Authoritarian regimes don’t just collapse. They collapse themselves.
They push too hard. They create their own enemies. And then—suddenly—they’re gone.

Here’s how they accelerate their own demise. 🧵 Iraq, 2003: The U.S. thought firing every government official overnight would stabilize the country.
Instead, they created an insurgency that lasted for years.

Turns out, when you take away people’s jobs and their power, they don’t just go home.

1/ Congressional Bathroom Inspector Nancy Mace gave a commencement speech at The Citadel this week, bragging about breaking barriers as the school’s first female graduate. But the right immediately turned on her, accusing her of destroying a “male-only” institution. 🧵 2/ Mace was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, a military academy that was forced to admit women after a Supreme Court ruling. Now, the same conservatives who cheered her anti-trans bills are calling her the real problem.

1/ 🧵 I’ve been getting a lot of worried questions about the deluge of executive orders targeting trans people. I wanted to share my thoughts publicly, because I know this moment feels heavy. That's by design. 2/ These orders are designed first and foremost to instill fear. Fear that makes you question yourself, that pushes you back into the shadows—or worse.

1/ Right-wing media are waging a full-scale attack on Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde after she used her inaugural prayer service to call on Trump to “have mercy” on LGBTQ kids and undocumented migrants. Let’s unpack their outrage. 🧵 2/ During the National Prayer Service, Budde urged compassion, highlighting the fear many LGBTQ children and migrants are experiencing. She called for mercy, dignity, and understanding in leadership. Conservative media, predictably, pounced.

1/ The right’s war on trans people isn’t about “protecting kids” or “fairness.” It’s about isolating, dehumanizing, and provoking—pushing until someone breaks. You do not, under any circumstances, have the hand it to them. 🧵 2/ Trans people are losing healthcare, community, and hope for the future. In a country full of guns, dehumanization has a horrifyingly predictable outcome. The right knows this. They’ve laid the groundwork by claiming every mass shooter is trans. Don’t give them the spark.

1/ Trump's return as president is terrifying for trans people. We know what’s coming—bans on care, escalated violence, attacks on our dignity.

Here are 10 tips to get ready for the hard years ahead. 🧵 2/ Start with your paperwork.

Make sure your name and gender marker match your presentation. In states where name changes can be sealed, file for privacy.

If you’ve faced online threats, they can sometimes help your case for sealed records.

At the end of the day I do not understand why so many of you spend so much time thinking about and getting mad about trans people, a tiny and largely impoverished group of people who just want to be left alone. It makes me sad, for us and for you. I don't really care if you understand why I transitioned or if you see me as a woman but I will never understand the certainty that so many people live with that an experience they don't understand is not real or why you seem so eager for us to experience more pain in our lives.

🧵THREAD: CNN's hit piece on Kamala Harris's positions on trans issues changed the course of the Presidential campaign, but it ignored a massive point and sent right-wing media into a frenzy over nothing. Here's why it's all smoke and mirrors: 1/ CNN framed Harris' support for transition care in prisons like a scandal. In reality? Gender-affirming care was already happening under Trump. It's required by law.

Ted Cruz (R-TX) is one of the many political candidates flooding the airwaves claiming his opponent “opposed protecting women’s sports.” But as his former podcast co-host recently made clear, MAGA media can't stop dunking on female athletes. 🧵

https://x.com/michaeljknowles/status/1845173550489141663?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1845173550489141663%7Ctwgr%5E4d5c60b4b43bfb5bf3d106e8c98d239c73137932%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fmichael-knowles%2Fgop-candidates-are-spending-millions-claiming-theyll-protect-womens-sports-maga

Public contempt for women's sports is a surprisingly popular point of view in a right-wing ecosystem that has worked to elevate threats from trans women in women’s sports as a path to winning over voters at odds with the GOP’s view on abortion. mediamatters.org/riley-gaines/f…

FOUR college volleyball teams have now forfeited matches against San Jose State University after right wing media outed one player as allegedly trans - and Riley Gaines, who previously offered to bribe athletes to do this, is cheering them on 🧵 Blaire Fleming has played DI volleyball for three seasons, first at Coastal Carolina University and subsequently at San Jose, and “has never made any public statement regarding her gender identity.” Regardless, the NCAA does not unilaterally bar trans players from competition.

