Well, hi everyone. Welcome back to the Trans Narrative podcast. I'm Caroline. On today's episode, we're joined by trans artist and creative's Fox Camp and Ryan Clinkin, whose works fans visual art, performance and storytelling. Both artists use their craft to explore the intersections of identity, emotion, and transformation, creating pieces that speak to the beauty, grief, and resilience of the trans experience.
Be what you want to be that makes you happy, and spread out the expression of what it means to be human and push that beyond if you want what it means to be human. And to be clear, any person who is masculine can present, you know, flamboyantly and effeminately, like without being gay, you know, it's just traits that we should uphold and we
should celebrate just as much. In this conversation, we discuss how expression becomes resistance, how community feels creativity, and how trans artistry redefines visibility and belonging. And joining us once again, Fox on the run. There's an old 70, something like that. Fox Trans Welcome back. Hi, thank you for having me again. Thank you for being here. Gosh, I never usually introduce after the fate of the music, but here I am, first time in a while. Ryan Fox, welcome back to the
trans narrative. It's so good to have you both here. So glad to be here again and again. Yes, we love that. So. So the last time you've been on, which I don't know when because I, the editor, doesn't tell me that in advance, how have you all been? What have you been doing since we've last spoke? Fox, let's start with you. What have you been up to since we last had you on? I will pretend it's much longer time than it's actually been for your editor's sake.
No, I was thinking about how how quickly life moves our it's still June when we're recording this, but I've got booked to. Place them now. Why'd you tell them that they spoiled the the the the illusion? The illusion OK, well, we can cut that out right and just. No, because I'm going to forget to cut that a little part. OK, I've got some DJ gigs coming up for Pride later on in the
summer. I've got a bunch of like I do, I do work for nonprofits and a lot of like video and editing work for like government and not exclusively queer nonprofits, but people working in nonprofit space that often helps with like that overlaps with queer activism or indigenous activism and anti poverty. So I've got a lot going on there. Still working on the book. Hopefully it's it's happened too close together. I want to be like I got the book done.
But yeah, I'm working on working on our third anomalous transmissions collection. And yeah, I think that that's it with me. Ryan, where have you been getting up to? Kicked off Pride season and have been in drag a lot. Got to do Sea Lord Pride in their golf cart parade and performed in the show called Men At Work. And then coming up in the next two weeks I have my show that I host, King Awakening and we're having our showcase for the young baby kings that are coming
up in our community. We do the showcase the month after we host a workshop, so it gives them some time to get their stuff together. And then I'm actually a winner of a karaoke competition here called Pride Idol.
So I'll be singing on mainstage for Pride Saint Louis Festival and working with Jordan Braxton on a protest March the Saturday of Pride. And then we'll be in the Pride parade that Sunday. And I had a really good brunch today with my friend who I haven't gotten to see in a while, so that was really, really nice. Love a good brunch? I love a good brunch too. So Ryan, tell me, how has your relationship with gender change since we last had you on? Gender has been good, gender I
it's been good. I'm coming up on my one year post op from getting my hysterectomy done, so I noticed since. Thank you. I, it was, it was a really great decision. So I finally feel like all my hormones have settled because my body does not produce any estrogen anymore because I did a, a total hysterectomy with an opherectomy, which means they removed the ovaries as well. And I feel really settled in
that I healed up really well. I've got minimal scarring from where they inserted the the scope and the the little microbot arms that they use everything with. They stick that scope in your belly button, by the way. Oh, it's like a matrix in a bad way. It kind of so I'm looking. Good way. But yeah, now I got that bug in my head. Yeah, I'm looking forward to celebrating my one year post op
for that. And I'm coming up on nine, yeah, nine years on testosterone and in February, which is, you know, still about 8 months off, but the years seem to be flying by, honestly. Congratulations. That's it. Thank you, Fox. How about you, I? Have been moving more and more towards just a full time, identifying full time as a woman. I think especially when it comes to CIS hat people outside of the queer community.
I like, I think transition for a lot of us, at least in my case, like I knew kind of kind of where my my goal and where my like where dysphoria was pushing me and what kind of my goal for transition was. And I left a lot of grace for people to kind of like figure that out on their own time. And part of that was being like, yeah, you can use they them pronouns. That's fine. And now I'm because then if you do that and you're a trans woman and you're like, sometimes I'm a tomboy, though.
