Ep 263: Gender Detachment
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SARAH: Hey, what's up, hello, welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aroace girl, I'm Sarah, that's me.
KAYLA: And a bi-demisexual girl, that's me, Kayla.
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode, gender detachment.
SARAH AND KAYLA: Sounds fake, but okay.
(theme music plays)
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: Aah!
SARAH: How is everyone's Pride Month going?
KAYLA: Good, bad, neut?
SARAH: I hope it's going good. I've heard some things that it's not going good for everyone, but I hope it's going good for you.
KAYLA: Uh-huh. I'm going to a Pride thing, I think, on Saturday. It's too late now, if you're hearing this in Boston, you can't come find me. And I'm hoping everything's gonna be okay.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I'm gonna bring some pepper spray, just in casies, haha.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: Do we have any housekeeping, literati event, come to it?
KAYLA: Yeah, I saw in our answers to what people are doing for Pride that I did forget to post the answers to. I saw in the responses that someone is celebrating Pride by coming to our event, which is the correct thing to do. So yeah, June 30th, at literati in Ann Arbor, we're doing a book event. Come see us.
SARAH: What are we gonna say, girl? I have no idea.
KAYLA: Who knows? Not us.
SARAH: Not us.
KAYLA: Not us.
SARAH: Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week, we're talking about gender detachment, because in February, a lovely person –
SARAH: We are up on all of the news and the trends.
KAYLA: I answered a lot of emails today. I'll have everyone know if you received an email back, even though you emailed us in January. Sorry.
SARAH: We got a six-month turnaround.
KAYLA: We really do. Anyway, a lovely person named Dean, not the Dean I live with, a different Dean
SARAH: Oh
KAYLA: in, just kidding, March, not as bad, sent us this article and was like, if you haven't seen this, thought you might find it interesting, which I find very helpful because neither Sarah nor I are all that online in aspec spaces anymore, just because I think we both got a little burnt out post book.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: So I really don't know what's going on anymore. So thank you, and everyone feel free to give us tips of that nature in the future. But anyway, lovely Dean sent me an article about some research that had come out about asexuality and gender, and I sent it to Sarah and I said, this sounds like you. Let's talk about it. And now here we are.
SARAH: And now here we are, here to talk about it on this day.
KAYLA: Months after this was published, this poor person wrote this research so long ago and did press for it so long ago, and now here we are bursting through the wall like Kool-Aid man months later, like, hello.
SARAH: Look what we found.
KAYLA: Look what we found. It's incredible. Everyone already talked about it. We just weren't there. Because to be fair, the original tweets were posted in February and we were a little busy.
SARAH: We were a little busy. Also February 28th, that is the last day of February.
KAYLA: And also we were busy.
SARAH: We were busy. That's my dad's birthday.
KAYLA: So yeah.
SARAH: Now you know.
KAYLA: Now you know. Anyway, enough excuses.
SARAH: Alright, do we want to just do a little read of the thread?
KAYLA: I think we shall. So this is all based on the work of Canton Winer, who is, I think they recently graduated with their doctorate. Ah!
SARAH: Incoming Assistant Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Northern Illinois University.
KAYLA: Slay.
SARAH: I guess Winer would be how you pronounce that. But my brain coming from German is like Viener.
KAYLA: Wiener.
SARAH: No. No. That would be Wiener.
KAYLA: Anyway, so I think they just graduated with their PhD recently.
SARAH: How do you say it
KAYLA: I was stalking their Twitter earlier.
SARAH: Can I quick and early? This is not relevant. You know what's weird? People that like we went to college with who we knew from college, like graduating with MDs.
KAYLA: Yeah, I don't care for that, actually.
SARAH: And like doctorates.
KAYLA: Yeah.
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SARAH: I shouldn't be that old.
KAYLA: No. I am. No.
SARAH: Anyway.
KAYLA: Anyway, so this person's a doctor. Do you want to do a read?
SARAH: Sure. Let me go back to it. Alright. So quote from at Canton Winer. My paper on the relationship between asexuality and feelings of detachment from gender just won the 2023 graduate student paper award from social women's south
KAYLA: sociologists for women for women and society
SARAH: and they advance and support feminist research activism and scholarship.
