Well, here it is, the literary equivalent of setting myself on fire for a cause. 🔥🔥🔥 I wish I had everything figured out. I don't. But I do know who I am, and I'm proud of it. 🏳️⚧️ 1/
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Dr. April Maria Ortiz 
a.k.a. Michael Ortiz
a.k.a. Michael Ortiz@OrtizGuajillo
S TX gadfly | autistic math prof | UT Austin grad | former Ford Fellow | border writer/artist | bylines | she/her/? 
Uvalde, TexasJoined December 2020
Dr. April Maria Ortiz 🏳️⚧️ a.k.a. Michael Ortiz’s Tweets
Hate and bigotry are scared, fearful, and small. This can be difficult to see because hate enforces its power through spirit crushing violence. Make no mistake though, every hateful ideology is a refuge for cowards and I will not be afraid.
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Here is a thing I did 🏳️⚧️
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I had two options – die or find a way to live as a transgender man | Jasper Lees theguardian.com/commentisfree/
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Things that did _not_ kill kids today:
- a renaissance sculpture
- a film about Ruby Bridges
- drag queen story time
- the word ‘tampon’
- critical race theory
- woke banks
- saying that Rosa Parks was Black
- gender-affirming care
- ‘The Bluest Eye’
What did:
-an AR-f––ing-15
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The reports of the death of the were premature. We'd like to keep providing cutting edge investigations on #womenshealthcare #environment, #criminaljustice, #politics #corruption & all things #Texas. Fight proposed layoffs. Contribute now. gofundme.com/f/laid-off-tex
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The staff of the have set up a to ask for help after the board voted to shutter the magazine. Please give if you can’t and share even if you can’t.
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We are asking the board to allow the staff try to save this historic magazine, as well as our livelihoods, and to give us a chance to secure other sources of funding.
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UPDATE: the Texas Observer editorial team has sent a formal proposal to the board that oversees the organization. It outlines a number of steps to stave off the impending layoffs and closure of the Observer.
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The is not like a Walmart that can just be shut down—esp. by a board president who resigned weeks ago and a divided board that has no journalists on it. It’s an idea in the minds of our readers, of the people who work here now and have worked here before. 1/x
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this sucks.
it was often horrible to work at the observer, but it was also often very fun. it gave me my start; it's where i met some of the most talented journalists working today, many of whom i'm glad to call friends.
in memoriam, here are some of my favorite TxO stories:
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EXCLUSIVE: The Texas Observer, the crusading liberal magazine founded in 1954, which Molly Ivins edited in the ’70s, is closing down and laying off its staff. The board voted on Wednesday, and again today, to proceed with the shutdown.
texastribune.org/2023/03/26/tex
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Informative thread.
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Today a committee in the Texas Senate will take up bills to ban gender-affirming care for minors. This is the first time they'll debate this legislation this year.
I've been covering transgender youth in Texas for years. Here's some of what I've learned.
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Please show up to this fight for us. Please understand the historical precedents, and know that this isn't a fight just for trans people, but for all Texans, especially the most vulnerable.
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I've traded away my peace & safety to tell my story honestly bc I think it's the kind of story that needs to be heard right now. Read it & know that if the anti-trans legislature moving through becomes law, #txlege will have blood on its hands.
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Reaching out to Tracy King, my state representative, bc I think he sees my tweets when I mention him, and , who I consider my unofficial rep since I work in DR and EP. I've talked to both of y'all a number of times under a different name & guise.
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You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.
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This is a terrible, incalculable loss
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Well this fucking sucks.
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The @TexasObserver, a storied liberal magazine, is shutting down and laying off its 17-person staff after a 68-year run marked by feisty, combative and often humorous investigative work from a stable of renowned journalists. bit.ly/42INJVd
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The # of anti-trans bills at the #txlege is staggering. In every era in which fascism arises, the first tactic is to pick small, despised minorities (Jews, gays, etc.) to gang up on and oppress to build majoritarian support for authoritarian ideals. That's what's happening here.
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Actually, maybe *this* is the very argument the AAUP or TACT or whomever should make to keep the Texas Legislature from killing tenure: Hey! Do you realize you're destroying the very thing that protects every racist, misogynist, homophobe, and transphobe in academia?
