WEBVTT - Analyzing Archives with Jamie Lauren Keiles (@sexchange.tbt) 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:02.840 But also I just like these sort of artifacts of 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:06.920 like vintage transphobia, because like transomid today is so strategically 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:09.680 organized in this top down way from the right, where 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:11.879 like they have a playbook about how we're going to 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:16.800 mobilize people around these fears. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:23.560 Hello, Beauty Translated listeners, Welcome to another episode of the podod. 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:28.160 This week, I am talking with the writer by the 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.960 name of Jamie Kalis. Jamie is a contributing writer at 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.320 the New York Times magazine. He's also writing a book 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.800 called The Third Person, which is a book about non 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.960 binary gender in America, which will be out in twenty 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.599 twenty four. We discuss it in the interview coming up. 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.800 And he also runs the trans archival history account known 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:52.199 as sex change dot tbt on Instagram. This is how 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.680 I came to know Jamie through his Instagram account and 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.600 the trans archival posts that he makes as a part 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.760 of research for his book on non binary gender in America. 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.959 I wanted to talk to him about his experience researching 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:12.360 for his book and also archiving trans history essentially for 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.600 all of us to enjoy on the lovely Instagram. He's 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.680 really posted a great community on his Instagram page. Of 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:24.560 some awesome people who just love the history. And we're 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:28.520 here because we love our history. So please enjoy my 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:34.279 conversation with Jamie Kayless about his Instagram page sexchange dot tbt. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.840 All right, listeners, today, my guest is a writer by 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.560 the name of Jamie Lauren Kayless. I came to know 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.240 them through the Instagram account they run, which is at 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.800 sexchange dot tbt, which is an amazing archive to the 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.440 trans experience and the community as it was pre and 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.680 earth Internet. Many of the posts I have found on 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:06.240 this page have resonated deeply with me and have even 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.639 been an inspiration in the direction I'm taking the podcast. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:11.600 Please welcome my guest, Jamie. 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.680 Hi, Jamie, Hi, Carmen, thanks so much for having me 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:15.240 on the show. 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.880 So, Jamie, before we get into the Instagram account, which 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.640 I love. Sex Change tbt is an awesome archive and 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.320 it has both showed me a bunch of new things 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.000 that I never knew existed from our history, but it 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.360 also has reminded me of some old things that I 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.680 had forgotten about. So it's been a really awesome Instagram account. 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:36.320 I love it. But can you tell us about who 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:36.680 you are? 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:37.680 Yeah? 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.280 Sure, I guess the easiest way to get into that 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.600 is to go backwards from getting into the Instagram account. 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.960 So I'm running this Instagram account. I'm not like a 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.240 historian or anything. I'm a journalist by training or a writer, 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.240 I guess. I work at the New York Times magazine, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.080 which is a whole other can of worms. I'm from Pennsylvania, 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.160 so like about an hour outside of Philadelphia in a 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.680 town that's sort of rural, sort of suburban. 0:02:58.840 --> 0:02:59.880 The town is called Doylestown. 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.200 It's like one of the places that's always on electoral campaigns, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:07.800 like profiled as like the quintessential swing district. So definitely 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:09.760 like felt kind of far from cities and like didn't 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.320 know gay people, but also had exposure to kind of 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.200 like arts and culture and like assorted other types of 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.160 freaks that I've been in New York since twenty fifteen, 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.480 and I've lived in Chicago, LA a couple other places. 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.080 Tell me a little bit more about being a writer 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.160 for the New York Times. Tell me a little bit 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:28.760 more about that. You said New York Times, correct. 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:30.960 Yeah, Yeah, I write for the New York Times magazine 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.080 and was doing that pre transition, and I'm still there. 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.200 I'm currently on booklya of working on my book, but yeah, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.360 trans stuff was like not my interest when I got 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:41.840 into writing, Like not that it wasn't my interest, but 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.000 I'm very much a generalist. I do a lot of 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.840 culture stuff, celebrity profiles, things about technology, and obviously like 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.640 I am trans. But in the beginning of my transition, 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.360 I was like not that interested in transh history, intercommunity 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.680 discourse kind of stuff. But then as I started thinking 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.960 about writing this book, and basically my book is about 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.320 history and present of non binary identity in America, I 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.400 was drawn to it partly because I started getting really 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.040 afraid that someone else was going to write a worse 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:09.720 version of this book. And I was doing a lot 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:11.960 of complaining to friends and saying, oh my god, someone's 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:12.760 going to write this book. 