And I'll get people. They will never use she her. They'll always use they, which is a thing and a feeling and being like, I don't like that. I think that's, that's a big aspect of it. And also just like I've been on hormones for this year, will be 6 years in October and I'm finally really happy with what's going on with my body. Probably for the first time ever, I can look at myself and put clothes on and be like, I'm very comfortable in this.
And, and when I was doing like kind of the long hair, androgynous, but like a mab kind of leaning stuff, I was not also super comfortable. So that's kind of been a big change. I think that it's drifting more towards that identity or moving more towards that identity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's it. That's all I can say about that. I have not really had the opportunity to get some of the some of the surgical interventions I'd like. Specifically getting hair room
for my face. That would be fantastic. That's a major source of dysphoria. But I got nice boobs, so I'll take the trade off. That was that was free, government supplied. OK, I'm done. Come on Canada, giving us the hormones. Yeah, they pay for them in your low income too. It's great. As long as you're on the pills. You don't get the shots for free. Oh, the United States needs to catch up with that. Yeah, yeah. We also like not to like be. There's a lot of American
listeners. Canada's healthcare system isn't perfect, but it does lots of things immeasurably better than yours. So change that I. Feel like we've been trying to, but we keep ending up with not great politicians that keep trying to ban any kind of healthcare for everybody. Yeah, when a third of your country is just like, bad luck, better die, you're like kind of screwed. So I have to ask because I prefer the term trans mask for myself but like in public I say
like trans man or trans male. Are you at the point where like you prefer trans woman over like trans femme? Yeah. And I think that really depends on the audience that I'm dealing with. As far as as far as as far as the general public goes, I prefer to be introduced as a trans woman who is non binary and is, you know, primarily FEMA presenting.
And like, when you're dealing with queer people, you're dealing with the LGBTQ community and discussing identity and presentation and transition and like the intersection between all those things, there's a huge discussion to be had. But when it's people that you're just introducing to the idea of transis and like, you know, when you're in trans spaces, queer spaces, you know, all sorts of trans people and all sorts of
identities. And it's easy, easy, really easy to forget that most sis have people. You're the only trans person that they know, they know, you know. So there's a big, big difference in between how I mediate identity with the public and how I mediate identity with with queer spaces, in queer spaces. And part of that's because, yeah, go ahead. So I so actually, so Ryan, so Ryan, let me ask you this
question. So how has, how has disability shaped your understanding of masculinity, transness in your drag performances? Let's kind of get into kind of what you wanted to talk about today a little bit, which was, you know, advocacy in the disability community and the intersection of that within queer and trans community. So for me personally, I actually only recently was diagnosed with what we would consider like a disability literally within the
last. Like I don't even think it's been a full six weeks at this point. I had a back injury that's now caused me and I got the back injury almost 10 years ago, but it's caused me to develop osteoarthritis, other known otherwise known as degenerative disc disease. I have that. Yeah, more people have it than I realize, but I'm 26 years old and when I was looking up a lot of people that do end up getting it, they are not in my age range.
So in my lower lumbar my the cushioning between the discs and my spine is deteriorating, I hope not rather rapidly, but rapid enough that it's causing a significant amount of pain, which actually does not present in my back at all. It presents all in my left hip and shoots pain all the way down my leg. So there's days that I have to walk with a cane and there's days that I'm perfectly OK.
And I feel like how that's intersected not only with like how I do drag, but with my trans identity is it's given me, I would even say more community. My best friend Wes is somebody who was born with a tethered spinal cord. And you know, they are somebody that talks about being trans and disabled and has been such a like perfect person to lean on. I'm still kind of navigating how this impacts my transness. But as far as like drag goes, I kind of have to slow it down a
little bit. I'm I go a little hardcore, you know, getting the windmill windmill donkey kicks in. I was performing last night and actually did a like from my knees, did a full back bend and got done with a number and said, oh, I should not have done that. I burnt. Yeah. So I, I think I'm still just learning how to work my body now, now having like the pain that I do and the diagnosis that I got.
