Evan Urquhart 🏳️‍⚧️Jan 6, 2023

Powerful piece of journalism by Lydia Polgreen for the New York Times. It's in the opinion section, but to me it represents everything opinion ought to be, but rarely is, weaving the story of a math teacher in Alabama who was forced to retire after Libs of TikTok targeted him for also performing as a drag queen into a reflection on where we are, how we got here, and how, as queer people, we need to resist the movement to strip our humanity away.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/opinion/lgbtq-rights-activism-alabama.html

Opinion | Want to Understand L.G.B.T.Q. Life in America? Go to Alabama.

I went to Alabama to understand what our country’s anti-gay backlash looks like on the ground — and what it really means to fight back.

Show threadEvan Urquhart 🏳️‍⚧️Jan 6, 2023

Something that I think can be lost in more shallow critiques of NYT and NYT opinion is that there's a divide between the reactionary writers and everyone else.

The reactionaries are LAZY. Pamela Paul gets a column out of "What ever happened to Free to be You and Me?"

But progressive writers like Polgreen (or Jamelle Bouie, others) often do real reporting or in depth analysis to complement their opinion writing. They work harder, for less credit. Important to remember them in our critiques.

Show threadSasha Akhavi
@e_urq Reactionariness *is* at heart lazy; it’s physical and intellectual laziness politicized. When Buckley said they were standing athwart history yelling “Stop!” he was being 100% honest. The reactionary stance is *reaction* to a world pressing for more universal justice and well-being, by those whose primary concern is that the amount they now enjoy might be lost.
Jan 6, 2023 at 3:24pmWeb