Author: Nadya Markowska

May 8, 2023

by Nadya Markowska

Oregon Republicans Would Rather Risk Their Careers Than Let Trans People Live In Peace

Senate GOP Walkout Threatens Votes on Abortion Rights, Gun Control, Transgender Protections.

A colored photo collage of ten Oregon representatives and senators who have put their names alongside a bill that would limit or ban access to gender-affirming healthcare for youth and prisoners. All are Republicans, and all are white and at least middle-aged. The men all have short-cropped haircuts with streaks of gray layered onto the sides with well-groomed mustaches or neat beards, while the women are all sporting blonde, shoulder-length hair and fashionable suits.

March 5, 2023

by Nadya Markowska

No, Seriously, They’re Coming For Us Here, Too (And We Can’t Let Them)

Two Prospective Bills in the Oregon Senate Seek to Ban Gender-Affirming Healthcare for Youth and Prisoners

November 21, 2022

by Nadya Markowska

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Be a Trans Woman

I want to be joyful.

A screenshot of a black-and-white american flag with 53 stars, five of them colored red, set against a white background next to a rendering of the statue of liberty, draped in a brightly colored american flag

November 10, 2022

by Nadya Markowska

I Tried to Interview for a Job With a Right-Wing Fringe Group

I’ve felt hopeless before–we all have–but this is what true hopelessness sounds and looks like

Picture of the old Columbia County Courthouse in St. Helens, Oregon. The building is over a hundred years old, but it is well maintained, with dark gray bricks and clean white wood trim. Big windows are arranged in groups of four on either side of the courthouse, and a little tower emerges from the middle of the top of the building. Behind the courthouse is a blue sky filled with puffy white clouds.

October 31, 2022

by Nadya Markowska

I Applied For a Job With a Right-Wing Fringe Group

One morning, I woke up and applied for a new job. By the end of the day I was listening to a poem written by a 19th-century Populist who loved eugenics. In between, I quit the job I already had by simply walking out.

Satellite image of the area around Liberal, Oregon, showing markings for Wagonwheel, the Molalla River, the Pacific Northwest Skydiving Center, the Oregon Child Development Coaltion, and distant markers for Carus, Gladstone, Clackamas, and New Era

August 31, 2022

by Nadya Markowska

I Told You They Could Change The Name of Swastika Mountain, and More Ridiculous Oregon Place Names

So, I hear they’re changing the name of ol’ Swastika Mountain. In a stunning victory for both progressive geography nerds and people who still get upset about things they read in the newspaper, the...

Photograph of a rolling hill, covered in dry grass. A simple wooden fence cuts through the middle of the photo and disappears behind an old wooden barn that looks to be at least a hundred years old. Beyond the barn and the fence is a darkened sky, with troubling thunderstorm clouds stretching all the way to the horizon. But the photograph is still bright, implying that the sun is still out from behind the direction the photograph was taken.

August 26, 2022

by Nadya Markowska

The World Began in Eden and Ended in Los Angeles: A Brief Reflection on a Year Away From Home

California sucks. Everything you’ve heard about the place is (mostly) true. It’s beautiful, all of it: the mountains, the deserts, the forests, the shorelines, and the people, too. Everything grows here. It’s lush and...

May 30, 2022

by Nadya Markowska

EDITORIAL: Reflections on the Second Anniversary of ‘M29’

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years since Eugene spontaneously combusted on the night of May 29, 2020. So much has changed, and yet nothing has changed, not for the better, at...

August 25, 2021

by Nadya Markowska

Dispatch from Portland: ‘That Place Where the Wave Finally Broke and Rolled Back’

Come what may, the Portland Police Bureau wasn’t going to get involved. I couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing.

August 20, 2021

by Nadya Markowska

Report Says Eugene Saw More Hate Crimes in 2020, In Case You Were Looking for Proof

The report acknowledges that “the struggles of 2020”–meaning the pandemic, economic anxiety, civil unrest, and all that political street fighting–likely contributed to the rise in hate and bias crimes last year.