Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · 4d

We loved having you on the show!
@praeyesright.bsky.social

Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · 5d

I was delighted to welcome Annie Wilkinson from @praeyesright.bsky.social on this week’s episode of White Picket Fence to explain why the weaponization of gender and sexuality is a universal feature of authoritarianism.

🎧 here: lnk.to/wpf-ep2

Hatred Rolls Downhill

Nearly a century ago, Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, Germany became the first establishment in the world to offer comprehensive medical services, counselling, and sex education to the LGBTQ c...

lnk.to

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Reposted by Julie Kohler

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 6d

NEW—US Department of Education sent out standard Out of Office language to employees on Wednesday in light of shutdown. Later yesterday, workers tell me they found someone had updated their auto-responses without consent to a new one blaming Democrats.

Version of original on left, updated on right:

Thank you for your email. There is a temporary shutdown of the U.S. government due to a lapse in appropriations. I will respond to your message as soon as possible after the temporary shutdown ends. Please visit ED.gov for the latest information on the
Department's operational status.
Thank you.

Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · 6d

We loved having you on, @bschillace.brandyschillace.com! Such important history - and parallels to today.

Brandy Schillace @bschillace.brandyschillace.com · 6d

I joined @juliekkohler.bsky.social on White Picket Fence, to examine the ways that authoritarian regimes weaponize #gender and sexuality. We discuss my book, The Intermediaries, which tells the history of the fight for #LGBTQ rights in the shadow of the Third Reich. Listen here: lnk.to/wpf-ep2

Hatred Rolls Downhill

Nearly a century ago, Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, Germany became the first establishment in the world to offer comprehensive medical services, counselling, and sex education to the LGBTQ c...

lnk.to

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · 12d

✨ Check it out - season 6 episode of my podcast, White Picket Fence, just dropped! ✨

Our first episode features @imarajones.bsky.social from @translash.org and @gbbranstetter.bsky.social from @aclu.org disucssing how anti-trans attacks are part of a larger gender backlash. 🎧 here: lnk.to/wpfep1

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Reposted by Julie Kohler

Bob Osmond (he/him) @bobosmosis.bsky.social · 23d

If you’re interested in conversations about gender politics and its impact on American life, subscribe and listen to this season of the award-winning podcast, White Picket Fence, with @juliekkohler.bsky.social.

Season 6 Coming Soon!

Podcast Episode · White Picket Fence · 09/11/2025 · 3m

podcasts.apple.com

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · 26d

The trailer for the 6th season of my podcast, White Picket Fence, just dropped! This season tackles the growing gender backlash in the U.S. - from anti-trans attacks to pronatalism to online “manosphere” influencers - and asks what it means for our democracy.

Subscribe now! 🎧

lnk.to/wpftrailer

Season 6 Coming Soon!

Right now, we're in the midst of a gender backlash. A growing number of voices have started calling for a return to a simpler time. A time, they say, when men were men and women were women. But "gende...

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Sep 8

Facilitating a descent into authoritarianism at every step.
#capturedcourt

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

Trump Administration Live Updates: Supreme Court Lifts Restrictions on Immigration Stops in L.A.

www.nytimes.com

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Aug 26

Never been so happy to be a YouTube TV subscriber.

Bye, Fox! 👋

variety.com/2025/tv/news...

YouTube TV May Drop Fox News, Fox Local TV and More Channels in Contract Dispute

YouTube TV subscribers could lose Fox News, FS1, local Fox TV stations and more if the Google-owned video service can't reach a deal with Fox Corp.

variety.com

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 23

“After years watching Hungary suffocate under the weight of its democratic collapse, I came to understand that the real danger of a strongman isn’t his tactics; it’s how others, especially those with power, justify their acquiescence.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

Opinion | I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It’s Happening Here.

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Julie Kohler

David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · Jul 23

NEW: We found the politicization of intelligence. Tulsi Gabbard is running a con job generating fake evidence for a fake criminal case against Obama and others—all to help Trump distract from the Epstein mess and feed Trump’s desire for revenge. This is fraud.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Tulsi Gabbard's dangerous disinformation campaign against America

The DNI shows how far she'll go to politicize intelligence to help Donald Trump.

www.motherjones.com

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 21

“A society is only as strong as its most vulnerable members.” On that account, we are failing miserably. #Medicaid #Medicaidcuts

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/w...

Disabled Americans Fear What Medicaid Cuts Could Do to Them

www.nytimes.com

Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 21

“To tell such egregious lies for the approval of some higher authority is to prostrate yourself — to show, for the world to see, your lack of self-respect.”
Perfectly stated, @jamellebouie.net.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/o...

Opinion | Mike Johnson Would Like You to Know About His Subservience

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Julie Kohler

Carter Sherman @cartersherman.bsky.social · Jul 19

NEWS from me: The Trump administration has decided to destroy almost $10 million worth of contraceptives rather than send them to women in need overseas. The destruction itself will cost $167,000, the state department told me. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Trump administration to destroy nearly $10m of contraceptives for women overseas

As part of president’s shuttering of USAID, destruction of the contraceptives will cost US taxpayers $167,000

www.theguardian.com

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 19

👏👏👏, @annagreenberg.bsky.social. There is a difference between finding ways to address the challenges men are experiencing (esp. as a result of decades if failed economic policies) and kicking women to the curb.

thehill.com/opinion/camp...

thehill.com

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Reposted by Julie Kohler

Groundwork Collaborative @groundwork.bsky.social · Jul 18

5 rural nursing homes in upper PA are at risk of closing b/c of GOP cuts to Medicaid. The nursing homes are in districts represented by Republicans who voted to close them.

