Mal Blum! Grant winners! Rewards update!

Hey friends,

Hope you're all hanging in there. I am writing you a newsletter filed with love and news and gender, and I am also, in a very real sense, actively falling asleep as I type. Let's see how this goes.

This week on the show, I checked in with our friend Mal Blum, who I first spoke with in Episode 18. So much has changed since then! For one thing, our voices are lower. For another, we are sometimes read as men and sometimes use the men's restrooms and then consider detransitioning due to grossness (mostly joking!). 

Most importantly, Mal and I are both more confident in our selves (and ourselves) than we were three years ago, and I think that comes through in the interview. Or maybe not, who can say. Regardless, it's a really fun chat filled with topics like Star Trek and couch-shopping and relearning how to sing on testosterone and which tattoos are the most trans. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Photo ID: Mal Blum leaning against a brick wall that has been painted blue. They are wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. 

Next week on the show, we're catching up with Gaby Dunn, Mal's partner and our one-time token cis guest. No longer! It's gonna be an episode full of feelings— perfect for cancer szn.

OK, this isn't related to anything, but my friend Emily VanDerWerff wrote this article about the fallout after Isabel Fall's "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" came out and I'm really excited to continue reading it and being very sad. (CW: suicidality)

Photo ID: Tuck standing on a porch wearing a black tank top with an illustration of a white gimp mask that says "MORE KINK AT PRIDE."

 Pride Month™ is drawing to a close, which means there's only an hour or two left to order our June merch. Luckily, everything is 10% off in the shop right now with offer code HEATWAVE. Go go go go go to bit.ly/gendermerch before it's gone at midnight Pacific time! 

(A reminder that the merch store will be empty from midnight Pacific to whenever I have a chance to restock it. If you have any restock requests, feel free to comment below.) 

Photo ID: A blue sticker that says "my gender is a shrug" in pink and blue bubble letters

Speaking of midnight deadlines, I also managed to announce our Spring 2021 grant winners in the nick of time. We were planning to award ten grants this season (all to trans people of color, natch), but thanks to some amazing extra funding, we were able to award SEVENTEEN GRANTS!(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

 I'm still working on getting in touch with everyone, but you can get a sneak peek of the winners at genderpodcast.com/grant. Thank you to our esteemed panel of seven judges for all of their hard work.

Last but not least, I just wanted to give you an update on Patreon rewards, if you're someone who is still waiting on those. As you may know, we send out pins to our $10+ patrons. I recently mailed out a huge batch of thank you notes with the pins inside, and got a lot of envelopes returned to sender, having been damaged or ripped open in transit. 

I'm not sure why we're no longer to send envelopes with lil pins in the mail safely, but until we figure out a better solution, $10+ rewards are currently on hold. If you received damaged mail, please let me know. And if you've been waiting a while, you may be one of the people whose mail was damaged. Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding!!!!!!!! 

OK, I'm asleep so that's it for this week. Here's your weekly Rhubarb.

Photo ID: a fluffy grey and orange cat lays on a blue and white rug, pancake-like. Behind her, a short-haired black cat sits up alertly. 

xoxo,
Yr resident gender detective