Writer, editor, reviewer. Lambda + Hugo winner, Locus finalist. Hungarian / Jewish / agender / neuroatypical. E/em/eir/emself or they. טומטום. Header @likhain
May 19, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This week I was in a meeting about discrimination where I kept on saying "queer, trans and intersex" and people kept on 'correcting' it to "queer and trans"
SAY INTERSEX
PLEASE JUST SAY THE WORD
Our lives are on the line and if everyone says it, it can't remain hidden
Been wanting to buy something from them for ages now. (There are several others that look so good too 😭)
Plus also bought some underscarves, one from here, two from elsewhere, because my underscarves are getting totally chewed up in the wash.
I feel like I wear them a lot more bc of COVID and wear kippot less. Easier to put my hair away.
Feb 12, 2020 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
For the record, I disagree with both "there are two sexes" and "there are three sexes":
How sex as a biological phenomenon is divided up into concepts is entirely *cultural*
One of my cultures has historically had 4 sexes + 2 more variations on M/F (+1 of those with 2 subtypes)
Fellow intersex people, I know it is very tempting to go all in on "there are THREE sexes" in response to bigots saying "there are TWO sexes".
But please remember these are *both* Anglo-Western conceptualizations in these discussions.
Jan 14, 2020 • 47 tweets • 12 min read
Whenever there is someone saying "I'm not interested in diversity, only in literary quality," I tell my story about reviewing short fiction, and I haven't had a handy thread of it before.
So, thread! (Later I can just bump it when the topic comes up again. It does a lot)
I started reading short stories online -- mostly SFF stories, but not exclusively - in the early 2010s.
At first I'd read everything. (There were also fewer stories back then, and I read fast, so it was feasible to read most of the recent SFF stories.)
Aug 29, 2019 • 36 tweets • 6 min read
Thinking about multiple discussions this past week (in multiple languages) re: men and women writing "hard SF" - i.e., science-based work.
I'm a nonbinary person (I'm also intersex) and a scientist :), who writes hard SF, but it almost *never* gets discussed in that context -
It gets discussed a lot in other contexts.
So it's not about my writing specifically, but how we as a field categorize stuff? I feel it might be worth poking at this for a thread's duration...
(and I just got through a lot of work email and need a break!)
Mar 21, 2019 • 26 tweets • 8 min read
For #WorldPoetryDay I'd like to highlight three of my favorite contemporary poets who are NOT on Twitter / generally social media, because I feel they are at a disadvantage when it comes to hashtags like this one.
Shweta Narayan writes both poetry and fiction, and has been a Nebula finalist for fiction. But now I am talking about poetry :)
Their work engages with disability, migration, gender and Indian themes, among other things -
Nov 5, 2018 • 34 tweets • 9 min read
✏️ WORLDBUILDING THREAD ✏️
About QUILTBAG+ characters, biological and nonbiological family.
(No current events in the thread! This is purely about writing and worldbuilding.)
There will be some discussion of anti-QUILTBAG discrimination, indended and unintended.
And hopefully how to avoid unintended consequences of worldbuilding. :)
Oct 30, 2018 • 29 tweets • 5 min read
Reminder that Jews for Jesus is a Christian organization created to aggressively proselytize among Jews.
This often involves harassing Jews in Jewish spaces.
Some bizarre experiences I have had with them are threaded below.
(THIS WILL GET VERY STRANGE)
A note that they have various different subgroups ("Messianic Jews" is along the same lines) and their tactics might also be different country to country, I did not ask all of them which exact denomination they belonged to.
(I did ask some of them.)
Jul 11, 2018 • 41 tweets • 11 min read
🖊️ WRITING THREAD 🖊️
Introducing trans and/or intersex characters - some common and less common pitfalls!
(A note that here I also include all sorts of nonbinary, genderqueer, gender-nonconforming and other kinds of non-cis / gender-atypical characters too, even if they are not explicitly labeled trans; but that wouldn't fit into the word limit. Sorry about that!)
May 8, 2018 • 32 tweets • 5 min read
🖋️ Worldbuilding thread! 🖋️
Some pitfalls related to shapeshifting, gender, and trans people.
As usual for my worldbuilding threads, this is not to subtweet any specific story, but rather to point out larger trends / common issues.
(I read a lot of trans-related fiction and currently edit a trans anthology series, Transcendent: The Year's Best Transgender SFF.)
Feb 26, 2018 • 34 tweets • 8 min read
🖋️ Worldbuilding thread! 🖋️
How (not) to include trans people as background characters - some common mistakes.
Just a note: this thread is not subtweeting the stories I am currently reading for #Transcendent3: Year's Best Transgender SFF
It was inspired by several books I recently read - what I'll say will be more relevant to long-form.
Jan 2, 2018 • 104 tweets • 52 min read
I want to do this too!! So many cool threads!
📚 1 like = 1 book in my TBR for 2018 📚
I will try to do it with Amazon links (US Amazon affiliate links as usual) so you can preempt me and read the books even faster :D
2100 words, contemporary portal fantasy deconstruction + sense of wonder + feels!
(Content warning for physical injury + threat of death.)
Choice quote :) :
"Up until then, you’d just assumed that most people couldn’t even see the doors, let alone go through them; you’d had plumbers in to fix the bathroom after the cheetah incident, and they hadn’t seen anything."
Choice quote :) :