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Trans History—From Ancient Times to the Present Day

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By Martha Cornog   Content advisory: This book/review discusses suicide and sexual violence. The crisis Lifeline number in the U.S. and Canada is 988, in the U.K. it’s 999; and for elsewhere go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines.   Trans History aims to explain the nature of “trans” (also referred to as “transsexual” or “transgender”) by telling the stories of notable likely-trans individuals throughout history, following a sequence from earliest documented times to the present. These brief biographies are intercut with anecdotes about laws and customs that have been applied to such people over the centuries, and commentary about how these individuals fit—or… Read More

The Nightingales

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by Cassy Lee In a small town in Oregon in 1985, Emil Wilson’s father made a decision to take in a coworker named Jim and his two dogs who had been evicted from their home. The family is told that Jim is dying of cancer, but it soon becomes apparent that he is a gay man dying of AIDS during the early years of the epidemic, when the disease remained poorly understood and was surrounded by fear, stigma, and misinformation. While Wilson’s mother is not pleased about bringing a stranger into their home, his younger sister, seventeen-year-old Lou, approaches Jim… Read More

Media Shrapnel, Cartooning as Urgent Care: Emergency Witnessing in Mazen Kerbaj’s Gaza in My Phone

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by Dr. Velebita Koričančić, Mexico City Content advisory: This book provides graphic depictions (this review provides textual descriptions) and traumas of war.   In Gaza in My Phone, Lebanese, Berlin-based artist Mazen Kerbaj turns to political cartooning in response to Israel’s war on Gaza from October 2023 onward, drawing images of Palestinian injury that reach him through his phone. From its cover, the book takes a position on how to witness atrocities committed against Palestinians: inside the frame of a phone, a burning building explodes, yet no injured human body appears. Care begins here as a decision about what not to… Read More