 |
| Movers carrying boxes. Image source. |
A few years ago, when my husband and I were moving to a new apartment, we heard about a moving service that said they would do everything for you. You don't have to do anything at all. You don't have to pack or do anything. They do it.
My first thought was "that's not possible."
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. How to Make a Great Government Website (2024, via) "First is the required interview. Most of the time it’s a phone call. Often they’ll call from a blocked number. They’ll send you a notice of when your interview is scheduled for, but this notice will sometimes arrive after the actual date of the interview."
2. Beauty and the Beast - How bad was A.I.D.S.? (October 10, via) 56-minute video. It's a queer reading of "Beauty and the Beast," as is overlaps with what was going on with the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s.
3. AI Slop Is Destroying The Internet (October 7) 12-minute video from Kurzgesagt.
4. This post about Copilot in Excel getting a simple sum wrong. Apparently it's because the prompt didn't actually include any info about what cells the data was in. The AI doesn't give an error message or anything, so there's no way the user would have known that.
I haven't ever used Copilot in Excel so maybe I'm missing some key thing, but, uh... my reaction is, excel formulas update when you change the data, but if I'm using an AI for something that matters, I would need to carefully check the output. Having a human pay attention to the output every time it changes seems incompatible with having things update automatically (which is one of Excel's biggest strengths).
Doesn't seem great if every formula in every cell of your excel sheet has a mind of its own and you can't rely on them being right.
5. U.S. measles cases continue to climb, with outbreaks across the country (October 12) "Before widespread vaccination, pretty much everyone got measles in childhood. And 400-500 people in the U.S. used to die from it each year."
6. Hamas releases 20 remaining living Israeli hostages after two years in Gaza (October 13, via) "Parents were reunited with sons and children with fathers as those held were handed over to the Red Cross before finally rejoining their families with the help of the Israeli army."
7. Taylor Swift - The Fate of Ophelia (Official Music Video) (October 6) I like this song~
8. Michigan Republican pushing pornography ban linked to porn site, records show (October 7, via) So it was discovered that Schriver, a politician who's been trying to ban porn, used to have an account on a site with sex webcams and the like.
I'm posting this because people are calling it out as obvious hypocrisy, but I think it's a little more complicated than that. In conservative Christian culture, porn is seen as this evil bad thing that all men are naturally drawn to. If they don't have good enough self-control and/or restrictions on their computer, all men would go and make an account on a porn site. A lot of talk about how so many men are "struggling" with porn use, "addicted" to porn, how it's such a bad thing but they're all tangled up in it because it's so tempting.
It makes perfect sense to me that a lot of these conservative lawmakers supporting "porn bans" are men who have been part of this "struggling with porn" subculture- partly interested in it and partly repressing themselves and feeling so much shame- they try to make laws to ban it as a way to fight against their own "porn addiction"- as a way to show God that even though they keep failing in their resolution to not use porn, on some level they really are trying to fight it.
9. The Supreme Court’s First Blockbuster Case This Term Looks Pretty Fake (October 6, via) "And I think, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with bringing a test case. If someone’s rights are really at stake and they haven’t faced punishment yet—but they fear that they will—it’s legitimate for that person to sue. But what ADF does is really finesse the facts, often to the point of fiction, to justify creating a test case that the Supreme Court can use to change the law."
---
Links related to the antichrist:
1. No Kings is on Saturday, October 18. Go out and protest if you can.
2. Chicago and the Horrors of Carte Blanche (October 4) "Authorities seized people first, without probable cause, treating merely living in the same complex as suspected undocumented migrants as a crime."
Also from Jay Kuo: The Hunger Games (October 3) "After all, why should the Democrats agree to keep the government open for another seven weeks to negotiate a “budget” if the White House can later refuse to honor it? What’s to stop the OMB from doing exactly the same thing with New York City transit funds and blue state energy projects even after a budget is passed and signed into law?"
3. Van Nuys car wash owner files $50M claim over injuries sustained during immigration raid (September 26) "Shouhed says he was terrified as he tried to explain to the agents that his employees were authorized to be on the job, yet he says they took at least five of his employees away in handcuffs. He says he screamed that he is a United States citizen and had proof in his wallet, but he says they did not listen."
4. 'I'm done being afraid': How the shutdown has led federal workers to speak out (October 10) "They say the best organizer is a bad boss, and we all have the same bad boss."
5. ‘Bring her back’: Delaware abuse victim rescued from ICE deportation (October 13, via) "Before agents rummaged through her home, Isabela demanded they show her an arrest warrant. They refused and broke down her door anyway, injuring her son with the doorknob as they barged in."
6. “I Don’t Want to Be Here Anymore”: They Tried to Self-Deport, Then Got Stranded in Trump’s America (October 10, via) "ProPublica spoke with more than a dozen Venezuelans who said they wanted to take the U.S. government’s offer of a safe and easy return. They signed up months ago on the CBP Home app and were given departure dates. But after those dates came and went, these immigrants said they feel betrayed by what the president told them."
7. MIT Rejects Trump’s Bid to Institute Trans Bathroom, Athletics Ban (October 11)
8. Multiple airports refuse to play Kristi Noem video that blames Democrats for government shutdown (October 13)
9. This frog protester in Portland, from this link: Everyone Is Pointing Out This 1 Reason Why The Anti-ICE Inflatable Frogs In Portland May Be The Best Protesters (October 14)
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. California considers allowing doctors to prescribe abortion drugs anonymously (September 10) "Now, as legal attacks against telehealth providers put shield laws to the test, some states have moved to strengthen the laws by allowing providers to prescribe anonymously, reducing their risk of legal or individual harassment."
2. This. Sudoku. Is. Insane. (September 11) 1-hour-35-minute sudoku solve video. This is one of those puzzles where you have to think about number theory for a while before you can place one single digit in the grid- my favorite kind! Also it has one giant arrow that squiggles around to every square- I have never seen an arrow like this.
3. America’s "Nones" aren’t as godless as you think (September 4) "While a lot of this isn’t surprising to those of us who have followed these surveys over the years, it still shows how U.S. Nones are not a cohesive bloc of secular thinkers but rather a fragmented coalition, many of whom still cling to spiritual or supernatural ideas."
Also from Friendly Atheist: Oklahoma's meaningless "America First" teacher test is just a PragerU ad campaign (September 3) "Here’s the thing about this “test”: It doesn’t matter what you answer. You’re literally unable to fail it. If you’re wrong on a question, you’re forced to keep guessing until you pick the answer they want you to pick."
4. Edelweiss from The Sound of Music (Official HD Video) My little toddler loves this song. She makes a little flower shape with her hands when she wants me to sing it. It's the sweetest thing.
---
Links related to the antichrist:
1. Senior Democrat says Pentagon didn’t present conclusive evidence alleged drug smugglers killed in strike were gang members (September 12) I've posted links about this before, but here's another one. This is really serious. So the US government can just claim that anybody is a "drug smuggler" without evidence, and murder them, that's what we're doing now?
