can be easily done on this page: https://fcnl.quorum.us/ . They don’t ask personal questions. You can choose your issue, and go to work. It’s very easy. I get, I think, 3 emails from them most weeks, but most are news. Today I was there to write my buttsy senators a letter about their votes opposing the child tax credit, and I thought I’d just drop the link to the action center (above) so anyone can go there, anytime, and work on what they will.
https://fcnl.quorum.us/ is the Action Center. Here’s a local-ish story about KS’s senators: https://hayspost.com/posts/c1412ea0-1b11-460b-a576-79e635d1e2fa , if anyone’s interested. It’s fairer coverage than I expected; the West is pretty red. But, there are children in poverty in every county of this state, lots of them, and everyone knows it. Now if we could just get someone to run against these Republican senators…
Some people said militant anti-abortion activist Matthew Trewhella was a ’90s figure who’s no longer relevant, but our reporting shows he’s influencing policies, bills and movements today.
This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
In the fall of 2022, Phoebe Petrovic, an investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, noticed a pastor and his church appearing in local news coverage for their anti-LGBTQ+ protests. Looking closer revealed Pastor Matthew Trewhella’s startling history. And digging even deeper, she noticed an untold story: his broader influence on modern Republican politics. His rise helps illustrate the growing power of the Christian right in the Republican party. Here, Petrovic describes how she reported the story and what she learned.
What were the key takeaways from your reporting?
A few decades ago, Trewhella was known as a militant anti-abortion activist. Today, he’s got a different reputation: thought leader on the far right, increasingly welcomed by Republicans.
Trewhella helped to rehabilitate his reputation through his 2013 self-published book, “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” which uses a 16th-century Protestant doctrine to argue that government officials have a God-given right and duty to defy laws, policies or court opinions deemed “unjust or immoral” under “the law of God.”
He’s preached this doctrine to county Republican parties and local groups across the country, even to the National Sheriffs’ Association, a preeminent law enforcement organization.
His book has influenced Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions. At least 10 measures across the country refer to lesser magistrates. One of the earliest, issued in 2019, was authored by a county commissioner who has described reading Trewhella’s book as a “turning point” for him.
A prominent booster of debunked election conspiracy claims is using Trewhella’s book to disrupt future elections.
How does Trewhella fit into the election? What does he say about his work?
In the cast of characters who might influence the upcoming election, Trewhella is not rallying crowds the same way as Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, or Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA. Trewhella is more behind the scenes, providing a religious justification for some far-right policies and causes.
Trewhella says that he promotes nonviolence. But after an activist killed an abortion provider in 1993, he signed a document describing the murder of these doctors as “justifiable.”
In a brief interview, I asked Trewhella about his reputational shift over the decades. He responded: “Most people will always only care about three things in life: me, myself and I. … It’s only because of their mundane, self-absorbed lives that they would think someone like me is an extremist. That’s my answer.”
Trewhella did not respond to over a dozen attempts to set up a second interview. He did not answer written questions by email and refused a certified letter containing them.
What did experts tell you about Trewhella?
Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, which studies threats to democracy and human rights, has tracked Trewhella for decades. Clarkson said, “All of those county commissioners and mayors and whatnot who are entertaining this stuff, they’re putting people’s lives and the entirety of civil order at risk by playing footsie with Matt Trewhella.”
Another extremism researcher, Devin Burghart, said, “I think that the public needs to know that he’s a dangerous theocrat, who would fundamentally alter the United States in irreparable ways that would harm many, including women, people of color and the LGBTQ community.” Burghart is president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which tracks the far right. (snip-More)
Vivian Jenna Wilson, the transgender daughter of Elon Musk, said Thursday in her first interview that he was an absent father who was cruel to her as a child for being queer and feminine.
Wilson, 20, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, responded to comments Musk made Monday about her and her transgender identity. On social media and in an interview posted online, Musk said she was “not a girl” and was figuratively “dead,” and he alleged that he had been “tricked” into authorizing trans-related medical treatment for her when she was 16.
