Are you looking for somewhere to start thinking about trans people? Transphobic ideas are bad ideas, so try these ideas instead.
Green birds are birds 5-min ⏰
I point this out because you asked.
Look at these bird friends. Both are green. They’re both birds! Neither is confused. Neither is upset. And your mind will really be blown when you realize—
Do we choose to be who we are? 3-min ⏰
And what, by the way, is choice?
if you can’t snap your fingers to change, how do you change? What do we ask people to do when we ask them to change? Why should anyone change?
How do we know who we are? 3-min ⏰
Do we learn it from a crystal ball—or from our guts?
How do others state with certainty that they know who they are? Do they have a crystal ball? Of course, we’re jealous. How can we know ourselves, too?
Gödel is sure Bach, and trans people are sure their gender 6-min ⏰⏰
Reflections on the Pulitzer-winning ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’ (1979)
Their objection is an infinite regress. They’re laying a trap. If we needed rules about rules about rules, none of us could ever use language at all.
Can an identity be true and not true? 3-min ⏰
On ‘constitutive tension’ in our concepts
Picking apart someone else’s identity? First ask: Why do you want to? What would be gained? And lost? What happens to your own identity in the process?
A philosopher discusses gender 6-min ⏰⏰
Transgressive by Rachel Anne Williams
Fabulous trans philosophy book by Rachel Anne Williams. Trans people can be men, women, or something else, and no one should be subject to cis normativity.
On ‘Cistem Failure’ by Marquis Bey 8-min read ⏰⏰
Book #1 in my 2023 Trans Rights Readathon week
Marquis Bey says that cisgender is a “categorical ruse disingenuously hailing those who nevertheless do not and cannot sit comfortably within it.”
On ‘Transexualidades’ by Miquel Missé 4-min read ⏰
Book #2 in my Trans Rights Readathon week
Missé is interested in “transexualidad,” which operates along “various paradigms” and a “history full of conquests, paradoxes, myths and frustrations.”
Binary gender isn’t ‘natural,’ but we’re conditioned to believe it is 6-min ⏰⏰
Toward a new epistemology that recognizes sex and gender diversity
[Re: Yo soy el monstruo que os habla by Paul B. Preciado]
The epistemology of sex and racial difference is patriarchal and colonial. There is nothing wrong with existing on borders or rejecting categories.
It doesn’t matter if you’re ‘modern’ or ‘classic’ — or if you’re ‘artificial’ or ‘natural’ (DD)
On systems thinking (DMB)
Why LGBTQ rights matter
I won’t tell you who wrote this: Telling LGBTQ people what to do 10-min ⏰⏰
Human rights don’t ‘trickle-down’ 15-min ⏰⏰⏰
Nervous about sharing your uninformed opinion? Then don’t 8-min ⏰⏰
[Re: Michelle Goldberg, New York Times, January 2023]
Stay safe
How to get an automatic warning of transphobic websites and users (DD)
U.S. House Oversight Committee hearing on Anti-LGBTQI+ violence (Dec. 14, 2022) (DD)
Mitigating Political damage
3 Strategies to Fight Transphobia 6-min ⏰⏰
From ‘El terfismo en América Latina,’ an article in Volcánicas
Expose TERF connections to the Religious Right, multinational companies, neoliberal regimes & white supremacy. Give trans people platforms. Keep at it.
Not ‘trans ideology’ but ‘trans counterdiscourse’ (DD)
US trans people: Now (2022) is a good time to update your federal ID (DD)
Testosterone: In the US, it’s a Schedule 3 controlled substance (DD)
Two major federal actions against transgender rights in the US – Nov. 23, 2018 (DD)
Tucker Lieberman 