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All this Kurtzman/Section 31 stuff reminds me that not enough people have seen (or understood, I guess) Star Trek:Deep Space Nine.
Because it gets described as “it made the Federation a morally gray society instead of a utopia!” or “it fought back against Roddenberry’s vision for the Federation and Star Trek!” and it’s like… did you watch the same show?
DS9 didn’t think the federation was any less of a utopia, than TNG or TOS or VOY, it said EVEN IN A UTOPIA, THERE WILL BE CHALLENGES, THERE WILL BE USURPERS, THERE WILL BE SNAKES IN THE GARDEN: THAT IS WHY WE MUST FIGHT!
Homefront/Paradise lost are about how even in a utopia, authoritarians will sell fear and get people to give up their freedoms. Fascists will burn the Reichstag to create a crisis they can exploit.
Doctor Bashir, I Presume showed that for a society without money, people still worry about success, and their legacy, and they’ll do horrible things to their children to make sure they can be that legacy. And the episode CLEARLY DISAPPROVES OF THIS! The man responsible realizes the error of his ways and submits to punishment to save his son.
I don’t want to list examples all day, I have other stuff to do, but DS9 very much didn’t say “utopias aren’t real, every so-called utopia has evil somewhere in the foundations”, it said that utopias are something you have to fight to maintain. You can’t take the easy answers, listen to the fascists promising safety, and avoid examining the faults of your society. Sorry. But the good news is that you can, you can win, and you aren’t alone.
DS9 was aiming for more of a “realistic utopia” than other Treks, it’s true, but despite that realism it still said a utopia was possible. It used that realism to show that a better world must still be fought for. And it warned against anyone selling easy solutions to those battles.
Because as has been pointed out recently, fascists don’t sell eternal war and oppression to the in-group: they promise safety and power and belonging and prosperity. They’re gonna oppress them to save us.
DS9 said those men are not to be trusted, and must be opposed. It won’t be easy, there will be struggles, but they will be stopped. The world will get better. We can do this, together.
I don’t know about you, but I find that more optimistic than if they hadn’t, and just said The Federation is Perfect Forever.
TNG takes utopia for granted so much, it barely notices it.
DS9 is a love letter to paradise. It wants the Federation to be heaven, and to make that happen, it shows us all the ways it isn’t, or threatens not to be. It implores us to not take it for granted and shows us what will happen if we do.
It’s not a “haha, the Federation is bad, too” gotcha; it’s a “do you want this? work for it. do you have this? make sure you keep it. do you love this? try to make it even better”.
DS9 is a gardener overlooking a beautiful garden and telling us stories of slugs, drought, and how much upkeep it takes to keep the garden as beautiful as it is. It’s a parent telling us of their child’s difficult puberty and instructing other parents to first, love unconditionally, and second, be prepared to spend late nights talking with their child about their problems because no amount of love can change the fact that life is often complicated but that doesn’t mean the love isn’t required anyway. DS9 is a lover coming back after a nasty fight, hurt but not disillusioned, to sit down and talk about what went wrong because the relationship is good and matters to them and they believe it’s healthy enough that troubles can be talked about and resolved.
DS9 is fucking perfect and I will fight anyone to the death who tries to paint it as the edgy Trek that opened the door for kablam pew pew Trek.
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All this Kurtzman/Section 31 stuff reminds me that not enough people have seen (or understood, I guess) Star Trek:Deep Space Nine.
Because it gets described as “it made the Federation a morally gray society instead of a utopia!” or “it fought back against Roddenberry’s vision for the Federation and Star Trek!” and it’s like… did you watch the same show?
DS9 didn’t think the federation was any less of a utopia, than TNG or TOS or VOY, it said EVEN IN A UTOPIA, THERE WILL BE CHALLENGES, THERE WILL BE USURPERS, THERE WILL BE SNAKES IN THE GARDEN: THAT IS WHY WE MUST FIGHT!
Homefront/Paradise lost are about how even in a utopia, authoritarians will sell fear and get people to give up their freedoms. Fascists will burn the Reichstag to create a crisis they can exploit.
Doctor Bashir, I Presume showed that for a society without money, people still worry about success, and their legacy, and they’ll do horrible things to their children to make sure they can be that legacy. And the episode CLEARLY DISAPPROVES OF THIS! The man responsible realizes the error of his ways and submits to punishment to save his son.