Letting go of who we were isn’t easy. Transitioning, healing from trauma, or any big life change can feel terrifying, even when the past no longer serves you. But releasing those old layers is key to becoming your authentic self. 🧵1/10 We often cling to the past like armor, protecting ourselves from fear or judgment. Yet, this armor weighs us down. It becomes outdated, no longer serving its purpose. To grow, we must shed that armor and step forward as our true selves. 2/10

VIDEO: "I don't think we're engaging in both-sidesism." A New York Times editor defended the paper's record of trans coverage at The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists’ convention this year, favorably comparing their approaches to the trans community and the war in Gaza. 🧵 Pity the largest news organization in America: “I’ve got to say it’s tough for those of us at the [New York] Times because it’s unsettling a little bit, it’s a lonely feeling sometimes,” Sifton said of criticism mediamatters.org/new-york-times…

Before the debate: a CNN report last night sensationalizing Kamala Harris' position on medical care for incarcerated trans people ignored important context - including a Supreme Court ruling that denying medically necessary care is a violation of constitutional rights 🧵 The CNN report focused on her response to a 2019 ACLU questionnaire in which she stated positions on incarceration, immigration detention, and other civil rights issues. The network’s on-air coverage of the report made it all about trans people.

The Georgia school shooter was a bigot who wrote about being inspired to commit a massacre by an image of a family supporting their trans daughter. That didn't stop right-wing influencers from using the incident to promote anti-trans hate and market anti-trans merch. 🧵 On September 4, 14-year-old Colt Gray, allegedly killed two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School. His father, Colin Gray, faces related charges for “providing a firearm to Colt Gray with knowledge that he was threat to himself and others.” apnews.com/article/georgi…

I don't understand how AI has not yet been sued out of existence





Have you played the new Nintendo game?

1) Pamela Paul here praises the UK's Cass report, which covered up the suicide deaths of young people denied treatment, and which a Yale review found misstates the evidence in question.
2) There are zero alternatives to gender-affirming care that we know work as well or better. This is the climate denial playbook at work against trans people. Pamela Paul does not offer an alternative that is backed by science, so she just tries to poke holes in the option that is. And it works. And that's very bad for people growing up with dysphoria.

What we're living through politically is the result of decades of plundering the wealth of this and other nations while keeping voters in line with cheap shit and fear of the other guy rather than any real feeling of investment in society or hope of a future with room for them. Our society has a deeply unhealthy attitude towards young people - we follow their every cultural preference, display open envy of their youthful appearances, build political movements on their innocence while publicly mocking the lack of experience it brings.

BREAKING: At least seventeen bomb threats have been reported against Planet Fitness locations after Libs of TikTok began a campaign against the brand for canceling the membership of a woman who took a photo of another customer using the locker room. LoTT's campaign began after a member of the gym's Fairbanks location complained about “a man shaving in a women's bathroom.” As the posts gained viral traction, Planet Fitness released a statement reiterating the gym's trans-inclusive policy mediamatters.org/libs-tiktok/bo…

SCOOP: Before Chris Rufo was an architect of Ron DeSantis' effort to cancel classes and ban books, he was paid to help produce documentaries about pregnant teenagers and teachers affirming gay youth over the wishes of their parents. 🧵 From 2009 to 2011, Rufo’s nonprofit Documentary Foundation ran a “community outreach and education initiative” intended to teach students how to make films on “important local topics” and gain skills necessary for “activism in the community.” mediamatters.org/justice-civil-…

The hyperbolic claim | the paper cited to support it

https://twitter.com/LeorSapir/status/1775891815758963185

Leor has a real talent for saying things that are technically true and sound very scary but that quickly fall apart when you check his citations.

It had been 368 days since Bud Light sent Dylan Mulvaney one (1) can of beer with her face on it, and Fox News has mentioned her on average nearly once a day since then 🧵 Fox News covered Mulvaney's Instagram post multiple times in the first three days, Kid Rock filmed himself using the product for target practice, Matt Walsh demanded a boycott, and the rest is, as they say, history. mediamatters.org/fox-news/bud-l…