sad news - Slate has canceled Outward. it sucks to lose an outlet for queer commentary in this moment, but it's a tough time for podcasts. I love this final, fitting episode we made 💟

Not sure why reporters are still saying this when, with 73 percent of the vote counted, Janeese is ahead by double digits in all but D.C.'s whitest, wealthiest ward.

this is a very satisfying explanation of Susan Collins!

I am once again asking you to steam your Pride flags slate.com/life/2025/06...

There's a peculiar sort of comfort to knowing that Trump's aesthetic signature is an ancient, enduring metaphor for a life poorly lived. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I will die on this hill: If there's one Trump obsession that summarizes his character better than any other, it's his thing for Rosie O'Donnell. slate.com/news-and-pol...

America is now Trump’s Playboy Mansion. The rest of us are just living in it. slate.com/news-and-pol...

This story has everything: * the biggest fertility clinic scandal in U.S. history * high-rolling doctors and heroic whistleblowers * an unlikely friendship born of tragedy * a major update to the story that came years after I started reporting it * Pedro Pascal's dad slate.com/life/2026/05...

I went long on Megyn Kelly, whose career arc tells the story of how journalism, the GOP, and America (??) have warped and withered over the last decade. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Money can overcome a universe of moral or aesthetic objections. The rich occupy a universe unto themselves.

"Basically, everyone else is like, ‘OK, what crunchy thing can I sprinkle on my gummy?’" slate.com/life/2026/03...

Neck beards. Hoodies. Graphic tees. Beanies. I wrote about why ICE agents are dressing less like a regimented unit of government employees and more like a Confederate reenactor meetup at the local Hardee’s. slate.com/culture/2026...

I wrote about Cesar Chavez and the left-leaning men whose robust analyses of power and justice stop precisely when they cross the threshold of their own homes, offices, or local middle schools. slate.com/life/2026/03...

In a rare bit of """good""" news, Kristi Noem had an utterly humiliating last week in office. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I wrote about the saddest part of the Jim Carrey conspiracy theories. slate.com/life/2026/03...

I'm totally fascinated by how easy it can be to defang traumatic memories (including breakups!) with something a lot of us already have in our medicine cabinets: beta blockers. slate.com/life/2026/03...

Feel like everyone is breaking up lately? Here's why. slate.com/life/2026/03...

Here's a story, a decade in the making, about my love/hate relationship with the handgun in my living room. slate.com/life/2026/02...

Trump is concocting a world that rewards unabashedly manufactured femininity. Who better to capitalize on it than the company that insists the sexiest thing in the world is a stiff, sculpted bra that hides our softest body parts behind a wall of foam? slate.com/life/2025/10...

For the NYT Magazine, I wrote about this moment as an existential turning point for climate activists. Just as solar power became cheaper than fossil fuels, global politics swung to the right. Where does the movement go from here? I went to Vermont for creemees with Bill McKibben to find out.

they yassified Amanda Knox

I wrote about the first indelible image of Trump's D.C. invasion: a sandwich bouncing off a bulletproof vest.

“The D.C. public spaces that will be militarized and overpoliced in the weeks to come are exactly where you can best observe the interdependence and plurality that make cities great, and that conservatives view as a threat to their own ideological ends.” slate.com/news-and-pol...

I took a stroll through D.C., trying to see my city through the tactical Oakleys of a DEA agent patrolling the National Mall slate.com/news-and-pol...

I really wish the phrase "WNBA dildos" had come into my life in a more positive and celebratory (read: merch) context but this is the society we live in slate.com/culture/2025...

Probably the most ridiculous photo illustration I've ever had to cook up in my almost 12 years at @slate.com. (And I've done some doozies.) Shouts to @c-cauterucci.bsky.social for breaking down one of the most idiotic things going on in pro sports right now. slate.com/culture/2025...

hmm I agree

a searing and aggressively sensible (and, because it's @benmathislilley.bsky.social, fun) piece on the trap Democrats have laid for themselves and how they can get themselves out slate.com/news-and-pol...