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:14.240 It's going to be for idiots. 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.080 And my friends kept saying, well, why don't you write this, 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:17.680 You like really have the skill set to do this. 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.279 Your journalists you sort of are asking the right questions. 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:21.480 And I said, oh my god, I'm never going to 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:22.800 write a gender book. I don't want to be one 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:24.719 of those people. But then the more I started thinking 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.520 about the subject matter, like what I really like about 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:29.760 trans stuff, and maybe a lot of people knew this 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:31.599 before me, but it took me like a while to 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.000 come around to it. But like trans history really overlaps 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.680 with everything, so it's like it's gender, but it's also 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.760 like history of media, history of medicine, history of culture, 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.000 history of the arts. So when I started looking into like, okay, 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:44.479 like what would it mean to put this book together? 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:46.880 I was just one delighted by like how much it 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:48.680 overlapped with other things I had written about and the 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:50.440 other things that I think make a good story. And 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.120 also just like the depth of archival material. Obviously there 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:57.360 are tons of people doing really good work in transistory, 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.600 but compared to all the other historical things that have 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.680 ever been research, the archive is relatively unexploited, right, Like 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.440 you can still go in and find a corner that 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.720 no one has really had the time or the interest 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.640 in going through. So I've just become really like sucked 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.640 into archival research in a way that was not really 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:14.800 foreseen when I started working on this project at all. 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:17.440 Yeah, And I think that correct me if I'm wrong, 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.280 But it seems to me like the Instagram account sexchange 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.880 dot tbt has been a way of keeping track of 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.919 the research you've been doing for this book, right. 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.080 Yeah, yeah, so it's I mean a lot of it 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:30.080 was just like I was accumulating all this material when 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.040 I was going to visit archives and like taking pictures 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.960 of stuff or like using some of the online resources 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.440 like Digital Trands Archive. I was just having like tons 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.360 and tons of screencaps and like no one to really 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.480 share them with, and was becoming sort of lonely in 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.360 my research. And then I started thinking, Oh, I can 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.599 put this stuff online. And obviously there's like the sort 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.080 of cynical like, oh, I would love to have a 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.080 huge platform to promote my book. So like I was like, 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:52.920 this is a really good way to gather the audience. 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.280 But also I just think most of the people synthesizing 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.120 this material are academics. There's obviously people all over the 0:05:58.120 --> 0:05:59.600 place working in it. But I was like, oh, there's 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:01.640 like not really a great Instagram account that's like putting 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:03.600 this out in a way that people can really access. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.400 The negative side of that is like it really does 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.680 currently reflect a lot of the biases of like the 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.320 current chapters that I'm researching. Rights, Like a lot of 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.160 what I've been working on is like trans mail conferences 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.279 in the late nineties early thousands, and a lot of 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.000 what I'm writing about is kind of like the whiteness 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.200 of those conferences or sort of like who they did 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.640 and didn't represent. So like the archival materials I'm working 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:25.680 with kind of reflect all those biases, And when you 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.680 move it from one platform to another, it's like not 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:31.039 necessarily like I think in the ideal vision of the 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.040 Instagram account, it would be a lot more expansive, but 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:34.960 right now it's like a side project of a different 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:35.920 project that I'm working on. 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.160 Well, maybe it's just reflective of, I guess, the limited 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.040 visibility that trans people had at the time. But I 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:44.800 want to also, I want to back up to something 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.560 you were talking about earlier, and how when you first 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.920 started journalism, how transnis and trans issues weren't really like 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.920 super that important to you. But it sounds like at 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:59.720 a certain point it's like your transition coincided with these interests. 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:01.800 Do you care to talk maybe just a little bit 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.000 about your own journey with your gender before we dive 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:06.760 more into the Instagram. 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.400 Yeah, And I haven't quite figured out like the good 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.160 way to narrativize this because I lived like most of 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.520 my life as like a somewhat beautiful heterosexual woman. I mean, 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.000 like I dated men, had long hair, got to blow out, 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.840 like all that kind of stuff, and like somehow, in 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:22.800 the course of the past however many years, like I've 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.200 ended up being essentially a man, And when I look back, 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.240 it's like I can narrativize it all these different ways. 