cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1499927

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is known for its caves, but there’s a lot more to the national park – which is celebrating its centennial this year.

Despite its name, there is only one Carlsbad Cavern, but there are many other caves in the park. There’s also plenty to see above ground, including the park’s famous bats, brilliant night sky and the rugged beauty of the Chihuahuan Desert.

“The combination of the desert ecosystem, being so kind of harsh and fragile with hot temperatures and stabby plants, and then the fragile nature of the cave ecosystem beneath your feet is a really neat contrast,” said Anthony Mazzucco, a park guide and acting supervisory park ranger at Carlsbad Caverns. “The bats being like a link between the cave and the desert kind of brings it all full circle. It's a really powerful lesson in the way our ecosystems work and relate to each other.”

Here’s what visitors should know about Carlsbad Caverns, the latest national park in USA TODAY’s yearlong series. The Bat Flight Amphitheater is perfectly situated so visitors can see bats exiting Carlsbad Cavern's Natural Entrance from a safe distance. How many caves are in Carlsbad Caverns?

There are at least 120 known caves in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The only one currently open to the general public is Carlsbad Cavern. Mazzucco explained most caves are off limits to both visitors and park staff not only for their safety but to protect the cave ecosystems.

“Those areas of the self-guided routes in Carlsbad Cavern, and to an extent even the guided tour areas, have all been kind of sacrificed in a way,” he said. “The infrastructure and the lighting and the trail system create an element of permanent damage to the cave. (It) is great because you can allow people to see it up close and personal and learn about it in a safe manner, but some caves, that’s just not possible to do it in.”

Cavers can sometimes get recreational permits for other caves in the park, but that program is on hold, as are interpretative tours of Slaughter Canyon Cave. The only ranger-led tour currently available is the King’s Palace Tour of Carlsbad Cavern. Fragile soda straw stalactites and columns fill Doll's Theater in Carlsbad Cavern's Big Room. What’s so special about Carlsbad Cavern?

Carlsbad Cavern is full of mesmerizing rock formations that visitors can explore at their own pace.

The park notes late humorist Will Rogers once likened it to “the Grand Canyon with a roof over it,” adding “it’s got all the cathedrals of the world in it, with half of ’em hanging upside down.” Do you have to make a reservation for Carlsbad Caverns?

Reservations are required to enter the cavern itself. They must be made in advance at Recreation.gov or by calling 877-444-6777.

Reservations cost $1 per person, regardless of age. A $15 cavern entrance fee is also required for visitors ages 16 and up. Cave entry is free for guests age 15 and under, but they still need a $1 reservation.

“Anything on the surface, no reservation and no entry fee is needed into the park,” Mazzucco said. “So any surface hiking trails or watching the Bat Flight Program we do in the summertime evenings or any astronomy dark sky programs or just star-watching on their own, wildlife viewing, if the park has any special presentations or looking around the visitor center exhibit hall or doing any shopping in the bookstore, all of that is free.”

Visitors should note a number of surface hiking trails and Walnut Canyon Desert Drive are currently closed, due to flood damage. The latest conditions and closures can be found on the park’s website. Snow lightly covers Slaughter Canyon at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. What months are the bats at Carlsbad Caverns?

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is home to 17 bat species.

“The colony that we're famous for is referred to as Brazilian freetailed bats,” Mazzucco said. The migratory bats spend the summer roosting in Carlsbad Cavern, arriving as early as April and staying until September or October. “By the fall, whenever the weather gets a little colder, there's no insects around to eat, the bats will migrate south to Mexico or further south in Central America.”

Weather permitting, each night during the summer, rangers host a free Bat Flight Program talk at the park’s Bat Flight Amphitheater, where visitors can watch hundreds of thousands of bats take flight from the cavern’s Natural Entrance. The third Saturday of each July, the park hosts a whole bat celebration.

