Julia Serano’s essay introduces the Unmarked/Marked mindset, a cognitive bias she argues underlies most forms of prejudice. Unmarked traits – such as being cisgender, heterosexual, or part of a cultural majority – are treated as normal and invisible. Marked traits, by contrast, draw disproportionate attention, scrutiny, and assumptions.
The Council of Europe is a pan-European international organization (founded in 1949) whose main job is to promote human rights, democracy and rule of law.
Lori Shepard (photo), executive director of the Tucson Jewish Museum and Holocaust Center, emphasizes that genocide is not limited to mass killing; it includes intentional policies that inflict serious harm, restrict basic rights, or create conditions that make life unlivable for a targeted group. She notes that hundreds of laws introduced in recent years to regulate trans people’s access to health care, public spaces, and self-determination align with early-stage warning signs such as classification, discrimination, dehumanization, and polarization.
Erin Reed reports that the Trump administration has published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would attach major conditions to U.S. foreign assistanceāpotentially affecting more than $30 billion distributed through international organizations and partner networks.
A study of competitive athletes found that compared to their cisgender counterparts, transgender women actually performed worse on average in measures of ability related to endurance sports like track and field.
American Transgender Girl Scouts featured on a widely shared online cookie-buying list have sold more than 71,000 boxes this season, according to Erin Reed’s newsletter Erin In The Morning.
