The Atlanta Compromise in Gender Paint
An Inconvenient Truth about the Cost of Concession
Latest
When Critique Meets Power: A Field Guide to Being Pressured Into Silence
Read this first This piece is about a tactic, not a person. It uses one recent exchange as a worked example, but the point is portable: it is meant to help activist writers, bloggers, and organizers recognize a specific pressure pattern the next time it is aimed at one of
The Inconvenient Truth About Advocacy Disguised as Analysis
The Curious Case of Laura Targownik There is a curious form of intellectual dishonesty that reveals itself not in what someone says, but in the distance between what they have said and what they are doing. It is the dishonesty of someone who knows better but has decided that knowing
Opinion: We Don't Need Any More Cishetero Visibility—And It's Time Someone Said It
A recent social media exchange has brought back the arguments that "Pride isn't needed" and that it is somehow "too much" and "shoving it down our throats" again. This inspired the following satire. I am considering a series of satires for Pride
I Dare To Dream
On this eve before Pride Month 2026 begins, we cannot celebrate our pride, community, equality or successes in the face of the increased oppression targeting our trans community. Yes, "pride is a protest" is a nice aphorism that simultaneously is true and de-fangs the bite that is pride.
A Brief Study in Rhetorical Coercion
An analysis and response to Brianna Wu's comment on my essay "I Will Not Make That Trade" Brianna Wu left a comment on my last essay that I want to take seriously. Not because it landed, it mostly didn't, but because buried inside the
I Built a Resource to Dismantle Transmedicalism
Here's Why. About every ten years or so I find that this debate rears its ugly head. A little over a decade ago, some professional trans folks took up the challenge and deconstructed, debunked, and documented some of the debate and core issues. As things in the US
I Will Not Make That Trade
Transmedicalism and the Refusal of Victimhood The Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS) and transmedicalist [1] trap is perfectly designed because it works in two directions at once. It reaches inward and outward simultaneously, and both movements depend on the same broken premise: that victimhood is the price of legitimacy. Inward, it
Standing with: What Solidarity Means
A reflection on the International Day of Pink In 2007, at Central Kings Rural High School in Nova Scotia, Canada, two high school students, David Shepherd and Travis Price, witnessed a classmate being bullied for wearing a pink polo shirt to school. Shepherd and Travis Price, witnessed a classmate being
When We Choose Each Other
A Manifesto for Liberation Now The Fact of Our Binding James Baldwin wrote: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." But there is something else Baldwin understood, something that sits beneath every essay he wrote, every warning he
The Quiet We Endure
The Quiet We Refuse There is a trap built into the floorboards of being trans. You feel it every time you smile at a stranger who stares too long, every time you soften your voice to keep the peace, every time you say "it's fine" when
The Price Is Us
The Cruelest Arithmetic The world is not our only oppressor. Watch what happens when oppression does its work long enough, effectively enough: you begin doing it to yourself. Not because you're weak, but because you've learned the lesson too well. You absorb the cisheteronormative logic so
Bad Facts, Revisited: Glenna Goldis and the Narrative That Doesn't Hold
A Rapid Follow-Up on Claims, Contradictions, and the Consumer Fraud Lawyer Who Can't Distinguish Between Two Simple Things Friends, sometimes the universe hands you a gift so perfectly wrapped that you would think it was staged. Do you recall my article on July 8th, 2025 entitled “Bad Facts
Inconvenient Truths
Mia Hughes and the Logic of Unfalsifiable Certainty
Hughes accuses gender-affirming medicine of operating on ideology while being blinded to the scandal. She is describing her own epistemic position. She has already committed to the conclusion before examining the data.
Essays
The Mirage of Protection
How Gatekeeping Becomes the Wound We Inflict on Ourselves. There exists a particular kind of cruelty that wears the face of care. It speaks in careful tones about being thoughtful and deliberate, about protecting those it is actually abandoning. It sounds nothing like oppression.
Inconvenient Truths
Part 6: The "Good Trans Person" Con
When Acceptance Means Submission The Gospel According to Conversion Therapy Meet Jesse, Sasha Ayad’s perfect trans person. Jesse accepts misgendering with a smile, treats identity as a fun metaphor, and never makes grandma uncomfortable at Thanksgiving. Jesse is the conversion therapy dream, the model minority of the gender world,
Inconvenient Truths
Part 5: The Capital 'T' Truth About Lowercase Bigotry
Debunking Sasha Ayad's Denial-Based Identity ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This article analyzes harmful conversion therapy content from Sasha Ayad’s “The Metaphor of Gender” YouTube channel and podcast. While written to support and validate trans experiences, the analysis necessarily includes discussion of transphobic arguments, psychological manipulation tactics, and discriminatory frameworks
Letters
When "No" Is a Complete Sentence: Why We Need to Stop Platforming Bigotry
A somewhat raw and unpolished update to you all Well hello there folks. I missed last week’s publication date and did not notice it until now. Truth be told, and as I am sure you all are well aware, things have been getting particularly harsh for trans folks -
Inconvenient Truths
Part 4: Incomplete Is Their Middle Name
How Ayad Misrepresents Affirming Care There’s a special kind of audacity required to attack evidence-based healthcare while selling your own discredited alternative for $285 an hour. It’s the same energy as someone setting fire to a hospital while advertising their healing crystals. But that’s exactly what we
Inconvenient Truths
Part 3: Seven Principles of Psychological Warfare
Decoding Ayad's Conversion Manifesto ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This article contains detailed discussion of conversion therapy tactics, psychological manipulation techniques, gaslighting, and the systematic invalidation of trans identities. It includes references to mental health impacts including depression, anxiety, and suicidality. The content may be triggering for survivors of conversion therapy,
Inconvenient Truths
When "Fatal Flaws" Become "Cautious Interpretation"
A Response to Sammy Stagg's Methodological Retreat An Author’s Response When I published my analysis of the City Journal's "Transgender Brain Studies are Fatally Flawed," I expected some pushback. What I didn't expect was such a textbook demonstration of the motte-and-bailey
Inconvenient Truths
Part 2: Are You Smart Enough to Be Manipulated?
Ayad's Audience Grooming Tactics ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses psychological manipulation tactics and conversion therapy recruitment methods that may be disturbing to those who have experienced religious or therapeutic manipulation. Part 2 of the PITT Series: Debunking "The Metaphor of Gender" Here's an uncomfortable
Inconvenient Truths
Part 1: The Metaphor That Murders Truth
Manufacturing Confusion from Complexity ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: This article analyzes conversion therapy rhetoric and discusses suicide risk among trans youth denied care. It also analyzes harmful conversion therapy content from Sasha Ayad's "The Metaphor of Gender" YouTube channel and podcast. This material promotes practices condemned by every
Satire
Local Parents Hold Press Conference to Announce They Are Actually the Oppressed Ones
They Demand Flag and Persecution Recognition SUBURBIA, USA1 — In what organizers called a "historic moment for parental rights," a group of parents held a press conference yesterday to formally declare themselves an oppressed minority class and demand official persecution recognition after their adult children stopped returning their calls.