2. SCOTUS conservatives OK Trump admin's racial profiling of Latinos in low-wage jobs (September 9) "Kavanaugh’s opinion, concurring with the order granting the stay, continues like that throughout its 10 pages. It was at varying points racist, ignorant, privileged, lawless, or some combination of the four."
3. RFK Jr.'s MAHA report on children's health leaves something out: nicotine (September 14)
4. DOJ Reportedly Uses Anti-Trans Slur In Call To Disarm Trans Americans (September 9) "A Department of Justice official said they were considering “banning guns for transgenders” and used an anti-trans slur."
Also from Erin in the Morning: We Must Not Posthumously Sanitize Charlie Kirk's Hateful Life (September 12) "Quickly, political figures and pundits rushed to denounce the killing, as they should. But some went further, valorizing and lionizing a man who built his career on contempt of people he viewed as lesser."
And: Boston Children’s Fights Back For Trans Kids: Judge Quashes Trump Subpoena (September 14) "In fact, Joun found, federal officials failed to provide 'any support' at all that the information sought pertained to allegations of fraud 'as opposed to the Government’s stated goal of ending GAC.'"
Hi all, I'm on vacation, but here are some links
---
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021) "First, the good news: there are hundreds of studies on whether X causes Y. The bad news? We need to throw most of them out."
2. John MacArthur, dead fundamentalist (July 22)
3. OZZY OSBOURNE - "Crazy Train" (Official Video) I seem to remember I used to play this song in Guitar Hero. (Posting this because, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal, dies aged 76 (July 22))
4. The NSFW game purge (July 24) "If a conservative group can apply pressure to remove certain NSFW games, what’s to stop them from removing, say, LGBT content? I am here to tell you that it has already happened."
Also from Siggy: Journal Club: Demography of Asexuality and Aromanticism (July 24) "We’re happy to see that this article is far more willing than most scholarly articles to cite gray literature, including blog posts, tumblr posts, livestreams, and YouTube videos."
5. His name is Mohammad Al-Motawaq. He is 18 months old. And he is starving in Gaza (July 27)
6. Get ready, Brazil. The 'good mosquitoes' are coming (July 26) "Remarkably, this bacteria and the virus that causes dengue are unable to coexist inside the mosquito that transmits this disease."
7. Freakier Friday | Official Trailer | In Theaters August 8 (June 7) !!!! A "Freaky Friday" sequel that has Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan again! Very excited about this!
---
Links related to the antichrist:
1. The Gloves Are Off | "I Absolutely Love That Colbert Got Fired" | Trump & Epstein's Wonderful Secret (July 22)
And from npr: This was the week that comedy pushed back (July 27)
2. From Joy To Justice (July 22) "Before I dive in, a special thanks to all of the lawyers, journalists, activists, Congress members and ordinary citizens who did not let this story go and never relented, applying constant pressure upon our government to undo its original illegal renditions. Whatever post-hoc reason the government gives today for its actions, we all know that the 252 men sent to CECOT would still be there were it not for the hard work of so many."
And from npr: 'Hell on Earth': Venezuelans deported to El Salvador mega-prison tell of brutal abuse (July 27)
And: Ex-marine convicted of killing three people released to US in prisoner swap (July 23) What! So is he just free in the US or what? I haven't found any reporting on whether they're just letting him go free or what's going on.
3. We Need to Talk About Pedocon Theory (July 22) I had some opinions about this article, maybe I will try to blog about it if I have time. I want to say, in Christian "sexual purity" ideology, I have *definitely* come across the idea that the ideal case would be girls who are around 15 years old, right at the point where they've started having their period and are therefore able to get pregnant, getting married to adult men who are well-established financially. It's a pretty fringe idea, and I haven't met anyone in real life who was seriously advocating this, but I have seen the idea floated and it's totally consistent with the logic of purity culture, which says that the MOST IMPORTANT THING about sex and marriage is that you need to not have sex outside of marriage (oh and also, the husband has to be the leader). Other concerns, like actually treating each other right, are nice to have, but the main thing is DON'T HAVE SEX till that ring is on your finger.
(See my posts All of the LOLs for this Sermon on "Marrying Young" and Why Marriage as a Private Contract is a Bad Idea and Roy Moore Dating Teenage Girls "For Their Purity" is 100% Logical in Purity Land)
I never thought of that as pedophilia, but wow, it totally is.
4. US-funded contraceptives for poor nations to be burned in France, sources say (July 25) "One of the sources with knowledge of the issue said that the Trump administration was acting in accordance with the Mexico City policy, an anti-abortion pact in which Trump reinstated U.S. participation in January. The pact forbids the U.S. government from contributing to or working with organisations providing funding or supplies that offer access to abortions."
5. Fearing coverage could change, some parents rush to vaccinate their kids (July 25) How will I explain RFK to my children
6. PEPFAR escaped the rescission ax. But where does it stand? (July 26) "Since its founding, PEPFAR has put more than $120 billion into combatting the virus in more than 50 countries. The result of all that money and effort, it says, is clear, citing accomplishments that are widely accepted: 26 million lives saved, a plummeting of HIV infection rates and a rebounding of life expectancy, especially in Africa."
7. Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients’ personal data, including addresses, to ICE (July 28) "Many people sign up for emergency Medicaid in their most desperate moments, said Hannah Katch, a previous adviser at CMS during the Biden administration. 'It’s unthinkable that CMS would violate the trust of Medicaid enrollees in this way,' Katch said."
 |
| Travelers wearing face masks. Image source. |
Here's another quote from the book "The Case for Open Borders". This part is talking about the idea that we can't have open borders because there's a risk of immigrants bringing disease into the country. From pages 135-136:
One form of nonhuman migration that's an obvious concern is disease. Certain dangers do undeniably exist, as evidenced by Europeans bringing smallpox to the Americas, or Rome spreading malaria to the outer regions of its empire. But migrants today are less threatening pathogenic vectors than are trade or international business.
Take the US-Mexico border. About 350 million people cross it every year, the vast majority of them local residents going about their daily lives: businesspersons, as well as tourists and the curious, all browsing la frontera. The number of migrants who cross the US-Mexico border varies by year, but it's typically less than one million. For the majority of the COVID-19 pandemic, standard cross-border traffic was not shut down along the US-Mexico border, but migrants and asylum seekers were barred from crossing, even when infection rates plummeted. Scientifically, the discriminatory cordon sanitaire made zero sense. To keep a disease behind a border would require a shutdown of the entire capitalist system, not just attempts to stop asylum seekers.
Yeah, when people talk about how we need to restrict immigration because of the risk of disease, they're not talking about rich people's business trips and vacations. They're talking about undocumented people. Even though in sheer numbers, the rich people with business trips and vacations have a much bigger effect.