Wilson said that Musk hadn’t been tricked and that, after initially having hesitated, he knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment, which required consent from her parents.
Musk’s recent statements crossed a line, she said.
“I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged,” Wilson said in a phone interview. “Which I’m not going to do, because if you’re going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I’m not just gonna let that slide.”
Wilson said that, for as long as she could remember, Musk hasn’t been a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and she said Musk berated her when he was present.
“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.”
Wilson said that, when she was a child, Musk would harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressure her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school.
“I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high,” she said. “It was cruel.”
Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Wilson and her twin brother were born to Musk’s first wife, author Justine Musk. The couple divorced in 2008, and Wilson said her parents shared custody between their homes in the Los Angeles area.
Musk, 53, is among the wealthiest people in the world through his stakes in Tesla, where he’s CEO, and in SpaceX, which he founded. He has also become a significant political figure, having endorsed former President Donald Trump this month for another term in the White House. Musk has 12 children, including Wilson.
Now a college student studying languages, Wilson has never granted an interview before and has largely stayed out of public view. She did, however, attract attention in 2022 when she sought court approval in California to change her name and, in the process, denounced her father.
“I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” she said in the court filing.
She told NBC News that at the time, she was surprised by the media attention to the court filing, which she submitted when she was 18. She said in the interview that she stands by what she wrote, though she said she might have tried to be more eloquent had she known the coverage it would get.
Wilson said that she hadn’t spoken to Musk in about four years and that she refused to be defined by him.
“I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult. I am 20 years old. I am not a child,” she said. “My life should be defined by my own choices.”
Musk threw a spotlight on Wilson on Monday by speaking about their relationship in a video interview with psychologist and conservative commentator Jordan Peterson streamed live on X, saying he didn’t support Wilson’s gender identity.
“I lost my son, essentially,” Musk said. He used Wilson’s birth name, also known as a deadname for transgender people, and said she was “dead, killed by the woke mind virus.”
And in a post on X, Musk said Monday that Wilson was “born gay and slightly autistic” and that, at age 4, she fit certain gay stereotypes, such as loving musicals and using the exclamation “fabulous!” to describe certain clothing. Wilson told NBC News that the anecdotes aren’t true, though she said she did act stereotypically feminine in other ways as a child.
Wilson also addressed Musk’s recent comments in a series of posts Thursday on the social media app Threads.
“He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there,” she wrote. “And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.”
“I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype,” she continued. “I think that says alot about how he views queer people and children in general.”
In recent years, Musk has taken a hard–right turn into conservative politics and has been waging a campaign against transgender people and policies designed to support them. This month, he said he was pulling his businesses out of California to protest a new state law that bars schools from requiring that trans kids be outed to their parents.
On X, Musk has for years criticized transgender rights, including medical treatments for trans-identifying minors, and the use of pronouns if they are different from what would be used at birth. He has promoted anti-trans content and called for arresting people who provide trans care to minors.
Musk told Peterson that Wilson’s gender transition has been the motivation for his push into conservative politics.
“I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that, and we’re making some progress,” he said.
Wilson was also mentioned in a biography of Musk by author Walter Isaacson — a book that she told NBC News was inaccurate and unfair to her. The book refers to her politics as “radical Marxism,” quoting Musk’s sister-in-law Christiana Musk, but Wilson said she’s not a Marxist, though she said she does oppose wealth inequality. The book also calls her by her middle name, Jenna.
Wilson said Isaacson never reached out to her directly ahead of publication. In a phone interview Thursday, Isaacson said he had reached out to Wilson through family members.
Christiana Musk didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Wilson told NBC News that for years she had considered speaking out about Musk’s behavior as a parent and as a person but that she could no longer remain silent after his comments Monday.
She said she had never received an explanation for why her father spent so little time with her and her siblings — behavior that she now views as strange.
“He was there, I want to say, maybe 10% of the time. That’s generous,” she said. “He had half custody, and he fully was not there.”
