Month: June 2022

Bulletproof: What is a Woman?

Bulletproof: What is a Woman?

The other day, my partner (who is nonbinary) shared with me a video clip that was making the rounds on twitter. The clip is from the documentary “What Is a Woman,” by conservative youtube personality (some might say “grifter”) Matt Walsh, in which he interviews Dr. Patrick Grzanka, a professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality studies at the University of Tennessee. If you don’t know who Matt Walsh is, Dr. Grzanka didn’t either, and the segment begins somewhat innocuously. The professor seems under the impression that this is a good-faith interview and that his counterpart is genuinely curious to understand contemporary academic theories of gender identity. It is quickly apparent, however, that Walsh is there with an agenda, as he edits Grzanka’s in-depth response to the question “are sex and gender the same thing” into a montage that makes the professor appear to drone on and on without arriving at a simple answer to the question. As the conversation continues, the professor clues in to the fact that his counterpart is not there in good faith at all; the interview turns hostile, and unfolds as one might expect.

06/25/22

I decided it was time to take a short break from social media this weekend. There has simply been too much bad news lately and it has not had a good effect on my mental health. Part of the problem is I spend a great deal of time and effort to keep my mind occupied to avoid thinking about things I cannot change. (Not to mention all of the emotions which wash through my thoughts like a black tide seeking to suck me beneath the surface and drown me with hopelessness).

My habit of searching out ways to confirm all of the negative things the voices in my head whisper when the day grows too quiet does nothing to help and although I know this deep down, it is often impossible to stop myself from listening. I don’t know, maybe after so long living with all of the chaos in my head, I became addicted to the pain and I am too scared to find out what life might be like without it.

~Kira

Republicans want to let unsupportive parents sue doctors who treat their transgender children

The bill follows a Republican blatantly untrue narrative that children are being forced to transition against their will.

Republicans want to let unsupportive parents sue doctors who treat their transgender children

A group of Republican senators has introduced a bill that would deny federal funds to any gender-affirming medical care for transgender individuals. The bill would also allow anyone who received such care (and their parents) to sue the medical professionals who provided it. But the bill is based on a misleading and transphobic view of how gender-affirming care actually works.

The so-called “Protect Minors from Medical Malpractice Act of 2022” would give individuals who were given puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and surgical procedures — and their parents — up to 30 years after the age of 18 to sue the medical professionals who administered the care.

The bill would also make it so that neither federal dollars nor federal laws could compel medical practitioners to offer such care.

Far right groups shift focus to LBGTQ events. Their hateful aim hasn’t changed

Far right groups shift focus to LBGTQ events. Their hateful aim hasn’t changed

Two incidents in which far-right extremists targeted LGBTQ events earlier this month marked what appeared to be a shift in focus for white supremacist activists.

A group of men with ties to the white nationalist Patriot Front was arrested outside a Pride event in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. The same day, alleged members of the far-right Proud Boys crashed a children’s drag queen storytelling event and shouted homophobic and transphobic slurs, in what Alameda, Calif., sheriffs are now investigating as a possible hate crime.

Earlier iterations of Patriot Front and the Proud Boys were among the neo-Nazi factions who sought to intimidate the Charlottesville, Va., community at the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017.