The most important thing I can tell you about Barbarian is that it anticipated my objections. Barbarian is one of the most-hyped horror movies of the year. It’s currently streaming on HBO Max after a theatrical release in September. I assume it’s both old enough and widely available enough that…

Part three of a three-part talk with UK feminist Mallory Moore on trans feminism, trans conflict, and trans care. — Note: This is Part Three of a three-part story. You can read Part One here and Part Two here. Well, here we are: After detouring through US politics, then through UK politics, then through fifty years of feminist organizing, this is the installment where Mallory Moore and I discuss trans…

Part two of a three-part talk with UK feminist Mallory Moore on trans feminism, trans conflict, and trans care. — Note: This is Part Two of a three-part story. You can read Part One here and Part Three here. When I came out in 2020, I’d already had a relatively long career as a public feminist. I had been part of the first wave of underpaid or unpaid 2000s-era “feminist…

Part one of a three-part talk with UK feminist Mallory Moore on trans feminism, trans conflict, and trans care. — Note: This is Part One of a three-part story. You can read Part Two here and Part Three here. Mallory Moore is one of the smartest feminists I know. She’s a UK-based researcher with the Trans Safety Project. Her work focuses on tracking the spread of far-right talking points and…

It’s not even hard. So to speak. — Friends, Romans, countrythems: They told me I would never make it. My ambitions were mocked; scorned; they laughed at me, and they laughed at you for believing in me. Yet I stand before you today as one of the most sex-having men in the United States of America. Do you…

The 2022 reboot turns the franchise’s queer subtext into text, and shows the power of claiming your monster. — Every day, traditional masculinity becomes more endangered. This week, we lost one of its last great icons: Pinhead from Hellraiser. Pinhead is a Cenobite, which is to say, a sex demon. He lives in a parallel dimension that can be accessed through a magic puzzle box. If you solve…

Reading these little-loved X-Men comics brings my pre-teen self back to life. I don’t always like him. — For a long time — say, from age twenty-two to thirty-six — I did not think about anything that happened when I was a teenager. I wasn’t repressing memories. I knew everything that had taken place, in a dry, bullet-point sort of way. I had just surgically excised that portion…

The myth that boys are born predators — and girls born victims —excuses adults for the violence they do. — When you have a kid, you find out that there are no inherently bad people. Something about being around a small child, day in and day out, puts you in touch with what being human is: We all start out tiny and raw and vulnerable, with no ability to protect…

On being queer, being odd, and (sigh) Bisexual Awareness Week. — A few weeks ago, I found myself in therapy, processing my daughter’s birthday party. The party happened a few days after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and either for that reason, or because my husband did pre-school pick-ups and drop-offs, my daughter’s classmates all showed up to the party…