Evan Urquhart
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evanurquhart.bsky.social
Evan Urquhart
@evanurquhart.bsky.social
32K followers 870 following 8.2K posts
The personal account of Evan Urquhart of Assigned Media (assignedmedia.org), your trans news source.

I'd still rather be playing pinball.
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evanurquhart.bsky.social
Ben Ryan emailed me at 10pm last night to ask me to comment *for a tweet he was writing* on one of Assigned's writers shit-talking Brianna Wu, which he misunderstood (or pretended to misunderstand) as a threat to shoot her.

Cannot even.
screenshot of an email from Ben Ryan. Subject: Comment on Aly Gibbs' post Body: Evan, would Aly Gibbs like to provide a comment on her apparent threat to shoot Brianna Wu on sight? Also, do I have it correctly that Gibbs used to write for you under the byline Alyssa Steinsiek? Otherwise, do you have a comment you’d like to provide about employing Gibbs, given this apparent threat of violence on her part? Thanks, Ben
November 3, 2025 at 1:11 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
I’m not amazing at photography, but like how this picture from the Boston No Kings rally came out.
A view of downtown Boston from the No Kings protest crowd in Boston common. In the center of the crowd someone is flying a trans pride flag.
October 18, 2025 at 6:42 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
One of my quotes:
"I know it's worth it because someday some young kid who's had everything about trans people censored all their life will happen across something I wrote and know they aren't alone. If I had it to do over, I'd do it all again and more."
October 14, 2025 at 4:39 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Do you guys want to see the new Assigned Media logo?

This is part of what's coming when our long awaited site redesign goes live in November.
A head on view of purple binoculars with orange rims and a pair of brown eyes, on a cream background. The words ASSIGNED MEDIA are on the top and bottom of the binoculars in a thick black font.
September 28, 2025 at 2:27 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Oof. From M Gessen, writing about the nervousness they feel drawing parallels between our time and the Nazi era.

"The comparison seems straightforward ... And yet something in the transformed landscape of this country tells me I’m not supposed to say so."

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...
But what makes this parallel feel most apt is how nervous I am about drawing it. The comparison seems straightforward: The person who was murdered was a representative of a hateful ideology, the person thought to have killed him was a deluded young man who may have tried to oppose that hatred in the most destructive manner imaginable. And yet something in the transformed landscape of this country tells me I’m not supposed to say so.
September 24, 2025 at 12:39 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
The thing that is making me hopeful in this past week is summed up nicely in this concluding para by @gregsargent.bsky.social in the linked piece.

Core ideals, such as free speech, still hold great power in our culture. We're floundering, but not completely lost.

newrepublic.com/article/2008...
The reality MAGA will not acknowledge is this: Trump’s authoritarian tactics in suppression of disfavored speech are themselves triggering a massive cultural outcry. And by all indications, it’s larger than the one driving the push to censor imperfect speech about Kirk. Trump-MAGA have basically been bluffing: Their overbearing threats and bluster are meant to snooker us into believing that the culture is lost, that Trump’s grip on it is unshakable, that mobilization is futile. For now, this episode has demonstrated precisely the opposite, and we shouldn’t let ourselves forget it.
September 23, 2025 at 9:48 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Something I'm cooking up, still working on this.
A poster in progress for an Art Contest to celebrate Charlie Kirk remembrance day. The background is the trans pride flag with a poorly drawn line drawing of Charlie Kirk's face in zombie-green. The text says "STILL DEAD!!" and "ART CONTEST!" in the Charlie Hebdo font.
September 20, 2025 at 2:14 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Trans people: We need to be bold and very clever, but there are signs that people recognize, even if largely unconsciously, that our rights are the heart of the larger struggle against a fascist USA.

Screenshot from this piece by @saletan.bsky.social www.thebulwark.com/p/charlie-ki...
5. Comparing your opponents to Nazis. Last year, Kirk declared, “We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.” Arguably, that sort of language could have contributed to the escalation of attacks on gender clinics and physicians. If Kirk’s words weren’t prosecutable speech, then invocations of Nazism against Republicans aren’t prosecutable, either.
September 18, 2025 at 4:48 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
They're calling it "too clever by half" but at least I'm having fun.
Screenshot of comments on Assigned Media. Joe: Evan, I'm curious. What band of leftist are you? reply, Evan Urquhart: What brand? Target, of course.
September 17, 2025 at 7:47 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
LMAO didn't realize this but Bryan Johnson is basically the same age as me.

I have taken basically no steps to extend my life, but purely on looks I think I look about as young.
recent headshot of Evan Urquhart, a dark-haired bearded guy in a suit with glasses
September 17, 2025 at 4:21 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Weird study. Asked for self and other-perceived gender, but not transition history.

There is a 100 percent chance I'd be assigned man by the interview and answer man to the question using this methodology.

