Dean Spade! Mail time!? Seattle late show! Holiday playlist!

Hey friends,

Hope you’ve all been hanging in there. You might think this newsletter is late, but joke’s on you: I’m on the west coast and it’s only 9pm here. (I actually intended to write this a few days ago on a plane, but the only thing I really wanted to write about was the Italian woman sitting next to me, who a) seemed to openly hate me immediately b) sneezed wetly all over my arm and then c) somehow still charmed me into being like “damn love that girlie”???? So powerful. Anyway, she could 100% see my screen so I watched Trap instead.)

Before I forget: Sagittarius season aka Tuck birthday season is the time each year where I say “hey do you want to send us some mail?” So like NO PRESSURE but maybe if you have a holiday mailing list, add us to it? Or just drop us a line saying hey? If you want? Whatever! Our mailing address is: PO Box 50297, Brooklyn, NY, 11205. :)

Photo: A little drawing of Dean Spade reading his new book

This week on the show, it was a privilege and a treat to catch up with Dean Spade! What is there to say about Dean??? He’s doing smart, crucial work, and I cannot recommend his new book enough! Did I mention that you can preorder it thru Bluestockings for 15% off with code F*CKED<3 ? Cute!

Topics in the interview include:

• Navigating social dynamics when two community members are fighting lol

• What you should do about that gender marker on your ID

• Why controlling your partner(s) with lots of nonmonogamy “rules" doesn’t align with our ideas of liberation

• Why symbolic arrests aren’t currently an effective political strategy

• How to support a friend through a breakup (sounds simple but truly SO useful to me!)

• Why mutual aid is most important when we feel scared, avoidant or isolated

• Treating falling in love like an acid trip

• Why our work won’t change radically after Inauguration Day

• “Better” titles for Dean’s book… and a sneak peek at his next book!

This week’s episode also includes discussion of the 2024 Gender Census results, which you can dive into here! Lots of fun stuff in there.

~~ tour updates ~~ 

Heads up, Seatle: we added a Gender Ordeal late show on Feb 12, which is gonna run from like 9:30-10:45pm. Is that maybe too late? NO!!!!! It will be great! You’re gonna have fun! Grab a ticket!!!

Portland: I am trying so hard to book a venue lmao. I literally PHYSICALLY WENT to one of the venues on Friday, and they were like “hey yes we’d love to have you!! But also the booker needs to call you with details” and of course she absolutely did not do that. I am TRYING. I am losing my MIND. Why is Portland this WAY?

DC & San Francisco: the Gender Ordeal shows are halfway-ish sold so grab your tickets soon if you want ‘em. :)

~~

Perhaps there is more to say but I am VERY TIRED and we have SO MANY LINKS to link so anyway here’s Links & Stuff:

• First and foremost, I need* you to read this Gregory Maguire interview. I know the hat is iconic and the headline is exciting but you gotta keep reading because it’s full of bangers! (*If you don’t care about Wicked then you are excused from this.)

• Turns out AI poetry is more popular than human poetry because it’s bad and honestly it explains so much about what reaches mainstream popularity

• I asked my girlfriend “how do you feel about bones?” and she thought I meant Bones (2005-2017) but I in fact was trying to pitch her on the Bone Museum

• Everyone (including me) is publishing gift guides for friends but JP wisely wrote a gift guide for enemies

• Edgar wrote about the literal living nightmare of their (fake) teeth falling out all the time

• She’s right and she should say it. (Paywalled but you get the gist from the preview.)

• I don’t remember how I found myself watching this again but IT’S SO IMPORTANT.

Okay I actually have more links but I like all of those a lot and don’t want you to get Overwhelmed so let’s leave it there. Oh, except that I spruced up my holiday playlist for this year, in case you (unlike me) manage to listen to Christmas music before Dec 23 annually.

Tuck’s Creature Corner this week is a video of my literal heaven on earth.

That’s it for this week. Here’s your Weekly Rhubarb, courtesy of my roommate very diligently sending my updates while I’m away.

Photo: Ruby sleeping on a blanket in a sunbeam 

Xo,
Yr resident gender detective

PS: Would you bathe in the Elvis tub????

Photo: a dirty old bathtub painted with Elvis lyrics and what I assume is Graceland. Also on the outside there's a painting of Elvis but you can't see that but just imagine it.