A Bathroom Happening

I Was In The Women’s Restroom When A Man Came In And Called Out A Question That Left Me Nauseated

“I stopped breathing and my heart skipped. My pants were down around my ankles, and no one else was within earshot.”

By Rey Katz Mar 11, 2025, 08:25 AM EDT Updated Mar 11, 2025

The author hiking just outside Yosemite National Park in July 2024, after cutting their hair short, holding their pink hat.

“Hello? Are you a male or female in there?” a rumbling voice called into the women’s restroom. A man’s boots stepped across the threshold, clunking on the tile floor, as I sat alone in the stall closest to the door.

I stopped breathing and my heart skipped. My pants were down around my ankles, and no one else was within earshot.

My hands went to where my freshly shorn curls used to be — fingers twining into my 2 remaining inches of hair — and I wondered if I had made a mistake. I had been using women’s restrooms my entire life, from when I had long braided pigtails and my mom taught me to lay down two layers of toilet paper on the seat, to my road trip around California as a white, skinny, short, nonbinary person in my early 30s.

***

My partner and I were on an adventure. We had sublet our apartment and were camping in a van for the summer. We slept every night on a memory foam mattress in the van and cooked most of our meals outdoors on a propane stove. Immersed in nature, at a distance from society and community, I could recognize my true self more clearly, and I took the opportunity to explore a more masculine appearance.

I don’t have much experience with people thinking I might be a man. Growing up, people always assumed I was a girl. I still can’t cut my hair without shame, hearing women’s voices in my head: “Oh, but your hair is so lovely, you should keep it long.” It’s as if I hurt my community every time I do it.

Despite the shame, I had cut my hair earlier that week, camped alongside a beautiful, remote river. I trimmed a couple of inches off to give myself the 2-inch-long “men’s” cut I usually give my partner. He is supportive of whatever hair length I want for myself. I squinted into a little travel mirror and lopped off chunks, feeling bits of hair drift down my bare shoulders. Finished with the trim, I dove into the brown river water and scrubbed my scalp with my fingers. I floated in the sun, naked and unjudged by the birds watching me from the trees.

I didn’t feel judged for my haircut until we traveled back into town. While I was washing my face at the sink in a restroom, someone peeked in and then left. I put my glasses back on and walked out. A woman with long hair was standing outside, uncertain, wearing a long skirt. As she turned to face me, I said hello.

“Is this the women’s room?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered curtly, forced a smile, and walked away quickly, past the word “Women” in 6-inch green painted letters on the wooden wall of the building.

I guess I had been gendered as too-butch-to-be-in-the-women’s-room. Affirming? Slightly. But it was a preview to an unsolvable problem. If I’m not supposed to be in the women’s room, but I also can’t use the men’s, how can I use the bathroom?

***

My partner and I found a lovely city park with a picnic area and gazebo to eat breakfast in after camping on National Forest land nearby. After a mug of coffee, I visited the public restroom. I didn’t expect a stranger to yell at me through the flimsy stall door.

“Hello? Are you a male or female?”

I was the only person using the restroom — the kids who had been in there a minute ago had left. I felt this man’s eyes on my sneakers and blue hiking pants under the stall. I was scared this harassment could escalate if I didn’t say something to diffuse the situation. I gulped and called back, “Hello?”

“Oh, you’re a female. My bad.” He sounded reassured by my quavering voice. I heard his footsteps leaving the room. My heart raced as I fumbled with toilet paper, fingers shaking. I felt nauseated.

My voice had immediately identified me as the “female” I didn’t feel myself to be — and all it took was two syllables. But my “female” voice had also saved me from further harassment. Would that man have dragged me out of the stall if I sounded “like a man” or remained quiet? Would he have looked under the stall? Would he have tried to check what was between my legs while my pants were down? Did he have any idea how much of a violation these real and imagined threats were to me?

And why was a man even in the women’s room, questioning me? Did a kid’s mother report me to her husband for looking too much like a man in the women’s room? Perhaps they were alarmed that I, with my short hair, had been in the restroom with their young kids. I felt physically ill at the troubling thought that someone would assume I would do anything harmful to children. I hadn’t said anything, made eye contact with anyone or done anything other than sit quietly in the stall in the room that matches my assigned sex at birth.

