Only When It is Darkest Out Can You See the Stars
These are my summary notes from this excellent podcast from Andrea Pitzer on Next Comes What, "How We Survive This Mess." Pitzer previous wrote a history of concentration camps, One…
Trans
Can a Slingshot Down this Goliath?
I read Andreas Malm‘s book, How to Blow Up a Pipeline a few months ago, then watched the movie, and then was reminded of it all again by Abigail Thorn’s…
An Assault on Gender is an Assault on Democracy
Here’s Judith Butler on gender. She’s a prof in California who teaches literature, philosophy, and critical theory, and wrote, most famously, Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter. Abridged transcript of…
Ideology and Indoctination
We’ve got marches and rallies surfacing, sometimes right outside of schools, with people chanting, “Leave the kids alone” in order to put an end to “gender ideology.” What does this…
Trans Rights are Human Rights
The trans community isn’t safe in Canada, that’s why Pride month is necessary. And there’s no straight month because nobody has ever been discriminated against for being straight! Last week…
On Keeping Kids "Safe" From Pride
Student Trustee Kenzy Soror wrote an excellent, brief thread on the problem with parents keeping their children home because it’s pride day or month: “I take great concern with the…
Transphobia is the New Homophobia
Natalie Wynn, one of my favourite YouTubers, came out with a 2-hour long video, basically a feature-length film, her first in 10 months. This one is on J.K. Rowling, whom…
On Trans Shitposting and Cancel Culture: Applying ContraPoints to J.K. Rowling
I was going to just ignore all this, but it came up in a discussion on my social media feed, so here’s the thing: Here’s J.K. Rowling‘s now infamous post…
The bad faith “debate” about trans human rights
Recently, the National Post published a discussion that I engaged in with Jonathan Kay. I participated in that because it was an opportunity to provide a counterpoint for readers who…
The Conscience Chronicles
UPDATE: As this was being readied for posting, the Standing Committee on Private Bills and Private Members’ Public Bills voted to recommend that Bill 207 not move forward in its…
On Maintaining Firm Categories: Do Labels Matter?
This link about people on the spectrum came to my FB feed as “Sponsored Content,” so I’m wary at the get go, but they present this argument to be addressed:…
On “Unalienable” Human Rights
Screen capture, launch of the Commission on Unalienable Rights On Monday, July 8th, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which is intended to…
Free Speech, When The “Debate” is You (and You’re Not Invited)
Shout: “Help, I’m being silenced!” There’s a duplicitous game of sleight-of-hand that is taking place in discussions about freedom of speech in academia and the public square. Here’s how it…
Gospel By Gaslight
If gaslighting is “a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own…
Trans* Human Rights Bill C-16: A Look Back
Although I’ll be remarking on the passing of Bill C-16 elsewhere, I wanted to post Bill Siksay’s closing speech from February 7, 2011, back when the bill was in its…
What the “Walk on the Wild Side” controversy says about trans* awareness and a changing social movement
A little over a week ago, a University of Guelph student union drew international ire for condemning Lou Reed’s 1972 song “Walk on the Wild Side” as transphobic. This occurred…
Pitting “identity politics” against class struggle is backwards, and the path to self-defeat
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the first things America’s political left would do during the 2016 election post-mortem is to attack minority groups like trans* people,…
Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect
In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first…
Canada’s forthcoming “drop your pants” trans* blood donation policy
In addition to reducing the required wait time between having sex and donating blood to one year for gay men, Canadian Blood Services is poised to release its first-ever guidance…
The Problem is Fundamentalism, Not Islam (or Christianity).
When I started my transition, the first troubles I had were with the tenants in my building, though the conflicts weren’t overt. Instead, it seemed as though I’d had the…