I don’t want to list examples all day, I have other stuff to do, but DS9 very much didn’t say “utopias aren’t real, every so-called utopia has evil somewhere in the foundations”, it said that utopias are something you have to fight to maintain. You can’t take the easy answers, listen to the fascists promising safety, and avoid examining the faults of your society. Sorry. But the good news is that you can, you can win, and you aren’t alone.
DS9 was aiming for more of a “realistic utopia” than other Treks, it’s true, but despite that realism it still said a utopia was possible. It used that realism to show that a better world must still be fought for. And it warned against anyone selling easy solutions to those battles.
Because as has been pointed out recently, fascists don’t sell eternal war and oppression to the in-group: they promise safety and power and belonging and prosperity. They’re gonna oppress them to save us.
DS9 said those men are not to be trusted, and must be opposed. It won’t be easy, there will be struggles, but they will be stopped. The world will get better. We can do this, together.
I don’t know about you, but I find that more optimistic than if they hadn’t, and just said The Federation is Perfect Forever.
TNG takes utopia for granted so much, it barely notices it.
DS9 is a love letter to paradise. It wants the Federation to be heaven, and to make that happen, it shows us all the ways it isn’t, or threatens not to be. It implores us to not take it for granted and shows us what will happen if we do.
It’s not a “haha, the Federation is bad, too” gotcha; it’s a “do you want this? work for it. do you have this? make sure you keep it. do you love this? try to make it even better”.
DS9 is a gardener overlooking a beautiful garden and telling us stories of slugs, drought, and how much upkeep it takes to keep the garden as beautiful as it is. It’s a parent telling us of their child’s difficult puberty and instructing other parents to first, love unconditionally, and second, be prepared to spend late nights talking with their child about their problems because no amount of love can change the fact that life is often complicated but that doesn’t mean the love isn’t required anyway. DS9 is a lover coming back after a nasty fight, hurt but not disillusioned, to sit down and talk about what went wrong because the relationship is good and matters to them and they believe it’s healthy enough that troubles can be talked about and resolved.
DS9 is fucking perfect and I will fight anyone to the death who tries to paint it as the edgy Trek that opened the door for kablam pew pew Trek.
I’ve seen so many shit takes blaming DS9 for S31 and all of them have completely failed to understand the most fundamental thing about DS9’s original take on Section 31:
HE WAS THE FUCKING VILLAIN.
Sloan himself is repeatedly demonstrated to be dangerous, unhinged, violent, and utterly without any moral compass. In basically every episode Sloan appears, Bashir only goes along with his bullshit to find out what he’s up to and stop him.
Bashir and O'Brien literally go inside the man’s warped ass, dying brain, risking their lives, not to “carry on his legacy” or any bullshit, but to find out as much as they can about what he was up to so they can stop it.
And also, another point about S31 in DS9? Pay attention to my choice of pronounds, because it is deliberate, in service to another very important point:
HE WAS ONE FUCKING GUY.
It is deliberately ambiguous as to whether there ever even was a real “Section 31”, and not just the product of one paranoid rogue agent running around the galaxy murdering people for his own personal agenda.
S31 only gets canonized by later writers, under showrunners like Berman and Abrams and Kurtzmann who by their own admission do not and never have given a fuck about the utopia. Berman thought Gene was a kook, and kept the Fed’s principles only so far as was necessary to preserve brand value. Meanwhile, nuTrek shit is terminally 9/11 and BSG/GoT brained, totally unable to even conceive of the utopian ideal of old Trek.
The only exception seems to be Lower Decks, which got abandoned to its own devices save for one ill-concieved SNW crossover … which is why the utopia is consistently front and center, because it’s written by people who know what Trek is even about.
This year, nearly half of U.S. states passed laws imposing age verification requirements on online platforms. EFF has opposed these efforts, because they censor the internet and burden access to online speech. Though age verification mandates are often touted as “online safety” measures for kids, the laws actually do more harm than good. They undermine the fundamental speech rights of adults and young people alike, create new barriers to internet access, and put at risk all internet users’ privacy, anonymity, and security.
