Cartoon: The GOP Tax Policy Cycle!

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Ampersand

Bobby Kogen, at the Center for American Progress, writes:

Long-term projections show that federal debt as a percentage of the U.S. economy is on a path to grow indefinitely… House Republican leaders have used this fact to call for spending cuts, but it does not address the true cause of rising debt: Tax cuts initially enacted during Republican trifectas in the past 25 years slashed taxes disproportionately for the wealthy and profitable corporations, severely reducing federal revenues. In fact, relative to earlier projections, spending is down, not up. But revenues are down significantly more. If not for the Bush tax cuts and their extensions—as well as the Trump tax cuts—revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio (debt as a percentage of the economy) would be declining.

It’s good that CAP and others have pulled together the data, but what they’re proving is very intuitive: Cutting revenues leads to increased debt.

Which is an unfortunate reality of our current political system, but also, a perfect opportunity for another “cycle” cartoon! I really love doing the cycle cartoons -When they work, they’re elegant and fun, and a nice change from my usual non-cyclic layouts.

The visual simplicity of this cartoon was a perfect opportunity for me to play around with a more illustrative style. In other words, I crosshatched the heck out of this one. 

I don’t normally do this much cross-hatching because it’s time-consuming, but it’s also so much fun! We’ll see how it looks to me in a year, but right now, I’m very happy with how this cartoon looks. (Future Barry who is preparing the reprint book that includes this cartoon: Use this space to say if the cartoon still looks good to you.)

I actually completely colored the figures, and then I took the coloring away, because I think it looks better (and starker) as just black and white illustrations with some red spotting.

I even like looking at the cross-hatching without the lines:

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon is laid out in a circle, with each panel having an arrow leading the reader to the next panel. So in principle, any of these four panels could be panel one. But for purposes of this transcript, I’ll start out with the topmost panel.

Each panel shows the same powerful-looking middle-aged man, wearing a suit with a red striped tie.

In the middle of the cartoon is the title, printed in large friendly letters. The title i: THE GOP TAX POLICY CYCLE.

PANEL 1

The man – who I’ll just call GOP – is looking at a piece of paper he’s holding and jumping up with a horrified expression on his face.

GOP: HORRORS! The U.S. is running a DEFICIT!

PANEL 2

The man steeples his fingers in front of him and has a big smirk, as he closes his eyes. He looks very content.

GOP: We HAVE to make BIG cuts to social welfare programs!

PANEL 3

The man is now dancing in place, one foot kicked off the ground, arms raised, and has a big grin.

GOP: Then we’ll give rich people and corporations HUGE tax cuts!

PANEL 4

The man is now leaning against the side of the cartoon with one hand. The other hand holds a piece of paper, which he’s glaring at.

MAN: Mysteriously, those tax cuts were followed by less tax revenue, which means…

(Panel 4 is followed by an arrow leading back to panel 1.)

PANEL 1

The man – who I’ll just call GOP – is looking at a piece of paper he’s holding and jumping up with a horrified expression on his face.

GOP: HORRORS! The U.S. is running a DEFICIT!

The GOP Tax Policy Cycle | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc., Economics and the like | 64 Comments

Cartoon: Service Animal Blues

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Ampersand

Another collaboration with Nadine Scholtes, who has quickly become a fixture. I asked Nadine if there were any topics that she’d particularly like to do a cartoon about, and she surprised me by saying “something about service dogs. Like people keep distracting them.”

That’s a little out of the usual for my cartoons – it’s an issue, to be sure, but is it a political issue?

But then the punchline to this cartoon came to me, all at once – the bewildered editor, the paw-printed paper – and it made me laugh aloud. And so I wrote this cartoon and emailed it to Nadine.

The train setting is Nadine’s – I think my script just listed several places where a person might doze off in public – and so was the choice of a bi-colored Australian Shepherd for our main character.

This cartoon oversimplifies the issue a bit, because the gag works better if the dog’s owner isn’t involved with any of the action in this cartoon. But after reading the accounts of a bunch of people with service animals, it seems that the rule isn’t “never ever talk to or touch a service animal,” so much as “never touch or talk without the owner’s permission.” Some owners are happy to let people pet.

On the other hand, moments after writing that, I came across a different person saying that being asked “can I pet your dog?” all the time “gets really fucking annoying really fast.” So maybe it’s more like “never pet without permission, and use your best judgement for whether or not the animal’s owner would mind being asked, and life is always risky so what can you do?”

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

We’re looking at three characters on a train.

The first character is a attractive man in his 20s or 30s, wearing jeans and a button-up shirt with rolled-up sleeves. There’s a suitcase on the floor next to him. 

He’s smiling and leaning down to talk to the second character, a very handsome dog – specifically, a black and white bi-colored Australian Shepherd. The dog is wearing a red harness which includes a sign on the front saying “service dog.” The dog is looking straight ahead with a serious expression.

The third character is the dog’s human, sitting (we know she belongs to the dog because she’s got the loop of the dog’s leash around one wrist). She’s dressed in desaturated red pants with a short of puffy fringe on the cuffs, a pink front-button blouse, and is holding a purse in her lap. Most importantly, she’s asleep; her head is leaning against a wall, and she’s drooling a bit.