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. SCOTUS Allows For Trans Discrimination In Medical Care: A Full Analysis Of Today's Ruling (June 18) "The ruling effectively greenlights medical care bans across the country and may pave the way for broader restrictions, including for adults, while leaving lower court rulings on bathrooms, schools, sports, and employment remain intact—for now."
Really not good for trans kids. We have to keep doing what we can to support them.
And from Law Dork: Where is the outrage over Skrmetti? (June 20) "In its U.S. v. Skrmetti ruling, the Supreme Court’s Republican appointees shaved off the edges — if not more central parts — of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in order to uphold laws that bar an exceptionally small number of teens from receiving a type of medical care that only one group of teens need."
The reasoning in this Supreme Court decision is about how the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applies (or doesn't apply) to trans people. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor draws comparisons with the Loving vs Virginia case, where the Supreme Court ruled that states could not ban interracial marriage. I guess in the Skrmetti case, the majority opinion said that both trans and cis children cannot get treatment for gender dysphoria, so it's not discrimination. And this is like how the argument to ban interracial marriage was that people of every race are equally not allowed to marry outside of their race, so it's not discrimination. And the Skrmetti decision is really opening the door to a skewed interpretation of the equal protection clause, which could lead to rights being eroded in so many other areas.
I'm literally in an interracial marriage, but I never thought about "hey my marriage is about the 14th amendment" or anything along those lines. Learning about Loving vs Virginia in high school, it felt like ancient history, like of course people can marry a partner of a different race, why would that be an issue, aren't we glad we don't have those racist laws like they did back then. When I got married, I didn't think about "some of my ancestors thought this shouldn't be legal" or anything like that- it never occurred to me that anyone would think there would be a legal issue.
BUT ALSO I grew up evangelical and so back then I totally bought into all the anti-queer stuff, like we can't let gay people get married, we can't let trans people have rights, etc. We usually didn't talk about the details about how you turn that into an actual legal argument, but apparently one argument that was being used in court was "both straight and gay people aren't allowed to marry a same-sex partner, so it's not discrimination."
ANYWAY my point is, I should read more about the equal protection clause. It turns out to be related to a lot of things.
Also related to Skrmetti: After Getting The Ruling It Wanted, New York Times Publishes 6 Anti-Trans Articles (June 20) "In all, at least half a dozen articles have been published by the Times in the 24 hours following the ruling—ink still drying—spreading misinformation, shaming transgender people, and giving prominent space to voices that seek to strip us of our rights."
2. Baby of brain-dead Georgia woman on life support delivered via C-section (June 17) Not sure what to say about this- if I died and was pregnant, I would want them to continue the life support to save the baby. But the key thing is, it should be the family's choice. This case is horrific because it was forced on this family by faraway politicians and heartless laws.
3. The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it (2016, via) "The result of a media — and education system — that fails to present quantitative information on long-run developments is that most people are very ignorant about global development and have little hope that progress against serious problems is even possible."
4. HIV prevention drug hailed as a 'breakthrough' gets FDA approval (June 18)
5. The Meta AI App Lets You ‘Discover’ People’s Bizarrely Personal Chats (June 12, via) "It’s unclear whether the users of the app are aware that their conversations with Meta’s AI are public or which users are trolling the platform after news outlets began reporting on it. The conversations are not public by default; users have to choose to share them."
---
Links related to the antichrist:
1. Federal Judge Grants Class Status To Trans People In Passport Case In Massive Win (June 18) "According to preliminary conversations with expert attorneys, whether transgender people should submit a passport update request immediately depends on their risk tolerance and individual circumstances. A motion to stay the ruling could come within days. Those most likely to benefit from applying immediately are individuals with incorrect gender markers, those seeking their first passport, or those with expired documents who need to travel soon. Expedited processing may increase the likelihood of receiving a passport before any potential appellate or Supreme Court intervention."
2. FULL SPEECH: Sen. Padilla speaks on Senate floor after removal from DHS press conference (June 18) 14-minute video. "If that is what the administration is willing to do to a United States senator for having the authority to simply ask a question, imagine what they'll do to any American who dares to speak up."
3. Trump administration cuts specialized suicide prevention service for LGBTQ+ youth (June 18) "'This is devastating, to say the least,' Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, said in a statement. The Trevor Project is one of several nonprofits administering the services. 'The administration's decision to remove a bipartisan, evidence-based service that has effectively supported a high-risk group of young people through their darkest moments is incomprehensible.'"
So, now would be a good time to donate to The Trevor Project.
4. Trump administration actions contradict MAHA rhetoric on toxic chemicals (June 18) Oh, so it turns out, when RFK said we have to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals in the environment that are harmful to children, he didn't mean it like 'let's actually fund the scientists who are doing good work studying which chemicals are harmful.' He meant it like 'here are some words that we will use as an excuse to be mean to autistic children.'
5. The ABA Declares War (June 18, via) "The American Bar Association (ABA) just dropped a massive federal lawsuit against the White House. And it’s not messing around. The lead counsel filing suit on behalf of the ABA is Susman Godfrey, one of the firms Trump targeted. The complaint names the Office of the President, but for good measure, it also names each and every high level government department along with every cabinet official."
6. Federal immigration agents asked to leave Dodger Stadium parking lot, team says (June 20) "Dozens of federal agents with their faces covered arrived in SUVs and cargo vans to a lot near the stadium’s Gate E entrance. A group of protesters carrying signs against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started amassing shortly after, local media reported."
7. ‘Code Adam’ (June 19) "That video shows Villareal, wearing his blue Walmart vest, approaching the agents and asking them questions. That video shows the agents mobbing him, throwing him to the ground, and hauling him away."
 |
| A parking pass sitting on a therapist's couch, saying, "I dunno, doc, I guess I'm just always waiting for someone else to validate me." Image source. |
Trying to organize my thoughts about what exactly therapy *is*.
For most of my life, I have conceptualized therapy like this: The purpose of therapy is to become normal. There are 2 types of people in the world: normal people and messed-up people. Very binary. If you find that your emotional difficulties are so bad that you start to think "maybe it's because I'm one of the messed-up people," you should get yourself to therapy real quick and get yourself fixed, to be normal. Better do it right away, before anyone notices that you're a messed-up person- because messed-up people deserve to be mocked by normal people.
(Don't take this as me being mean and judging other people- I'm talking about this because it's how I saw myself, when I was in middle school going to therapy for the first time.)
Basically, it was the idea that the world is fine just the way it is, and you should be fine with it. If you are having emotional difficulties with the state of the world, that's a *you* problem, and you need to get yourself straightened out behind closed doors so that your weirdness doesn't bother any normal people.
