Seascape - Saskia Boelsums, 2026.

Ducht, b. 1960-

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

(Read from left to right.)

Wtf is happening.

At this point I see any public facing anything from her as a bonus (and if we're being honest - a level of courage that is incredibly underrecognised)

WHAT.

trust that everything will fall into place without you forcing it there.

I think everyone should get so much money and we should raise the cap by $10m minimum. I’m proud of my teams part in getting some extra space for everyone else, and I’m also pissed that Gotham doesn’t seem to have the same rules. Because guess what we’ve learned? Sam wasn’t signed using HIP (ineligible, new guidelines haven’t been passed). Sam was signed using a backloaded contract. Let me bring you back to December, when the Spirit tried to sign a player to a backloaded contract to make sure she could fit in the cap space. Anyone remember what happened? Contract denied, because even though it was completely CBA compliant Berman decided that it did not fit within her vibe of the league. Sam’s contract is probably as backloaded, if not more, than Trinity’s. But that’s cool? Gotham said they wanted to sign Kerr in the last 5 months and the league immediately wanted to change HIP to fit her (haven’t yet but they’re working on it) and that’s cool but the Spirit had been actively working for several years to get contract rules changed to allow for bigger signings and the league was crickets until the last minute.