MAN: Aww, who’s a good dog?

DOG (thought): Dude! C’mon! I’m at work!

PANEL 2

A close-up of the dog, who is leaning its head to one side, away from the man’s hand. The dog has an annoyed expression.

DOG (thought): I’ve got responsibilities here. Don’t distract me!

DOG (thought): Do I come up and pat your head at your job?

PANEL 3

The man’s hand is now firmly petting the dog on the top of its head. The dog closes its eyes and endures.

DOG (thought): You’re lucky I’m a professional, or I’d so growl at you right now.

DOG (thought): But I will be writing a very sternly worded letter to the editor!

PANEL 4

The setting has switched to a newspaper office. Two people – a 30 or 40ish bald man struggling to hold a bunch of papers, and a 50 or 60sh woman in a brown business outfit – are standing in front of an partly open door with a sign that says “editor.” The woman is holding a letter open in front of her, with the torn-open envelope in the same hand, and is looking at it with bewilderment.

MAN: What’s that?

WOMAN: It’s… A piece of paper covered in paw prints?

Service Animal Blues | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Disabled Rights & Issues | 7 Comments

Cartoon: Reality vs Imagination, Trans Kids Edition

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Ampersand

Recently, the journalist Jesse Singal – who has a well-earned reputation for being anti-trans – made an error that he thought was understandable, but to many people – me included – seemed ridiculous. He came across an interview with a trans girl and her mother, during which the mom said:

“So the pediatrician at the time talked to Cam for maybe 10 minutes and then said, Well, I think Cam knows what she needs and let’s get her an appointment with an endocrinologist to move forward with treatment.”

Singal – who has written multiple articles and blogs implying that there is an epidemic of young people being pushed too fast into transitioning without examination, although he’s never documented an actual example – then tweeted:

“Pediatrician with no specific training in gender/developmental issues approves hormones after a *10-minutes* assessment.””

Virtually any trans person – and for that matter, anyone who knows trans people and has listened to their stories – would hear that quote and assume that there was more to it than that ten minutes. And they’d be right. Indeed, the patient herself, understandably annoyed, responded to Singal:

“A substantial amount of time passed between coming out to my mom and that doctor’s visit. I actually had been seeing a therapist for years, and the doctor had those notes indicating my experience with dysphoria.”

“During those *months of waiting* I met two separate psychologists and spoke to them about dysphoria. There aren’t details in the interview about that because it was traumatic, but if Singal wanted to ACTUALLY hear about my experiences he could have asked me…”

“I wasn’t “approved for hormones” as Singal claims. I was referred to THRIVE for an *informational session and evaluation* at their endocrinology clinic.  A majority of patients at these clinics don’t receive HRT.”

So why didn’t Singal – who considers himself an expert on all things trans – double check with anyone before running with an obviously implausible “ten minutes” narrative?

Singal lives and works in a bubble of anti-trans misinformation, which has given him a warped misunderstanding of how the transitioning process works – so warped that, despite years of writing on this subject, he can’t even recognize an obviously implausible story, if the story aligns with his misconceptions.

This cartoon wasn’t inspired by Singal alone. There’s nothing special about Singal’s mistake; so many anti-trans people share his misinformation bubble they’re gonna have to build new high-rise housing.

This one was a challenge to write. I wanted to have nine panels of how gender affirming care works in reality. Nine panels is simultaneously a lot of panels – necessary because I wanted to emphasize that a lot goes into this – and also not nearly enough room to give more than a gloss on a process that for most people is long and complicated, and really isn’t the same for everybody. I ended up rewriting those nine panels a whole lot of times.

The other difficulty with those first nine panels is trying to avoid nine panels of the same character talking at the reader. Panel five is my favorite; I’ve heard multiple people who came out as kids talk about how amazing it felt to finally be supported in having the right hair and clothing, and I always find it touching.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon contains ten panels; the left half of the cartoon is a three-by-three grid, containing nine panels, while the right half is a single large panel.

A big caption above the left half of the cartoon says, in large friendly lettering:

HOW TRANSITIONING HAPPENS FOR KIDS

PANEL 1

A young man is speaking directly to the reader. He has hair that’s carefully combed on top and buzz-cut on the sides, a short beard, and is wearing a reddish tank top and a black leather wrist band. He’s smiling and friendly. Let’s call him “Bob,” because why not.

BOB: The process isn’t always the same, but here’s how it went for me.

PANEL 2

In the foreground, we can see a child with hair in a ponytail. The kid is sitting across a table from two people (presumably Bob’s parents), who both look stunned.

BOB (in a caption): When I was ten, I finally told mom and dad I’m a boy. They were, um… surprised.

PANEL 3

Bob is again speaking directly to the reader, smiling, hands on hips.

BOB: But eventually they got me an appointment with a trans-friendly therapist.

PANEL 4

Bob raises one hand in a classic “cartoon explaining hands” motion.

BOB: After months of sessions with the therapist, my parents agreed to the next step…

PANEL 5

A shot of kid Bob, in a short boy’s haircut, wearing an Elmo t-shirt, jeans shorts, and red high-top sneakers, grinning and glowing with pride, with his chest puffed out.