Sometimes I would hear people say "I used to have [some really bad psychological issue which was interfering with life]. But then I went to therapy, and now, well, I still [kind of have this problem to a lesser extent], it's not totally gone, but now it's manageable because I have learned how to [whatever they learned in therapy]." I interpreted this to mean that the goal of the therapy was that they would "become normal," ie, not have that problem at all any more, but that the therapy was only partly successful- perhaps because whatever variety of "messed-up" they are is incurable, perhaps because they didn't work hard enough in therapy to "get over it." I took it to mean that, even though the therapy didn't totally "work," they are trying to put a positive spin on it- at least they are able to handle life better than they used to, even though they're still not a "normal person."
And also, I thought therapists had inscrutable methods that clients weren't really supposed to understand- you just trust the therapist and go along with whatever they want you to do. I thought that if I knew the "big picture," if I knew the "strategy" that the therapist was using to address my issues, that would sort of "spoil" it. Like it wouldn't work if I had an understanding of the overall plan- I should simply experience it in the moment as it happens to me.
These are the assumptions I had about what therapy is, what the purpose is- nobody ever really explicitly spelled it out like this, but that's what I thought it was.
But now I think, maybe it's more like this: There aren't "normal people" and "messed-up people." Everyone has difficulties in their life, everyone has feelings, everyone has healthy or unhealthy ways they deal with their problems and feelings. It's a spectrum, not a binary. And there could be a large variety of reasons why you might have more difficulty with something that other people do- related to your personality, experiences you've had in the past, etc- none of that means you're a "messed-up" person and you should be embarrassed- it just means that's how your own specific circumstances happened to overlap. For other people, they overlap differently.
And therapy is about learning tools and strategies to be more emotionally healthy. Maybe other people- "normal" people- don't seem to need that, because the strategies they already have are working okay for their circumstances- but if you need more help, there's nothing wrong with that.
It's not about becoming a "normal person." It's not about trying to get you back to this baseline of being like everybody else- NO ONE is like everyone else. It's about taking where you are as a starting point and working from there. What would be helpful to you, where you are right now? The goal is not to have the same emotional response as a "normal person" would. The goal is to manage your emotions such that you're able to live your life in a healthy way. What that looks like for you could be very different from how it looks for other people.
It's not about getting all your weirdnesses "fixed" behind closed doors so nobody ever realizes you're not "normal." It's about learning how to live in a reasonable and healthy way while still being a person who has/ had/ is susceptible to those "weirdnesses." (Because *everybody* has "weirdnesses" like that to some extent.) Maybe that means you avoid certain situations. Maybe it's about how you communicate your feelings and needs to other people. Maybe it's about being aware of your thought patterns. Etc.
The way I see it now is, you are in charge of your own life, your own body, your own health. Therapy can be a useful tool to help you move your life in the direction that you want to go. It's not the therapist being in charge of you and telling you what to do and what's right for your life- it's you making the decisions, deciding what your own goals are, and choosing to use the therapist's services if you feel that would be helpful.
And about diagnoses- I don't think there's an "absolute truth" about whether you "have" or "don't have" various psychological conditions. Life is full of raw data, the experiences and feelings we have every day, and there's not one "correct" way to summarize that raw data into a useful model of how your brain works. But it can be helpful to put labels on this, in order to understand and communicate your feelings better, and to find useful information about what strategies have been helpful for other people. I'm thinking of labels like "autism" or "depression," based on my own experiences- but this idea that there's not an "absolute truth" and you are allowed to use a label if it's helpful for you, comes from my experiences in the queer community.
As for whether I should know the big picture, or if I'm just a helpless person that therapy happens to- well, if I see a therapist again in the future, I would definitely talk to them about their overall strategy. I want to understand how it's supposed to work, what the therapist thinks the goal is, etc.
What do they teach in therapist school? I want to know.
---
Related
I Figured Out What The 1-10 Pain Scale Is Actually About
Doctors (part 3 of Autism & Teaching Kids to Protect Themselves)
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. One Last Time, Discord Is Not A Suitable Replacement For Forums (May 12, via) "Discord, meanwhile, is a river that never stops running. It has some forum-like features, sure, and a search bar, but its conversations are supposed to take place in real time, which is fantastic for people who are around and talking at the same time, but far less useful for anyone coming around later. Like, say, those with tech support issues, which make up a huge percentage of video game community posts."
---
 |
| Political cartoon which shows Nixon saying "I'm not a crook" and Trump saying "I'm a crook, so what." Image source. |
Links related to the antichrist:
1. First of all, if you're American, make sure you contact your senator and tell them to vote against the Republican budget bill. Calling on the phone is best, but if you have phone anxiety you can email them- search for your senator's web site and look for a "contact" page.2. Here's some good news- a few weeks ago, I linked to an article about how funding for the Women's Health Initiative had been cancelled. I just found out that this decision was reversed: In a reversal, the Trump administration restores funding for women's health study (April 25)
So be loud, protest, tell the government what you think. It does make a difference.
3. Trump’s Lie About Dead “White Farmers” Just Got Even More Grotesque (May 24) "But there’s another ugly irony here that shouldn’t pass unnoticed: The Trump administration has suspended foreign aid to Congo and the resettlement of refugees from that nation, thus abandoning countless victims of the very same real-life humanitarian catastrophe that he’s cherry-picking imagery from to portray an atrocity against whites that isn’t actually happening."
4. Federal judge blocks immigration authorities from revoking international students’ legal status (May 23) "The order by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in Oakland bars the government from arresting, incarcerating or moving students elsewhere based on their legal status until the case is resolved." This is about the international students across the country whose legal status was suddenly terminated for unclear reasons.
It's a separate issue from what's going on with Harvard. Here's a link about that: Trump again blasts Harvard over international students as judge blocks revocation (May 25) "Trump's latest attack against Harvard comes two days after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the administration from being able to revoke the university's ability to enroll international students."
5. The Greatness Paradox (May 26) "And yet, every day we see Trump tear down the things that have made America great: scientific excellence, the rule of law, trade, alliances, our open society, and the soft power that comes from the attractiveness of our vision. How does that make any sense? Is it just hypocrisy? Is “greatness” just a buzzword to exploit? A false banner for the gullible to flock behind?"
6. When the abuse of power is assumed (May 26) "That’s the weird bit. What does it matter if Trump — the guy who personally and arbitrarily created this problem with his weird and dumb tariff hobby — says mean things about you in late-night posts on his personal social media platform? How could that possibly be meaningful enough to weigh against the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars that would come from “eating” his tariffs and selling a third of your inventory at a loss?"
7. With Tariffs Paused, China’s Holiday Goods Hub Races to Fill Orders (May 27) "To reach U.S. shelves in time for Halloween and Christmas, goods must leave China by July, giving factories just a few weeks to restart production, clear backlogs, and move inventory before tariffs potentially return." An article about what's going on with the tariffs, from the perspective of Chinese retailers.
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. We Need to Remember Problems We Solved (May 14, via) "The pesticide DDT caused birds that eat fish that eat bugs to have thin eggshells, and the birds’ nests failed. It took a lot of science and journalism and public outrage, but we banned DDT and the eagles are back."