I felt bad for looking masculine to make myself more comfortable, because I didn’t want to make anyone else uncomfortable. Some part of me longed to return to my habit of looking more like a woman, but I also felt sick from not feeling right in my body.

The author sitting beside a mountain stream in August 2024, wearing the same hat, jacket, pants and shoes they had on during the bathroom incident earlier that day.

I can empathize with these strangers viewing me and my body as a threat because I have also viewed my body as a threat. I have been unhappy with the shape of my body, my appearance in the mirror and the tone of my voice. And to have that thrown back in my face in such a vulnerable moment — pants down, defenseless, forced by my body’s very personal needs to be in this gendered room — hit close to home.

It did not occur to me to call the police, because the last thing I needed was to wait around for law enforcement to judge my qualifications to use a bathroom and give a police report about someone I hadn’t actually seen. Instead, I texted a friend — a woman with short hair — to tell her my story of being harassed in the bathroom and share how uncomfortable that made me. She responded that women have screamed after seeing her in the restroom, and she’d had security called on her. My experience seemed mild by comparison. I appreciated her perspective.

For the next several days, I felt intensely conflicted and full of gender dysphoria. I was tense and nervous using public restrooms. I wore my pink hat, forced a big smile and strode in confidently, femininely, trying to look like the kind of woman no one would object to. But I’m not a woman. I came out as a transmasculine, nonbinary person in my late 20s — a person who feels more like a boy than a girl on the inside. A person whose anxiety and depression eased once I no longer had to hide who I am.

I have to choose between a women’s or men’s restroom in most public spaces, as unisex bathrooms are uncommon. Laws restricting bathroom access, which are becoming more prevalent in the United States, attempt to define sex based on whether an individual can produce eggs or sperm. In practice, people look at your body shape, clothes and hair and make an assumption about which restroom you should use. Most people assume I would use the women’s room, so that’s what I continue to use. Trans women often have harder choices. Anyone who pushes back on my use of the women’s room suspects that I am a trans woman. They correctly identify me as trans, but in the incorrect direction.

Trans women are the target of these “bathroom bills” and may encounter harassment and violence in either restroom. Being legally required to use the “wrong” restroom can out people as trans, which can be dangerous for them.

Trans women may need to go more frequently on average. One of the most common testosterone blockers, spironolactone, is a diuretic which means you need to pee often while taking it. The constant stress of navigating public spaces as a trans person with a filling bladder is incredibly — literally — painful.

At the park the day of the bathroom incident in August 2024, the author was wearing a hat, glasses and a fleece jacket.

***

A couple of weeks later, my partner and I returned to the same city park. After relaxing at the picnic tables, I walked over to the bathroom. A new porcelain toilet sat whimsically outside the building, prepped for installation. Uh oh, I thought, rounding the corner to see a plumber with a pickup truck. A “closed for cleaning” sign was braced across the door of the women’s restroom.

The plumber, burly, with a beard, glanced at me and asked, “You need to use the restroom?” gesturing to the men’s door. I nodded, but looked back to peer past the closed sign into the women’s room.

“Oh, you want to use that one?” he asked, squinting at me. It was a cold morning. I was bundled up in a knit cap and two layered jackets. Looking at me, the plumber honestly seemed to think I was heading for the men’s. I shrugged and took what I hoped was a few casual steps toward the men’s room.

“Use the toilet in the last stall,” he prompted me. Perhaps the other plumbing hadn’t been hooked up yet.

“All right, thanks,” I said, pitching my voice down, trying to sound like I’d meant to go in the men’s room all along.

I used the toilet in the empty men’s room to pee, washed my hands, walked out, nodded to the plumber and walked off. I felt rattled but also surprisingly comfortable. Someone had told me that I could use that bathroom, that stall, and I felt validated in doing the right thing. It was the opposite of being questioned for being in the women’s room. I hadn’t made anyone else uncomfortable by existing. Was that a success? Is not making anyone uncomfortable except myself a healthy baseline?

