0:00

Queer Candle Co. is a queer and trans

0:02

owned business that makes small batch soy wax

0:04

candles topped with a variety of botanicals. Queer

0:07

Candle Co. recently sent me their special Fireside

0:09

Multi-Pack, which features basil and amber, sea salt

0:11

and orchid, and redwoods candles. It's a great

0:14

trio, very well balanced. My favorite was the

0:16

basil and amber, and then I looked it up,

0:18

and basil and amber is a Sagittarius candle,

0:20

so astrology real? Anyway,

0:22

Queer Candle Co. donates 10% of profits to

0:24

the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, which we love.

0:27

You can use the code GENDER10 at checkout

0:29

to get 10% off your

0:31

first order at queerkindleco.com. Welcome

0:49

to Gender Reveal, a podcast where we

0:52

hopefully get a little bit closer to

0:54

understanding what the hell gender is. I'm

0:56

your host and resident gender detective, Tuck

0:58

Woodstock. Hey

1:08

everyone! Hope you're all hanging in there! This

1:11

week on the show, we have a very

1:13

special Ozzy-led episode! Producer Ozzy spoke with writer

1:15

and organizer Yin Q, who is a founding

1:18

member of Kink Out and a core

1:20

organizer with Red Canary Song. If you

1:22

haven't heard of Red Canary Song, it is an Asian

1:24

and migrant sex worker collective and mutual aid hub. In

1:27

this episode, Ozzy and Yin talk about

1:29

sex work, decriminalization, sex work and gender,

1:32

gender and kink, kink and spirituality, and

1:34

kink and gender and parenting. Being

1:37

able to make sure that

1:39

he has his space to be trans

1:42

is allowing me to also have

1:44

that space to be trans. I

1:46

also show up at one point to ask like one or

1:48

two little kink questions. Why not? So

1:51

where's the kink-o-meter? By the way, this

1:53

episode obviously includes the concepts of kink and

1:56

sex work, but there are no like graphic

1:58

details if that's something you're worried about. or

2:00

maybe something you were eagerly anticipating. Either way.

2:03

Similarly, this episode includes the words trauma

2:05

and abuse, but does not include any

2:07

details whatsoever about said trauma or abuse.

2:10

But before we get to the interview, it's time for

2:12

this week in Gender. This

2:20

week, I just want to give you a quick recap

2:22

of how Trans Day of Staying In and Having a

2:24

Nice Snack went on our end this year. This

2:27

is going to be a bunch of numbers, so I'm

2:29

going to round them to try to make them easier

2:31

to parse. If you want the exact numbers, hit me

2:33

up. I've got them. Anyway,

2:36

this is the third year that we've done

2:38

this particular event model where we send out

2:40

money for snacks and then also larger

2:43

amounts for mutual aid. So the first year we sent

2:45

out 11,000 for snacks, 18,000 for mutual aid. That's

2:49

for stuff like paying rent, buying

2:51

food, filling prescriptions, keeping electricity on,

2:53

stuff like that. Next

2:56

year we sent about 13,000 in snacks, a little more,

2:58

and 25,000 in mutual aid, so quite

3:01

a bit more. And then this year we had almost

3:03

the same as last year, $13,000 in snacks, $22,000 in mutual

3:07

aid. The main difference is

3:10

that last year, over the

3:12

Trans Day of Snack weekend, we raised

3:15

$37,000 to cover our expenses, and this year

3:17

we raised $16,000. There's

3:21

a lot of reasons why this could be. I

3:24

am hoping it is because everyone is sending all

3:26

of their extra money to Gaza. That's a

3:28

really good thing to do. I support it. It

3:31

could also be that the economy is just

3:33

very bad for everyone who isn't like a

3:35

stock marketer. It could also be

3:37

partially that Twitter is dead, and I know

3:39

at least the first year a lot of

3:41

our big donations came from hashtag allies that

3:43

we used to hang out with on Twitter

3:45

back when people hung out on Twitter. But

3:48

for whatever reason, if you do not see

3:50

Trans Day of Snack back in this iteration next

3:52

year, that would be why. But we'll see. We

3:54

have so much time to figure it out. And

3:57

also to clarify, the snacks or whatever, I love

3:59

to this next, but it's pretty easy

4:01

to get people to buy each other's snacks

4:03

without me getting involved personally, so I have

4:05

faith that that can continue without me. The

4:07

thing I'm really worried about is losing the

4:09

mutual aid payments because I don't know if

4:11

$100 seems life-changing to you personally, but I

4:13

do get feedback every year that it really,

4:16

really helps a lot of people out of

4:18

really tight spots. They are emphasizing like this

4:20

really helps more than you can imagine, and

4:22

I believe them, so it makes me nervous

4:24

to think about losing that, but again,

4:26

so much time to figure that out. Also,

4:28

if you tell me to start a 501c3, I

4:30

will lose my mind. Do not tell me to

4:32

be a non-profit. Thanks in advance. Regardless

4:36

of what the future holds, we did this year send

4:38

655 snack payments and 217 mutual

4:42

aid payments. Thank you to our really

4:44

outstanding team of 11 volunteers.

4:46

Some of those people help us every year.

