Our authoritarianism is run on clichés borrowed from the Eastern Europe of twenty years ago. Paid protestors, disloyal cities, evil Soros, vast conspiracies — it was all tiresome then and there, and now it’s pathetic.

"we are going to murder americans without due process"
~pam bondi, US attorney general

Mike Johnson’s position is young pregnant American women shouldn’t have to wait before being turned away to die in the parking lot from an ectopic pregnancy the hospital is afraid to treat

Yep.

I can squint and imagine a 1st Amendment rationale for any form of talk therapy as protected speech. But in the present context of rampant erosion of free speech—particularly the speech of marginalized folks—the idea of drawing a protective line around this vile and harmful speech is revolting.

"It's not a badge of honor... What does it mean? It means that the fascists are winning — for now."
- @malindalo.bsky.social

So, it may soon be entirely possible for "therapists" to practice an ineffective and homophobic therapy on minors under the protection of the 1st Amendment. Meanwhile, teachers will have no such free speech in their classrooms, and kids will have no access to books about queer people in libraries.

Last week, PEN America released its fourth annual report on the state of book banning and censorship in America, and I learned that Last Night at the Telegraph Club was the fourth most banned book in schools during the 2024-25 school year. How do I feel about it? www.malindalo.com/blog/2025/10...

This is a joke, right?

The unhinged reactions to any trans rep in children’s media make a lot more sense when you see the binary not as science but as an article of faith that’s the political lynchpin of patriarchy.

Perhaps it’s because the binary isn’t at all like gravity. It’s like Tinkerbell. If people stop acknowledging it—stop assuming it—then it disappears.

Children’s books and TV shows are among the media least valued in our culture (trust me, I know), but somehow the mere existence of young trans characters in stories is a national emergency.

Why do we not laugh at this nonsense?

If the gender binary were an immutable, ageless, pancultural scientific fact, akin to gravity (it’s not and never has been, but play along), why would it be possible for mere children’s media to undermine it?

Frog and Toad coming in hot today.

I remember all the “Kimmel is the turning point” nonsense and know that rhetoric wouldn’t last. I hope I’m wrong and folks give a shit about the right to read—and about the first amendment being stolen from young people especially.

ER doc here! This is a lie. Wait times are up because the American healthcare system is an unsustainable business model and a for-profit national healthcare system just doesn’t work. These problems will continue to get worse until we change that system. It literally has nothing to do with immigrants

Open your fucking eyes. You’re just parading your privilege and ability to ignore the world around you.

Also there are FIVE YEARS OF NEWS about this. You are nothing but nakedly ignorant by your own decision.

Viddy well how bizarre it is that A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, a satirical and difficult-to-read novel about directionless young men who adore violence and rape—one of whom eventually becomes a cop—is the most banned book in the US.

Pete Hegseth is basically in this book.

Viddy well, O my brothers.

This is very bad.

This is a very bad ruling for all of us who value the First Amendment.

Last night a college student asked me why college students should care about book bans and I told her that book bans are a First Amendment issue: on the same continuum as grad student Rumeyza Ozturk being detained for writing an op-ed in the student paper, and of Jimmy Kimmel being suspended.

We desperately need regular to people to bring to this fight all the energy they brought to Jimmy Kimmell and then some. The stakes could not be higher. "Rampant" is no exaggeration.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/b...

Says author @malindalo.bsky.social: "Book banners want you to think that innocent eight-year-olds are being assaulted by sexually explicit material — which is just false..." Read more: pen.org/press-releas...

🧵 In 2025, book censorship in the United States is rampant and common. Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country.

Read our new report "The Normalization of Book Banning" at: pen.org/report/the-n...