Ava Ayers
@avaayers.bsky.social
Law prof. State and local immigration law, trans rights, legal discourse. Proud to be trans. Personal page, views my own. https://linktr.ee/avaayers Move slowly and put things together.
Reposted by Ava Ayers
New from me:
Kash Patel is engaged in purges, removal of real accountability, and impunity for loyalists at the FBI.
Researchers told me that these are the exact patterns that create abusive national security organizations under authoritarianism. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-the-fb...
Kash Patel is engaged in purges, removal of real accountability, and impunity for loyalists at the FBI.
Researchers told me that these are the exact patterns that create abusive national security organizations under authoritarianism. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-the-fb...
How the FBI Became the Face of Deprofessionalization
What research tells us about national security under authoritarianism
donmoynihan.substack.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:39 PM
New from me:
Kash Patel is engaged in purges, removal of real accountability, and impunity for loyalists at the FBI.
Researchers told me that these are the exact patterns that create abusive national security organizations under authoritarianism. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-the-fb...
Kash Patel is engaged in purges, removal of real accountability, and impunity for loyalists at the FBI.
Researchers told me that these are the exact patterns that create abusive national security organizations under authoritarianism. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-the-fb...
Reposted by Ava Ayers
NEW: I wrote for @statecourtreport.org about the important role *state* law plays in immigration enforcement, and some ongoing litigation in WI, NY, and CA that will shape the relationship between ICE and the states and localities in which it operates. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...
State Challenges to Immigration Enforcement Practices
Recent lawsuits in Wisconsin, New York, and California explore questions about the role of state law in federal immigration enforcement.
statecourtreport.org
November 20, 2025 at 8:55 PM
NEW: I wrote for @statecourtreport.org about the important role *state* law plays in immigration enforcement, and some ongoing litigation in WI, NY, and CA that will shape the relationship between ICE and the states and localities in which it operates. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...
Reposted by Ava Ayers
On this Trans Day of Remembrance, we remember the bright and courageous trans people whose lives were stolen by hatred. Their absence is felt across our city.
We will honor them by building a New York where every trans person can live safely, fully and freely.
We will honor them by building a New York where every trans person can live safely, fully and freely.
November 20, 2025 at 4:57 PM
On this Trans Day of Remembrance, we remember the bright and courageous trans people whose lives were stolen by hatred. Their absence is felt across our city.
We will honor them by building a New York where every trans person can live safely, fully and freely.
We will honor them by building a New York where every trans person can live safely, fully and freely.
Appellate judges at oral argument:
November 17, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Appellate judges at oral argument:
Reposted by Ava Ayers
Is it bad if a sitting federal judge was (allegedly) part of a conspiracy to commit murder? It seems bad ....
OMFG-ex DOJ official (& now federal judge) Emil Bove was involved in the administration's plots to murder individuals via lethal strikes
"At a DOJ conference ... Bove told drug prosecutors the ... administration wasn't interested in interdicting ... Instead... the U.S. should "just sink the boats."
"At a DOJ conference ... Bove told drug prosecutors the ... administration wasn't interested in interdicting ... Instead... the U.S. should "just sink the boats."
November 17, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Is it bad if a sitting federal judge was (allegedly) part of a conspiracy to commit murder? It seems bad ....
hyphenating phrasal adjectives
What's your most niche and unimportant crusade?
Mine is that I use the symbol "var" (as scientific standards bodies indicate) for reactive power instead of "VAR" (most common) or something weird like "Var" or worse, "VAr".
I'll admit it does feel a bit odd to put "Mvar" next to "MW" and "MVA". 🔌💡
Mine is that I use the symbol "var" (as scientific standards bodies indicate) for reactive power instead of "VAR" (most common) or something weird like "Var" or worse, "VAr".
I'll admit it does feel a bit odd to put "Mvar" next to "MW" and "MVA". 🔌💡
November 14, 2025 at 7:36 PM
hyphenating phrasal adjectives
Reposted by Ava Ayers
Lisa Moore: "like the medieval monks and nuns who buried precious manuscripts to hide them from the kings who burned their abbeys, we will preserve this knowledge and progress for another time in the future."