4:48

They are professionals by now. Some of them

4:51

were brand new. Two people got their Venmos

4:53

suspended this year lol, but don't worry, they

4:55

are back now. So I

4:58

just want to thank our incredible volunteers. I

5:00

want to thank everyone who donated to support

5:02

the snack fund and mutual aid fund as

5:04

it really is, and thank you to everyone

5:06

who put together their own trans

5:08

day of snack activities around the

5:10

world. We saw public events happening

5:12

in Washington, Montana, New York, the

5:14

United Kingdom, and Australia, so like

5:16

three continents. That's so cool. Even

5:19

if your trans day of snack activity was just

5:21

like buying yourself a tree or sharing something nice

5:23

with your friend, that still absolutely counts, and I'm

5:26

really, really happy that it happened. One

5:29

last thing, Ozzy got the resource doc

5:31

updated. So if you or anyone you

5:33

know is looking for really any kind

5:35

of trans resource, please send them to

5:37

bit.ly slash tvos24 links. We're

5:40

not sharing that link publicly, but you

5:42

can feel free to pass it along

5:44

to whoever needs it. Again, bit.ly slash

5:46

tvos24 links. I

5:49

hope that you all had a great snack last weekend

5:51

and that you continue to have nice little treats on

5:53

a regular basis because you deserve it. This

5:55

has been This Week in Gender.

6:04

We've. Got a them unless it's V Today

6:07

they mailed our little messages from listeners. There

6:09

is a link in the shown up for

6:11

you to submit your own. This week message

6:13

is from the Cruising Podcast and it says

6:15

searching for your next Square Podcast Check out

6:17

Cruising the show about lesbian bar. The humans

6:20

that run them in. The humans are called

6:22

the my Home prison takes you across the

6:24

Us to today's date bars and sapphic spaces.

6:26

Answer history making lesbian bar of decades past.

6:28

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Okay

6:31

when were quick add them get to be interview here

6:33

we go. Believe

6:35

it or not, I'm a pretty private

6:37

person. I don't like to share intimate

6:39

details of people ages may I certainly

6:42

don't want strangers to be able to

6:44

look at my home address or my

6:46

family member's name is or any other

6:48

personal info. really. And that's why I

6:50

continue to. You Delete Me. Delete Me

6:52

routinely scans hundreds of data broker web

6:54

sites to make sure that my personal

6:56

information is not easily available online. Delete

6:58

Me can also scrub info tied to

7:00

dead names and other aliases. You can

7:02

join today at dwindling me.com Sauce Gender

7:04

Reveal. And. Twenty.

7:11

Dwindling. Didn't

7:25

you? As a parent, a writer and

7:27

media producer, a core organizer with Red

7:30

Canary Songs and a founding member of

7:32

Came Out and Media Work and for

7:34

Murphy must stress and autobiographical talent based

7:36

on their experience as a dominatrix and

7:38

fly and. Minnery from

7:40

and Marathon Yeah has about Sex Worker

7:43

are activations to N Y U, The

7:45

Leslie Lemon Museum Moma Ps One Performance

7:47

bases New York Sprang University and the

7:49

Museum of Contemporary Senseless. They hold a

7:51

Be A from Barnard College and an

7:54

aside from the news. The

8:03

way we always start the show is

8:06

by asking in terms of gender, how

8:08

do you describe yourself? Yeah,

8:10

at this point, I do describe

8:12

myself as non binary, and I

8:14

use they them pronouns, primarily, I've

8:17

been holding on to she her as well

8:19

for a very long time, I'm turning 50

8:21

this year. So I think

8:23

that I was really holding on to, you

8:26

know, the female as a

8:28

way to try and expand and see how

8:31

expansive I could make that side of the

8:33

gender but I've, yeah, I've really come to

8:35

terms with sitting in non binary now. Well,

8:38

we'll come back to the gender of it all

8:40

in a little bit. But you've

8:42

done a lot of really cool work. So

8:45

first I wanted to ask about Red Canary

8:47

song this group that you organize with. How

8:50

did you get involved with Red Canary song and

8:52

what kind of work does the group do? Sure.

8:55

So first to describe our collective,

8:57

we are a grassroots

8:59

collective of massage workers, body

9:02

care workers, sex workers and

9:04

allies of Asian diaspora

9:06

were based out of flushing but

9:08

we really organize trans nationally we

9:10

have members all over the

9:13

world, really, and our work really

9:15

primarily centers mutual aid care for

9:18

our local community but then also, you

9:20

know, throughout. And

9:23

the way that I got involved

9:25

was that I

9:27

attended the annual vigil

9:30

of Yang Song, who

9:32

is a Chinese migrant massage worker who

9:34

fell to her death during a police

9:36

raid in 2017. And

9:40

so I got involved in 2018

9:42

first by attending the vigil, and

9:44

then, as I

9:46

started to learn more about the

9:48

issues that migrant massage workers face

9:51

and how closely they were intertwined

9:53

with sex worker issues as well.

