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On July 22nd the Center for American Progress released an article titled, "Ending the Backlash on LGBTQI+ Issues".

I won't go into the problems with the article here, as there are many, but in essence it suggests capitulating on issues such as trans people in sports and youth medical transition, in an effort to reduce reactionary backlash against the LGBTQI+ community and our issues.

And people, predictably, are finding a way to blame "TME" trans people and trans men for this.

They are pinning the blame solely on Caleb Smith, a trans person who uses any pronouns. As far as I can tell, there is no public information on Caleb's specific gender identity, but people are of course, jumping to assume that they are "TME", I presume based solely on her appearance. Which is, basic transphobia and exorsexism.

They are also ignoring the fact, that the co-author of the article is Winnie Stachelberg, an out trans woman. This is despite the fact that she is listed right at the top of the article alongside Caleb.

Winnie Stachelberg has a history in politics, being appointed by President Joe Biden as Senior Advisor at the US Department of Interior.

Being someone with many years of experience in high level politics, I am keen to presume that much of the content of the article was influenced by Winnie's perspective. I mean, she is one of the authors, after all! And she has the most experience of direct interaction with political systems.

Hi everyone, at time of writing (22/05/2026) the British government just received new government from the TERF-captured EHRC that will drastically restrict trans people's ability to exist in public life. Trans people have to organise agains this fascistically anti-trans politics and we need to focus firstly on saving as many trans lives as possible and secondly on building power towards trans liberation.

To achieve this I have laid out a strategy for organising around harm reduction structures and trans public assemblies. Please watch this video, share it, and take action on the suggestions in it as a matter of urgency. I know of three groups across two other countries besides the UK who have taken my suggestions seriously and started organising and I want to see more trans people do it, especially here.

I have also released a version of the same basic assembly organising writing on my substack for those who prefer reading to watching a video. I write there about ideas around organising quite a lot so there's more for the curious there.

and then all of a sudden you’re a man and you’re ‘the problem’ and you just want to oppress girls and talk over women to validate yourself and make it all about you because all men ever do is take over the conversation and be abusive and use their toxic masculinity to bludgeon everyone around them and like

And a lot of them are aware of this (like we are when we make these “humans are space orcs” stories)

Maybe one species enjoys getting bit by something equivalent to mosquitoes. Maybe one actively avoids the hospitable places on their planet because it’s boring without a challenge. You get the gist.

I want to see a bunch of aliens (+humans) sitting around a table talking about how their own species is a bunch of freaks

Best possible addition. This is a top-tier insight

@prokopetz proposed that humans ought to get something special of our own that isn't just "We are the bestest and specialist in some generic way that feels like a vague and unsettling metaphor for American superiority and manifest destiny amidst all the other cultures of the world," and settled on space orcs because "Pursuit predators with freakish endurance" was the ecological niche we occupied during our own evolutionary history up until we started doing the civilization thing. The assumption from the start was that every other sci-fi or fantasy species would each be freaks in their own way, and the point of humans are space orcs was to let us be our own sort of freak, too.

People who expanded on the humans are space orcs stories immediately turned it into a reason to write little stories where humans are the biggest freaks or the only freaks and we are, in fact, the specialest most manifest destinyest je ne sais quoi-laden metaphors for the superiority of American culture over all the other cultures of the world. I hate it I hate it I hate it.