I have some friends who have like similar degenerative back problems, a little bit older, but like not that much older. And yeah, it's seeing what they go through and this challenges and accommodations that are required to go through something like that is a lot. So I feel for you and I really hope that you've can manage the contours of it without too much trouble. Yeah, I'm still kind of struggling at times to consider myself disabled.
I I think we have such a black and white view of what disabilities are. And so automatically you think of like somebody always on a cane or always on crutches or always in a wheelchair. But for me, it it with how I said, you know, I'm sometimes on a cane and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I feel like I'm like getting looked at, like I'm faking it on the days that I don't need my cane and that kind
of stuff. That's a story I've heard a lot from people who who have disabilities like that, who who have like what hidden disabilities or whatever they call invisible disabilities is. Kind of what I've been calling it. Yeah, where? Yeah, Sometimes you're totally capable, sometimes you're not.
I was in a car accident 09 years or so ago now and I was lucky to be mostly OK, but there's still like some structural issues that come up for me. And there are days where like I will have slept funny or exerted myself the wrong way the day before. And then just like we're sitting too long with bad posture and I just cannot, I have to take a day and just lie in bed and stretch and like, do body care because otherwise it's not, I won't be functional.
I can, I can appreciate that. And also like, I know I've been in all sorts of different specifically performance venues because not just for queer people obviously, but like so many queer, queer performance venues specifically are not really that accessible because. They're not. You're putting them wherever you can, you know, like we got cheap rent on this like 60 year old bar that has a little stage, but like, you know, it's down a flight of steps and then up a
flight of steps. And no, we can't put a ramp in. We don't have any money or space or whatever, you know that kind of. Brian, do you feel there's pressure within the community to push towards, push through pain to be seen or validated? How do you resist that? Honestly, I feel like resisting it is actively, you know, talking about the pain that I face. I know I'm not the only entertainer in my area that is
disabled. My good friend Vincent Vandal, who's also a drag king, he has EDS Allerdanlow syndrome and he's been got an amazing support since I got my diagnosis as well. He Co hosted the trans power hour with me the other day and he said he's made it a point to at the end of the show, if he's hurting, he's going to come out on his cane. And he said, you know, I don't want to hide. I don't want to. And, and of course I'm you know the gist of what he said.
Of course, that he said, I think it's OK to be an entertainer and present and do what I need to do, but still also talk about how this impacts my body. And you know, him and another colleague of mine, Moxie Cotton Rose, who has a permanent broken bone in her foot. It's one of the, I don't know exactly what bone it is, but it's like it's just never going to heal is my understanding. And she talks about living with that as well and the pain that that causes.
I think if we're more open and honest about where we're at personally, I think it makes more people comfortable to talk about what kind of pain they're in. So you said, you know, you, you had mentioned about receiving your diagnosis recently and I know what that's like because I had a car accident in 2018. It was only in 2023 that my doctor was like, oh, well, we found this note from your accident years ago that said it's this disease.
And I said, oh, that would have been helpful to know, you know, And there was this like, you know, there's like this sense of grief and also a relief. How has, how has naming this helped you relate to yourself differently? Understanding what it is that you're actually going through? Because 10 years you've dealt with this, but you've only now recently come to understand what it is. Yeah, the pain I felt in the last 10 years, it kind of goes it's it was on and off until more so this year.
I always had, you know, what I would call flare ups in the winter. And so you know, I, I always knew from my previous back injury that my, my back never healed correctly because my original injury I knocked, I just got a place in my spine and it pressed a nerve that shot pain down my hip. And so I did, you know, X-rays and Mr. is on my hips and they couldn't find anything.
So I did physical therapy for my spine and in doing excuse me for my hips and in doing that knocks the two other discs out of place in my spine. So I had to see, I think it was four or five different specialists before we found it. And at that point I was on crutches pretty consistently. And after they realized that it was my spine and they found the disc slipped, I was in a back brace for a while.
And then I, I thought it was going to be generally, you know, OK, I was a 1718 years old when this originally happened. And now having the pain that I do, which is more intense than my original back injury, I was kind of heartbroken because I, I felt like it's taken a lot out of me, you know, I can't do nearly as much as I used to be able to.
