Senior Reporter @Independent covering US news, tech, politics, & social change. Formerly @Telegraph. She/her. DMs open; on Signal; [email protected]

San Francisco
Joined May 2012
✨MY YEAR IN REVIEW✨ 2022 was my first full year as a self-employed reporter, and as an openly trans reporter. Here are some of my favourite stories I've written in that time. (If you just found my profile and are wondering what my deal is, start here!)
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THIS WEEK ON IOSPHERE: My spouse's ear canals are huge & gaping. Mine are tiny & dainty. So while their earplugs are branded 'Daddy', I use bright pink 'Dreamgirls'. And this, in a roundabout way, explains my problem with "gender affirming healthcare". iosphere.beehiiv.com/p/15-ge…
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🚨✨🌘 EXCITING NEWS, Io fans 🌒✨🚨 After a long hiatus due to being laid off + very sick, my newsletter IOSPHERE is back!!! iosphere.beehiiv.com/p/14-mi… This week: why I'm inventing my own religion, what kind of God it honours, and why no one but me is allowed to follow it.
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Impossible to estimate attendance at No Kings 2 in SF, but every time I get up high I can’t see the end of it. Very festive, party atmosphere. Less “antifa supersoldiers setting the nation ablaze” and more “welcome to the resistance, would you like some home/baked cookies?”
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TODAY ON IOSPHERE: Ancient alien Santa Claus. Pumpkins carving each other's faces. A sexy man in a swimming pool caressing a large frog. Infinite boredom. Please join me on a surreal journey through Meta's new AI-generated TikTok clone, 'Vibes'. iosphere.beehiiv.com/p/9-met…
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So did you hear about the Michigan Republican trying to ban all porn and all trans people from the web? Well... turns out the reality is more complicated. This week on my newsletter IOSPHERE, I dig into the bizarre 'Anticorruption of Public Morals Act' iosphere.beehiiv.com/p/8-mic…
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When I was a kid, around the start of puberty, my performance in class suddenly began to slip. Then a teacher thought to ask if I needed glasses, and the problem was fixed. It's not the dysphoria that kills us, darling. It's the pan-societal gaslighting denial of any solution.
I am begging scientists to find which genes are responsible for gender dysphoria and to eliminate this horror from existence. Have I made my peace with what I am? Yes. Have I developed a lot of grit that makes me professionally useful? Also yes. But I wouldn’t wish a childhood where your broken development leads to this much trauma on my worst enemy. I don’t need future children to suffer for me to feel good about myself today.
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🚨🚨 JOURNO REQUEST 🚨🚨 Are you ⚧️ A trans person 💊 who recently had trouble getting HRT thru a mail-order pharmacy 🇺🇸 anywhere in the USA? If so, I want to hear from you for a story I'm working on! Please take my survey: docs.google.com/forms/d/1K67… All shares v much appreciated
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Io Dodds 🌔🏳️‍⚧️ retweeted
genuinely today is like the series finale of twitter xitter.cf/kanyewest/status/19307…
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NEW from me: In the debut edition of Iosphere, I explore why the British government is stumbling towards a nationwide anti-trans bathroom ban — and expose the nonsense moon logic that underpins it. (Thread follows; link to come)
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Though this seems ludicrous on its face, I did dig into the evidence. Surprise: there isn't any! Still, it makes more sense when you understand what brought us here: a years-long effort by culture warriors in both parties to systematically turn the EHRC into an anti-trans org.
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To get the full story, read my newsletter here — featuring the work of @trans_safety, @IanDunt, and @BenInLDN. And if you appreciated this post, please subscribe to Iosphere! It's new, it's free, and it would mean a lot to me. 💚 iosphere.beehiiv.com/p/1-a-v…
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Io Dodds 🌔🏳️‍⚧️ retweeted
true american moment: getting so fired up about 9/11 you let two cobras bite you and almost die, only to redouble your efforts to gain immunity to snakebites and possibly lead to the development of a universal snake antivenom
This is insanely hardcore
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NEW: I've obtained a full copy of Zizian defendant Michelle Zajko's "open letter to the world". As well as protesting her innocence, it makes detailed sexual abuse allegations against SF Bay Area rationalists and says Ziz herself is "on hunger strike". the-independent.com/news/wor…
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Now, is that the adulation of a cultist for their leader, or just very intense trans girl friendship? Beyond a certain level of shared struggle, mentorship, and philosophy, how much difference is there? I honestly don't know. I post that part so you can make your own judgement.
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Incidentally, that bit about Ziz "stopping a terrorist attack"? Sounds wild, but it IS something Ziz claimed on her blog in 2021 & 2022. Ziz said she spent "months" trying to persuade a rationalist not to bomb a solstice gathering & frame her for it. Implies she succeeded. 🤷🏻‍♀️
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