Words are awesome. We use words to express ourselves, to paint pictures for each other, to explain the world and our viewpoints in vivid, meticulous detail. There is a heart-stirring magic in the poetry and art of words.

But words can also obscure, conceal, and mislead. Words can be bent, they can weasel into unlikely positions, they can camouflage and doublespeak ideas as something else. There is a sinister potential in how words can deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate. (That’s one for the diehard X-Files fans in the readership.)

This is not news to puzzle solvers. Crossword cluing is often about playfully duping the reader, using puns, alternate pronunciations, and clever phrasing to challenge the solver.

But there is a certain charm and elegance to speaking directly, to bluntly sharing who you are and what you are about. No room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Only truth and honesty, explicitly stated.

And that’s why I appreciate how crossword charity endeavors have been dropping all pretense and simply stating what they’re about.

Like These Puzzles Fund Abortion. They don’t call it reproductive rights or protection for women. They say what they’re doing with no ambiguity. These Puzzles Fund Abortion.

That’s awesome.

And I recently saw another crossword charity project with a similarly unflinching level of honesty and forthrightness that I’d like to highlight today.

A Trans Person Made Your Puzzle.

A collection of 10 puzzles created by trans constructors, A Trans Person Made Your Puzzle celebrates the trans community and their contributions to puzzles and society alike.

Donate $10 or more to an American trans charity (like G.L.I.T.S., Rainbow Railroad, or The Trevor Project) and you’ll receive your puzzle packet.

You can click here for more information, and I sincerely hope you do. It’s an incredibly worthwhile cause.

Puzzle Activism, like our trans friends and fellow puzzlers, is here to stay.

Happy puzzling, everyone!