So when my pain started consistently showing up after the winter of this this past winter, I went to my doctor and I said, look, I don't know what this is. Can we do X-rays? Can we do Mr. Is? Can we do whatever we can? And it didn't help. We had an ice storm here. And I fell on the ice three times because Saint Louis did such a poor job of like preparing us for that storm. So I thought maybe, you know, I
just slipped another desk. And so we did X-rays on my hips to make sure that I didn't fracture anything when I fell and nothing came back. It looked pretty standard. But when we did the X-rays on my spine, my doctor found the deterioration between the discs and I was relieved to have that
diagnosis. Absolutely. But I've been slowly grieving. What I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with in my body because I don't I'm not harsh on my body by any means unless I'm performing and I go maybe a little too hard. But it's grieving for me on this has looked a little up and down because I have such an amazing
support system. I feel like I haven't been, you know, too down on myself, but I still have these moments of, you know, I won't be able to walk pretty consistently without being in pain. I can't, you know, just go out and do whatever without taking my pain meds with me. I usually have to take my pain meds about once or twice a day to function. And even on the days that I do have to take it twice, sometimes I'm still in a significant
amount of pain. So it's, it's non consistent on where I'm at. Honestly, I think as soon as they find you're not able bodied enough to do something that you're not worth having around. Luckily my my day job doesn't feel that way. I've been pretty open with them since getting my diagnosis and and telling them when I'm having, you know, worse pain days than others of like, hey, I
can't lift this. Like I, I work in a kitchen right now for a local BBQ chain and I'll, I'll tell them straight up like I can't lift that 50 LB bag of onions today. Like if you can get me some help. So I'm I'm lucky in that aspect, but absolutely, like if you aren't able to put your body through the most, then it's kind of like get out of the way, which really sucks. Capitalism just kind of really sucks.
Yeah, what? What kind of care is capitalism incapable of providing, especially for for people with disabilities, especially trans people with disabilities? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. I'm asking you, I was asking Ryan, like what way? Like what are like, what are some things that care that that that that that like capitalism
is capable of providing like? I'm going to be real, I at this point I'm unsure like I if you're not able bodied enough and you're not sis like I, is there anything that really can provide? Yeah. And I think let me. Oh, sorry, go ahead. I think that really speaks to this. When we talk about intersectionality, a lot of people don't really have a great grasp of what that means
specifically. But I think when you start to talk about like layered exclusion is a really good way of looking at it. Because maybe you're not able bodied, but you're CIS hat and you have a specialization that doesn't require you to do physical labor capitalism. And you you only have that one intersection. But the second you know you're queer and disabled, then you know there might be two different reasons why you won't get a job that you're otherwise qualified for, right?
Like either if the disability doesn't disqualify you, the fact that you're queer might be. And if you're queer and black and disabled, then the first two don't disqualify you, but you might not get hired because you're a black person and you make this company uncomfortable for whatever reason, right? And that's a good way to talk about, it's a good way to understand for people how intersections work. Sometimes it's like they all interconnect to make life harder
for you. But sometimes when you don't have the other things that are holding you back, it's enough. It's something that'll just come in and shut the door for you. I'm pretty good at having put together diverse spaces.
My, my method, which is not everybody's method, which is to just kind of like, at least in this, this is specifically in the spaces that I moderate, it's been to be tolerant, do the paradox of tolerance thing where you're tolerance of essentially everything except intolerance and to only step in if there's like interpersonal conflict or if somebody is like really steps over a line. And a lot of that comes from just like I, I am not a rule maker and I don't like enforcing
them. So in more organized spaces where you're dealing with the general public, and this is, you know, a big deal here in queer spaces in Vancouver is being inclusive and intersectional and having that kind of at the forefront of the organizing style and the inclusion. And like, like we're moving away from exclusively, you know, sis
gay bars here. There's still, you know, there's still, there's still businesses that cater more explicitly towards like the bath houses that cater specifically towards primarily sis gay men. But by and large, like the entertainment, queer entertainment here is a lot more
diverse. People are actively going and seeking out of drag kings and trans mask performers and specifically trans performers to put and trans people of color to headline their events and kind of more generally be celebrated directly by the organizations and the venues that that we're participating in. Instead of just kind of like trying to fight the cliquishness that can happen. I think when you start to silo identities like that, which is
good. We're also like the disability conversation that's been been focused on. There are challenges, absolutely, especially like I kind of mentioned with venues and things like that, making sure they're accessible can be really, really challenging. Some of the more prominent trans run spaces in the city do their best to kind of minimize that, which is really good to see. I think some of the things that come up for me that are difficult are when you have like competing needs, especially
disability needs. Like there's, I don't wear glasses anymore, but I wore glasses for most of my life and I was lucky enough to get laser eye surgery. And I have, I still part of that is that like people don't really think of vision loss and that's how like if you're blind, you're disabled. But I was like unable to make out features on my hand like 3 inches in front of my face.