October 10, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Lisa Moore: "like the medieval monks and nuns who buried precious manuscripts to hide them from the kings who burned their abbeys, we will preserve this knowledge and progress for another time in the future."
I suppose I'll make these a chain. Another great book: "The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams," by Jonathan Ned Katz." Bio of a queer activist in the 1920s, with heartbreaking excerpts from her deportation proceedings, and the sweetly beautiful text of her short book "Lesbian Love."
September 19, 2025 at 7:11 PM
I suppose I'll make these a chain. Another great book: "The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams," by Jonathan Ned Katz." Bio of a queer activist in the 1920s, with heartbreaking excerpts from her deportation proceedings, and the sweetly beautiful text of her short book "Lesbian Love."
Reposted by Ava Ayers
What's a book by a transfemme author that you've NEVER seen anyone discuss?
And I do mean never. Nobody. I want the books that you're convinced you are the only person who's ever read it.
And I do mean never. Nobody. I want the books that you're convinced you are the only person who's ever read it.
September 13, 2025 at 1:26 AM
What's a book by a transfemme author that you've NEVER seen anyone discuss?
And I do mean never. Nobody. I want the books that you're convinced you are the only person who's ever read it.
And I do mean never. Nobody. I want the books that you're convinced you are the only person who's ever read it.
I'm delighted to report that the scifi writer James Blish (whose game I was not familiar with) pluralized "footnote" as "feetnote."
September 13, 2025 at 7:41 PM
I'm delighted to report that the scifi writer James Blish (whose game I was not familiar with) pluralized "footnote" as "feetnote."
Brilliant book: Camille Walsh, "Schools, Segregation, and Taxpayer Citizenship, 1869-1973." Fantastic exploration of the history of rhetoric about "citizens who pay taxes" and its role in protecting white supremacy. Will change the way you hear arguments about what government owes "the taxpayers."
September 8, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Brilliant book: Camille Walsh, "Schools, Segregation, and Taxpayer Citizenship, 1869-1973." Fantastic exploration of the history of rhetoric about "citizens who pay taxes" and its role in protecting white supremacy. Will change the way you hear arguments about what government owes "the taxpayers."
Brilliant book: "Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics" by Kim Phillips-Fein. How the mid-70s crisis let financial elites use their status as debt-holders to force NYC to end social services. Explains a lot about inequality in today's NYC and austerity everywhere.
September 5, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Brilliant book: "Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics" by Kim Phillips-Fein. How the mid-70s crisis let financial elites use their status as debt-holders to force NYC to end social services. Explains a lot about inequality in today's NYC and austerity everywhere.
I just saw a message in my spam filter whose subject line ended with "I want employed clothed attorneys!" and I feel like someone should try aiming a little higher
September 4, 2025 at 10:23 PM
I just saw a message in my spam filter whose subject line ended with "I want employed clothed attorneys!" and I feel like someone should try aiming a little higher
Reposted by Ava Ayers
Highly recommended: Linda Bosniak's "The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership." Probably if you're interested in citizenship you've already read this, but if not: no matter how you think about citizenship, the first two chapters will likely make you think differently.
September 4, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Highly recommended: Linda Bosniak's "The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership." Probably if you're interested in citizenship you've already read this, but if not: no matter how you think about citizenship, the first two chapters will likely make you think differently.
It's 2025 and Microsoft Windows still can't change the name of a file while it's open
September 3, 2025 at 5:29 PM
It's 2025 and Microsoft Windows still can't change the name of a file while it's open
Highly recommended: "On Community" by @caseyplett.com. Works both as an essay, carrying you through thoughts and experiences, and as a work of political philosophy that should be important to people studying things like membership, citizenship, and, obviously, community.
September 3, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Highly recommended: "On Community" by @caseyplett.com. Works both as an essay, carrying you through thoughts and experiences, and as a work of political philosophy that should be important to people studying things like membership, citizenship, and, obviously, community.
Reposted by Ava Ayers
Here's my new post on how CIS, the federal agency, has ousted the League of Women Voters and other nonprofit civic groups from their longstanding role in offering voter registration to new Americans at naturalization ceremonies.
