FUCK, man.
freelance journalist & essayist & author: akomp.info (Scribner) trans guy bylines: Eater, Esquire, Believer, Them, The Cut, 99PI, TAL subscribe: https://whats-helping-today.beehiiv.com/ https://www.sandyernestallen.com https://linktr.ee/hellosandyallen
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FUCK, man.
why can't the democrat messaging on trans people be "no, we are not going to force children to undergo genital inspections in order to play sports"
got my t-shirt
A sitting US congressmen is openly saying this about trans people.
Hi did you move your newsletter away from substack? drop it in the replies so people can find you and subscribe! I am big on rewarding good choices
Bluekey
too much posting on this website about posting on websites. you should be posting about the extra Cat that only appears to you during your tenth viewing of CATS (2019)
My other main announcement type thing right now is I'm teaching a class! An online workshop, starts at the end of this month. It's gonna be great, is my aim anyway. Learn all about it: www.theshipmanagency.com/classes/work...
"And then Woody Allen went on Bill Maher's podcast to praise Donald Trump," I mumble to myself as they toss me into the padded room
what is going on at harvard that submitting a paper in the voice of adolf hitler is even a possibility lmao
'Care Courts aren't working because we're not coercing enough mentally ill people into involuntary treatment and medical incarceration. The fix is obviously to make it easier to do that.'
Smells bubble-y to me
The market is going all-in on AI. The biggest stocks are technology companies. The 10 largest companies in the S&P 500 accounted for 39.5% of its total value at the end of July. www.wsj.com/finance/stoc...
🫧
What’s funny is this article was preceded by six months of “ok, white nationalism doesn’t make any sense, but there must be something in there that’s good for the economy.”
Hi new followers!!! ... There's a lot of you since the Proxy ep and guessing the Lit Hub project and such ... Welcome! I'm a freelance journalist. I hope you'll consider signing up for my free newsletter (focused on self-care etc). These are the best ways to support me and my work ...
What's Helping Today: still sunflowers
Perfect encapsulation of the Trump administration: The guy suing Harvard for alleged antisemitism is a straight-up Hitler-admiring Nazi. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...
He was telling people to physically assault trans people
Brevity is now open for submissions! 📣 We are currently reading personal essays of 750 words or fewer in any style or subgenre. Writers whose perspectives have been traditionally underrepresented in publishing are especially encouraged to submit! Guidelines: brevity.submittable.com/submit
definitely felt like a dream, here i was finally graduating from college and murphy brown was there to film ...
She was my year or the year ahead of me? I'm not sure. I do know her mom was like, a mom in the crowd the day I graduated, is my recollection, like videoing as I believe Chloe must have been right ahead of me in the procession. that's right, MURPHY BROWN herself.
i know Chloe from college kinda, definitely said "Whoa" aloud when I read that headline
Anna Wintour makes it official: Chloe Malle is taking over editorial content of US Vogue. The first time in 37 years that the magazine will be led by anyone else but Wintour. Full Announcement: bit.ly/4m0Uavp
Just call it the "Genital Inspection Movement"
I've got these Starter Packs of my work, organized by topics I tend to write and say stuff about, like gender and mental health www.sandyernestallen.com/starter-packs
Australian slur technology is the most advanced in the world
the Who? Weekly Tomana song should win a grammy ...
It's also available wherever you audiobook ... featuring my pre-T voice and an actor reading Uncle Bob's font ... libro.fm/audiobooks/9...
the other BEST way to support me is to read my book, if you haven't already (buy it or request it from your local library) bookshop.org/p/books/a-ki...
If you like my work and you want to help me keep doing it ... I'd really appreciate your help. Here's my Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/sandyallen
My newsletter's again, totally free and a great time, IMO! whats-helping-today.beehiiv.com
NEW: For #trans people incarcerated in Georgia's prisons and jails, the nightmare of losing access to hormone therapy has begun. Assigned Media brings you behind bars with an exclusive reported story by B Speaks. www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
Hi new followers!!! ... There's a lot of you since the Proxy ep and guessing the Lit Hub project and such ... Welcome! I'm a freelance journalist. I hope you'll consider signing up for my free newsletter (focused on self-care etc). These are the best ways to support me and my work ...
just re-floating my new appearance on (the great) Proxy podcast, to anyone who hasn't listened and/or who responded to this thread ... pod.link/1746433334/e...
Holy smokes This is the crowd at the Bernie Sanders/Graham Platner Fighting Oligarchy event in Portland, ME tonight Platner is the oyster farmer challenging Susan Collins; Senate seat👇 Overwhelming turnout! I feel like maybe Susan's number is finally up ..
"Blueskyism" helped make The Onion one of the largest newspapers in the world in less than a year. If we had spent all of our time on Twitter, we'd be poorer, dumber and terminally ill with internet poisoning. He's just angry he's wasting away over there in a nazi agnostic lane that doesn't exist.
Now I'm old enough to remember when Johnson got fired from BF for being a shitty journalist ...
