Lisa Diedrich

Amy Sherald’s painting Trans Forming Liberty, who is a gorgeous Black trans woman in a satin-y blue dress with a slit all the way up her thigh. She has pink hair & is holding a torch of yellow & orange flowers.

Didn’t want to miss the Amy Sherald show at the Whitney Museum (it closes on Sunday), so went today with throngs of others. Wow. Really stunning. Here’s Trans Forming Liberty. She’s gorgeous. Go if you can! It’s free tonight.

Might be a good time to re-read Judith Butler's essay "The Lesbian Phallus & the Morphological Imaginary"...

U.S. Air Force to deny early retirement benefits to some transgender service members The U.S. Air Force said Thursday it would deny all transgender service members who have served between 15 and 18 years the option to retire early and would instead separate them without retirement ben...

This is so breathtakingly cruel that my soul glitched. I’m never surprised by the depths of depravity, per se, but having to process it still exacts an emotional cost.

www.npr.org/2025/08/08/n...

Proofs of the title page for a book: Keywords/ Keyimages in Graphic Medicine Edited by Lisa Diedrich and Briana Martino The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania

We have proofs!!

Keywords/Keyimages in Graphic Medicine coming early 2026!!

#GraphicMedicine

Gillian Rose's formulation of "being at a loss yet exploring various routes" has long been a guiding principle of my work & pedagogical practices. I also appreciate Jacqueline Rose's conception of the feminist project as combining political demand with radical self-questioning.

I agree Bronze was caught out on Caldentey’s goal & Bonmati is one of, if not the, best midfielders ever, but I’d still pick Bronze over Caldentey & Bonmati for overall influence this season.

So yeah, throwing dildos at WNBA players is all about who has & doesn't have the phallus, as Lacan would say...

This is why the folks claiming to care about protecting women’s sports don’t really care about protecting women’s sports.

It's Severe ME Awareness and remembrance day. I've collected a few photos together in a reel, which I hope gives some idea of my everyday life and that of my unpaid family carer.
I've been completely bedridden over 7 years.
#UnitedForME #mecfs #SevereMEDay #SevereME #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis

As someone who briefly played on the boys soccer team in high school & played on many other mixed gender teams (or where I was the only woman), I have long noted that a small number of guys are threatened by competing with a woman & this seems to have to do with their own athletic insecurity.

This is such an important point & for me relates to the notion that sports once was a kind of sacred homosocial space for boys & men. The rise of girls participating in youth sports & women’s professional sports is seen as an intrusion into this sacred homosocial space, esp by those w/lesser skills.

YouTube video by NYU Gallatin Mierle Laderman Ukeles - "Who Cares?" Keynote for 2022 Discard Studies Conference

Alas, the screening of Maintenance Artist at the Tribeca film festival has passed, but I just watched this talk Mierle Laderman Ukeles gave at NYU in 2022 & it is so moving.
youtu.be/GOk451Lex8Q?...

“'I’m a maintenance artist,' [Ukeles] would say by way of introduction. 'I feel that you hold up the whole city in your hands with your unending work. I think it’s time for the public to hear what New York City feels like, from the side of the people that keep it alive, every single day.'”

The ’70s Performance Artist Who Became a Hero to ‘Garbage Men’

"The story of [Mierle Laderman Ukeles's] involvement w/the city’s Sanitation Dept...is the story of her identification with the workers themselves. In her view, the garbage men were regarded with the same disdain that society directed toward wives & mothers."
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/n...

One of the few things I'm absolutely sure of is that there's nothing wrong with being trans. We're just a type of person. We deserve equality because all people deserve equality.

🚨JOB ALERT🚨

We! Are! Hiring!

The Department of Africana Studies at Smith College invites applications for a tenure-track position in Black
Women’s Studies/Gender Studies at the rank of Assistant Professor, to begin 7/1/26

More info here: apply.interfolio.com/171572

#blackademia #academia #PhDSky

“The bill passed the Illinois House and Senate unanimously in a sign of overwhelming bipartisan support.” Kinda amazing that it had unanimous support. The bill & the bipartisan support punctures some of the AI & wellness as personal responsibility hype we are being inundated with.

I agree completely & I do try to convey a love of reading to my students.

I find it helps to mix it up—keep it interdisciplinary & multimodal: Graphic narratives, zines, shorter essays, films. Thinking about form keeps me interested too! I’m sure you’ll be great!!

NWSL remains such a weird organization. It’s truly mystifying how poorly they handle problems. In this case, how is an aggressive response to legitimate questions helpful?

My pick: Lucy Bronze. She has been the most influential player, I think, in big games/tournaments.

Cherry tomatoes, whole watermelon, kohlrabi, new potatoes, lettuce, & scallions on a grey counter. Yum!!

V & I decided to join Sang Lee Farm's CSA this summer & it has been the best thing ever. Long Island & NYC folks, cannot recommend enough. Yum! And, yes, that's a watermelon!

A walk sign that has fallen over but is still functional somehow

This is a metaphor of some sort

Don't fall!

Why did Ghislaine Maxwell do what she did? | Moira Donegan Trying to rationalize Maxwell’s actions evades what is truly terrifying about the dark center of the Epstein saga

"But Maxwell’s case suggests such desire can breed not just frustrated vanity but also a kind of monstrousness. Untempered by principle or self-respect, it can contain in it the seed of the grotesque." Disturbing piece by @moiradonegan.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Toward an Ethics of Failure — Lisa Diedrich In Treatments , through an analysis of illness narratives and the cultural work they do, I emphasized the possibility of articulating an ethics of failure, or the condition of “being at a loss yet ex...

Here I return to a key concept in my book Treatments that emerges from a reading of Gillian Rose's philosophical illness narrative Love's Work & her sister Jacqueline's feminist psychoanalytic theory & practice of "an ethics of failure."
www.lisadiedrich.org/thoughts/tow...

Learning to Listen — Lisa Diedrich Reading notes are one way of learning to listen.

This was my first Reading Notes post where I explain one of the things I liked about Twitter was that it worked well for me as a space to post notes as I read. The affordances of a blog post are different, but I am trying. Also, I left the dead Twitter link...
www.lisadiedrich.org/reading-note...

I have literally never used ChatGPT to do anything. Gonna start a chastity club.

Don’t tell me I have to come out again?!

After RFK Jr's was confirmed in February, I made this new version of Donald Moffett's iconic "He Kills Me" poster from 1987 that captured Reagan's insouciant response to AIDS. Read the alt text for Moffet's description of making the poster.
ACT UP. Fight Back!
bsky.app/profile/lisa...