“It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don’t think I realized just how abnormal of an experience it was,” she added.
Wilson said she came out twice in life: once as gay in eighth grade and a second time as transgender when she was 16. She said that she doesn’t recall Musk’s response the first time and that she wasn’t present when Musk heard from others that she was transgender, because by then the pandemic had started and she was living full-time with her mother.
“She’s very supportive. I love her a lot,” Wilson said of her mom.
The pandemic was a chance to escape Musk’s cruelty, she said.
“When Covid hit, I was like, ‘I’m not going over there,’” she said. “It was basically very lucky timing.”
Musk told Peterson in the interview that he had been “tricked” into signing documents authorizing transgender-related medical treatment for Wilson — an allegation Wilson said isn’t true.
“I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys,” Musk said, using her birth name.
“This was before I had really any understanding of what was going on, and we had Covid going on,” he said, adding that he was told she might commit suicide.
Wilson said that, in 2020, when she was still a minor at 16, she wanted to start treatment for severe gender dysphoria but needed the consent of both parents under California law. She said that her mother was supportive but that Musk initially wasn’t. She said she texted him about it for a while.
“I was trying to do this for months, but he said I had to go meet with him in person,” she said. “At that point, it was very clear that we both had a very distinct disdain for each other.”
When she eventually went and gave him the medical forms, she said, he read them at least twice, once with her and then again on his own, before he signed them.
“He was not by any means tricked. He knew the full side effects,” she said.
She said she took puberty blockers before she switched to hormone-replacement therapy — treatments that she said were lifesaving for her and other transgender people.
“They save lives. Let’s not get that twisted,” she said. “They definitely allowed me to thrive.”
She said she believed the requirements to obtain such treatments remain onerous, with teenagers pressured to say they’re at extreme risk of self-harm before they’ll be approved. She said she felt judged by Musk and Peterson, in the Monday interview, for not being at a high enough risk in their eyes.
“I have been basically put into a point where, to a group of people, I have to basically prove whether or not I was suicidal or not to warrant medically transitioning,” she said. “It’s absolutely mind-boggling.”
I spent the last two hours in bed hugging, rubbing, cuddling, pressed tight to, and comforting Ron as he slept. He recently had two infected upper teeth, one was a wisdom tooth that was in sideways. Now he has a lower wisdom tooth that is infected. It has been really painful for him and he has not been sleeping at night. He has an appointment at 8 am to have it pulled. When he told me he needed to go to bed and how tired he was, then asked me to come down and hold him, how could I refuse? It has put me behind on everything, but he feels so much better. We just got up and I made him a cup of coffee. Randy bought us a coffee machine that lets us do one cup at a time with regular coffee grounds. As I am not drinking coffee any more Ron loves the machine. Hugs. Scottie
“Trans people are three to six times more likely to be diagnosed as autistic. The 19th interviewed six people about how finding joy as a trans person and autistic person are intertwined.”
(Republished via The 19th’s republish link. Also, my apologies for the article’s use of the phrase “on the autism spectrum”; I’ve learned from a reader that’s not a preferred term. I thought about not posting, but decided to apologize, because there could be good info within. I’m hoping our readers here can expand on the aspects of this article.)
Transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse people are more likely to be autistic and to self-report autistic traits than cisgender people, according to several studies conducted in recent years. Trans people are three to six times more likely to be diagnosed as autistic, according to research from the University of Cambridge.
As transgender Americans’ identities are being politicized amid a wave of hostile legislation and dehumanizing rhetoric spread by elected officials, the experiences of autistic transgender people are also being politicized. Proponents of anti-trans legislation have used the correlation between autism and gender diversity to portray trans youth as incapable of consenting to gender-affirming care. Some states last year went so far as to suggest that gender-affirming care should be withheld from autistic people.
In this political environment, it can be difficult for trans people on the autism spectrum to find joy. As Disability Pride month comes to a close, The 19th spoke with six autistic trans people from different backgrounds and different parts of the country to learn what brings them joy, how they find community, and how their lives have changed through exploring gender and being autistic.
