Author: Kira

Becoming the person I was meant to be.

I Was a Trans Kid Once

I Was a Trans Kid Once

We should listen to young folks about their gender identity. The risks of not are far higher.

For the best possible outcomes, we should do everything we can to ensure that trans people feel comfortable coming out and transitioning as soon as they are able to understand their gender. This will make the lives of so many people inordinately easier at no real cost to society. Anything else is inhumane.

How to be a Socialist Transphobe (but still feel good about yourself)

How to be a Socialist Transphobe (but still feel good about yourself)

Dear Jen de Critique,
I am a committed socialist, and I hate prejudice of any kind: racism, homophobia, classism, sexism, ageism, ableism, you name it. However, I find trans people a bit yucky. Can you offer any advice about how to reconcile my pro-equality views with my feelings about trans people?
Yours sincerely,
Tribune of the People

Dear Tribune,
I’m glad you asked! Actually, I have lots of advice. So much, that I’ve divided it into a multi-point plan!

No, the Biden Administration Isn’t Betraying Its Support for LGBTQ Rights

The Department of Justice has a good reason for defending a religious exemption to Title IX.

No, the Biden Administration Isn’t Betraying Its Support for LGBTQ Rights

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice told a federal court that it intends to defend a federal law that allows private religious colleges and universities to discriminate against LGBTQ students. At first blush, the DOJ’s filing in Hunter v. Department of Education may seem surprising: President Joe Biden has, after all, promised to promote LGBTQ rights, including the rights to all students to receive an equal education. But the Biden administration’s move in Hunter should not be interpreted as a betrayal of these values. The Justice Department is not only following its general obligation to defend federal laws; it’s also trying to prevent a Christian organization from taking over the defense and mounting extreme arguments that could lead to a devastating subversion of civil rights law. Biden’s progressive supporters may be offended by the DOJ’s defense of discrimination, but the alternative is almost certainly worse.

Feminism, biological fundamentalism and the attack on trans rights

Feminism, biological fundamentalism and the attack on trans rights

Across Europe, the far Right is mobilizing around sexual difference and for the forced imposition of heterosexual norms by drawing on biological arguments to border the ‘other’. Whilst we are familiar with the ways in which the far Right have long organized against the racialized ‘foreigner’ through anti-migrant and Islamophobic rhetoric, we are now seeing the ‘othering’ of anyone who does not subscribe to the tenets of the heteronormative nuclear family. Issues around reproduction, sexual difference and the family are now a key political battleground. As trans rights in the UK come under attack from powerful government and media voices, as well as ‘gender critical’ feminists, Sophia Siddiqui warns of the multiple dangers ahead when/if we cede territory to far-right ideas on innate biological difference.