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Chase Strangio! Long weekend solidarity! One more merch discount code!

Added 2021-11-25 02:42:00 +0000 UTC

Hey friends,

Hope you’re hanging in there. It’s so funny being an independent trans show, making it up as we go along… conventional wisdom says that “holiday” weekends would mean a drop in podcast downloads, but I tend to assume that while you (the listener) might be too busy to listen to Gender Reveal this week, you alternately might be extra eager to listen — either because you’re spending time with cis people who still haven’t figured out how to (or cared to) (or been told to) treat you with respect and care, or because you’re hanging out alone and need some friendly voices in your ears. (Or just because you're, like, traveling somewhere and need something to do.)

If any of those scenarios apply to you, we’re happy to be here with you, transing up the sound waves and pretending we know what gender is. Sending solidarity to all of you, especially those who don’t mark the “holiday.” (My Thursday will be spent playing video games with my roommates and thinking about how my cat is perfect and probably working on Patreon rewards lmao.)

Alternately, maybe you don’t live in the United States and this is LITERALLY just a normal week to you! In which case, hi, hello, hope you’re doing well!

(By the way, if you do choose to mark Thursday in some way, I hope you’ll also support our friend La Tisha Rico (from episode 99) as they seek a stable home for their family. They’re almost to their goal and every bit helps.)

Photo ID: A screenshot of Tish's GoFundMe, which shows them holding their baby in the snow, both dressed in blankets with traditional patterns. Their GFM is at $21,660 out of a $25,000 goal.

Anyway, this week on the show, we spoke with Chase Strangio, ACLU lawyer and trans advocate extraordinaire. Whenever I was promoting this episode on Monday, I think I said something like “We talk about what new fresh legal hells are coming down the pipeline in 2022,” which is true, but also makes it sound like a huge bummer?? Which I think is maybe inaccurate, actually!! I made sure to also ask things like “How can listeners stay updated and support your work without retraumatizing themselves?” and “How are you, Chase, taking care of yourself when so much of your job is to immerse yourself in transphobia?”

Photo ID: Chase wearing a great sweatshirt and grey headband, flashing a peace sign at the camera.

Other topics include:

Trans parenthood (including Chase’s kid charmingly opting out of the gender binary in preschool)
“The notion of transness and perversion” (in a hot way! But also mostly a not hot way I GUESS ugh.)
Existing in a liminal gender space while working in a binary legal system (and being misperceived as a man)
How “biological” sex has only existed in law for 5-6 years, and has only ever been used to exclude trans people
Lorena Borjas, Pauli Murray, Flawless Sabrina, Miss Major, Tourmaline, and finding strength from trans elders
Literally what’s the point of anti-trans legislation???????????

And mooooooore! It’s a great episode, and I hope it’s useful to you if you ever need to explain to cis people what the hell is going on. (Speaking of which, this is a handy visualization tool for tracking anti-trans bills.)

(Chase said I could steal photos from their Instagram so I stole this one because I wear this exact outfit like every day and I assume that many of you also do, haha. Photo is by @leoxfoo.)

Photo ID: Chase sitting in the grass wearing black jeans, a white t-shirt, a black zip-up hoodie and a dark grey or black jean jacket.

I have gotten approximately 2,394,582,095 emails about ~sales~ happening this week, so I decided to make y’all one more merch discount code just to fit in or whatever. The code is “PERVERTS” because I’m annoying and it will get you free shipping until the end of the month — which, incidentally, is when our whole store disappears indefinitely. So go get something if you want it!

Photo ID: a screenshot of this tweet from our friend Jess.

Photo ID: Our friend Xander wearing a red Surf Don't Terf hoodie from the merch shop.

That’s it for this week. Next week, we’re talking to a game designer who has worked on games about K-pop bands, BDSM, werewolves, and much more. Excited for you to hear it!

(Oh, also, a secret disclaimer: We’re running a Wondery ad next week for this show and I feel really weird about promoting Wondery generally but they’re paying enough money that we can offer an extra grant so I’m doing it! Also it has Trace Lysette and Morgan M. Page and other trusted trans people so it will be fine right???? Right.)

Hang in there, friends. Here’s a particularly exquisite weekly Rhubarb, taken by my roommate.