BOB (in a caption): A new name, new clothes and a new haircut!

PANEL 6

A hand is sticking into the panel, holding up a letter. The letter says “Dear Doc, YUP! HE TRANS! yrs, Therapist”

BOB (in a caption): Armed with letters from two therapists, we contacted a gender clinic…

PANEL 7

Bob – narrator Bob now, not kid Bob – is sort of emerging from a calendar, leaning his head on one arm. He looks a bit sad.

BOB: But there was a waiting list… I lived as myself over a year before I got in.

PANEL 8

A hand is holding a prescription bottle, although it looks a bit more complicated than most pill bottles do, with an oversize cap, and we can see it has a big stopper. (This is because it contains injectable liquid, not pills.) We can see that the bottle is labeled “Leuprolide.”

PANEL 9

We’re now seeing Bob from head to toe, as if the camera is backing away. He’s continuing to talk, but each successive word balloon has slightly smaller lettering, as if it’s fading into the distance.

BOB: That was only the start! It was years before I began hormones.

BOB: So next I…

BOB: And then…

PANEL 10

This is a huge panel, taking up the entire right half of the cartoon. A small girl, with her hair in pigtails and holding a teddy in one hand, is in what’s obviously a medical office of some kind, standing in front of the counter and talking to the person behind the counter.  Her eyes are wide.

The woman behind the counter is leaning forward, almost over the counter, and looks rather predatory. She’s wearing blue scrubs over a black shirt.

A big caption at the bottom of the panel says “HOW THEY IMAGINE IT HAPPENS.”

LITTLE GIRL: My teacher says I’m a tomboy.

WOMAN BEHIND COUNTER: That means you’re a boy! We’ll start you on hormones right now!

Reality vs Imagination, Trans Kids Edition | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 45 Comments

Diets Don’t Work Therefore You Must Diet

Posted on September 24, 2023 by Ampersand

This cartoon, drawn by Becky Hawkins, is a straightforward adaptation of a Michael Hobbes tweet (with Michael’s kind permission).

Michael, for those who don’t know, is a popular podcaster, whose three podcasts (past and present) are You’re Wrong About (a history podcast), If Books Could Kill (about “The airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds”), and Maintenance Phase, a really fun fat acceptance podcast that focuses on debunking anti-fat nonsense. He also writes a great Twitter feed that drives a certain brand of centrist absolutely batshit.

I pretty much imagined panel two as just the doctor talking at the reader. Becky, understandably, thought that would be a bit boring to draw and so decided to do a collage instead. The guiding principle of this collage isn’t “what possible causes of weight gain do Barry and Becky think are the most important” so much as it is “what possible causes of weight gain can Barry and Becky even think of a visual icon for.”

For instance, I personally have doubts about if “food deserts” actually have any connection to weight gain (although they’re still bad for other reasons). But a lot of credentialed experts think there might be something there, so it’s in character for our doctor character to say that, and most importantly, we were able to think of a visual gag for it. 

I also had fun thinking about what makes a caricature of Freud read as Freud. So away went a sofa and a notepad, and in came a cigar and a triangle beard.

The pamphlet in panel three is 100% Becky, but I really enjoy it.

My favorite art in this cartoon is probably panel four, just because that domestic scene Becky drew is so wholesome and cute. I suspect it’s inspired by Becky’s own life; I know that Becky and her extremely cute partner Naomi really love cooking together.

Becky writes:

This is the first cartoon I’ve drawn entirely in Clip Studio Paint! It’s a big step for me. I don’t like learning new computer programs, but this one has too many comics-specific time-saving art-improving features for me to continue sleeping on it. How much do I dislike learning new computer programs? I once tried a free 90-day Clip Studio Paint trial, couldn’t figure out how to log into the program, and let the entire 90 days run out without opening the dang thing. I finally took an 8-week Zoom class where local cartoonist Jonathan Hill talked a bunch of students through all the basic features of Clip Studio Paint verrry slowly. It was exactly what I needed. I’m excited for one of my ongoing comics gigs to be all-digital!

Barry offered this script to me because he knows I’m a fan of Michael Hobbes. I actually did fanart when he was on You’re Wrong About:

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels.

Panel 1

A doctor (surgical scrubs, white lab coat, standing in a standard doctor’s examination room and holding a manila folder filled with papers) talks directly to us. He is neatly groomed and very likable and trustworthy looking, with a very friendly expression.

DOCTOR: The way public health experts think about weight is changing! Here’s some things we now all accept:

PANEL 2

Although the doctor’s monologue continues, we don’t see him in this panel; instead we see a collage. There’s a desert with a road sign saying “Next Food 1200 Miles”; a DNA helix; a prescription pill bottle with “side effects may include weight gain” on the label; Sigmund Freud, reading a notepad and holding a cigar; and a cupcake.

DOCTOR: People are fat for a wide variety of reasons.

PANEL 3

The doctor is holding a pamphlet out to us (which due to foreshortening takes up most of the panel). The pamphlet cover says “BMI: How do YOU compare to a small group of white male Europeans 200 years ago?”

DOCTOR: BMI is an imperfect measure of health.

