Fossil Fuel Billionaires Are Bankrolling the Anti-Trans Movement
An independent analysis of 45 right-wing groups advocating against trans rights found that 80% have received donations from fossil fuel companies or billionaires.
It’s not that these billionaires are specifically transphobic, although many of them probably are. But rather:
Jesse Bryant, a sociologist studying right-wing environmentalism at Yale University, sees the issue as emblematic of a larger trend. He said the bigger issue lies in the fossil fuel industry’s funding of nearly every conservative political issue in the United States.
Indeed, billionaires with fossil fuel origins have left their fingerprints all over right-wing U.S. politics—from fracking tycoons Farris and Dan Wilks’ reported financial contributions toward anti-abortion efforts to Charles Koch’s funding of right-wing groups that advocate for violent border policies. The Koch network has also promoted immigration reform in the past. And Democrats have taken fossil fuel donations, too.
And so:
“If we care about climate, we’re going to have to care about trans rights,” Taylor said. “And if we care about climate, we’re going to have to find ways of getting America and the whole world past all forms of bigotry so that we can work together to face an existential threat to all of humanity and the natural world.”
I am mostly done mastering Amphibian and expect to release it soon. This weekend?
I feel like there’s a lot going on. This week my spouse is taking my parents to two doctor appointments, then we’re meeting with a lawyer to discuss power of attorney (Mom’s idea), and then Saturday a gutter contractor is coming to give us an estimate, Sunday is Father’s Day, and then the next weekend we are taking a road trip to visit my brother (so we need to clean house before that, and do laundry and pack and stuff).
The basement drainage work is scheduled to happen sometime in the first two weeks of August, and before that happens we need to move a bunch of stuff AND get another contractor to come in and cut a hole in or remove an interior basement wall.
And we’re coming up on a new release at work. Scheduled code freeze is right before my vacation. Wheeeeeee!
So Many Stars had some gut-wrenching, heart-breaking stories — though more of them were about government oppression and AIDS (almost the same thing) than rejection from family.
There were also some beautiful stories, people taking care of each other and celebrating who they are and spreading joy. And I don’t think it’s entirely “without darkness there can be no light” bullshit either. One of the things I especially liked was, all these elders (and folks my age… I refuse to call myself an elder yet) talking very respectfully about how much they are learning from younger generations. These folks went through tough times when there wasn’t even a name for what they were, and many of them were fighting for rights and recognition. But they recognize that younger generations are more tuned in to gender issues, that there is still a lot of pioneering happening right now, as well as a lot of struggle still happening. A couple of them gave the hopeful message that the backlash we are seeing now is likely the death throes of transphobia, a final temper tantrum before much more widespread acceptance happens. (I’ve often felt the same, although I recognize that these sorts of struggles go on for ages even after major victories are won. Women still do not have equal pay and respect; Black folks still are being oppressed; slavery still exists in the world even if it’s illegal and disreputable.)
One of the interviewees owns a bakery that makes traditional Argentinian alfajores (cookies with dulce de leche rolled in coconut), so I had to order some. 🙂
I’ve just realized, I didn’t say anything about trackballs!
I have gone back and forth between mice and trackballs for a long time. I loved the original (or at least, one of the early versions of) the Logitech Trackman Marble — one of the first widely available optical trackballs — but its ergonomics were drastically changed, and the original used a PS/2 port and had only two buttons and no scrolling. More recently I liked the Elecom HUGE, until it started to fail on me. Lately I’ve been using a vertical mouse — very comfortable and ergonomic — but the left mouse button had been getting progressively worse over the last couple of weeks, with clicks either not registering or sometimes double-clicking.
There was a recent thread about trackballs over on KvR, and that got me looking around. KvR seemed to like the Logitech M570 or the Kensington Expert. And there are, of course, entire communities of trackball fans. Apparently the GOAT here is the Microsoft Trackball Explorer, long since discontinued and ridiculously expensive if you can find one, although there are quite a few clones out there. There are fans and haters of Kensington, Logitech, Elecom and everything else — different designs work radically differently for different people so there’s a lot of personal preference in play.
One company that cloned the MTE is Ploopy, but they have a handful (heh heh) of other designs: all open-source, 3D-printed, repairable and hackable. Partly for reasons of price, I chose to go for the Adept, which has 6 programmable buttons and generally great reviews and a lot of love. Great sensor and good bearings and buttons. You can scroll smoothly by holding one of the buttons while spinning the ball.
After having it for a few days, I understand the appeal but I don’t think this has the best ergonomics for me. What I find with this:
- It has that 3D-printed look, but it feels smooth. Not “luxury” feeling but not bad at all.
- Reports of noisy bearings are exaggerated; I don’t think it’s any louder than moving a mouse.
- The ball rolls very smoothly indeed, with no sticking. It doesn’t have the kind of momentum that a large arcade trackball would, if you’re looking for that.
- The buttons do indeed have a nice, non-cheap feel.
- My personal accuracy with it is… not super? I’ve been trying to find a compromise between speed to get that cursor across the screen easily, and accuracy.
- It’s making me really aware of how awkward some interfaces are. Guild Wars 2 for instance, requires a lot of right-dragging for camera movement, especially while flying — and there’s a lot of mousing to the center of the screen for confirmation dialogs while manipulating inventory and rewards and stuff that require mousing back to the edge of the screen. (I figure that becoming more aware of something that used to be second nature/muscle memory is, in this case, not really a good thing.)
- I think I do want my hand more in a resting position and with some “handshake” angle, rather than palm-down flat. And I think this one is more suited to hover-hand folks.
- I’m not sure I love the ball scroll feature after all. It can be awkward at times.
So with a little sadness, I started looking for a different option. Another HUGE? An MTE clone? A thumb ball like the Logitech MX 570 or Ergo? (Logitech mice/trackballs apparently wear out fast and don’t have great sensors; some people hate Elecom bearings and buttons and question their quality control.)
I wound up going for a cheaper MTE clone, a Nulea M505. Ploopy’s own clone is considerably more costly, and this is still sort of a trial to see if I like it. I may go with a Logitech-ish thumb ball instead, or go back to the HUGE, or another vertical mouse… we’ll see.