How White Christian Nationalism Led to the Insurrection: A Review of Preparing for War

How White Christian Nationalism Led to the Insurrection: A Review of Preparing for War

I held off on buying and reading Preparing for War until I met Bradley Onishi at my organization’s conference, the Summit for Religious Freedom, in April, because I couldn’t imagine that there could be more to say about Christian Nationalism that hadn’t already been said. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it—he proved me wrong.

Read more
A Revolutionary Feminist History: A Review of Women, Race & Class

A Revolutionary Feminist History: A Review of Women, Race & Class

It is not uncommon in school to learn about women’s suffrage. Most of us are familiar with the names of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton because of it. As far as feminist history, this is often the beginning and the end of the story. If we want to know about the lives of women under slavery, the role that Black men and women played in achieving women’s suffrage, the treatment of working-class women by suffragists, and the stances that Black women took on the abortion and anti-rape movements, then we have to look elsewhere. Angela Davis’s 1981 masterpiece Women, Race & Class is where you can find all this and more. High school and college classrooms around the country would do well to add it to their syllabi.

Read more
Reframing Sex, Consent, and Pregnancy: A Review of Ejaculate Responsibly

Reframing Sex, Consent, and Pregnancy: A Review of Ejaculate Responsibly

Gabrielle Blair’s book Ejaculate Responsibly has been praised online as a much-needed shift in the way that we talk about abortion. That seems appropriate, as the book’s subtitle is literally A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion.

Read more
The Insidious Transphobia of “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” by Megan Phelps-Roper

The Insidious Transphobia of “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” by Megan Phelps-Roper

At 7:00 in the morning on February 14th, 2023, Megan Phelps-Roper posted a tweet. “Last year @jk_rowling responded to a letter I wrote her. I’d asked if she’d be part of a conversation seeking to understand her perspective and those of her critics. The result is a new audio series from @thefp: THE WITCH TRIALS OF J.K. ROWLING.”

The now-complete podcast series by The Free Press, hosted by Megan Phelps-Roper, purports to bring together the “two sides” of the “debate about sex and gender,” meanwhile investigating tribalism, discernment, and humanity. It seeks to do this by having an open conversation with J.K. Rowling, a legend-turned-villain who’s “been the object of intense backlash,” according to Megan.

Like Rowling, Megan “knew what it was like to be an object of intense hatred. But I also knew the value of good-faith conversation, and the role it can play in bridging even the deepest divides.” Thus, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling was born.

Read more
The Case for Trans Liberation: A Review of The Transgender Issue

The Case for Trans Liberation: A Review of The Transgender Issue

Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue: Trans Justice is Justice for All is the first book I’ve read that is solely dedicated to the trans issue. Only… trans people are not an issue at all. They are millions of people fighting to survive. Faye’s pointed and ironic title is the first way that she flips the mainstream treatment of trans people on its head.

Read more
Dreaming of a Free Future: A Review of Becoming Abolitionists

Dreaming of a Free Future: A Review of Becoming Abolitionists

Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell was my first step in my own journey toward abolitionism. I started reading it days after the footage of Tyre Nichols’ murder became public. I’ve known since 2020—embarrassingly late—that policing was a racist institution, and since then I’ve hovered around the “defund the police” area. I didn’t take a hard stance because I didn’t know enough about abolition. But Nichols’ murder, in which five Black cops with body cams used their hands to murder someone, pushed me over the edge. Reform and defunding don’t work. We need abolition.

Read more
Why I Wrote That Really Transphobic Blog Post and How I Changed My Mind

Why I Wrote That Really Transphobic Blog Post and How I Changed My Mind

The best deconversion stories involve shedding more than religion. I’ve talked before about how harmful beliefs like misogyny and being anti-abortion lingered with me long after my belief in God left. What I didn’t realize was that my transphobic views were the hardest to shake.

Read more
The Right Way to Be Bisexual: A Review of Bi

The Right Way to Be Bisexual: A Review of Bi

I was so thrilled to discover Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw last Nonfiction November. My shelves desperately needed some color, and I’d never heard of any other books specifically focusing on bisexuality.

After reading it, I’m wondering if my fellow bisexual readers would be better off without Shaw’s bi guide. She wrote it simply because it “didn’t exist,” so now the only new popular book dedicated to bisexuality is, in my opinion, not that great.

Read more
The Birth of Roe: A Review of Jane Against the World

The Birth of Roe: A Review of Jane Against the World

In the post I wrote one year ago, Why the March for Life is Not Pro-Life, I remarked that Roe v. Wade wasn’t likely to see its 50-year anniversary, and I was right. It is a heavy weekend for abortion rights supporters, but that is all the more reason for us to continue to fight back.

Read more