Ski ballet! Chicken nuggets! Bisexual thruples! Adult Build-a-Bear!

Hey friends,

Hope you’re all hanging in there. I just spent six hours(!) trying to write one draft of one article and now I am air-frying a few fancy chikn nuggets and trying to retain my grasp on the English language long enough to write y’all a little note, too. (The article is about Gender Reveal’s whole approach to mutual aid and hey what if media entities with actual money and resources also did that??????? I know they won’t but I’m still writing my little essay as if they care at all lol.)

I am skipping straight to the part where I link to things I’ve enjoyed or appreciated recently, because I simply can’t think of what else to say.

Did you know that Lindy West is in a bisexual thruple now? I learned this from her newsletter, Butt News, which most recently published an absolutely hilarious and very thorough recap of Interview with the Vampire (1994). (To be clear, we stan the bisexual thruple.)

OK, not a fun read, but I was struck by Luke O’Neill’s most recent Hell World about (cw: police violence!) qualified immunity and way that police really are allowed to go into random people’s houses and murder them. This line stuck out: “You see how this works right? The cops start some shit and they become frightened for their safety and therefore any action by a citizen in their vicinity at that point becomes justification for the use of deadly force.”

Also not a fun read, but I think James Factora’s them. piece “The Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills of 2022, Explained” could be a great explainer for anyone in your life who needs these things explained.

Finally, another fun read! My friend Conner Reed is one of my favorite culture writers, churning out hit after hit. His latest is “Build-a-Bear’s Adult V-Day Collection, Ranked by How Much I Want to Date Each Character.”

I recently learned about ski ballet and although all of these videos are from fully three decades ago, I cannot watch without worrying that everyone is going to tear important ligaments. (They don’t! It’s fine and fun!) I stole an old ski ballet photo for the cover image of this newsletter because you can’t convince me that this isn’t some kind of powerful trans-fag gender.

Finally, our linguist friend Kirby Conrod introduced me to Semantle, where you get infinite guesses to figure out what word the computer is thinking of. (It’s easier than it sounds, but I don’t know how to explain it so just go ahead and click.)

That’s it for this week. Jules and I were going to have a little meeting to finalize our season 9 lineup, but I got stuck with an urgent furnace repair followed by an urgent doctor appointment (lol good times over here) so we’re doing that tomorrow instead. Very hyped to start reaching out to folks and scheduling our little chats.

Oh, also, you can still vote for us every day for a…………. Queerty. It takes like one second and we will not win but what if we did? It would be so funny. I would love to beat JVN at literally anything.

OK, that’s really actually it. Here’s your weekly Rhubarb: my roommate’s mom made little catnip toys and they are a big hit. (Photo by the same roommate.)

Photo ID: Ruby licks her nose while holding a hand-knitted orange and grey-striped toy mouse in her front paws. Nearby, a black cat is carefully guarding a maroon knitted mouse. 

Xo,
Yr resident gender detective

PS: The fact that I've had this tab open all day but haven't had time to read it — lol!!!!!!!!!!