded about whether to be transphobic? "Refraining from...summary judgment" on that exact question is laudable?

I'm not just picking on this one commenter. It's common for people to suggest that transphobia is not necessarily a real thing and/or is not necessarily bad. Gerstmann's article provoked this comment, as he wrote:

"The word [transphobia] itself is clumsy and inaccurate. Phobias are fears and Chappelle certainly isn’t afraid of trans people. He does believe that gender is matter of biology. ... But this doesn’t automatically make Chappelle afraid of trans people or hateful towards them. Many people are confused by the idea of women with penises and men with vaginas. Joking about it isn’t the same thing as spreading hate or fear."

What he's done there is given license for people to tell jokes about trans people's genitals on the basis that such comedians are merely confused, not hateful or fearful, and that is why the commenter says Gerstmann's perspective here is characterized by "respect, curiosity, and open-mindedness." Plant-based meat substitutes, right? We must be open-minded to the fact that other people find certain things funny, even while admitting that their jokes are hurtful?

Chappelle's transphobia started here: "Dave Chappelle says he's 'Team TERF,' defends J.K. Rowling in new Netflix comedy special." Elise Brisco. USA Today. October 5, 2021.

Consequently, Chappelle is known for transphobia. Here's how deeply the message sank in. When Elon Musk got rid of identity verification on Twitter in late 2022, people began impersonating celebrities, and someone impersonated Chappelle saying that he was "no longer team terf." Were he not known for being "Team TERF," no one would have made the joke.

See more context:

What Dave Chappelle gets wrong about trans people and comedy. Dave Chappelle’s trans friend knew how to take a joke. So what? Aja Romano. Oct 23, 2021.

Netflix releases Dave Chappelle's speech slamming transphobic joke critics
The 40-minute speech took place at Chappelle’s alma mater, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., which had planned to rename its theater after him. NBC News. July 8, 2022.

Wanda Sykes Calls Dave Chappelle’s Transphobic Jokes ‘Hurtful and Damaging’. “I knew that it’s such a delicate issue to talk about. I’m not trans, but they have my support, 100%,” Sykes said. Tomás Mier. Rolling Stone, May 23, 2023.

Michelle Buteau Calls Out Dave Chappelle's Anti-Trans Jokes In Netflix Special: In the special, Buteau says she doesn't get how “someone could make millions of dollars for making people feel unsafe.” CorEy Townsend, HuffPost, Jan 2, 2025

2. What are you doing

Secondly: What are you doing posing with Lauren Boebert? At all, for any reason? And especially if your goal is to disassociate yourself from other transphobes? Because Lauren Boebert is exactly the kind of person who would, apropos of nothing, tag your picture by saying that you're someone who "understand[s] that there’s only two genders." She would intentionally try to make you look as transphobic as possible because she believes that's a desirable trait. And she did. So what are you mad about?

Don't give me anything about trying to bridge the political divide. There is nothing to bridge with Boebert. You can't be advocating for goodness if you're posing with her.

Quite possibly, Chappelle got what he wanted from this interaction: Someone else made a transphobic comment in association with his name, and he got to use the opportunity to say hey, I'm not transphobic, while the comment has been made and the damage has been done to trans people.

• The transphobes are happy with Chappelle because they see that Chappelle posed with Lauren Boebert, which itself is a form of transphobic messaging.
• The clueless liberals are happy with Chappelle because he verbally denied he was transphobic.
• Chappelle is happy with himself because he gets his name in the news.

Transphobia wins. Trans people lose.

Dave Chappelle criticized the status of free speech in the United States while on stage at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia.

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— The Hollywood Reporter (@thr.com) October 2, 2025 at 1:00 PM

They literally kill people there over speech. apnews.com/article/saud...

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— gny1234.bsky.social (@gny1234.bsky.social) October 2, 2025 at 2:58 PM

Not 'trans ideology' but 'trans counterdiscourse'

Here's a 1996 passage to which I'd like to refer when saying something about how trans people speak:

Moussa, Mario, and Ron Scapp. “The Practical Theorizing of Michel Foucault: Politics and Counter-Discourse.” Cultural Critique, no. 33, 1996, pp. 87–112. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1354388. Accessed 1 Dec. 2023.

