Hazel Newlevant

Please call your representatives: VOTE NO on the FEDERAL BOOK BANNING BILLS HR 2616, HR 8705, and HR 7661!

Transcript below the cut.

If you don't know who your Senators or Representatives are, you can use Ballotpedia's Who Represents Me tool! (Note: there's a field for you to input your email address on their page, but it's not necessary to get your results. They just need a mailing address to confirm who your reps are.)

Once you've got names, you can look up and save your Reps' phone numbers in your phone. I find this makes it easier when I'm wavering about feeling brave enough to place a call. Just pressing a button instead of going and looking up the phone number all over again makes it just a liiiiittle easier, and sometimes that makes the difference between calling and not calling!

It’s that time of year! 🌈

Updated COVID vaccines are mostly for preventing severe acute illness, but it modestly reduces your chances of getting COVID at all! (54% less symptomatic illness in the following 4 months, in this recent MMWR report.) Best paired with a respirator! People who always wore N95 masks in indoor public settings had *83%* reduced risk of testing positive for COVID, in this 2022 MMWR report.

COVID is still a threat. Getting sick sucks, plus your risk of long-lasting symptoms—aka long COVID—gets higher each time you're infected. Fortunately, there's a lot you can do to lower the risk of transmission! Protect your ability to party—and protest—this Pride!

Get a Booster. Like Drag Race spinoffs, new COVID variants are dropping all the time. Antibodies from your latest vax or infection wane after a few months. Get a booster matched to the latest variants, and your resistance will peak in a couple weeks!

Mask up! COVID virus spreads through the air like the smoke from a fag [British]. A well-fitting N95 mask gives great protection! More reasons to mask up: sexy and mysterious, shows community care, avoid all the other airborne diseases!

Take it outside. The more fresh air to disperse the virus, the better! Transmission is still possible, especially in a crowd, but going outdoors is a major safety update!

The Annotated Edition of Gender Queer is out today, May 19 2026 <3

I'm so grateful to all of these smart, wonderful people who contributed their thoughts, notes, and comics to this edition:

⭐ Jadzia Azelrod (author of Galaxy: The Prettiest Star) ⭐ Andrea Colvin (original editor of Gender Queer) ⭐ Alex L Combs (author of Trans History From Ancient Times to Present Day: A graphic novel) ⭐ Dr Sandra Cox (English Professor, Southeast Missouri State University) ⭐ Eli Erlick (author of Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950) ⭐ Mel Gillman (author of Other Ever Afters, Stage Dreams, As the Crow Flies) ⭐ Ashley R Guillory (contributor to Queers at the Table) ⭐ Justin Hall (editor of No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics) ⭐ Kori Michele Handwerker (author of Tiny Book Science) ⭐ Phoebe Kobabe (my sibling and colorist of Gender Queer) ⭐ Tara Madison Avery (publisher, Stacked Deck Press) ⭐ Ajuan Mance (author of Gender Studies: True Confessions of an Accidental Outlaw) ⭐ Hazel Hewlevant (author of Queer and How We Got Here) ⭐ Matthew Noe (Librarian at Harvard Medical School) ⭐ Hal Schrieve (author of Out of Salem, Vivian’s Ghost, Fawn’s Blood) ⭐ Matt Silady (Comics professor at California College of The Arts) ⭐ Rani Som (author of Spellbound, Apsara Engine) ⭐ Shannon Watters (co-creator of Lumberjanes)

They all have impressive credits but more relevantly, all of them are friends. 🧡💛💚💙 Order here, or pick it up at your local bookstore or comic shop! This month, Gender Queer has been out for 7 years, and it has spent 5 of those years in the top 3 most challenged books in the United States. This has only strengthened my resolve to keep writing, supporting, and defending queer and trans comics for the rest of my life. 🧡💛💚💙

My book comes out in a week, May 12!! 🤯

Some of my faves gave lovely quotes about why you should read it. 💗

I’m doing a bunch of author events and conventions—if you’re in the area, I’d love to sign a book for you!

you can preorder my book for 25% off from B&N, thru 3/26!

Here's some more context for the post above (a generous offer I hope some can make use of!) On Feb 23 2026 trans people in Kansas started to receive letters saying that their driver's license had to match their sex assigned at birth, and that any driver's license with an updated gender marker was not valid. Trans folks were directed to surrender their current IDs at the DMV, where they would be issued a new driver's licence that matched their sex assigned at birth. There is NO grace period to handle this ID change, so even if a trans person decided to comply and drive to the DMV the very next day, they could be caught driving without a valid license, they could face a class B misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Kansas already requires county jails to house inmates according to sex assigned at birth. (Read Erin in the Morning's piece above to see a scan of the letter and more info).

One organization seeking to help trans people leave hostile states and relocate to Colorado (which borders Kansas) is the Trans Continental Pipeline, which accepts donations: