re Sarai's POV in Lech Lecha episode with Pharoah Prolly good to make its own thread -- folks like Jenny and Yael may not come in here, especially since we're past January. There is literally no part of any portion of Torah on which there is NOT abundant insight, lol. Which doesn't in any way suggest there's a consensus view. But teachings, there are always a-plenty! And that particular episode was uncomfortable even to the rabbinic era commentators (so there's a lot of very ancient commentary that's either apologetic or explanatory depending on the modern day reader's POV, as well as a good deal of more current feminist or progressive reading. Start a new thread!

(Joining in these threads for the first time this year, and going forward I'll try to get in before the next month opens!) I had two long flights and two long drives in January, so ended up finishing nine books, substantially more than average. The best of the bunch of new books were: Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky, a just astonishing integrated collection of poems in a kinda-imaginary kinda-Ukraine landscape, in which the population of an brutally occupied village resist, largely through sign language and puppetry. On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed (recommended in the EOY roundup by @Amira ), a fused history and memoir about black history in Texas. Razor Girl by Car Hiassen (recommended in the EOY roundyp by @Lady Florida. ), a completely OTT Florida Man epic with distinct Guy Noir overtones. Absolutely hilarious. I also re-read Kathleen Norris' Amazing Grace: Vocabulary of Faith, a book that profoundly jolted me in my thirties and which astonished me anew almost 30 years later. Highly recommended. I've started but have not finished Prequel on audio and a re-read of Jan Werner Muller's What is Populism; both will carry over into February. re Demon Copperhead: I really enjoyed Copperfield but it was decades ago and the names/details had faded. The Copperhead definitely stands on its own as a story. But then I went to a book group led by our exceedingly terrific librarian, and she had put together a matrix of the names/physical details/backgrounds/narratives of who's who in both stories, and the sheer CLEVERNESS of it all was fun. That said... I find Kingsolver very uneven, and at the end of the day I did not love Copperhead. I feel like on her less-fabulous books, she starts of with a bunch of bullet points of these are the political sermons I am moved to impart in this book, and then stitches together whole chapters solely to position one of the characters to spew forth what really belongs in a NYT Op Ed piece. I find it jarring. I puffy heart love AJL as well. My (synagogue) Torah study group spent a summer working through this ~ten years ago and got so much out of it. She's great.

re conformity and signalling markers - There is also the very obvious, but since we haven't yet made it explicit, observation that Because that's what closeted MEANS. Obviously when the stigma associated with being queer was so extreme that it could not even be named, the conformity dynamics operated differently. Similarly if not so extremely, when there was so much stigma around mental health issues (as again was def the case when I was in high school), there was vastly less social pressure even amongst adults, and (again, my case, my high school, whole lotta DV, substance abuse, and suicide that TODAY would elicit suggestions to get treatment, and then did not) none at all coming from young people themselves, to seek out therapy. I would NOT want to return to the Good Old Days when LGBT individuals felt constrained to stay closeted and folks of any orientation or identification were constrained by stigma from seeking mental health resources. But the significant erosion of both those stigmas definitely have an effect on how Conformity Dynamics function. (and to come back around to the OP: traditionalist discomfort with the erosion of those stigmas is one, not the only, but one of the factors fueling bathroom bills.)

Kids in high school and middle school have enforced conformity since the creation of high schools and middle schools. Using pleasant soft coercion (I know! Let's have everyone in our group wear ____ on Friday!) and subtler less pleasant coercion (raised eyebrows and side-eye) and outright Mean Girl coercion (wow, you're really wearing THAT) and outright bullying coercion. None of that is at.all.new, my mom endured it in the days of poodle skirts and cardigan sweaters. There have been tight cliques and there have been somewhat looser outcast/resistance alliances and respective associated dress&makeup codes and coercive pressure to conform with the Correct Code since, again, well before my mom attended high school in the 1950s. And it ought not surprise that the specifics of particular dress&makeup codes evolve over time. I don't know HOW a kid who showed up to high school in the poodle skirt/collared blouse/cardigan/bright red lipstick that my mother rocked in her high school days (oh my word, that off-to-the-sock hop pic) but There Would Be Feedback. So I'm not arguing AT ALL that how a pixie cut "lands" within all that ghastly social pressure is different when my daughter did it, than when I did it. She confirms, and her cis sister also confirms, it lands differently. That it LANDS differently doesn't answer anything more than the obvious: fashion changes, social groupings change, specific in-group signals change. What is evergreen is the twinned desire of that age OTOH to belong to a group and OTO to express themselves as "individual." And maybe also an arguably narcissitic, certainly inaccurate & unhelpful conviction that everyone is looking at me, evaluating me, judging me. Gah, there is not enough money in this world to pay me to be 16 again.

