A PSA to my fellow cis people who are (or want to believe they are) trans allies If you are getting pushback from trans people and your reaction is to be all “no! not me! I’m one of the good ones!” please remember that “being one of the good ones” is something you DO, not something you ARE

This is a perfect encapsulation of what a complete fuck-up it was for America to put the country's reins back in the hands of people who are incapable of building great things and only know how to disrupt and demolish. RFK Jr doesn't want to engage in constructive debate but he also just **can't**.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3d ago

BASH: How do you prepare for next pandemic? RFK Jr: We did almost everything wrong B: But what about now? K: We need to protect our rights B: ? K: During covid we dismantled our rights B: But I'm asking what *to* do K: You were part of the problem B: You want to sit here and attack me?

This reply to a racist xenophobe contains my daily allowance of salt (complimentary). So good.

Alexander Clarkson@aphclarkson.bsky.social · 4d ago

Alexander is right, so presumably MAGA's next step will be the mass deportation of members of the Irish- and German-American diaspora

That last point is so accurate. (I've lamented in the past that there's no widespread term for this clustering tendency like there is for woo and "crank magnetism.")

ashley 🌹@clearlyashley.bsky.social · 7d ago

trans rights frankly is a top 5, potentially top 3 issue for me despite not being trans and not having any trans family being bigoted against trans folks not only hurts my trans friends and every trans person but is so predictive of further bigotry

Interesting to see Missouri pass a (limited and conditional) rollback of felony disenfranchisement in the midst of all the other anti-democratic moves they're making. (Lots of felons will still be disenfranchised if their crimes were serious enough.)

Bolts@boltsmag.org · 6d ago

Missouri’s new elections reform bill includes changes beyond voting rights restoration; it also bans political campaigns from collecting automatic donations and disqualifies write-in votes for people who haven’t declared themselves write-in candidates.

That is maybe one of the classiest and productive ways to respond to the troll in the Oval Office that I think I've seen.

Parker Molloy@parkermolloy.com · last wk.

Dylan Mulvaney's response to Trump's recent attacks on her at the WHCD is worth watching. www.readtpa.com/p/the-punchl...

I want you to repeat after me: NIMBYism leads to a cost of living crisis that results in mass trans suffering. YIMBYism allows trans people to flee to cities that welcome them, so they can be who they are, rebuild their lives, and contribute to the social and economic fabric.

Liberal Currents@liberalcurrents.com · last wk.

“There has been persecution in the form of increased social scrutiny, harassment and violence. And there has been persecution in the undercutting of access to vital, lifesaving gender-affirming medication despite the overwhelming medical consensus for it.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-american...

Over the last week and a half thousands of Indians have taken to the street in unprecedented protests that have culminated in the resignation of the minister of education. The short version is that the results of a make or break exam taken by 150k people were arbitrarily annulled after leaks.

Storytime (mostly because I want a record of this for future reference): Up until last summer my MIL was living with her long-term boyfriend. He and his family all knew that I was trans and my MIL was always stalwart in her support for me.

This is a bold claim but I think it's pretty defensible. (Claims about how the Dems are center-right almost always ignore certain topics like trans rights where they're to the left of other major left-leaning parties.)

Toby Buckle@polphilpod.bsky.social · 2w ago

i don't think anyone's really caught up with the fact that the dems are now more progressive than just about any comparable party/block anywhere

Just gonna say, as the author of the 2021 report, I stand by every single thing I wrote

Sal r.r. tamarkin@sal.gay · 2w ago

center for american progress (2021): "Trans inclusive policies "which allow transgender athletes to compete in accordance with their gender identity, should be implemented nationwide." Center for american progress in (2026): "restrictions may be appropriate under some circumstances"

"What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?"

Chris Vannini@chrisvannini.com · 2w ago

What's a Futurama line that lives forever in your head? Mine is, "Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm My Own Grandpa."

There is media that I will defend practically endlessly (for instance, the show Community), but even at my most defensive I would be embarrassed as fuck to act this way. Come on, people, it's okay for people not to like the things you like.

libby watson@libbycwatson.com · 2w ago

we talked about family guy being bad on today's episode and, while i'm sorry to lose this fan, but patreon should not make exit surveys anonymous. i should be able to show up at your house and demand to see your PhD if you say this

I about cried giving my youngest a goodnight hug because it's the last hug I'll ever give him as a child. He turns 18 tomorrow and I am very Not Okay about it. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

This is your* reminder that right-wing groups have been signaling for literally the past decade that this is what they were planning on doing. Same-sex marriage was a lost fight, so trans people became the next wedge and sports was the easiest entry. *general "you" not OP

Jay Willis@jaywillis.net · 3w ago

I found this quote from Riley Gaines to be really striking. Straight-up conceding that the purpose of trans sports bans is to normalize transphobia, and to give "ordinary" people "more cover" expressing it in public. ballsandstrikes.substack.com/p/anti-trans...

