Tuck Woodstock

Ongoing horrors, an upcoming ‘holiday’… and fun gossip?!

Added 2023-11-19 16:40:55 +0000 UTC

Hey friends,

Hope you’re hanging in there. It feels strange to not acknowledge how incredibly heartbreaking every day is, but also, I don’t have much to add beyond that. Every day is heartbreaking. It’s Trans Awareness Week and I feel mildly unhinged seeing some trans activists posting so much about that and nothing about Gaza or all the other horrors?? (I get that many people focus their efforts on IRL actions and not posting. That’s fine and often good! I’m specifically referring to Professional Posters and other people who are eager to ask for solidarity but not to extend it.)

That said! Trans and queer folks are overrepresented at every protest I've ever been to. When I see videos of people being arrested at JVP sit-ins or other actions, there are always ALWAYS lots of queers putting their bodies on the line, and I am always very proud and grateful.

None of us are free until we’re all free. We can only do our best in the face of all of it. Hang in there.

I don’t know how to not make this a wild tonal shift, so uh, here’s the rest of the newsletter.

Thanks to everyone who came to the 2 Trans 2 Furious book event in Los Angeles! It was truly such a treat and a delight to meet all of you. Thanks again to the wonderful North Figueroa Bookshop for having us.

Mckenzee thoughtfully recorded the conversation portion between Tre’vell and me, so the rest of y’all will hopefully be able to hear it on Gender Conceal later this month.

There likely won’t be any new Gender Reveal episodes until the new year, but I did appear on two non-Gender Reveal shows this week! You can find me on Science Vs talking about hot goss, and on Gender Spiral talking about Trans Day of Visibility/Snack. (The interview was recorded way back in March!) Thematically different but both tonally quite fun, imo.

Oh, and you’ll want this image for the Science Vs episode, although I won’t spoil why!!!

Photo: It's uh... a sort of Medieval cage... for a head... made out of metal. With a scary mouth of jagged teeth and a jingle bell on the top. Idk.

The 529,382,322 daily shopping emails I get have reminded me that it’s the holiday season and we should maybe get the merch store back open, although tbh my heart isn’t super into it. Is there anything that y’all would particularly like to be restocked? (Also, I mentioned this on Instagram and didn’t get any bites, but if anyone would like to design any sort of Trans + Palestine and/or Trans + Indigenous solidarity shirts, I’d really love to run something like that.)

And speaking of Indigenous solidarity, I know this is one of my absolute most annoying opinions, but I do think it’s politically strange for white US leftists to celebrate Thanksgiving. (Everyone else, I’m minding my business lol.) Anyway, not gonna try to talk you out of it, but I do encourage you to donate some of your turkey money to an Indigenous-led group near you. My go-tos in Portland are Red Lodge and NAYA, and I recently learned about this group in NYC. There are also plenty of national groups like NICWA. OK, that’s all I have to say about that; thanks for listening.

I have so many links this week that I’m breaking Links & Stuff into its own email. So in the meantime, that’s it for now. Here’s your weekly Rhubarb.