This is the thing about bathroom bans targeting trans people - assault is already a crime! Indecent exposure is already a crime! And laws that protect trans people don't suddenly make them legal
How to win in November
ICYMI: Chicago's first public bathroom is coming to the Polish Triangle! blockclubchicago.org/2026/03/04/c...
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Not sure what your high/low brow plans are for this class, but Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) is great fun and teaches well.
In Defense of Effeminate Boys If anyone had suggested that I might really be a girl, I don’t know how I would have responded. By Ben Appel
If medical authorities have a rigorous way of distinguishing effeminate boys from transgender kids—or of distinguishing transgender kids from proto-gay kids—they aren’t saying. I have met a number of detransitioned gay men who tried to live as women for a time because they and their families were so averse to homosexuality. According to a 2019 report in The Times of London, staffers at Britain’s foremost gender-identity clinic joked darkly that, as a result of the facility’s work, “there would be no gay people left.” A statement last month by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons noted that there is no validated way to assess whether a child’s gender distress will persist over time or disappear without medical intervention. A lack of good research and recordkeeping means that we may never know how many patients who would have been considered effeminate gay boys not so long ago have undergone medical treatments for gender dysphoria.
Absolute trash. The author did not speak to a single medical professional and the article does not contain a shred of evidence that effeminate gay boys are being bamboozled into thinking they're trans.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
"I have met a number of detransitioned gay men who tried to live as women for a time because they and their families were so averse to homosexuality..." Oh? What number? Zero? LOL
I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.
Hell yeah, brother
Disappointing decision by DePaul. This museum had some of the more inventive and thought provoking exhibits about Chicago activism and history that I’d seen. Often highlighted populations not often visible in exhibits.
Because of the National driver register, since their licenses are suspended, trans folks cannot move to another state and get a new license until they remove the suspension on their existing Kansas license.
They can't even escape this by moving to another state.
This is why people are so upset when people say Democrats need to stop focusing on trans issues because it's too woke and people aren't ready for it: we're not talking minor inconvenience here. We're not talking microaggressions
We're talking: they are stripping IDs from trans people
1. Major news on trans youth care. The American Psychological Association has reaffirmed its full support for its 2024 guidelines supporting trans youth car.e
It provided documentation showing Jesse Singal mischaracterized their position in the NYT.
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Dana Williams on her interview with #ToniMorrison. If you're a Morrison fan and missed this, you'll want to catch it. It's priceless. Williams' book is now right up there on my list. www.wnyc.org/story/how-to...
I just said, why can’t he just do that. That’s what he really wants!
is life just a series of days where you're tired in the afternoon and wide awake at night, running behind on weekly deadlines, and seeing pants get slim and big and then slim again over the years until you die?
Here's the thing I will continue saying every time this came up: Kamala Harris did not mention trans people in her campaign. She went out of her way to avoid it. She dodged every question on trans rights. And then she still lost. So what Newsom wants is *open hostility* to trans rights
By the way, a reminder on Jack Hughes, since the grifters are already trying to hijack his postgame interview
www.vogue.com/article/meet...
It’s so common to come across the assertion that books were luxury objects exclusively for the elite in the Middle Ages that I want to guest curate a massive exhibition called “Meh-nuscripts: Books for the Many,” which features just workaday or unremarkable objects.
If you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle.
It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get.
www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...
Well someone certainly knows how to make an entrance.
Brookfield Zoo has announced the arrival of a new pangopup — a baby white-bellied pangolin — just in time for World Pangolin Day on Saturday.
https://to.wttw.com/40lF8b3
With New Momentum, Republican States Push Broader Limits for Trans Americans In states that once focused mainly on health care and sports for transgender minors, debates now revolve around the validity of transgender identity.
The subheadline on this NYT piece is going to turn me into the Joker.
Like... this... is exactly what trans people have been saying was going to happen for years.
From confronting AIDS stigma to building relationships with LGBTQ+ organizers, Jackson’s approach reflected a broader vision of the Rainbow Coalition that included communities often left out of political power.
Read more: windycitytimes.com/2026/02/20/j...
✍️: @jakewittich.bsky.social
a cat in a tie sits outside of a factory. the cat says "Hope no one is weird to me." The factory is labeled "Being Weird Factory" and has the bluesky logo on it
👀The federal judges in West Virginia, where ICE has been pulling over and detaining people on the freeway, are literally screaming about ICE's tactics.
"It is an assault on the constitutional order," Judge Goodwin says. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Tilly the dog curls up next to her brand new copy of *Teaching with Science Writing in the Humanities Classroom*
A picture of the first page of the essay “The Critic Afield: Field Guides as Tools for Interdisciplinary Close Reading” by John MacNeill Miller in *Teaching with Science Writing in the Humanities Classroom*
Today is the official publication day of *Teaching with Science Writing in the Humanities Classroom* from @modernlanguage.bsky.social! I’m very happy to have an essay in here on helping students close read field guides as a form of environmental lit. You should check it out! (NB: dog not included)
The "suburban liberals hate guns" stereotype is not reflected in so many parts of the country. Pretty normal for Minnesotans to grow up going to the cabin in the summer, hunting with their dads. People do care about responsible gun ownership but it's nonpartisan.
NBC ran a piece where Mary Carrillo went to Norway to find out why they're so good at the Winter Olympics and i was yelling BECAUSE IT'S COLD THERE
then she went to a little tiny ski jump for kids and was like "it's free, equipment is provided, & they don't emphasize results"
and i was like.
oh!
The book cover of Judith Pascoe's ON THE BULLET TRAIN WITH EMILY BRONTE featuring 9 squares with images ranging from manga Heathcliffs to a photographed, supersonic Tokyo railcar
If you tire of the dumb Emerald Fennell thing within 20, 10, 5 minutes, why not try its opposite: ON THE BULLET TRAIN WITH EMILY BRONTE, the capacious, witty, and crazy smart book by mighty @judithmpascoe.bsky.social
