Lawyer, immunocompromised, writer, public health nerd | Then: SSI. Be A Hero. Now: data & policy, disability, healthcare. they 🏳️🌈
Washington DC / Boston MA
Joined April 2011
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ALT As we wrap up Coming Out Day 2026: I am quoted by Annie M. Lowrey, staff writer at The Atlantic, in her new book The Time Tax published August 25, 2026 by HarperCollins. To the best of my knowledge I was not contacted by the author or publisher, or any representatives of either, for fact checking. The book refers to me as “he” — I’m nonbinary, use they/them, and have been openly out since 2022. Matthew Cortland, they/them, nonbinary now more than ever.
Love to be misgendered in a book - it's my favorite goddamn thing
So apparently we're doing this again, on coming out day:
Matthew Cortland - they/them
You should get all the vaccines.
shouldntneedtobealawyer.com/…
Trying to convince the American electorate that ‘Medicaid work requirements’ are bad is like trying to convince a toddler that 'bedtime' is good.
It's going to fail until you change the frame.
I'm sharing this because if you're ever in the position of having to decide whether to accept hospice care for a loved one with dementia (and I sincerely hope you never find yourself in this position), I hope you don't balk.
shouldntneedtobealawyer.com/…
We do have a name for making individuals responsible for their own water: a boil-water advisory. It is, by definition, an emergency measure. It exists because the system failed.
patreon.com/mattbc/posts/tay…
In 1908, Jersey City became the first American city to routinely chlorinate its drinking water. Within a decade, nearly every large city had followed. Clean water infrastructure accounted for ~1/2 of the entire decline in urban death rates in the early 1900s
I don't know of a single credible public health expert who says we should abolish drinking water treatment facilities and make everyone decontaminate their own water. Nor one who says we should rip out the sewers and have every household manage its own waste.
If you trust my expertise about anything at all, trust this analysis from the intersection of public health and public opinion: the American people will not adopt masking at the rates needed for the source control required to prevent covid.
I'm angry every goddamn time I have to hurt myself cranking my mask straps as tight as possible, bc we don't require health care facilities to meet a standard equivalent to 12 air changes per hour.
Lorenz exploits the anger many disabled folks feel at being treated as disposable in the face of covid. It's an anger I share. I'm angry that loved ones have died. I'm angry that I've been permanently harmed by long covid, loved ones have been harmed by LC
Shame + stigma are not effective public health tools. The science doesn't show an upside to bullying as a behavior-change intervention, but does show a measurable downside. Hate-mobbing people about masks won't produce the source-control required to matter at population scale
Taylor Lorenz has spent the last days of August in a fight over because she harasses women of color. In June she attacked @maysoonzayid over an unmasked video. In 2023 she led a hate-mob at @the_tattooedjew for pulling his mask down in a photo.