***

Although that experience felt validating, using the “wrong” bathroom can have very real consequences. In California, I didn’t face legal consequences for using a men’s bathroom. If I had instead been in Florida and refused to leave the men’s bathroom if asked, I could have been charged with criminal trespass, likely a first-degree misdemeanor, which carries a prison term of up to one year or a $1,000 fine.

Proponents of “bathroom bills” claim they protect children from predators, but assaulting children in restrooms (or anywhere else) is already illegal. A bathroom law doesn’t physically prevent male abusers already willing to break the law from stepping into women’s spaces. However, these laws can prevent trans women from comfortably and legally using any public bathroom, including restrooms in their workplace.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace introduced the Protecting Women’s Private Spaces Act in November 2024. If enacted, this law would prohibit transgender individuals from using restrooms that align with their gender identity on federal property, specifically targeting U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, who would no longer be allowed to use the women’s bathroom at her workplace in the Capitol.

The author relaxing in a camp chair behind the van, with short hair and wearing masculine clothes, in September 2024.

I am lucky I don’t work in a place where I can’t use the bathroom, but navigating my gender identity is still a constant struggle — not solely with myself, but with everyone I interact with. I have to justify my gender expression to strangers and negotiate with them, whether or not our interactions are negative or positive. So why do I subject myself to this frustration? Because it would hurt more to hide myself every moment of every day.

Finding more authentic ways to express myself feels like a weight that I wasn’t aware of has been lifted off my chest, and suddenly, I can breathe deeply, newly grounded in the reality of my body. Swimming in the river after I cut my hair, I felt distantly afraid but excited about what was to come. I felt grateful I took this step toward my true self.

Rey Katz is a nonbinary writer, MIT alum, small-business owner, and black belt in Kokikai Aikido. They are working on a memoir about coming of age as a nonbinary martial artist. Check out their relatable true stories at Amplify Respect and small biz services at reykatz.com.

This is Jerry Williams. He is a smart man that for years has done science experiments debunking flat earthers. He has started branching out into other subjects. I have it cued up to the point where he starts to talk about DEIA. He does a grand job tearing apart the republican misinformation on it. At the end of the first DEI section he has placed 24 seconds of music, I fast forwarded through it to hear the rest of his reasoning about DEIA. I wish I could express my thoughts as clearly and detailed as he does. And for those that wish to read it rather than listen there is a transcript of it in the description box on the YouTube site. Hugs

Donald Trump’s disastrous federal funding freeze just threw the country into total chaos—cutting off veterans’ suicide prevention, Medicaid payments, school lunches, food assistance, emergency services, and even medical research. And the worst part? He didn’t even seem to know what he was doing. His administration scrambled to walk back the damage AFTER states, hospitals, and nonprofits went into full panic mode.

But that’s not the only reckless decision Trump has made. Let’s not forget his boneheaded withdrawal from the World Health Organization, a move that undermined pandemic response efforts and put global health security at risk. And now, he’s on a warpath against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs—attacking anti-discrimination efforts, slashing funding for inclusive education, and gutting workplace protections for marginalized groups.

Sunday Poetry, and Related Good News!

(Good news below the poetry. The poetry is more beautifully written.)

Elegy for the winter garden

Readers may or may not recall I’ve been undergoing some major work around our house. Back in December was the first of the foundation work, in which piers were placed at strategic points around the house to raise it after drought and earthquakes caused major dirt shifting on our block (and others surrounding.) Anyway, some or maybe all of you may be aware of the amount and depth of digging required for the work. There were great trenches around the house, including the front flower bed (mostly dedicated to wildflowers for birds and bees; nothing at all formal, just nice in a simple way.) But there were a few daffodil plants, to which DH was quite partial. I figured the entire bed’s plants were gone after the work, but this past Tuesday I pulled into the driveway after an errand, and there are the daffodil plants (not yet blooming) out drinking in sunlight, in pretty close to the same spots they used to be! I’ve just been amazed by that, and it’s a really nice thing to see out front. Thanks for reading! ⚘

Another Resource

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post resources, but here is one.

Here’s a List of Non-Governmental Data Alternatives and Archives

Another Bathroom Story

I have strong feelings about women’s restrooms, too, as we all know; so many thoughts about so many women’s bathroom issues. I’m in agreement with this essay. Stick with it, you’ll see. You might want a tissue.