PANEL 4

A couple of happy-looking fat people are cooking; in the foreground, a woman chops onions, while in the background we can see a man flipping the stir-fry in a frying pan like a pancake. In the background, we can see the Doctor on a tablet screen on a shelf.

DOCTOR: Health markers like blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol can be improved without weight loss.

PANEL 5

A close-up of the tablet, with the Doctor talking on the screen, now with a concerned expression.

DOCTOR: The vast majority of diets fail because people regain weight. Losing and regaining over and over can harm your health.

DOCTOR: And most importantly…

PANEL 6

In a contrast to how calm the Doctor has been up to now, he’s now screaming in panic and waving his hands like Kermit the Frog.

DOCTOR: EVERY FAT PERSON MUST LOSE WEIGHT! LOSE IT NOW! NOOOOOW!

Diets Don’t Work Therefore You Must Diet | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat | Comments Off on Diets Don’t Work Therefore You Must Diet

Cartoon: Self-Made Billionaire

Posted on September 15, 2023 by Ampersand

This feels like a very old-fashioned lefty cartoon to me; it’s super-didactic, reliant on labels, has no real punchline, and it’s less about telling a joke then it is about trying to illustrate a basic principal of lefty economics. Other than the drawing style, it could be a pro-union cartoon from the 1920s. Not my usual approach, and honestly I wouldn’t want to do cartoons this didactic all the time, but an occasional trip outside my usual ballpark can be nice.

The principle being illustrated, of course is that there’s no such thing as a self-made rich person. Rich people may work hard (some of them work incredibly hard, others hardly work at all), but their  work wouldn’t be nearly as profitable – or might be entirely impossible – without the systems and infrastructure around them.

This is even more true when we’re talking about the ultra rich. Even if Elon Musk is smart, well-connected to reality and a hard worker (and if he is any of that is debatable), it would be impossible for him to have been productive enough to earn (“earn” as in “deserve”) 244 billion dollars, which is his net worth as I write this. (Or it’s what Google thinks his net worth is, at least.)

At least Musk didn’t inherit a fortune, like Donald Trump did. And yet, Trump has repeatedly painted himself as a self-made man (give or take a million dollars):

“It has not been easy for me,” Trump, as a presidential candidate, said at a town hall in New Hampshire in October 2015. “I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars. I came into Manhattan, and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest. But I came into Manhattan and I started buying properties, and I did great.”

According to the Times’ reporting, Fred Trump loaned his son at least $140 million in today’s dollars. Most of it was never repaid.

Man, I feel like spent forever drawing (very very simplistic) dollar bills. I really need to learn how to make specialty brushes that do things like piles of dollar bills.

But the most challenging thing was definitely that “publicly funded infrastructure” panel. I really tried to think of an alterative to illustrating “infrastructure” other than cars on a bridge, but nothing came to mind, and eventually I had to give up and draw this. As I’ve mentioned to y’all perhaps too often, I struggle drawing cars. But this one came out okay. I think drawing the cars so tiny may have helped; it’s harder to freak out over getting any details right when the drawings are this small.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. There’s an enormous main panel, the size of the whole cartoon, and then there are five small “inset” panels floating at different angles on top of the main panel.

MAIN PANEL

The main panel shows a smiling, self-satisfied looking white man, wearing casual-but-nice clothes – a long sleeved short shirt tucked into brown pants, with a light blue suit jacket worn on top. He’s holding the lapels of his jacket as he speaks. The last three words of his dialog are printed in much larger lettering, acting as the title of the comic strip.

He is standing thigh-deep in an enormous pile of green dollar bills (presumably of high denominations, although my drawing isn’t detailed enough to show that). Each of the small panels has dollars pouring out of the panel and falling to join the big money pile at the bottom of the cartoon.

MAN: I’m proud to be a SELF-MADE BILLIONAIRE!

INSET PANEL 1

CAPTION: Government Subsidies

A very traditionally-drawn Uncle Sam, grinning, is holding a bucket upside down, and money is pouring out of the bucket.

INSET PANEL 2

CAPTION: Inherited Wealth

A baby in a onesie is napping blissfully on a big pile of brown bags with a “$” printed on each bag.

INSET PANEL 3

CAPTION: Tax Loopholes

A sort of organic-looking hole tunnels into an abstract surface. Money is shooting out of the hole and falling out of the panel, towards the big money pile.

I originally tried drawing this panel as a more literal loophole, made of thread, but somehow that seemed to illustrate the concept less well than a totally abstract approach.

INSET PANEL 4

CAPTION: Publicly Funded Infrastructure

A highway overpass is passing over a lower highway overpass. Cars and trucks are driving on both levels of overpasses, including a large truck with its rear doors open; money is flowing out of the rear doors towards the big money pile.

INSET PANEL 5

This is the final inset panel of the cartoon.

CAPTION: Exploited Workers.

Two workers – one wearing a blue vest over a white shirt, and an orange cap, the other wearing a polo shirt and carrying a large cardboard box, look irritated. Money is flying out of their pockets to join the big money pile.

Self-Made Billionaire | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Economics and the like | 8 Comments

Cartoon: So Where Are You From?