“Every day we like to celebrate our flying mammal friends but for Dawn of the Bats is kind of a day focus on that education,” Mazzucco said. “We typically have these ranger talks in the evening to watch the bats exit the cave every night. For Dawn of the Bats, we kind of reverse it and some of our staff will get up pretty early and invite the public to join right around sunrise for a chance to watch or mainly listen to the baths return to the cavern.” Other activities are held throughout the day. Visitors can watch hundreds of thousands of bats take flight each summer night at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. How long does it take to walk through Carlsbad Cavern?

Exploring Carlsbad Cavern can take as little as 45 minutes to upwards of two-and-half hours, depending on if visitors walk the steep path down from the cave’s Natural Entrance or take an elevator to the relatively flat Big Room.

“For being such an extreme environment, it's fairly accessible, all things considered,” Mazzucco noted. “If folks have any of their own mobility devices, you know, wheelchair, electric scooter, one of those kinds of knee carts if they have a leg injury, things like that, A-OK to go down the elevator and explore most of the Big Room. We just kind of prohibit those devices on the main corridor section because of the steep switchbacking trail, to prevent any safety issue.”

There are more than 60 switchbacks on the Natural Entrance Trail, which he said descends 750 feet or the equivalent of three-quarters of the height of the Empire State Building. Visitors who use wheelchairs can access Carlsbad Cavern's Big Room by elevator.

National parks for every body:How to make the outdoors more accessible to people with disabilities Is Carlsbad Caverns the biggest cave in the US?

The Big Room is the largest single cave chamber by volume in North America, but Carlsbad Cavern is not the biggest cave.

Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the longest known cave system in the whole world. What is the closest city to Carlsbad Caverns?

Carlsbad Caverns is 20 miles away from Carlsbad, New Mexico and 145 miles away from El Paso, Texas. El Paso International Airport is the nearest major airport. A caver looks out across Carlsbad Caverns National Park at night. How close are White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns?

The national parks are less than three and a half hours apart by car.

Carlsbad Caverns is actually closer to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. They are just over 30 minutes away from each other. Who are the Indigenous people of Carlsbad Caverns?

According to the park, prehistoric Native peoples lived in the Guadalupe Mountains between 12,000 to 14,000 years ago and Mescalero Apache arrived in the area in around 1400.

Mazzucco said while there is so far no known evidence of these early residents going far into the dark zone of Carlsbad Cavern, they did leave some pictographs and rock art near the Natural Entrance of the cavern.“Folks hiking down the main corridor, they kind of walk past that area, and keen observers can notice them,” he said. “There are lots (more) within the park, mostly in hard to reach backcountry areas that have some specific closures.” More than 60 switchbacks takes visitors down Natural Entrance Trail, which is not advised for visitors with heart or respiratory conditions.

Officially, House Republicans censured Rep. Adam B. Schiff this week. What they actually did was give a YUGE in-kind contribution to the California Democrat’s campaign for the Senate.

That was just one example in recent days of the Republicans’ clown car backfiring in the party’s bumbling drive to weaponize the government against political foes — the very crime it inaptly projects onto Democrats.

Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.

Separately, Republicans trumpeted a House hearing into a recent report widely derided as a dud — except in their parallel, fact-free, Fox-friendly MAGA universe — that tried to show Democratic bias in the origins of the government investigation, ultimately led by Robert S. Mueller III, into the 2016 Trump campaign’s dalliance with Russian operatives. Predictably, Democrats, including Schiff, humiliated the Republicans’ star witness, special counsel John Durham, a Trump holdover and the report’s author, as they confronted him with the fact that he found no Deep State shenanigans and won no convictions.

And in a third episode, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) had to scramble to prevent one of his caucus’ most incendiary troublemakers, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, from forcing a House vote on a resolution to impeach President Biden. That contretemps included a nasty face-off on the House floor between Boebert and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, sponsor of a competing impeachment resolution. (The term “cat fight” is loathsomely sexist, but in the case of these right-wing rivals, if the fur fits ….)

