“People who believe so richly in the inherent goodness of whiteness that they believe empathy alone will grow the hearts of fascists are both hustlers and easily hustled.” - Hanif Abdurraqib, There’s Always This Year

Only one of these men sounds like he’s ever been near an Evangelical church before. Sincerely wish that Klein would have someone like Jen Hatmaker on, to disabuse him of this notion that no one on “our” side is having difficult conversations in Evangelical churches www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/o...

Hard to choose just one quote from this piercingly articulate essay: www.bostonreview.net/articles/wha...

The irony of two people who both profess to worship a crucified Christ complaining about ”culture of victimhood.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/o...

“There is no state or federal law that prohibits instruction on gender identity in college classes.“ This sentence is essential. They aren’t even bothering to pass laws now. The SB17 law in Texas specifically exempts instruction! They are just making things up and calling it law.

This morning I was supposed to be giving a keynote address for #SRP2025 — but instead laid up at home after blowing out my knee. Perhaps it’s fitting to be prescribed opiate painkillers on a day I was supposed to be talking about the genetics of substance use disorders?

“I’m emotionally shellshocked right now,” said one professor in the Texas Tech system. “What does it say about academic freedom? It says we don’t have it.” The professor spoke by phone from the inside of a car to avoid being overheard by colleagues. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

“On Friday, a Hays County judge ruled that a fired Texas State University (TXST) professor will be reinstated to his job while his lawsuit against the school proceeds, according to the professor’s attorney.” 👏✊🙌

A brief history of the birth control movement that acknowledges Sanger’s ties to eugenics while affirming the necessity of birth control to improve maternal health, & connects that history to current problems faced by people he wants to represent, & promises material help for that problem!

“Drawing on feminist rhetorical theory and histories of evangelicalism in the US, 'I Grew Up in the Church' argues that these writers model alternatives to the conservative politics, rhetorics of certainty and combat, and rigid gender roles that have been hallmarks of the movement.“ Ordered!

An excellent essay on the necessary function of shame in liberal society, from @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

I have been saying this for years: There is nothing inherently progressive about emphasizing environmental causes over genetic ones. Bad speculation about environmental causes can also be dangerous. I wish, though, that the current administration hadn’t illustrated my point so spectacularly.

if the recent entwined rise of MAHA & Christian nationalism have you wondering how fundamentalist Christian ideas about sin & blame shape attitudes about genetics, mental illness, and psychological differences, I have a book recommendation for you:

Under pressure from Texas government officials, Angelo State University in Texas is banning all discussion or mention of the existence of trans people along with banning the LGBTQ pride flag from campus and forced misgendering of trans people. conchoobserver.com/2025/09/19/a...

As a progressive & ex-Evangelical, I would LOVE to tour evangelical churches and talk with (genuinely talk with, not use as fodder for YouTube gotcha videos) church members. Unfortunately, evangelical churches don’t allow women to teach men.

President of Texas A&M resigns. This is the second Texas A&M President chased out of College Station in two years as a result of right wing politicians and activists attacks on academic freedom. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...

You know things are rough when the AAUP's advice on how to use social media is just "set all your accounts to private."

Melissa Hortman practiced politics the right way.

I agree but this case is even worse: it appears that the detailed course description* explicitly mentions that it will explore how gender and sexuality are depicted in YA literature. *As the reddit poster mentions, there's some confusion and possible misreporting of which course she's teaching.

“Students shouldn’t be exposed to ideas that expand or run counter to their preconceived notions about a topic (unless they are specifically mentioned in the 25 word course catalog entry)” is a helluva argument from a university president

A top 50 US university yesterday fired an instructor, a department chair, and a dean because a course made some reference to transgender people without the brief official course description in the catalog saying “trigger warning: gender.” In conclusion, those intolerant lefty kids, cancel culture.

what happens in Texas never stays in Texas — this is a preview of what is coming for everyone

Texas A&M University System orders audit of all courses after gender identity lesson goes viral Details: bit.ly/42jauQZ

Hear me out: a dark academia murder book that opens at a department beginning-of-the-year celebration on a boat (I know a department that does this) and a professor goes overboard. The intrepid department chair must figure out who did it. Everyone is a suspect, including the chair herself.