9:57

I really felt that there was so much that

9:59

needed to be communicated to the

10:01

public because so much of it has

10:03

been silenced or it's conflated with trafficking

10:05

and Being a storyteller

10:07

and somebody who does fundraising for

10:10

sex worker rights also first I really

10:12

did you know wanted to just fundraise and

10:14

give the money over to To

10:16

the people in the core and then I I realized

10:19

that it was part of my passion to to be part

10:21

of the core While talking about some

10:23

of your kind of media work

10:25

with Red Canary song you've brought

10:28

these conversations about sex workers rights

10:30

to a lot of Museums

10:32

and universities I got to see a

10:35

Red Canary song Exhibition and film screening

10:37

a few months ago at NYU at

10:40

that event. I was

10:42

really pleasantly surprised that the event

10:44

opened with an acknowledgment of the

10:46

ongoing genocide and Palestine which is

10:48

like Not something I've seen at

10:50

a lot of other events at elite institutions

10:52

that I've been at recently and

10:54

thinking about that I guess I just wanted to ask about

10:57

sort of how you managed to

10:59

host events in these kind of More

11:01

rarefied spaces while still making sure

11:03

that they're welcoming and comfortable for

11:06

your communities and like the folks

11:08

that you want to speak to

11:10

Yeah, I think that going into Institutions

11:14

has been a really interesting part of my

11:16

work with both right canary song as well

11:18

as kink out And sex

11:20

workers in general who are in academics who

11:22

are starting to out themselves Or

11:25

be invited by those institutions themselves

11:28

It's really about having like those really incredible

11:30

allies as well who are bringing us in

11:33

Much of our work in the organization of right

11:35

canary song and kink out is about looking at

11:37

these institutions and seeing how like we can hack

11:40

them, you know hacking the the systems whether

11:42

they be financial institutions or academic

11:45

institutions art institutions, how do we get

11:47

in there and Do

11:49

as much as we want to

11:51

do in those spaces and making sure that

11:54

those spaces also are learning from us on

11:56

how to keep our communities

11:58

safe It's interesting that so

12:00

many of these academic spaces, you know,

12:03

study our movements. But

12:05

as soon as they study those movements,

12:07

they don't necessarily fully learn all of

12:09

the bottom up ways

12:11

of actually organizing and working. So for

12:13

example, going into these spaces and making

12:16

sure that moving money

12:18

is a priority, whether it's grants

12:21

or stipends to workers themselves, and

12:23

usually it's translating that money into

12:25

cash so that the people who

12:27

are represented and who are

12:29

bringing work and their stories and

12:31

their voices are prioritized in ways

12:33

that institutions not just, you know,

12:36

taking their stories and promoting them

12:38

for themselves and patting themselves on

12:41

the back, but actually giving the

12:43

people their worth and also being

12:45

able to continuously give us

12:47

platform for our voices. Getting

12:49

into this space is also I think, as

12:53

a collective, it's been the way that

12:55

Rekinery Song works that we really strive

12:57

to be like a lateral

12:59

working group. And that

13:01

includes going into these spaces, making sure

13:04

that every member

13:06

has a voice, that

13:08

their opinion in the way that the

13:10

exhibition is going to be

13:12

seen, the way that their voices are

13:14

going to be represented, that they all

13:17

feel good about every step of the way

13:19

and that they understand like in full transparency,

13:21

how it's going to look, how it's going

13:23

to be designed, so that

13:25

it's never just a representation of our

13:27

work, but it is our work. It

13:29

actually embodies our work together. So

13:32

for example, you saw the exhibition that

13:34

had the altar table. It's not as

13:36

if like two curators were

13:38

just bringing pieces that we've seen from

13:40

other altar tables that we've made to

13:42

create that altar table. No, we

13:44

actually set a day for all of the Rekinery

13:46

Song members, massage workers to come

13:48

so that we could make that altar table

13:51

together. And it was a ritual that

13:53

we did together so that the presentation

13:55

itself wasn't just

13:57

like a simulacrum. that

14:00

and I think that really came through in the

14:02

exhibition. I wanted to ask

14:04

a little bit more about Fly and

14:06

Power. I really enjoyed watching it. I

14:08

felt like it was very experimental and

14:10

did things that I haven't necessarily seen

14:13

in a lot of documentaries before. One

14:15

of the choices that I really loved was like

14:17

some of the participants wanted to

14:19

be anonymous in the sense of like their

14:22

faces were not shown on camera so then

14:24

their hands were often shown instead of kind

14:26

of a way to communicate like emotion

14:29

that you might typically see on someone's face

14:31

and I thought that was a really lovely

14:33

creative choice. I just was

14:36

curious if there are any other choices

14:38

like that that I don't know

14:40

that you feel like sort of the production team

14:42

and process was able to shape the

14:44

final creative product and like the creative

14:46

choices that you made. Absolutely

14:48

and I want to go in saying that I'm not

14:51

a documentarian by career. I don't

14:54

expect to ever be considered feature-length

14:56

documentary as co-director. So

14:59

going in I feel like I have a lot more freedom.