omg those %$@33!! gender reveals Right. what.is.THAT.new.phenomenon.about???!! The baby isn't even BORN yet and we need -- not merely to KNOW -- but this ginormous honking celebration of which binary bucket the baby is meant to exemplify? ( ... paging Greta Gerwig...)

young person worried about what people out there might THINK about pixie cuts vs "current trans movement" moving us backwards by exhorting pixie-rockers to transition I dunno Maize. Although we live in very different geographies and social groups, I *think* I recognize some of what you're saying here about expectations around clothing and hair styles being more rigidly circumscribed now than 50 years ago. I barely knew what gay even meant when I was in high school, and ricocheted freely between combat boots and Bean jackets on Monday, full-on Stevie Nicks beads and lace on Tuesday, and Dockside & Chino Prep on Wednesday. I started high school with long flowing locks, went pixie for a couple years in the middle because Dorothy Hamill, then attempted, to spectacular and hilariously photo-documented failure, to grow it all out via Farah Fawcett. Every day, a new persona. Both my cis and my queer daughter concur that for white high school females on the east coast if these days, anything other than long flowing locks does indeed signal not-cis. So in that sense I also see something of what you're talking about. They don't interpret that pressure as coming from the trans community though. They receive that pressure as coming from the other direction, from peers who want to PRESERVE traditional roles, and enforce compliance with it with the usual Mean Girl what are you, [slur]? comments or SM yuck or etc. It's hard to discern what really is shaping that what young people think that other people think about them. The true origins of such adolescent agonistes is pretty hard to unravel. And of course another real dynamic is: once the ball starts rolling, it accelerates. Now that pixie cuts have become a signal, many young women who actually *wish to signal* that they are lesbian (not trans) will opt to *use the signal.* Because it's convenient and efficient and (so far at least) not illegal. But let's watch those governors: given the new FL law, could a busybody DMV employee decide that a teenage girl rocking a pixie amounts to "misrepresenting gender"? That's where emboldenment leads.

re what's gender roles got to do with this The increasing number of people who present as visibly non-binary are very relevant to this discussion. Even if you don't know such people personally, you likely have SEEN folks walking around with facial hair and flowing dresses (Jonathan van Ness), or tall/ flat-chested/ muscular with makeup and scarves, or tiny and buff wearing a suit, or whatever. Visibly non-conforming to traditional dress and makeup roles. Where do the state governors heralding bathroom bills even WANT such people to go to? Given the simultaneous desire by the same state governors to remove books that depict such non-binary choices from library bookshelves, who in their own words affirm that clearly defined traditional gender presentations are the the only legitimate ones, it really does **appear** that they really would prefer that anyone who isn't willing to stick to the old binary buckets just disappear from public view. It's not just body bits, it's not just bathrooms. Every single letter of LGBTQ is threatening.