KAYLA: Slay
SARAH: Tweets are not endorsements. And they said, I'm thrilled to see this work recognized by feminist organization. A quick summary of the paper. So my findings are based on interviews with 77 people on the asexuality spectrum. (whispering) This is how you get it. If you know you know.
KAYLA: Don't know.
SARAH: It's BTS.
KAYLA: I'm shocked to hear this.
SARAH: Anyway, my findings are based on interviews with 77 people on the asexuality spectrum. At first, I planned to compare the experiences of asexual men, women, and quote, beyond the binary unquote asexuals. I had to scrap that plan. Why? About one third of interviewees felt detached from gender altogether. These respondents often gave a gender identity when I initially asked. But as we talked, I learned that they felt uncomfortable with being interpreted through the lens of gender. They found gender presentation/identity to be irrelevant, pointless, or even oppressive. My respondents explained that it's hard to communicate this experience of gender because there isn't a term for it. So I created one, gender detachment. This term resonated with my respondents. After I shared it, many used the term for the rest of the interview. This finding is fairly unprecedented. Feminist scholars have written for decades about the radical potential of ungendering for resisting gender inequality, but that work has mostly been theoretical. My findings offer an empirical window into ungendering. This poses several implications for gender scholarship. One, maybe ungendering is moving from the realm of the theoretical to the realm of the empirical. Two, my findings complicate the often unstated assumption that everyone has a gender identity. Questions like, what is your gender are thus more complicated than they appear. They indicate that gender is compulsory. We assume that everyone does and should have a gender. But is gender detachment specific to people on the asexuality spectrum? I suspect not. But because sexuality and gender are so deeply intertwined, it makes sense that the unraveling of compulsory sexuality could lead to the unraveling of compulsory gender. It's also worth noting that I find a gendered relationship to gender detachment. Almost all of my gender detached respondents were assigned female at birth. This suggests gender detachment may be a strategy for survival or resistance in a patriarchal misogynistic world. And that's the gist. They said that they would share more about it once the paper was eventually published.
KAYLA: Indeed. And that's the at is @CantonWiner, W-I-N-E-R on the Twitter. I hadn't followed, again, we're not very online anymore, so I hadn't followed this person before, but it seems like they do a lot of, not a lot of, I don't know, a decent amount of, like, tweeting about queerness and asexuality, and the like. So give Canton a follow.
SARAH: If you're on that godforsaken tweet machine.
KAYLA: Yeah, I don't know if they have other soc’s, but anyway.
SARAH: But how exciting. I think this is very interesting.
KAYLA: And I also wish it had been published when we were writing our book.
SARAH: Oh my god, so true. I was literally just about to say it intersects a lot with what we talk about in our gender chapter of our book. And it kind of puts a more succinct term to one of the things that we talked about.
KAYLA: Yeah. Well, because I think from the discussions we've had about your gender and like my predictions of what will happen with your gender in the future, whether they come true or not, I'm still fingers crossed.
SARAH: I love how you have predictions. It stresses me out.
KAYLA: I'm actually, I'm running a pool, actually. I'm starting a new, I'm starting a new betting app. It's not sports betting. It's Sarah's gender betting. Betting about Sarah's gender. Yeah, it's not problematic at all, actually. In case you were wondering, I can tell you that it's not.
SARAH: Do you bet money? Because I don't like that. You know that I'm afraid of gambling.
KAYLA: Would the gambling make you feel better if it wasn't money?
SARAH: What if it was like...
KAYLA: Also, you're not allowed, that would be like insider trading, you're not allowed in this at all. Actually, you're uninvited.
SARAH: Can the currency be like gummy lifesavers?
KAYLA: No, you're not involved. This would be like...
SARAH: This is about me not involving me.
KAYLA: This would be like LeBron James being like, actually, when you guys bet on my game, could you just do it in like chocolate gold coins, please?
SARAH: I would respect them on it
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KAYLA: I respect that. Anyway, when we have discussed Sarah's gender previously, it seems like being kind of gender detached is what you've like come down on.
SARAH: A little bit. I think I've said this before where I have this weird relationship where I have relationship to gender.
KAYLA: Can't even say her name.