So going from that to being in good light, full sight and in bad light, having a lot of difficulty making things out and seeing things and then competing with people who have like light sensitivities and trying to, you know, create a space that meets everybody's needs is play unilaterally is hard. And I think that the best organizing spaces that I've been in are the ones that recognize that every identity and every individual has different accessibility needs or identity
care needs. Whether that's, you know, trans masked people who have different who have different transition care requirements from trans feminine people who have different transition care requirements from non binary people or like however you fall under the umbrella, whatever your individual needs are, they don't always overlap and they
occasionally conflict. And I think finding space in our organizations and communities to be grace, to have the grace to give everybody some time and some space where their needs are being met and their identities are being centered. I am so you know, in Fox specifically, you know, your work critiques media packages for the, you know, queerness for the masses. So and, and, and in your performances, Ryan, you know, you've, you've mentioned performing through pain and reclaiming joy.
I, I wonder, you know, what does gender like? What does it look like outside of, of these rigid ways? And more importantly, I guess, Ryan, I want to start with you. How has how has capitalism specifically shaped, you know, how you look at how we should dress, speak and and even perform? I think in, in my experience, in, in the masculine experience, at least capitalism is shaped how we view masculinity is very rigid like it.
And I think that's where we get a lot of our critique of like effeminate men and like assuming automatically that if you know you have any effeminate or flamboyant traits, that somebody is gay. And while, yes, often times that is true, if you are not meeting that one like rigid, this is what a man knows and he looks like he's from corporate America, then it's it's seen as like less valid, if that makes sense. And that's where I like, I like
to out of drag in drag. I I play with and toy with effeminate traits all the time. Like I I like to say, you know, in my makeup, yeah, I draw on a mustache and a goatee and some thick ass eyebrows, but I do my eyeshadow more effeminate. I do, you know, I wear highlighter that like, pops and glitters. I think capitalism really affected me at the beginning of when I started performing because I was not doing that nearly as much. I wasn't putting on the illusion, more of a gay man.
And to be clear, any person who is masculine can present, you know, flamboyantly and effeminately, like without being gay. You know, it's just traits that we should uphold and we should celebrate just as much. And there's a whole aside of how capitalism has affected, you know, performance communities because there are some people that are drag entertainers for a living. I am unfortunately not one of those people. That's kind of a hobby that, yeah, I make a good little bit
of money here and there. But I if I'm making sense, I think that's how it affects more of a masculine side. Yeah. So, you know, Fox as a writer and storyteller, you know, how do you, how do you build futures that don't mimic the systems that we're trying to break away from? It's a lot of imagination, I think that. So there's this, this idea when it comes to capitalism to tie us all together. Most people can't imagine a world without capitalism, right?
Most people living today, it's it's like this concept called capitalist realism. Even though a lot of people, you know, hate it, they can't imagine a world where it doesn't exist. Which is why so much of our like futurism. Science fiction is dystopian in the way that it is because nobody is. Very few people at least are looking forward and going. What does it look like? What for the system look like
without capitalism? There's a couple authors if you like sci-fi who do it. Kim Stanley Robinson probably bumps to mind. That's the most obvious example of a leftist sci-fi writer who who tries to do that. He wrote the Red Mars series, which is about a Mars colony that goes through a undergoes a revolution and then comes out as like a socialist society on a planetary scale. And then there's some subsequent books from that. And this is actually super relevant.
