There are very few trans journalists able to work full time covering trans issues. Not all of my work will be trans-related but it remains my focus point. If you want to help support trans journalists, becoming a paid subscriber to my work is one way to do so. burns-notice.ghost.io/what-would-t...

not only do "gender criticals" and assorted transphobes have an ass backwards understanding of gender, their system of logic creates new forms of paranoia which undermine their original claim (that gender is straightforwardly determined by genitals/reproductive capacity)

"gender criticals" being fundamentally conservative and anti-woman feels a bit like saying "water is wet", but remember that when self-described "feminists" reduce gender to reproductive capacity, they are doing biblical gender complementarianism. that's it.

The left-wing terror in question consists of five incidents. And as Lindsay point out, numerous right-wing acts of violence have occurred outside the study's time window.

Quoted here sharing my reservations about a study that says right-wing terror attacks are down — the frameworks of terrorism aren’t well suited to size up the threat of political violence and can give people the wrong impression if they don’t understand how they work www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

When the state does right-wing violence, non-state violence by right-wing groups declines

I lurk around WLW online discourse and hoo boy the "lesbian masterdoc" has melted so many brains

sims music is peak background during work, especially if you're like me and can't write while hearing streams of parsable language

we're in a national crisis because everyone hates conservatives so much nobody will date them and their families refuse to talk to them; but also we're in a national crisis because our institutions are liberals who don't realize how out of touch they are with the overwhelmingly conservative public

The great irony of "porn" censorship is that it *pornifies* so much. I can't post a cute cat pic - even though they are my world - on OnlyFans. My best friend roleplays are forced to say "step-bro" instead of "bro," changing the meaning entirely. Trans bodies are deemed pornographic for existing.

GOP: We are putting forward a proposal to ban the use of all pronouns. Dems: Um…we all use pronouns. GOP: Oh. Withdrawn.

I think an under discussed element of embracing every right wing talking point is that so long as you are following them wherever they go, you’re helping to establish the idea that they’re the rightful leaders— undermining the legitimacy and urgency of your own campaign

We had a double feature for this week. Here @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social spoke with the great @marisakabas.bsky.social about the media in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination, the brave writers and commentators who have spoken out, those who’ve yielded to political pressure and more.

The free speech implications aside, something I've been mulling for a bit is the way American political discourse and philosophy has constructed the idea that beliefs do not influence actions specifically when those beliefs and actions are hateful and violent, and that you can never talk about this

This was from banning trans girls from girls sports. Just so you understand the reality of what's going on here.

Political science has obsessed over polarization while largely neglecting extremism, and with few exceptions has been inattentive to the roots of it all—power, structures, and identities. Too many elites are just as unprepared. Thus, their takes are empty, trite, and naive.

talking to @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social was so great, please support her work so we can have clarity, specificity and accuracy on this subculture and their weird-ass leader

The hypocrisy! You might say. Well, hypocrisy is a show of strength in such cases. The audacity of it is about what they can and can’t do.

shocker that all the Big Intellectuals who signed the Harper's letter are conspicuously silent now. if "criticized by college students" is the same as state censorship, shouldn't actual state censorship get those pens afrenzy?

It’s coming fast and furious now. If you are going to read one thing about my book and my work, read this unbelievably rich piece in The 19th News. Jasmine Mithani gets this book, and my aims, on a cellular level. 19thnews.org/2025/09/how-...

any academics struggling with feelings of pointlessness rn?

You want to be alive, but they want you dead. We’re a new, well, funded democratic group that thinks you can meet them halfway.

icymi, you can now preorder the crip linguistics reader

the Dems have invested nothing in understanding this political moment

Dance! (Sandhill Cranes) #birds

trump’s numbers are tanking and there is a palpable desire in the electorate for a real alternative and yet the only money in democratic politics is for doing starmerism

truly one of the most unintentionally funny things i've ever seen someone post online about themself

Despite what Klein says, he’s not trying to understand the American right. Understanding them requires being honest about their beliefs, policies and (far!) higher propensity toward violence. Pretending this is all a polite philosophical disagreement is the opposite of fostering understanding.