2. Famine imminent in Gaza if Israel doesn’t lift blockade, hunger monitor warns (May 12, via) "'Families in Gaza are starving while the food they need is sitting at the border,' said Cindy McCain, executive director of the WFP."
3. Quigley's Village Preview - Cooperation Yeah this is the song "Build It" from a Christian children's video series I used to watch 30-some years ago and it's very catchy, I like it.
4. Help spread the word about We Hunted the Mammoth! (May 12) The blog "We Hunted the Mammoth" took a break for a few months but now it's back to regular posting.
5. ‘We tried to save those kids’: Texas doctor watched children die of measles. Now it’s back in Texas (May 14) About a doctor's experience in the 1960's in Chile, treating kids who had measles- and it was so bad. The good news is, we have a vaccine for measles now. Everyone, vaccinate your kids.
6. Texas Bans Being Different Around Children (May 13) From the Onion (parody news site)
---
Links related to the antichrist:
1. Capitol Police arrest 26 as Medicaid activists interrupt committee (May 13) "'I think hopefully everyone understands that these demonstrations, these people feel very strongly because they know they’re losing their health care and the cruelty that comes from the Republican proposal,' Pallone said."
2. Georgetown researcher released from immigration detention on federal judge's order (May 14) "Suri, who was never charged with a crime, was detained at the Texas facility for two months, following his arrest by masked federal agents after he returned to his Virginia home on March 17."
3. RFK Jr. says people shouldn't take his medical advice when asked about vaccines at hearing (May 14) Okay first of all, I agree with all the witty people on the internet who said "wow I agree with RFK Jr on something!"
Second of all, what is the mindset behind "don't take advice from me"? It feels like he's trying to create this atmosphere where everyone can have their own opinion on vaccines and/or whatever kind of pseudo-scientific crap is being promoted, and that's fine, there are no right answers, everyone's opinion is equally valid. Uh, that is very much NOT how reality works. Talking about these real scientific facts with an air of 'well we can't possibly know one way or the other' is really harmful.
4. Trump Asks the Supreme Court for a “Catch Me if You Can” System of Justice (May 16) "'Your argument seems to turn our justice system, in my view at least, into a ‘catch me if you can’ kind of regime from the standpoint of the executive, where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights,' Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told Solicitor General John Sauer. 'I don’t understand how that is remotely consistent with the rule of law.'"
So the Supreme Court is hearing arguments about the birthright citizenship executive order. But the weird thing is, they're not talking about birthright citizenship itself- the felon's executive order is so blatantly unconstitutional that no one is even trying to discuss that. Instead, the felon's lawyers are making this about whether courts can issue universal injunctions to block an executive order from being applied nationwide. Their argument is that the courts can't do that- they can only say the executive order doesn't apply to the people who are part of the specific case before the court.
So their argument is, the president can issue illegal unconstitutional orders that apply to everyone, but courts (except the Supreme Court) can't put a stop to those orders which applies to everyone.
5. Justice for Kseniia Petrova (May 16) "I say “political prisoners” because that is precisely what they’ve now become. Petrova, Abrego GarcÃa, and others are being held for purely political reasons, by or at the request of the U.S. government. It’s not because they’ve committed any actual crimes or are in any way deserving of the treatment they are receiving. Rather, it’s because the administration wants to telegraph strength and cruelty, just like any other fascist regime."
6. SCOTUS, in a 7-2 vote, blocks AEA removals from northern Texas during litigation (May 17) "'Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,' the court stated bluntly." Good news.
7. Turning Qatari 747 into Air Force One could cost $1 billion and take years, experts say (May 14) "The Qatari jumbo jet would have to be effectively dismantled, part by part, to ensure there were no listening devices, spyware or other security vulnerabilities that could allow foreign powers to eavesdrop on the president’s plane." Wow this sounds like a terrible idea.
8. The Video of Rumeysa Ozturk Being Detained by ICE Was Publicized By a Community Defense Network (April 30) "The hotline team dispatched “verifiers” in Somerville — people trained to verify hotline calls and social media rumors of ICE’s presence in a given area — who arrived within five minutes. They met with the caller, who was unsure who had taken Ozturk. The volunteers began knocking on doors and talking to neighbors, trying to find out if anyone might have information on what had happened, and also to calm any panic by giving out information about the hotline. A neighbor turned over the video, reportedly captured by a home security camera, that has now been seen by millions."
Also from Teen Vogue: Know Your Rights: Here's How to Defend Immigrants Against the Most Common ICE Tactics and Unconstitutional Actions (March 6) A video series about knowing your rights, and what to do if ICE agents come to your home.
9. Where's Plumpy'Nut? A lifesaving food for malnourished kids is caught up in U.S. cuts (April 25) I heard about "Plumpy'Nut" years ago- I'm glad to find out it's really effective for treating kids with severe malnutrition. Unfortunately, Elon Musk.
Links not related to that felon:
1. Machine-Generated Garbage Hall of Shame (via) Oh cool, a roundup of posts about LLMs being used to create garbage.
And: I'm a Spotless Giraffe. (2023) "It's not just that the training sets simply don't have examples of people who look like me. It's that the system is now explicitly engineered to resist imagining me. …Hey, is now a good a time to mention that in an effort to create a welcoming and inclusive community for all users, the Midjourney Community Guidelines consider deformed bodies a form of gore, and thus forbidden?"
2. ‘I was scared to even eat the vegetables in my fridge’: the eating disorder that focuses on food purity (May 2, via) "'I remember asking myself why everything was so hard,' she says. 'Why aren’t other people following the same food rules? Why don’t they care about their health as much as I do?'"
---
Links related to that felon:
1. 'We Don't Do Kings': Mass Protests Planned to Counter Trump's Birthday Military Parade (May 6)
2. With ICE Out of Control, How Can the US Cohost the 2026 World Cup? (March 31) "Given that ICE is being used as a masked abduction force, and given “border czar” Tom Homan’s contempt for the courts, it is unconscionable to encourage people to visit this country."
3. USDA chief says agency is trying to fill key jobs after paying 15,000 to leave (May 7)
4. Judge orders release of Columbia student protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi (April 30) "'I'm saying it clear and loud to President [Donald] Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you,' Mahdawi said after he was freed, local public radio station Vermont Public reported."
5. Many Afghans living in the U.S. fear being tortured or killed if they get deported (May 7) "'I have … a threatening letter,' Qattali said. 'If I go back, like, 100% they're going to kill me and my family as well.'"
I just... why? Why would these MAGAs want to deport Afghan people, who helped the US and are now just living their lives and not making any trouble? It reads like they just want to deport as big of a number of people as possible, so they're casting about for any way they can make the number bigger.
6. Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk freed from immigration detention (May 9) "And that was three weeks ago, and there has been no evidence introduced by the government other than the op-ed. That literally is the case. There is no evidence here."