SARAH: Nope. Where I do feel a certain amount of attachment to the idea of… I don't like the term womanhood because that makes it seem like it's an attachment to the ability to be a mother, and that is absolutely not what it is. I would like to be far away from that, actually. I feel an attachment to what it is like to grow up as a girl and to be a woman in the world and that experience and that, shall we say, sisterhood of the traveling pants. I feel a certain amount of connection to that, but I don't necessarily feel a connection to femininity and the expression of womanhood in the way that people expect it or people enforce it upon people.
KAYLA: Yeah. I am not surprised at all that Canton found that gender detachment is more prevalent among people who are assigned female at birth.
SARAH: And raised…
KAYLA: And raised to be a woman, yeah. My roommate Jared, the keeper of the Would You Rather, was asking earlier what we were recording about and I was kind of explaining it. What I feel like we've found and what we wrote about in the book from talking to people about their gender is that one of the reasons people maybe theorize, at least colloquially, why aspecs are more likely to be non-binary, is that so much of gender is presented because of romantic and sexual relationships. To have a gender necessitates there being more than one gender, so you have something to play off of.
SARAH: It necessitates having something to compare it to.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: If everyone were the same gender, gender wouldn't exist.
KAYLA: Right. So there has to be at least two
SARAH: A dichotomy
KAYLA: a dichotomy to make it anything. And I think oftentimes that –
SARAH: There was man and there was woman.
KAYLA: And then there was Lilith, who we stan.
SARAH: And then there was Lilith, who's a demon, who we stan.
KAYLA: Lots of Diablo talk in the- if you don't know, we do a pre-podcast, which is when Sarah's driving home from work to alert me that she is incoming. I get a series of many audio messages. The topic of today was Diablo and demons. So I got to teach Sarah about Lilith, who I just learned about, who I now stan. Look it up.
SARAH: The song Lilith by Halsey featuring Suga, excellent.
KAYLA: Is it in English?
SARAH: Yeah, it's all English.
KAYLA: Okay. I might need to listen.
SARAH: It has to be because it's like a –
KAYLA: Diablo.
SARAH: It's the Diablo song.
KAYLA: Yeah. I'm a recent stan of Lilith, so I'll have to take a listen. Anyway, what the fuck were we talking about?
SARAH: Uh
KAYLA: Oh, okay. I think oftentimes that dichotomy comes through in like very traditional cis heteronormative relationships. There's a man and a woman. You perform your like woman role as like the caretaker and the mother and being like romanced and whatever. Like that is a big part of how I think people are socialized as women.
SARAH: You submit to your husband.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: You –
KAYLA: And I think manhood does not feel the same to me. Like it feels like man can still be men without women being there at all.
SARAH: Manhood is not in reference to anything.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: You do not have to compare it to anything. Like that's why like words like manhood and mankind and just man refer to the entire species
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: because it exists on its own.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Whereas womanhood-
KAYLA: Because Adam came first. But you know what? In Barbie, the woman came first in this essay, I will.
SARAH: Amazing. But women always exist and in the humanity lore, at least in many humanity lores, women have always existed as a reflection of men, as in comparison to men, as –
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KAYLA: Like the foil.
SARAH: Right. As the foil. And women don't get to exist on their own as their own thing. And when they do, it's seen as, or when they try to make those spaces, it's seen as a radical thing.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: So yeah. I mean, it makes sense that fewer men feel that detachment because man, mankind is humankind, womankind is women.
KAYLA: Yeah. Because I mean, I feel like we've definitely heard from aspec men that like their manhood is definitely challenged by being aspec.
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: Like it absolutely is a challenge of like not feeling masculine enough or like having to deal with like the toxic masculinity of like, oh, if you're not fucking and like, what's the point? But it does feel like still on the whole, men can kind of stand on their own without that where-
SARAH: A real alpha male doesn't care what other people think.
KAYLA: So true.
SARAH: But women have to do exactly what men think they should do.
KAYLA: Yeah. So yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all. And I think it's really cool that that came out like empirically through the research that like this is straight up a thing.
SARAH: Yeah. And like the way that it was referred to, that Canton referred to it was as a strategy for survival or resistance in a patriarchal misogynistic world. I don't, I understand exactly what they were going for in saying that. I don't know that I agree that it's a strategy for resistance because that makes it seem like it's a choice.