15:01

I'm not a journalist either so I

15:03

didn't feel like I needed to have the space

15:05

between myself and the people I'm working with

15:07

because I'm part of Red Canary

15:10

Song and so many of

15:12

the crew as well are workers

15:14

themselves, sex workers or massage workers and

15:16

so one of the things we

15:18

came into with the intention of like who

15:21

are we making this piece for and it

15:23

was really for community first for the workers

15:25

themselves so that they could see themselves and

15:27

see their story or somebody who has a

15:29

story that's similar to theirs on screen. So

15:33

going into that space really thinking about how

15:36

do we keep people safe and just like

15:38

I spoke about like regarding the exhibition you

15:40

know we always paused after

15:42

taking videos and editing bits

15:44

of the documentary to show

15:46

to community to show the

15:48

people who were actually on

15:51

the screen so that they

15:53

had part of the editing process something

15:55

that also came up

15:57

you know and that I was telling people you know

15:59

workers again and again is that

16:01

even without initially showing your faces on screen

16:04

because that is so scary as a sex

16:06

worker to be out to

16:08

have your story out is also

16:10

incredibly scary and so that's something

16:12

I wanted people to know also that once

16:15

it's out there that to make sure that they

16:17

check in like that we're in

16:19

constant check-in I'm like do you still feel good

16:21

about this how are you doing do

16:23

you still feel safe and

16:26

one of the things that came up was that

16:28

as we were coming towards like

16:30

our launch date for community screening

16:32

at Flushing Town Hall two

16:35

weeks prior to that launch date one

16:37

of the main characters did ask us

16:40

to take about 40% of the documentary

16:42

out and so we

16:44

did it you know and there were like

16:46

incredibly rich personal stories in there and you

16:48

know we were sad to like take them

16:50

out but at the same time it is

16:54

our priority right so we switched

16:56

off and you Rob

16:58

who was the DP

17:00

and co-director got on

17:02

the bus to go to Albany

17:04

and recorded a good

17:07

20% of the film that's

17:09

in there now was done you know

17:11

about two weeks prior to the launch

17:14

date that's incredible Wow yeah so

17:16

being scrappy and just being able to pivot really

17:18

quickly it's really important

17:21

absolutely well I wanted to

17:24

ask about what Red Canary song is focusing

17:26

on right now and just if there are

17:28

any organizing or policy efforts that

17:30

you want folks to be aware of

17:33

yeah absolutely so we

17:35

are continuously doing outreach to

17:38

spa workers and

17:40

sex workers and making sure that mutual

17:42

aid funds are getting to the people who

17:44

need it the most but at this time

17:47

also especially after the

17:49

death of Cecilia Gentile who was really

17:52

like a vital part of decriminalization of

17:54

sex work in New York City we

17:57

have been in coalition

18:00

within Decrim New York

18:02

organization. So the

18:04

Stop the Violence in Sex Trades

18:06

Act is again being lobbied for

18:08

and so we are actively being

18:10

part of that coalition as well.

18:13

Yeah, do you want to say a little bit more

18:15

about what the Stop the Violence in the Sex Trades

18:17

Act is? Sure, so it's

18:19

really looking at full decriminalization of

18:22

sex work both on the worker

18:24

side as well as the client

18:26

side. There's so many policies that

18:28

are being written up that reflected

18:30

the Nordic model which is partial

18:33

decrim which only decriminalizes the workers

18:35

themselves. However, we really have this

18:37

understanding that full decriminalization is

18:39

necessary to keep the industry safe and so

18:41

that workers can feel that they can create

18:44

better working conditions and

18:46

then that they can actually really regulate

18:49

for themselves how their working conditions as

18:51

well as their needs

18:53

are met. Totally. One

18:56

thing that I heard you talk in other

18:58

interviews about is the fact that kink has

19:00

always felt very inherent to your life and

19:03

your sexuality and just kind of something that's

19:05

always been there in some form. I was

19:08

curious if you also feel like that's

19:10

true to some extent of your queerness

19:12

or your relationship to your gender, that

19:14

those kind of were always there in

19:16

some way. I think they're intertwined. Yeah,

19:19

I don't feel like I can piece them out at

19:21

all. I think that kink and queerness

19:23

and even, you know, in my

19:25

sexuality have all been like

19:28

this braid, you know, that I can't necessarily

19:30

take apart. So I think

19:32

that because kink has for me

19:34

has always offered these different ways

19:36

of assuming different roles, archetypes,

19:40

but really playing with dynamics. And

19:42

for me, it was always looking

19:44

at gender dynamics and

19:47

not creating the mirror, you

19:50

know, the mirrored binary of what I

19:52

believe can be out there with the

19:55

soccer, mithok idea of the Venus and

19:57

furs idea of female supremacy, which is

19:59

not. truly female supremacy within

20:01

Kink, you know, this femme

20:04

dom idea, actually

20:06

taking a look at like

20:08

those pyrodynamics and parsing out

20:10

like what does that look

20:12

like and how it's been created

20:15

again by a binary system and

20:17

actually by a patriarchal system that

20:19

is actually seeking out still to

20:21

control the femme dom

20:24

but through acts of

20:26

submission that are not truly what

20:28

I believe to be submissive surrender

20:30

or submissive power, it actually has

20:32

a lot to do with submissive

20:34

manipulation. Interesting. You

20:37

worked as a pro-dom for a long time

20:40

and I feel like jobs like

20:42

that that involve a lot of like

20:44

gender performance can be very

20:46

fun for non-binary people and things that

20:48

we're very good at because they involve

20:50

experimenting with gender and taking gender to

20:53

different kind of extremes. On

20:55

the other hand, I also know that it

20:57

can be very limiting if you have to

20:59

keep doing like one very specific type of

21:01

gender performance in order to keep making money

21:03

and being able to survive. So

21:05

I'm just curious if either or both

21:07

of those dynamics kind of came up

21:10

in your pro-dom work. Absolutely.

