Daniel Laurison
Sociologist at Swarthmore College, trans man. Wrote Producing Politics & The Class Ceiling & a bunch of articles on class & race & inequality &/or political participation.
DanielLaurison.com = me
WeAreHigherEd.org = standing up for education and democracy
- Again @alondra.bsky.social makes me proud to be a sociologist. And, they really are succeeding in removing so many good people from government roles. It's awful.
- "For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...
- I think I retweeted something earlier today that listed this article's headline among a set of BS NYT headlines, and I wish I hadn't. Except that meant I felt I ought to read it when I saw it again, and hey - it's actually a really thoughtful reflection on the history of the closet. My thoughts -
- Okay. Let's try this again. Here's a piece I wrote about Pee-wee Herman, the history and weaponization of the celebrity closet, and how cultural representations of closeted characters have changed over decades. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/t...
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View full thread... and that those threats are threats to all LGBT etc folks, but mostly (for now) targeting trans folks. Mostly though I recommend it for a very evocative and (to my memory + knowledge) accurate overview of an aspect & a few key eras of queer history.
- (I've seen some ppl who did read the article critiquing some of its politics, and a lot of trans people & our allies blame the NYT for helping foment some of the anti-trans moral panic by running so many "uh-oh, trans kids!" & related pieces. But this article is not "yay closets!" as some assumed.)
- We were just talking to our kids about the time period when you could count the famous out lesbians on one hand, essentially. I'm not so interested in Paul Reuben/PeeWee Herman, but I really appreciate the reflections here about how we understand our queer identities as the political winds shift.
- And I do also appreciate @markharris.bsky.social's willingness to think about what MIGHT be appealing about closets (and a very mild implied critique of the activist insistence in the 90s that anyone closeted was uncomplicatedly a traitor) alongside a very clear recognition of the threats -
- I came out when I was (just barely) 15, in 1992, towards the tail end of the period of semi-closeted celebrities described here, and I remember being part of that shared project of mapping who was queer with my friends. (Gift link - www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/t...)
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View full threadOH!! I was so confused. I don't think I know what either of them looks like but the names are so similar and I hear about both of them for being on the far right awful sides of their respective parties that I just sort of merged them I guess.
- I also am not sure about the differences between Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber, though, so it's very easy to confuse me. I am pretty sure Timberlake was famous first/earlier but I don't think I could pick either of them out of a lineup either.
- George W. Bush was the worst President of the last few generations and it's really not close. what we in the US are (rightly!) up in arms about is that Trump is the worst President for us, specifically - which is a different thing
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- Very much hope you're right about that!!
- Small item, not sure making fun of right-wingers for being bad at language & design is productive, but it really does say "Responsibillity to win" with an extra "l", or it might say "responsibittity" or any other combo of l & t. These people have SO MUCH $$$$ & screw up so consistently.
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- Yeah fair.
- This is useful analysis and moderately encouraging ...at least relative to a sense that there's LESS anti-Trump pushback from Congressional Ds than in 2017
- One amazing thing about my mom is she 100% accepted me when I came out as a lesbian at 15 (in 1992), and again when I told her I was trans at 27 (in 2004). In fact, both times I came out to her she was expecting it and didn't make a big deal or even do any "oh but I worry about you" kind of stuff.
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- Thanks! She was of course not perfect but she absolutely did her best to live her values and her values were very good.
- And very few cis straight people were ok with trans stuff in 2004. My mom took us to Pride parades as a straight ally family when I was in elementary school (~ '87 maybe?), and came along to a GenderPAC conference I'd helped organize in 2001-ish.
- She also housed/unofficially fostered teens who needed a place to stay, whether that was because their families couldn't handle them being gay, or were otherwise shitty, or just somebody needed a break. And fed them all on a not very large salary as a secretary, without any other adults helping.
- She's got late stage Alzheimer's now and doesn't notice much (or open her eyes or feed herself or etc) so I use here to thank her for being a pretty great mom to me. I do wish my kids could have known her more.
- Anyway I just want to point out that pretty much every other queer person I knew in 1992 was at BEST greeted with "oh no don't get AIDS" and/or "oh no I will never have grandkids" when they came out to their parents. Lots of people were beat up and/or kicked out; lots of others just didn't come out.
- I have given every year for a while now but only remembered just now when I saw this. You can give too!
- Right now, 13 Black-led organizations are bailing out Black mamas and caregivers all across Georgia; Alabama; North Carolina; Texas; Mississippi; Missouri; California; Tennessee; New York; and Pennsylvania. ⛓️💥♥️ Join the movement to #FreeBlackMamas at bit.ly/freeblackmamas2025
- I agree that this is not THE question but also when people respond to polls they mostly understand the question in contemporary political terms, so I think it's not wrong, very unfortunately, to read this as ~68% of people answering "should we be anti-trans?" with "probably yes."
- Like what kind of question is this? It literally *does not matter* whether or not people believe trans women are *actually* women/trans men are *actually* men. None of that matters. That's a philosophical question, completely irrelevant to whether the law should make accommodations for trans people.
- Also though read the whole thread by @parkermolloy.com bsky.app/profile/park...
- This is such a garbage poll. It doesn't get into what Trump has specifically done to trans people. apnews.com/article/tran...
- And see this too - I just hate to see ~68% saying "boo trans" even though it's not the right question, even if some of the ppl in that 68% would also say (maybe!) I should have access to hormones or agree that trans women should be treated as women sometimes, etc. bsky.app/profile/dani...
