Porn isn’t frivolous or dangerous. It’s essential to understanding art, history, and human liberation. — As of May 15th, image sharing platform Imgur will be purging its site of all not-safe-for-work and anonymously posted content. As part of the site’s new terms of service agreement, Imgur’s definition of “not safe for work” is concerningly broad: it will be removing not only every upload deemed to…

On paper, I’m the portrait of sanity. But that’s only because I’ve never sought help. — Last week, I had an appointment with a therapist, to assess my preparedness for gender-affirming surgery. The therapist asked about my gender identity, and how long I’d known that I was a man. They asked about my job, and living situation, and my plans for surgical recovery. I was asked…

Graduate & undergraduate workers are organizing like never before. Here’s how to join the on-campus labor movement. — Recently, I received this question from a student worker in my Tumblr inbox:

Thanks for your reporting, James. Every year I join many of my peers in eye-rolling at the Budweiser-sponsored floats at the Pride Parade when it floats by -- along with many of the other banks, insurance companies, airlines, and other corporations who are more than happy to align themselves with…

Getting by without a stimulant for the first time in twenty years. — I cannot stop reading the r/decaf Subreddit. Posts on the site veer wildly from the calmly helpful, to the philosophical and rebellious, to the despondent. One moment a contributor will be helpfully explaining the difference between the Swiss Water decaffeination process and the conventional, solvent-based method of stripping caffeine…

Autistic Advice #9 — Welcome back to Autistic Advice, a semi-regular advice column where I respond to reader questions about neurodiversity, accessibility, disability justice, and self-advocacy from my perspective as an Autistic psychologist. You can submit questions or suggest future entries in the series via my Tumblr ask box, linked here. This week, I’ll…

They’re no replacement for a union. In fact, they’re often created to distract from collective bargaining efforts. — As a public academic who writes about anti-productivity and neurodiversity, I’m often invited to speak at organizations’ Employee Resource Groups (ERGS). In the past year, I’ve given talks at everywhere from Indeed to Nike, from Salesforce to Reverb, and from The University of Michigan to Griffith Foods.

The one thing testosterone can’t cure is my fear of losing access to it — In the spring of 2020, I took a break from taking testosterone. …

There are so many experiences that all get collected together and off-handedly referred to a "empathy" conversationally. The first is what researchers call affective empathy -- feeling another person's feelings, so to speak, and the experience that most likely first comes to mind when a person hears the term. Empathy…