21:12

I think that they both both of those things

21:14

are true, you know, both of those dynamics are

21:16

true. First of all, we can't

21:18

always show up completely as ourselves,

21:20

right, within sex work and nor necessarily

21:23

do I want to. Many times within

21:25

sex work when you're doing it on

21:27

a day-to-day basis, it really is by

21:29

putting on whether it's femme armor or

21:32

some kind of masking so

21:34

that it gives you some

21:37

proportionate distance from yourself and

21:39

your client and helps

21:42

you prevent burnout. Also, it gives

21:44

you a chance to give yourself like a bubble

21:46

of like where do you hide your true self,

21:48

right? But at the same

21:50

time, because there's this like in

21:53

kink there is this wonderful way of being

21:55

able to play with dynamics, I

21:57

think it was like the first time that I put strap on

21:59

on. was to

22:01

actually like see what it felt

22:03

like as a femme dom in the

22:05

industry rather than something that I was

22:07

naturally gravitating towards in my personal

22:10

queer life. Yeah, you've

22:13

done so many different kinds of work

22:15

around sex and sexuality and

22:17

I'm curious within all

22:19

of that work whether it be like

22:21

education work or healing work that you've

22:24

done, have you noticed anything that's maybe

22:26

unique about trans and

22:28

non-binary people's relationships to sex

22:30

and sexuality or kink that's

22:32

maybe on average different from

22:35

cis people? Yeah, I

22:37

think that the language is different. I think

22:40

that because queer

22:42

and trans people that

22:44

I've played with and who are in my

22:46

community and for myself

22:48

as well, we have to constantly

22:51

look for the language that

22:54

is describing where we're at,

22:57

you know, at a present time whether

22:59

it be emotionally or physically or how

23:01

we identify with our bodies and

23:04

I feel like that there's also more

23:06

openness to accepting

23:08

new terminology on a

23:11

constant basis and I've been thinking about this

23:13

a lot too regarding like not

23:15

only queerness and kink but also

23:18

that and migration too, how you

23:20

know, working with Ray Cannery Song,

23:22

how queers and

23:25

migrant people, the migrant experience, we're

23:27

always looking for like a home and

23:29

where do we feel safe and where

23:31

do we feel seen and

23:33

so I feel like there's a real connect

23:36

with the language of how we describe these

23:38

things, you know, these describe that journey as

23:40

well and that it's never, once

23:43

we find one space that is feel safe and

23:45

that's home, it's never going to be the

23:47

same and we're constantly still looking

23:49

for the next space that you

23:51

know and create and constantly in

23:54

shedding and recreation of the language.

23:57

Well, I read another

23:59

interview with you where you said that

24:01

you feel like younger queer people generally

24:04

have less negative views of kink. And

24:06

that just kind of made me curious if

24:08

you've noticed any other changes in kink communities

24:11

that you've been part of over time. Yeah,

24:14

I think that there's in terms of

24:16

different things that are coming up, I think, you

24:18

know, in some ways, this is how social media

24:20

has been been great of like being able

24:22

to be an great educator, and that

24:25

there's more resources for kink as well

24:27

as for sex worker safety out

24:30

there for a younger generation. I think

24:32

that like what I've seen in the

24:35

communities is a greater call for emotional

24:37

safety within these spaces

24:39

as well, as well as for

24:41

conflict resolution. So I

24:44

feel like that a lot of

24:46

the people that I work with, or I

24:48

mean community with at least, that when conflicts come

24:50

up, were more likely or

24:52

the younger generation is much more likely

24:54

to instead of harbor deep resentment

24:57

and perpetuate abuse, that

24:59

we're more likely to come

25:01

together and not only protect

25:03

people who are victims of different kinds

25:05

of abuse, but also to really

25:07

look to the people who have that cause

25:09

those harms and to

25:11

envelop them with a lot of love, right,

25:13

because to not necessarily ostracize them

25:16

from our communities, but actually to call them

25:18

in and to see like, what are the

25:20

processes that can happen for this person

25:22

to learn. Yeah,

25:25

I wanted to ask about that actually, because

25:27

you wrote this really beautiful essay and

25:29

the anthology We Too, called We All

25:31

Deserve to Heal, that sort of was

25:33

about this idea of like, how

25:36

we can like remove these carceral

25:38

frameworks from our own mindsets as

25:41

well. Is that always something

25:43

that's sort of come naturally for you to

25:45

have that like, forgiveness or acceptance

25:47

or I see you shaking your head. So

25:49

how did you develop that? How did you

25:51

become so good at that as it seems

25:53

you are now? No,

25:56

not at all. And I still feel that I'm growing

25:58

and I have to learn, you know, I

26:00

am not like some wise Buddha

26:03

of restorative justice at all. I

26:07

think that coming from a childhood

26:09

where there was abuse and then

26:12

also suffering other kinds of sexual

26:15

trauma and abuse, I

26:17

can say quite honestly, I think that my story would

26:19

have been that I could have been somebody who was

26:22

going to just constantly self

26:24

perpetuate that same story. And

26:26

accept that learning

26:28

from queers, learning from other people, you

26:31

know, like certainly not learning from my

26:33

family, my biological family,

26:35

but learning from my community has

26:37

been a constant process, whether I'm

26:39

learning from elders or whether I'm

26:42

also learning from younger people who

26:44

have stepped into my world in

26:46

my organizing work too. And

26:48

also choosing to just not constantly

26:51

have that idea of division because

26:53

within our own communities, we really need to,

26:56

you know, understand that like

26:58

we have to hold everybody within a space.

27:00

I will say that I have caused harm,

27:02

you know, and there are people I have

27:04

had to apologize to. I've

27:07

had to do a lot of reconciliation work

27:09

with in the past and no person stepping

27:12

into these like really hard

27:14

spaces is perfect. And like

27:16

understanding that for myself and looking

27:18

at my problems, like also like

27:20

my tendencies, my temper, my flares,

27:24

that keeps me in check

27:26

for how I look at others and how I'm

27:29

going to call out others or whether I'm going

27:31

to, you know, what my anger is

27:33

towards others. I'm like, I have to constantly

27:35

check that. Yeah. I

27:38

wanted to jump back to Kink

27:40

for a minute in that I was

27:43

reading this article from I think like the

27:45

Brown student newspaper or something from last year.

