🎶 It’s the most wonderful time of the year 🎶

For @electricliterature.com, my co-editor and I spotlit eight fascinating and/or thoroughly enjoyable books about reality TV, including those by: @emilynussbaum.bsky.social, @samanthaallen.bsky.social, @lydiaetc.bsky.social, @djlindee.bsky.social and more! electricliterature.com/8-thought-pr...

me sleeping seven hours vs. me sleeping six hours and 42 minutes

I have an essay in this and I would love if you bought it and then read my essay and then told me you liked it.

NEW: The Department of Education announced Monday it has opened a Title IX investigation into Smith College over the school’s trans-inclusive acceptance policy. The investigation marks an escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict and regulate trans people in higher education.

There are a lot of positives to the current era of creator-led online writing (anyone can have a Substack and make money from it! Be your own boss!) but the deterioration of more traditional outlets and losing that guidance and mentorship piece is a huge loss for longterm quality and creativity.

This story is so wild. I know Democratic primaries get heated but insisting that your trans opponent deadname herself (!) feels like one of those clear bright lines I’ve heard so much about.

NEW: In the Democratic primary for Michigan’s 2nd House District, former representative Frank Liberati filed a complaint alleging his opponent Joanna Whaley violated campaign law by not listing her deadname on her application for the ballot— even though Whaley has indeed legally changed her name.

In Defense of “Sock” Contrary to viral internet claims, nonbinary people still exist. But the jokes aren’t helping.

Close enough. Welcome back, Black Swan.

Dermatologist’s new patient paperwork had a “sex assigned at birth” M/F checkbox, no other sex/gender field, and then a *preferred* pronouns fill-in. Baffling. Couldn’t tell whether it was just clunky or some kind of 301-level transphobia?

If you live in Los Angeles, please join me and my coeditor and our incredible LA-based contributors for our launch party for the Bachelor anthology on May 6, 7pm, at The Hoxton in DTLA!

I will never return to Twitter cadence for your sake and mine, but I would like to post on here slightly more often. Hello, I’m Samantha! You may know me as the author of the following four books, the last of which is available for pre-order, or as the managing editor of @them.us, a gay website. 👋

Tim Heidecker Wants to Make Infowars the Premier Destination for Trans Comedy

Commentary: You Can’t Even Watch A Movie Anymore Without Seeing Some Theme Explored https://theonion.com/you-cant-even-watch-a-movie-anymore-without-seeing-some-theme-explored/

Trying to imagine reading this sentence to myself a decade ago.

We are out of rainbow trucker hats. I repeat: We have sold out of rainbow InfoWars trucker hats. (We'll restock them. But you can still buy the union-made shirts.)

will never rebuild my twitter follower count on any new platforms as i am simply no longer that mentally ill

Love wins.

I don't recall any previous transformative technologies that had to be sold to the public so hard. No one in 1999 was going, "Guys. Cell phone? It's coming, whether we like it or not. I think it's important, FOR WOMEN ESPECIALLY, to learn about cell phone. So that we're not left behind!!"

One day we’ll arrive at the most perfectly absurd Mad Libs headline. This is close, but we can do better.

my final essay for Conde-era Them is about Animorphs, a series I have probably thought about every single day since 1998. please enjoy

‘Animorphs’ Has Always Been About Anti-Fascist Shapeshifters

no one is doing it like jd vance, a loser across three continents in a single weekend

they Gallade paradise and put up a parking lot www.them.us/story/a-tran...

When you have published a book, a lot of people will ask for tips. Mine has always been: “If you want to write a book, you have to write it.” I am not an amazing author. But I do sit down for hours at a time and force words onto paper. That’s it. There’s no substitute or shortcut for that process.

“It is beneath my dignity to let myself be run over by any trolley, and particularly this trolley, burdened as it is by a cape and a stupid hat.” I wrote for Defector about boycotting Harry Potter, the ‘safe’, kindly face of anti-trans politics: defector.com/its-time-to-...

A Pantheon of Heterosexual Excellence in Media, According to Gay People

It's real: Michael Clayton is on the Criterion Channel.

"You might say that I’m just somebody who’s focused on what’s really important: Not remembering anything but my feelings and being convinced that I am the arbiter of the human experience because I am the only one who continually exists."

if you don’t like the process of writing then don’t be a fucking writer, it’s not that complicated

TRANSGENDER VISIBILITY FACTS transgender people are capable of displaying 16.7 million colors - TRUE 24-BIT DISPLAY every transgender person has full HDMI and HDR support if you encounter a transgender pro, you can also obtain full 8k transgender visuals

Happy #TransDayofVisibility! These are a handful of the many trans books that have made my life better in recent years. In them, trans characters get to be all the things cis characters have ever gotten to be, and that's the world I want to live in. Mom hugs going to all who need them today.🌈📚💙

It's so disheartening to me that a writer would do this. If you don't want to write, don't be a writer! Seriously. There are many other options.

“The train does not care where you come from or where you are going. The train does not care who sleeps in your bunk. The train only cares about one thing: The next stop.” @samanthaallen.bsky.social in a glorious ode to trains in Them www.them.us/story/amtrak...

I guess boycotting Harry Potter feels pretty trivial to me, because I'm an adult. if someone told me I shouldn't eat Gerber's baby food, I'd be like, that is no problem. I'm way ahead of you

There is no ethical consumption of HBO’s Harry Potter series

I wrote something about the train and I would love if you read it. www.them.us/story/amtrak...

yeah im bummed about sora. bummed i sora bunch of stupid fake videos

We will have to change our lives permanently because of the sea changes AI will cause in society. You'll have to remember that everything American Tech Does Is Adopted By The World Forever. Which is why we all own VR goggles

the LLM use in writing is so funny to me because no one has to be a writer and actually it is pretty hard to make it as a writer so the writing itself must be its own reward. if you can't enjoy it, you shouldn't do it! no one is making you!

the new changes to the green card lottery are bad, but some of the claims that spread online last week were more conjecture than analysis. I talked with Malita Picasso from @aclu.org's LGBTQ & HIV Project to see which was which:

ahahaha i missed this last week. thanks for the shoutout @them.us / @samanthaallen.bsky.social www.them.us/story/leon-s...

Profiled T Kira Madden for ELLE! Read not only for WHIDBEY BTS, but also for a true example of what committing to this writing life can look like—and how freaking fun it can be amidst all the hard work. www.elle.com/culture/book...

This cheeky riff on A Midsummer Night’s Dream from Samantha Allen drops Puck, here reimagined as a nonbinary reality TV producer, into a friend’s wedding week, where they can’t resist their professionally honed urge to meddle. It’s a delight. @zandoprojects.bsky.social

Mainstream America: We are obsessed with Heated Rivalry and Drag Race. We love them and can't get enough. American Democrat politicians: LGBT people are not culturally normal. We will not speak of them.

In Uncertain Times, We Can All Agree on Leon S. Kennedy

The Great Queer TV Character Smackdown: Rue vs. Smithers