Liz Bergstrom

She’d Never Changed Her Gender Marker. Kansas Invalidated Her License Anyway. — Assigned A trans Kansas resident recently changed her name but not her gender marker on her license, fearing what Kansas may do if she did. The Kansas DMV still flagged her ID.

This story, from @natezuke.bsky.social, is absolutely wild. A trans woman who never changed her gender marker was issued a letter invalidating her license. At the DMV they cut up her license, which had an "M" marker.

www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

Ursula K. Le Guin — Nominate a Book for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

It's time! Nominations are now open for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which will be given to a work of imaginative fiction, published in 2025, that reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work.

Statement from Rep. Ilhan Omar on Trump’s Illegal War on Iran “President Trump is unilaterally dragging this nation into an illegal and unjustified war with Iran without congressional authorization, without a clear objective, and without any imminent threat to the United States. This is a reckless abuse of power that puts both innocent civilians and American lives on the line for a conflict the American people do not want. “As someone who has survived the horrors of war, I know that bombs do not build peace or create stability. Military strikes will not make us safer; they will inflame tensions and push the region further into chaos. When we abandon diplomacy, we choose destruction.

“We know who will bear the cost of this decision: innocent civilians caught in the crossfire and our young service members sent into harm’s way. This is the devastating human toll of another regime-change war. Already, children and families are paying with their lives. There is no moral or strategic justification for this bloodshed. “The American people are exhausted by endless wars built on false promises and paid for with American and foreign lives. Congress must reassert its constitutional authority. We must vote immediately on the War Powers resolution authored by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie. This unlawful operation must end immediately."

The Death of Mountains | Lethe Press The latest novella by Nebula finalist Jordan Kurella is a moving allegorical tale. As mankind continues to hurt the planet, leaving us with scarred lands, stories like The Death of Mountains are more ...

Nebula nominations close tomorrow!!!!

i'm going to ask again if you would consider my novella, The Death of Mountains (from @lethepress.bsky.social) which is on the Locus Recommended Reading List and is a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize.

it's pocket-sized and has a mountain that talks!

I have a short poem eligible for Nebula & Hugo award nominations - "A Full Belly" published in Uncanny in 2025. Thanks for your consideration if you're reading for either!

Hi everybody - Leqaa Kordia has been in an ICE torture facility for CLOSE TO ONE YEAR after NYPD shared her info with ICE following a protest against Columbia U’s complicity in genocide.

Her family is asking that we demand her release now. Follow freeleqaakordia on IG on ways you can support her.

A digital drawing of author Maia Kobabe, a white nonbinary person with short brown hair wearing a patterned blue shirt, who scowls while holding up a copy of eir book GENDER QUEER: A MEMOIR. Maia is saying: H.R. 7661 is a national book banning bill which seeks to remove any book that "involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism" from all public schools in the US. This would ban my books, and any other book with trans themes, from public schools. PLEASE call your House Reps and say: NO ON H.R. 7661!

H.R. 7661 is a national book banning bill which seeks to remove any book that "involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism" from all public schools in the US. This would ban all my books, & any other book with trans themes, from public schools. PLEASE call your House Reps & say: NO ON H.R. 7661!

repost from Sameer project IG: Help us provide 2,500 families with groceries this Ramadan. for every $32/23.50 raised we can provide one family with these items: For $32 they can provide one family with: 1kg orzo 1 pack pasta 1kg sugar 1kg dates 2kg rice 1 can ghee 1 l oil 450g tahini 3 packs cheese 2 cans tomato sauce 1 pack spaghetti 2 cans beans

Let's help Sameer Project feed 2,500 families this Ramadan. Can you donate and repost?
chuffed.org/project/1666...

For $32 they can provide 1 family with:
1kg orzo
1pack pasta
1kg sugar
1kg dates
2kg rice
1can ghee
1 l oil
450g tahini
3packs cheese
2cans tomato sauce
1pack spaghetti
2cans beans

MAKE AN EMERGENCY DONATION to Trans Continental Pipeline right now.

They are a Colorado based org that helps trans people relocate there and they are overwhelmed with requests. CO borders KS, and TCP has the infrastructure to help get people out.

GO DONATE.

tcpipeline.org

Root canal is only hours away, several days of no donations probably kept us from being able to raise it.

Please help now? Need $1150 to make original 2k goal & get this done today.

My health cant wait another year.
linktr.ee/wylder

US lawmakers seek release of double amputee from Georgia ICE detention Congress members write to Kristi Noem to express ‘grave concern’ over detention of Georgia barber Rodney Taylor

20 members of Congress are finally speaking out for Rodney Taylor, a disabled double amputee who’s now spent more than a year in an ICE camp.

He was days away from receiving new prosthetic legs when they detained him.