A Trans Girl Approached Me in the Ladies’ Bathroom and It Bothered Me. Here’s Why. by Natalie S. Ohio

Why the girls’ bathroom is a sacred space for women and how we must seek to keep it that way. Read on Substack

Ugh, no hand soap. Again.

If there’s one thing living in Spain will teach you, it’s that hand washing isn’t priority número uno in public spaces.

Luckily, as someone who grew up here, this is no surprise to me. As Gang Starr once said, “I’m not new to this, I’m true to this.”

In other words, I carry soap sheets wherever I go.

As I was washing my hands in the shopping mall bathroom last week, the door cracked open and a head peeked around.

Big brown eyes appeared from under a blunt-cut fringe. A smattering of adolescent acne decorated soft, rounded cheeks and a set of metallic braces twinkled between glossy pink lips.

Either retro makeup is back in style or rubbing my hands together had sent me ricocheting back to the mid-80s…

We regarded each other for a moment.

“¿Puedo pasar?” May I come in?

Her delicate, childlike voice softly penetrated the silence of the empty bathroom.

“Sí, claro.” Of course.

I smiled and gestured to the vacant stalls and the rows of mirrored sinks behind me.

I wondered if she mistakenly believed from the outside that this was a single-person bathroom. Or maybe she thought I was a cleaner. It wouldn’t be the first time a Spaniard had seen my complexion and automatically assumed I was the help.

I was otherwise a little perplexed as to why she would ask.

She hesitated slightly as she stepped around the door.

“Bueno, es que… soy trans.”

Well, it’s just that… I’m trans.

What I’m about to say may sound strange to some, but here goes:

The ladies’ bathroom plays a surprisingly significant role in girlhood.

I’m not talking about the one at Grandma’s house with its peach-coloured wall tiles, nor the ones in fancy restaurants where you go to check your appearance on a date.

I’m talking about the public toilets that double as makeshift community hubs for women — grubby little social sinkholes you find in nightclubs, bars, and airports that offer a brief moment of tranquillity as the commotion fades behind the closing door.

Restrooms with precarious toilet seats, broken flushes, and “love urself babe ur perfect” scribbled in eyeliner on the inside of the stall.

1*AzUe1miYlQzfUY5iSAVd7g.jpeg — Photo by Annika Gordon on Unsplash

I’m willing to bet that anybody who has used a public ladies’ room has had at least one memorably positive encounter with someone they’ve met inside.

What’s so special about it? I hear you cry. Men have bathrooms too and nobody bats an eyelid. If anything, the less said about those, the better.

On a functional level, nothing at all.

In fact, the ladies’ very often sucks in comparison to the men’s. A victim of long queues, scarce toilet paper, and the most unflattering lighting known to man.

However, we’re not talking about serviceability. If we were, we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

What I’m referencing is much deeper than that. Much more visceral.

I once undid a drunken stranger’s bodysuit in a nightclub bathroom so she could relieve herself before going back out to tear up the dancefloor. If you’ve any idea what a bodysuit is and where its fastening is located, you’ll understand why that’s a tall order.

I’ve witnessed countless girls take their drinks inside and leave them unattended by the sink without any concerns over getting roofied.

There’s nearly always someone giving an empowering pep talk to a broken-hearted friend who needs a boost of confidence.

Blister plasters, boob tape, and tampons are handed out like Werther’s Originals at a Women’s Institute meeting. Pleasant conversation dapples the air. Strangers become new best friends.

Outfits are readjusted, hair is coiffed, perfume is shared, and doors with faulty locks are guarded to prevent accidental walk-ins. Those who are desperate are permitted to jump the line.

It’s where the power of sorority is comfortably displayed.

The girls’ bathroom is one of the few places where female vulnerability isn’t preyed upon.

Conversely, it’s often bolstered and allowed to exist without any need for justification.

Sure, it’s where you go when nature calls. But it also acts as a cocoon-like environment — somewhere you can retreat to when you want to feel… safe.

Nat, why are you waxing lyrical about the loo?

Well, because this recent encounter brought about a bracing realisation for me — a conventional woman with an uncomplicated identity who fits comfortably within the margins of the archetype.