This is good news- but she is still in the process of fighting against the government revoking her visa- she is still at risk of being deported. But the good news is she doesn't have to be in jail during this process.
7. Trump & Deportations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (May 5)
8. Roundup: Experts Condemn Trump Pseudoscientific Anti-Trans "Report" (May 9) "'AAP was not consulted in the development of this report, yet our policy and intentions behind our recommendations were cited throughout in inaccurate and misleading ways,' she said."
"Start a blog," they said. "It'll be fun," they said.
Now here I am 13 years later, staying up late every night to round up links about the fascist goings-on in my country.
---
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. How the House’s requirement to prove US citizenship could affect the ability to register to vote (April 11) !!!! The SAVE Act has passed the House and will go to the Senate. Contact your senators and tell them to vote against this!!!!!!! This could take away my right to vote. I'm already registered from previous years, and supposedly these new requirements would just be for new registrations- but states sometimes remove people from the voting rolls, who would then have to re-register. *IN PERSON* Which I cannot do since I'm living in China.
2. AI-Generated Slop Is Already In Your Public Library (February 4, via) "The book, which consists mostly of recipes and includes a disclaimer that the author and publisher 'are not experts in the discussed topics,' didn’t include any dangerous information as far as I could tell, but appears to be AI-generated based on its stilted prose and formatting, consisting of summaries broken up with bolded subheadings common in outputs from LLMs like ChatGPT."
3. Congestion Pricing is a Policy Miracle (March 20, via) "First and foremost, congestion pricing has been stunningly effective at reducing traffic in Manhattan and the bridges/tunnels entering the city."
4. This wild new instrument brings a dinosaur back to life (March 10, via) "The instrument, which takes the form of an accurate, life-sized dinosaur skull, allows human musicians to recreate possible dinosaur vocalizations by blowing into a mouthpiece." This is so cool! But, we shouldn't understand this as "this *is* what dinosaurs sounded like"- instead, this is a plausible reconstruction of what this dinosaur sounded like. At many points in the process there's some guesswork.
5. 17 Montana Republicans Cross Party Lines, Defeat Anti-Trans Bill After Nonbinary Rep's Speech (April 9) "It makes no exception for care obtained legally out of state—simply bringing prescribed medication across state lines could render a Montana parent a felon. The bill also does not limit enforcement to Montana residents; even a parent visiting Glacier National Park or Yellowstone with their transgender child could face felony charges for carrying estrogen, testosterone, or puberty blockers."
6. Trans Athletes: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (April 7) "It is not just about denying trans women the right to play. It's about denying them the right to exist."
7. 23andMe Bankrupt! Should You Delete Your Genetic Data? (April 2)
---
Links related to the antichrist:
1. Shakedown, breakdown, takedown (April 7) "This is, as numerous observers have said, no different than if you refused to buy anything at the supermarket until the supermarket agreed to buy an equal or greater number of things from you."
2. Deporting veterans betrays America’s promise (April 7, via) "Like many other deported veterans, I was stripped of my home, family, and the nation I swore an oath to defend. I spent over a decade south of the border, advocating for other deported veterans while enduring the pain of being cast aside by the country I once served."
3. ‘A Path of Perfect Lawlessness’ (April 7) "The Supreme Court is about to decide whether the Trump administration can exile Americans to a gulag overseas and then leave them there."
4. The She Made Him Do It Theory of Everything (February 26, via) "Behind these stories is the assumption that some people matter more than other people, and that we who matter less have to pander to those who matter more – conservatives when they are imagined as straight, as white, as male, as rural, as salt of the earth, as the real Americans, unlike us ethnic/ immigrant/ urban/ non-male/ non-straight people."
5. Attorney representing a student protester detained by federal immigration agents (April 9) "And it's setting a terrifying precedent if government agents can target a lawyer at the border. What's stopping them from doing it to anyone who dares to speak out?"
6. 'We love them': Small N.Y. town embraces a family freed from immigration detention (April 8) This is great news! But... what now? This family is still undocumented (as far as I know), and ICE knows where they live. I'm confused about how they've been released, if they're undocumented. It's great news, but I'm still worried about them, and about all the other immigrants in the US...
7. AP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its journalists (April 9) "'For anyone who thinks The Associated Press’ lawsuit against President Trump’s White House is about the name of a body of water, think bigger,' Julie Pace, the AP’s executive editor, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. 'It’s really about whether the government can control what you say.'"
8. Supreme Court says Trump officials should help return wrongly deported Maryland man (April 10) Good news! But also, I fully expect these MAGAs to come up with all kinds of excuses for why they "can't."
9. Homeland Security agents attempted to enter 2 LAUSD schools. Here's what families should know (April 10) "The principals of each school denied the agents entry and contacted the district’s legal department."
10. Utah colleges confirm dozens of international student visas terminated (April 9)
And: Visas revoked for students, graduates at multiple Texas universities amid deportation efforts (April 10)
Links not about that felon:
1. What does Islam have against sleep? (March 29) "Even if you go to bed right after Isha and wake up at the tail end of Fajr, you will get at the most 6 hours."
2. As measles cases rise, some parents become vaccine enthusiasts (March 30) Yessssss. Love vaccines. Love when my kids don't get measles. It's awesome.
3. ‘I Love Him’: A Suicide, a Student’s Diary, and a School’s Reckoning (March 28) [content note: sexual assault, suicide]
4. Fed'l court rules Alabama AG's threatened abortion-fund prosecutions unconstitutional (April 1) "In short, people seeking abortions that would be legal elsewhere can do so. Ultimately, he concluded, that right protects those who seek to help them as well."
5. 'Zero to Hero' (From Disney’s Hercules) | Sung by London's West End Muses 🎶✨ (March 7) Wow, love this!
---
Links about that felon:
1. Deported over a tattoo? Lawyer claims client is not a gang member (March 28) "DHS wants the public to believe these people are criminals and gang members. So if they have proof of that, why wouldn't they release it to the public?"
And: Trump administration admits Maryland man sent to El Salvador prison by mistake (April 1) "'If they're allowed to get away with this, then it means that the immigration laws are meaningless, all of them,' Sandoval-Moshenberg said."
2. Study: Black Lives Matter Protests Beat Trump (April 2) "So if you’re wondering if it makes any sense to go out and protest your fascist overlords, the answer is “absolutely, yes.” Do not listen to the doomers who tell you it’s too late, that there’s nothing you can do, that no one will listen, that you’re too extreme, or that you’re just encouraging people to go out and buy more Cybertrucks. Show up, meet your fellow activists, and agitate for change."
3. Cory Booker breaks a 68-year-old Senate record with a 25-hour speech (April 2) "Booker's speech took aim at President Trump, White House senior adviser Elon Musk and policies that he said show a 'complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution and the needs of the American people.'"