The way that autistic people experience joy is different from the way neurotypicals do, said May Walser, an autistic and nonbinary 25-year-old student living in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“The feeling that autistic people experience is more overwhelming and it can be described as being flooded with warmth, and the joy is all you can focus on and your surroundings are melting away,” they said. The feeling can be so intense that they may need to stim, using repetitive movements to release the feeling; like flapping their hands or arms.
“It can take a lot of courage for autistic people to feel comfortable expressing themselves with their bodies,” they said. At school, they got some weird looks for flapping their hands, but the other students weren’t mean about it; not like they were about their lack of understanding of social cues.
Common triggers for autistic joy include eating foods that cause sensory joy, interacting with animals or pets, and connecting with other autistic people — since those connections allow autistic people to unmask, Walser said. Their own biggest sources of joy include listening to music, spending time with their pets, discovering new sensory joys with fidget toys, making art with acrylic paints and drawing, and researching art history.
(Courtesy of May Walser)
Although Walser knew they were autistic from a young age, they were able to embrace their autistic identity only after they graduated high school. Once they saw other autistic people share their experiences on social media, they knew they weren’t alone.
“During my years of masking my autistic traits, I had gotten used to constantly being bombarded with sensory overload at school. I was able to block it out, but after interacting with other autistic people, I was able to realize what is likely to cause sensory overload for me. And I was able to become more aware of what my needs and desires are as an autistic person,” they said.
Their community with other autistic people is still primarily online, they said — which overlaps with how many people access LGBTQ+ communities. They see their identities as a pansexual and nonbinary person, as well as their autistic identity, to be similar in the way that they both break away from the norm in a neurotypical, cisgender world, Walser said. The joy found through LGBTQ+ identities and autistic identities can also be similar, they said.
“Trans joy and autistic joy can both occur when they interact with like-minded individuals, and when we feel like we are being seen and respected.”
Oluwatobi Odugunwa, 24, is from Nigeria and currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee. They are multiply disabled and work for Dotdash Meredith, a large digital and print publisher. Odugunwa is also the director for the community grant program of the Autistic People of Color Fund, which provides direct financial assistance to autistic people of color.
Odugunwa is nonbinary, agender and a Black woman, and they do not see these identities as being in contrast.
“In the Western concept of gender, the focus is whiteness. The gender norms that are associated with being a woman are really with being a White woman. It’s very different from how Black womanhood is culturally conceptualized. Since our gender binary is based on white supremacy and whiteness, Black people — our gender falls outside that inherently,” Odugunwa said.
(Courtesy of Oluwatobi Odugunwa)
For Odugunwa, trans autistic joy is rooted in authenticity and acceptance.
“Trans autistic joy is not needing to mask, not needing to hide who you are gender-wise, personality-wise and autism-wise. It’s being able to be your full self and still be accepted, loved and respected. It is to be in active, loving community exactly how you are,” they said.
Odugunwa identified trans autistic joy as a form of resistance.
“Joy is critical because we live in a world where people are actively trying to kill us, whether that’s interpersonally or systemically. We live in a world where some people don’t believe people like us should exist,” Odugunwa said.
Right now, Odungunwa finds the most joy in their cat, who they described as “grumpy and loud.” They are also finding an increasing amount of joy in rest and slowing down.
“As I do that, I’m finding my capacity for joy is increasing. I’m building stronger relationships with people that I care about and who care about me. Joy feels like rest, community and chosen family,” they said.
Jaina Keller, a 34-year-old autistic trans woman living in Belton, Missouri, sees a lot of overlap between neurodivergency and trans folks. The act of exploring your identity and being affirmed by others’ experiences, as well as being able to put a name to lifelong feelings, are shared by both communities. For her, the freedom that came with realizing that she didn’t have to go through life masking her autistic traits was strikingly familiar; she had felt a similar euphoric release when she realized she didn’t have to live with gender dysphoria. She could choose happiness for her own life and didn’t have to accept being miserable everyday.