All of these goings-on add up to a big waste of time and money. The Durham investigation alone took four years and more than $6.5 million to end “with a whimper.” Sure, the battling satisfies former President Trump and serves up red meat for a party base that likes vengeance as much as he does. But the Republican carnivores are doing nothing to advance a positive agenda for the country and expand their party’s appeal beyond the bloodthirsty true believers.

Which is just the point Schiff made in a fundraising email about his censure: “These political smear tactics divert the resources of the House away from the pressing priorities that Congress should be addressing, and that I want to tackle as your Senator.”

Are the Republicans so blinded by Trumpian sycophancy that they didn’t realize what a gift they gave Schiff by singling him out for supposedly misleading voters about Trump? It’s not just the money Schiff no doubt is raising for his race against Democratic Reps. Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein. By making a victim of Schiff, the Republicans polished the otherwise colorless congressman’s image and established him as one of Congress’ most effective anti-Trump figures.

For anyone grounded in reality, the censure was downright comical. The resolution charged that Schiff, as the former lead Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a Trump impeachment manager, “spread false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.”

But the accusations weren’t false. However much the Republicans malign the Mueller investigation, its account of a Trump Tower meeting, shared polling data, WikiLeaks and more establishes that. Forget the semantic or legalistic debate over the word “collude” and call it by another name: The Trump campaign and Trump himself were cooperating, encouraging and welcoming any help from Russia. (“Russia, if you’re listening ....”)

Also, how rich that McCarthy, from the speaker’s dais, would cite Schiff’s alleged “falsehoods, misrepresentations and abuse of sensitive information.” You’d think he was describing Trump’s 37-count indictment for hoarding and hiding hundreds of classified documents.

Then, speaking of misrepresentations, there’s this: The Republican sponsor of the censure was freshman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who hails from the Rep. George Santos school of self-creation, according to a deep dive the Washington Post did into her background. (Speaking of Santos, why haven’t Republicans censured him for his lies and admitted fraud?)

Luna charged that Schiff had “ripped apart American families across the country” with his falsehoods about Trump. Has she followed the former president’s career? Read about the Thanksgiving dinners nationwide disrupted by his divisiveness? Forgotten the families literally ripped apart at the border by his policies?

The Durham hearing was supposed to dovetail with Schiff’s censure. Yet try as they might, the Republicans on the House committee could not spin their way out of the facts: Durham found no criminal wrongdoing by high-level Justice and FBI officials (let alone former President Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden), no Deep State conspiracy to get Trump, nothing prosecutable on the part of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of Torrance mockingly said at one point, “I don’t actually know what we’re doing here.”

Neither did the Republicans, it turns out. The House is such a circus under their (mis)management, one can hardly wait for the jesters to bring their half-baked Biden impeachment resolutions back to the floor. If you want to weaponize the levers of power, you need facts, not pop guns.

@jackiekcalmes

Home decor color trends come and go, but classic white linens—like bedding, towels, and tablecloths—never go out of style. Sure, being a neutral color helps, but there’s a certain comfort that comes from being able to look at white bedsheets or a washcloth and immediately know whether they’re clean.

Unfortunately, getting to that point is easier said than done. Here are three mistakes to avoid when washing whites. Don’t make these mistakes when washing white linens

With more than 20 years of industry experience, Wayne “The StainMaster” Edelman, CEO of Meurice Garment Care, has successfully tackled the toughest of stains, and is a whiz at washing whites. Below are three common laundry mistakes, and his tips for dealing with them:

1. Thinking white is the absence of color

First things first: White isn’t the absence of color—it is a color. “Most think that fabrics are white at their core,” says Edelman. “But white textiles are dyed white, and fade like any other color.” 2. Using chlorine-based bleach

One of the first things people learn about doing laundry is that bleach is the most effective way to get whites sparkling clean. But bleach can cause the fibers in the fabric to deteriorate, and while it does remove stains, it can also leave your laundry more yellow than white.