4. Top scientists warn that Trump policies are causing a 'climate of fear' in research (April 1) "'A climate of fear has descended on the research community,' the letter says. Researchers fearing for their jobs are 'removing their names from publications, abandoning studies, and rewriting grant proposals and papers to remove scientifically accurate terms (such as 'climate change') that agencies are flagging as objectionable.'"
Links not related to the antichrist:
1. New Fossil in China Pushes Bird Origins Back 20 Million Years (February 17) "The newly identified B. zhenghensis shares key features with modern birds, such as a short tail fused into a pygostyle, which typically supports the tail feathers." Cool!
2. Dua Lipa - Levitating Featuring DaBaby (Official Music Video) (2020) Just posting because I like the song.
I also like this song: Ed Sheeran - Shape of You (Official Music Video) (2017)
3. Sunday reading (February 16) "'All right, then, I’ll go to hell' — and tore it up."
4. Texas measles cases are up, and New Mexico now has an outbreak. Here’s what you need to know (February 19)
5. Archive Request (February 17) From xkcd.
6. I don't know if y'all have seen this video from 2010: Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration. It's an American revolution parody of the song "Apologize" and it's AMAZING.
---
 |
| Luke Skywalker says, "You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father." Obi-Wan says, "The rules were you guys weren't going to fact check." Image source. |
Links related to the antichrist:
1. Protests Erupt At Stonewall After Trump Removes Trans People From Monument Website (February 15)
Also from Erin in the Morning: More Hospitals Resume Trans Care After Trump's EO Temporarily Blocked In Court [AZ, VA] (February 20)
2. Thousands of people protest in Washington, D.C., and across the U.S. on Presidents Day (February 17) "In Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, thousands of people gathered at the Capitol Reflecting Pool chanting "Where is Congress?" and urging members of Congress to "do your job!" despite nearly 40-degree temperatures and 20-mile-per-hour wind gusts."
3. AP reporter and photographer barred from Air Force One over ‘Gulf of Mexico’ terminology dispute (February 16)
4. They Are a Minority (February 15) "Trump voters who are finding out in very tangible ways that Trump’s presidency is going to be materially bad for them."
5. Democracy is Crumbling. Is Anybody Doing Anything? (February 10, via) "But what I hear in the repeated insistence that “no one is doing anything” is the underlying belief that there is nothing that can be done. And this troubles me deeply."
This post is a good roundup of ways that people *are* fighting back, with some success, and ways that *you* can help.
6. Trump administration orders lawyers for vulnerable unaccompanied minors to stop their work (February 18, via) "'People like Thomas Homan state that they care about children and want to protect them from trafficking,' said Jonathan Ryan, an immigration attorney in San Antonio affected by the order, criticizing the Trump administration’s border czar. 'This lays bare the cynical lies he tells the American people. What he really wants to do is hurt children and separate families.'" This is horrifying.
 |
| Book cover for "Queer Conception" by Kristin L. Kali. |
I recently read the book "Queer Conception", by Kristin L. Kali (they/them). I liked this book because it was very practical and it was about how conception *actually* works. To have a pregnancy, you need a sperm and and egg and a person with a uterus to carry the pregnancy. Other concerns, like what gender everyone identifies as, and which people will take on the responsibility of being the child's parents, and how you feel about having sex... these things could be different for every situation.
---
Queer people need a different approach than cis heterosexual people
The systems in place to help people with assisted reproduction, like IVF, IUI, test strips for ovulation, etc, are designed for hetero couples struggling with infertility. The research and the guidelines given by doctors are all based on hetero couples struggling with infertility.
Obviously for queer people, the situation is totally different. Kali is a midwife who specifically works with queer families, and wrote this book to address queer people's needs. (And also single people who want to have a baby without a partner.)
---
This book is extremely practical
This book is literally a guide for how to actually do all these things. It's so incredibly practical. Here are a few areas it discussed:
Legal issues: If the child is not biologically related to the parent(s), this brings in legal issues where at some point, the legal system might decide that the biological parent has rights related to being the parent. You really need to think about all these things before you start the process.
I had wondered if perhaps, when a lesbian couple wants to have a child, maybe one of them can go have sex with a man 1 time and get a baby that way- no, don't do this, because then in legal terms, the random man is the child's father and has rights associated with that. Now, the lesbian couple could ask a friend to give them a sperm sample, and do the insemination themselves or with a doctor, without the sperm donor present (the book walks through a lot of details about how to do this)- from a legal perspective, getting pregnant in this way is a different thing than getting pregnant from intercourse. This is still risky from a legal perspective though, and many fertility clinics aren't willing to work with you if you have a known sperm donor.
Clear communication: If you decide to ask someone you know (like a friend or family member) to be a sperm donor, egg donor, or surrogate, you have to be really clear about what you are asking, and make sure you are not pressuring them. The book has very thorough advice on this. Send them a message saying "We want to have a baby, so we will need a sperm donor, you are one of the people we are considering asking, if you are interested in hearing more information about this, please let me know before the end of the month- if we don't hear from you, no worries, we won't ask you about it again." [This is my paraphrase- there is an example in the book which is longer than this.] Let them respond or not respond- don't put them in a position where they aren't really comfortable with it but they can't think of a way to say no so they feel like they have to go along with it.
And then, when discussing with the friend about potentially being a donor, you have to tell them, "You will not be the child's parent. You will not have a say in where the child lives, the child's education, etc." (If you want a donor who does have a say in how the child is raised, then actually you are looking for a co-parent, not a donor. Which is fine; that's also a valid family structure if that's what you want. But you need to make that clear from the beginning.) This sounds kinda harsh, but you don't want to get into ugly fights later because your donor believes they are the child's parent. If the potential donor is not okay with the arrangement, they should say no and not be a donor. (I mean, *I* would not be okay with it, so I am not willing to be a donor. Which is fine.)
So many concrete details about the biological aspects: If you have ovaries but are taking testosterone, how long will you need to stop taking testosterone so you can ovulate? If you are inseminating with a fresh sperm sample, how much time do you have to do it before the sperm die? (And what if it's a frozen sperm sample, how much time in this case?) If you are not the birthing parent but you want to breastfeed the baby, how do you induce lactation? (This is really cool- trans women can breastfeed if they follow this process.) And so on and so on.
---
Default roles vs choices
Because this book is so incredibly practical, it made me wonder, why am I reading this? I'm straight and cis and I'm married to a man, and I have 2 kids via getting pregnant the "normal" way (if you could say it's "normal" for an asexual to have PIV sex...). None of the advice in this book is for me.
But it made me think about how so much of my own path to having kids just kind of happened the "default" way, without anybody really perceiving much of it as a choice- whereas, most queer people who want to have kids have a whole lot of choices they have to make about how to go about it.
Let me make a bulleted list to show you what I mean.