I just re-read the first page of this thread, and I still don't understand what the specific employment-related question is / was. Even at the OP outset we were (implicitly) mashing up newly arrest-able conduct (folks maybe using a bathroom they weren't entitled under the law to use) with practical enforcement issues (who's standing at the door checking? Once the possibly self-appointed checker has doubts about whether the person using the bathroom maybe under the new law is arrestable, how does that checker confirm the bathroom user's birtth certificate or genitals? Supposing the bathroom user DOES have the wrong genitals, or isn't carrying a birth certificate... then what? citizens' arrest until law enforcement arrives?) Right from the OP outset we were kinda-sorta dimly recognizing such practical difficulties in the practical implementation of bathroom laws. It occurred to me yesterday afternoon while walking (when many of the most dreamy musing apples-to-oranges analogies pop unbidden into my head) that this is another aspect of a film we've seen before. When legislation prohibits "vagrancy" -- how is such conduct enforced? It's not feasible to post a law enforcement officer on every corner, in every saloon, inspecting every porch. The solution then was to outsource enforcement to extra-legal, emboldened, citizens' groups. When legislation criminalizes sodomy or miscegenation -- how is such conduct enforced? It's not feasible to post LE at every hotel, to tail every apparent couple from watering hole to ultimate destination, to monitor every bedroom. The solution then was to outsource enforcement to extra-legal, emboldened, citizens. (Who often wore hoods, who often meted out "punishment" vastly greater than the penalties named in the letter of the law, and whose prosecution for such over-zealousness was vanishingly rare.) A much more current practical enforcement quandary: When county ordinance prohibits women to cross state lines to obtain an abortion, or others from assisting them in doing so -- how is such conduct enforced? It's not feasible to check every woman of childbearing age to confirm they are not pregnant prior to travel, or to install border crossings where such confirmation could be demanded by law enforcement. We KNOW what happens when vigilantes are emboldened. And it's very hard to believe that that isn't the point of such bathroom legislation. It's not merely that the rare actual prosecution is selective (though it is). It's that leaving de facto enforcement to vigilantes will.predictably.result not just to the fines or jail sentences outlined in the legislation but in widespread legally sanctioned harassment, and torture and death when the zealous righteous go overboard. Open season.

Re Green Book for LGBT travelers Yes, such a thing already exists. And, the concepts of Toward a More Perfect Union, and Equal Protection Under the Law, and All Are Equal in the Eyes of God, all teach us that such a thing should not HAVE to exist. And that people of good faith -- people of morality -- should strive toward a society in which already-marginalized people don't have to fear legal OR physical harm based on having to use the bathroom.

re analogies The way analogies work is through a comparison between two *different* things that despite being different have some common element or dynamic. An arborist, for example, might take an insight from her experience grafting apple trees, and apply it to understanding how grafting orange trees might make them more weather-hardy. A food scientist might take results from enzyme research with apples and apply the learnings to work with oranges. A barista might consider how a smoothie with an orange juice base might be tweaked with apple juice. And etc. Skin color and gender identification ARE different -- you're right! The common referent in the Jim Crow / bathroom legislation isn't skin color or gender identity. The common referent is emboldenment - the effect that certain restrictive legislation has that extends well beyond the letter of such legislation. The early Nuremberg laws restricted adult Jews from public office, then other from other means of employment and holding real estate. Then from universities and children's schools. The LAW did not empower ordinary Germans to beat Jews on the street, or destroy their property. Yet by the time Kristallnacht came, Jews understood perfectly well that there would be no recourse. The law was not there to protect them. Analogies don't land with everyone. For dreamy head-in-the-clouds folks like me, analogies are very often extremely helpful in discerning patterns. I think metaphorically in all aspects of my life. Other people are more concrete and reason more linearly. That's great. We process information differently. And your prior post history suggests that you understand the emboldenment dynamic just.fine.

I think it's hard to overstate the "emboldening hate-driven conduct" dynamic. When a POTUS or state governor signals it's open season on folks in a particular already-marginal category, and state legislation ratifies restrictions or requirements targeted to that same already-marginalized population segment, it is predictable that folks inclined to degradation and violence against that segment will be emboldened and it is predictable that people within that segment will understand that the purpose of law is not to protect them but rather to discourage and deter them. The details vary (slightly) according to the specific circumstances of different population segments but the overall emboldening arc is the same.

re concern about "the legal element" The legal element is very much a concern. The issue (which has been expressed throughout this thread) is that the legal element is bigger than bathrooms. We've seen very-small-variants of this movie before, and sometimes the contours of such issues are easier to see at a bit of distance. When (forex) Jim Crow legislation precluded black Americans from availing of municipal swimming pools, and poll tax legislation fused to grandfather clauses precluded black Americans from registration.... ...that created an environment that extended far beyond the letter of such laws on the books, an environment in which private businesses could be confident that could preclude black Americans from using the front door/ sitting at the counter/ using the bathroom without any fear of legal reprisal. Hospitals could refuse service without fear of legal reprisal. Men in hoods bearing burning crosses could be confident that their vigilante violence would not be prosecuted. The "legal element" did not end where the legislation ended, and the dangers to black Americans did not (still does not) end at fear of arrest and the cost of defense. The "legal element" undergirded a much-wider extralegal social system where black Americans could be and were legally defenseless to countless -- essentially limitless -- OTHER degradations and outright violence. Because protection under the law was not available to them. (There's a similar very-small-variant movie that we've also seen before about women's legal and physical autonomy; and another about homosexuals' ability to Walk While Uncloseted. But the principle is the same: Law for Me, Not for Thee.) I do think it's important to discuss such issues and I'm glad you started and are hanging in with this thread.