I'm sorry in advance. Once you read this, you won't be able to unsee it. slate.com/life/2025/06...

“Crowds of queer people cheering for rainbow-clad straight people on a day meant to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community—it’s as dissonant as sending a model of a drone down the parade route, and it’s a sign of how far Pride has drifted from its origins as a show of queer visibility and power.”

I wrote about the beginning of the end of corporate Pride, and the possibilities that await us when the companies leave slate.com/life/2025/06...

"But you don’t need the backing of business leaders to host a Pride event. Nor do you need the majority of your neighbors to endorse it. All you need is a few committed residents with a knack for party promotion and the chutzpah to overcome—or ignore—whatever opposition rears up in response."

"They can’t stop LGBTQ+ communities from supporting and sustaining one another with art, whimsy, and a good dance floor. And they can’t roll back the cultural progress of newly out young people finding more supportive family members, teachers, and care providers." Pride! @c-cauterucci.bsky.social

"One seventysomething lesbian couple said they’d moved from Nampa to a blue state 30 years ago, seeking a more affirming community. They returned just for the Pride event and were overcome with emotion by what they saw. “I cried like 50 percent of the day,” Knapp said."

I wrote about the boom in Pride celebrations in conservative areas, and the extreme measures organizers are taking to keep them safe in the face of violent threats. slate.com/life/2025/06...

On what would have been Harvey Milk’s 95th birthday, I really strongly recommend people give @c-cauterucci.bsky.social’s Slow Burn podcast series on ‘Gays Against Briggs’, and Milk and others in 1970s San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community’s resistance to efforts to roll back gay rights.

fur is in, handwringing about ethics is out slate.com/life/2025/05...

on the return of a highly powerful political tool: Pete Buttigieg's beard slate.com/life/2025/04...

Kristi Noem's supposedly stolen purse supposedly contained her passport, meds, driver's license & $3,000 in cash. Was it a go bag? If so, shouldn't the head of Homeland Security have kept an eye on it? Fun analysis from @c-cauterucci.bsky.social on @slate.com slate.com/life/2025/04...

Why was Kristi Noem carrying around $3,000 and her passport when her purse was stolen? I have some ideas. slate.com/life/2025/04...

I wrote about the strange current state of buying drugs: Legal dispensaries still make you feel like a criminal, while black-market vendors have never been so polished. And corporate $ is giving a professional sheen to harmful substances that are barely regulated at all! slate.com/business/202...

after my fourth helping of fish sperm, I began to wonder...

On today's Outward podcast @c-cauterucci.bsky.social talks with one of the organizers of SF Pride to see how different this year will be. slate.com/podcasts/out...

this is like threatening to kill someone, then taking your knife away from their throat and saying "i saved your life"

I was laid off from Slate yesterday, just about a month before I would've had one year at the company. After a career boomeranging around the industry, I felt lucky to end up at Slate. I'm not sure what comes next yet, but I'm extremely grateful for my guild colleagues and their solidarity today.

"The Lavender Scare is widely viewed as a shameful period in U.S. history—a witch hunt that demonized a vulnerable minority to build support for a broader right-wing agenda." And now it is starting again. Important piece by @c-cauterucci.bsky.social in @slate.com slate.com/life/2025/03...

This is the Lavender Scare 2.0. Trans federal workers are: * training their bodies to avoid using the bathroom * communicating in pseudonyms through secret channels * being fired under dubious pretenses * quitting when they can't take the degradation any longer slate.com/life/2025/03...

On Monday morning, Slate was suddenly informed that six of its employees—including three editors, two of whom were members of the union—were being laid off, just months after four other staffers were also let go. The Slate Union's official statement reads as follows:

A lieutenant commander in the Navy who came out as trans in 2022: "I feel like the last two years have been all of my hopes and dreams coming true, and also my worst nightmares coming true at the same time." slate.com/news-and-pol...

The Trump administration isn't just hostile to trans people. The White House is trying to make it illegal for *all adults* to support the trans kids in their lives. slate.com/news-and-pol...