He’s been denied his prosthetics, placed in solitary & his health is declining:

photo of several food parcels in blue plastic bags on a tiled floor

You've been working magic for this little project that's been helping displaced families in Jabalia refugee camp. Their current project: Ramadan food parcels for SEVENTY families!

Palestinian life and dignity. Anything helps, especially clicking “weekly”! chuffed.org/project/save...

I am so grateful it found a home with ALOCASIA (twice)!!

Order your Faves on my Digital Cookie Site Today That's right! You can order your favorite Girl Scout Cookies from me online, all while helping my troop and I do great things in our community and beyond! Check it out.

So there's a black girl scout troop trying to raise money to to to Europe but they aren't close to their goal as of yet. Please share this and buy some cookies if you can

digitalcookie.girlscouts.org/scout/reagan...

You can get a copy here: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alocasia-s...

The paperback book ALOCASIA: 99 queer writers on plants and nature, edited by Sarah Clark and Ashely Adams, held up against a background of green Boston fern fronds to show the book cover with rainbow leaf veins

The paperback book ALOCASIA: 99 queer writers on plants and nature, edited by Sarah Clark and Ashely Adams, held up against a background of green Boston fern fronds to show part of an interior page with the poem "For the Chronically Ill" by Elizabeth Hart Bergstrom

I'm happy to have a poem in this new anthology from @alocasiamag.bsky.social! Available as an ebook & paperback in links below.

"Maybe you were meant to be a maguey,
an agave that takes thirty years to bloom in desert grasslands
Your heart is intoxicating,
your sweetness distilled into mezcal."

This book looks amazing! Please add alt text to your images in the future so they're also accessible to blind & low vision people who use screen readers (Bluesky has a setting to require alt text when posting images so it's easier to remember)

Ramadan Kareem dear loves, be part of rebuilding our destroyed life by donating or sharing. Every dollar is part of surviving us🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂

The text reads "Outlook Springs, from the Interdimensional Press of Langston Brumbletooth. Submissions for Issue 10. Send us your strange Fiction, Essays, Poetry Febriary 15th through May 15th." There is an illustration of a goat-headed person in a yellow sweater, a green skirt, desert-camo leggings, and athletic shoes. Behind this creature is a cloud, some smoke, and a giant eyeball with green nerve endins straying behind it like a comet.

We're open for your submission and your submissions and your missions and your subs, of all sorts.

Time for Mayor Mamdani to live up to his campaign promises and ensure care is kept safe for New York trans kids.

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social @mayor.nyc.gov

I didnt think it would take 2 weeks of begging to still not have enough for groceries.

Please help us move on to fundraising other dire needs: linktr.ee/wylder

Keep Hope Alive: a Gaza Giving Circle We are a team of volunteers in the US and UK, led by two sisters passionate about helping our friends on the ground keep their families and neighbors alive with food, water, & shelter. We saw that their...

One of the most impactful things you can do? Help volunteers serving their neighbors. Here’s one way—your latest support will go towards Ramadan food baskets for fifteen displaced families in Jabalia.

Give/find their link here. Hit “weekly”!

The cover of our anthology, ALOCASIA: 99 queer writers on plants and nature, edited by Sarah Clark and Ashely Adams. Title is white font on a rainbow background overlaid over alocasia leaves.

ALOCASIA: 99 queer writers on plants and nature, is out now!

Our w/ Amazon and with Barnes & Noble!

This collection is part love song and part howl, delving into everything from the shackles of capitalism and imperialism, to lost loves, to just what was going on with that sus ex.

What a fabulous little guy

Poetry Submission Guidelines How to submit poetry.

I'm reading poetry subs at Strange Horizons this month. You can submit up to 6 speculative poems in a single file or separate files. I recommend separate files, because we allow simultaneous submissions and it's easier to withdraw individual poems. Guidelines: strangehorizons.com/submit/poetr...

A child’s illustration, made in what appears to be crayon, of more than a dozen figures standing together. It’s titled “Mi Familia” and credited to “Luisanney Toloza, 5 años.”

4/ “Mi Familia,” by 5-year-old Luisanney Toloza from Venezuela, who had recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

Children trapped in Texas immigration facility recount nightmares, inedible food, no school A photo of Liam Conejo Ramos, a scared 5-year-old, drew attention to a detention center in Dilley, Texas. Advocates say his experience reflects what hundreds of children have endured out of public vie...

Maria is one of hundreds of children, who — like Liam Ramos — have been held at a Texas detention facility where parents say children languish as they’re served contaminated food, receive little education and struggle to obtain basic medical care.

Here's our attempt at telling their stories. 2/

Sama'a's girls deserve a safe and happy childhood, but right now the best we can give them is survival. Please join me in giving what you can to help.

chuffed.org/project/157569

Comments are due by Feb. 17. Please submit yours soon!!!