Jonathan Gilligan
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jgilligan.org
Jonathan Gilligan
@jgilligan.org
8.4K followers 2.1K following 3.9K posts
Integrating social & natural sciences & modeling to study impacts & responses to climate change | Behavioral approaches to climate policy | Nashville TN | They/them 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ genderqueer | Jew | Impervious to onions and mustard | https://jonathangilligan.org
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jgilligan.org
The Soup Nazi from Seinfeld saying "No transgender for you!"
November 26, 2025 at 1:15 PM
jgilligan.org
Pink Popey Club, I'm gonna keep on dancing at the
Pink Popey Club, I'm gonna keep on dancing down in
West Vatican, I'm gonna keep on dancing at the
Pink Popey Club, Pink Popey Club!
Pope Leo XIV looks like he's singing into the microphone on front of him
November 24, 2025 at 4:50 PM
jgilligan.org
Also...
Cover of Michael Spivak, _Calculus_, 4th edition.
November 24, 2025 at 1:38 AM
jgilligan.org
what are those ✨nostalgic✨ textbooks for you? not the most useful textbooks, or the ones you liked the most, but the ones that really take you back...
Cover of Herbert Goldstein, _Classical Mechanics_, second edition.
November 24, 2025 at 1:36 AM
jgilligan.org
This, but with fiber-optic drones.
Telephone, telegraph, and power lines in New York City, in 1888. Photo from collection of New York Historical Society. Public domain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents#/media/File:Blizzard_1888_01.jpg
November 23, 2025 at 3:56 PM
jgilligan.org
This kind of thing is baked deeply into the character of the Times. It reminds me of the 70s and 80s, when Abe Rosenthal was the executive editor and wouldn't let the Times report anything about gay people, including AIDS.

www.truthdig.com/articles/lar...
Screenshot of the article: "As Rosenthal ascended to the top of the Times ladder, his prejudices defined the unspoken but nevertheless unmistakable rules for deciding what was fit to print. As journalist and writer Charles Kaiser, who worked at the Times under Rosenthal, put it, 'Everyone below Rosenthal spent all of their time trying to figure out what to do to cater to his prejudices. One of these widely perceived prejudices was Abe’s homophobia. So editors throughout the paper would keep stories concerning gays out of the paper.'"
November 21, 2025 at 4:07 PM
jgilligan.org
Trans folks and allies in Nashville
Announcement of Transgender Day of Remembrance and Resilience, Thursday November 20, 2025. 6:00-8:00 PM Belmont United Methodist Community Center 2007 Acklen Ave Nashville Sponsored by the Middle Tennessee Transgender Alliance, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Human Rights Campaign, TransParent, and Olivia Hill
November 20, 2025 at 3:27 PM
jgilligan.org
Screenshot from the Vice article linked above: "Eighty-eight percent of the dough (pun intended) went to Republicans, with 99 percent of the roughly $685,000 donated by Pizza Hut, for example, turning sharply to the right. (A mysterious 1 percent of the money went to Democratic candidates and groups.) Or take a peek at the monetary gifts of Papa John’s: almost 87 percent of their $116,807 in donations went to Republicans—and just 4.6 percent to Democrats. Domino’s and Little Caesars—though slightly more balanced at 20.7 percent and 27 percent of donations to Democratic recipients, respectively—also threw thousands of bucks each at Republicans, according to Bloomberg. But this is no coincidence."
November 19, 2025 at 6:13 AM
jgilligan.org
With Trump, it's more like, "Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia!"
John Hurt, as Winston Smith, in Room 101
November 15, 2025 at 4:44 AM
jgilligan.org
Meme of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld waving his index finger and saying, "No pierogi for you!"
November 15, 2025 at 2:13 AM
jgilligan.org
You can hear when he bumps me, and then I yell at him.

If you know the owner of this car, please tell them to drive more safely!

I wasn't hurt, but the next time, people might not be so fortunate.
November 14, 2025 at 1:53 AM
jgilligan.org
A black Nissan Rogue, TN plate 3 PD 3046, Davidson County, bumped me while I was riding my bike on Charlotte Ave today, near 28th in Nashville. I was not injured or knocked off my bike, but he drove close enough to hit my elbow. TN law says to give bikes 3 feet of room when passing.
Photo of a black Nissan Rogue approaching my bike from the rear, far too close. Phot of a black Nissan Rogue, TN plate 3 PD 3046, Davidson County, driving away after passing so close that the car bumped my elbow.
November 14, 2025 at 1:53 AM
jgilligan.org
Also, while I get that opinion and news are nominally separate, raging misogyny in one necessarily erodes trust in the impartiality of the other.
Screenshot of Ross Douthat's opinion piece, bearing the headline, "Did Women Ruin the Workplace."
November 13, 2025 at 6:45 PM
jgilligan.org
You know maybe it's me, it's a little fucked up maybe, but I'm mad how? I mean mad like I'm Ludwig of Bavaria? I'm delusional, or I'm furious, or I'm Alfred E. Newman, or I'm a character in a madcap comedy? What do you mean mad, mad how? How am I mad?
Poster for the movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" A globe with the northern hemisphere covered by a scramble of cartoon people scrabbling about, with one hanging down over the equator holding a satchel that's spilling money.
November 10, 2025 at 10:42 PM
jgilligan.org
The headline is "The GOP Went Big on Anti-Trans Ads This Year. And Guess What Happened?"