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, I doubt that he meant it that way.
SARAH: I really don't think that's what Canton meant in any way. I think it's a problem of just not having the right
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: vocabulary, the right terminology to really say what is meant that we all understand.
KAYLA: Yeah. Because in a way like, right, it is a survival tactic, but it's not something that you take on consciously. It's like an un –
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: Like, because obviously you're not choosing your gender consciously, you're not choosing to detach from your gender consciously.
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: But if you grow up in a society like this, you might like, your brain might just like kind of, you know, come to that on its own.
SARAH: And choosing to act upon it and choosing to talk about it and choosing to be open about that is absolutely an act of resistance.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But the detachment itself is not inherently an act of resistance. And again, I don't blame Canton.
KAYLA: No, I think there's just like really not the right words for that.
SARAH: Supposed mischaracterization. Yeah. There's just no good way to say it in English. I don't know about other languages.
KAYLA: Who's to say?
SARAH: Who's to say? Probably people who speak other languages. This is sort of related and unfounded and I have no research to back it up.
KAYLA: Perfect.
SARAH: Perfect. But I am very curious to know outside of asexuality, outside of the aspec in general, the difference in mindsets between people who identify as non-binary or genderqueer or agender, if there's a notable difference in their understanding of their own gender depending on if they were assigned female at birth or assigned male at birth. I think that would be an interesting thing to look at. And again, it's tough because that is still kind of like, okay, well, we're putting you back in the boxes that we just took you out of. That's a little bit hard. But I think it is important to dissect the way that these gender boxes impact us. And I think that's part of the process of dismantling them is learning to understand them better. And to do so, sometimes we have to put people back in the boxes to understand the difference in the way that they've impacted us.
KAYLA: Yeah, because I mean, it's like any sort of like trauma, right? Like you do need to face the fact that like, is the gender binary real? No, absolutely not. But we were all raised under the assumption that it was and that is going to impact you whether you think it's like real or not. And so yeah, I think in order to unravel it, you can't just like ignore the fact that you were raised a certain way. Like I feel like in a way you do kind of have to face it and look at it and think like, okay, what did this do to me?
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: And like, how is that impacting how I'm expressing and realizing and living my gender identity now?
SARAH: Yeah, I have a very strong memory of this. I had a gymnastics meet when I was a child. And there was someone in the audience who I could not tell what gender they were. And they didn't at the time, not that I necessarily had the terminology or the understanding for this because I was a child, but like, to my memory, they didn't seem they didn't present in a way
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SARAH: that would be obviously non-binary. Obviously you don't have to look any certain way to be non-binary, but point being, like, I think it was just a person who was just like dressed in like a t-shirt and like I and I just couldn't tell. And I was like thinking about it. And then eventually the conclusion I came to was it doesn't matter, which good for little Sarah. Great job.
KAYLA: Love that.
SARAH: Good thinking. But the fact that I still remember that, and like, I still have this like niggling curiosity in the back of my head, like, what gender was that person? Like I think says a lot about the way that we are socialized and brought up to view gender. We feel like we have to put people in those boxes. And you know, as Canton says, like, this kind of empirical evidence might be one of the first steps in actually dismantling that. Because do we need gender?
(squealing)
SARAH: I told Kayla, I told Kayla that before, when we were talking about this earlier, that I would like to say things on this podcast that are so radical that, like, right wingers come for me, like theoretically.
KAYLA: Yeah, Sarah's interested in becoming hate-crimed this week for some reason.
SARAH: Yeah, by like mega transphobes. I don't actually want that, to be clear, but I don't think gender needs to exist.
KAYLA: No, I mean, it's like Canton says, like, you start unraveling compulsory sexuality, and then yeah, you start thinking about compulsory gender, which is not a phrase I think I've ever seen before, but I very much so like.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: I'm obviously used to talking about like compulsory sexuality a lot.