I realised that the person peeking her head around the door wasn’t merely asking for permission to enter the room.

She was asking for permission to belong.

She was giving me the power to accept or reject her appeal to exist freely in a space that—for people like me—is a place of comfort, and for people like her, is commonly associated with hostility and consternation.

The alignment of my biological sex and gender identity affords me the confidence to take up space in social settings where others, with less streamlined identities, may feel reluctant.

Of course, uncertainty is a perfectly natural phenomenon in adolescence — kids are constantly trying to make sense of themselves and explore how and where they best fit in a world governed by grown-ups. And this kid, who looked to be some 14 or 15 years old, is no different.

However, this situation was unique because it didn’t focus on the implicit social hierarchy that comes with a significant age gap.

Instead, our respective positions on the spectrum of womanhood forced us to weigh up the other’s existence.

It was as though she believed that within a shared space her identity would encroach on mine; so announcing that she was trans and verbally acknowledging our differences would help me to legitimise her humanity some.

She asked me if she could come in because there may have been a chance that I wouldn’t have wanted her to.

And that is devastating to me.

“Bueno, hija, ¿qué más da? Pasa, pasa.” So what, kiddo? Come on in.

I headed over to the hand dryer.

“Ay, muchas gracias!”

She smiled sweetly and walked past me in her fishnet tights and patent Dr. Martens.

Transphobia is not an alien concept in countries that operate under organised religion or have a traditional set of social values, such as Spain.

Vox—a prominent far-right political party—has been consistently vocal about its disdain towards transgender people and its desire to prevent their access to base-level human rights. Transgender people are persecuted by conservative political parties and their followers all across the nation.

Adults berating other adults is one thing, but what happens when this toxic, nefarious behaviour falls upon the shoulders of children?

Children are sacred

“Los niños son sagrados” (children are sacred) is a phrase you see and hear typically in response to the mistreatment of children in any form.

Children are revered in Hispanic culture, so why was this particular child so acutely aware of the controversy surrounding her identity? Shouldn’t the innocence we try so hard to preserve in children include transgender children too?

Shouldn’t she be able to exist as comfortably as her peers do?

Had I voiced an issue with her coming into the bathroom, there is no doubt in my mind that she would’ve turned away and left. And that’s what bothered the hell out of me. It upset me that she felt the need to even mention it.

Because who am I? I’m not important. I have no authority over public spaces or gender identity whatsoever.

I don’t care what people do in the privacy of a bathroom stall. I don’t stop to intimidate them or pass judgement.

I’m just a stranger washing her hands at the sink. But luckily for this girl, I’m a kind stranger. Someone whose cup of compassion and understanding runneth over.

The fact that she felt the need to ask stirred up feelings of pity and rage in equal measure.

It disgusts me that this harmless individual possibly has and probably will suffer at the hands of narrow-minded losers who mind other people’s business more than their own.

As if growing up isn’t already fraught with insecurity and a heightened awareness of your differences from others. Being a teenager in today’s world is like wandering into the seventh circle of hell with gasoline shorts on.

Sure, the world is a big, scary place. But the girls’ bathroom is something else entirely, and it should stay that way.

I felt a wave of protectiveness wash over me as I thought about how she must feel on a regular basis. Physically, she was long-limbed and lofty, yet she seemed so small and defenceless.

A kid.

Just figuring herself out, one day at a time.

When she came into the sink area, she told me she liked my outfit — I told her that I have my own clothing line and was wearing one of my newest designs. I offered her a soap sheet and asked her about her makeup — her parents had bought her an eyeshadow palette for her birthday recently. I’ve never been any good with eyeshadow. She doesn’t go a day without it.

So there we were.

Just two gals chopping it up in the girls’ bathroom, enjoying pleasant conversation with someone we’ll probably recall warmly once or twice before returning to the monotony of our everyday affairs.

I suppose that these are the situations we need more of. Just witnessing humans being humans and doing human things.

So often bigots behave as though those they’re prejudiced towards are a subhuman entity that needs to be exterminated to restore a sense of harmony and order to the world.

In reality, we’re all just people. Trying to get by and get on with things before we shuffle off this mortal coil once our number is up.

Coexisting peacefully really isn’t as complicated as it’s made out to be. Being kind to others is far from difficult.