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:28.760 But like, I don't know, kind of was just like 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.720 always felt like something was off. I had like a 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.880 lot of other various journeys before this one. I spent 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.080 a couple stints in the looney bin. I got sober 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.120 in twenty fifteen, So like this was not my first 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.560 big narrative arc of my life, and in some ways 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:43.000 it like crept up on me as like a little 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.000 bit of a surprise. At some point I started thinking, okay, well, 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.360 like what if instead of kind of like resisting those questions, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.120 I just started following my desires and see what they yielded. 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:53.560 So like I very much did not set out to transition. 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:56.320 I think I had like things of like okay, well, 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:57.800 like what if I dressed a little more this way? 0:07:57.840 --> 0:07:59.360 And then I was like, okay, well, like do I 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.360 want tops or are hormones for me, and these things 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.320 kind of just compounded into what, in hindsight was a transition. 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.400 But like for a while, I felt very frustrated by 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.240 that because it didn't seem to be what I saw 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.720 represented as the quote unquote trans narrative arc. Now I 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.400 think I'm meeting a lot more people that like were 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.320 straight women or like transitioned kind of by accident and 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:23.360 ended up being happy. But I think I found that 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.000 really alienating at the time, when like back then it 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:30.360 was very much like born in the Wrong body type discourse, 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:31.880 which was not my experience at all. 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.440 And as the discourse has opened up, I think a 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:40.280 lot more people have realized that they are not as 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.040 sis as they thought they were, and that they are 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.400 really a lot more trans than they thought they were. 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.120 When did that journey start for you? 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.319 I think I started like thinking about transition pretty seriously 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.760 in like twenty seventeen, when I moved back from Los 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:55.960 Angeles because I had just broken up with my boyfriend 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.640 at the time and can't come back to New York. 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:00.760 And it felt very much like, okay, like let's like 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.160 some of these questions that have been annoying me, Like 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:04.679 it's time to just sort them out and get on 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.000 with my life. And then since then I haven't really 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.240 kept track of like when I started hormones and I 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.360 had top surgery during COVID. I guess I don't know. 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:16.160 I'm not like a big milestone celebrator, but yeah, I 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.920 think twenty seventeen conceptually is like when I would pin 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:19.440 it at. 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.000 So around that time, you were talking to all your 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:24.120 friends about wanting to write this book, and I just 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.560 love the fact that it came out of a passion 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.800 of not wanting someone else to mess it up. Do 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.040 you have any idea of when we can expect that. 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.760 Yeah, I'll give you the little spiel. So it's called 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:39.840 The Third Person. It's going to be out from FSG 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.720 right now. It's scheduled for winter twenty twenty five, so 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.960 like maybe January twenty twenty five, we'll see. It's like 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:48.680 weird because you're writing and then they're always moving the 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:50.960 deadline depending on how fast you can write it. But 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.080 it's for a general audience reader, whatever that means, So like, 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.800 it's not a gender studies book, it's not for academics. 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:58.400 I noticed there was like a lot of books that 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:00.920 are like memoirs from non binary people, and then there's 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:02.640 a lot of books that are like guides of like 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:04.680 give this to your parents so they know how to 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.880 use pronouns. But there isn't anything that's like looking seriously 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.040 at like what is arguably a major cultural shift happening 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.120 and kind of trying to historicize it. Right, So, like 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:14.839 a lot of the way people talk about like non 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.680 binary identity is like, uh, this is like a new 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:19.440 thing that's happening all of a sudden, and then like 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.200 the backlash to that from trans people is always like 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.240 We've been here all along, and it's like I think 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.559 I'm like looking for this middle ground where it's like, yes, 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.800 gender variance or gender diversity has existed all throughout history, 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.280 but the particular categorization non binary is like a very 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.600 specific thing. It's not just saying that like people can 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:39.600 be all different genders. It's like a particular way of 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.600 like packaging identity and talking about it. So like what 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.760 I wanted to do is like look back into history 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:46.679 a little bit and say, Okay, well, like what are 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:48.640 all the people who are in this category, Like where 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.040 have they been in other points in time where they 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.959 butch lesbians, were they like super effeminate gay men, were 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.720 they transmn? Where