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: But I had never really, like, I think in my personal like learning journey, the concept of having no gender at all is quite new to me.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: I feel like I only learned about like, agender as an identity a couple years ago after like getting more immersed in the community, which I think is hard because I think a lot of people are still like old people, especially are still reckoning with like trans and non-binary folks and like clearly the country can't even get that together right now.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: So like, it's, you know, it's like learning about asexuality, like you learn that some people have no gender at all and it's like some people that's just going to explode their little brain.
SARAH: Yeah. In your mind, do you view gendered attachment and being agender as kind of parallel like buddies, or do you view them as separate things?
KAYLA: I think I view them, I think they're definitely related.
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: But to me, the way at least that Canton was describing gendered attachment is like, it almost feels like apathy to me. Like these are people who initially came into this interview and said like, like when asked here is my gender identity, but then slowly it was discovered through the interview that they were like, didn't really care for it much or like weren't comfortable with it.
SARAH: They answered because they felt like they had to pick.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And then once that was dismantled a little bit, they were like, actually, I wish I didn't have to pick to begin with. And to me, the idea of my understanding of what it is to be agender, I obviously do not speak for any agender people, much less all of them.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But my understanding of it has always been like looking at man and looking at woman and being like, I am neither. And then looking at since, you know, and this is a problematic thing, how like, people are trying to just basically make a third gender, which is non-binary, which isn't right thought, but wrong outcome.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But like, you know, say we're going with that. Like they would look at man and say, that's not me. They would look at woman and say, that's not me. They would look at non-binary and say, like, that's not me because that's still a gender.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Like they, they're just like, I don't have a gender. My gender is just like floating, you know, you know, in Animal Crossing, the ghost?
KAYLA: Uh huh. That’s the gender
SARAH: When you run into, like all the pieces get lost
KAYLA: Oh yes
SARAH: and it's like, girl, I just want to talk to you. Now I have to go find all your pieces?
KAYLA: So true
SARAH: But when she, but when she's together as a ghost, I feel like that is what I imagine agender people's gender to be.
KAYLA: Interesting.
SARAH: Just floating.
KAYLA: Floating.
SARAH: Whereas, whereas gendered attachment to me feels like you just
(25:00)
SARAH: have no care for the concept of gender, like the institution of gender. And I know, I know people are going to look at those words or listen to those words and be like, Sarah, you're saying the same thing, but they do feel a little bit different.
KAYLA: To me, to me, the vibe I get, which I think is a little different than what you're saying. And like, this is just the English language. So unhelpful, like that we just can't know exactly what these people are like saying about themselves.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: But to me, it feels like, okay, yes, this is like my gender, but like, I just don't care.
SARAH: Yeah. Like don’t make me perform it.
KAYLA: Like, I don't maybe care enough to like fully delve into it and decide whether like this isn't my gender and in fact, I am agender or something else. But it's just like, yeah, I'm a woman, but like, I don't know.
SARAH: I'm not going to stake my personhood on this.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah. Whereas agender is like, I am staking my personhood on not having a gender.
KAYLA: Yeah. It's just, it's the difference between, well, hm, words, because detached does mean you're detached from it, but it feels less finite than having your gender identity being agender.
SARAH: Being none. Yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah. I don't know. Clearly we have no idea what we're talking about.
SARAH: We were, we're on the forefront of a conversation that happened three months ago.
KAYLA: (laughing) We're breaking news everyone, everyone's listening to it like, yeah dude, we all read this on Twitter three months ago.
SARAH: We been knew. I think though, I think there is a distinction
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: and it's, it's very hard to explain to people who don't inherently understand the distinction, but I think over time we'll probably get better at explaining it. Uh, or at least I hope so because all of the people who had like gender detachment, gender detachment syndrome, if you will
KAYLA: Uh
SARAH: let's just medicalize this whole thing.
KAYLA: Ah, yes. Well, someone's going to eventually, so might as well be us.
SARAH: This has been a joke.
KAYLA: This has been a sad joke
SARAH: It is not a syndrome or a disease.
KAYLA: This has been a sad joke.
SARAH: But those who feel a connection to the idea of gender detachment, they all still have a gender. They all still
KAYLA: they have a gender to become detached from.
SARAH: Exactly. Exactly. They have a gender that they still somewhat identify with that they just feel a certain detachment from.