We’re all different, and that’s fine — it doesn’t need to be fire and brimstone and bloodbaths and battalions.

So when you meet someone different from you, just share the soap.

Don’t work yourself into a lather over it. (snip)

“A Deep Dive Into The Fight Against DEI”,

a couple bits from my Refinery 29 newsletter.

I’m A Black Woman Working In DEI & Here’s What It’s Really Like

Dria James Last Updated February 12, 2025, 10:20 AM

Dria James is a former DEI executive, with over a decade of experience driving diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging across financial services, management consulting, higher education, and non-profit sectors. Now, she’s the CEO and founder of Black In Diversity, dedicated to empowering Black leaders and allies to thrive while driving systemic change. Here, shetakes us inside what it’s like to work in America’s most contested industry.

As told to Keyaira Kelly.

The emptiness of not-quite belonging followed me like a shadow from a young age. Born in the late ’80s in Paterson, New Jersey, to two young parents, private school education was seen as one of the few lifelines available for Black folks looking to transcend the social, economic, and political firestorm that engulfed Paterson in the 1990s. At the time, the city was marred by rising crime rates, declining businesses, and severe budget cuts to public schools, leaving many families searching for alternatives. In fact, my mother’s high school, Eastside, is featured in Lean On Me, the Black film classic that details the true story of Paterson’s own Principal Joe Clark, an educator who went to extreme lengths to help improve the test scores and livelihoods of Black students at the inner city school.

My parents, both educators, witnessed firsthand the crumbling state of local public school education: overcrowded classrooms, underfunded programs, and a growing sense of despair among students and teachers. So, they made immense sacrifices, often forgoing their own comforts, to ensure I had access to a quality education in a private school life. But that choice carried an unseen cost—a nagging fractured sense of identity that lingered long after I left the classroom.

Courtesy of Dria James, The author, Dria James

In college, I penned a personal statement titled The Struggle of Adaptation, detailing the weight of double-consciousness I carried as a child while wading alone in a sea of white for most of my formal education. On the one hand, I knew I was privileged to attend the schools I did, gaining access to extracurricular opportunities, like playing the violin and traveling, rare opportunities that few Black kids from Paterson could even dream of at the time. But inside those classrooms, as one of the only Black girls in a space where no one looked like me, I often felt small, like my experiences and perspectives were invisible or undervalued. My educational experience was a tightrope walk between two worlds, never quite falling safely into either.

Looking back, my own awkward dance with cultural isolation set the stage for my future career as a corporate human resources executive in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Perhaps subconsciously, I was driven to resolve my internal conflict by helping other underrepresented communities navigate the challenges of educational and workplace integration with less angst. But DEI work extends far beyond my personal story, it is deeply woven into this country’s history. The earliest forms of this work trace back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which guaranteed equal employment rights to Americans regardless of race, age, sex, religion, or national origin. With that storied history on my shoulders, I enrolled at Cornell University, determined to make a tangible impact. My first step? A DEI internship at a major financial institution, where I arrived with the enthusiasm of a true changemaker, eager to reshape the narrative.

As an intern, I was involved in diversity recruiting efforts on college campuses. As a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed college junior, I put together a list of schools to visit, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), determined to bring diverse, qualified Black talent into the Wall Street pipeline. But I was quickly hit with my first strip of DEI yellow caution tape — I was told those schools were too small to justify a campus visit from a budget perspective and was instead directed to focus on institutions with larger enrollment numbers.

That early career disappointment was a wake-up call. As much as I wanted my work to be heart-centered and passion-driven, I realized that passion alone wasn’t enough in the corporate world. Everything had to have a clear return on investment (ROI). That’s why the current narrative that DEI is a shell-tactic to simply give a handout to undeserving folks is so wildly misleading. Companies wouldn’t invest in these policies if they weren’t economically advantageous to their bottom line. (snip-there is MORE; not tl,dr.)

