Opinion Pieces + Articles

OPINION: Transgender children are beloved
(published by Corpus Christi Caller-Times, circulated by Yahoo! News)

Excerpt:

Transgender children are a blessing. Transgender children are sacred.

They have always been here, just as the relationship between child and parent has always been here. The sacredness of this relationship is a given to politicians like Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott when it comes to what our children learn in school. 

When a parent shows their child love and acceptance by making the lifesaving decisions to use their child’s pronouns, to help them find the right name, or by navigating the very private medical decisions around what gender-affirming treatments are right for them, Paxton and Abbott see this parental love and care for the family as abuse. They have mobilized the powers of the state to harm these sacred children and their families. It happened in plain sight when Paxton and Abbott corrupted state law by labeling gender-affirming care as “child abuse”—directing state agencies to treat it as such, endangering a transgender child’s access to needed medical care, and making their parents subject to prosecution.

OPINION: WE’RE FIGHTING FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WHILE THE FAR RIGHT WEAPONIZES IT
(published by Texas Signal)

Excerpt:

This legislative session, radical legislators say they’re using their faith to guide political decisions, but their proposed new laws do not follow the teachings present in any religious scriptures I know.

Redefining the definition of child abuse to include gender-affirming care and ripping transgender kids from their loving families—thrusting them into the state’s crumbling foster care system—is guided by hate, not love.

Stripping us of our right to access abortion—our ability to control our own bodies and be the architects of our own futures—is not about empathy. It’s about upholding racist, inequitable systems. It’s about restricting basic healthcare. It’s about anti-queerness—because we know that it’s not just women who need abortion care. It’s about misogyny. It’s about control.

OPINION: Happy Easter! And happy Trans Visibility Day!
(published by Houston Chronicle)

Excerpt:

Easter falls on Transgender Day of Visibility this year. People will be bearing witness to the resurrection of Christ while celebrating the lives and contributions of transgender folks. To some people, the connection doesn’t make sense. But it does to me.

After all, Easter is the story of someone who refused to reduce people to a binary system. A person who lived his life so audaciously that he fed, clothed, held and made visible people who had been told they were unworthy of love, burdened with sin or living outside of society’s rules.

It’s the story of resistance, of someone whose rejection of the system and his refusal to bend to institutional authority led to his death as a means to silence him. It’s the story of someone who couldn’t be erased but whose resurrection bore the scars of a new life and a new world.

OPINION: St. Edward’s University Needs an On-Campus Early Voting Location
(published by Austin Chronicle)

Excerpt:

No one should have to traverse obstacle after obstacle to become a voter and participate in our democracy. Yet, in 2024 – arguably the most pivotal election year of our lives – the voting rights of students, staff, and the surrounding community at St. Edward's University are at risk.

Currently, there is no early voting location at St. Edward's. While the university purports to teach students to "act ethically and strive for social justice," the administration's refusal to establish an early voting location on the campus is directly impeding the community's ability to honor their civic duty.

Strangled by the Loop of History

Excerpt:

On January 21st, a reality TV star who repeatedly appeared on Howard Stern and once joked that he himself was a sexual predator, was inaugurated as our 45th president of the United States.

When I think about the morning of November 9th, I begin to picture something unfathomable:

A family sits around the table for breakfast with smiles on their faces, and a Trump sign hanging in the window. A father tells his children that America will be great again. Their little boy asks if he can hang a Trump sign in his room next to his personal Christmas tree. Later when they go to a Christmas train, their little girl excitedly looks at it and says, “Mommy, is that the Trump train?”

The Truth in Possession: Are Weddings Really for Fathers and Daughters?

Excerpt:

The theme of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice is possession. An analysis of The Theatre School’s recent production of Eurydice leads to interesting questions about the patriarchal aspects of the play itself. Eurydice’s line, “a daughter stops being married to her father on her wedding day,” is striking, thought-provoking, and problematic. How does this overarching theme support the idea of a woman’s ownership being transferred from her father to her husband on her wedding day? The very act of a father “giving away” his daughter is oppressive. We are not objects to be given away or owned. One has to wonder if Ruhl’s meditation on the relationship between a husband and a wife, juxtaposed with the relationship between a father and daughter, is a critique or if she is choosing to ignore the implications altogether.

Trouble in Mind: Alice Childress’ Endless Echo

Excerpt:

We are a nation obsessed with the idea of easy public consumption. We like our meals frozen and boxed, our vegetables packed into plastic bottles, our gay people jovial, our poor people content with their minimum wage, and our black communities silent whilst their men are jailed and shot in the street.