"In 1972 Gilles Deleuze paid Michel Foucault the following well-known compliment: "In my opinion, you were the first — in your books and in the practical sphere — to teach us something absolutely fundamental: the indignity of speaking for others". Foucault responds by saying that when those usually spoken for and about by others begin to speak for themselves, they produce a "counter-discourse." This counterdiscourse, he says, is not another theory, but rather a practical engagement in political struggles. When, in other words, the formerly voiceless begin to speak a language of their own making - a counterdiscourse - they have begun to resist the power seeking to oppress them. In this narrow sense, the very act of speaking is political, and Foucault's writing is political to the extent that it helps clear a space in which the formerly voiceless might begin to speak.

* * *

...he [Foucault] should be taken seriously when he expresses a desire to assist in the emergence of counterdiscourses and when he says a counterdiscourse is not a theory at all. But what then, is a counterdiscourse? Why isn't it swallowed up by the tentacular institutions posited by Foucault's theory?

In our terms, a counterdiscourse is the hoped-for result of practical theorizing - an activity with, as we understand it, comparatively modest goals. The practical theorist hopes only to clear a discursive space in which those who were previously silenced might speak up or, as bell hooks says, "talk back" - that is, produce their own counterdiscourse.

* * *

...Foucault maintained that the politics of language is only part — and not the most significant part — of politics in general. Moreover, he never contended that all language is oppressive. What he said, as we have been arguing in this section, is that repression works through language and that the struggle to overturn repression includes speaking out against it. Language can be oppressive. Speaking out, not theorizing, constitutes a counterdiscourse, and it is produced by those involved "radically" and "physically" with existence. Hughes and others have, therefore, made a basic mistake: Foucault, as a theorist, did not produce counterdiscourses, and he would say, in general, the theorist does not typically do so. Foucault had too much respect for real-world acts of political participation to claim otherwise.

...a counterdiscourse is not just another theory, no matter how philosophically "radical" — whether archaeological, genealogical, or even deconstructive — a theory might be. Just as only those who hold political power can meaningfully discriminate against stigmatized groups, so only those who have been oppressed by a discourse can form a counterdiscourse. In metaphoric terms, it is a voice that rises directly from below... Prisoners, madpeople, gays, les- bians, and other "non-normals" — Foucault hoped to clear a space in which they might speak up and begin defining themselves through their counterdiscourses. The act of clearing away oppressive discourses is itself practical or, in Foucault's limited sense, political. Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality — in this sense, they are all "political" works.

What happens once a space is cleared, however, depends not on theorists, but rather on those who have begun to speak up.

* * *

Theory, says Foucault, is an "activity conducted alongside those who struggle". And what they say - their counterdiscourse - might disappoint and even horrify the very intellectual who produced the theory that made space for the counterdiscourse. Intellectuals never know exactly where political actors and events will lead, even those event that they have tried to influence or celebrate with their theories."

If you belong to the disempowered group, you might be "able to produce both theory and counterdiscourse," in part due to your "wllingness to be simultaneously the archaeologist as well as the archive under consideration." Though you might be "often attacked for being merely autobiographical and not theoretically rigorous" by those who "insist on the purity of theory," where here purity might mean not belonging to the group that's being discussed.

Citing

The references to Deleuze are specifically to here:

Deleuze, Gilles, and Michel Foucault. "Intellectuals and Politics." Language, Counter-Memory, and Practice. Ed. Donald F. Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977. 205-17. (citing specifically pp. 208–209).

So

That's the context of this tweet:

That is to say:

When trans people explain what transness is; how we subjectively experience it; how it often manifests to others; how we can prove that our transness is genuine; why we should be "allowed" to get hormones and surgery; exactly when, how, and to whom that access should be opened up, etc.; we are often engaging in a counterdiscourse: not a theory, but a resistance tactic. We are not necessarily trying to identify facts nor develop ideology. Rather, other people are wielding power over us, and we're making words too so we can live as we wish to live and so we can get things that we need — particularly given the conditions of their power over us. We are responding to other people's ideology about us, not so much on its own terms (to correct it, workshop it, contribute to its realness, etc.), but to achieve certain goals for ourselves. We have the practical aim of survival.

People will steal your language though

"An abuser’s instinctive next step is always accusing their victim, and it’s always best to accuse your victim of exactly what you yourself are doing, because it creates the most airtight equivalency when both of you are saying the same thing.

The difference, of course, is that abusers enact abuse, while their victims suffer the abuses. So, as victims create language to name their abusers and the abuses, abusers fight that language—stay woke, critical race theory, diversity equity and inclusivity—until they can learn it, claim it for themselves, and corrupt it to mean what they now want it to mean, which is danger—woke mind virus, CRT, DEI.

