Hayden Knight

Photo of Hayden, a white man sitting on his bed looking at the camera, with a hazy, lavender-tinted room behind him. He has long brown wavy hair, a scruffy beard, persimmon tattoos on his leg, wearing round eyeglasses, a lavender striped button-down shirt, white socks and shoes, and an ankle brace.

🔮

180 job applications. 10 months of unemployment. 3 rejection notices. 0 interviews.

Astrologers, if you're using your lore prescriptively, congrats, you've found religion and dogma again. Leave me out of it. 🫶

Photo of Hayden, Amy, and Bronwyn: Hayden is a white man with long brown hair and beard, wearing glasses, a t-shirt and shorts, a blue jacket and baseball cap, hearing aids, and an assistive listening device across his chest; Amy is a white woman with dwarfism, with pink hair, glasses, a blue patterned dress, and black leather boots; Bronwyn, Amy's service dog, is a black labrador with a harness, collar, and a rainbow bandana around his neck. Amy and Hayden are sitting together on a cobblestone wall, with Bronwyn standing in front of them. They are embracing and smiling. Behind them are lush sunlit gardens and trees.

Amy graduated from her Co-Active Leadership Program with her new service dog Bronwyn and her old service boy Hayden helping her to the end! Our last week in Sonoma was one of laughter, tears, access, barriers, coffee runs, dirty jokes, service dog shenanigans, queer joy, and cripple-punk kinship. 🤟

I love this and love you!

I was inspired by the regal @haymayden.bsky.social for this morning's color study drawing. Just in time for #tummytuesday.

Also really not trying to be a pick-me loner boy here, I promise. I'm just not connecting with it.

Any other gay men struggling to vibe with Heated Rivalry? The excitement and joy among you all is genuinely wonderful, but I feel like I must be missing something.

Send a Labor Reporter to Latin America to Cover Unions Fighting Trump With unions in Latin America fighting back against the US attack on Venezuela, it's crucial that we amplify the voices of trade unionists there, but these stories of rank-and-file workers aren’t reach...

I am going to Latin America on a small travel grant, but need $3,000 more for coverage of unions fighting back against Trump.

I've covered unions in Latin America for 20 years & feel workers abroad need to hear their stories.

Donate & fightback!

paydayreport.com/send-a-labor...

You shouldn't need to see a woman's death in photos or videos to care about her. That isn't empathy. Empathy is the ability to find within yourself the means to love someone in abstract. It does not demand evidence or ask that the last intimate, violent moments of her life be made into spectacle.

As for the story itself: all I'll say is that it's one for boys who love boys and love the dark, who don't obey or belong, play hockey or play nice—the crips, creeps, queers, and weirdos out there.

More to come.

It is an absolute mess of a manuscript, but it's the most I've ever written of a single project. As a deaf writer with a difficult time with language, I never thought I'd get here. There is much work ahead of me this year, but it is the sublime work of storytelling—wouldn't have it any other way.

Photo of Hayden's desk, with a portable typewriter/word processor, printed draft pages, scribbled and handwritten notes, a pen, two hearing aids, a silver Casio wristwatch, and a notebook with a blue, purple, and orange marbled cover.

With One Story's support, I ended the year with 100+ pages of my first novel—entirely different from the one I committed to writing at the start of this fellowship.

Photo of Hayden, a white man with a mullet of wavy brown hair, a scruffy beard, and botanical tattoos on his forearms. He is wearing a blue hearing aid and a tan shirt with a black mandala-style pattern. He is partially undressed, his open shirt showing his chest and stomach while he is slumped in a chair and looking at the camera with a relaxed expression.

🏺

Anyone have any disability advocacy / rights / justice connections in Los Angeles? Really trying to find a job. I'm looking for anything, but would prefer to be doing the work that is important to me, and for a safe, access-driven employer. I keep trying to network, but I'm not getting anywhere.

Portrait photo of Hayden, a white man with long, wild hair, a scruffy beard, and dark furrowed brows, wearing a teal blue t-shirt. He is looking at the camera with a serious, somewhat exasperated expression. Behind him, light colors the wall vibrant yellow and green.

2025 gave me psychic damage.

Nevermind that we have the tools and pathways to effectively and meaningfully communicate beyond speech. "Accommodation" means nothing when every employment opportunity fails to imagine possibilities and refuses to embrace different ways of doing the work from the start.

What matters is that oral communication is constant guesswork and toil for me. That the absolute best I can ever hear someone is the equivalent of eavesdropping from another room. That I can barely hear my own voice. The one thing I cannot ever improve with education or experience disqualifies me.

Does it matter that I'm completing my master's in public health in the spring? That I'm an award-winning writer? That I've been an educator and a program director? That I'm a subject-matter expert? That I am capable, creative, compassionate, honest, hardworking, and experienced?

No.

Almost every single job opening cites "strong verbal/oral communication skills" as a requirement. Not a preference. A requirement. Even "inclusive" and "equity-focused" employers. Even disability and Independent Living employers.

How do I stand a chance in this job market when I frequently have to disclose my disability just to be able to interview?

I moved on. I'm writing books instead.

I guess I should have posted this on Tummy Tuesday, but I came early, which happens to the best of us sometimes

I'm hung too :(

heading over right now

Cropped shirtless photo of Hayden from the neck down, a white man with long brown hair and a beard, with botanical tattoos on his forearms. He is lifting up his teal blue t-shirt to show off his hairy chest and round belly.

sorry

A still from the film Wicked, featuring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo portraying Glinda and Elphaba, who are embracing each other. The image is edited with cutouts of pink and green Wicked-branded Stanley Cups.

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Bruna Ferreira isn't some political prop of comeuppance for Karoline Leavitt. She's a person, a young woman and mother forcibly detained by ICE and awaiting deportation as a prisoner.

Gaza is still starving.

Hey pals, I'm trying to connect with some people who have hemiparesis and/or level 1 cerebral palsy.

If that describes you or anyone you know, hit me up, please + thank you.