=====

In War On DEI, Law Is Being Used As A Weapon — These Leaders Are Fighting Back

Brea Baker Last Updated February 3, 2025, 9:25 AM

“Nothing that you are seeing right now is normal,” says Gabrielle Perry, a political commentator, nonprofit founder, and organizer. “We are seeing the Latino community buying groceries in bulk so that they do not have to leave their homes frequently. We are seeing Native American people’s citizenship being called into question. We are seeing Black people in mass being laid off from their jobs at the federal level.” In each of these situations, the law is being weaponized as a tool of fear and anxiety, but it’s the latter threat — the legal war against diversity, equity, and inclusions in workplaces — that hits home for Perry. “DEI has now become synonymous with Black people and that’s not an accident,” says Perry, who is the founder and executive director of The Thurman Perry Foundation, a nonprofit organization that lost a $35,000 grant that they normally receive annually. “White people, particularly white men, are suing nonprofits and universities for awarding any aid to anyone on the basis of race or gender,” she tweeted out afterwards. Though Perry’s organization wasn’t sued, her funders are responding to this moment with an abundance of caution which means pulling “risky” investments. And after Trump’s executive order urging the roll back of DEI at the federal level, everyone else seems to be falling in line and investing in anything Black is deemed a “risk”.

Fear is a powerful motivator and the threat of having the full force of the American legal system against you is enough to make anyone cower. For example, even when Latine Americans do have citizenship, there is a fear of being rounded up anyway with no clear path to resistance. And even when there is no legal grounds to strip employees of their right to equity and inclusion, Trump’s grandstanding has stoked enough uncertainty that his rhetoric is working. Multiple brands have announced they are either ending or curtailing their DEI efforts in what seems to be a pre-emptive show of compliance to the Trump administration. That’s exactly what makes these shifts so dangerous; conservatives don’t even need to have constitutional cover for their onslaught. Republicans only need to make the average American fear their proposed policies enough to shift their behavior proactively.

These attacks are not new. Over the past few years, Republicans have come after “woke culture,” critical race theory, affirmative action, and now DEI. Trump has positioned DEI as standing in the way of others’ freedoms, a falsehood that his base has run with in recent years. “The distortion of our words and work is right out of the playbook for opponents of freedom for all people,” says Susan Taylor Batten, President and CEO of ABFE. She encourages people to refocus the conversation around the true history of this country and Black organizations’ consistent investment in fighting for all people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, ability, and more. Similarly, Dr. Alvin Tillery believes we need to shift our strategy for how we communicate what is happening. Tillery is a tenured professor at Northwestern University and founder of The Alliance for Black Equality. “I see so many beautiful Black kids on social media posting things like, ‘Donald Trump is a DEI hire.’ No, he’s not,” Tillery corrected. “DEI hires are qualified and legitimate. Donald Trump is a white supremacy hire.” When conservatives co-opt progressive messaging, the answer isn’t to fall in line with their revisionism. “We don’t need to respond to racism by saying we’re excellent,” Tillery warns. “Rebranding our work won’t protect us or these programs because this fight isn’t rational. We have to fight back.”

Perry also expanded on this moment and how these attacks are bleeding into all facets of American life — not just Black communities. “People began to see this coming to a head on a national lens last February when the Fearless Fund venture capital lawsuit hit national headlines,” Perry expounded. The Fearless Fund previously extended grants to small businesses led by women of color and was sued by Edward Blum and his conservative organization, the American Alliance for Equal Rights. The claim was essentially one of reverse-racism; that by only opening their grant program to Black women, Fearless Fund was discriminating against others in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. “At the time,” Perry said, “I knew it was horrible what was happening to her but I had no idea that was going to trickle down to my little organization in Louisiana. [Arian Simone] made the absolutely selfless decision to settle and to close her doors because she knew that if she took it to the Supreme Court, so much would be stacked against her, and that it would affect all of us.” Blum and the AAER claimed victory, labeling the Fearless Fund’s work as “divisive and illegal” and painted the founders — working to resource the most marginalized among us — as exclusionary (Unbothered has reached out to Blum and the AAER and they have yet to respond). Unfortunately, the decision has hurt Black founders anyway as funders pull resources in fear of litigation and as the federal government remains on the attack. Litigation is expensive and sets precedence which can completely shift the landscape facing Black-led organizations. It takes deep coffers to go up against a high-powered law team and, if you lose, a single legal decision can hurt thousands of organizations. For many, it’s easier to avoid lawsuits altogether.