We'll talk about one of his stories is it's like 2312, I think it's called. I'm going to look and it is 2312. So, you know, 300 years in the future, humanity is essentially colonized the solar system. And for some people who in that world they have like, you know, when you're a he's again sits that man writing this. So it's not, you know, coming from a queer perspective specifically, but the two main characters.
One of them is not openly said but it's neurodivergent and they're both I think 1 was I'm going to use these terms because it's what I have available. One is AMAB, 1 is AFAB and they both have they both identify with their assigned gender at birth, but they also both had like gender care that provided them with like the other set of reproductive organs and both had like sired children and both had born children.
And then when the yeah, this is an adult show, then they fuck and they do the whole like hermaphrodite kink thing. Do I want to say that? No, but that's what happens in the sex. Do I want to say it's kink? No, but that's what happens in the scene that he writes.
He writes and it was read that pretty early on in my transition and was kind of like he may not get it, but at least, you know, he's doing something interesting with gender in a society where like that shit doesn't matter is really, you know, you turn people people are also living to be hundreds of years old.
They have, you know, brought wide-ranging experiences that are not necessarily focused on how much profit they're generating for a system, how what the value of their labor is. And I think like that all together in a package is such a brilliant vision for an anti capitalist future and not a capitalism free and not an anti capitalist future, A capitalism free future where like where hard work is something that you can do if you want to.
But there's just as much value in taking the slow route and meeting the people and smelling the roses along the way and enjoying the small moments of life and creativity and art and the pursuit of excellence without the promise of reward. Yeah. And this book. It's pretty good. They go surfing on like Saturn's rings or something. It's crazy book. That sounds really cool. Yeah, it is.
It is kind of like the final sequel, I guess, sequel to the Red Mars series because it's set in the same universe just years later, hundreds of years later. And so when I'm doing my own, I'm going to, sorry, I'm kind of talking a bit here.
But so when I'm doing my own writing, and I guess this ties a little bit into the post genderism, which I think I think there's a level to which that we need to abolish the strictures of what you're assigned gender at birth is and what that implies for you and the pressure put on you by society and the people in your life to conform to your assigned gender at birth. I think that we can do without. I think that I think that a totally androgynous society
would also be boring. So so I don't think that like gender abolition to the point of saying, well, we no longer have this like hyper because you know, what would have not to, what would have drag would kind of cease to exist. These ideas of these stylized gender performances and playing with this breadth of human experience. I don't think flattening that into androgyny. Think about like gender without identity, like what is gender without like, what is gender? What is our relationship?
You know, what would drag me in a world that that didn't, you know, I guess you could say like to modify gender to this sense of like rigid, rigid rigidity. You know, what would we would we like? And I don't see this is because you got to be careful when you do this because this is where like the turfs come in and they're going to hijack our language here and then they can turn it against us.
So like this question of like, if we lived in a world where we were all free to be free of ourselves and we didn't identify ourselves with our genitals or, you know, lack thereof, like. Would the terms trans and queer and things like that? What would our relationship to community be, you know, outside of of that, you know, and, and, and it's of course that just intersects with everything else. Like what's a world without, you know, consumerism? What's a world without
colonization? What's a you know, and it's, you got to start somewhere, right? You know, so it's, it's and, and I think that, you know, your work Fox really encapsulates like this, this this vision of, of a world that that it's outside of this and sees humanity as it is and not as a function of, of somebody else's like need to accumulate late
control, you know. Yeah, I definitely, a lot of my work right now is, is I think that's the stuff that I'm specifically working on at this moment is trying to break free of that. Something I like to think a lot about is that, you know, any individual has the potential to become anything right, regardless of where they start. And I think that that is what I would like to see when I consider the abolition of gender.
Like you are born as a human and you do you want to become like, you know, oh God, I want to use that example. Do do you want to become like a cool dude bartender and like come up with new drinks and stuff? Do you want to become like a badass, sexy, what was the movie in the 90s Coyote ugly bartender? Do you want to be somebody who it's like, it doesn't matter, do what you do What become the person that you want to become based on this like wide diversity.