I wrote about James Dobson, psychoanalytic theories of the effects of corporal punishment, the Christian-Nietzschean horseshoe, and growing up Evangelical in the 1990s: open.substack.com/pub/kathrynp...

I debated writing this. It can feel tempting, upon encountering yet another instance of this administration’s racism, to let it be. How many ways can you say the same thing over and over again? And yet we have to write it down, if for nothing else, so those who come after us know we were against it.

🚨ACTION OF THE DAY🚨 @standupforscience.bsky.social Day 21! QUACK-O-GRAM THURSDAY! For $3 we will hand deliver an "IMPEACH THE QUACK" rubber ducky to your House Representative! (By one of our team members in a duck suit!) DO IT (AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS) act.standupforscience.net/fundraising/...

#JamesDobson encouraged millions to hit their children, & rationalized mass incarceration by comparing the carceral state to a good parent who hits their child out of love. He was a lifelong propagandist for punishment. I hope his last realization was that no afterlife reward was waiting for him.

I wrote about the Don't Die biohackers who want to live forever, Viviana Zelizer's sociological history of the life insurance industry, and Ira, the cute nurse who fixed my grandmother's IV at 1 AM: open.substack.com/pub/kathrynp...

my academic pet peeve is when people say "Broadly, I am interested in ... " in their research statements and then go on to list the most niche topics ever

If you have 3 kids in 3 schools with 3 different start and end times, and you share custody so 2 kids are with you only half the days of the week, and 1 has an extracurricular activity that begins at 6:45 AM 3 days a week, how do you solve for not losing your sanity?

Any discussion of embryo selection should probably start with the description of IVF in this piece, to at least be connected to some aspect of tangiable reality.

I wrote about my recent experiences taking care of my 3-year-old, Sheila Heti's "Motherhood", and the discourse around polygenic embryo selection: kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com/p/openness-t...

🌟🌟🌟 We are hiring! My group is looking to recruit a postdoc interested in genomic and epigenomic studies of child development. Start date flexible; one-year contract with option to renew. utaustin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UTstaff/job/...

this thing reads like a parody: "educators that promoted Marxism, class warfare propaganda, and other anti-American ideologies in the classroom" www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Here’s my top line overview:

I wrote another book & I'm very excited (& nervous) for it to be released into the world: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/714593...

Happy 10th anniversary to this piece from @theonion.com which was horribly prescient: "I’m going to keep riding this fascination, this little fixation you have with me as far as you’ll take me." theonion.com/admit-it-you...

I got page proofs for my new book today— it’s surreal and exciting to see this page

went to my very first city council meeting last night — to give a public comment in opposition to some asshat who wants to build private tennis courts in the floodplain — and wow wow did it feel amazing to do something local in person with my neighbors rather than just be mad on the internet

We have been finalizing cover designs for the US and UK editions of my new book, and I cannot wait to show everyone

"What is the essence of knowledge?" is an actual question we just received from reviewer #4. Sir, this is a GWAS

I'm giving a talk at an upcoming conference, and the organizers just requested my "walk-up song to be played as you take the stage." My modest proposal is that we make this a standard part of all academic conferences, like baseball players coming up to bat -- I want to see what y'all would pick!

It's a distinction from @kph3k.bsky.social's Genetic Lottery. I used it before even without talking about genetics; it catches a lot of the misconceptions that student have about what it means to call something a cause. Those misconceptions also led to a blog post: www.the100.ci/2024/06/26/s...

Immensely proud of @laraffington.bsky.social!

Y’all, I wrote a book! www.amazon.com/Science-Seco...

Extremely excited to share the first effort of the Revived Genomics of Personality Consortium: A highly-powered, comprehensive GWAS of the Big Five personality traits in 1.14 million participants from 46 cohorts. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New paper with @paulhufe.net Astrid Sandsør and Nicolai Borgen 📝 Causal evidence for gene-environment interaction based on: 🧬 Exogenous within-family genetic differences 🏫 Exogenous variation in school value added

first day of summer vacation, and my 10 year old invited her best neighborhood friend over. found them silently reading their books, side-by-side in the kitchen, with snacks, and I’m glad she’s discovered the ideal relationship so early in life

This is VERY big genetics & health news, Regeneron (Pharmaceutical company with v strong genetics in medicine arm) is going to buy 23andme. investor.regeneron.com/news-release...