iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 20h

This is funny to me for two reasons: 1. They're scared. 2. Hamilton is the most white bread candidate that you could ask for: a United Methodist minister who's written a ton of mainline-friendly Christian books and who was registered Republican as recently as 2020. He's not elevating queer issues.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Fell down a rabbit hole tonight wherein I learned that someone I went to high school with is now a billionaire CEO of an AI/robotics company, which would be less remarkable if I hadn't gone to a school with an average enrollment of 300 students. (I don't remember him because he was 2 years younger)

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

One of the worst parts of doing daily mood tracking is getting memories of previous years. Today it was being reminded of one of my former students dying in a car crash four years ago. She was only 29 and left behind a young son. I'm still heartbroken over it and I hadn't seen her in years.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I've had a really shitty day but this (and the subsequent Good Place memes) genuinely made me laugh. The bar is in, uh, the Bad Place and even Third Way managed to pass it. What's everyone else's excuse?

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Every month I go to a coffee meetup for queer folks and the latest one was on this past Saturday. Our conversations tend to focus on queer life but often veer into politics and occasionally religion (mostly Christianity), which is usually fine. But this one was a bit frustrating.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

At this point there's probably no good way to put the genie back in the bottle, but as a society we definitely have not adequately grappled with the implications of having easy access to capture contextless audio/video and disseminate it widely and quickly.

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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

it is very easy to sympathize with a man who misses having a better lifestyle. it is very hard to sympathize with a man who misses having a slave

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I had a position last summer at a consulting firm who primarily did work for a VC firm (I hated every minute of the two months I was there before finding something much much better). Anyway, I did a bunch of work on a site for an annual summit and Healey was a prominent speaker.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This is absolutely imperative for everyone who supports Democrats or left-leaning politics to understand. Not only is it morally vacuous to abandon trans people, but it's also a political strategy that will fail.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This is what gets me about so many people providing criticism of people leading community spaces: If your purpose is to call out inequity or injustice without being part of a solution to it, then your actions are strictly destructive. Moral virtue that destroys community is not productive.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

God this is a gut punch of a piece (complimentary).

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Incredibly, I'm seeing the opposite side: trans people angry at the very idea of saying that a trans person should still vote for Talarico. Both are a shitty way to respond to probably the nuanced, correct view on this (although I would still never judge a trans person sitting this race out).

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Nothing like being shouted at by British trans people about how trans people should vote (or not vote) in US elections to start your day. Extra fun when they're acting like I'm not trans! Come on, people, a little goddamn humility is not difficult to muster.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

A really good read (and I love the snark on that final note).

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

If you're a Dem who thinks you'll gain something by going anti-trans, look at Gallup's "most important problem" and Fox News' "most important issue" polling and see where trans issues rank. Whoever told you going anti-trans is a savvy or necessary move spends too much time on X and should be fired.

Gallup polling. "LGBTQ rights" moves between 0 and 1%.

Fox news polling. Wokeness/transgender issues at 0%.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I did not know just how right I would end up being, at least with one person involved.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

It is always remarkable to me that Philip Siekevitz coined such a perfect phrase that millions of people with even an elementary understanding of cell biology could finish the sentence "The mitochondria is..." with absolute accuracy. And he did it almost SEVENTY YEARS AGO. Quite a feat, honestly.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I see it's going to be one of those mornings when I will see people arguing and conclude that I don't need to know who is particularly in the right to know that neither person is improving my experience on this app.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The amazing thing here is that this wouldn't be an objectionable statement if it weren't coming from a Republican who has definitely criticized things like veggie burgers before and who supports the president making beef prices so ridiculous that veggie burgers suddenly seem like a good option.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

About twenty years ago, I took a macroeconomics course and mercantilism was basically treated an idiotic economic philosophy that assumed all transactions are zero-sum and that economists know better now. And that's what our president wholeheartedly believes in.

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Benjamin Balthaser @blbalthaser.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In claiming the left needs to embrace economic issues and appeal to conservative values of patriotism and the family, the report does not embrace class politics over culture wars, it just embraces one side of the war over another

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

It's that time of year, so I need to talk about something I find extremely obnoxious: Brits condescending to Americans about the word "fall." (Don't worry, British friends, if this isn't your practice, you're going to be fine.)