But also that might be so like reading over some of the post genderism stuff and being like, you know, we've, I I'm on board until it gets to like a future where, you know, all reproduction is done through assisted reproduction as opposed to people actually having sex for reproduction purposes. And like there. Yeah. Yeah. The whole, I think the ability for anybody to fill any role in a family or in a society without being restricted by a gender role that was placed on them
without their consent. That's what I think of when I think of that. It's the involuntary aspect of it. Yeah, You know, that fundamentally gets to me. Not that somebody wants to be like a bombshell or a cool dude or a androgynous swamp creature. Like be what you want to be that makes you happy and like, spread out the expression of what it means to be human and push that beyond if you want what it means to be human. But if that make people angry when you're like.
And specifically, the work I'm working on right now is ultimately A transhumanist fable because that's where my characters end up is in is in a transhuman form that posts not even posthuman form. Humans still exists. We're given the opportunity, you know, even in a world where you could do that, people are still going to choose to be human because being human is still a beautiful, magical, wonderful
thing. And I don't think that like, I don't think that deliberately pushing all that away is, is necessarily the way we should go. But we, we do need to be in a position of, I've long held the position that as long as society, society needs to support the individual in growing and the individual needs to support society in growing. And if you have that interplay, then you have healthy communities.
Absolutely. Do you find that a lot of the people that are, you know, saying like just touching on what you were saying are very similar to the people that are like, no, can get pride, no leather of pride, that are very uneducated, they're very young, and that they would rather almost gatekeep in certain ways because they think the community should look this one specific way or that pride should look this one specific way. Do you think those are
connected? I think every trans person, every queer person at some point or another has run into whether it's inter community violence or extra community violence, this idea or internalized am I queer enough? Am I trans enough? Does this person not think I'm trans? Does this person not accept my identity? And you're not alone in that.
And I mean like. Even asserting your own needs and identities around and being like, this is what it means to me to be a trans woman or this is what you know, this is, these are the things I do to deal with this for you. Because for whatever reason, you know, like I have some friends who who need to like do pretty extreme hair removal that feel comfortable in their bodies. And I know people who just don't give a fuck who both identify as trans women and they're both
valid, right? Like the you're both women. Women have this broad swath. There's no one way to do it. What it kind of boils down to is like, what, what are you identifying as and just accepting that?
And the, the things that I where I start to kind of go and you know, I've seen communities where there are trans people going like that person is using the language of transness to cause harm to the rest of us. And I'm like, I may not like to hang out with that person, but I'm not going to deny they're transness because, you know, you know, just because they're using
terms for themselves. And maybe they're even acting like chasers, which is totally a thing that can happen within the trans community where you get trans people fetishizing other trans people and sexually fetishizing other trans people and themselves. Or they're doing it because they want to get attention from, you know, a certain subset, a subset of the Systec community that they feel will give them
validation. I'm not going to go and tell that person that they're not trans, so they're not part of the trans umbrella or that their identity is invalid.
I think there's space to be like, hey, you know, when you go and tell people that you're a slur and you're, or like, you know, you identify closely with Blanchard's typology or something like that, and you go, yeah, I. Think. You're kind of reinforcing and and then like selling that for money, you're kind of, and you're like, hey, you know, that's kind of reinforcing a whole bunch of negative stereotypes about me
specifically. And then people are going to like that, I think, is a conversation that can be had in the community without invalidating their identities. I think that the I think that problematic people deserve to be held accountable as the problematic person that they say they are. I think that they're owed because if somebody, because listen, I thought my whole life to be who I am, damn it. If I'm problematic in some degree, please address it to me at least as the woman that I am,
right? Like, you know, to invalidate who I am as a person. That just reinforces again, these these rigid, you know, heteronormativity of ways of living. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can appreciate that. And especially too like don't misgender people because you disagree with them, right? It's not it's like this the you can't don't punish people by making their inclusion or their their validation or whatever conditional on people performing
a certain way. Like that is not something that not something that I was brought up in the trans community to do or brought up as a person to do. And yeah, and I think too, like not just with TikTok, but real life and other situations, people will conflate personal conflict with like attacks on identity and stuff like that. And that is also a big problem.