KAYLA: Yes. But there's no, if you're agender, there's nothing to be detached from because there's nothing there. We've done it. We figured it out. Everyone, I know you're on the edge of your seats, but don't worry.
SARAH: Do you think gender detachment is a gateway drug to agenderism?
KAYLA: I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if –
SARAH: Kind of like bisexuality can be a gateway drug to lesbianism.
KAYLA: (laughing) Sarah, you're going to piss so many people off. You can't say that.
SARAH: I don't actually mean that. I mean people switching to terms because they feel more comfortable with them and then being like actually-
KAYLA: I'm detaching myself from Sarah saying that.
SARAH: Please don't cancel me.
KAYLA: I do feel like there are probably people who go from gender detachment to agender. That feels like a pretty natural progression to me. I feel like probably not everyone.
SARAH: Oh yeah
KAYLA: I feel like a lot of people probably say that one, but I feel like that feels like a norma ---
SARAH: It's not like it's a liminal thing
KAYLA: A pipeline, yeah
SARAH: where you're always going to get to somewhere else. It can definitely be the end point.
KAYLA: Because also I feel like you could reattach to your gender at some point.
SARAH: Yeah. Get some glue.
KAYLA: It's fluidity. Mm. Okay.
SARAH: Get some glue.
KAYLA: Maybe it's not the conservatives that are going to come for us on this episode and it's going to be our own people.
SARAH: I want everyone to know that when I am oversimplifying, it is for the purpose of a narrative and also jokes. I don't mean it.
KAYLA: We're simply doing our best.
SARAH: You could say for me that grayromantic or WTFromantic was my gateway drug to aromanticism.
KAYLA: You could say that demisexuality was my gateway drug to my biromanticism.
SARAH: Yeah. Well that one, I'll accept that.
KAYLA: Wow, thank you. Sarah accepts my gateway drug. Thank you so much for your –
SARAH: One of them is your sexuality and one of them is your romantic orientation.
KAYLA: Romantic orientation
SARAH: So they're like friends.
KAYLA: Sarah's gatekeeping my gateway drug.
SARAH: Girl boss, gaslight, gate–
(30:00)
KAYLA: gateway drug.
SARAH: Girl boss but detached. Gatekeep fully attached. That gate is shut. Gas light.
KAYLA: Uh huh
SARAH: I got gas just before this podcast.
KAYLA: Okay
SARAH: Quality content. This is what you come here for, guys. Guys in a non-bender?
KAYLA: I feel like Canton's going to listen to this and be like… what are you saying?
SARAH: I was trying to say guys in a non-gendered way, but I kind of mixed it up with non-binary and I said non-bender. So it's not bender from the TV show Futurama.
KAYLA: Okay. Interesting.
SARAH: Did you see that the voice of Jimmy Pesto –
KAYLA: I mean, he's been under investigation, they only cut Jimmy Pesto out as a character a while ago.
SARAH: Okay, small bit of context.
KAYLA: No
SARAH: On the animated television show, Bob's Burgers, it is an animated show for adults, it's very good.
KAYLA: It is.
SARAH: There is a character named Jimmy Pesto. Jimmy Pesto is the worst.
KAYLA: Yeah. He's the villain anyway, so really it's fine.
SARAH: Yeah. Yeah. The voice actor who plays Jimmy Pesto was found guilty, arrested, found guilty for partaking in the January 6th insurrection.
KAYLA: Which is so typical for Jimmy Pesto.
SARAH: Which is so Jimmy Pesto. That is absolutely something Jimmy Pesto would do.
KAYLA: He definitely would do that. Is his kid, is Jimmy Pesto Jr. still on the show?
SARAH: I don't know.
KAYLA: Did they just cut out all the Pestos?
SARAH: The Pestos? They moved their restaurant to a different town.
KAYLA: Wait, but that was Tina's lover.
SARAH: Oh, Jimmy Pesto Jr.? Well-
KAYLA: Yeah, wasn't she like obsessed with him? I haven't watched her recently.
SARAH: Yeah, lover is an extreme term.
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean they are children.
SARAH: Yeah, also I think it was unrequited.
KAYLA: Yeah, probably.
SARAH: Anyway.
KAYLA: Anyway. This has been Bob's Burger.
