Justin McElroy! Sam Sanders! Cisgender Day of Visibility FAQ!

Hey friends,

Hope you’re all hanging in there. As you may have seen, we did something weird this week — we interviewed two cis guys. This, understandably, confused a subset of listeners and social media followers and people who just wandered by us on the internet. Below, we attempt to explain ourselves:

Q: What’s Cisgender Day of Visibility?

A: In honor of our 100th episode, I thought it would be funny to interview cis people in the same way that cis people interview trans people. It turns out that I’m not capable of being that weird and rude to people I appreciate, so they ended up being friendly and respectful interviews with cis people interspersed with light-to-medium trolling.

Q: Why is it called Cis Day of Visibility?

A: As stated, the bit is that we’re tokenizing cis people the same way that cis people tokenize trans people. Also, it’s very very funny to me.

Q: Were Cis Day of Visibility guests chosen because you think they’re the Best Allies?

A: No, they were chosen for other reasons — although obviously I don’t want to talk to anyone who doesn’t treat trans people with basic dignity, because that is self-harm.

Q: Why did you invite a straight cis white guy to “take up space” on Gender Reveal when straight white guys already take up so much space in the podcasting landscape and beyond?

A: Well, for one thing, I genuinely wanted to know what would happen if I asked cis guys how they knew their genders. (Spoiler: they don’t know.)

And it’s true that (aforementioned straight white guy) Justin McElroy and Sam Sanders both have platforms that are orders of magnitude larger than mine. But IMHO, that’s one of the reasons why it was such a delightful power play to interview them on Gender Reveal! Both of them admitted to being very nervous about the interview, and were very conscious of the power dynamic in the interview — they were the guests in the space, and we (the transes) were calling the shots.

Tbh, it felt very VERY cool to be an independent trans podcaster making these very successful cis men very nervous that they would say something wrong on my silly little show.

Q: So it was kink?

A: Basically. And I think it turned out really well tbh.

Q: Now that you are here having an imaginary conversation with yourself, why don’t you tell us about the two interviews?

A: For sure! On Monday, we shared our chat with Justin McElroy, whom you are probably either obsessed with or know absolutely nothing about, depending on what flavor of trans you are.

It was an absolute blast talking to Justin — there are really earnest and thoughtful parts (like when he talks about Monster Factory as an empathy exercise, or about learning about representation by experiencing fatphobia in video games); and there are goofy parts (like me asking what snack is most trans); and then there are earnest and also goofy parts (like us talking about gender-neutral names and kid-assigned nicknames).

Plus, at the end, Justin basically asks us what gender is, so if you’ve been waiting to learn what gender is………. Now’s your chance!

Of course, we have established this season that our penalty for interviewing cis people is to give y’all TWO interviews per week instead of one. So, a few days later, we released our interview with NPR host and reporter Sam Sanders, who you may know best as the host of It’s Been a Minute.

Photo of Sam Sanders by Josh Huskin

I was already a fan of Sam, but I’m a huge fan after our conversation. I loved the way that Sam gamely attempted all of my questions about gender, and I especially loved the way he was willing to criticize NPR’s dedication to “objectivity" — which as we all know is just code for “racism and transphobia that makes us money" — and also its dedication to bluegrass. 

Plus, I teach Sam about balding??? Anyway, I’m psyched about this interview, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Q: How many more CDoV episodes will there be?

A: Somewhere between one and three, depending on how you count it and whether Ira Glass lets us release one of the interviews.

Q: Is that a joke?

A: Weirdly, no? But it’s probably supposed to be a secret so like, be chill.

Q: Was that part earlier about kink a joke?

A: I don’t know, was it??????????????????????

Q: OK, anything else?

A: Yup! You’ve got ONE DAY left to shop our July merch collection, and you can save 10% off your order for the rest of the month with promo code BACKTOSCHOOL. Teespring gave us the code, so we didn’t choose it, but we do get to keep all of our proceeds even if you use the code! So it’s really a win-win and a great excuse to treat yourself to a fanny pack or whatever.

Q: That’s enough talking to yourself in a newsletter! Where’s our weekly Rhubarb?

A:

Xoxo,

Yr resident gender detective