“The best way to brighten and restore stained and darkened white linens or towels is to soak them in warm water [and] laundry detergent, and use a sodium-based bleach like OxyClean,” Edelman says. 3. Missing clear stains

Not all stains show up right away on white linens. “Clear stains like sunscreen, white wine, and glue, may not always be seen on your white furnishes or towels, but they, in fact, are sugar stains and will caramelize overtime,” Edelman explains. This is why a napkin or towel may be white after you wash it and put it away, then look yellow when you pull it out next.

To prevent this from happening, Edelman says that you should always pre-soak or treat white linens if you know something was spilled on them—even if you can’t see the stains.

There’s no doubt about it.

It’s anyone’s pride to finish a university degree cum laude. More so if magna cum laude or summa cum laude. The longer the title, the greater the prestige.

When the honors system was first established at Oxford University in the early 19th century, it was meant “for superior students to separate themselves from the rest of their classmates.”

To this day its purpose remains the same. This is why honor students have a special place in every graduation ceremony. To their peers and parents, they are the embodiment of academic success.

But do these honors mean anything beyond the academe? Do they really matter in the “real world”? Debate

In a way, you can say that the jury’s still out.

Commentaries, on the one hand, abound as to why graduating with distinction matters. They argue that your academic record says a great deal about you, your work ethic, and subject mastery.

One even goes so far as to say that graduating with honors demonstrates soft skills. After all, a student must also embody “diligence, self-discipline, and time-management skills to succeed in a class.”

According to this view, these soft skills matter to a potential employer.

But others maintain a more meticulous view, suggesting that Latin honors are important only for fresh graduates. They have, after all, no work experience. Thus, from the perspective of potential employers, academic recognitions may be “predictive of future performance.”

At the same time, they are also aware that emotional quotient may matter more in assessing a fresh graduate’s preparedness. Personality tests and interviews are helpful in this regard.

Some local case studies validate this point too. Those who end up in managerial positions, according to a university-based study, are not necessarily the honor graduates. Organizations, after all, tend to look for the right fit, paying attention to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need. During the job search, applicants need to demonstrate that they are ready to “deal with changes and challenging situations at the workplace” while maintaining “harmonious relationships” with colleagues.

From this vantage point, it’s no wonder that a lot of “self-made Filipinos” would question the merits of graduating with honors. They might say that being maabilidad or madiskarte is far more consequential, regardless of one’s academic achievements. In effect they question the prestige accorded to one’s academic credentials.

But there’s also a sociological point to be made here and it’s about the proverbial elephant in the room: social class and academic elitism.

In the Philippine context, a case could be made that elites breed more elites.

Based on a tracer study commissioned by CHED in 1999, graduates of the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University, and the Ateneo de Manila University were employed faster and with higher incomes at a shorter period of time, compared to graduates of other institutions. (To be fair this study needs to be updated but I suspect the observation is still valid.)

This, among other factors, explains why many Filipinos consider it desirable to study in these institutions.

But as we all know, it’s generally students from affluent families—via private schools—who make it to these tertiary institutions. For various reasons, many students from low-income families are ill-equipped to pass these universities’ entrance examinations. These reasons include malnutrition and the general quality of learning in impoverished areas.

And in spite of free education in state universities and colleges, underprivileged students have yet other financial ordeals to confront to finish their degrees. Transportation, meals, projects, and term papers all incur costs.

If the mark of good education is social mobility and of an excellent student graduating with honors, then we have a problem in the Philippine context.

In other words, finishing a degree with honors may not be as important as graduating from the “right” (read: elite) institution. While we have inspiring stories among the poor who have finished their degrees to become successful in their chosen careers, the wider pattern is still in favor of privileged youths.

Thus, the mark of academic success that is the Latin honors is for the most part also a mark of economic privilege. This does not bode well for a society like ours where four out of ten learners drop out by Grade 10. Pragmatic matter

One can also approach graduating with honors as a pragmatic matter.

In sociological speak, university education is a competitive field where a student needs to be strategic in order to move up the ladder of recognitions. At the top of this ladder is its most prized possession, the Latin honors.

