Gender 101 is dead! Long live Gender 101!

Hey friends,

Long time no see! As you may have gathered, we just released a complete overhaul of our first episode, Gender 101. The process of releasing this episode was considerably more elaborate than our typical interviews and advice episodes, where I just click “publish” on Libsyn and go to sleep. Here’s what we did (not in order):

• wrote a full transcript for the episode annotated with reference links, additional information, and suggested texts for folks looking to go full Gender Detective about it.
• published the transcript on our website as well as on a special landing page
• published Episode 101 as normal
• duplicated the file, added a special intro to explain what the hell was going on, and slipped that version of the episode into the spot of our original Gender 101 episode (Ep 1)
• duplicated the transcript, added the ep 1 intro, and slipped it into the spot where the old Episode 1 transcript used to live

And voila! The old Episode 1 is dead; long live Episode 1.

I’ve been told that it’s important to have an ~archive~ of the podcast and a record of me learning in real time. Why, then, did I erase the original episode? Well, tbh, it’s because people wouldn’t stop downloading and sharing it. A nice problem to have, to be sure, but we were averaging something like 1000 new downloads per month of a four-year-old episode that I felt was not only largely outdated, but sometimes wrong.

That first episode represented what I knew before I started Gender Reveal. This new version encapsulates some of what I've learned in the last four years of being a professional gender detective(™). It’s, for sure, a useful resource for cis people who are annoying you with their gender questions. But it’s also, hopefully, a resource for baby transes, and for anyone else who might get what “nonbinary” means but isn’t sure what to think about the concept of biological sex, or how Western concepts of binary gender contribute to racism and anti-Blackness. It’s a lot! It’s also 20 minutes long, so it’s maybe not a lot?? Hard to say.

A few months ago, I asked y’all what you wanted to hear in this episode. I cannot say that I managed to incorporate much of that feedback, simply because the episode could not be 100 hours long. For example, there was simply no way we were going to do a pronoun deep-dive (that’s what Kirby’s episodes are for!) But everything that y’all said shaped this script, and will continue to shape future episodes, and I appreciate you very much.

Speaking of future episodes! We’ve got our NYC live show coming out next week (featuring three fantastic and frankly hot guests), and interviews for the next thirteen or so weeks after that. I’m happy to be back and THRILLED to have Jules by my side, working their editing and production magic to make everything better and easier and genderier.

That’s most of what I’ve got for you today! Please share the new episode and transcript widely. I hope it proves useful, either because you learn something or because it gets people off your back :) And don’t forget to grab our Halloween merch while you can — my mothman shirt is here and I’m hyped! Already cut the sleeves off because I’m a parody of myself.

OK, thanks for reading this far. Here’s your weekly Rhubarb. One of the best, imo.

Photo ID: Ruby stands in a bizarre way on a cat tree. Her upper body is lying on one of the ledges, and her lower body is reaching down to stand on the lower ledge. She looks like a long furby and is staring straight at the camera.

Xoxo,

Yr resident gender detective

PS: I mention this in the new ep, but if you’re in the Seattle area, I cannot recommend Transoween highly enough!!!!! October 30, Seward Park, fun candy provided!!!