27:47

And they're saying that your workshops aim to

27:49

debunk some of the misrepresentations of Kink in

27:51

popular media. And obviously there is

27:53

no shortage of misrepresentations of Kink in

27:55

popular media, but I was curious like

27:58

what the most common. misconceptions are

28:01

that you come across and particularly

28:03

within queer and trans communities

28:05

because I think that there

28:08

is a sense among queer community because we were

28:10

like close to the King community in many ways

28:12

that we don't have anything else to learn so

28:14

I guess I was just wondering if there was

28:16

still if there was anything that you

28:18

would like like people to learn. Yeah I guess like one

28:23

thing that I come back to again and again

28:25

is like the word consent and how do we

28:28

that everyone thinks that if you're consenting to step

28:30

into these spaces that everything is going to be

28:32

a safe space and if you're

28:34

consenting to step into a

28:36

polyamorous relationship that everything is going

28:38

to be safe just through communication and

28:41

we're ignoring a lot about like our

28:43

actual feelings too and that many people

28:46

have gone through trauma that

28:48

we may still be repressing and so this

28:51

is again like where I'm looking at myself again

28:53

and saying like even at

28:55

this age I still will

28:57

repress trauma in the same ways and like

28:59

it will come back maybe months

29:01

later after I've experienced

29:04

something and that we have to remember that

29:06

this is just how people process and that

29:08

things aren't going to be communicated

29:11

in kink

29:13

spaces or queer spaces right away

29:16

just because we are flying flags and saying

29:18

like oh this is a place for you to

29:20

be a bit like speaker truth many

29:22

of us don't know what our truth is on

29:25

a day-to-day basis you know

29:27

and dissociation once you

29:29

learn that power of dissociation it's

29:31

hard to stop it you know it's

29:33

hard to like get beyond dissociation so

29:36

and that's definitely a defense mechanism that I

29:38

will you know have

29:40

used used wisely through sex work

29:43

but that I'm still learning to shed and

29:45

and learning to like choose not to

29:48

dissociate you know yeah I

29:50

feel like that's something about that

29:52

I've really tried to express to the

29:54

students at the workshops and I

29:56

think that they saw me it also going through it being able

29:58

to actually just like

30:00

sit and just like cry because of you know

30:02

something that was triggering. I will say that even

30:04

being at Brown you know was triggering for me

30:07

like when somebody asked me like oh what was

30:09

your college experience like? I was like it

30:11

was not like this. I was not sitting in

30:14

a classroom talking about sex work and being queer

30:16

to a bunch of young queers

30:19

you know. I was you know I had a

30:21

very different time of really splitting

30:23

what I was doing in terms of sex

30:25

work at the time to be able to

30:27

get through college and to be able to

30:29

pay for college and then trying to hustle

30:31

with with classes and being in spaces where

30:33

I didn't feel safe being

30:36

out. Yeah

30:38

well I have one more silly

30:40

kink question which is uh love it my

30:42

girlfriend and I have like a long running

30:45

joke where the premise is what counts as

30:47

a kink and so then we would just

30:49

try to come up with like the most

30:51

specific kinks that we could possibly think

30:54

of and this was in reaction to I think

30:56

a sort of vanilla

30:59

mainstream hetero concept of like any ass

31:01

play is a kink or like you

31:03

know any like real basic sex act

31:05

like choking is a kink kind of

31:07

thing. So I was just wondering

31:09

and I mean this in like a it's

31:12

not a serious question because it's gonna be different for

31:14

everyone but like what do you think counts

31:16

as a kink like how would you define kink? Yeah

31:20

so that yeah that is a really broad

31:23

question and it's really hard for me now

31:25

at this time to like discern

31:27

like what is kinky for people

31:30

who are completely not kinky right

31:32

like exactly yeah so yeah so

31:34

I mean I think

31:36

that I didn't even like make out with someone

31:39

properly before and I was choking

31:41

somebody before making some

31:43

out and slapping before actually

31:45

kissing and like I

31:47

don't think I ever knew one of like a soft

31:51

you know gentle kiss was until

31:53

maybe in my 20s so like

31:55

you know so where's

31:57

the kink-o-meter right up

32:00

and down and I think that is different for everybody and

32:02

it is so different for queers too,

32:04

right? So I'm still perplexed. I'd

32:06

have to like completely be outside of my body

32:08

and my mind to be able to answer that

32:10

question for somebody else to be honest. Well,

32:13

one other question about kink. I read

32:15

once that you described kink as being

32:17

part of your spiritual life. And I

32:19

was just wondering if you could maybe

32:21

talk a little bit more about that

32:23

and maybe if gender

32:26

connects to that sort of sense

32:28

of spirituality and kinkiness for you.

32:31

Yeah. So I think

32:34

that the ways that I found kink

32:36

really connect with me in a spiritual

32:39

sense was when I started to

32:41

see a dominatrix out in San

32:43

Francisco, I was

32:46

going to see her to really

32:48

come to terms with a lot of the

32:50

masochism that my body craved and

32:53

the ways that I was able to bring

32:57

my full self that

32:59

didn't necessarily hone in on

33:02

my erotic or sexual self. And not that

33:04

I was leaving taking that out of the

33:07

equation because it's always part of the equation

33:09

with my body, but at that time, but

33:11

that I could bring in the

33:14

parts of myself that felt like

33:16

they needed deep healing, the parts of myself

33:18

that needed a mother in the space, parts

33:21

of myself where I wanted to call to my ancestors.