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by Nadine Scholtes and I.

══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══

This, or something very like this, is an annoying experience a lot of Asian-Americans seem to have. In a TV interview, Grace Kao, a sociology professor at Yale, explained:

The first question is, you know, where are you from? And for someone like me, I’m chinese-american. Of course the expectation is I say China, Hong Kong, Taiwan or something, but if I say San Francisco, you know, the next question will be, no, really, where are you really from?

And so I — you know, I have to somehow get to Asia because the person asking me the question will not be satisfied until I get to Asia. The other question that will come up is where did you learn to speak English so well?

Now these things seem like they’re minor and just sort of from a place of curiosity, but what they point to is someone like me could never really actually be American, I must be from somewhere else and that I have to sort of help the person who was asking me these questions place me. That sort of establishes us as foreign.

══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══

Nadine did her usual terrific job with expressions. And I really like that dress pattern she drew (that’s cartoonistese for, “I’m planning to swipe that dress pattern she drew”).

I’m also amused by the drawing of me Nadine did for the kicker gag, because Nadine (who lives in Luxembourg) has never met me, and I’m not sure that she’s ever seen a photo of me – I suspect she got her (accurate!) impression of what I look like from the kicker panels me and Becky have drawn me in over the years. Having me holding a drink with a slice of lime on the edge was entirely Nadine’s idea.

(Well, accurate except that my beard is much grayer now. As Ruth in The Pirates Of Penzance said, “it gradually got so.”)

══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each of the panels shows the same two youngish (20s or maybe 30s) women chatting at an outdoor party (there are lights strung in the air, and people milling about in the background). Both women are holding drinks. The sky is dark blue with stars faintly showing, indicating early evening.

The first woman is white. She’s wearing a red blouse, glasses, and has fashionably-cut straight hair, a bit long than shoulder length, with bangs. She’s holding a martini glass. Let’s call her “Glasses.”

The second woman looks like she has south Asian heritage. Her hair, also straight and fashionably cut, is parted on one side and ends an inch above her shoulders. She’s wearing a purple dress with a pattern of off-white flecks, and is carrying a brown saddlebag style purse over one shoulder. She’s drinking something out of a plain glass. Let’s call her “Dress.”

PANEL 1

Both women smile as they chat.

GLASSES: So where are you from?

DRESS: New York.

PANEL 2

Glasses, still smiling and maybe laughing a little, waves one hand in a dismissive manner. Dress is looking away, in a “can I get out of this conversation politely” sort of way.

GLASSES: No, where are you really from?

DRESS: Brooklyn. Look, just because I’m Asian doesn’t mean I’m not from America.

PANEL 3

An awkward moment. Both women take a sip from their drinks; Glasses looks away a bit, muttering.

GLASSES (small): Oh, right. Sorry…

PANEL 4

Smiling big again, Glasses rallies and asks Dress another question. Dress facepalms.

GLASSES: So where’d you learn to speak English so well?

TINY KICKER PANEL UNDER THE CARTOON

Barry the cartoonist, looking awkward and holding a drink with a slice of lime on the edge of the glass, is being talked at by Glasses, who has an aggrieved expression.

GLASSES: Why is she offended? It was a compliment.

══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══

So Where Are You From? | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Race, racism and related issues | 3 Comments

Cartoon: Shoving It Down Our Throats

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Ampersand

Welcome to new collaborator R. E. Ryan! 

R. E. Ryan is a history and comics enthusiast from Portland, Oregon who makes both fiction and nonfiction comics. (Oddly, although he and I live in the same city, we’ve never met outside of email. For all I know he’s my next door neighbor.)

I’m very happy with how this comic looks; if we’re lucky, we’ll get to see more from R.E. sometime. (He says he’s willing, if and when his schedule opens up…)

•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•

It’s a common trope, on the right, to complain that “trans activists are shoving their gender ideology down everyone’s throats!” (That the phrase is ugly and implies violence is presumably part of the appeal). And then if you talk to them further it turns out that they’re complaining about something entirely inoffensive, like someone having preferred pronouns or wearing a t-shirt or a trans actor doing a promotion for Bud Light. In effect, many of them are claiming that trans people are “forcing” their ideology onto them merely by existing.

The irony is that many of those transphobes (#NotAllTransphobes) are evangelical Christians – surely the most aggressive group in America for attempting to force their ideology onto other people. 

I’ll be an atheist until God appears before me and pries my atheism out of my cold dead metaphor. But I’m not offended by proselytizing Christians doing any of the things shown in this cartoon (except the fliers do create a lot of litter). But the gall of any ideology that acts like that complaining about other people pushing beliefs is impressive.

I’ve often asked transphobes angry at incredibly inoffensive things – a city hall rewriting a form to be inclusive, an all-gender bathroom being made available, a trans actor having a small part in the Barbie movie – “how does this hurt you?” Generally they fumble around for a bit because, really, they’ve got nothing. 

(It’s legally unimportant, but still telling, that in 303 Creative LLC v Elenis, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a website designer could refuse to design a website for a same-sex wedding, no same-sex couple had asked. They had to make up a conflict since no real one had happened.) 