So, as a cis person in a hetero marriage, when we decide "we want to have a baby now", we go forward with the assumption that these are our roles:
Mom:
But it's really beneficial to listen to queer people, because we learn that it doesn't have to be these exact roles. For queer families who don't have the "default" combination of egg/sperm/uterus, they have to make a bunch of decisions about all the little parts of these roles. Who will do what? Those are all decisions, not something they can just fall into automatically.
The interesting thing is... I guess I *did* make choices... like... when I decided to marry my husband, I wasn't thinking about "his genetics are good for making babies", but implicitly I was deciding that, right? The sections in this book about requirements for choosing a sperm donor or an egg donor made me uncomfortable because it feels unethical to judge some people's genetics as "better" than other people's... but in a way it's good that queer people have these options- really more options and choices than straight cis people who are just going along with the "normal" way to have babies. I chose my husband to be my husband and my kids' biological father, because that's normal- why would it be "unethical" to chose someone to be your partner, and then when you and your partner don't have the right combination to make a baby, you make a careful, intentional choice about getting someone else to be your sperm or egg donor? In both cases it's a choice, right? I think this is a valuable thing for straight people to think about.
(Like, I don't mean that a straight couple where both partners are fertile should literally go find someone else to be their sperm or egg donor. I mean, just being aware of all the *implicit* "default" choices that you make, as a cis straight person, when you chose to marry someone and have kids with them.)
---
What to tell the kid
The book discusses the question of how to tell the kid that their parent(s) aren't their biological parent(s). Basically, in heteronormative world, it's a big huge deal if the kid and parent aren't biologically related. It's like, a bad thing or a secret or a scandal, and people want to hide it from the kid, and worry about how the kid will feel... In the queer community, the situation is completely different. For queer families, it's totally normal that a kid is not biologically related to their parent(s), and it's not an issue at all.
---
About donors and surrogates
This is something I'm really curious about. Why would someone choose to be an egg donor, sperm donor, or surrogate? The book talks about donors giving a "gift" to another family- framing it as a really noble, loving thing to do, an act done by someone aware of the weighty realities of families who need help to conceive, and who wants to help in a significant, meaningful way.
I've never thought of it like that. Typically, I've seen the concept of egg donors or sperm donors in subplots on sitcoms... The characters need money, so they look into the process of donating eggs or sperm, and they're uncomfortable with the idea of having unknown biological children somewhere out there, but they want to just do it for the money and not think about that... and then in the end they decide not to do it, which is a relief to everyone.
I always thought of it like... you do it for the money, and hope nobody actually uses your eggs or sperm to make an actual child, because it's just too weird to have your biological child somewhere out there in the world.
But the way "Queer Conception" talks about it... it's a serious thing, not a joke on a sitcom, obviously, and I'm really curious to find out more. This is the kind of thing people do because they want to... it's not about just getting the money and then trying not to think about it ever again.
The book talked about how to evaluate donor profiles from an egg bank or sperm bank to choose the donor you want. To me this was a bit weird, because... shouldn't we treat everyone equally, and just let some random process decide for us? (Please note that I literally moved to China because I thought ideally people should be "objective" rather than biased toward living in a place that's familiar to them. I have since realized that actually my own cultural background does matter, and we shouldn't have a goal of being "objective" on a global scale.) But no, the book did not even entertain the question "is it ethical to judge people's genetics and choose one?" The book was all about how to choose, not if you should choose. Maybe I'm the only one with the weird idea that this might be ethically problematic? I mean... I agree that it *should* be a choice, but it took me a while to get to that conclusion, whereas maybe everybody else thinks that's obvious?
In particular, the book said white people probably shouldn't use a donor who is a person of color. Donors of color are underrepresented in sperm banks, so if you use their sample, you're taking away an opportunity for another family. (This was another example of how the book talked about sperm and egg donation like it actually matters, rather than just being a silly thing that sitcom characters do for money.) And if your whole family is white, you likely won't be able to meet the child's need to connect with their own race. (Kali says there may be a few exceptions to this advice- like if you already have a child of color, and so you want a sibling who is the same race.)
And I'm so curious about why someone would choose to be a surrogate. I totally hated being pregnant, but it was all worth it because now I have 2 amazing kids. But if I wasn't gonna get a kid out of it, no way in hell would I want to do that.
(I have heard of some women who like being pregnant. I guess they weren't throwing up every day like me.)
---
Looking at your own cervix
The book contains very detailed, practical instructions on how to pinpoint when exactly you ovulate. Apparently, if you look at the cervix, you will actually see that it looks different at different points in the cycle, and this is one of the most important indicators for figuring out when you ovulate.
The book describes, in extremely concrete, practical detail, how to use a mirror to look at your own cervix.
I feel like, wow. This is really useful information! Maybe some people would like to do this, to learn more about their own body, and some people might not be interested, but wow everyone who has a cervix should have access to this information!
I kind of had a reaction like it was weird, like only people who are really kinky or sexually adventurous would look at their own cervix. Like if you look at your own cervix, and people find out, they'll think you're a pervert who shouldn't be around children, or something. But, why? Why is it "normal" to let your (male) partner put his penis in there, but "weird" to look in there yourself to see what it looks like? Why do we have this idea, as a society, that someone else should have access to your body in a way that you yourself don't?
Anyway, if you have a cervix, and you're interested in looking at it, you totally can.
---
Everything is gender neutral
I was really impressed by the way this book was written in a completely gender-neutral way. It always talks about "the sperm donor", "the partner who is carrying the pregnancy", "the non-gestational parent", etc- it doesn't say "man", "woman", "mom", "dad", etc. Sometimes I had to take a minute to picture an example of what it was talking about (for example, if it talks about a situation where "you can carry a pregnancy conceived with your partner's egg", I might take a second to imagine what kind of configuration of genders that would be- like, that could be a lesbian couple. It could be other configurations too.)
The only part of the book I remember using words like "woman" was in the part that talked about how trans women do have the ability to breastfeed.
On my blog I don't write in this kind of gender-neutral way. My thinking is, I will use words like "women" and "moms" because I am talking about things that affect cis women rather than cis men, and I think it's important to make that obvious- but also use terms like "women and/or people who can get pregnant" because this doesn't *just* affect cis women.
But this book is explicitly for a queer audience, the kind of people who have to go to the ob-gyn office and all the walls are pink and it's just overwhelming how feminine everything is- it makes sense that this book is written completely gender-neutral.
---
Conclusion
I wanted to read this book because most pregnancy resources are overwhelmingly heteronormative and cisnormative. I feel it's really helpful to get a different perspective on how conception works. (The other pregnancy books I've read don't talk about conception much at all- it's assumed that that's the easy part and you don't need instructions on it. Actually, I was kind of asexually happy about how "Queer Conception" doesn't talk about getting pregnant via sex.) Also this makes me curious to learn more about sperm/egg donation and surrogacy, so maybe I'll read books about that too.
---
Related:
Being Asexual in Pregnancy World
"Expecting Better": Asking the Right Questions About Pregnancy