I don’t know if many students are conscious about it, but I have encountered a few who took my class thinking that they could ace it and protect their cherished GPAs. I’m certain that my colleagues have other stories to tell, and often these moments disappoint us.

While I’m hopeful that these students do not constitute the majority, I can also see how university education is designed to foster this kind of thinking, in which one’s ultimate goal is the “highest possible grade, rather than an opportunity for intellectual exploration.”

So, does graduating with honors really matter?

I think it does, but only if in the context of a curriculum that fosters critical thinking and challenges its community of learners to reflect on the choices they make. In my view, academic excellence without regard for what is just will only be self-serving.

At the end of the day, it’s the only education that matters, one in which its learners – students and professors alike – are in a constant conversation about how to live their lives with honor. – Rappler.com

Jayeel Cornelio, PhD (TOYM 2021) is Professor of Development Studies and the Associate Dean for Research and Creative Work at the Ateneo de Manila University. Follow him on Twitter @jayeel_cornelio.

A state government should not be able to sue the federal government just because it disagrees with a federal policy. This principle, affirmed by the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision on Friday, should be obvious.

But in recent years, as the country has become more politically polarized, there have been a proliferation of suits filed by states to dismantle White House policies. Blue states, including California, did this during the Trump years and the trend has intensified with red states taking the Biden administration to court.

Friday’s ruling in United States vs. Texas is a perfect illustration. In 2021, the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security announced its priorities in arresting and deporting those who are illegally in the United States. There are more than 11 million undocumented individuals in the country, but only several hundred thousand can practically be deported each year. The Biden administration said that it would focus its arrest and deportation efforts on suspected terrorists or dangerous criminals, or people who unlawfully entered the country recently.

Texas and Louisiana sued the administration in federal court claiming that federal laws require it to arrest more people pending their deportation. But Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for the majority (only Justice Samuel Alito dissented), ruled that the states lacked standing to sue. The decision was also a rebuke to the federal district court in Texas and the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, both of which ruled that the states could sue the federal government over a policy disagreement.

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It is a longstanding principle that for a federal court to hear a case, the plaintiff must show that it was directly harmed, that the defendant caused the harm and that the harm could be remedied by a court decision. The court said that neither Texas nor Louisiana met that test.

In the past, the standing issue was often used by the Supreme Court to dismiss suits seeking to change the law in a progressive direction. For example, 40 years ago, the court dismissed a case involving use of chokeholds by Los Angeles police officers for lack of standing to sue, concluding that the plaintiff could not show that he was likely to be injured in the future. And suits seeking to protect the environment have been dismissed for lack of standing.

Although I think the court is often too restrictive in its standing rulings, Friday’s decision closely follows from earlier precedents and rightly limits the ability of states to sue in federal court because they disagree with a presidential policy.

The practical effect of the court’s analysis is its recognition that the government must make choices in enforcing the law. Thus, the Department of Homeland Security must set priorities in arresting and deporting non-citizens and it is not for the federal courts to second guess those choices. As Kavanaugh wrote, “If the Court green-lighted this suit, we could anticipate complaints in future years about alleged Executive Branch under-enforcement of any similarly worded laws — whether they be drug laws, gun laws, obstruction of justice laws, or the like. We decline to start the Federal Judiciary down that uncharted path.”

This is actually the second time this month that the court restricted the ability of states to sue when they dislike federal policy. Last week, in upholding the federal Indian Child Welfare Act — a law that says priority should be given to Native American families when Native American children are placed for adoption in foster care — the court again dismissed a claim by Texas that the law was an unconstitutional racial preference. In a 7-2 opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court concluded that the state of Texas could not show that it was injured by the federal law.

Friday’s decision is a double-edged sword. It will mean that when there is a conservative Republican president, states like California will be limited in their ability to sue. But the court did not close the door to all suits by states, only that they must meet the standing test. While the law in this area certainly is not new, the court did the right thing by applying it in this case.

