Welcome back!
Here are some things you can do to chip away at the world’s cruelness, whether the world likes it or not.
Pick one relatively small project at your home that would both help you and your guests and that you’ve been putting off. Do it.
Maybe it’s organizing your towels so that it’s easy to help dry off a bunch of people who just came in from the rain. Maybe it’s making sure all the doorknobs are on tight so the doors close cleanly. Maybe it’s making sure that the bathroom has grab bars or that the stair railing is secure for people who have mobility issues. Maybe it’s making sure there’s a path through your junk room (we all have one, it’s ok) so that you can get through that room in a hurry if there’s a fire.
Me, I’m doing all my filing so I can use the dining room table if I suddenly need to.
Defend the rights of people with disabilities
Over on 5calls.org you can find a script to defend Section 504, a 50-year-old law about the rights of people with disabilities.
The short-short version is that some lawmakers want to take away the elements in the Affordable Care Act that provide people who are trans with gender-affirming care. But instead of targeting those specific parts of the law, they brought a cannon to the knife fight and want to declare the entirety of Section 504 unconstitutional. That would not only strip away rights from people seeking gender-affirming care, it would also strip rights away from everyone who has a disability.
Remember, approximately 24% of the US population identifies themselves as disabled right now — the numbers are even higher if you count all the folks who have a disability but don’t want to admit to it, like people with low vision or hearing problems.
You can read more about Texas v Bercerra , the name of the suit that would take away your rights and the rights of those around you.
Then, go to defend Section 504, a 50-year-old law about the rights of people with disabilities and use either that or resist.bot to contact your state attorney general and either a) tell them to knock it the hell off or b) tell them to tell the other attorneys general to knock it the hell off.
Protect NOAA
If you’re a scientist or similar expert (software engineer counts!), add your voice to an open letter calling on Congress and the Trump administration to ensure that NOAA remains fully funded and protected.
We want our weather, geology, and oceanography information to be accurate and timely because, well, we want to live through natural disasters. We don’t want that org to be underfunded.
Support science channels on Youtube
One of the hidden damages to the cuts that have been made to science and education recently involves whether your favorite Youtube science education channels get funding. The folks over at Minute Earth can explain it better:
So if you have a favorite science communicator, go subscribe to their Patreon, or maybe throw some cash in whatever tip jar they’re using.
And if you don’t have a favorite Youtube science communicator, can I suggest Complexly?
Provide feedback on the latest proposed changes to passports
This one’s complicated, so I saved it for last.
Start by reading about why we have sex/gender markers on passwords in the first place. (Hint: it’s because people decided they didn’t want to dress to a specific gender.)
Then, visit the following three pages where the Department of State has published 30-day notices for public comment for changes to the following passport forms:
You can read each doc in its entirety, or you can read the section on “Changes since last renewal” for each one, which says a variant of the following:
To comply with E.O. 14168, “ Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the Department updated the form to replace the term “gender” with “sex.” The U.S. Passport conforms with the standards set by the E.O. and the International Civil Aviation Organization, which among other things determine the various fields on the passport’s biographical data page. Consistent with the E.O., the revised DS-11 will request the applicant’s biological sex at birth, male “M” or female “F.” Amendments to the fields and instructions (section 3) have been made to reflect this.
Assuming that you disagree with the executive order that declares everyone either male or female based on an undefined and/or vague definition of “biological gender” that’s not likely to hold up in court, your next steps are to:
- Click on the link that says “Public Comments” in the navigation menu.
- Click the “Submit a public comment” link.
- Read the “Commenter’s Checklist”.
- Provide a comment and, if you feel it necessary, supporting documentation.
- Submit your comment.
Please do that for each of the three documents. We certainly don’t want the powers that be to only change one of them.
If you need a script, well, here’s what I’m sending.
I am unclear on why a sex or gender field is required at all. Is it to determine whether the person in front of us is who they say they are? If that’s the case, the photo does a better job of identifying the individual than an M or an F. Is it to determine whether the person should be housed in a male or female jail cell? It seems that there are many solutions to that problem that don’t involve either assuming someone will be in a jail cell or involve assuming the their assigned-at-birth sex marker will tell you what they look like. Is it to determine what bathroom they are allowed to use? Let people pee in peace, they don’t need our help to choose a bathroom. People who commit sexual assault are not identifiable by their assigned-at-birth sex marker either.
According to https://aridrennen.substack.com/p/the-culture-war-over-sex-markers the sex marker was added in the 1970s because of cultural anxiety — the same cultural anxiety that is trying to come back to haunt us now.
It’s been 50 years since then, and you’d think people would be used to people looking any way they wanted to by now.
As per Judge Ana Reyes’ hearing with the Justice Department on Tuesday February 18, we don’t currently have a valid legal argument with biological findings that shows that there are only two sexes, or that they can be cleanly assigned to all humans based on chromosomal or biological morphology. The question as put forward in E.O. 14168 is not only significantly flawed, it’s the wrong question.
What our biology says about our sex characteristics is unclear. What our culture says about the social construct of gender is very clear: there are people who consider themselves male, there are people who consider themselves female, there are people who consider themselves neither, both, or something else entirely. If the issuance of a passport requires “the determination of identity, nationality, and entitlements with reference to the provisions of Title II of the Immigration and Nationality Act” then classifying individuals by their biological sex when they do not recognize that sex as their identity is a flaw in the accuracy of the document.
I propose removing the field altogether. You can’t worry about compliance to a field that doesn’t exist. We didn’t need the field when passports were introduced and we don’t need it now.
As always, there’s no need for you to do everything
There’s 340 million of us in this country all trying to make our lives better every day, a little bit at a time. You personally don’t have to take on the whole burden. Do what you’re able, when you’re able, and rest in between.
This is a long post, but I leave you with two more things.
First, a video produced by our own government on fascism:
Second, a quote from a book called Moving Beyond Individualism in Pastoral Care and Counseling: Reflections on Theory, Theology, and Practice by Barbara J. McClure. This is a paraphrase she created of work by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, who was translating Rabbi Tarfon’s work. (I love tracing things to their original sources.)
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Walk humbly now.
Do justly now.
Love mercy now.
You are not expected to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it.
