Skip to main content

Open source startup founder, technology leader, mission-driven investor, and engineer. I just want to help.

Subscribe to get updates via email.

benwerd

werd.social/@ben

 

Pride Month: In conversation with The 19th's LGBTQ+ reporters

“It’s hard for me to get excited about Pride Month as a concept this month, because we are in that place where … it feels to a lot of trans people like we are being threatened to the point of genocide.”

· Links

 

Seniors are flooding homeless shelters that can’t care for them

“Nearly a quarter of a million people 55 or older are estimated by the government to have been homeless in the United States during at least part of 2019, the most recent reliable federal count available.” Hopelessly broken.

· Links

 

Letter from Jourdon Anderson: A Freedman Writes His Former Master

“Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.”

· Links

 

A College President Defends Seeking Money From Jeffrey Epstein

““People don’t understand what this job is,” he said, adding, “You cannot pick and choose, because among the very rich is a higher percentage of unpleasant and not very attractive people. Capitalism is a rough system.””

· Links

 

Coloring the Past

“The following images are originally from 1897-1973. After noticing how much more responsive audiences are to color photos, Eli decided to work on past images from queer and trans history. During a time when politicians can openly argue trans people did not exist until 2015, it is important to use reminders like these that we have always been here.”

· Links

 

Trans students meet with education leaders to discuss fight against anti-LGBTQ+ bills

““I don’t really feel safe anymore. I used to feel safe,” said Maya, a 12-year-old trans girl who traveled to Washington D.C., from Texas with her mom for the meeting.”

· Links

 

Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

“In absence of time-consuming commutes, remote workers—particularly those living with children—are spending more time on childcare and housework. This increased flexibility and time helped boost birth rates over the pandemic, specifically for wealthier or more educated women.”

· Links

 

Nashville Shooting Fuels the Right’s Engine of Anti-Trans Hate

“The stakes felt especially high for me to get this story right, because right now, we are working in a media and political environment that is saturated with misinformation and extremist rhetoric about transgender people. I feel very supported by my editor and my colleagues at The 19th News, but I know that most transgender people working in the media either do not have any support or are simply not given full-time employment.”

· Links

 

Nashville shooting suspect’s gender sets attack apart from most mass shootings

“Amid the confusion, several conservative and far-right media personalities have used the reported identity of the shooter as an opportunity to shift the conversation away from gun control and onto restricting gender-affirming care for transgender people, or simply to focus on anti-trans rhetoric.”

· Links

 

Women are less likely to buy electric vehicles than men. Here's why.

“Given the current legislative and judicial situation in our country and my home state of Texas, as a LGBT woman it could be important for me to drive hundreds of miles without even stopping for gasoline, much less a charging station that might not be available.”

· Links

 

Anti-Racist Starter Pack

A list of anti-racist books, articles, documentaries, podcasts, and interviews.

· Links

 

MY FIFTY YEARS WITH DAN ELLSBERG

“I think it best that I begin with the end. On March 1, I and dozens of Dan’s friends and fellow activists received a two-page notice that he had been diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer and was refusing chemotherapy because the prognosis, even with chemo, was dire. He will be ninety-two in April.”

· Links

 

Texas denied abortions to these women when their lives were in danger. Now they’re suing the state.

“Zurawski, along with the other three plaintiffs who spoke in Austin, told The 19th that she had long supported abortion rights. But none of these women ever expected to become the public representatives of what it means to lose access to this procedure.”

· Links

 

Remembering Judy Heumann, mother of the disability rights movement

“I believe more and more that our movement can’t be isolated. That we need to be part of a changing world. We have to look at issues like global warming and the environment. I think you have to be in a position where you’re ahead of the game and not trying to catch up to a game that keeps changing.”

· Links

 

SOMATIC DATA

“I remember the first time I felt a statistic with my body. I don’t remember a single other thing: how I learned it, where I was or my age at the time. I remember seeing 2.6 percent of the United States identified as multiracial and my whole body reacted.”

· Links

 

Back to Plimouth Plantation

“When the museum changed its name, rather quietly, in June 2020, Wampanoag observers noted that while this name change purportedly signaled a renewed commitment to the representation of Wampanoag history, it also resulted in the removal of the word “Wampanoag” from much of the museum’s literature.”

· Links

 

L.A.’s Scoring System for Subsidized Housing Gives Black and Latino People Experiencing Homelessness Lower Priority Scores

“An analysis of more than 130,000 VI‑SPDAT surveys taken in the Los Angeles area as far back as 2016 found that White people received scores considered “high acuity”—or most in need—more often than Black people, and that gap persisted year over year.”

· Links

 

How abortion data rates will change after Dobbs

“We find that there’s really, really significant levels of underreporting to the point where really, most survey data on abortion is is not useful, which is a real challenge because that’s a lot of how social science researchers collect data”

· Links

 

Safety Systems Gone Wrong

“Why do we tolerate a police system - ostensibly a public safety system - that kills more Americans than aviation does, with some cops walking around indifferent to safety? And yet we're petrified about two airplanes getting too close.”

· Links

 

‘They need to see’: RowVaughn Wells on what it means to attend Biden’s State of the Union address

“For the first time at a State of the Union address on Tuesday night, the mother of a Black man killed by police will be a guest of the first lady of the United States. Other parents with similar tragedies will be in attendance as the guests of members of the House of Representatives; they will be visible reminders of the parade of unarmed Black Americans who have lost their lives, representing families calling for change in the wake of tragedy.”

· Links

 

Advocates mark the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act

“Advocates 30 years ago saw the passage of FMLA as the beginning, not the end, of what was possible at the federal level. But while hundreds of millions have benefited from the program, the United States remains the only wealthy nation without any national, guaranteed paid leave policy three decades on.”

· Links

 

Child care crisis is causing parents to leave their jobs or get fired, study shows

"Of the parents surveyed, 26 percent quit their jobs because of child care problems and 23 percent were fired. The number of parents who were fired or had their pay reduced is three times as high as it was just five years ago. The rate of parents quitting has doubled since 2018.“

· Links

 

Where is abortion legal? Almost half of all Americans aren’t sure, new poll shows

“Half of women are unsure if medication abortion is legal in their state, and a third don’t know if they are allowed to access emergency contraceptive pills, new polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found.”

· Links

 

A vast majority of Americans are concerned people could face criminal penalties for abortion

“The data found that 80 percent of Americans are concerned that domestic abuse survivors could be reported by their abuser for getting an abortion. Eighty percent of people are also concerned that law enforcement could investigate people who have miscarriages or stillbirths if they are suspected of getting an abortion. The poll also found that 75 percent of people are concerned that people who get an abortion could be charged with a felony or go to jail.”

· Links

 

Inside a US Neo-Nazi Homeschool Network With Thousands of Members

“Since the group began in October 2021 it has openly embraced Nazi ideology and promoted white supremacy, while proudly discouraging parents from letting their white children play with or have any contact with people of any other race. Admins and members use racist, homophobic, and antisemitic slurs without shame, and quote Hitler and other Nazi leaders daily in a channel open to the public.”

· Links