Yep. @polphilpod.bsky.social and I made this point in this essay on Elon Musk's real fascist worldview, which all of you should read if you haven't yet, because (we immodestly insist) it breaks new ground. Also see the interview with one of the authors of "Muskism." newrepublic.com/article/2119...

Jacob T. Levy@jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 2w ago

You don't engage in that kind of ethnic cleansing through peaceful and lawful individuated assessments. If you even aspire to that level of population transfer, you expect things like mass detention facilities and the transformation of ICE into a terrorist paramilitary.

"A lot of America" is goddamn right. I think a lot of cis people don't understand the mental and emotional toll it takes to know how many people would rather people like you not exist and would even take action to that end. To know that as a teenager? That's absolutely brutal.

Mike Hixenbaugh@mikehixenbaugh.com · 3w ago

A father in Idaho, speaking to police after his child died by suicide: “There is a huge amount of animosity, every single day, thrown at trans kids. The whole fucking country. The whole fucking administration, every single fucking day.” Please read this important story by @joyurcaba.bsky.social

Another entry in the "chickens coming home to roost" saga of American politics in the last decade.

Cristian Farias@cristianfarias.com · 3w ago

New (old) secret court just dropped. And further proof that the nation and Congress truly did go bonkers on immigration in the 1990s. Here’s the slapdash website for it: www.atrc.uscourts.gov

I'm really going to need more cis people to shut the fuck up about hormones if you don't have real expertise and knowledge about them. (this message brought to you by Pete Hegseth being a fuckwit)

I love this story even as a trans woman who was largely coerced into playing baseball as a kid. (From where I sit at my desk, I can see the player's card and game ball that I got from one of my last seasons.)

ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com · 3w ago

this is great defector.com/trans-girl-b...

1) it's not gender-affirming care when it's being foisted upon ppl w/o their consent. this policy is *invasive* 2) anti-trans GAC legislation is *also invasive* as it's designed to take away control of our own bodies. LET'S CALL IT INVASIVE! LET'S PROMOTE BODILY AUTONOMY RATHER THAN MAKING GAC JOKES

Tammy Duckworth@duckworth.senate.gov · 3w ago

Sounds like gender-affirming care to me.

Most engineering orgs - and I flatter them using that word - measure productivity by how much *stuff* teams ship. This is to fundamentally mis-characterise software development. It's not a delivery process. We're not Uber Eats. It's a *learning* process. And the biggest factor is feedback latency

This story...wow.

ProPublica@propublica.org · 3w ago

NEW: ProPublica investigated the attack on bestselling author Alice Sebold and the wrongly convicted man who lost decades of his life. Here’s what we learned about the failures in the justice system — and the consequences still being felt today.

That is actually a pretty fucking big deal. (Full disclosure: My job entails very similar work to this, although I'm a contractor and not a government employee.)

Adam Gurri@adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 3w ago

Strongly suspect this will end up having a bigger long run impact on the average New Yorker than the more sexy headline grabbing campaign promises www.nyc.gov/mayors-offic...

Amy Klobuchar’s eulogy for Lindsey Graham was 390 words long. This was 390 more words than she has said in support of trans people

The idea of Cathy Young "fighting hate speech" is utterly risible given her long record of transphobia.

The UnPopulist@theunpopulist.net · 4w ago

Free speech is a bulwark against censorship—but it has also become a cover for dehumanization. Can free speech absolutism coexist with strong social norms against hate speech? @masnick.com, @jonrauch.bsky.social, @cathyyoung63.bsky.social, and @alexabdo.bsky.social will explore at LibCon2026.

I hope that someone is writing a long read about the month after Charlie Kirk died and the collective psychosis experienced by white people on the Right & embarrassed white Liberals. It will be important to document the calm and incredulous responses by Black people and some other POC in comparison.

This is especially maddening when it comes to trans people, who (when we were allowed access to care) had an uneasy arrangement to use facilities, update birth certificates, etc. if we could meet certain conditions. Now that we're more visible, that informal arrangement has been revoked.

mallow@bajablastenjoyer.bsky.social · 4w ago

if you point to a century ago and go "well they had it worse then" i will drive this car off a cliff with both of us in it, i can remember how much better it was *in my own lifetime* and that's what i'm referring to

This is from 2021, but you wouldn't know that from this contextless screenshot of a screenshot shared widely and amplified by big accounts like Jeri Ryan. We can do better.

Malinois Mom@positivelydrained.bsky.social · 4w ago

Disingenuous Fox News. Spreading stupidity purposely. And…repeat.