katie walsh

senator schumer, do trans people not count as americans? this is ripping healthcare away from americans RIGHT NOW. it is not a distraction.

fix your heart.

It's not a distraction FROM removing healthcare, it's a genocidal policy that ALSO lays the groundwork for broader healthcare restrictions.

The eradication of trans people is a goal in and of itself, and it is also part of a broader effort to shrink what (& who) is acceptable in society.

I wrote an article adapting some of my archival research on trans care for Teen Vogue! With the US v. Skrmetti decision coming out today, the publication of this piece hits a lot harder than I expected. Trans youth: you deserve so much better.

For some disabled protestors, “Hands Off” went virtual "We know we have to teach everyone how to include us."

Not all “Hands Off” events were in-person. I attended two virtual events centering chronically ill and disabled people for @motherjones.com, who are terrified about attacks to Medicaid, Section 504, research funding, education and more. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Please blur faces and use alt text! Signal has a built-in face blurring tool.

Some self-proclaimed champions of campus speech have called out the Trump administration for disappearing students who express unfavored opinions.

But few have matched the volume and urgency they used for cancel culture anecdotes, let alone exceeded it as these much worse speech violations deserve.

3 Kentucky teenagers paid $1500 to get their dad released after he was arrested for a failure to appear in court charge received after a minor traffic violation. Only after paying were they told that "he’s on an ICE hold." "Walker said that on top of a lack of finances, they’re running out of time."

this is a Fulbright Scholar, invited to this country to help improve intercultural relations and understanding, instead abducted off the streets by unidentified agents. this is a nightmare.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

In 25 years of covering national security, I’ve never seen a story like this: Senior Trump officials discussed planning for the U.S. attack on Yemen in a Signal group--and inadvertently added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Wow. Judge Howell is worried that if she orders DOGE to leave the USIP building it could turn into an “armed standoff” over unwillingness to vacate, and points out law enforcement has shown willingness to help DOGE. Asks if we’ll need foreign mediators to come in.

Someone is going to need to be the first judge to try to put these folks in jail, and it does not seem like anyone is eager to be first.

Donate to Help Nat Escape Texas for a Better Future in Chicago, organized by Nat R My name is Nat, and I'm a 22 year old transfem who has spent my entire life… Nat R needs your support for Help Nat Escape Texas for a Better Future in Chicago

there's no guarantee that i will have a job lined up when i move; especially considering how chaotic the job market is. i need help, which is why i'm trying to raise enough money for me to live off of for a few months while i try to find work

www.gofundme.com/f/help-nat-e...

Hi all! It's a terrible day! Amongst terrible days, I suppose.

Just a heads up that if you're a person who can get pregnant, this is a good time to consider getting a solid contraception plan if needed. Did you know you can also get abortion pills in advance?

i can’t say exactly what kind of world we should be building, but it’s def one where people take responsibility for each others well-being directly instead of calling representatives every 2 weeks and begging them to vote “No” on the Maim & Kill Everyone Act of 2037

when more and more people are asking "yeah but can fascism *really* happen here?" that feels like a sign it already has.

Against Austerity: Why we must fight against Columbia cutting Ph.D. cohorts based on lies The Student Workers of Columbia union recently learned that Columbia administrators quietly told faculty in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to cut incoming Ph.D. cohorts by up to 65 percent. ...

I want to push back on some discourse I've been seeing suggesting that universities cannot use endowment funds to make up gaps in research funding. For example, at Columbia, about one-third of our $15b endowment was unrestricted as of June 2024. Be careful not to preemptively justify austerity

Contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health: modelling 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization Since 1974 substantial gains in childhood survival have occurred in every global region. We estimate that EPI has provided the single greatest contribution to improved infant survival over the past 50...

Nothing will kill more children than the ongoing decimation of CDC, NIH, and USAID work to lift vaccine uptake in the US and world.

Child survival rose 75% in the last 50 years. Vaccines account for 40% of that. Measles vax alone was 60% of the benefit. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Been doing reporting on a group of student workers organizing & pivoting strategies in response to the Trump admin—it's happening on a unique campus that adds layers of implications to student workers fighting for better conditions. If any editors are interested, I'd love to send you the pitch!

Three people in sky blue shirts and jeans climbing the steps of the US Capitol, including a young blonde girl wearing a red and white bandanna around her head and turning to look at the camera

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Capitol Crawl, in which disabled activists discarded their mobility aids at the foot of the Capitol steps to climb them in support of passage of the Americans with Disabilities Ac. Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, 8, told reporters "I'll take all night if I have to!"

There’s no reason to have a Democratic Party if it won’t go to the mat to save the Department of Education. It’s a fundamental belief that children in America deserve better futures. It’s tremendously simple. You cannot continue funding a government that would close this.

Ten years ago if you had written a dystopian SF story in which the person in charge of U.S. public health did a press event at a fast food joint to say that fried food is good but measles vaccines cause measles the ghost of Philip K. Dick would have said that you were being too bleak and unrealistic

This is much more worrisome than the attack on Columbia because public universities, especially in poor states, do not have an endowment to help keep the institution running.

www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Department of Education employees received an email (reviewed by me) a little while ago letting them know all dept. buildings will be closed tomorrow.

It’s unclear if it’s related to the DeTrans event, or possibly the release of the rumored executive order seeking to abolish the department.

This is the second person in a week that @harvard.edu has hosted even though they’ve talked about murdering Harvard’s students

"A screenshot of an NBC News article headline. The headline reads: 'Texas bill would make identifying as transgender a felony punishable by jail.' Below the headline, a subtext states: 'The bill, while unlikely to pass, highlights the increasing extremism of legislation targeting trans people, especially in Texas, in recent years.' The NBC News logo is visible at the top, along with a navigation bar that includes a 'WATCH' button and a user profile icon."

I need y'all to sit with this headline and understand what is being done to our community. They're trying to criminalize our very existence.

This is a campaign of eradication.

www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/rcna...

if you find yourself reluctant to support the guy at Columbia because you find some of the politics he espoused distasteful or even abhorrent, you should know that this is exactly the reaction that they hoped for in choosing him as a target for unlawful detention based on political speech.

this seems to be a straw that could break the camel’s back for US provision of gender affirming care, worth watching closely

Demand the Immediate Release of Palestinian Student Activist Mahmoud Khalil from DHS detention On the evening of March 8, 2025, Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil was detained by the Department of Homeland Security. The arrest comes on the heels of the Department of State’s ann...

National SJP shared this link to demand the release of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil (see my last post for more information):

actionnetwork.org/letters/dema...