CIS kicks voter registration groups out of naturalization ceremonies
For decades, the League of Women Voters and similar civic groups have welcomed new citizens with a voter registration table. No longer.
walterolson.substack.com
September 2, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Here's my new post on how CIS, the federal agency, has ousted the League of Women Voters and other nonprofit civic groups from their longstanding role in offering voter registration to new Americans at naturalization ceremonies.
Highly recommended: "The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship," ed. Shachar, Bauböck, Bloemraad, and Vink. Amazing job of covering a huge number of perspectives in concise, accessible articles. An excellent place to start.
September 2, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Highly recommended: "The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship," ed. Shachar, Bauböck, Bloemraad, and Vink. Amazing job of covering a huge number of perspectives in concise, accessible articles. An excellent place to start.
Reposted by Ava Ayers
I’m happy to have played a small part in renaming DC’s Swann St after William Dorsey Swann, a former slave, arguably 1st drag queen, & early fighter for queer liberation.
Check out new plaque @ Swann St & New Hampshire.
Read Channing Joseph’s history of Swann: www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Check out new plaque @ Swann St & New Hampshire.
Read Channing Joseph’s history of Swann: www.thenation.com/article/soci...
August 8, 2025 at 10:55 PM
I’m happy to have played a small part in renaming DC’s Swann St after William Dorsey Swann, a former slave, arguably 1st drag queen, & early fighter for queer liberation.
Check out new plaque @ Swann St & New Hampshire.
Read Channing Joseph’s history of Swann: www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Check out new plaque @ Swann St & New Hampshire.
Read Channing Joseph’s history of Swann: www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Reposted by Ava Ayers
If you cannot go to the bathroom at work, you cannot go to work. If you cannot go to the bathroom at school, you cannot go to school. This effectively bans transgender people from a broad swath of public life in the UK
🚨 BREAKING | Labour is set to impose a sweeping ban on trans people using any "single-sex space".
In EHRC guidance that Labour is set to approve, trans people will be barred from accessing toilets, gyms and changing rooms that match their gender.
(Source: @TheTimes)
In EHRC guidance that Labour is set to approve, trans people will be barred from accessing toilets, gyms and changing rooms that match their gender.
(Source: @TheTimes)
August 8, 2025 at 5:00 PM
If you cannot go to the bathroom at work, you cannot go to work. If you cannot go to the bathroom at school, you cannot go to school. This effectively bans transgender people from a broad swath of public life in the UK
Reposted by Ava Ayers
Places to get killed in Fargo, North Dakota, a thread.
#1: The Hotel Graver. "If you're staying there, your situation can't get any graver!" (A favorite joke of Fargo wits.)
#1: The Hotel Graver. "If you're staying there, your situation can't get any graver!" (A favorite joke of Fargo wits.)
August 6, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Places to get killed in Fargo, North Dakota, a thread.
#1: The Hotel Graver. "If you're staying there, your situation can't get any graver!" (A favorite joke of Fargo wits.)
#1: The Hotel Graver. "If you're staying there, your situation can't get any graver!" (A favorite joke of Fargo wits.)
Genuinely confused about "passenger attendants." That's like flight attendants, right? How is ChatGPT supposed to do that job?
Generative AI is the biggest bubble for some time. It can help with certain tasks, but my experience is that it cannot do even the most basic things unsupervised and regularly fabricates its work.
August 5, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Genuinely confused about "passenger attendants." That's like flight attendants, right? How is ChatGPT supposed to do that job?
Reposted by Ava Ayers
Has anyone ever said "My rights are a distraction?" It's always someone else's rights, right?
April 22, 2025 at 4:04 AM
Has anyone ever said "My rights are a distraction?" It's always someone else's rights, right?
Reposted by Ava Ayers
What this means is that every time I use a bathroom I'm braced for a confrontation, even when 98% of the time it never happens. And I'm pretty sure every other marginally gender-noncomforming person will tell you the same story. It's gotten worse in the last few years than when I was in college.
July 20, 2025 at 6:45 PM
What this means is that every time I use a bathroom I'm braced for a confrontation, even when 98% of the time it never happens. And I'm pretty sure every other marginally gender-noncomforming person will tell you the same story. It's gotten worse in the last few years than when I was in college.