That's not what you were objecting to.

You objected to Tannehill's words about trans issues:
Screenshot from the article: "The simple truth is one that has been told time and time again in the polls: The public doesn’t care about trans issues. A national Gallup poll showed that transgender issues ranked dead last among the 22 the survey asked about, with only 18 percent saying the issue was very important. A 2025 poll of Virginians had similar results, finding that only 3 percent of respondents had it as a top concern. It is difficult to make a coherent case that Americans are basing their votes on an issue which most of them could not care less about."
November 8, 2025 at 6:22 PM
jgilligan.org
Excellent summary by @gbbranstetter.bsky.social in @thenation.com of anti-trans political rhetoric and how to rebut it.

www.thenation.com/article/poli...
The central goal of much anti-transgender rhetoric is to make cisgender people believe that their interests and trans people’s interests cannot be met at the same time. It’s not just the accusation that trans people are different or weird or creepy; it’s that our rights, our healthcare, and our well-being must come at the expense of your well-being. As the infamous ad from Trump’s reelection campaign put it, transphobes want cis people to think that someone who cares about “they/them” could never be for “us.” It fits neatly into the central thesis of Trumpism—that someone else’s suffering will be your gain. It also feeds into the portrayal of the Democratic Party as feckless, effete, and obsessed with the abstractions of identity. For any politician facing them, there are two ways of handling these attacks: by promising to care less about trans people or by promising to care more about everyone.
November 8, 2025 at 4:05 PM
jgilligan.org
The XKCD quotation is, "If history has taught us anything, we can use that information to destroy it."

www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.p...
XKCD cartoon. A person with a bare head is telling another person wearing a black pork-pie hat, "Well, you know what they say. The past is a foreign country —" and the person in the hat replies, "with an outdated military and huge oil reserves! Hmm..." The title text (not included in this image) is, "If history has taught us anything, we can use that information to destroy it."
November 7, 2025 at 9:06 PM
jgilligan.org
This is not knee-jerk contrarianism. It is deeply sincere misogyny.
Screenshot showing the original headline of Douthat's column, "Did Women Ruin the Workplace?" before the Times changed it to try to hide the clear misogyny of the column.
November 6, 2025 at 5:37 PM
jgilligan.org
I mean, this is a guy who will go on about the quality of a piece of paper.

www.instagram.com/reel/DPOuRbM...
Screen cap from an Instagram reel from The Bulwark, showing President Trump in a dark blue suit with a white shirt and a red tie, at a microphone, with the caption, "Trump rants to the military about the quality of the paper at the White House."
November 5, 2025 at 10:35 PM
jgilligan.org
Politicians have not been paying enough attention to how dangerous it is to allow cis men to use any bathrooms.

nypost.com/2025/11/05/u...
Screenshot from the linked article: Massive brawl breaks out at Texas Bass Pro Shop grand opening over bathroom dispute It was a bass-erk brawl! Shocking video captured the moment a massive fight broke out between customers at a Texas Bass Pro Shop that was allegedly sparked over a restroom argument. The fists began flying at the outdoor superstore’s grand opening weekend in Odessa around 3 p.m. Saturday, when two men waiting in line for the restroom got into a verbal altercation that quickly turned physical and spread to multiple rowdy customers joining in on the violence, Fox 4 News reported.
November 5, 2025 at 9:41 PM
jgilligan.org
The @nashvillescene.com's Eli Motycka has a good story about the protest. www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithint...
“ We are here to fight the compact, but we are here as part of a bigger struggle,” said Jonathan Gilligan, a professor of earth and environmental sciences who arrived at the university in 1994. “The administration tries to divide us — they try to divide the students from the faculty, from the staff. But we are together in solidarity.” Gilligan unfavorably compared Diermeier, who joined Vanderbilt as chancellor in 2019 (and whose contract was recently extended through 2035), to past chancellors Gordon Gee and Nicholas Zeppos. Diermeier’s reputation on campus has suffered from his perceived unilateral decision-making around the compact, with detractors casting him as an ivory-tower CEO rather than a consensus builder.
November 5, 2025 at 9:19 PM
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Photo of a crowd of demonstrators on Vanderbilt campus, with the Kirkland Hall tower looming in the background.
November 5, 2025 at 6:54 PM
jgilligan.org
Just got back from speaking at a demonstration against Trump's compact and other attacks on academic freedom & civil rights at universities, organized by Vanderbilt Indivisible, grad & undergrad students, and Vanderbilt's chapter of AAUP @vanderbiltaaup.bsky.social

Great energy from everyone there.
Poster for the demonstration today at Vanderbilt against the Compact.
November 5, 2025 at 6:36 PM
jgilligan.org
Poster for the musical, "Fiorello!"
November 5, 2025 at 1:02 PM
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In Nebraska, Democrat John Ewing beat incumbent Republican Jean Stothert earlier this year by running exactly this kind of ad.

www.erininthemorning.com/p/omaha-repu...
Ad from Omaha NE mayoral candidate John Ewing, accusing incumbent Republican mayor Jean Stothert of being obsessed with trans issues instead of things that really matter to voters. The ad reads "Jean is focused on potties. John is focused on fixing potholes."
November 2, 2025 at 6:52 PM