An unprecedented number of trans people came out during lockdown. Then the GOP declared war on us all. — On my last normal day, I gave a reading in Manhattan. I had taken a train down into the city, and I was on a line-up with a few people, comedians and TV writers and authors. I remember hanging around backstage, before the show started, making nervous jokes and passing…

“Objectivity,” trans coverage, and one bit of media gossip I have been unable to get into any other piece. — There have been lots of discussions of transphobia in the media over the past few weeks. Where does it come from? What does it mean? When the New York Times publishes a series of misleading articles about trans people, sourcing its talking points from anti-trans organizations, and those articles are…

There is one person on Twitter who’s capable of overcoming transphobia, and it’s the gross feet lady. — It’s easy to succumb to hopelessness, in this business of posting. You spend all day sticking your face in the soup of bad news and worse takes, watching progress erode and situations deteriorate. Over time, you lose faith that things can improve. That’s how I felt, just two short days…

There’s an epidemic of “hopelessness” among teenage girls and LGBTQ+ youth. Brianna Ghey lived and died in the place where they overlap. — Here’s what is going to happen: I’m going to start talking, and together, we will see how far I can get into this essay — the one about the CDC study reporting record-high levels of trauma and despair among teen girls in the US; the study that came out just…

Straight parents treat queer kids like property. Queer people are forbidden to parent. Is there a world beyond the violence of family? — A memory: One day, when I was about four years old, my father broke into our apartment. My mother had run away from him. She had crossed several state lines in the process. Then he showed up: Banging through the screen door, screaming. In the memory, my mother reaches for…

Man has always sought to expand his horizons through technology. He has also sought to masturbate, and he is succeeding. — Greetings, computer users. It is I, the reclusive and hubristic tech billionaire played by Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina, here to discuss the technological developments of the day. Recently, I know, there have been a lot of worries about AI-generated imagery. Is it plagiarism? (Yes.) Will it replace human artists…

When I burned out at work, I tried doing things I was bad at. It worked. — Some time in 2019, I became sick of my own writing. This was an accomplishment, considering how much I normally love the sound of my own voice. I had been writing professionally for a decade; I had carved out a beat on “women’s issues”; I had made a name for…

Panics over detransitioners and the word “queer” show just how much we want life to be cut and dry. — I have been thinking a lot lately about categories. I’m reaching that point, three years after starting testosterone and a year or so after my first injection, where it’s not always certain which gender category I’m being placed in until the conversation is already underway. For instance: When I’m alone…

Joan of Arc, Pauli Murray, and the surprisingly long history of transmasculine saints. — Last year, I realized that if I want to keep learning, I’ve got to treat myself like I’m in school. I am obsessive by nature; my inclination is to keep gnawing away at one or two questions until I’ve either perfected a solution or ground the material to dust. If…