Erwin Chemerinsky is a contributing writer to Opinion and dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

A cure for the common opinion

Once a year, everyone I know becomes a farmer. They plan ahead, pack a picnic, grab a hat and head to a farm to pick strawberries. Flats fill up with the sweet fruit you don’t eat in the field, people gain a little appreciation for farm workers after spending the day hunched over, and we all end up making big berry plans and dreaming sweet berry dreams. Mostly though, people go home, gorge on fresh berries and/or make jam.

I don’t know who eats all that jam, and I hate giving away jars, so I have a raft of ideas for what to make instead, starting with my very popular strawberry vinegar. I’m going to offer two ways to make it—beginner and advanced. Vinegar-making tools for your vinegar-making needs:

A vinegar mommy, to make it truly from scratch: Supreme Red Wine Mother of Vinegar
A big ol’ carboy, with an air lock: FastRack 1-gallon Jug with Twin bubble Airlock
Spoilage-preventing tablets: Campden Tablets

Why is strawberry vinegar such a good idea? You use more vinegar than you think. There’s salad dressing, sure, and marinades, but brightness is a thing your cooking could use more of, and flavored vinegars (good ones) are expensive, so they don’t see as much use as they should. Making it yourself means you’ll have an endless supply, and can afford to pop a little into your soy sauce, add a little to your gazpacho for some sweetness, or toss a bit with your grilled veggies for an instant brightness that illuminates the Maillard effect on the vegetables. You can also use it to add a tangy sweetness to all your potato salads or coleslaw. Next time you sauté some vegetables on the stove, give it a splash of vinegar to make the flavor brighter. Point is, when you’re not thinking about how expensive the pretty bottle was, you’ll find a lot more uses for flavored vinegar in your kitchen. Quick strawberry vinegar Ingredients:

1 quart of apple cider vinegar
1 pint of very ripe strawberries
1 teaspoon of sugar

Destem the strawberries, and add everything to a blender. Blend for 30-45 seconds (or more), as needed to get the mixture as blended as your blender will allow. Allow the mixture to sit for 6 hours, then pour it through a sieve or strainer into a bowl. Bottle it, and it should be shelf stable, because of the acid content.

This process produces a vinegar that has a distinct strawberry flavor, but still has the sharpness of the cider vinegar, which is softened a little by the sugar. All we’re doing here is flavoring the apple cider vinegar, instead of making real strawberry vinegar, which I’ll explain how to do below. Strawberry vinegar, the long way Ingredients:

3 pounds of strawberries
2 pounds of honey
1 quart of water
1 package of wine yeast (You can use any yeast you like, sometimes I use champagne yeast, sometimes I use sour beer yeast, but this is not bread yeast, to be clear.)
1 vinegar mother
1/2 campden tablet
1 gallon carboy or jug, with airlock

In this case, you’re making strawberry wine, then letting that wine turn to vinegar. To start, you’re going to take clean, de-stemmed strawberries and put them into a heavy stockpot, with the honey and the water. Let it come to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. You want to ensure the honey is dissolved. The strawberries will break down, but they don’t have to do so entirely. Let the mixture cool down to room temperature, then crush your ½ campden tablet with the back of a spoon or a mortar and pestle, and add it to the mixture. Give it a good stir, cover it, and walk away for 24 hours.

When you return, you’ll pitch your yeast into the mixture. Simply open the package and sprinkle the yeast on the top. Give it five minutes, then mix it in. Now it’s time to get this into your carboy so it can ferment. Use a funnel to pour it into the clean carboy, then fasten your airlock on top of it. Set it in a dark and cool space. Within a few days, you’ll see it bubbling, causing the airlock to burp. This will continue for a few days or up to a week. You want to wait for it to stop bubbling entirely.

If you have a refractometer or a way to measure ABV, now is a good time to check that yours is under 10%, but if you don’t, that’s ok, too. You’re usually in the right range.