Terabith, I dunno if this includes my own comment upthread that I found @maize 's lens of using different lived experiences across *religious differences* as "interesting." I will go back now and change my wording to "helpful." I apologize.

re unknown long range health risks with procedures without a lot of good long term data Agreed, and that's true as well of a very great number of other emergent treatments (ever expanding behavioral health medications and other emergent treatments like ketamine; medication and surgical treatments supporting weight loss; COVID treatment, etc). As a society, we mostly come down (legally and culturally) on the Individual's autonomy and ability to weigh the cost/benefit of various medical treatments (once they've cleared scientific efficacy / not undue **short term** side effects by the FDA). As a society, we don't generally peer over the shoulders of individual patients contemplating a particular new surgery or new-to-the-market asthma medication second-guessing their ability to weigh the risk/ benefit calculus. * It also seems (?) to be a different question than where you began the thread, which was very explicitly around adults and seemed (?) to focus around the dangers of Walking While Trans in states with hostile legislation such as bathroom bans. (I totally get that threads morph, just trying to understand where you're coming from) On the dangers of adults Walking While Trans... a number of pp spoke to the issue of how hostile bathroom legislation does not merely impose a direct risk of arrest / defense counsel costs (the risks you first considered in the OP), but also empowers busybodies to make invasive demands / gives implicit cover to vigilantes to enact violence. That empowers medical professionals to turn folks away for treatment of broken bones or asthma attacks. Such hostile legislation sends a very.clear.signal that trans people cannot expect law enforcement to come down on their side. "Law and Order" in the sense that "law is meant to sustain the existing order. Not for thee." I think we've seen that film before. * Arguably women's contraception is an exception, where there IS a fair degree of paternalistic societal "but for their own good, the potential health risks!!" second-guessing and desire to override individual decisionmaking. And.

In the northeast at least, their produce is NOT very good. I don't understand why they're unable to fix this since they're able to do so many other things well and at this point their footprint is national so surely they're able to source supply from states where things are in season, but it's been true for 20+ years. There are a number of jarred items that have become the basis of many of my go-to slacker meals -- the various "simmer sauces," their "cowboy salsa," the tall-bottled enchilada sauce. And I've extolled many times the manifold virtues of the smoked chipotle black bean paste, which I put into everything and which we refer to here as "the elixir of life." As regentrude noted, their prices on nice cheeses are very good; and they basically do a good job with everything dairy -- their house brand greek yogurt is very good, their prices on stuff like cream cheese and sour cream and etc are also good. While you're in that section, their house brand orange-mango juice is a favorite here, and if you like kombucha (...) the prices are also good. Prices are also pretty good on nuts and dried fruit and house brand cereals (though they have discontinued the Just the Clumps ginger granola over which my husband and I used to fight. Their ginger cookies are great and once you've tasted their dark chocolate peanut butter cups you'll never go back to Reeses. My kids used to love their frozen mochi and green tea sort-of-ice-cream treats. They do a very nice job on holiday rotations; and we're coming off their especially wondrous Christmas items, but they won't be carrying them any longer. ETA oh yeah, good coffee prices, also vitamins and animal-friendly soaps and cleaning supplies and toothpaste and etc.

re affording legal space for [____] vs insulating [_____] from any and all criticism Right. This goes right to the tension our society has around "expression" generally. We're having an extended moment when a whole lot of Americans simultaneously cherish and insist upon Muh Right to express MuhSelf, but at the same time are pretty quick to cry Canceled! or Not Allowed To Say if anyone critiques or pushes back in any manner. on Theory of Mind This.

