As transgender troops leave the military, California seeks to help them start new lives

https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/07/transgender-troops-assistance-legislation/

#transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA

You gather your most expensive people into a room to make your most important decisions. Then, somewhere in the second hour, the room quietly gets worse at making them. Not the people. The room.

I now travel with a portable CO2 monitor. Outdoors it reads around 400 parts per million. In a closed meeting room with a handful of people in it, I have watched it climb past 2,000. The photo here is a real reading: 2,143.

That number matters more than it looks. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory put people in a chamber and varied only the CO2. At 1,000 ppm, performance dropped significantly on six of nine decision-making measures compared with a clean-air baseline of 600. At 2,500 ppm, seven of the nine fell substantially, some into a range they called dysfunctional. A separate study out of Harvard found cognitive scores declining as CO2 rose, with the steepest losses in exactly the domains you called the meeting for: strategy, planning, and using information under pressure.

Continue reading on my blog because it's too long for here. https://blog.mikebowler.ca/2026/07/03/co2-and-decision-making/

Schneier: AI and Liability

Bruce's take on these issues obviously very closely syncs with mine. -L

A key quote from his essay:

- - -

More generally, liability concerns could mean that many current use
cases for agents won't be commercially viable. Companies may not be able to profitably operate AI lawyers, doctors and media influencers if they are held responsible for what they say and do.

We're OK with this outcome. There's nothing in the law that requires
us to accommodate AI systems if they are fundamentally untrustworthy, just as we don't need to accommodate untrustworthy human systems. Any company that won't stand by the statements its agents make-whether human or AI-doesn't deserve users' time or money.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/06/ai-and-liability.html

#ai

Reflections on USian Fascism on the day of the SCOTUS decision about Trans Sports, June 30, 2026

#ThingsYouCantUnsay #DangerousAir #Fascism #USPol

Four days ago, I heard word circulating in the San Francisco trans community that the cops arrested people at the Trans March for spray-painting surveillance cameras.

Three nights ago, I heard from a friend that a Dyke March afterparty was broken up by cops with batons out. I slept fitfully, fear in my shoulders, in my mood, and in my silence, periodically checking my phone for word that my friend was okay, that she got off the streets safely. I held my partner as I trembled, knowing that queer people like us were in danger from the cops only a short distance from where I was.

Two days ago, I got the news that the cops arrested twenty people at that afterparty.

Today, in the minutia of the majority and minority opinions of the Supreme Court’s decision on trans athletes in sports, all justices unanimously ruled that Title IX anti-discrimination protections did not apply to trans people.

Last year during Pride month, I wrote that I worried about a continuation of the forms of oppression queer people already face. Those fears are manifest.

Cameras track us. Cops imprison us. Justices revoke our rights. The world turns, another day dawns, and it becomes increasingly clear that the defeat of this particular USian fascist regime will come too late to avert the stochastic murder of many trans people.

What do I say? To what force do I appeal for rescue? The law? The institutions of the law are actively hostile. The legislature? They lack the will. Robin Hood is absent. Zoro’s mask hangs on a peg.

Cis folks, had I the power, I would sacrifice you by the hundreds to save trans lives - does that bother you? I learned from your callous example; systems designed and administered by cis people hurt trans people consistently.

But I don’t. All I have are my words and my presence.

So I talk. I encourage communication and community among trans people. I try to get cishet people to see the atrocities being enacted on trans and queer people. I share my joy to inspire, and my pain to offer the clarity of shared experience.

I hope to leave my trans and queer community tighter knit, with memories of my joy. And I hope to leave cishet people with the inspiration of how I live my life authentically, and with the growing sense that maybe they should have headed my warnings.

I mourn that my thoughts turn already to my legacy.

re: the recent news

and the not so recent news

and the old news no one listened to us about

trans people have always existed and always will

stay mad about it

you cannot stop us

Daily intersectional reminder that restrictions on certain groups of women are restrictions on all of us. A ban on trans girls in sports puts every woman’s womanhood and girl’s girlhood up for public critique: Are your shoulders too wide? Or your forehead too large? Are you too tall? Or maybe too muscular?

Time and time again, these bans work as restrictions on the types of femininities and bodies which are seen as women, and most often they deny the womanhood of queer women and women of color.

July is #DisabilityPrideMonth

Wait, disability ... pride? Why would someone be proud to be disabled?

One of the most important aspects of disability pride for me is to counter the shame. The shame of “being different,” the shame of “needing help,” the shame of “being a burden,” the shame from the humiliation and abuse I have experienced.

Disability pride gives me the chance to counter the shame by saying, “I am disabled, and I am proud to exist and be who I am.”

#JulyIsDisabilityPrideMonth

Asexuals belong at Pride. Asexuals belong in queer spaces. Asexuals deserve to be heard & believed & accepted.

And don't let nobody replace the "A" in LGBTQIA with "ally". Allies don't erase people.

Some big things happened today:

Trans student athlete ban upheld.
Birthright citizenship upheld.
The EEOC's affirmative action guidance was trashed.

What a day.

I want the Heritage Foundation and everyone in it to fall into a sinkhole.

Wait. Was the 'vandalism' the cops got all heated about at the Trans March surveillance cameras being paint bombed?!?

They were defending SURVEILLANCE.

How effing on brand for cops.

#acab

"People always want to make this just about 'sports,' but the real upshot here is that, 6-3, trans women can't make a claim under the Equal Protection Clause. And if they can't do that, it's hard to see how they have constitutional rights."

The liberal justices also conceded Title IX doesn't apply to us. 😐

https://bsky.app/profile/elienyc.bsky.social/post/3mpj6vx2ses2q

The rainier cherry harvest has begun in WA. Workers earn $10 per 25lb bucket. This short one month season is how workers save up for winter time as they have the opportunity to save money if they work extremely fast. Some can make $30-$40/hr but most workers don't. #WeFeedYou

It appears ICE is unhappy with people knowing that Jonathan Ross has been identified as the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good. They tried to bully an election worker for sharing Jonathan Ross's name. Again, that name was Jonathan Ross.

Look, I get it. You're fascists and therefore bullies. It shouldn't be too tough for you to figure out who I really am. Feel free to drop by anytime and try to intimidate me. I could use the laugh.

https://newrepublic.com/post/212340/ice-poll-worker-election-delete-instagram-post

#USpol #FuckICE

RE: https://wandering.shop/@kagan/116823128559171579

BIG CORPS: Kagan’s reasoning is incorrect. You may not •own• the digital work, but it’s still “piracy” when you use the data in any unauthorized way that undermines its copyright owner’s ability to monetize it.

ME: OK, fair enough. Now let's talk about how you’re gathering LLM training data.

Now that the footage of Scott Wiener getting chased out of Trans Pride is going viral, I'll remind the folks who keep talking about how he's been a reliable vote for queer people in the California State Senate that he's trying to get into the US Congress where he'll be a reliable vote for Israel and genocide.

happy pride to everyone whose pronouns never seem to be on any of the free buttons they hand out at pride

The original gay pride flag flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978, 46 years ago.

It was designed by Gilbert Baker, artist, activist and openly gay military veteran.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT)

#lgbt #lgbtqia #pride #history #OnThisDay #PrideMonth

DNA Lounge Update, Wherein the Surveillance-Industrial Complex gains another foothold in SF
https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2026/06/16.html?utm_source=sp_ma

“You’ve read your last free article”

No, I’ve visited your fucking website for the last time.

happy pride month! 🤗🏳️‍🌈

boost this post to make the post below it gay