they trans women? Like kind of where 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.079 were these people before? But then also kind of like 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.400 what are like the political or cultural shifts that happened 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:05.680 in order to like bring these people together under the 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.600 specific category of non binary. It's not the same thing 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.320 as saying I'm gender queer or I'm androgynous, or I'm 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.040 like fem or whatever. Like there's a lot of there's 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.559 a lot of baggage associated with non binary identity, and 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.880 like it's very much tied into like corporate diversity culture 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.320 or like marketing schemes. Like I wanted to kind of 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.439 like give that some serious thought in a way that's 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.320 both like trans affirming but also sort of asking like 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.120 big conceptual questions about like what types of problems does 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:32.760 it raise for us as a community, or like who 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:34.560 does it affirm and who doesn't an affirm, and like 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:36.640 is this kind of like the way forward or not. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:38.600 So that's become a lot bigger of a project than 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:40.079 I thought, And I don't know if I have the answers, 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.240 but it is coming along and hopefully I'll pull it off. 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:42.800 We'll see. 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.839 Yeah, I'm excited to read it because I think these 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.840 are also questions that as somebody who is not a 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.319 member of a non binary community, as a trans woman, 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.839 I've I mean, I consider myself to have had like 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.040 a non binary phase at one point in my life. 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:01.520 But everyone is trying to understand and find points of 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.000 reference for these concepts. 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.760 Yeah, I think it's like a really it's kind of 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.839 a bizarre category, right, because it's like non medically transitioning people, 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.200 medically transitioning people, people coming at it from both directions, 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.600 people passing through it in a temporary way. So it's 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.320 like for me, who essentially lives in the world as 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.320 a white man ninety nine percent of the time versus 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.960 like someone else from any number of positions coming to 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.079 non binary. Like our experience of the category and sort 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:28.400 of like what it does and does not do for 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.600 us is so different, and I don't think we quite 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.760 have a good way of talking about that within the 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.600 community or outside of it. So that's just been really interesting, 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:38.240 like talking to people that have come at it from 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.440 all the different directions about kind of like what do 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:42.320 you think you're getting out of this in sharing this 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.520 category with all these other people who have essentially nothing 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:45.160 in common with you. 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:48.120 Yeah, that's a good question, and I'll get to that 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.200 a little bit, like when we talk about language and 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.640 stuff like that and how language has evolved and how 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.560 the word trendsexual has re emerged for that reason. Yeah, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:58.760 we'll talk about it here in a second, but let's 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.480 talk more about the Instagram accoun sex change dot tbt. 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.760 What does the name mean? Just tell us about the 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:05.600 name itself. 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:07.599 I think like, and this is maybe tied in a 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.080 little bit to like the resurgence of transsexual but like, 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.200 I feel like so many of us are like so 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.959 exhausted by kind of like mainstream you're so brave like 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.240 empowerment discourse. So I just thought it was a funny 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:24.360 name because like it feels so extreme and like inappropriate 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:26.280 to be like I got a sex change. And also 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.199 it like kind of like the sex change sort of 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.400 circulates like on daytime TV talk shows in the eighties 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:33.960 as like the most fringe thing a person can do. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.000 But also it's like today normal people that just like 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.640 shop at Target and get married and whatever. So I 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:42.520 wanted to pick a name that kind of like was 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.080 in conversation with that historical thing, and then I just 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:46.760 put tbt on the end because I thought it would 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.840 help people maybe understand that it was an archive account. 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.199 Although I noticed people share stuff and they'll get mad 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.720 at it because they'll think it's like contemporary discourse. So 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:58.000 I don't know how effective the name is, but I 0:13:58.120 --> 0:13:58.480 like it. 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:01.880 That's funny, I mean, and I think that's the interesting 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:03.960 thing about the page is that a lot of the 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.479 posts do kind of mirror some of the contemporary discourse. 