And this is why members of today’s fascist political party want to be thought of as Rosa Parks even as they advocate the use of military force against today’s civil rights movements. This is how they can dismantle Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs in the name of fighting bigotry, using the language of antibigotry, and feel not the slightest tug of cognitive dissonance3. This is how a fascist party with fascist intent, whose leader quotes Adolf Hitler and promises fascist purges of undesirable “socialists”, whose members openly run on the vile replacement myth that undergirds antisemitism, can claim to oppose antisemitism. And this is why they are impeaching the president—not because the president has committed impeachable offenses, but because now that their leader is an open criminal, impeachment has to become something both sides do."

— A.R. Moxon, No Beliefs, Just Intentions, The Reframe (Substack), Dec 17, 2023.

'The proliferation of anti-trans discourse requires a counter-discourse'

"Toward the end of this podcast episode, with about 8 minutes left, ACLU attorney Chase Strangio asks us: "Continue to be loud and clear about what this [gender-affirming] healthcare is, what it means to be trans and how we are out here in the world, living our lives already. There is nothing new about being trans. There is nothing new about this healthcare." He asks us to be "an example and disruption of the false narratives about us that are out there. I think that is critical, because the proliferation of anti-trans discourse requires a counter-discourse. It requires us to be leading that counter-discourse, as you Imara [Jones], have so, you know, essentially been leading. We need more people by your side doing that. ...whenever it feels safe and appropriate, be a messenger of your experience. I think that that's really important, and encourage the people in your life to do the same. We need parents to do the same. We need colleagues to do the same. We need people to be out there in their various contexts, being fully embodied and trans and loved and cared for. So that's always true, and I think that's especially true now."
— November 14, 2024 episode of the TransLash podcast.

Birds are being renamed

"Now this end is called the thagomizer ... after the late Thag Simmons."
— Gary Larson, The Far Side cartoon, 1982, fair use

The Far Side joke is based, yes, on the idea that the dinosaur smashed a caveman who was peering too closely. A big part of the joke is in the word "late," as in, deceased.

However, more generally, it also satirizes the common practice of naming animals after scientists who "discovered" them. It's just kind of ridiculous, and often offensive in various ways, to name something a "thag" because a guy who reported it to a biology journal was named Thag. Take a listen to this NPR story: "These American birds and dozens more will be renamed, to remove human monikers". Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR, November 1, 2023.

We learn that something is called a "thagomizer" and we assume there's some actual meaning behind it, and then we learn it just derives from a caveman grunt like everything else.

"In 1987, the team found, each route had 2,034 birds on average. By 2017, that average had decreased by 304 birds per route, or 15 percent." 🌎🧪

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— Ethan Freedman (@ethanpfreedman.com) February 27, 2026 at 12:10 PM

Trans people have always existed & did not sneak in through the back door

Trans people have always existed. People who say we didn't exist a few years ago just weren't paying attention. If they say we crept into existence stealthily behind their backs, they're making up a story. They weren't paying attention to the fact that we were always here.

"[Harry] Benjamin's first encounter with trans people took place in the early 1920s, when an MTF spectrum individual" — i.e., a trans woman or a transfeminine person — "sought his help in obtaining female hormones...a request which Benjamin eventually fulfilled...Over the years, Benjamin met with countless trans people, often through referrals from other sexologists..."
— Julia Serano, Whipping Girl, "Chapter 7: Pathological Science," first published 2007, 3rd edition published 2024

Serano goes on to emphasize that transness was not Benjamin's invention.

"In fact, many of the original gatekeepers, including Harry Benjamin, only 'discovered' the existence of transsexuality after trans people approached them about the possibilities of physically transitioning, and many of the earliest transsexuals, such as Christine Jorgensen...and 'Agnes'...self-administered hormones prior to consulting with doctors about their desire to physically transition. Indeed, the gatekeepers didn't 'invent' sex reassignment, but were dragged into it kicking and screaming. And the fact that the gatekeepers almost universally favored strict restrictions that greatly reduced the number of people undergoing sex reassignment clearly indicates that they were, at best, reluctant advocates."

