Ryan Thoreson

People in Belgrade celebrated following Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic speech conceding defeat to a student-led protest movement in a historic election that ends his long grip on power and heralds a new political era in the Balkan country. reut.rs/4zkXvww

BREAKING: SCOTUS rejects Trump admin's request to allow it to end gender-affirming medical care in prisons — a significant, if tentative, rejection of one of the admin's most extreme anti-trans arguments. Only Thomas and Alito noted they would have granted the stay. More to come: www.lawdork.com

…is that your final answer

“Forcing trans people into spaces for our sex assigned at birth will never be the most clinically appropriate decision, and would push trans people away from accessing care.” We must continue to challenge the state mandated segregation of trans people in the UK.

Senegal: Brutal Crackdown Violates LGBT People’s Rights www.hrw.org/news/2026/10...

Hungary removes anti-LGBTQ provisions from 'child protection' law, batting back Orban legacy

It was a lovely surprise to get this in the mail over the weekend, and thanks to Andrew Murphy for including this topic (and me) in the second volume of the Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence!

My first thought was “oh great, Jenny Schecter will be even more insufferable at parties.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/b...

It's been an insanely busy semester, but couldn't be happier to finally announce my favorite development of the past two months.

At no point could I predict where this sentence was headed:

I don’t think my husband and I parent very differently from heterosexual parents but our three year old *did* just walk into the kitchen and sing, unprompted, “nobody’s on noboooooody’s side.”

Belated in sharing this, but it was so great to welcome Prof. Katherine Mims Crocker to the Klekamp College of Law for Constitution Day last week - the lecture was fantastic, and we couldn't have asked for a more engaged, engaging speaker!

A bill proposed by Councilmember Rue Landau would remove references to “male or female impersonators” in a part of the zoning code that regulates strip clubs, topless bars, and other adult venues.

If AI is going to kill us all, my only ask is to live long enough to see a feature-length Knives Out / Poker Face crossover.

It feels depressingly on brand for 2026 to invite a lawyer onto your drag panel, but still really looking forward to joining true legends for the Cincinnati Art Museum’s Art of Drag event this weekend. If you’re in town, RSVP here! www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/events/event...

Ugh. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/a...

Hungary’s new government has taken an important step toward dismantling a key discriminatory legacy of the Orbán era—the legal targeting of LGBT people. But the government’s plans leave other discriminatory provisions in Hungarian law intact. Learn more:

I am going to become the Joker

The administration, not content with taking public stakes in private companies and redistributing wealth to fight communism, is now fighting wokeness by putting trigger warnings outside the Smithsonian. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

An aggressive crackdown against LGBTQ activism is underway in Turkey, where authorities raided organizations and arrested dozens of activists and supporters this morning.

In the months after 9/11, NYT ran a daily feature called Portraits of Grief: short vignettes of the dead, remembered in their best light, as we would want to be remembered. Worth picking some at random to read (click on a letter of the alphabet at top). archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes....

My husband explaining football to me: “…and you won’t like this: everyone has a traumatic brain injury and there are no women.”

Our three year old keeps referring to “Rosie the Riddler” and now I’m making up Batman fanfic in my head.

Proud to have signed this letter as a WGS alum. WGS changed my life, giving me a community and opening opportunities that I wouldn’t have found otherwise, and it’s being dismantled at Harvard and elsewhere at a time it’s critically needed.

If you ever wondered "what if popcorn was dusty," I highly recommend protein popcorn.

My new favorite insult just dropped: "Have you seen a kangaroo? They're as tall as Professor Thoreson, but muscular."

This is quite literally an extinction level event for graduate education in several fields in the United States.

I really cannot think of a greater honor than to have the Muppets say this about you upon your passing

Siri, is it possible for flags at half-mast to be flown even lower

Texas cannot enforce restrictions on some public drag shows after a federal judge again declared a 2023 law unconstitutional. “For those who find such activities offensive, the solution is relatively simple... just don’t go,” Judge David Hittner wrote.

We enrolled our three year old in the Imagination Library and whenever she finishes a book she says “Thanks, Dolly!” to the photo of Dolly Parton on it. It’s hard to think of another cultural icon who’s brought as much joy to as many people. 🫡

I don’t know what I was expecting when I ordered peach pizza but here we are!

"The Education Department is taking the first step toward removing the ABA’s authority to accredit law schools, said David Barker, assistant secretary of education." Gift link: www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

I really love Bert and Meredith Lockwood’s podcast and it was great to join them as a guest to talk about LGBTQIA rights in the US and abroad - you can listen below!

Funny how all these people I see who are performatively super-worried about "men in women's spaces" have said nothing about this.

"international human rights law requires that such measures are inclusive of all women and girls, including transgender and intersex women, and respect the rights of all persons without discrimination.” www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...