Da’Shaun Harrison! Destroying the World! $222,723!

Hey friends,

Hope you’re all hanging in there. I’m typing to you from a weirdly shaped ergonomic keyboard because my carpals are threatening to tunnel again, or however that works. I want to say it’s flaring up because I’ve been hard at work making podcasts and such, but unfortunately I suspect it’s due to me playing a lot of Best Fiends while holding my phone at weird angles.

As promised, this week’s episode features theorist, abolitionist, author, and all-around genius Da’Shaun Harrison. I’ve already seen several listeners comment that this interview prompted people to buy/read Da’Shaun’s book, Belly of the Beast, and I couldn’t be more thrilled! The book is so thoughtful and important and, I cannot stress this enough, short.

Photo ID: A portrait of Da'Shaun in front of a warm brown background. They are shirtless and wearing lots of gold accessories and long pointy nails.

In case you haven’t had a chance to listen yet… topics in this week’s episode include:

• Why “health” is unsalvageable as a concept and must be destroyed
• Why “gender” is inextricable from colonialism and must be destroyed
• Why the World, generally, needs to be destroyed
• Why and how Da’Shaun continues to work towards these destructions and rebuildings despite not having hope that it will happen
• Why insisting that trans people have fixed, stagnant genders is just more cisnormativity.
• Why everyone needs to stop focusing on pronouns so much(!)
• And so much more.

(Speaking of Da’Shaun, they were just announced as the new editor-at-large at Scalawag! So so rad!)

As I’ve said several times, every episode of this podcast is my child and I love them all and ALSO I really especially particularly recommend this ep with Da’Shaun. If you enjoyed it, please consider spreading the word.

On a personal note, thank you to the folks who sent me birthday season mail!!! I cannot express how much it has warmed my jaded little trans heart to receive your postcards and letters and also stickers.

Photo ID: A collage of two postcards, three cards, a patterned envelope, and a sticker that says "big challenges" with an alligator eating a cop car.

I’ve got a bunch of different projects in the air right now but not much that I can really talk about here, unfortch! I Well, I can say that I’m guest-teaching a session of this class for aspiring independent podcasters, and I’m very honored to be part of it… but honestly it feels very weird to recommend a class that costs $600. (The math makes sense — it’s 10 hours of content and they’ve got to pay everyone somehow — but show me an aspiring indie podcaster that has $600??? IDK.)

Ok, speaking of money, I added up all of the grants and mutual aid and merch shop fundraising we’ve done, and together we’ve redistributed something like $222,700 to trans people (the majority of whom are trans folks of color) and trans orgs. This makes me very happy and very proud and also very angry that if a bunch of transes and weirdos could do this, why can’t institutions with money and resources do all of this and so much more? But we know why lol.

Anyway, as a member of our Patreon, you have directly contributed to the grant fund and helped make this possible. Thank you so much. We really couldn’t do it without you.

Next week on the show, we’ve got long-time listener and longer-time rocker Ezra Furman on the show to talk about Judaism, parenting, Lou Reed, and I don’t remember what else but we’ll find out together.

Photo ID: A photo [stolen from Adam Parshall] of Ezra onstage, wearing ripped black tights and black boots and a black dress, holding a guitar, surrounded by strands of colorful lights.

Stay safe out there! I’ve been thinking of this meme all the time lol.

Here’s your weekly Rhubarb.

Photo ID: A closeup of Ruby's little cat face as she naps on a multicolored blanket on the back of the couch.

Xo,
Yr resident gender detective

PS: This is my best tweet.