I should probably note that the folks who did most of this early research were women, women of color, and queer folks. Might have something to do with why it was ignored.

Are you doing research on anti-trans politics? Consider submitting to the special issue of @cogitatiopag.bsky.social 'Global Politics and Anti-Trans Moral Panics: Transfeminist Perspectives', co-edited by me, @ashstokoe.bsky.social and @ginagwenffrewi.bsky.social to be published in 2027 (1/2)

I feel for every one of us who was called hysterical a decade ago for trying to warn that this was where we'd end up

What's being "protected" is not "free speech" but rather the RIGHT for white men to be white supremacists in public without any criticism or any consequences. I hope that's clear.

We're witnessing the most aggressive, fanatical crackdown on free speech in my lifetime. The speed and breadth of government censorship and private sector and nonprofit capitulation has been astonishing. As has the lack of urgency/silence from people who've long claimed to care about this stuff.

How did "free speech" become a cudgel to silence dissent? My latest in @bostonreview.bsky.social www.bostonreview.net/forum/the-ri...

A LOT of normies have learned about Groypers and the farthest right of online subculture and that is a VERY GOOD THING. The number of posts I’ve seen that said “I had to explain groyers” is GOOD. Extremely dangerous people should NOT only be understood by their targets, victims, and the “too online”

the shooter was just a cis dude but even if he was the most trans person to ever trans it wouldnt justify rounding up all the trans people for crimes they didnt commit, really wish people in positions of power would be saying this

one of the things that was most jarring about being undercover in nazi chatrooms for my book was how often violent videos were posted in the channels. executions, murders, blood. purposeful desensitization to violence can be detached from ideology and just entail inurement to the sight of death

From an Atlantic editor. I cannot get over how the entire centrist hivemind is attempting to wish into existence a person, and a movement, that does not exist. You are journalists, you are supposed to describe things as they are, not how you want them to be!

it has been this way as long as i can remember: anything we say or do to protect our fellow humans is construed as a violent attack and can be contorted to fit into the criteria to apply state violence to us. anything they say or do is ideological diversity, debate, the embodiment of american values

Butler and others targeted were given no info about the nature of the claims against them and the university suspended normal processes for reviewing complaints, they said: "That means allegations sent to the administration, even anonymous ones, were simply forwarded without having been adjudicated

Why is the media afraid to say it out loud?

what if we analyzed (linguistic or other) misgendering misgendering not as an error, not as a misidentification or reflection of a different understanding of reality, but rather as a speech act intended to discipline, enforce, and re-inscribe gender onto a referent

An antisemite shot two kids in Colorado, at least one of whom is Jewish. The White House “fighting antisemitism” doesn’t care, because the shooter was a student radicalized online into far right beliefs, which the regime is cool with, rather than a student verbally criticizing Israeli govt policy.

Mainstream pundits have instantly sanitized and ignored Charlie Kirk's core political project and its impacts. He has been remembered by the mainstream press as someone they merely disagreed with, a debate me-guy whose words and actions had zero consequences: www.404media.co/charlie-kirk...

A key example of why "beware reflexive posting" and "waiting is okay" is good to think about is this...we've got a bunch of whirling discourse now. Responding with "Is this actually verified? What are the sources?" and "Targeting marginalized people is bad" is good to do! bsky.app/profile/thel...

when I started doing alt right research, the first thing that stood out to me was the cavalier/carnavalesque attitude toward political violence. it is very sad to see people on the left doing the same kind of minimization, even if I understand how desperate/helpless/angry we all rightfully feel.

I’m sorry, what reality-eating brainworm is this, Ezra Klein?

This is what's terrifying me today. I agree with everyone saying "they were gonna do what they wanna do" and that's true but they're gonna do what they can get away with and for reasons I don't understand, all signs so far point to Kirk's death being a free pass from a lot of people

The shooting of Charlie Kirk will have almost exclusively extremely negative consequences for American society in general, the stability of society in specific, and the safety of everyone living in it.