They say “trans activists are shoving their ideology down my throat” because they’re desperate to think of themselves as victims, when by any reasonable accounting they’re the aggressors.

•❅───✧❅✦❅✧───❅•

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. The storyline focuses on two women; one with curly brown hair falling down her back, rectangular glasses, and a purple t-shirt which says “Jesus Saves” in large letters. I’ll call her “Curly.” The other woman has straight brown hair, cross-shaped earrings, and is wearing an orange t-shirt which also says “Jesus Saves.” I’ll call her “Straight.”

PANEL 1

Straight and Curly are in a parking lot. Curly is cheerfully putting a yellow flier under a car’s windshield wiper, while Straight is holding a small pile of yellow fliers in her hands. We can read the top of a flier over Straight’s shoulder; it has a large heading which says “Jesus is the Answer.” 

STRAIGHT: We’re gonna need more fliers!

PANEL 2

On a city sidewalk, a man wearing a hoodie walks stiffly past Curly and Straight, purposely not engaging with them. Straight is wearing a signboard, decorated with flames painted coming up from the bottom, which says “Only JESUS can save you from the Lake of Fire.” She’s holding a flier towards the man walking away from her. Curly is talking to Straight, looking excited and happy, and holding up her smartphone with the screen facing Straight.

STRAIGHT: Excuse me, have you accepted Jesus Christ into your heart?

CURLY: Hey, look what just went up!

PANEL 3

A close-up of the smartphone screen (we can also see a bit of Curly’s hand holding it). The screen shows a photo of a large billboard, with a central image of Jesus with a halo, and the words “JESUS is coming soon! Are YOU ready?”

STRAIGHT: Wow! Our new billboard looks AMAZING!

PANEL 4

Curly and Straight (straight is still wearing her signboard) are standing on the sidewalk, watching a pedestrian walk by. Curly leans to the side to whisper something to Straight.

The pedestrian has pink/purple hair shaved on one side, and is wearing a t-shirt that says “Trans Pride” over an image of a heart in trans flag colors.

CURLY: You know what I hate about trans people? The way they shove their ideology down everybody’s throats!

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Shoving It Down Our Throats | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 7 Comments

Cartoon: Eventually You Gotta Inhale

Posted on August 24, 2023 by Ampersand

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In 2020, Helen Pluckrose and I had an online debate over if dieting works. During this debate, I said “Not a single weight-loss model – including long term approaches – has ever been shown to work in a peer-reviewed controlled clinical study.” Helen responded:

It simply isn’t possible that people ate fewer calories than they burned and got fat or that got slim and then ate the same number of calories that they burned and got fat. Fat needs to be built or maintained with calories.

To which I replied:

Of course if someone eats little enough, they will lose weight. And if they keep eating little enough forever – which may require eating even less than when the diet began, as their body attempts to regain the weight – they can keep the weight off.

In this extremely superficial sense, it’s true that all fat people can diet their way to no longer being fat.

But that’s sidestepping the real question: Can a typical human voluntarily reduce food intake enough to cause a large loss of weight, not just for a few months or years, but for a lifetime? Not just in theory, but in practice? Study after study has shown that the overwhelming majority of us cannot.

Helen’s argument is one I’ve seen made at least a hundred times – albeit almost always far less politely said. (“So you’re saying the fat acceptance movement are idiots who don’t believe in the first law of thermodynamics” is a more typical way they put it.)

But rudely or politely put, it’s the same miscommunication – when fat acceptance folks say “diets don’t work,” we mean that our brains won’t allow us to diet forever, but they think we’re talking about physics.

When I encounter the same argument over and over, I often wish I just had something I could paste in that explains it, rather than having to explain it over and over. I’m hoping this cartoon will be useful, for me and for other fat acceptance folks, in exactly that way.

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The challenge and the fun in drawing this was, as you’d expect, the sequence of expressions from panel four through panel eight, showing the character’s increasingly desperate attempt to hold her breathe. It’s so nice being a cartooney cartoonist; I think it would be harder for someone with a realistic drawing style to pull off.

The challenge in writing this strip was fitting it all in! I edited again and again, trying to cut the words down while maintaining clarity and – hopefully – not draining the dialog of all personality and life. I still ended up having to do panels with as many as 30 words, which is both not many words at all and more words than I’d prefer to use.  (To give you a sense of how not-long 30 words is, the sentence “I still ended up having to do panels with as many as 30 words, which is both not many words at all and more words than I’d prefer to use” is 30 words long).

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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has nine panels, arranged in a three by three grid. The cartoon has two characters. The first character is a fat woman with a pixie haircut and glasses, wearing a polka dot shirt and a skirt. Let’s call her “DOT.”

(I don’t know if I’ve EVER seen anyone in real life wear a polka-dot shirt, but Bill Watterson sometimes drew adult characters in polka-dot shirts, and as longtime readers know it’s my firm opinion that if Watterson did it then it by definition is good cartooning).

The second character is a thin character with curly hair, wearing a button-up shirt with large black buttons. Let’s call her CURLY.

