Three tour dates! 2025 grant! SCATC essay exclusive!

Hi friends,

Hope you’re hanging in there. I’m on a whirlwind cross-country jaunt to watch the Mariners lose a playoff game (classic!) so this is gonna be a short one.

Due to travel, I haven’t had a chance to promote this yet, but: applications for our 2025 grant cycle are open now! As always, we’re looking for trans folks of color (anywhere in the world) who are doing rad organizing / art / community work. We love funding ongoing/existing projects, and I revamped the application a little bit to make it easier for groups/collectives to apply. Please share with your communities!

Next week on the show, we’re sharing Ozzy’s and my conversation with Zefyr Lisowski, whose book Uncanny Valley Girls comes out on Tuesday. Zefyr is sooooo smart and thoughtful and I’m very excited for you to listen. (You can also download her first poetry collection, which I love, for free/pay what you can!)

Speaking of reading things for free :) you can now read one of my favorite SCATC essays in Luke O’Neil’s Hell World newsletter! :))))))

We also have our first three tour dates ready to announce:

On Sunday, Nov 9, I’ll be at Skunk Cabbage Books in Chicago with Vera Blossom and Sam Szabo. Space will be limited, and you can RVSP for free here.

On Monday, Nov 17, I’ll be chatting with Serena Hommes at Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle. And on Thursday, Nov 20, I’ll be at Local Economy in Oakland with Soleil Ho. Both of those events will have free RSVP links very soon.

(I have a zillion emails out to other venues in other cities but nobody who works at a venue has ever once responded to an email and they’re not going to start now.)

Okay, let’s do Links & Stuff:

• Speaking of hell worlds, Amtrak police are arresting men for peeing while gay, and MSG’s James Dolan is using facial recognition tech to ban anyone he dislikes, including a transgender woman

• I’ve been reading many horrifying stories about AI chatbot delusions and this quote from this grim article really stuck with me:

  • “Part of what keeps us sane is other people’s perspectives, which are often in tension with ours. When you say something questionable, others will challenge you, ask questions, defy you. It can be annoying, but it keeps us tied to reality, and it is the basis of a healthy democratic citizenry. Truth is intersubjective, meaning that we need other people — their testimony, their experiences, their rationality — to be well informed.”

• Margaret Killjoy wrote about knowing who our enemies are

• I loved this essay from a former New Yorker fact-checker who quit over the magazine’s Gaza coverage

• I just pulled up this clip for a friend so here’s Tuck’s Creature Corner: Baseball Edition

• Finally, a little something to cheer you up :)

That’s it for this week. Here’s your weekly Rhubarb feat. Puffin. They’re so beautiful!!!!!

Photo: Ruby and Puffin sitting in the sun in the windowsill. They are touching(!!) and they are both looking at the camera with identical serious expressions.

Xo,

Yr resident gender detective