Serano explains that, on the one hand, you can "acknowledge that trans people have existed in varied cultures and throughout history" and "view transsexuality as part of a natural rather than culture-specific phenomenon and thus understand trans people's desire to live in their identified sex as being primarily driven by their own intrinsic inclinations rather than by social forces." Or, like Bernice L. Hausman in her 1995 book Changing Sex, you can "narrowly define transsexuality as the act of changing one's sex via physically transitioning," which makes transsexuality dependent on 20th-century science; analogously, you might say "transportation is a modern construction dependent on the discovery of fossil fuel and combustion engines." And by so "removing transsexuality from this trans-historical and cross-cultural context, Hausman misleads her readers into believing that trans people suddenly appeared out of nowhere, almost overnight — a fabrication that practically strong-arms her readership into seeing transsexuality as a culturally specific and socially derived phenomenon."

While Hausman says homosexuality is different in this regard, Serano points out that it may not be. "After all, both words, 'homosexuality' and 'transsexuality,' were coined within the last 150 years, gained prominence as concepts with the rise of sexology in the twentieth century, and emerged as identities and poiltical movements both because of and in response to their psychological pathologization. And if one were hell-bent on portraying homosexuality as entirely constructed," one could argue that more people are openly gay these days not because of "political and cultural changes" but because "the medical invention of homosexuality itself generated a 'demand' for people to become homosexual." (One should not say this. Serano is just pointing out that Hausman is making a false distinction, applying the model to transsexuality but not to homosexuality.)

Also

"By the 1960s and ’70s, trans folks were already laying the foundations of modern U.S. trans culture. Communication between trans people on their own terms, without interference or filtration from medical institutions, was finally possible; Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to help other trans people of color find stable shelter; the first Christopher Street Liberation Day march took place in 1970, eventually leading to the modern concept of a 'Pride parade.'"
— This Archive Offers an Incredible Window Into the Early Trans Internet, Samantha Riedel, them, November 22, 2023

Why You Need to Hear the Speech That Sylvia Rivera Wasn’t Allowed To Give, s. baum, Erin in the Morning, June 24, 2025

Some people are surprised to learn that old trans people exist

"According to [India] Miller, a health care provider recently told her that they thought “being trans was a 2000s thing”—a myth Miller works diligently to bust. “I’m hoping to enlighten some people not already sensitive to our plight,” she says. After coming out in 1989, long before internet access became a part of everyday life, she suffered and struggled. Like many trans and queer youth, Miller lost family and friends, and survived alcohol and drug abuse, suicide attempts and homelessness."
— Transgender Activist India Miller Can’t Wait to Take Your Questions: “I’m hoping to enlighten some people not already sensitive to our plight,” she says. Andrea González, Sarasota Magazine, December 9, 2024

Also

Hil Malatino (Trans Care, 2020) writes that "a common feature of trans arts of cultivating resilience has to do with turning to the historical record for proof of life, for evidence that trans lives are livable because they've been lived."

Ronan Kennedy, July 15, 2023 on Twitter:

"Its 8 years since the #GenderRecognitionAct passed in Ireland and its so interesting to watch people suddenly think it was passed into law by stealth. Even one senator, who is currently very exercised about the whole thing, didn't speak on a single one of the debates."

In 2025:

My head nearly fell off. The actual Minister for Health said this? m.independent.ie/irish-news/t...

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— Cathal Malone (@cathalmalone.bsky.social) December 4, 2025 at 8:39 AM

Learn more about Ireland's Gender Recognition Act 2015.

On the other hand, you will also hear stories that there was a debate over some proposed law or policy, and that "trans activists" — a "mob," that is, two or more trans people — spoke loudly and overran the debate, ensuring that cis people could never be heard. So there's that too.

Trans people are not “fighting for unpopular positions that society isn’t ready for.” Trans people are fighting to KEEP the rights we have enjoyed for decades. We have been able to legally change our gender markers since the 70s and before. Same with bathrooms, sports, youth, all for decades.

— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) May 20, 2026 at 6:33 PM

This is false:

"Put simply, eradicating transgenderism from public life would mean behaving as American society did before, say, 2015. Before, around 2015, we did not have any acceptance of transgenderism in public life. And it started to be introduced into public life around 2015 when Barack Obama instituted transgender military policies and some liberals in North Carolina decided to invite men into the women's bathroom and passed all sorts of weird ordinances about bathrooms. Then, later on, we got the Bostock decision. The Bostock decision rewrote civil rights law to say that there was a protection for gender identity and there -- obviously there is not one, but that came years later. So we're only talking about the last seven, eight years or so we've had transgenderism in public life." (Michael Knowles, quoted by Parker Molloy on March 10, 2023