- Agree with this too - which is the larger point @parkermolloy.com was making. Attitudes as measured on poll questions vary a LOT based on how questions are asked. The point about abortion in the reply to the tweet below is a great example.
- Agree with this too - which is the larger point @parkermolloy.com was making. Attitudes as measured on poll questions vary a LOT based on how questions are asked. The point about abortion in the reply to the tweet below is a great example.
- Anyone want to make this, or does it already exist somewhere? (We have a bit of this going for higher ed at WeAreHigherEd.org, with pages for news of attacks and for news/letters etc where institutions and individuals are standing up. But it's not the the whole picture.)
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- What the hell?!
- This is one of the few cases of leopard-face-eating celebration I am entirely ok with: "I am voting for trump to own the libs" is uncomplicated evidence of voting to be mean + losing your shoe business is not something I think no one should have to suffer, unlike deportation/rendition or poverty.
- Ok this was good. - totally stayed off social media, signal chats, etc - snuck peaks at email despite my intentions and auto-responder (much to my regret, a few times) but not too much - looked at some new data, which wasn't on my to-do list but I just enjoy - got 90% done with overdue R&R
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View full thread... If anyone in/near Philly is looking for a solo retreat, I can now unreservedly recommend this even if you're a queer atheist transexual like me, or otherwise not at all Catholic. A queer Buddhist friend works there and the nuns etc I interacted with were all very nice. fscaston.org/hermitages/
- You are in a little cabin among 5 cabins with woods all around, but it's a short drive (or good bike ride) from Philly, & close to a Rita's and a grocery store and a bunch of not-especially fancy restaurants from fast food to Applebee's & a diner. But there's a complete basic kitchen in the cabin.
- And now that I'm back I am going to think some about how I do news/bluesky etc. I don't need to be actively mad about every additional assault [on you name it - democracy, decency (the real kind, not the euphemism for anti-sex etc stuff), immigrants, trans ppl, education, diversity] every hour.
- What I really want is a 2 column very simple website, where one column is "fascism tracker/bad news" & the other is "resistance/victories/good news" and each column is just a feed with one post per new item - that maybe links to updates/discussion etc - with a brief overview.
- - also stayed off signal chats & etc - went cold turkey on games; I am not good at being medium about Internet/phone games so it's better when I don't do them at all - went for a few walks, enjoyed a 16 mile bike ride to get there, didn't leave the cottage at all from Tues afternoon through Weds
- OK THEN: I am Pope Van Leeuwen Coffee Affogato Ice Cream the VI.
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- That is an impressive sundae!
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- I tried it but the person behind the counter told me some people say it tastes like fruit loops and then that's what I tasted.
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- Hmm I just realized I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce my Pope name.
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- So fancy. I went out for end of semester drinks with a reading group I'm in and it was right next door to ice cream so I felt it was my duty. Otherwise I'd have been Pope Truffle Fries the VI or pope Hazy IPA etc.
- Hello Internet friends, just letting you know I'll be entirely offline for ~60 hours, from this morning through Wednesday evening. This is not that interesting to you, but putting it here makes it less likely I try to cheat and scroll my feed.
- Um, folks, if you're going to cite something really famous, try to get it right? [I cut the rest of the tweet, both bc of the small chance it will identify me as reviewer 2 but also bc it's such inside baseball that only like 6 people on here will know what I'm talking about, let alone care.]
- As a child of a hippie-ish mom in the 80s, I think of this as the "carob problem." Carob MIGHT be a yummy food but I will never know because all I will ever taste is the terrible disappointment of expecting chocolate and getting NOT CHOCOLATE.
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- I'm so very sorry.
- This applies to all kinds of food substitutions for any reason. Lots of vegan foods are yummy. If you tell me you've got a delicious cashew-based spread I'm happy to try it, if you tell me it's just like cream cheese I am going to be sad.
- There is a partial exception for glutenous flour (my partner is gluten intolerant). There are some recipes I've found or figured out - generally ones that aren't mostly flour - where you can sub oat flour or etc and get a result that is genuinely just as good.
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- And neither does sorbet, which I think was briefly considered healthier bc low fat. I do like a sorbet, but again - not if l am hoping for ice cream.
- Hello all, I just got a lot of new followers - I'm in a new starter pack or two, it seems. FYI: I'm a trans man, a sociologist, and a parent. Most of my scholarly work is about social class (which I try to always think about in its intersection with racial inequalities) and/or US politics.
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View full threadOh, I also really really like making data visualizations that are both pretty and informative and I am very proud of the ones in these threads/articles. bsky.app/profile/dani...
- .. and a lot of what I've been doing online this spring is trying to help coordinate and support academics/higher ed in standing up to Trump et al's attacks on science, knowledge, education, etc not to mention democracy itself + basic values like diversity & human rights. bsky.app/profile/dani...
- - my general thoughts on social change (I have always wanted to figure out how to be part of making the US a much less unequal and racist and etc country; my main conclusion on that is that it's impossible to know the right/best path from here to there, and that electoral politics do matter) +
- - whatever else I'm thinking about or enjoying that's worth sharing. That's not infrequently my mom, who has very late-stage early-onset Alzheimer's and who I miss terribly and was overall a great parent to me in a lot of ways. Sometimes it's ice cream or nature or biking or my kids if they ok it.
- I post here about: - research & sociology - mine and others' - usually about race & racism and/or inequality and/or politics - queer & trans issues as I understand/think about them (as someone who has been out as queer for 33+ years and who transitioned ... hey, almost exactly 20 years ago. +