re collective/societal "interaction across belief boundaries" That is a really helpful analogy to use to think about this. [mulling...] There are limits to the "room" we (and other societies that are less religious and/or more communitarian-minded and/or more culturally comfortable with difference than ours) afford across differences of internally experienced realities and beliefs shaped by religion (ie, as a legal matter in this country today, we don't permit individuals polygamy whether or not people believe it is religiously sanctioned; as a cultural matter we don't accept female genital cutting whether or not people believe it is religiously sanctioned). But there are also, critically, protections within the "room" that we do manage to afford across differences shaped by religion, even if in actual practice such protections are more often/ more successfully invoked by the majority religion than by minorities. The *ideal* in the analogy of making-space-for-different-religious-worldviews though is that the "compromising" does not simply devolve down to Might Makes Right/ tyranny of the majority, but that there are meaningful rights and protections for the few-in-numbers as well as for the more-in-numbers.

re housing isn't a single "good" in the sense that microeconomic theory postulates Right. There really isn't a single "good" called "housing" that can be evaluated in normal supply and demand terms. Not only is the housing sector the **definition** of what economists call "sticky" demand and supply curves-- there are HUGE financial and other costs to simply swapping from one "housing" to another, that isn't the case for really any other "good" (as well as huge upfront capital costs and other "barriers to entry" on the housing supply side) -- but where people live is inextricably bound to a huge number of critically important other "goods." The proximity to schools, the quality of those schools, the proximity to employment, the type of employment, the salary/wages of that employment, the tax structure not merely on housing itself but on also on income etc, the overall cost of living in different areas, the availability (or not) of public transportation or train lines to city employment hubs. For some individuals/families, the proximity to health care or even specific medical specialists are determinative of where they can live. Other individuals/ families housing options are limited by their need to be close to particular sector centers (high tech, finance, biotech, aerospace) or military bases or other clusters. Doctors -- (particularly OB/GYNs even before Dobbs, immensely more so now)-- have to consider what economists refer to as "externalities" like insurance costs and litigation risks in determining where they establish practice. And on and on. People don't need "housing" in a vacuum; they need a LIFE THAT WORKS, and housing is one **but not the only** essential part of what really is a sequence of moving interconnected parts. Not individual one-off "goods" that can be addressed separately. Even today there are parts of the country where COL is low and housing costs are low and taxes are low compared to places like mine. But unless there are stable jobs and good schools and access to reasonable medical care and ~~a life that works~~ people can't just pick up and move there. (Otherwise immigrants like my English and civics students -- who are well past other "sticky" reasons why moving is hard -- would.)

29, married, no kids yet but working on it. We both had well-paying corporate jobs. That was our first house (NJ), and we're still living now in our second house (CT). We briefly rented in between so my eldest could start kindergarten here in the town we'd identified we wanted to be in but where we hadn't yet found a house we wanted. When I put that down I feel like I've had a remarkably boring life!

Ah, just cleaned out. Thanks for the heads up.