They're using the St George's cross like a socially acceptable swastika just like they use 'biological' as a socially acceptable discrimination.
I did! My newsletter's about self-care (I'm a psychiatric focused journalist). Moved to beehiiv last year and it's been great ... whats-helping-today.beehiiv.com
I'm really excited to get to feature a first byline from an incarcerated writer on Assigned Media later this morning.
If you know any readers or writers who'd maybe want to submit anything, I hope you'll share with them ... Again full details on what we're looking for here: www.sandyernestallen.com/announcements
This is once again in conjunction with @maris.bsky.social for @literaryhub.bsky.social Here's all the details in terms of: If you want to recommend us books to consider ... or pitch a book to review and how: www.sandyernestallen.com/announcements Submissions close tonight at 11:59 pm eastern ...
Gonna do a quick FINAL HOURS type last call thread re: the trans/queer book reviews project ...
Wildlife spotting, a hike, and some local music.
Watching the hummingbirds always gives me joy. These pics are from this morning. So that’s what’s helping today - simple joy of watching nature around me.
Alright! Last call, reposts/shares appreciated. Send stuff by tonight at 11:59 ... thanks all.
“The Guardian is printing the names of all the Palestinian journalists listed by the CPJ as having died as a result of Israeli military action since October 2023 as part of a day of action in condemnation of the killings and in solidarity with those journalists who remain…”
also What's Helping Today (every Monday): Testosterone! Sure do love shot day, the after-the-shot part, anyway.
My own WHTs include like, being in my garden a bunch this weekend ... sowing seeds, doing cleanup, harvesting stuff I've meant to. also making homegrown peach jam (as I wrote about in my newsletter yesterday) .... whats-helping-today.beehiiv.com/p/some-labor...
I love this reply. Thank you for sharing. Anybody else wanna say, What's Helping Today?
What's Helping Today? I always like hearing ...
omg i love this!! thank you for sharing. If others want to share ... What's Helping Today is more a what's helping "lately", very loose
We've gotten a TON of submissions, which is great!!! but I also wanna make sure everybody who wants to send something in realizes this is the deadline tonight ...
If you know any readers or writers who'd maybe want to submit anything, I hope you'll share with them ... Again full details on what we're looking for here: www.sandyernestallen.com/announcements
Anyone wanting to send anything in, this is your last chance. As ever, if you have any questions: You can ask on here or better yet email me (via my site, linked in bio) and I'll try to respond.
I shared about the project (basically reiterating the same info as is found at my Announcements page linked above) in this WHT from the other day ... With a few links for context, for anyone wondering like *why* we'd be doing this especially: whats-helping-today.beehiiv.com/p/last-call-...
This is once again in conjunction with @maris.bsky.social for @literaryhub.bsky.social Here's all the details in terms of: If you want to recommend us books to consider ... or pitch a book to review and how: www.sandyernestallen.com/announcements Submissions close tonight at 11:59 pm eastern ...
Gonna do a quick FINAL HOURS type last call thread re: the trans/queer book reviews project ...
Love this. If others want to share ... What's Helping today? I today I took a pic of my sky here earlier this morning because God was saying: Trans rights ...
If you value a news outlet that reports trans stories other outlets don't care about, we need your support! Become a member of Assigned Media today: www.assignedmedia.org/newsletter
Our story also includes a new detail, from @evanurquhart.bsky.social's Bluesky replies. According to Aric Toler of the New York Times, the Minneapolis shooter originally planned to target a underground trans music venue before changing targets to Annunciation Catholic School.
alas I became a single-origin light-roast guy these last few years, basically I'm an insufferable coffee snob ...
genuinely as a man now, i feel SO inspired shorts-wise here ...
Gorgeous! 🩵🩷🤍🩵🩷
Perhaps you need to send an exemplary pic of these shorts on Chris Pine that you are referring to? For my research purposes ...
Love this. If others want to share ... What's Helping today? I today I took a pic of my sky here earlier this morning because God was saying: Trans rights ...
(Everyday what's helping for me includes: coffee, weed, meditation, many other things I *don't* do...)
Adding: My favorite local weed purveyor is this dispensary in Kingston—if only because their shop is in these two rad geodesic domes and very cool inside. And they feature lots of NY state growers ... Their prices are high like everywhere (non-medical) in this state ... www.domesdispensary.com
My favorite local coffee purveyor is this sorta secret but extremely great coffee bar inside a (mostly women's) vintage clothing store in Kingston ... www.instagram.com/rerackedvint...
My favorite local-ish coffee subscription btw for anyone in the Catskills/HV ... They're Troy-based ... touchycoffee.com/products/cof...
These are good answers ... if anyone else wants to say: What's Helping Today? I also need to make more coffee.
I wrote about the deadname-y hell that is the endless logistics of being trans some years back for Them ... www.them.us/story/betwee...
I am again buried in minutiae of this sort so, it can be hard to get around to it all. Especially when it relates to tech and my confusion about how to best approach migrations here or there ...
