Genderqueer movement journalist, digital Editor @TexasObserver. Nominated for 2023 GLAAD Media Award and finalist for 2023 National Magazine Award. Admin for texasobserver.social. Follow my personal account: @kitoconnell
Avi by Jordan Vonderhaar for TXO.
Email me: oconnell at texasobserver dot org
Get in touch for my Signal.
#LGBTQIA #Extremism #HumanRights
| Pronouns | They/Them |
| Bylines | https://texasobserver.org/author/kit-oconnell/ |
My colleague @gusbova captured this beautiful photo at the rally for #Palestine in #Austin on Sunday. Downtown, near the #Texas Capitol:
(Edit to add: now attached to this tragic but important story about an attack after Sunday's rally https://www.texasobserver.org/palestinian-austin-stabbing-hate-crime-ceasefire/ )
I've a fun, short piece out from the @TexasObserver magazine, about a crew of volunteers that have been going out every week, for about 15 years, to count all the crawling, flying critters they can find.
So far they've identified almost 3,000 species of insect including over 50 bees, 345 flies, and over 500 different beetles. https://www.texasobserver.org/insect-lbj-wildflower-valerie-bugh-austin?utm_campaign=mastodon
(Fab #photography by Paula Levihn-Coon)
#science #Austin #Texas #insects #nature #environment #ClimateChange
Cat Wesley and Cat Guinan from my #StarTrek #cats calendar helping me enter February with a Meow! #JournoLife
(Edit to add: You can tell I'm just a trekkie and not a trekker, cause the red shirt is actually Ensign Ro.)
This diagram—with permission, from the Congressional testimony of Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis—really drives home the scope of Long #Covid. Brain to skin to kidneys to the circulatory system, there is almost no organ or structure in the body which can't be directly affected by the lasting impact of this disease.
A coalition of organizations including GLAAD, Equality #Texas, ACLU of Texas, and Human Rights Campaign sent an open letter to the United Nations, accusing the state of violating international human rights treaties in its systematic discrimination against #LGBTQIA+ people and asking the federal government to take action on our behalf. https://www.equalitytexas.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/1.22.24_UN_Joint_Allegation_Letter.pdf
#HumanRights #UnitedNations #transphobia #homophobia #law #TXlege
I just saw a chart that less than 25 percent of posts with images on newsie.social and journa.host have alt text.
If our job as journalists is to inform the world, our profession needs to be using alt text more or we are automatically failing some of our audience. #accessibility
Looking forward, just a little, I wrote the Postcard for the January/February 2024 issue of @TexasObserver magazine, about a group of people that count bugs at a beautiful nature preserve in #Austin. I think it's a super fun, and overall, positive piece.Our fall fellow, Paula Levihn-Coon, took photos and helped with this one.
I think it's going to be a great year!
(Edit: It's here, now online! https://www.texasobserver.org/insect-lbj-wildflower-valerie-bugh-austin?utm_campaign=mastodon )
The reality is that it's challenging for small organizations to quit Twitter/X cold turkey. I really think @indivisibleteam's "X Last" guide is a sensible approach to weaning your org off of what's becoming a white supremacist group chat: https://indivisible.org/sites/default/files/2023-12/XLast-Guide.pdf
Join me and photographer Erika Nina Suárez on an adventure Beyond the Refrigerator Door at Meow Wolf #Grapevine. From the November/December issue of our magazine ... this is one of my most fun and most challenging assignments! https://www.texasobserver.org/meow-wolf-grapevine-brrrmuda/
