D’lo! Season 9! Buzz buzz!

Hey friends,

Hope you’ve all been hanging in there. I’ve spent the entire last week mostly watching Yellowjackets and reading about Yellowjackets and thinking about Yellowjackets and then very occasionally doing my job. So please know how hard I had to focus to make this newsletter not just a list of “10 Interviews with the Cast & Crew of Yellowjackets That I Recommend.”

Anyway, this week on the show, Producer Jules made their Gender Reveal hosting debut! They spoke with actor and comic D’lo abouuuut:

• covering your bases (as a kid) by being Hindu but also praying to Jesus
• queer community as a spiritual practice
• making sure that your art doesn’t retraumatize yourself or others
• creating a trilogy of solo shows about queer life, starting testosterone, and more
• leaning into vulnerability as a storytelling tool
• the short hair to transmasc pipeline
• and moooore!

If you enjoyed hearing from Jules, great news: not only will they continue to pop up on our show, but they’ve also hosted episodes of Flash Forward and are a cohost of the iconically-named Season of the Bitch.

We’re wrapping up Season 8 at the end of January, which means we have two more episodes left before the break. After that, Jules and I will be putting together our dream list of guests for next season. (In my case, that research process includes reading an entire bookshelf of trans lit/poetry/memoir because it turns out that transsexuals simply love 2 write!!!!!!!!!!)

We’ve already got a looong list of guest ideas, but if you have someone in mind that you think would be a particularly good fit for the show, please reply to this and let us know. We’re especially looking for people who can share experiences / backgrounds / fields of study that we haven’t explored much yet.

Photo ID: A headshot of Krys next to the cover of his book, The Natural Mother of The Child. (Don't tell Chicago Review of Books that I stole this graphic lol.)

In the meantime… speaking of transes who love to write! Next week’s guest is Krys Malcolm Belc, author of The Natural Mother of the Child. When I started reading Krys’ book early last year, I was shocked by how literary and imaginative and good it was. Did you know that nonbinary parenting memoirs were allowed to be good??? I simply did not!!! But here we are.

OK, this is the part of the newsletter where I tell you about some things I’ve enjoyed this week. Here we go:

• Yellowjackets (surprise!!!!!!!!!!)
• This dog earnestly skateboarding
• This viral Ina Garten Instagram comment
• There’s new Girlpool(!) and it led me to this (very old but) thoughtful and relatable essay by Avery Tucker about transitioning while in a band literally named Girlpool.
• One of my favorite people got inspired by Wordle and created his own daily word game! You can play it here. (Also shout-out to his dad, a longtime Gender Reveal patron.)

That’s it for this week. Thanks so much for being here and making it all possible. 

Here’s your weekly Rhubarb, taken by my roommate.

Photo ID: Ruby the cat standing in a bathtub for some reason.

Xo,
Yr resident gender detective

PS: I just sent out like 50 Patreon rewards, so if you joined a $5-10 rewards tier in December or early January, keep an eye out in the next week or so!