This needs talking about so Celeste and I are gonna talk about it tomorrow. open.substack.com/pub/celestei...

We have also seen this logic play out before, from the Mattachine Society to '90s post AIDs "one of the good ones" gay to Tumblr ~2014 to The Atlantic et al's gleeful "groomer" rhetoric transphobia. We know how this ends. We are queer. We are not subordinates of white cis male purity culture.

I went to the Quinault Rainforest in the Olympic National Park this past weekend. And hiked the Maple Glade Trail. It is the kind of trail where every few steps reveal another quiet forest detail. The ferns and moss-covered trees were amazing. It felt like walking through a magical landscape.

Yes! The '90s and '00s are being sold to them as nostalgic simpler times. Just as Boomers get propaganda of the John Wayne variety, Gen Z gets sold on the aesthetic without getting how recent it is that being gay was very, very scary. Not rolling back protective legislation scary. Like no protection

"Vines and The Reformation Project are only strengthening the preconditions for their own eventual re-exclusion. The long term and historic tendency of boundaries is not that they expand but that they contract. Progress and liberation happen when boundaries are dismantled." 🗣️🔥

I don't know what Vines decided to attack LGBTQIA+ solidarity when we need it the most. But he did. I don't know if he knows the connotations of a cis gay man insisting on "gay not queer" for trans people—I pray he just wasn't aware. This is my response. open.substack.com/pub/billieis...

SCOTUS decided Dred Scott wrong too. And it was overturned. This will be as well, someday, and this court will go down in history as a shameful one.

Seriously, this was one of the biggest tells for me. That, and the fact that I was envious of trans people. That will also do it.

Sen. Chris Murphy: "Right now the biggest threat to this country are not a handful of House candidates in New York, it is the president of the United States who is trying to destroy American democracy."

UN rights chief: investigate deaths in ICE custody

🎼Don't be afraid. My love is stronger, my love is stronger than your fear. Don't be afraid. My love is stronger and I have promised, promised to be always near. #transinchurch

The city that Trump made infamous stood by its neighbors as the court opened the door to mass expulsions.

We have evolved beyond the need for Matthew Vines and collaborator theology. Queer liberation or nothing.

oh god not the vines discourse again 😭

If you haven't read this series and the comments where we directly said he is wrong MONTHS ago... These are well worth your time.

My response to Matthew Vines on the subject of queer theology. Part 1 open.substack.com/pub/billieis...

If they'd brought half this energy to fighting MAGA they wouldn't be in this situation.

Cucumbers

#SpreadLove @conductress.bsky.social

This is probably one of the most touching and also devastating things I saw at Pride this year. Just a bunch of central casting dads playing catch with whoever wants to. After a bit they offer your choice of high five, hand-shake, fist bump, or hug. Beautiful but devastating that it means so much.

“Scots discovering tailgating” could be a real Prometheus stealing fire moment

genuinely speechless here.

❤️🔥

🎼We long to know her, bold thunder of heaven: voice among voices that summon the soul; ... We know her laughter is piercing the cosmos; we know she judges Injustice on earth. Shelter and shield of the hopeless and helpless, from her we learn of our infinite worth. #transinchurch #PrideSunday

Is this post pore scandalous to Evangelicals because it is so queer or because I am wearing a cross body bag? @jenniferknapp.bsky.social have you worked out which one irritates them more?

Happy Pride! Queerness is a blessing! God is thrilled that you are queer.

RFK Jr and HHS claim puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans youth - treatments that have been known, used, and studied for decades - need to be banned because the evidence base isn't strong enough. But sedating babies with ketamine to inject them with stem cells? Perfectly acceptable.

❤️❤️❤️

Free Speech Champion(tm) Bari Weiss demanding CBS News smear an American executed by her government for protesting bsky.app/profile/elio...

Bari Weiss was exactly like this on a smaller stage, as my editor when I wrote book reviews for the WSJ over a decade ago, constantly trying trying to inject her politics into my pieces, even post copy editing.

🎼As light breaks into rainbows to show the storm is past, when bread broke, the disciples could see the Lord at last. O Jesus, welcome welcome! The burning hearts were true; the bread and cup of blessing will make us one with you. #transinchurch

This is true, but just because you're a weirdo outlier who pays attention, it doesn't mean what you know and the opinions you form based off of what you know don't matter. In the game of telephone, people who understand what's going on are like the first speaker.

This is a good read. EMCA resonances re: glossing etc

New essay in which I show that, according to C.S. Lewis, transphobes' favorite question is a "tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" open.substack.com/pub/billieis...

North Baltimore Mennonite Church says Happy Pride tonight. Queerness is a Blessing.

Disgust in action. "Expel the [abnormal entity] from the vicinity to remain [clean]" is a primary motivating factor for people with larger sensitivities to disgust. You see this with more than just trans/queer people, but also with non-white people, disabled people, and often, women

congrats to jared polis once again

Happy Pride friends! Remember that you can never be too queer. Queerness is a blessing growing madcap out of every crack and frozen cornice of oppression, breaking it down and throwing it off.

Over the last hour I have become convinced that "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a profoundly Mercurial play and that probably doesn't mean a lot to you but it is going to be a major component of dropping a figurative bomb into C.S. Lewis scholarship.

New Jersey State Police push past barricades outside the Delaney Hall Detention Facility

And worth noting that the politicians say 'trans' because they can't say f****t, but their supporters hear f****t. Because fundamentally all of this is crippling gender-insecurity from a bunch of oversized manchildren - the worst thing they can imagine, their terror, is being called 'not a man.'

Hanging up on telemarketers who use my dead name is one of the little joys in life.

Tonight I am irrationally irritated that Hwyn is so often left out of people's analysis of female characters in C.S. Lewis. Justice for Hwyn.

Good Evening BlueSky! Let's notice who is alone this week and work to correct that. And Queerness is a blessing that magnifies the freedom and joy baked into the duty to honor and even delight in one another across difference; declaring blessed those the normative would call "other".

Good Afternoon BlueSky! Let's hold on to the memory and anticipation of sun and new life today. And Queerness blesses us with irrepressible grins and defiant dancing in the face of scowls and oppression.

Attention fellow Y2k high school graduates: I am pleased to report that high schools are *still* playing Vitamin C's Graduation Song for high school graduation ceremonies and senior nostalgia. It was ours before it was anyone elses and we have not be bested.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

Good Evening Bluesky! I hope you have had a day marked by deep love and personal connection. And Queerness blesses us with the reminder that deep Loves, both romantic and platonic, burn with defiance and joy even in the face of the fiercest scorn and oppression.

I'm drinking my coffee that my husband made me as I see this 💞

Good Morning BlueSky! Let's be grateful for coffee today and for the friends we are eager to see. And Queerness is a dazzling reminder of the singular beauties each person contains and can display. How blessed we are to live in a world peopled with such magnificence!