For me, the conversation about the leaked Health and Human Services memo indicating the Administration’s plans to deploy an anti-trans definition of gender across several federal agencies exposes key misunderstandings about trans people, legal systems, and resistance. If you’re interested in my take, you can listen to my interview on the Citations Needed podcast, or read the op-ed I published in Truthout the day after the memo was leaked, which is below. I also want to highly recommend this article by Christoph Hanssmann which helps put the idea of genetically testing gender into perspective, and this article by Gabriel Arkles that argues that anti-trans attacks also harm non-trans women and LGBQ people and knocks down religious liberty justifications for anti-trans reforms. Continue reading “How Should We Respond to the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Trans People?”
New Paris Knox Video for Survived and Punished
New Joan Little Video for Survived and Punished
New Marissa Alexander Video for Survived and Punished
The Ability to Live: What Trump’s Health Cuts Mean for People with Disabilities
My latest collaboration on disability justice: No Body Is Disposable
I’m so excited to share this new collaboration with Patty Berne and Stacey Milbern of Sins Invalid and Hope Dector of the Barnard Center for Research on Women, No Body Is Disposable: A Disability Justice Video Series.
Continue reading “My latest collaboration on disability justice: No Body Is Disposable”
My Latest Writing on Pinkwashing: The Right Wing Is Leveraging Trans Issues to Promote Militarism
I wrote this article on the dangerous ways the right is using trans people to promote right-wing security and military agendas alongside its violent backlash against trans people. Among these tactics is the Israeli government’s “Brand Israel” campaign developed over a decade ago to promote a positive public image of Israel, foment anti-Muslim racism, and distract from Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine and apartheid regime.
Excerpt: “[T]he use of a thin LGBT inclusion politics to make the Israeli or US military appear progressive is becoming a losing strategy. Resistance to pinkwashing is rising, and each controversy exposes new communities to the critique of this propaganda. A growing number of Jews in the US, especially young people, are becoming critical of Israel. The Movement for Black Lives has made its solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation clear, helping many people in the US see the connections between US and Israeli racism and state violence. Cross-movement organizing between Indigenous people in North America, including Water Protectors, and Palestine liberation activists is helping people see the links between US and Israel as settler-colonialism.”
Resist Pinkwashing in Seattle NOW!
Shockingly, shamefully, on April 5, the Seattle LGBTQ Commission is sponsoring an event organized by the zionist hate group StandWithUs that will feature a discussion with a trans IDF officer. You may recall that in 2012 we had a huge controversy in Seattle about a different StandWithUs and A Wider Bridge sponsored pinkwashing event with the same Commission. Below is the letter I have just sent to the Commissioners, urging them to cancel. I encourage you to write to them. Their email addresses are not publicly posted by you can send correspondence to the City staffer who coordinates the Commission, Erika.Pablo@seattle.gov.
Read my initial letter, the reply from the Seattle LGBTQ Commission, and my follow-up response below.
Reframing Faculty Criticisms of Student Activism
I wrote “Reframing Faculty Criticisms of Student Activism” in The Chronicle of Higher Education because I kept hearing the same kinds of criticisms of student activists over and over during the last few years. I hope it helps faculty reconsider some of the automatic responses to student activism that emerge.