Age verification bills generally require online services to verify all users’ ages—often through invasive tools like ID checks, biometric scans, and other dubious “age estimation” methods—before granting them access to certain online content or services. Some state bills mandate the age verification explicitly, including Texas’s H.B. 1181, Florida’s H.B. 3, and Indiana’s S.B. 17. Other state bills claim not to require age verification, but still threaten platforms with liability for showing certain content or features to minor users. These bills—including Mississippi’s H.B. 1126, Ohio’s Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act, and the federal Kids Online Safety Act—raise the question: how are platforms to know which users are minors without imposing age verification?
EFF’s answer: they can’t. We call these bills “implicit age verification mandates” because, though they might expressly deny requiring age verification, they still force platforms to either impose age verification measures or, worse, to censor whatever content or features deemed “harmful to minors” for all users—not just young people—in order to avoid liability.
Age verification requirements are the wrong approach to protecting young people online. No one should have to hand over their most sensitive personal information or submit to invasive biometric surveillance just to access lawful online speech.
EFF’s Work Opposing State Age Verification Bills
Last year, we saw a slew of dangerous social media regulations for young people introduced across the country. This year, the flood of ill-advised bills grew larger. As of December 2024, nearly every U.S. state legislature has introduced at least one age verification bill, and nearly half the states have passed at least one of these proposals into law.
Courts agree with our position on age verification mandates. Across the country, courts have repeatedly and consistently held these so-called “child safety” bills unconstitutional, confirming that it is nearly impossible to impose online age-verification requirements without violating internet users’ First Amendment rights. In 2024, federal district courts in Ohio, Indiana, Utah, and Mississippi enjoined those states’ age verification mandates. The decisions underscore how these laws, in addition to being unconstitutional, are also bad policy. Instead of seeking to censor the internet or block young people from it, lawmakers seeking to help young people should focus on advancing legislation that solves the most pressing privacy and competition problems for all users—without restricting their speech.
Here’s a quick review of EFF’s work this year to fend off state age verification mandates and protect digital rights in the face of this legislative onslaught.
California
In January, we submitted public comments opposing an especially vague and poorly written proposal: California Ballot Initiative 23-0035, which would allow plaintiffs to sue online information providers for damages of up to $1 million if they violate their “responsibility of ordinary care and skill to a child.” We pointed out that this initiative’s vague standard, combined with extraordinarily large statutory damages, will severely limit access to important online discussions for both minors and adults, and cause platforms to censor user content and impose mandatory age verification in order to avoid this legal risk. Thankfully, this measure did not make it onto the 2024 ballot.
In February, we filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that California’s Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC) violated the First Amendment. Our brief asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule narrowly that the AADC’s age estimation scheme and vague description of “harmful content” renders the entire law unconstitutional, even though the bill also contained several privacy provisions that, stripped of the unconstitutional censorship provisions, could otherwise survive. In its decision in August, the Ninth Circuit confirmed that parts of the AADC likely violate the First Amendment and provided a helpful roadmap to legislatures for how to write privacy first laws that can survive constitutional challenges. However, the court missed an opportunity to strike down the AADC’s age-verification provision specifically.
Later in the year, we also filed a letter to California lawmakers opposing A.B. 3080, a proposed state bill that would have required internet users to show their ID in order to look at sexually explicit content. Our letter explained that bills that allow politicians to define what “sexually explicit” content is and enact punishments for those who engage with it are inherently censorship bills—and they never stop with minors. We declared victory in September when the bill failed to get passed by the legislature.
New York
Similarly, after New York passed the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act earlier this year, we filed comments urging the state attorney general (who is responsible for writing the rules to implement the bill) to recognize that that age verification requirements are incompatible with privacy and free expression rights for everyone. We also noted that none of the many methods of age verification listed in the attorney general’s call for comments is both privacy-protective and entirely accurate, as various experts have reported.
Texas
We also took the fight to Texas, which passed a law requiring all Texas internet users, including adults, to submit to invasive age verification measures on every website deemed by the state to be at least one-third composed of sexual material. After a federal district court put the law on hold, the Fifth Circuit reversed and let the law take effect—creating a split among federal circuit courts on the constitutionality of age verification mandates. In May, we filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review of the Fifth Circuit’s decision and to ultimately overturn the Texas law on First Amendment grounds.