33:23

I brought my journal, you

33:26

know, we created an

33:28

altar together. And I think

33:31

that for me, and also what

33:33

I see from a lot of

33:35

people who are going through this

33:37

wrestle of spiritual sexuality is

33:40

this feeling that we don't have a

33:42

lot of rituals of the

33:44

body anymore that when

33:46

we need to come of age or acknowledge, hurt,

33:51

trauma, to be able to heal from

33:53

those spaces. So

33:55

bringing my spirituality into

33:58

kink was really about like off the line. offering

34:00

a space for myself as

34:02

well as for others where I would

34:04

offer like a guidance where I could

34:06

be a tool of kink so

34:09

that somebody, you know, a

34:11

bottom could dig into

34:13

trauma without feeling that I

34:15

was going to lord over them in a dominant

34:17

way, but that I was actually going to

34:19

offer them myself as just

34:22

like the tool to get

34:24

their body to the space that they wanted to go

34:26

to and we would have negotiations

34:28

on whether I would push them or whether

34:30

they really just wanted like a mothering space.

34:33

So that was what I was seeking for myself

34:35

for so long. I didn't even realize it until

34:38

I was in that space that I was seeing

34:40

Cleo Dubois and their partner Fakir Mustafar to

34:43

yeah, really like deep dive into

34:45

some of my trauma for myself.

34:48

While we were talking a little bit before we

34:50

got started about parenting, I wanted

34:52

to ask if

34:54

being a parent has changed anything about

34:56

how you think about your gender. Yes,

35:00

absolutely. I never knew that like

35:02

birthing these other beings

35:04

was going to then birth so many

35:07

cells, past

35:09

cells as well as present and future

35:12

selves for myself. First of all,

35:14

I'll say that for my own journey, my first

35:17

pregnancy was

35:19

really hard for me because I

35:21

definitely experienced a lot of body

35:23

dysmorphia and then postpartum as well.

35:26

And then after my second

35:28

child and breastfeeding, I

35:31

was really ready to

35:33

change my body and I had

35:35

spoken about it quite often to my

35:38

partner and have really thought about it quite

35:40

often, but I really held off even

35:43

claiming non-binary. I was really holding

35:45

off. In my head for some

35:47

reason, I thought like I had to hold on

35:49

to how do I expand

35:51

what it is to be female, what it is to be

35:54

she, her for as long as possible

35:56

so that I could offer that

35:58

expansiveness to my children. at the

36:00

time. And then

36:02

after my son came out this

36:05

past year, I've had

36:07

conversations with myself as well with him

36:09

of what would it be

36:11

to perhaps get top surgery together,

36:13

you know, those kinds of things of like,

36:16

what is it to because that is something that

36:18

I've wanted, but I've really just, I

36:20

don't know, I've just like put it on the back burner, like this

36:22

is not the most important thing to me right now. So

36:25

I don't know, it's been really interesting

36:27

in terms of being

36:29

able to make sure that

36:31

he has his space to be trans

36:34

is allowing me to also have

36:37

that space to be trans. It's really nice.

36:39

I love the concept of parent child

36:41

top surgery. Let's

36:43

make it happen. I guess

36:46

I'm also curious if being a parent

36:48

has changed anything about your relationship

36:50

to kink or sort

36:52

of generally how you think about

36:54

sex and sexuality. Yeah,

36:58

it has definitely, you

37:00

know, my kids are now teens. So

37:02

I can say like, not

37:04

only my parenting of my kids, so

37:06

like just the birthing of my kids,

37:08

it's definitely changed how I was

37:10

relating to sex work as well. I got

37:14

to a point where I was also becoming

37:16

really like impatient with clients

37:19

before having children. It was almost

37:21

like my clients were my children in

37:24

some ways, where I had

37:26

like a lot more time and energy and like to

37:29

sort of pamper the business.