My deadname site and akomp.info site is Wix hosted and built alas ... and a few months back they just did their annual ever-increasing auto-renew ... sigh
I pay for both my Squarespace and my old website on Wix in addition to my newsletter so this is another reason I'm like, averse to pay for even more hosting. Fuck Wix, from the bottom of my soul, I will say ... Those folks are just actual thieves. I need to get my stuff off of there. Again: to do.
For anyone who wants to read or share, here's this good post again re: substack and why it sucks: www.anildash.com/2024/11/19/d...
Thank you!! I'm curious if others are willing to share (whatever you like): How have you dealt with the messiness of migration off of substack and going elsewhere? Especially and including those of us who've not yet monetized our newsletters?
Trans news over the weekend was dominated by one topic: The identity of a mass-shooter. Republicans successfully derailed discussions of gun control and violence by whipping up hatred towards transgender people. That story and more in Leading Off: www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
I'm maybe a bad one to judge re: learning curves and tech because I find all new tech things cumbersome to start, usually. But beehiiv's interface yeah took me a LONG time to get used to and when they update it I'm usually thrown anew.
Of course if folks know better how to deal with my problems, feel free. I do have access to much-smarter-than-me types when it comes to tech things so ... Lots of this is my own slowness and intimidation when it comes to computers and change. Am I neurodivergent? My therapist sure tells me so ...
The other browser they recommended other than Chrome though I hadn't heard of so perhaps that's why I never got around to downloading it ... I dunno. I'm conservative when it comes to tech. A luddite type ... easily stressed out by change, especially in computer-y contexts.
Eventually I got to know their editor alright. I do find it crashes and I have lost work, for this reason. Their customer support seemed nice but ultimately unhelpful. They seemed to recommend I not use Chrome, which I've not gotten around to changing ... I am bad at moving computer things.
I'm a writer who begrudgingly uses a CMS in order to release my own newsletter and I've used other CMSes before, in my editorial days ... Beehiiv's feels designed by computer people and not like writer people were much consulted. Whole thing's pure visual chaos, when you first open it.
I'm like, not into numbers, really, which is why all the analytics focus on their dashboard is never my thing. My main gripe with @beehiiv.com is they seem to get killed analytics wise, no matter what I try. Also I truly can't stand AI so don't use those features.
If I had lots of money I'd maybe use @ghost.org? It just seemed way expensive for a little newsletter like mine w fewer than 1000 subscribers
I have found @beehiiv.com to be alright. I'm bad at computers. Their CMS I found confusing as fuck at first; they released a new update the other day that made it only more confusing for the likes of me. I'd love something with way fewer analytics and just quick access to my drafts / one template.
Trans folks, I encourage you to listen and share with your friends/followers, if it'll help ... and cis folks, I really encourage you to listen ... wherever you consume podcasts pod.link/1746433334/e...
Grateful to @yoweishaw.bsky.social and co for featuring me on this great episode ... I encourage folks in general to check out this show, it's newer and really well made, IMO. Not just saying that because they had me on ... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
If you haven't already ... please listen to the new Proxy! Wherein I ... went on about how exhausting these times are, as a trans guy who speaks into the void trying to get cis folks in particular to listen ... open.spotify.com/episode/0uAl...
This labor day, if you wanna support my trans broke freelance ass, I'd sure appreciate it ... sign up for my free newsletter, tell your friends. Again, tip me via buy me a coffee ... buymeacoffee.com/sandyallen
I'm a freelancer so I don't really get weekends off or like, holiday days off. I haven't taken "days off" in a really long time ... beyond like, when I've fucking had to when recovering from surgery. Been figuring out this year like, how to not lose my house level stuff ...
And yeah if you wanna help make my career keep going, please: Contribute a few bucks, more if you have it. Better yet: Sign up to support me monthly; that's amazing when folks do that ... buymeacoffee.com/sandyallen
By @beehiiv.com standards my newsletter's still WAY to small to monetize so ... Please subscribe ... or spread word ... whats-helping-today.beehiiv.com
For me, I wanted to leave my posts alive on substack for readers to be able to access them ...
And yeah, to unsubscribe from all ss-hosted free newsletters, a question in my mind for sure. Probably still figuring out which newsletters I find valuable and whether they've got ss-alts ...
If folks wanna subscribe to my STILL TOTALLY FREE newsletter ... speaking of which ... whats-helping-today.beehiiv.com
Personally: I don't pay for any ss-hosted newsletters and I didn't ever monetize back there. Again, whether I take down my old ss entirely is ... my next hurdle. I'm totally broke and my own career isn't making ANY financial sense ... so. Figuring it all out.
You can maybe even guess who I mean! I get bigger platforms have different financial situations rights now and folks are dealing as they feel is best. I know for me as a tiny guy who's not yet monetized my newsletter, i finally couldn't stand being on ss anymore and I had to move ...
And yeah, i had some trans sometime acquaintance who's got a substack earlier this year say like "'if xyz famous trans media creator' is still on substack why does it matter" so ... this shit drives me nuts ... truly.