CN Lester 🏳️‍⚧️

We can't wait to be there

He's putting up record job losses, driving the country into a war he can't even explain, and was credibly accused of raping a teenager in the Epstein files released yesterday - so of course it's time to try and ruin more trans people's lives

I'm working on a book proposal at the moment, the core thesis of which is "Democracy fails not when lies spread, but when verified reality can no longer alter incentive structures." and we're seeing it happen in real time. Which is good for the book, but bad for democracy.

Even if you call out the lies it doesn't matter, because any of the institutions responsible for any sort of accountability are completely worthless, so there's no cost to lying.

It's really a reflection of how much the media and government has been captured by MAGA, you don't even have to lie well anymore.

It's really unfair to compare this to Iraq in 2003, at least then they had the decency to put some effort into their lies and deception.

The most authoritarian, anti-human government in my lifetime - and none of this was in their election bid. Starmer and his cronies are a lost cause, but what the fuck are the Labour party and members doing allowing this to happen on their watch?

There is nothing "fair" or "unfair" about asylum. People who are in danger deserve safety. Those who can provide it should.

theyre just all so fucking stupid and we were told we had to be respectful and treat their stupid fucking opinions seriously even though we knew its all bull shit and now here we are

Judith Butler Apology Form: From: Date: Reason for behaviour: [ ] The media convinced me that feminism was solved in the 1980s [ ] I never actually read their work [ ] I miss not thinking about gender [ ] I didn’t realize how much of society is built on gender [ ] I was jealous of their nonbinary swag [ ] Mercury was in retrograde [ ] I will hereby respect JUDITH BUTLER and I will not talk down on the best feminist thinker of our lifetimes

Educators in the UK, this is for you 👇

Pure godless evil.

Plus stealing my work and creating an existential threat to both of my professional industries. It's principled opposition, and it's also fucking personal.

as change. I didn't regret the decision to take hormones. I wouldn't have survived much longer without passing. And the surgery was a gift to myself, a coming home to my body. But I wanted more than to just barely exist, a stranger always trying not to get involved. I wanted to find out who I was, to define myself. Whoever I was, I wanted to deal with it, I wanted to live it again. I wanted to be able to explain my life, how the world looked from behind my eyes. Yet I was so afraid to come out and face the world again. I wondered why I had to choose the opening years of the Reagan administration and the rise of the Moral Major-ity to demand the right to be myself. Would they arm villagers with torches and stakes and stalk me through the countryside? Would I stand alone, handcuffed in a precinct cell, with no one to turn to if I survived the nightmare? But then I acknowledged that no matter who had been in the White House, it had always been hard to be me. Between a rock and a hard place-something told me this lifetime wasn't going to get any easier. I'd already been through a lot though, and it didn't seem to me it could get much worse. Once again I couldn't see the road ahead. I was still steering my own course through uncharted waters, relying on constellations that were not fixed. I wished there was some-one, somewhere I could ask: What should I do? But no such person existed in my world. I was the only expert on living my own life, the only person I could turn to for answers.

Rereading Stone Butch Blues

My PhD advisor had the same conversation with me. First big research project post-PhD and the habit remains like a mouldy old comfort blanket. Anyone been in the same position and have any insights?

CNN: More than 1,000 civilians killed in Iran since war began, rights group reports By Helen Regan More than 1,000 people, including children, have been killed in Iran since the war began on Saturday, according to US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The rights group said as of Tuesday afternoon ET, at least 1,097 civilians had been killed, including 181 children. More than 5,400 civilians, including 100 children, have been injured, HRANA reported. The group said its report is preliminary and is veritying hundreds more reported deaths.

At least 1,097 civilians had been killed in Iran so far, including 181 children.

This is a good response.

This series looks at the legal cases, political changes and campaigns that have shaped the tights of trans, non-binary and intersex people in the UK.

It’s important that we all become much more historically informed about how we arrived here so we can know how we move forward and claim our rights.

Milestones Milestones is six part, editorially independent, newsletter series from QueerAF on the legal cases, political changes and campaigns that have shaped the rights of trans, non-binary, and intersex peopl...

And subscribe to the new six-part editorially independent milestones series by @wearequeeraf.com - funded by ourselves. First one drops tomorrow. 👇

www.wearequeeraf.com/milestones/

Zack Polanski, a man in a black blazer and white shirt, stands smiling alongside Laila from Pride in Education. Laila wears a white blouse, a pinstriped vest, and a keffiyeh scarf. She is smiling and pointing toward a Trans+ History Week pin on Zack’s blazer lapel. Both are standing against a plain white wall.

If you look really closely you’ll see @zackpolanski.bsky.social is donning his Trans+ History Week badge early.

Pictured here with Laïla from @prideineducation.bsky.social

Trans+ History Week is May 4-10 this year. Download our resources: www.wearequeeraf.com/dotheworkbook/

losing a primary by FIFTY points because you backed ICE should tell everyone where the zeitgeist is right now

It would mean the lobbying by big US tech firms had succeeded, and the protests of the UK's creatives had been ignored.

People's work is not the government's to give away.

If you're in the UK and you care about creatives and the creative industries, please write to your MP!

/end

In the House of Lords today, a government minister refused to rule this out.

To be clear, this would amount to legalising theft. It would fly in the face of public opinion on what is fair, and would mean a surrender of British creatives' work by this Labour government.

3/4

There are rumours it is considering introducing a 'commercial research exception' for AI training. This would be disastrous. It would mean handing the life's work of British creatives to AI companies for free, to train their models on.

2/4

🚨 It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work.

This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public.

Please spread the word.

🧵 1/4

whether war, vaccines, or critical infrastructure there is contingent of the right that seems to believe that their security from the worst things that happen is some kind of metaphysical principle rather than the result of specific historical processes that could've gone otherwise and still could

a thing historians will marvel about when they study this era is the extent to which the "war is a thing that happens to poorer, browner people" class went about systematically dismantling every aspect of the global political order that confined the costs of war to poorer and browner people

Blowing things up, kidnapping and killing foreign leaders, is good because it's Doing. Considering the consequences of Doing would be Thinking, which is weak and woke

With all caveats regarding her previous anti-trans actions, thinking a lot right now about Marge Piercy's 'Woman on the Edge of Time' and its cyberpunk future-imagining chapters. It feels incredibly, frighteningly close.

It’s been terrifying to have almost every year in the past 20 years be a lesson in how many people with power make decisions about who lives and dies with little thought or care or even a clear idea as to why they’re doing anything, and it’s terrifying that it seems to be getting worse