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... his whole career. Dan Patrick wants to take tenure away in TX, but if this is what it's protecting, maybe he's the most woke of us all. I jest, but seriously, in my career, I've seen tenure protect white supremacy more than academic freedom. Jesus Christ, academia, do better.
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... his whole career. Dan Patrick wants to take tenure away in TX, but if this is what it's protecting, maybe he's the most woke of us all. I jest, but seriously, in my career, I've seen tenure protect white supremacy more than academic freedom. Jesus Christ, academia, do better.
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... insulated from Black & Brown voices at his institution that he would so blithely utter what he did to a mixed audience and (b) that's probably the extent of the correction that'd be made if he saw this. No, this man needs to revise his basic assumptions in life and reexamine
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... on, oblivious. Can you guess what my three students (who are all Latina) and I took away from that talk?
It's not about what he *said* but what he so obviously *thinks*. The solution isn't for him to be more careful with words, though (a) it is interesting that he's so
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... have the resources to control them. Why do I study this? Because one day those diseases might spread to the parts of the world that matter." The audience reacted ... variously. The presenter, sensing that he'd made a faux pas, said, "Oh, maybe that was a bit mean" and rushed
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This weekend I took a group of students to an academic conference. In one breakout session, the presenter said the following (I paraphrase): "I study tropical diseases in parts of the world that are less popular, like Central & South America and Africa. The countries there don't
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This.
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Finding common ground with those who actively promote hate is not praiseworthy when it translates into "let's ignore this individual's harmful opinions and focus on things we have in common," which translates into, "I will sacrifice the vulnerable for the sake of forced unity."
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Fuckin a.
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As school shootings continue, Texas lawmakers are considering a new law that would require school districts train children as young as nine how to treat wounded classmates. cbsloc.al/42FHuS3
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They just want us not to exist.
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The vast majority of transgender adults in a new survey said that transitioning made them more satisfied with their lives.
And that is in the current political climate, when trans people are attacked every day.
That's how important transition is to us.
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The Washington Post does real journalism and sponsors a massive random sample poll of trans people that shows the joy and difficulties of our lives. They put it on the front page. This is how to accurately cover the trans community.
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NEW: West Texas A&M President , TAMU System Chancellor John Sharp and the A&M Board of regents have been sued by WTAMU students over Wendler's decision to cancel a campus drag show. Story TK
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"The authors of this document want so badly for their vision of the world to be true, to be simple, to be comfortable for them, that it appears as though they do not stop to think about the consequences of their actions or the veracity of their claims."
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As Christians we should bear witness to the truth this document seeks to erase: that transgender people exist; that nonbinary people exist; that intersex people exist.
@DanHoranOFM reflects on the @USCCB's document against Transgender healthcare. ncr.media/3JuQwZq
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Uvalde families are the latest members of a group of Texas mass shooting victims to push the state Legislature for stricter gun laws.
They bring with them an added cause for alarm — evidence that a particular type of gun stopped police in their tracks. bit.ly/3TrMfKW
![“[Police] knew the monster behind the door was not the kid. It’s the rifle the kid is holding,” said Jesse Rizo, uncle of 9-year-old Jackie Cazares, who was killed in the Uvalde shooting.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fr221YjXgAQFn-q?format=png&name=medium)
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“You've got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells YOU how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.” — James Baldwin.
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Today is Emancipation Day in Puerto Rico. #OTD, 150 years ago in 1873, Spain’s National Assembly abolished slavery in Puerto Rico. And yet, like elsewhere in the Americas, many enslaved Puerto Ricans were not immediately emancipated and enslavers received reparations. 🇵🇷 A 🧵 1/
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The Alliance Defending Freedom, the group behind nearly all anti LGBTQ legislation and litigation in the US, and their allies have helped to push "Kill the Gays" bills like this in Africa. Make no mistake. This is their end goal.
theguardian.com/world/2023/mar
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Legend.
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Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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You have to pick a side. I’m sorry but there’s not a middle way.
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“Let us remember: what hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.” — Elie Wiesel
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“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel
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