(Courtesy of Jaina Keller)
“I realized I was playing a character,” she said. “I would put on this character. I was masking. And now, I just bring myself to the workplace or to social situations. And if people find me weird or off-putting … I don’t need to force myself to change to be accepted.”
Finding a community of people who understand that has been transformative for Keller. It’s not about finding people with the same interests, but finding people who will take joy in her interests and in how her brain works. That community includes romantic partners, since all of her partners are autistic. She tends to click the best with people who think like her, who enjoy unpacking everyday parts of life and examining the patterns behind them.
To Keller, that drive to dig deeper into societal assumptions is a common thread underlying the research showing that transgender and nonbinary people are more likely to be autistic. Realizing that she could challenge her preconceived ideas about her own gender is what helped her realize that she was trans. To her, digging into those kinds of assumptions is a common part of autistic thinking.
“From friends I’ve talked to and people I’ve seen posting online, I think there is a large community of people that that holds true for,” she said. “You start poking at these societal assumptions, and one of those just happens to be gender identity.”
For Keller, knowing why her brain works the way it does — learning she was autistic — has been a tremendous source of joy for her. What was previously unexplainable can now be understood.
“It turns out, I’m not weird, my brain is just wired that way,” she said. “That’s been the greatest source of joy that I can point to, is knowing that I’m not broken. I’m just different from a societally expected baseline.”
For Elizabeth Knight, a 19-year-old autistic trans woman living in Montgomery County, Tennessee, her neurodivergence changes the ways she obtains joy. Being immersed in her special interests and hyperfixations creates a massive amount of joy for her, as does referencing them in conversations. Magic the Gathering, the Kirby, and the video game Five Nights at Freddy’s are all special interests for her, as well as researching feminist theory and queer identities. Online, she’ll find others who find joy in the same things, but she also has in-person friends to turn to.
(Courtesy of Elizabeth Knight)
“In general, I tend to associate with other neurodivergent people, and we’ll take turns infodumping and becoming interested and invested in other people’s special interests,” she said. Four of her friends are the ones she’ll usually seek out for those conversations; all of them are queer and neurodivergent, and three of them are trans.
Knight finds the label of being an autistic person to be comforting, and it’s something that she takes pride in.
“It gives me a sense of belonging in the ways that I’m different. It kind of gives me an explanation,” she said. “I can go into depth about how my thinking is different than the neurotypical status quo, but it’s a lot easier to just say I’m autistic,” she said.
Maxfield Sparrow, 57, currently lives in Redwood City, California. They work as a direct support professional for an autistic young man with higher support needs, run a support group for autistic trans people through the Association of Autism and Neurodiversity and do astrological readings and ritual building.
Sparrow has seen themself as outside the gender binary for decades, although the language for that did not always exist or remain consistent. In 1992, Sparrow first started using the word “metagender.”
“All my life, I felt like I wasn’t a woman and I wasn’t a man. There wasn’t always a word for that. I came up with ‘metagender’ to explain how I felt. For a long time, I just had to take it on trust that gender even exists, because I don’t feel it,” they said.
Despite long-standing complex feelings about their gender, Sparrow didn’t decide to medically transition until they were 50 years old.
They took a year to think about it before making their first appointment at a clinic in Florida, where they were living at the time. The clinic required a year of therapy and letters from multiple medical professionals before Sparrow could start gender-affirming care.
(Courtesy of Maxfield Sparrow)
“Florida has always been a really hard place to be trans,” Sparrow said.
Sparrow went to Texas and found an informed consent clinic in Houston. Informed consent allows trans people to access gender-affirming care without a letter from a therapist clearing them for treatment; instead, doctors will discuss risks and benefits with a patient and assess their mental health. Sparrow was surprised it had been so difficult for them to access care in the first place.
“I figured once you’re middle age, there’s no point in any kind of gatekeeping or testing. I was really solid that I wanted testosterone,” Sparrow said. They still chose to omit their autism diagnosis when the clinic took their medical history.