37:32

And so I really pulled away after

37:34

having children. The way that

37:37

it affects my kink too, it's not

37:39

that necessarily that I'm less of a sadist,

37:41

but I'm not just much more of like

37:43

a mindful sadist. I

37:45

was very bloodthirsty in

37:47

my sadism in kink. And

37:49

that's also has to do some I

37:51

believe with some part of like just aging as

37:54

well. But then I became

37:56

a lot more aware of who

37:58

am I going to mark? how am I

38:00

going to draw this blood and what kinds

38:03

of rituals am I performing and what

38:05

kind of meaning does that have for me? Do

38:08

you have any advice for

38:10

people who are seeking out

38:12

some type of healing sexual

38:14

ritual like the one that you described

38:16

earlier sort of like how to seek

38:19

out a provider for that and what

38:21

kinds of things to be aware

38:23

of as you're sort of like finding who the

38:25

person for you might be? Yeah

38:27

absolutely do research on the

38:29

person that you're looking to connect

38:31

with. If you're looking for

38:34

a professional provider to

38:36

really look at their website but then connect

38:38

with them, read their website thoroughly

38:40

on like what they expect from

38:43

a first introductory email and do

38:46

a lot of research for yourself you

38:48

know on like what do you want, where

38:50

are your boundaries, look

38:52

at the gamut of what kink

38:54

means right and there's like you

38:57

know on fat life I believe there's like a huge list

38:59

it's like over 200 or 300 fetishes

39:02

and kinks but really write down

39:04

like what each one means for you and

39:06

what you want to explore and look

39:09

to see like whose writing resonates, whose

39:11

personality resonates. If

39:14

you're looking within the lifestyle and

39:16

the community itself doing

39:19

checks on like reference checks seeing who

39:21

this that person is friends with,

39:23

who are they who are they hanging out

39:25

with, who are you know not just the

39:27

person themselves but like what does their community

39:29

look like, what does their support community look

39:31

like and then also what does your own

39:33

support community feel like you know making sure

39:35

you go into this the kink scene with

39:38

friends you know so that you're not alone

39:40

out there connecting with tops

39:43

or bottoms that you have people

39:45

to have these conversations with and

39:47

to to sound off on

39:49

like what feels safe because desire

39:52

and kink you know as

39:54

we know can also get really

39:56

messy. I realize

39:58

like a lot has changed since you

40:01

were first starting to do sex work,

40:03

but I'm curious if you have advice

40:05

for like younger queer and trans people

40:07

who are trying to get into

40:09

sex work or have more of their income come

40:11

from sex work. Yeah again

40:14

community I feel like that's

40:16

like the most important thing

40:18

that I tell workers again

40:20

again that when they're getting in make sure

40:22

that they are connecting with other workers who have

40:24

been in the scene for a long time or

40:27

at least more than a year. And again

40:29

the same thing as my

40:31

advice to people are getting into kink like

40:33

writing down what your boundaries are. Your

40:36

boundaries can change as you're going through the work but

40:38

as long as you know what they were in the

40:40

beginning then you know that that meter is

40:42

shifting and really you know

40:44

making sure that you have if not a mental

40:47

health provider than somebody close to it a good

40:49

friend whom you can sound off with. You

40:52

know people I always tell people also make sure

40:54

that you have at least two people who know

40:56

where you are at all times so that your

40:58

phone has the shared location at all times with

41:01

those people. Whether you're

41:03

doing in-call or out-call both

41:05

are necessary. Yeah I

41:08

think those are the but community I'll just

41:10

keep going back to community. Yeah well

41:13

the way that we always end the

41:16

show is by asking about people's ideal

41:18

gender future. Before I ask you that

41:20

I actually wanted to ask you a

41:23

slightly different question which is in your

41:26

ideal world what would the future of sex

41:28

work look like? Hmm

41:31

yeah what does like a sex worker utopia

41:33

look like? I think

41:35

that it's such an interesting

41:37

question because when we think of

41:39

you know when I think of

41:42

sex work decriminalization you can't really

41:44

just stop there right. I

41:46

think that looking at like how

41:48

do we then take the work

41:50

out of sex work so

41:52

that because right now we are looking

41:55

to decriminalize sex work because we're in

41:57

such like a hyper capitalistic system. that

42:01

it makes sense for

42:03

people to be able to make

42:05

use of the resources that are the

42:08

immediate resource of their body and exchanging

42:10

for desire and erotic

42:12

labor. However, the greatest

42:15

utopia would be that everybody has those

42:17

needs met, right? So that the work

42:19

part could be taken out and that

42:21

we could just focus on who wants

42:24

to have sex and how. And like,

42:26

in what ways and like, how do

42:28

we have that in the most freeing

42:30

ways and but also in the most

42:32

grounded ways that are like really authentic

42:35

to who we are and what

42:37

authentic to what we want as well.

42:39

So I think that there's a real idea

42:42

that like, if we were to really get on

42:44

the space shuttle and say like, have time and

42:47

say like, can we get

42:49

to decriminalization of sex work, but then even

42:51

farther out, can we take the work out of the sex

42:54

work as well? Yeah, would be

42:56

my fantasy. I love that. Well,

42:59

the way we always end the

43:01

show is by asking in your

43:03

ideal world, what would the future

43:05

of gender look like? I

43:07

think that it would be really a morphos

43:10

of even the idea

43:12

of gender could dissolve in a way

43:15

so that we wouldn't necessarily have

43:17

to constantly identify with gender

43:19

at all. But

43:22

that said, within

43:24

the frameworks of gender, I

43:26

think that like having everyone

43:29

be able to have a language

43:31

that can be encompassing of fluidity

43:33

would be really important to me.

43:37

And so, yeah, I think that my future of gender

43:39

would be just a constant

43:41

look at like, how can we identify ourselves

43:43

that feel satisfactory and

43:45

connective to the people that we want to connect

43:47

with and yet also just

43:50

be really open. That's

43:55

going to do it for this week's show. You

43:57

can find Yen at Red Canary Song. at

44:00

kinkadevents and at

44:03

yinq13ritual. You can find

44:05

us on Patreon at patreon.com/gender. That's where

44:07

you can get access to our weekly

44:09

newsletter and our bonus podcast. We are

44:11

also on Instagram and at genderpodcast.com where

44:13

we've got transcripts of every episode. This

44:15

episode was produced and edited by Ozzy

44:18

Linas Goodman and by me, Ted Woodstock.

44:20

Our logo is by Ira M. Lai,

44:22

who by the way, is one of

44:24

our all-star Trans Day of Snack volunteers

44:26

every year. Shout out to Ira. Our

44:28

theme song is by Breakmonster Cylinder. Additional

44:30

music by our friends at Bluecon Sessions.

44:33

We'll be back next week with more

44:35

feelings about gender. Free

44:37

Palestine.