In 2008, queer anarchists gathered in Chicago to plot a disruption of the electoral spectacle and cohere a network out of emergent youth crews in multiple cities. Fifteen years later, the proposals put forward then — criminality, autonomous self-defense, riots, and orgies — are needed more than ever. The intervening years have been marked by intensification — of crisis, alienation, loss, and struggle. The right wing no longer hides behind euphemisms: they want to exterminate trans and queer people. The left offers only false solutions: vote, donate, assimilate. A decade of representation, symbolic legal victories, social media activism, and mass-market saturation has left us worse off by all metrics. Our fairweather friends won’t save us from the consequences of their strategy of empty visibility. The inescapable conclusion is that we must come together to protect ourselves.

History confirms the queer legacy of building connection in a world that hates us, the legacy of riotous joy—the legacy of bashing back. The attacks will continue on our nightclubs, forests, story hours, and siblings. To hold on, we need spaces—underground if necessary—to re-encounter each other, spaces to remember, build, share, and conspire.

In this spirit, we are ecstatic to announce the return of the Bash Back convergence! Fifteen years from the original gathering, Chicago will host the 2023 convergence September 8–11. Comrades, old and new, are invited to discuss what’s still vital in the past and what’s needed in the present. In keeping with tradition, the convergence will include presentations, workshops, distros, parties, and other opportunities to make trouble.

Excerpt:

This detail bears repeating, as it crystallizes Republicans’ selective approach to free speech: Teachers are not required to use their trans students’ chosen pronouns, but trans teachers are expressly forbidden from using the pronouns that align with their gender. The policy appears to stand in direct violation of the First Amendment, as well as the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision, which protects LGBTQ+ workers from discrimination.

The fact that the rules for students’ chosen names apply to both cis and trans children may at first appear as merely a cynical ploy to avoid legal challenges, as anti-trans laws have consistently been blocked in federal courts in recent months. No one truly believes a teacher will face disciplinary consequences for calling a cis boy Rob without a form from his parents. Any such rules will be selectively enforced to attack gender nonconformity.

Excerpt:

To underline Blanchfield’s point, the ChatGPT book selection process was found to be unreliable and inconsistent when repeated by Popular Science. “A repeat inquiry regarding ‘The Kite Runner,’ for example, gives contradictory answers,” the Popular Science reporters noted. “In one response, ChatGPT deems Khaled Hosseini’s novel to contain ‘little to no explicit sexual content.’ Upon a separate follow-up, the LLM affirms the book ‘does contain a description of a sexual assault.’”

Rigged Vote

Explanation:

Sprawling emission nebulae IC 1396 and Sh2-129 mix glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds in this nearly 12 degree wide field of view toward the northern constellation Cepheus the King. Energized by its central star IC 1396 (left), is hundreds of light-years across and some 3,000 light-years distant. The nebula's intriguing dark shapes include a winding dark cloud popularly known as the Elephant's Trunk below and right of center. Tens of light-years long, it holds the raw material for star formation and is known to hide protostars within. Located a similar distance from planet Earth, the bright knots and swept back ridges of emission of Sh2-129 on the right suggest its popular name, the Flying Bat Nebula. Within the Flying Bat, the most recently recognized addition to this royal cosmic zoo is the faint bluish emission from Ou4, the Giant Squid Nebula. Near the lower right edge of the frame, the suggestive dark marking on the sky cataloged as Barnard 150 is also known as the dark Seahorse Nebula.

Excerpt:

While living in Chicago as an obviously gay man, I felt free to be my unabashed self, clad in all manner of sequins and androgyny. On the road, not only did I literally not have the closet space to accommodate such a wardrobe, but I often didn’t feel safe presenting myself the same way in unfamiliar regions. Despite experiencing kindness across the country, there were times when I’d be too wary to exit the RV at rural gas stations, deterred by the glares I was getting through my window. And in Wyoming, a beautiful state that I adore, a group of teens shouted homophobic slurs and joked about assaulting me—all while I was wearing the most muted, all-black outfit I could possibly find to “hide” myself.

Explanation: It's fun to scribble on the canvas of the sky. You can use a creative photographic technique to cause the light of point-like stars to dance across a digital image by tapping lightly on the telescope while making an exposure. The result will be a squiggly line traced by the star (or two squiggles traced by binary stars) that can reveal the star's color. Colorful lines, dubbed Ghirigori, made from stars found in the northern sky constellations Bootes, Corona Borealis, Ophiucus, and Coma Berenices, are captured in this artistic mosaic. The 25 stars creating the varied and colorful squiggles are identified around the border. Of course, temperature determines the color of a star. While whitish stars tend to be close to the Sun's temperature, stars with bluer hues are hotter, and yellow and red colors are cooler than the Sun.

The Intercept has made extensive efforts to authenticate the document. Given the security climate in Pakistan, independent confirmation from sources in the Pakistani government was not possible. The Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to a request for comment.

Miller, the State Department spokesperson, said, “We had expressed concern about the visit of then-PM Khan to Moscow on the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have communicated that opposition both publicly and privately.” He added that “allegations that the United States interfered in internal decisions about the leadership of Pakistan are false. They have always been false, and they continue to be.”