“The cruelty is the point,” Gabrielle Perry reiterated. “Trump is testing what will hold and what won’t. Who’s going to push back and who won’t.” Perry urges that there needs to be a strong and unrelenting response to these attacks, something Democrats haven’t been doing with nearly enough force. Tillery agrees and brought up some important historical context to emphasize how much more could be done right now. “We have more power in 2025 than Dr. King and Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks and Ralph Abernathy had in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act passed,” Tillery called out. “There were three Black members of Congress, then, and it was a segregated institution. Today there are over 60 Black members of Congress including five Black senators who have the ability to filibuster. Why aren’t we putting pressure on them right now to step up?” (snip-MORE; again, not tl,dr.)

Another Piece I Lifted Off Ten Bears:

‘Clever Girl’ Explains Why Dinosaurs are Queer and Feminist — and Jurassic Park is a Toolkit for the Apocalypse

This Is A Ray Of Hope!

I wrote and called and called and wrote, so many times. 🌞 Via Death Penalty Action:

Supreme Court orders new trial for death row inmate in Oklahoma

Updated February 25, 20254:57 PM ET

Heard on All Things Considered Nina Totenberg

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the conviction and death penalty for Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man who has maintained his innocence for more than a quarter century, and who came so close to execution that he three times ate what was supposed to be his “last meal.”

Glossip has been tried and convicted twice and lost multiple appeals, including one at the Supreme Court, where Justice Samuel Alito dismissed his claim as nothing but a “stalling tactic.”

But on Tuesday, three of the court’s conservatives joined the court’s three liberals in concluding that prosecutors had denied Glossip a fair trial, not once, but twice.

The six-justice court majority said that prosecutors had violated Glossip’s rights by concealing evidence helpful to the defense — including information about the drug use and mental status of the prosecution’s star witness, and by persuading that witness to change his testimony when it conflicted with his prior testimony.

Glossip’s lawyer, Don Knight, said his client is “beyond thrilled,” noting that “He actually has a future that’s not going to be on death row.”

Prosecutors never contended that Glossip himself bludgeoned motel owner Barry Van Trease to death with a baseball bat. Rather, they ultimately settled on the theory that Glossip, who managed the motel, commissioned handyman Justin Sneed to murder Van Trease. The alleged motive being, alternately, to steal a wad of cash from the owner, or to conceal embezzlement of funds.

There was no physical evidence to tie Glossip to the crime, so prosecutors initially offered to take the death penalty off the table if he testified against handyman Sneed. But when Glossip continued to maintain his innocence, the prosecution offered the deal instead to Sneed, who was sentenced to life in prison, while Glossip was convicted and sentenced to die.

The case, in many ways, is as remarkable as a True Crime mini-series. Most extraordinary is that Glossip’s Supreme Court appeal was supported by Oklahoma’s Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a conservative Republican and supporter of the death penalty. After two separate independent investigations found that both Glossip trials had been tainted by prosecutorial misconduct, Drummond took the very rare step of formally asking for a new trial.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, however, refused to accept the attorney general’s so-called “confession of error,” and the state court maintained that its decision was not reviewable in federal court.

On Tuesday the Supreme Court vociferously disagreed. Writing for the Court majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the prosecutors had violated their constitutional obligation to correct false testimony elicited from Sneed, the only witness to tie Glossip directly to the crime. The obligation to correct such false testimony, the court observed, is a clear violation of the court’s precedents dating back more than 65 years.

Joining Sotomayor in the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and, for the most part, Amy Coney Barrett.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented and accused the majority of bending “the law at every turn to grant relief to Glossip.” Justice Thomas said that the Court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case, and that Sneed’s false testimony did not significantly alter the outcome for Glossip anyway.

Justice Neil Gorsuch was recused from the case, presumably because it came before the appeals court he served on prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court.

Much of the credit for Tuesday’s win goes to to Attorney General Drummond, said defense attorney Knight. “Only he had the courage to say, ‘we’re not going to continue to try to kill this man.’ That’s a tremendous amount of political courage for a man who is now running for governor as well. He saw something that was wrong and he tried to make it right, and he did.” (Emphasis mine-A.)