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Andrew Weinstein @andrewjweinstein.com · 15/09/2026

There’s obviously a lot going on right now, but a Russian oligarch bankrolling the wedding of the president’s son is the kind of story that should dominate headlines in any functioning political culture.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Update: I got a follow-up Email, so maybe this will actually be a thing? (Scary, but mostly in a good way!)

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Expounding on this: When you don't vote for a politician, that politician doesn't know why. Part of that is that they can only look at the aggregate and there are likely to be multiple reasons for voter behavior. Another is that not voting for someone on principle is indistinguishable from apathy...

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

At the same of wading into The Discourse, a few tangentially related hot takes: 1. You can vote or not vote for someone for a lot of reasons, but "sending a message" is maybe one of the worst, mostly because politicians are notoriously very bad at "reading" these kinds of messages!

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Katelyn Burns @katelynburns.com · 13/09/2026

I think the people who keep pointing out that Obama opposed gay marriage aren't really making a direct correlation with what is happening with trans rights today. The debate is over TAKING AWAY existing rights. So it would be more like Obama supporting recriminalizing gay sex.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Oh this is spot fucking on, especially this part:

When Obama said he supported civil unions in the run-up to the 2008 and 2012 elections, he was offering gay people a slower pace of progress. When Democrats today triangulate on transgender rights, they are offering us a slower pace of decline.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Okay, I have to crowdsource this: My wife has started doing something recently that I have been slightly surprised with: She's started using the verb "to google" not just a term for "using a search engine" in the common genericized way but rather as "using the search function in an application."

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Me: I am totally overwhelmed with my job and family stuff and a little bit of volunteer work Also me: Why of course I would be happy to speak to your Girls Who Code group Why am I like this?

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Yeah, this whole thread is spot on. I've always thought that the AI alarmists were wildly misguided and working with LLMs has made me more confident in that conclusion, not less.

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Andrea Grimes @andreagrimes.com · 12/09/2026

anyway never let an elected official or someone who aspires to be one believe that they are advocating for bigotry with your silent consent always holler every time you can

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Definitely no sympathy, but unfortunately trans people are uncommon enough that it's more likely that cis people will first encounter us online than in person. So, you know, that's fucking fun.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Here's a story about 9/11 that isn't really about the attacks but rather what their aftermath taught me about skepticism.

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Rob Cyran @robcyran.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Maine, Michigan, Alaska, Ohio. This policy is like a guided missile aimed at the exactly wrong target.

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Micah @rincewind.run · 08/09/2026

Discworld QOTD, from I Shall Wear Midnight “Oh, I feel very angry a lot of the time," said Tiffany, "but I just put it away somewhere until I can do something useful with it.”

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

If even a fraction of this is true, then yeah, I think it's fair to call this a cult and its "students" victims. Holy shit.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

There is so much accountability for the current suffering being caused by our major institutions that will never be delivered and if I gave it any more thought than I can currently spare I'd be an unquenchable ball of incandescent rage.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Am I the only one who sees the "RFK Jr feeds JD Vance while Rubio watches" not just as a homoerotic declaration of RFK's individualist health policy but as a statement of his preference for the next MAGA heir? It's a not terribly subtle way of saying Rubio is a "cuck" and Vance is preferred.

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Ruth Zakarin @ruthz.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

My view of @edmarkey.bsky.social at last night’s election party. He gave a great speech, but honestly what truly moved me was the first speaker — a trans young person who spoke about the meaning of this win. About seeing MA vote for someone who was unabashed in their support… 1/

A view of Ed Markey taking the stage at his primary night celebration. There is a crowd holding signs and his wife standing next to him

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

The way Rick has been treated merely for using AI **in the software he has maintained solo for over two decades** to make it even more available is absolutely abhorrent and I would encourage anyone to approves of it to promptly unfollow me. Block if you like.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

One of the most corrosive aspects of modern society (especially in America) is the degree to which cruelty in society has just become commonplace. Not just that, but it's considered an acceptable or even laudatory response to being the victim of cruelty. It's become self-perpetuating.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Being trans in America (actually, most places these days, it seems like):

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gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

If you've paid any amount of attention to the TERF and gender critical world this is kind of the end stage of how it works. A minor public figure expresses some agreement with GC views and is immediately rewarded and showered with praise and love and oftentimes money.

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Gillian (Jill) @youdontknowjill.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Hot take: Changing Google Maps to match whatever petulant name changes this ridiculous administration makes should not even register on the list of reasons to be mad at Google as a company. I actually think their stance is defensible as a truly neutral way to handle naming disputes.

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