“The cuts represent the largest cuts to Medicaid in history & are going to have impacts across PA.” @alexsjacquez.bsky.social

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 17

Destroying everything public how you destroy a sense of shared identity. Of connection. Of shared fate. It is how you sow division and resentment and chaos.

NPR @npr.org · Jul 17

The Senate voted to approve a $9 billion rescission package aimed at clawing back money already allocated for public radio and television — a major step toward winding down nearly six decades of federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. https://n.pr/44QnXjT

Senate approves cuts to NPR, PBS and foreign aid programs

The Senate voted to approve a $9 billion rescission package aimed at clawing back money already allocated for public radio and television.

n.pr

Reposted by Julie Kohler

WIRED @wired.com · Jul 16

NEW: The US government has added the DNA of approximately 133,000 migrant children and teens to a criminal database, which critics say could mean police treat them like suspects “indefinitely.”

DHS Faces New Pressure Over DNA Taken From Immigrant Children

The US government has added the DNA of approximately 133,000 migrant children and teens to a criminal database, which critics say could mean police treat them like suspects “indefinitely.”

www.wired.com

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 15

Thanks to yesterday’s #SCOTUS ruling, it is about to become much harder to ensure that disabled students receive the free, adequate public education to which they are legally entitled.

#SpecialEducation

www.urban.org/urban-wire/h...

How Dismantling the Education Department Could Affect Disabled Students across the US

Though states and local governments are primarily responsible for K–12 education, the US Department of Education is critical to ensuring disabled children in every community have access to a free, app...

www.urban.org

Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 15

I feel seen.

Gwen Snyder is undead @gwensnyder.bsky.social · Jul 15

I have a banger thread on informal feminized labor and "male loneliness epidemic discourse" cooked up in my head, but I can't get my kids to leave me along long enough for me to write it

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 14

Devastating. But I guess SCOTUS is letting its true color fly. Anyone who thinks that Roberts and Barrett will save us should, once again, understand that they are 💯 on board with this agenda.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Supreme Court allows deep cuts at Education Department for now

A lower-court ruling had prevented Trump officials from slashing about half of the Education Department’s more than 4,100 workers.

www.washingtonpost.com

Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 14

You think you can’t be shocked anymore. And yet…

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · Jul 14

BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to move forward with the abolition of the Department of Education. It gives no explanation for its order. All three liberals dissent. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

From Sotomayor's dissent:

Lifting the District Court’s injunction will unleash
untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities
and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual
assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal
resources Congress intended. The majority apparently
deems it more important to free the Government from paying employees it had no right to fire than to avert these very
real harms while the litigation continues. Equity does not
support such an inequitable result.
* * *
The President must take care that the laws are faithfully
executed, not set out to dismantle them. That basic rule
undergirds our Constitution’s separation of powers. Yet today, the majority rewards clear defiance of that core principle with emergency relief. Because I cannot condone such
abuse of our equitable authority, I respectfully dissent.

Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 14

“At Mason, the foxes are in the henhouse….It’s an inside job.” @bletiecq.bsky.social calling out the right’s war on higher ed. 👏

ProPublica @propublica.org · Jul 14

Right-wing publications called for ousting George Mason University's president just after a federal probe was launched.

“When you start seeing these hit pieces come out one after another in a matter of days, you know it’s coordinated,” said a faculty member.

George Mason Is the Latest University Under Fire From Trump. Its President Fears an “Orchestrated” Campaign.

When university president Gregory Washington received notice that the Trump administration had opened an investigation into complaints of antisemitism, he was “perplexed.” But there are signs it may…

www.propublica.org

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Reposted by Julie Kohler

Julianne McShane @juliannemcshane.bsky.social · Jul 14

“The idea that they’ve been hiring the best and the brightest is laughable,” said one career diplomat. “This has been a windfall for young and often mediocre White men.”
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

State Department fires more than 1,300 employees in downsizing plan

The move has drawn criticism from current and former diplomats who say the cuts will degrade America’s standing in the world and curb U.S. soft power.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Julie Kohler @juliekkohler.bsky.social · Jul 14

The maintenance of an extreme and innate gender binary is fundamental to the maintenance of the gender hierarchy.

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · Jul 13

Their aesthetics help to reinforce a system of gender where everyone fits in a pink box or a blue box, where the highest status people in the pink box are the pinkest and the highest status people in the blue box are the bluest, and where the whole pink box is lower status than the blue.

Gwen Snyder is undead @gwensnyder.bsky.social · Jul 13

The fact that Trump has a set of VERY public-facing women in his administration may seem to contradict this, but there's a logic to it.

Bondi, Melania Trump, Noem all conform to a very specific and plastic surgery-endowed Trumpian aesthetic that is expensive, medicalized, and labor-intensive.

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