Nations across the globe have had to contend with Donald Trump and his unorthodox (I’m being very generous here) ways of governing the most powerful (although declining) country. Canada, in particular, has been especially tested by the menace south of its border. Francesco MacAllister-Caruso, a PhD candidate at Concordia University, makes a very important point […]
Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles announces closure of its gender clinic, one of the nation’s largest and most aggressive providers of gender-affirming care for minors, citing the potential loss of federal funding for the entire hospital. The clinic’s director, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, is a controversial figure who has drawn fire from critics for advocating immediate […]
Barbara J. Risman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago, makes a great point in her article for The Conversation: it’s not just trans people who are under attack by the Trump administration. Hate is being flung at anyone who doesn’t subscribe to traditional gender norms. In fact many trans people DO […]
Some interesting recent Pew polling found that about 6 in 10 LGBTQ+ adults believe there is an average or above average degree of social acceptance of gay and lesbian Americans, but only about 1 in 10 LGBTQ+ adults thought similarly regarding the degree of social acceptance of nonbinary and trans people. This is interesting research […]
It has long been known that the majority of youth who visited gender clinics, but did not ultimately transition, turn out to be gay or lesbian. Some LGB groups opposed to medicalization of gender dysphoric kids claim that internalized homophobia and the desire to pass as heterosexual are what drive many confused teens to want […]
Dear readers, take note that on May 20, 2025 Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline is available for purchase. This new work is a biography of beloved transcestor Marsha P. Johnson who was a prominent gay liberation activist and drag queen living in New York City in the 1960s and […]
In this MSNBC article Katelyn Burns describes the ongoing political manipulation of transgender individuals’ ability to serve in the U.S. military. Since the Supreme Court has recently decided to allow the transgender military service ban to take place, the Pentagon has claimed that it will move forward with discharging over 1,000 trans troops. Previous estimates […]
In response to an executive order by President Trump demanding a systematic review within 90 days, the Department of Health and Human Services released on May 1 a 409-page document reviewing the history and evidence surrounding medical treatment of minors with gender dysphoria. Given Trump’s politicization of the issue during the campaign and his subsequent […]
HARD COPY: High European court weighs in on definition of gender In her groundbreaking yet controversial book, The Second Sex (1949), French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir famously claimed that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Over the last 75 years there has been a wealth of interdisciplinary scholarship to support this […]
HARD COPY: Pronoun trouble John McWhorter is an esteemed professor of linguistics at Columbia University. His latest book PRONOUN TROUBLE: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words was released on April 1, 2025. In it McWhorter establishes pronouns as both historical and dynamic. Like language in general, McWhorter shows how pronouns are adaptable cultural […]