In September, after the Supreme Court accepted the Texas case, we filed another amicus brief on the merits. We pointed out that the Fifth Circuit’s flawed ruling diverged from decades of legal precedent recognizing, correctly, that online ID mandates impose greater burdens on our First Amendment rights than in-person age checks. We explained that there is nothing about this Texas law or advances in technology that would lessen the harms that online age verification mandates impose on adults wishing to exercise their constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has set this case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, for oral argument in February 2025.
Mississippi
Finally, we supported the First Amendment challenge to Mississippi’s age verification mandate, H.B. 1126, by filing amicus briefs both in the federal district court and on appeal to the Fifth Circuit. Mississippi’s extraordinarily broad law requires social media services to verify the ages of all users, to obtain parental consent for any minor users, and to block minor users from exposure to materials deemed “harmful” by state officials.
In our June brief for the district court, we once again explained that online age verification laws are fundamentally different and more burdensome than laws requiring adults to show their IDs in physical spaces, and impose significant barriers on adults’ ability to access lawful speech online. The district court agreed with us, issuing a decision that enjoined the Mississippi law and heavily cited our amicus brief.
Upon Mississippi’s appeal to the Fifth Circuit, we filed another amicus brief—this time highlighting H.B. 1126’s dangerous impact on young people’s free expression. After all, minors enjoy the same First Amendment right as adults to access and engage in protected speech online, and online spaces are diverse and important spaces where minors can explore their identities—whether by creating and sharing art, practicing religion, or engaging in politics—and seek critical resources and support for the very same harms these bills claim to address. In our brief, we urged the court to recognize that age-verification regimes like Mississippi’s place unnecessary and unconstitutional barriers between young people and these online spaces that they rely on for vibrant self-expression and crucial support.
Looking Ahead
As 2024 comes to a close, the fight against online age verification is far from over. As the state laws continue to proliferate, so too do the legal challenges—several of which are already on file.
EFF’s work continues, too. As we move forward in state legislatures and courts, at the federal level here in the United States, and all over the world, we will continue to advocate for policies that protect the free speech, privacy, and security of all users—adults and young people alike. And, with your help, we will continue to fight for the future of the open internet, ensuring that all users—especially the youth—can access the digital world without fear of surveillance or unnecessary restrictions.
This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2024.
Merry Christmas! Here is the new 2025 Jan to Jun Chronodex for Traveler's Notebook!
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As 2025 approaches, I find myself embarking on a journey of self-discovery and new beginnings. After 21 transformative years, I’ve made the bittersweet decision to step away from a career that shaped much of who I am today.
city’super and LOG-ON have given me so much—memories, friendships, and the privilege to collaborate with extraordinary brands and like-minded individuals. Together, we brought ideas to life and created experiences that will always hold a special place in my heart.
However, as times change, so do the landscapes of the places we hold dear. The values and spirit that once inspired me to join no longer seem to align with the decisions driven by the pressing need for “survival.” Operating for the sake of operating—losing sight of the bigger picture—has left me feeling disconnected from the purpose and energy I once thrived on.
So, it’s time. Time to pause, reset, and realign. At the end of January 2025, I’ll be heading off for a 10-day meditation retreat—a chance to let go of the lingering negativity and make space for whatever comes next.
Here’s to fresh perspectives, renewed energy, and the unknown opportunities that await in 2025. Let’s see where this new chapter leads. See you soon!
I have been a man in the eyes of the world for almost eight years now.
I transitioned slowly, thinking maybe people would be more accepting if they saw I wasn’t “rushing into things,” if I gave them a chance to adjust. Or maybe I thought I could do it so slowly that nobody even noticed. It didn’t work, of course. It might have been gradual for me, but for people I came out to, it was always sudden – one moment they didn’t know I was trans, and the next they did. There’s no way to ease people in like “I’m about 10% trans now, just put a pin in that… okay now it’s 20%… are you ready for more?”
(At this point I had long since been cutting my hair short and wearing men’s clothes and no makeup, but these are all things women can do. There’s no way to unambiguously signal maleness with personal styling alone, which is lovely for human diversity and all, but a big pain in the ass when you’re a coward trying to soft-launch a gender transition.)
I dragged my feet on every step, still trying to prove to the world that I had Extremely Slow Onset Gender Dysphoria; it took me two years from starting testosterone to come out at work, and four years to legally change my name and gender. Every night I’d have this conversation with myself:
“I don’t want to be trans! It’s expensive and a lot of work and people hate you for it! This isn’t fun anymore! I want to quit!”