I, I think, I think anybody who's been in any social, especially social subcultures for long enough, this isn't just queer subcultures, but you like run into somebody you don't like. And then that person is like, or like you run into a person you have some conflict with over something that has nothing to do with your identity or your intersections. But then it's kind of that it's kind of becomes about that they're like, in order to harm you, they're like, this person is a transphobe.
They said transphobic things. This person is actually really harmful and bad, but it's just because they don't like you for whatever reason, or you had a conflict and, and the conflict has nothing to do with this, but in order to like keep you from community, they will do that kind of thing because they know it's harmful. And yeah, there's this. Go ahead. One of the things my, my, my probably greatest and only contribution to the the field of
sociology. But every subculture reproduces the flaws and features of the dominant culture in unique ways. That includes queer cultures and, you know, other, other subcultures like the king community or the furry community or the gaming community or whatever. They all have unique ways of reproducing, you know, capitalist, patriarchal, gendered perspectives. It's not a world without expression.
I think it's a world where expression is no longer like policed or marketed, you know, like it's it's a space that imagines a world for all of us and can be free without the conditions of what it means to be, you know, and I just have really enjoyed this conversation today with both of you.
You know, it's been a long time since we've had an episode where I've talked more than you know, and this is I enjoyed these panel types episodes and Fox, I've really enjoyed you being here and Ryan, I've enjoyed you being here and audience, you know, if you're interested in in participating and having your voice heard on this program, please e-mail us at transnarrativepodcast@gmail.com. That's
transnarrativepodcast@gmail.com. And more importantly, I want to thank the audience for being here and showing up week after week and giving us your time and your attention and, and supporting us and being here and, and, and, and helping us write the trans narrative week after week. And Ryan, thank you for being here. Thank us. Thank you for giving us your time. Caroline, thank you for having me again. I enjoyed our last podcast together and I really enjoyed this one.
Well, thank you for being here, Fox. Fox can thank you so much for returning once more. I appreciate my pleasure. Thank you. It's. Nice to get to chat with you too, Ryan. It was really interesting to hear it was. Great to meet you, Fox. Yeah. So we've both all of us have kind of talked about like this expansiveness within us this yearning to at least for me to, to, to be free from the confines of what the system demands from us.
And I want to ask both of you before we depart, I think, I think I'll ask Fox 1st and then Ryan in one sentence. What? Who are you becoming in this moment right now? Wow, that's so hard. See, Ryan, you have to think about it. Yeah, you put me on the spot, I think. I think I'm really kind of growing into what the witches
witches would call a Crone role. Kind of like I've, I've turned 40 this year and I'm really focused on creating healthy, supportive structures for the people who I care about in communities that I care about and providing, you know, knowledge and guidance and support and hopefully material support. And that's kind of, you know, a big departure from being younger and more aggressive in terms of fighting for like getting people to see my way.
Exactly. And, you know, going out and yelling for change instead of planting a garden and, and nurturing it. That's been a big shift. I think both obviously have their place and I don't at all regret where I've been or like, and I absolutely support people who are still on that journey because it takes the whole community to do to empower change. But I think that's been the real shift for me lately is moving into more of a like responsible role as opposed to a little bit
more of a wild card role. How? About you, Ryan. Oh, I think, oh, this is a too broad of a question for such a specific answer. But I'm working on being probably disabled and being that visibility as a trans person, as a drag entertainer, as a community leader and like as a, as a like trans mask person. Specifically being that visible reminder for somebody else or that visible person for somebody else that they can say like, oh, he's making it through. I can do that too.
I think that's where I'm going with things. Yes, inspiration time. Brian Cox, audience, thank you all for being here and and giving us your time. And before we go briefly, Fox, what is the message that you'd like to leave our audience with as we carry on into this week? Yeah, go out there, be weird, be yourself, let your freak flag fly. Create the life you want and the body you want and the personality you want and celebrate it. Because you are literally one in
a billion. There'll never be another one like you and you need to honor. That Ryan what's what would you like to leave our audience with? You're the, you know, fade us off into our music. What's What would you like to leave our audience with? Oh my favorite go to always is be gay, do crime but don't actually get in trouble. Just be gay, be happy, be queerly yourself. Like just go out and don't let anybody get you down.