Remove the airlock and add your vinegar mother, then place some cheesecloth on top of the jug, and tie it onto the top. This is so the wine is exposed to air, but bugs can’t get in. Let the wine sit for 3-4 weeks, then give it a taste. You can continue to let it age this way, mellowing out and evaporating along the way. The longer you age it, the better it will taste. I usually let mine sit for about three months.

Now, you can use it as you’d like, decanting it a little at a time. Making it from scratch is riskier, it could go south because fermentation is risky and this has a lot of steps. If you start to see green or blue mold, it’s gone bad. If you see white mold, that’s just Kahm yeast, which isn’t a problem but doesn’t taste great, so you need to strain, boil and restart from where you left off (boiling gets rid of all yeast, so you’d need to add it back in). But its also a mostly hands off process that is so deeply rewarding, and results, if you do it right, in a far more delicious and smooth vinegar in the end.

Also, let’s be honest, you were never really serious about making strawberry ice cream.

You carry your ID with you wherever you go. It’s only right that your primary identity document reflects your gender identity. Well, as best an ID can—it’s not always easy or accurate to sum an individual up in an “F,” “M,” or a gender-neutral “X.” And for many transgender individuals, their gender is not actually whatever box they checked when they received their license as a teenager.

The more accurate someone’s gender marker is to how they identify, the easier it is for individuals to gain access to (and feel safe in) public spaces. A growing number of states are accommodating their nonbinary, transgender, and gender-nonconforming residents—nearly half of the country now allows people to select an “X” gender designation for their driver’s licenses. Still, a majority of states still do not have a non-binary option. On top of that, many states unfortunately make updating the gender marker on your license far more challenging than it should be. If you’re transgender and looking to update your ID, here’s what to know about changing your gender marker on your driver’s license.

State-by-state policies

Every state has different rules and processes for updating gender on a driver’s license. One thing that most states have in common is you must be at least 18 years old to legally changing your gender on legal documents like a driver’s license.

This map from the Movement Advancement Project shows which states allow residents to mark M, F, or X on their driver’s license, color-coded by how clear and easy the state’s policies are for actually making those gender marker changes.

Here are all the states that currently allow residents to select an “X” gender marker on their driver’s licenses:

1. Arkansas

2. California

3. Colorado

4. Connecticut

5. District of Columbia

6. Hawaii

7. Maine

8. Maryland

9. Massachusetts

10. Michigan

11. Minnesota

12. Nevada

13. New Hampshire

14. New Jersey

15. New Mexico

16. New York

17. Oregon

18. Pennsylvania

19. Rhode Island

20. Vermont

21. Virginia

22. Washington

While the following states don’t provide a gender-neutral or nonbinary option, they do allow gender marker changes on driver’s licenses, but only with proof of surgery, court order, or an altered birth certificate:

1. Georgia

2. Guam (U.S. Territory)

3. Iowa

4. Kentucky

5. Louisiana

6. Northern Mariana Islands (U.S. Territory)

7. South Carolina

8. Tennessee

9. Texas

If you live in a state not listed above, it may have an unclear, unknown, or unwritten policy regarding gender marker changes. There may be no court order or proof of surgery required, but still has burdensome process requirements that vary wildly. When you check out this map, be sure to click on your home state to read more about what its specific requirements look like.

How to prepare to change your gender marker

While each state has a different set of requirements, let’s look at New York’s process as an example of what someone should do to prepare for changing their gender marker on their driver’s license.

For making any changes to your driver’s license, you’ll need the DMV basics: Social Security Card (more on that below) and proof of your identity using a current government issued photo ID. There’s also a DMV-specific application for Permit, Driver License or Non-Driver ID Card.

According to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, one of the most important things you might need to change your gender marker is a doctor’s letter affirming or attesting to your gender transition. This letter should have as clear and direct language as possible about what your gender marker should say. What’s more, once you acquire this letter, the law project recommends making physical copies: Some governmental agencies may take and keep your letter for their records.

