“Politics isn’t the most important thing. A supreme court nomination isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing, when stories like this are in the news, is the victim, and how we treat them, how we speak about them.”

Jenn Berney on raising boys in a hard-to-navigate world: “I want them to understand their luck, to care about the world and the many many ways it’s broken, but when I try to explain its brokenness, they can barely comprehend.”

“But there’s also the passive sexism — the status quo — that people have trouble seeing or don’t think they engage in until they catch themselves doing it because it’s so ingrained, that we also desperately need to fix.”

It’s safe to hate on Uber, because we know they are evil. The challenge is not tweeting something supportive when it happens at a company you hate. It’s how you react when it happens in a company that you’re invested in, to someone sitting right next to you.

“Those predators you’re so worried will sneak into the Target bathroom? They’re all around you.
 
They are your Priest, your kid’s coach, your neighbor, your uncle, your youth group leader, your United States Speaker of the House.”

“We read to prepare for life. It follows, then, that we are raising our boys to dismiss other people’s experiences, and to see their needs and concerns as the center of things. We are raising our boys to lack empathy.”

“For transgender and gender nonconforming people like myself, the question of what to wear to work becomes an exhausting question of identity and of survival.” Jacob Tobia at Neutrois Nonsense, on being trans and “professional.”

“Women are not diminished by motherhood. Women are not diminished by forgoing motherhood. Women ARE diminished by inequality and misogyny, and by living in a world that is primarily tailored to the needs of men.”

“If the rest of the world could be more empathetic, accepting, welcoming and kind, my son could be this happy and comfortable all of the time — because then my son could be a boy who dresses like a girl and not have to think twice about it.” 

“I wish I could explain to you what it means to blindly trust your parents, only to realize that the injection you had been administered as part of a general checkup was testosterone. I wish I could relate to you how it felt, watching rapid changes take place on the battlefield my body had become . . .”

‘Mom, I think something went wrong when I was in your tummy, because I was supposed to be born a girl, but I was born a boy instead.’ He wanted me to put him back in the womb to right the wrong. He was sobbing.