“I was so afraid [the doctor] would say no.” they said.
Currently, Sparrow finds the most joy in astrology.
“I really love systems. My love of astrology, which I first got into when I was 12 – I’ve been just fascinated with it my whole life. I’m not an air quotes ‘believer,’ but it’s like how some autistic people get really into calendars. So did I, except my calendar is the planet. I love not just the astronomy of it, which in itself is intricate and beautiful,” they said.
Finding joy as a trans autistic person is, for Sparrow, an act of resistance in and of itself.
“I am convinced that the people who are trying to legislate against our existence really just wish we would die or not exist. They are trying to stamp out the joy of being fully integrated and being fully who you are. Every time a trans autistic person is able to experience joy at their existence and their identity and their experiences, it’s a reminder of what we are fighting for,” they said.
What is Sparrow fighting for?
“A world where children don’t kill themselves because no one will listen to who they are. We’re fighting for a world where it’s OK to be who we are, where every piece of who we are is not a piece. It’s woven together into an integrated whole that is beautiful, good and right,” they said.
Victoria Rodríguez-Roldán, 35, is an autistic trans woman from Puerto Rico. She now lives in Baltimore and is serving as Maryland’s state coordinator for autism strategy.
(Courtesy of Victoria Rodríguez-Roldán)
“For me, autistic joy is what brings you joy in your fullest autistic self, without fear of being mocked or ridiculed,” she said. According to Rodríguez-Roldán, joy is not only pleasurable, but necessary in dark times.
“You have to be proud of yourself and who you are, despite being told by people in power not to be,” she said.
Rodríguez-Roldán loves video games, but she finds the most joy in her relationship with her wife, Meah Berry. They got married in 2016 in a small, private ceremony officiated by a close friend.
“Joy is in the day-to-day. People think that it’s tied to life events — the day you graduate from college or the day of your wedding or the day you start a new job. But it’s not. It’s what gets you out of bed every day and you’re thinking, gee it would be nice to do that again today.”
Bright future for medicines and farming after fluorine discovery
July 30, 2024 Ellen Phiddian
US researchers have figured out an environmentally friendly way to mix fluorine into carbon molecules using enzymes and light.
The discovery illuminates a path for safer and more ecologically sound materials, particularly pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals.
“This work could pave the way for new, greener technologies in chemical production,” says senior researcher Professor Huimin Zhao, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Fluorine atoms can be very powerful additions to bioactive materials. They can make medicines easier to absorb, more stable in biological systems, and better at interacting with other proteins. About 20% of pharmaceuticals on the market contain fluorine.
But these organic (carbon-containing) molecules all typically need a bond between a fluorine atom and a carbon atom to work.
This bond is rare in nature, and difficult to make in a lab. At the moment, most fluorine-containing substances are made using super-toxic hydrogen fluoride, which can be fatal with just a small splash to the skin.
This has spurred chemists to hunt for other ways to fluorinate molecules.
In this research, the scientists used a protein that responds to light, called a photoenzyme.
Using this enzyme, they were able to add fluorine to a class of molecules called olefins. These carbon-containing molecules are widely used as a feedstock in the chemical industry, because they’re easy to turn into a range of other molecules.
The reaction is also “stereoselective”: it can differentiate between molecules that are chemically identical, but optically different. This is a difficult property to achieve in a lab, but crucial to the pharmaceutical and agricultural market because biological organisms can react differently to optically different molecules.
Maolin Li (seated) and Huimin Zhao in the lab. Credit: Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI)
“Our research opens up fascinating possibilities for the future of pharmaceutical and agrochemical development,” says Dr Maolin Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“By integrating fluorine into organic molecules through a photoenzymatic process, we are not only enhancing the beneficial properties of these compounds but also doing so in a manner that’s more environmentally responsible.
“It’s thrilling to think about the potential applications of our work in creating more effective and sustainable products for everyday use.”
Scottie's Playtime 