PANEL 1

Dot has her hands raised – open hands facing inward, a tiny bit above elbow height, which is so much the go-to for cartoonists trying to show a character explaining something that the cartoonist Joe Matt once drew this pose with a caption arrow pointing towards the hands saying  “Good ol’ explaining hands.” Curly is cheerful and smiling, and holding one hand out with palm down in a dismissive gesture.

DOT: DIETS DON’T WORK! Studies show that for nearly everyone the weight comes back.

CURLY: Nonsense! Eat less and you’ll lose weight! That’s physics!

PANEL 2

Dot continues explaining, now using a pointing finger, while Curly eagerly leans forward, hands clasping each other, and her eyes replaced with dollar signs.

DOT: While I reply, could you hold your breath? I’ll pay you $1000 if you do it till you faint!

CURLY: $1000? Okay!

PANEL 3

Dot continues explaining; Curly is holding her breath and looking confident.

DOT: Physics says you can do it… if you don’t breathe in, oxygen can’t get to your system, and you’ll pass out.

PANEL 4

A close-up of Curly, still smiling, with her cheeks puffed out, but her eyes are widening. Dot speaks from off-panel for this and the following three panels.

DOT: But this is about biology, not physics. Right now, your brain is sending chemical signals to your body saying “inhale!”

PANEL 5

Curly is still smiling, but she’s obviously straining a bit to keep holding her breath.

DOT: The same thing happens when you diet. The brain thinks you’re starving and sends out signals saying “you’re hungry! EAT!” It’ll send those signals for years if it has to.

PANEL 6

Curly isn’t smiling and doesn’t look confident. She’s still holding her breath, but has balled her hands into fists and is trembling.

DOT: The brain also releases hormones to make your body hold onto more fat. we evolved that way to get through famines.

PANEL 7

Curly has her hands on her cheeks now, and is trembling a lot more, and her eyes are huge and almost popping out.

DOT: And a tiny fraction of people lose weight forever! But for most people, no matter how much willpower they’ve got, eventually…

PANEL 8

In the foreground, Dot looks – let’s face it – a bit smug as she smiles. The panel is mainly taken up by Curly, who has opened her mouth hugely and is gasping. A huge sound effect, drawn so that the letters are converging towards Curly’s open mouth, says “GASP.”

PANEL 9

Dot is back to explaining hands, but with one forefinger pointed up. Curly has turned her back on Dot, arms folded, and has a sour grapes expression.

DOT: THAT’S biology! See my point?

CURLY: Screw THIS! I’m getting a lung bypass!

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Eventually You Gotta Inhale | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat | 17 Comments

MORE Things To Stop Telling Autistic People

Posted on August 23, 2023 by Ampersand

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Almost a year ago, I posted the cartoon “Things To Stop Saying To Autistic People,” drawn by Becky. Becky and I were both pleased with how it came up, and there is, alas, tons of material there. So, have a sequel!

It’s funny how the first panel of this cartoon is almost a continuation of the last panel of the previous cartoon. That wasn’t on purpose, but I like it.

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Becky’s comments:

This was a fun “draw 8 different assholes” challenge. I kept the first “things not to say to autistic people” cartoon open so that I wouldn’t accidentally repeat a character design or pose. I aimed for a variety of ages and races, but now that I look at it, everyone’s pretty gender normie in this one. As usual, I scrolled on social media a bit for inspiration. The “You must be high-functioning” woman was based on someone in a workout video ad. I snuck a Melissa Schemmenti sitting in the subway background looking at her phone.

I especially enjoyed cramming the subway panel with all the potential sensory nightmares (crowds, chili dog, crying baby, SOMEONE’S SHOES ATTACHED TO THEIR PACKPACK RIGHT AT EYE LEVEL, EWW). Not to be the person who always has to mention they’ve lived in New York, but…

Incidentally, I think the grossest thing I saw on the subway was a weekend-night drunk DIY ear piercing. I’ll never look at a subway handrail the same way again.

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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has nine panels, arranged in a three-by-three grid. Each panel shows a different person speaking to the reader.

The exception is the central panel, which has the words “MORE THINGS TO STOP TELLING AUTISTIC PEOPLE” written in large, friendly lettering.

PANEL 1

A woman wearing a blue shirt and librarian glasses, with her hair in a bun, is leaning down to talk to us (i.e., we’re in a child’s perspective). We can see from the background that this is a classroom for small children.

WOMAN: If you’d just act normal you wouldn’t GET bullied.

PANEL 2

A man with freckles speaks to us with a dubious expression on his face and his arms folded.

MAN: You’re ALLOWED to drive?

PANEL 3

An older woman, wide-eyed with white hair pushed high on her head by a wrap, speaks to us, a concerned expression on her face.

WOMAN: You must be VERY high functioning.

PANEL 4

A cheerful woman wearing a button-up sweater open over a shirt shrugs.

WOMAN: Isn’t EVERYONE a little autistic?

PANEL 5

This is the central panel; there’s nothing in it but the title of the strip, “More Things To Stop Telling Autistic People,” in large letters.

PANEL 6

This panel shows the inside of a crowded subway car. There’s a lot of people; there’s a screaming baby, there’s a hot dog with scent lines coming off it, there’s a grumpy child with a spiked turtle shell backpack, and mainly there’s just a ton of people packed shoulder-to-shoulder. A bald man with a hip little chin beard holds on to a ceiling strap with one hand as he speaks to us, smiling.