Finally, if you’re changing your gender marker on your driver’s license, you’ll need to change it across all your legal documents, in order to avoid the pain of mismatch errors down the line. Social Security is one of the first documents you should update, as that will make it easier to then go about confirming your gender for your passport and driver’s license and so on. Here’s the official Social Security guide to updating your gender on record.

For many transgender individuals, legal documents have a resounding impact in ways big and small. Whether it’s how you’re being addressed in your junk mail, to how you’re treated by TSA, to how the bouncer at your favorite bar checks your ID—you deserve to move through the world as safely and true to yourself as possible.

Of all the urgent problems House Republicans could be tackling — gun violence, voting rights, climate change — they are using some of their power to fan the flames of a cultural war over gas stoves.

Last week the GOP-controlled House passed legislation that would prevent the Consumer Product Safety Commission from using federal money to regulate or ban gas stoves and block the U.S. Energy Department from making gas ranges and ovens less wasteful by setting stricter energy efficiency standards.

The Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and the Save Our Gas Stoves Act amount to little more than political posturing. Yet the measures show how much Republicans are trying to cling to the polluting fossil fuel technology of the past in a world that is slowly but surely going all-electric.

The legislation purports to respond to a nonexistent problem: The unfounded fear that the feds are trying to seize people’s gas stoves ( which they’re not

) or ban them ( they’re not doing that, either

). These bills would needlessly hamper regulators by preventing them from setting standards to keep Americans safe from gas leaks and indoor pollution and saving them money by increasing energy efficiency in the kitchen — as they have done with little controversy for decades for every type of home appliance you can imagine.

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These bills aren’t expected to go anywhere, because they’re unlikely to clear the Senate or be signed into law by President Biden. The White House issued a statement opposing the bills, saying they would undermine the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s “ability to make science-based decisions to protect the public” and “block common sense efforts to help Americans cut their energy bills.”

Proponents such as Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) have cast the legislation in “don’t tread on me” terms, to protect “consumer choice” from the Biden administration’s supposed “war against gas stoves.” And it’s disappointing that Californians from both sides of the aisle were among those voting in favor.

California, like other blue states, is heavily reliant on gas for home cooking and heating, but state and local officials are adopting a growing number of policies aimed at electrifying buildings, including measures to ban gas hookups in new construction and phase out sales of gas furnaces and water heaters. Still, targeting stoves remains touchy for regulators, in part because of the success of a decades-long industry disinformation campaign that mythologized methane gas as a “clean” and “natural” fuel.

Republicans seized on gas stoves earlier this year after Richard Trumka Jr., a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, suggested the agency could regulate or even ban gas stoves as a health hazard. The commission was quick to clarify that it was not seeking to ban gas stoves, only asking for public input on their health hazards. And the White House has been clear that President Biden does not support banning gas stoves.

This move is not an entirely hollow gesture because it’s part of a broader GOP-led push to restrict government’s power to protect people from pollution while propping up the fossil fuel industry. It aligns squarely with the interests of oil and gas companies that have successfully blocked efforts by states to ban new gas hookups, improve energy standards and otherwise prevent states and cities from switching to more efficient electric appliances fueled by clean, renewable energy.

It’s a transition that is going to happen whether fossil-fuel-supporting politicians like it or not. There’s been mounting evidence of the health risks of gas stoves, including a recently published study by Stanford University researchers who tested them in homes in California and Colorado and found they emit unhealthful levels of benzene, a cancer-causing pollutant, that can linger indoors for hours and reach higher concentrations than in secondhand cigarette smoke. It’s only the latest research to find dangerous levels of health-damaging air pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide, inside homes with gas stoves, even when they are turned off.

Republicans are trying to turn what should be a sober, science-based discussion about kitchen appliances into another wedge issue — or as Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio put it earlier this year, “God. Guns. Gas stoves.” But such efforts show they care more about defending the fossil fuel industry than protecting people’s health and lowering utility bills. Those priorities are wildly misplaced and should be laughed out of the chamber.

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