Friday Flurry #3: Lesbian fiction and learning containers
A goldmine of stuff you can read, listen to, and click on to learn more about the world we're living in. Strap in, folks, and get that pointer ready.
Welcome to Friday Flurry, my weekly round-up. This edition is going to all subscribers. In the future, these posts will only be available to paid subscribers. If you’re on the fence about joining the paid tier, this gives you an indication of what your Friday content will look like.
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What I’m reading
Big Swiss, by Jen Beagin
The plot: Greta does transcription work for a self-styled sex therapist in a small town, and knows everyone’s secrets. It’s going well, until she crosses a confidentiality line, and things get interesting.
Why I liked it: I have a personal preference for flawed, funny, female protagonists, and Greta fits the bill nicely. A very enjoyable read.
“She’d always been less of a shit-talker and more of a shit-thinker”
Note: this book isn’t quite out in NZ/Australia yet, I got a copy in the US. But you can get it on Kindle or pre-order. Also, I discovered, after reading it, that it’s classified as “lesbian fiction” which was a surprise. It’s literary fiction with lesbians in it 🤷♀️.
The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, by Sam Quinones
In 2015, long before we had Netflix specials on the dastardly Sackler family, Quinones applied his meticulous journalism to interrogating the opiate crisis in his book Dreamland. Now, he’s done it again - for the latest designer drugs to devastate America. It’s a bit unwieldy in parts, but his combination of journalistic depth and human interest stories kept me reading to the end. I don’t agree with all of his conclusions - he’s pretty wary of drug decriminalisation and housing first policies, both of which have a strong evidence base - or some of the poverty porn that’s weaved in, but it’s a great read nonetheless.
Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks
“When automated decision-making tools are not built to explicitly dismantle structural inequities, their speed and scale intensify them.
I was consumed by this book. It delivered a lot more than I expected - not just an in-depth investigation into the way automated tools like data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models impact the lives of poor and working-class people, but also a rich, contextual view of the distinctions made between deserving and undeserving poor throughout history.
Don’t be fooled by the focus of this work. While the lens for analysis is about the models and systems designed initially for social services such as welfare, housing and child protection (what the author terms ‘low rights environments’) these are the same systems that are, or will be, invading everyone’s life, from policing, to credit reporting, marketing and public administration. As one of her interviewees poignantly points out: “You should pay attention to what happens to us. You’re next.”
Our new digital tools spring from punitive, moralistic views of poverty and create a system of high-tech containment and investigation. The digital poorhouse deters the poor from accessing public resources; polices their labor, spending, sexuality, and parenting; tries to predict their future behavior; and punishes and criminalizes those who do not comply with its dictates. In the process, it creates ever-finer moral distinctions between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, categorizations that rationalize our national failure to care for one another.”
I’m going to be thinking about this one for a long time. Strongly recommend.
What I’m listening to
I’ve been a fan of If Books Could Kill since Emily Writes recommended their take-down of airport book favourite The Secret and their catalogue has not disappointed me yet. The hosts, Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri, are a great pair: clever, insightful and, really bloody funny.
This week, I listened to their episode on Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. Sorry, Senator J.D. Vance. I remember enjoying this book when it came out, so I hit the play button with some trepidation. If you’re a smart-ass cynical leftie, or you suspect one lies within, this is a good podcast option for you.
What I’m writing
Time, guilt and travel
This week on Substack, I wrote a Wednesday Wisdom on why we aren’t uniquely shameful or lazy and I had so many emails! So clearly this subject struck a chord.
The problem with niceties
I refreshed an old article on the dangers of valuing niceness, in response to commentary from Hamish MacKenzie, co-founder of Substack. We’ve gotta be reeeeeal careful with niceness, team. Worth a read.
Hate speech, apparently
Then, I got embroiled in an on-again, off-again relationship with the Linked In hate speech patrol. Here’s my final post on the matter, which, at time of writing, has not been removed. Which brings me to…
Things I’m worrying about
The rising hatred and fear directed at transgender people
This week on LinkedIn, the CEO of Women’s Forum Australia, Rachael Wong, shared a vitriolic, transphobic tirade from conservative American broadcaster Megyn Kelly.
Riding the wave of anti-trans hysteria, which is currently using the same old chestnut levied at gay men in decades past (they’re all deviant predators sneaking into our bathrooms!), this is part of an increasingly vocal movement to dismantle the hard-won rights of transgender people.
Are you uncertain about the ‘trans stuff’?
Speaking out in support of trans people loses me followers every time, which suggests to me that there are people in my readership who haven’t got their heads around this issue yet - and are possibly being swayed by the scary stuff in the news. That makes a lot of sense to me. Given the very real and constant threats to women’s safety in our society, this is a smart angle for conservatives to pick. In a world where things are changing all the time, faster than we can keep up with, the “common sense, basic biology” line is a clever choice, too.
So, if you’re thinking things like:
“You can only be born one of two genders, that’s just biology”
“If we let men into girls changing rooms, that’s dangerous for girls” or
“It’s just a trendy thing all the kids are doing”
Then I’m not going to attack you, or make you feel stupid. Those ideas probably line up with what you were taught in school about sex and gender. The science and academic understanding about gender has progressed a lot in the last decade or two, but it’s been lost in a sea of disinformation and hysteria.
I do want to gently suggest a little extra reading, if you’re open to it.
Here’s a collated reading list for you
Here’s some links that I’d love you to engage with, if you’re trying to get your head around what’s happening.
The trans brain - catching up on the science
Trans people throughout history - and the modern rise in gender diversity
Keeping women and children safe
Where the “Bathroom Predator” hysteria originated - article, video
Proof that discriminatory bathroom laws do, however, put trans people at risk of assault
The political motivations behind anti-trans rhetoric
Where to learn more, and how to help
If you’d like to know more about you can be an ally, take this awesome course from Gender Minorities Aotearoa on Supporting Transgender People.
Three people to add your feed
If you’d like to follow people who are educating and advocating on LGBTQIA+ issues, take a look at this list. No TikTok in site.
Max Siegel - top voice in LGBTQIA+ issues. Subscribe to his newsletter ‘The Trans Agenda’
NZ Herald
Shaneen Lal was named Young New Zealander of the Year 2023 for their advocacy work - and they write a great column for the NZ Herald!
Musings that might convert to articles
Learning containers
I have a theory that every kind of learning we sign up to - whether it’s a writing workshop, an instrument to play, (or a self-led journey through trans rights literature!) is a container for something bigger. Every time we go down a learning rabbit hole, enrol in a course, or go to a workshop, we find ourselves asking bigger questions about who we are, what we think, and what kind of goals and life we want for ourselves.
If we lean all the way in, we usually grow as a person in a useful way, that goes well beyond the reach of whatever the course content was. I reckon that basically all learning has this identity effect, which might mean the most important thing isn’t what we learn, but that we learn - and keep doing it. Just a thought.
Well, that sums up this week’s Friday Flurry! It was a flurry, alright. If you’ve made it to the end, well done. Also, that’s a pretty clear sign you like this content - so why not sign up to paid?
Remember: this is the last free Friday Flurry! These take a lot of time and effort to pull together, but I LOVE writing and sharing with you. If you can afford to, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll get Wednesday Wisdom, Friday Flurry, and regular in-depth articles. Plus, you’re making it possible for me to keep creating great free content too.