MAN: Just don’t LET it bother you.

PANEL 7

An older woman, with white hair flowing down onto her shoulders, puts a finger on her chin as she speaks cheerily to us. In the background, we can see a dreamcatcher hanging on the wall, near a poster of a wolf howling in front of a full moon, and a big candle shaped like a headless Venus of Willendorf statue, with the wick coming out of the neck. (Becky: “Inspired by a candle I saw at People’s Food Co-op.”)

WOMAN: I bet YOU were vaccinated as a child, right?

PANEL 8

An older man, bald and wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt, grins at us.

MAN: You’re autistic? COOL! Quick, what’s 241 times 672.5?

PANEL 9

A man speaks with great intensity, his face looming so close in the panel that the bottom and top of his head are out of panel. He has wide, staring eyes.

MAN: I can’t trust anyone who won’t look me in the EYES.

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More Things To Stop Telling Autistic People | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Disability Issues, Disabled Rights & Issues | 2 Comments

Cartoon: Gender Affirming Care Is Evil Except When It’s Not

Posted on August 19, 2023 by Ampersand

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Welcome back to still-new-but-slightly-less-new-now collaborator Nadine Scholtes. I’m happy to say we’ll be seeing more of Nadine’s work here.

Lettering panel one was a challenge because there was no place I could put three balloons that wouldn’t cover up some background detail I really liked. “I can’t put it there, I like that hole in the tree trunk… but I can’t cover up that park bench… but…”

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Justin T. Brown, in an autobiographical essay with the very descriptive title “When I started growing breasts as a teen boy, I got gender-affirming care without stigma,” writes:

When I confided in my conservative dad about what was happening, I was about 15. He saw how much this was holding me back, and we immediately went to a plastic surgeon for a consultation. A quick procedure and a few weeks of wearing an ace bandage later, I was flat-chested and finally had a body that looked like mine….

It was straightforward: I’m a dude, I was born a dude, I want to be a dude, and having breasts didn’t align with that for me. They needed to go for me to live a fuller life. 

Here’s what I know for sure, had I been trans and seeking the same surgery, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t have been as easy as it was for me — 20 years ago in rural Maine or today.

Vic Parsons, a writer and trans man, writes about the same double-standard:

When I wanted to try taking testosterone, I first had to go to my GP for a referral that meant I then spent several years on an NHS gender clinic waiting list. Finally I had two hours-long appointments, one with a social worker and one with a clinical psychologist, discussing everything from my childhood to my sex life to my mental health. I received the precious diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which permits me to obtain gender-affirming hormones and surgery. Then, finally, I was prescribed testosterone gel.

…As a cis man, my GP could order a blood test and, if my testosterone levels were low, send me to a specialist (after a wait of weeks, rather than years) who could prescribe me testosterone gel. Note: no several years spent waiting, and no need to obtain a clinical diagnosis to prove myself.

In both cases, testosterone gel is being used as a gender-affirming treatment. But the way the same medication is prescribed is hugely different.

We see this double standard play out in the popular debate over and over. Puberty delaying drugs, aka GnRH agonists, have been prescribed to cis children with precocious puberty for decades without controversy; no medicine is entirely risk-free, but GnRH agonists are low-risk and can greatly improve the course of a child’s life by delaying puberty. But once it became known GnRH agonists were being prescribed to trans kids, famous writers and elected politicians are equating them with Nazi experimentation. It’s appalling. Cis kids and adults should have the same access to medicine that trans kids and adults do – and the decision should be one made by the patient with their parents and doctors, not right-wing jackasses on Fox.

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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each of them shows the same two characters walking through a park. The character on the left has a gender-ambiguous look, with short hair on the sides and a big puff on top, glasses, jeans, and a purple plaid flannel shirt open over a blue t-shirt. We’ll call them “Flannel.”

The character on the right is a guy, has short, neat hair, and is wearing a thick zip-up hoodie over a white t-shirt. We’ll call him “Hoodie.”

PANEL 1

The two are walking along a paved footpath through a park, Hoodie in front. Both of them are calm.

HOODIE: So-called “gender affirming care” is an atrocity!

FLANNEL: So a cis girl with PCOS shouldn’t get medicine to reduce facial hair?

HOODIE: I don’t mean that.

PANEL 2

A closer shot from the front; the two are still walking along without facing each other (Hoodie’s back is to Flannel), and still calm.

FLANNEL: Are you against breast reduction surgery for cis boys with gynecomastia?

HOODIE: Nope.

PANEL 3

The same scene as they walk on.

FLANNEL: Cis women getting laser hair removal? Cis men taking testosterone? Boob jobs for cis teens? Rogaine and Viagra for cis men?

HOODIE: All those are fine.

PANEL 4

Hoodie suddenly turns around, leaning forward, angry and yelling; Flannel, surprised, leans back.

FLANNEL: How about when a trans person–

HOODIE: THAT’S EVIL AND MUST BE BANNED!


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Gender Affirming Care: Evil Except When It’s Not | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Sex & Gender, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 3 Comments