“Okay, you can do that. It’s an option. You can go back to living as a woman.”
“What??? Why would I do that??!?!!?“
And at the same time, I’m not sure I would have accepted a magic potion to become a cis man, if one had been offered. I’ve made so many friends in the trans community. I’ve gotten to decide what kind of person I want to be, far more consciously than most people have the opportunity to. I got to choose my own name! Not a lot of people get that! (Which is weird, honestly, considering that everyone has the opportunity. But I can count on one hand the number of cis people I know who’ve changed their name to one that simply fit better.) And I’ve learned a hell of a lot about gender, both what it feels like from the inside and how people treat you when they see you as a man or a woman.
The main thing I’ve learned is something I suspected all along – it doesn’t make that much of a difference.
This is weird to say when I’ve spent years on the project of changing my gender, but on a day-to-day basis, I’m still me. I’m not angrier, or hornier, or better at math, or worse at… I don’t know, sewing? You run into very silly stereotypes very fast when you start trying to drill down what the difference between the genders is supposed to even be. Eight years of testosterone and I still don’t understand football.
When I came out to my mom, she said “it’s like I’m losing a daughter,” which was an awful thing to say, and also a strange one. There was no point at my transition where female-me disappeared and male-me took over. I’m the same person and I don’t think that’s entirely because “I was always a man” or whatever – I think it’s because being a human is kind of the same experience no matter what kind of sex hormones you’re doing it with.
Even the changes in my body feel weirdly normal. If you’d asked me “what’s it like to be a guy with a half-inch penis?” before that was me, I would have thought it was really like something. Like oh you must feel terribly self-conscious about it, or must have a lot of confidence to compensate, or… anything other than the reality, which is that on most days, I don’t even think about it. My face was my face when it didn’t grow hair, and now that it does, it’s my face with hair on it. I’ve never had a lot of physical dysphoria, but I also don’t have any now. I’m just whatever shape I happen to be at the moment.
The way people treat me is a little more noticeably different. Mostly in what doesn’t happen. Men used to have opinions about me, sexually. Some of them were “you should fuck me” and some of them were “I wouldn’t fuck you,” but either way, they formed those opinions and often shared them. It doesn’t work the other way at all. I have no idea what random women in passing cars think of my sexual prospects.
(This is mostly a positive, but God, I miss picking up straight men. All you have to do is exist in front of them. Finding queer men who want what I’ve got is an entire goddamn outreach program.)
The standards are lower for me, too. If I exercise what I’d consider the bare minimum of politeness as a woman – smile at people, say please and thank you, listen when someone else is talking – I get told wow, I’m such a nice guy. Although if I try too hard to be nice to a woman sometimes that gets misinterpreted. It honestly hurt the first time I tried to make small talk with a cashier and she suddenly turned cold and distant in a way I’d never experienced when I was a woman. I don’t blame her for it, I blame cis men, I know exactly what they did to make her feel unsafe with me, but it did hurt.
People are a lot less likely to ask me if I have kids.
I have never had to get in a physical fight over matters of manly honor. I didn’t really expect I would, but some guys seem to put a lot of stock in “women want to be equal to men, but can they fight like a man?” And the answer turns out to be that when you’re thirty-eight years old and you don’t start fights, this is literally never an issue.
Sometimes patients mistakenly call me “doctor,” and that never happened when I was a woman.
So if everything’s the same, why bother? It’s been a lot of time and money and needles and exposure to Republican opinions just to end up at “life is the same, except I’m on the other side of sexism now.”
I don’t know. It’s ineffable. It’s something that I want simply because I want it. And in eight years I’ve never stopped wanting it. I can picture myself pretending to be a woman again, but not being one.
That’s the sticky thing about being trans, when you get really honest about it. When you’re trying to explain it, you either have to point to goofy boys-blue-girls-pink shit like “I liked trucks as a kid,” or to… nothing, seemingly. To “just because, but it’s a very important just because.” Gender is extremely silly and arbitrary and I also don’t know why I have one, but apparently I do.
Being a man feels exactly like being a woman, except without the part where I’m being slowly worn down by the feeling that I’m constantly pretending to be someone else.