Oh, also, they found zero observer-assigned women who identified as men.
There is a high degree of overlap between the self and interviewer reported measures. Among the respondents that were assigned as male by interviewers (n = 824), 13 self-identified as women. In contrast, of the 860 interviewer assigned females, none self-identified as a man. There were three respondents who identified as ‘other’ and these were the only responses apart from “man” or “woman”. The wording of our question on the salience of gender identity drew on this self-reported measure: those who identified as men were asked about the importance of being a man while women were asked about the importance of being a woman:
September 16, 2025 at 1:08 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
This might be the most reluctant I ever felt to allow through a comment that had absolutely no reason to delete it.
Karma 2026 will be the biggest. We must infiltrate the media and push anti maga and anti Trump information. We must stop being kind to Republicans, fascists, Right wingers. We must push the blue vote. Drag those non voters in to vote. Voter apathy is what brought this past election into the disaster we are in now.
September 16, 2025 at 12:41 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
You think I'm joking...
part of a tweet tagging Chaya Raichik, linking my piece. "He works for Slate, was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT, and founded this trans news site." It has 16 views.
September 15, 2025 at 11:45 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Crap, I forgot alt text. Same image, with alt text:
A poorly done line drawing of Charlie Kirk on a green background. Over the top Kirk's name appears in the Charlie Hebdo font. Kirk has his mouth open and his tongue sticking out, and is speaking into a bullet. A speech bubble is on his left with text saying "When I died I pooped my pants."
September 15, 2025 at 11:35 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Dude, I drew this yesterday thinking I might need to leave the state for a few weeks if I got enough death threats. Don't get me wrong, it could still happen, but I've had crickets.

It tells me they're not really angry over anything people are saying, they're just excited to cause pain.
September 15, 2025 at 11:32 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Maybe you'll like where I go with this? Screenshot bc it's too long for the text box:
What kind of dictator is Trump? What is the nature of a presidential power that is absolute enough to reach into your child’s college classroom and impose far right views on transgender identity, but not so absolute that any law or policy has been rewritten such that he can do so? It is, obviously, a dictatorship that exists solely in the minds of conservatives, but one that they are working to make real by every method at their disposal.
September 10, 2025 at 11:38 AM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
This part caught my eye...
All this Sturm und Drang plays as Grenell pushes for a more middle-American Kennedy Center and pursues collaborations with the Museum of the Bible and the Christian Broadcasting Network.
September 3, 2025 at 5:06 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
This is still in the story (which means it hasn't been corrected):
Creators told WIRED that the contract stipulated they'd be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program. Some creators also raised concerns about a slew of restrictive clauses in the contract.
August 29, 2025 at 2:43 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Apart from driving even more the layoffs in a struggling industry, the main promise of chatbots in news seems to one of be producing low-quality, error laden text quickly. Assigned Media is written by a single trans guy and manages to create one or more posts every weekday, and two newsletters weekly. As such, there just doesn’t seem to be much need to produce even more content, even faster. Additionally, we’ve found the errors Evan already makes (most often spelling or gramma) to be more than sufficient for our needs at present.
August 29, 2025 at 1:56 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
I'm weirdly this lately and I don't know what's got into me.
The swords meme - I believe a still from Tangled, it shows a cocky looking animated white guy surrounded on all sides by dozens of swords pointing at him.
August 29, 2025 at 12:20 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Sometimes you need to let yourself be hit by the grief and loss of it all. For all its flaws, this was once a free country.
It looks like a country where Trump assumes he can control and dictate our history, what books we read, our arts, and even our sports heroes. He assumes there is no line between his taste and our nation.
August 25, 2025 at 5:54 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Not to brag, but Assigned Media has over 56K followers on Bluesky. A recent story about Bluesky (stories about a platform often do well on the platform they're about), which had the link right there in the first post, got hundreds of likes and shares.
recent post by Assigned Media showing 25 replies, 379 re-posts, 721 likes
August 22, 2025 at 3:39 PM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
New York Times reporters repeatedly witnessed bribes being passed out to Chinese-language reporters at Adams campaign events, but said nothing until another outlet broke the story of one of their reporters being offered a bribe.

Why?

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/n...
In July, New York Times reporters witnessed other Adams supporters handing out red envelopes with cash at three separate campaign events: one in Flushing, Queens; another in Manhattan's Chinatown; and a third in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. At those events, Mr. Adams picked up support from leaders of influential Chinese community groups, including several with close ties to the Chinese government.
August 22, 2025 at 11:41 AM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
After a court ruled gender recognition certificates don't change legal sex, their sole purpose, the EHRC guidance suggested it meant trans people must be banned from facilities intended for one gender only.

For trans men like me, the guidance suggests bans from both men's and women's facilities.
This is me
August 19, 2025 at 10:02 AM
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Best I got
A badly drawn bird, in pencil. The wings are outstretched, with the right wing more defined than the left (the left appears more furry than feathery). For some reason the talons, three on each foot, are pointing up. The head is drawn in profile, with a feathery plume suggesting an unkempt haircut. The beak is curved, and the eye is looking out with an angry expression. A word bubble says “fuck you.”
August 17, 2025 at 11:04 PM