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:09.679 But yeah, I'm a huge fan of it. And like 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.240 I said up top, like you've through the page, You've 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.600 introduced me to a lot of transfigures that I never 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.400 heard of before, and also reminded me of things that 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.040 I had like long forgotten about as somebody, I've been 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:26.120 transitioning for more than fifteen years, and you've reminded me 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.040 of things that like are from my past and my 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:33.880 history where I was like, oh shit, I forgot about that. Hey, listeners, 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.360 we're going to go on our first break here. We'll 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:49.280 be right back with more from Jamie Kayliss. So yeah, 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.160 let's get into some of those posts that we like 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.960 from the account. And I didn't categorize mine as well 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:56.640 as yours, but maybe we can kind of do this 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:58.920 as we go, But yeah, we have some of the 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.240 posts from the I thought you and I could talk 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.320 about and just kind of give our commentary on them. 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:06.600 So the first one is one that you posted recently 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:07.600 as this the Garfield. 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.880 Yeah, so I guess joint to back up and tell 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.120 you a little bit about like where I find this stuff, 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.080 because I feel like that's like a key thing. So 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.240 like there's this amazing website that I feel like everyone 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.560 should know about because like it looks like I'm doing 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.080 a lot of work, but actually they've saved me a 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.040 lot of time. Which is Digital trans Archive, which sort 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.560 of like corrals all the trans materials from different collections. 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.320 So like there's trans archives at New York University, there's 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.920 trans archives that like USC and digital trans archives like 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.360 scans all the gender newsletter periodicals, so like between kind 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.920 of like the seventies and like the serious dawn of 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.160 the internet maybe in like nineteen ninety six, like the 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.280 main way that trans people talk to each other was 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:49.120 through print newsletters, which are all scanned on digital trans archives. 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:50.720 So like, most of the work I'm doing is not 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.160 like unearthing this stuff from a closet somewhere, although I 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:54.880 do do a little bit of that. A lot of 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:56.920 it is just like sitting down for twenty minutes and 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.400 like reading something and like taking screencaps of what's interesting. 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.480 Before we move on, I want to say first just 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:06.280 about Digital trans Archive, because you have also introduced me 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.640 to Digital trans Archive. Next week, Well, I'm interviewing Dallas Denny. 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.440 So I've oh nice, I've been I've been reading all 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.800 of like Aegis and Chrysalis and stuff like this and 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.880 just being like mind blown. So thank you for introducing 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.240 me to Digital trans Archive. And if you haven't checked 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.360 it out, please check it out. You could spend hours 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:31.400 on that website just sifting through old posts and stuff. 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:33.760 Okay, I'm so jealous you're talking to her. She's like, 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:35.680 she's such a good writer, and I feel like, like reading 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:37.200 all this old stuff, it's like it doesn't feel like 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.840 homework because it's like people bitching about like whatever their 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.400 problems were, yeah, which are like quite similar to our problems, 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:43.920 so it's like it doesn't actually take a lot to 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.080 like get interested in it. She comes up in my book. 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:48.000 I've kind of been meaning to try to talk to her, 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:49.120 so you should. 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:53.440 She's very prolific, so sorry, let's talk about this Garfield post. 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.280 Yeah, so this is kind of this is like a post. 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.200 I'll describe the post first. So it's a cartoon. It 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.880 says a ts' is worst Nightmare. And on one side 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:02.960 it has like a sort of plump and happy Garfield 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.520 and it says before srs. And then on the other 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.600 side it has a kind of ragged looking cat and 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.720 it says, yeah, I think this cat is a famous cat, 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:15.720 but I don't know. People in the comments are calling 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.880 it build a cat, but I've never heard of this cat. 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.000 But this like falls into like a bigger category of 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.639 posts that I like from trans newsletters, which is like 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.520 when they take a comic strip or a cartoon from 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.520 a normal like mainstream newspaper and they change the text 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:33.480 or sometimes they don't even change the text, but like 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.120 they put it in a context that makes it trans right. 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.760 So this is like it's very like shit posty contemporary 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.320 feeling of like, oh, like we're looking at a thing 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.159 that everyone else in society is looking at it, but 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.240 like we're seeing it in a distinctly transway. So like 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.920 another one that I posted on the game, yeah, yeah exactly. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.000 And like sometimes like like this other one that was 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:54.480 actually the. 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:55.440 First post on the account. 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:57.280 It's like a cartoon and it's on the one hand, 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.160 it shows like a woman scubbing the floor and it says, 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.800 ten years ago, I was just another oppressed housewife. Today 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.080 I'm a successful corporate executive accepted by my peers. Sure 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:06.520 it worked for me, but a sex change is not 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.639 for everyone. Like this is just a normal comic that 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:11.760