For sure there's no one-size-fits-all-locations solution. The pros/cons balance for folks to consider moving to a particular place vary enormously, and the public policy issues within each particular place also vary enormously. In my own general area (NYC exurbs, labor crunch in a state that has long had a state minimum well above the federal, with most jobs even in the service industry paying well above that minimum wage), the top pros of an individual or family moving to a particular town include jobs and quite good public schools; the major con is that you ab-so-freaking-lute-ly need one car per adult. There are other pros (large houses and yards, great libraries, good municipal parks / trails / recreation, on train line to NYC though the trip is well over an hour so it's not easily commutable) and other cons (high COL, state income tax, very high property taxes that fund aforementioned schools); but the basic draw from an individual POV is jobs + schools. There's not a lot going on in our sleepy sweet bucolic scene that is terribly attractive to singles; and couples who work in the general area but don't have children are better off in one of the small cities with more restaurants and much-lower property taxes. So folks start to eye towns like mine when their eldest approaches kindergarten. And often such young families do not yet need, and/or cannot yet afford, a honking 4+ BR house on 2+ acres for a zillion dollars. But that is how most of the town is zoned. (We **literally** have two acre, single residence zoning in 90% of the land area of the town.) Zoning changes that allowed smaller lots, smaller houses and/or multiple residence condos and/or multiple residence rental apartment buildings would enable more suitable housing for the population segment most eager to come here. And -- based on developer interest in the narrow 10% corridor that DOES currently allow for denser build -- I believe that in our case, if zoning allowed it developers would come. ETA: to put it in market terms: there is a DEMAND for affordable housing here, but inadequate supply. BUT. Even aside from the very real if not altogether attractive NIMBY "retain the character of our town" political opposition to denser build, there are real infrastructure constraints. The town doesn't have public water lines or public sewers anywhere except the major artery road that cuts through town; all the schools and community buildings and senior housing and commercial buildings, along with the handful of existing condo complexes and rental buildings, ALL are clustered around that one artery. And there really ARE limits to how large a building can be sustained on septic and, particularly, private well. So while at our state level there are calls, for example, to enact a state-level NIMBY override on municipal restrictions that would automatically allow families to rent out outbuildings and inlaw apartments on their 2A lots -- which sounds so reasonable -- there really are reasonable infrastructure reasons why such zoning is in place. There are other corners of the state, OTOH, where there are no jobs and the schools are lousy. In those places, there are many fewer reasons for folks to want to move TO them, and it's neither zoning nor the NIMBY that too often underpins zoning that is suppressing affordable housing. That's a different form of market failure -- it's not zoning or other interference that is impeding supply; there's just not much demand for folks to go there.

I've been out of sorts too -- it's just been so.freaking.cold and while the days are getting slightly longer it's just not happening fast enough. On my pickleball project - the Absolute Beginner class doesn't start until the last week of February, but I did sign up for it. So I get a no-further-action-required freebie there for a bunch of weeks. On the poetry - I signed up for my workshop too, but that doesn't come round until October. I missed a few daily practices last week, but resumed over the weekend. And I did manage to get two submissions in, though I'm feeling a bit wobbly about that, so hold me in the light please.

This.

I agree with SKL that -- as a traveler -- it's soooo lovely / more comfortable / more conventient / more affordable to stay in a house or apartment with a group > 4 than to stay at a hotel. Also with frogger that a lot of VRBO / airBnB listings are regular (albeit home-owning) folks, who may literally be moving out of their primary residences for a few days or weeks, to make a bit of money on the side. The lens of what's-nice-for-travelers, or the lens of what's-a-nice-way-for-regular-joe-homeowners-to-earn-a-bit-extra, is a different question than the OP "what are affordable housing models that will work," though. The OP centers a question around the needs of people who don't have access to a primary place to live, which is a different segment of people than EITHER vacationers or homeowners. (Not to suggest that either vacationers or homeowners don't Also Matter, nor that public policy has to balance different interests of different segments that often pull in different directions or blah, blah, blah - just noting that, what we see as "good" depends on where we stand.) We have a pretty sturdy state law that imposes a mandate that every town, even rural ones and even Gold Coast wealthy ones, are required to ensure that both a % of all new units, and a lower % of all total units, are "affordable" (defined in relation to state median income). It was widely and bitterly resisted by both rural and wealthy towns when it first was adopted and has been tweaked a couple times since in response to litigation, but it remains in place. Towns are free to meet the mandate however they choose -- my own, for example, has mostly met it through senior housing of various sorts, which meets the letter of the law if not its full democratizing and diversifying intent. But if towns FAIL to meet the %-of-total after a certain number of years subsequent to state warning, then there is a mechanism by which developers are able to more-or-less circumvent town zoning re height restriction, parking requirements and etc. The law is DESPISED by rural and wealthy towns alike but it definitely does nudge toward the approval of more (smaller and affordable) units in a geography where 2 acre lot 4+ BR $$$$ houses are otherwise the norm.

Mmmm. Anything by Padraig O'Tuama, anything by Natalie Haynes, anything by Ocean Vuong. Each of them do the narration and each of their voices are [ puffy heart ]. I happen right now to be re-reading in print form this book that bent the trajectory of my spiritual life 30+ years ago, and I'm surprised to see that it's in audiobook form. I listened to Dan Rather's What Unites Us on a long drive with my mother a month ago. I picked it because I knew *she* would enjoy hearing his voice, but I ended up liking the book much more than I'd expected.