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A lot of the time, when I think about queer theory and queer advancements, about trans identity and trans rights, I think about a quote from John Adams. If you don’t know the quote, it’s the one that starts: “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.” And within two generations, his grandchildren have the liberty to study porcelain.

Now, there’s a lot of stuff to unpack in the original quote, and I’m not going to do that, because that’s not the point of what I’m talking about tonight.

Every time that I struggle with my own dysphoria, with finding centeredness as someone who couldn’t come out as non-binary until I was in my 30s, after struggling with it for a decade and a half, I think about my daughter.

I think about my daughter who got to come out at 15.

I think about the conversations she gets to have with her peers about gender identity, about sexuality, about the intersection between her autistic identity and her gender identity, between her Jewish identity and her sexuality, & these convos are so far beyond my teen years.

We didn’t have the language to discuss so much of this two, three decades ago. We were doing very different work at the time. And there were things we had to leave behind in order to get to where we are now.

I’m not always sure we made the right decisions, but I studied politics and war so that my daughter may study mathematics and philosophy. She has the language to speak about her experiences in a way I didn’t have at her age. She came out at fifteen.

Sometimes, that’s all I’ve got, and I have to be okay with that.

We still must study war and politics, don’t get me wrong, bc our community is threatened constantly – but it is my hope that the war and politics I studied in this metaphor lets my metaphorical queer descendants have a little more peace than I had in my childhood.

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We finally did it, y’all! We’re married 💍

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did I ever tell yall I used to think charlie chaplin was a drag king. for like three years straight

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Can't believe the New Yorker is making cartoons about color theory.

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reminder that 30 isn’t old, it’s very normal to not accomplish everything in your 20s, and that it is never too late to learn that thing you’ve always wanted to learn. you’re always growing. that’s a good thing. 

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they should swirl . unencumbered and free

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Had the funniest experience earlier of my swiftie coworker putting the new white girl breakup songs™️ album on the speaker at work and the moment she left the room long enough for her phone to disconnect from Bluetooth our older coworker immediately put on 10 hours of relaxing tibetan flute music instead and we all collectively sighed in relief

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rip Tumblr live 😔

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behold my masterpiece

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People are passing food and water through the gates to the Columbia University Gaza Encampment protesters.

Columbia has completely shut down access to campus to try to starve the encampment.

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Be careful of Asexuals y'all, I heard they aren't fucking around

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Man, i love looking at classified government documents

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lesbian orc bars would be crazy

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If you can’t imagine a middle ground between seeing trans men as “just cis women” and seeing trans men as “exactly like cis men in every way”, you still have work to do.

Trans men are men just as much as cis men are, absolutely. We also have different experiences from them because we’re trans: different relationships with gender, different understandings of manhood and womanhood, different positions under the patriarchy, different experiences with childhood and manhood and masculinity and oppression.

We’re not any less men for being trans, but we are different from cis men by virtue of being trans.

That’s why statements like “trans men are men, which means if you try to differentiate trans men’s experiences from cis men’s, you’re saying they aren’t actually men” don’t make any actual sense. Why do we need to be like cis men in order to be men? Why is the only legitimate kind of manhood you can conceptualize the cis kind?

Cis manhood is not the gold standard of manhood, and insisting that the only way trans men can be men is by adhering to what cis manhood is- is ultimately transphobic. Our experiences with transphobia, misogyny, and our unique position under the patriarchy do not make us any less men.

Beat that into your heads: cis manhood is not the gold standard of manhood. Erasing trans men’s experiences does not “validate” our genders, because cis male experiences are not the standard to which every man must adhere.

(Specifying trans men rather than all transmascs, bc many nonbinary transmascs might relate to this, but not all transmascs actually want to be seen as men in the first place.)

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in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense that macklemore would happily release a free palestine song that is AS balls-out anticapitalist and antiimperialist as it is, considering in 2011 he won a grammy with a song all about being poor and spending your money wisely while still being cool and looking fresh, bemoaning blind consumption.

it was a small domino to start with, sure, but the trail is there.