SARAH: That was your Bob's Burgers interlude. Yeah, great show. You should watch it.
KAYLA: You should. Louise is non-binary.
SARAH: True.
SARAH: And a lot of, several of the female characters are voiced by men because gender isn't real.
KAYLA: True.
SARAH: And like it's not played for laughs. Like it's not like a oh, haha. That's just how it is. Like that's just their voice.
KAYLA: That's just how it be.
SARAH: What is the purpose of gender?
KAYLA: No. Well, if you want to get really sad about it, the purpose of gender is so that –
SARAH: For discrimination?
KAYLA: The government can control us.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So.
SARAH: I saw a tweet recently that was like a screenshot from a some Facebook group that was like, you know, defending womanhood or whatever the fuck it was, or like questioning whatever. And it was basically this woman saying that she was uncomfortable that there was a trans man in the bathroom with her because he like, had had top surgery, like had facial hair, like looked like a man because he is a man. But the people there told them that he had to use the women's bathroom.
KAYLA: Ugh
SARAH: And so she was like, I was really uncomfortable with this. And it's like, oh, like they're finally realizing that the consequences of their actions
KAYLA: Uh huh
SARAH: is you are using bathrooms with men.
KAYLA: Yeah. Look what you've done.
SARAH: That's the consequences of your action.
KAYLA: You asked for this.
SARAH: You asked.
KAYLA: And you shall receive.
SARAH: Now look. Now you're sad. Here's the thing. Here's a question. Gendered bathrooms.
KAYLA: I wish they would go away.
SARAH: I wish they would go away. But at the same time, as an AFAB, like I do, like men.
KAYLA: Men are scary. What I wish they would do is you have one bathroom for urinals and one bathroom for stalls.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: That would be nice. There's a gay bar here that I went to that's like that, but they're not really marked. So I accidentally went into the one with urinals and I was like, ah
SARAH: I can't use this.
KAYLA: I was scared. I mean, I used it anyway because everyone was everywhere. It doesn't matter. But I was like, I'm scared.
SARAH: Oh, it was, there were other, I thought you meant it was only urinals.
KAYLA: No, there was also stalls, but I just like hadn't meant to and I like don't often go to a bathroom with urinals, as you might imagine.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: So I was just like a little frightened and I didn't quite know where to look because I wasn't socialized as a child to know what to do in that situation, so I was a little frightened.
(35:00)
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: I didn't want to like be rude. I didn't want to. So I was just
SARAH: yeah. And like, I understand at the heart of like the safety concern.
KAYLA: But it is misplaced the way that they're doing it.
SARAH: It's completely misplaced and it's like
KAYLA: but men are scary.
SARAH: We know, we know that's not, this isn't to say that trans men or trans people or queer
people in general can't be predators
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: but it is way less likely. And I would feel way safer in a bathroom with a trans man than if it were just me and some cis dudes. But also, gender isn't real.
KAYLA: So who knows?
SARAH: Nothing matters.
KAYLA: Men are scary though.
SARAH: I think I just, I don't like the concept of urinals. Like why is your dick out?
KAYLA: Where do I look? Where do I look?
SARAH: Like why is your dick out in public? You know?
KAYLA: That's actually, you know what? Let's talk about that because we have all these, no, I'm serious because we have all these laws about public decency and stuff, but now it's okay to just whip it out and we're going to trust each other to just like not look?
SARAH: to just like not look.
KAYLA: But there's not walls in between urinals.
SARAH: No, like you could just like
KAYLA: I could just pull up and be like, hello. Nice peepee
SARAH: Interesting dick you got there.
KAYLA: I just don't.
SARAH: I think we should eradicate both gender and urinals.
KAYLA: I think they should at least put up little walls.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Just like up, just like up there, just like on the sides. You know what I mean?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: doesn’t have to go all the way to the floor.
SARAH: Do they have those in Europe?
KAYLA: I don't fucking know.
SARAH: Just because you always hear Europeans and just non-Americans in general talking shit about bathroom stalls in the US.
KAYLA: Well they do. They do. They are upset about the gaps on the side, which fair. When I'm in Europe in August, I will do a thorough investigation of every bathroom I enter.
SARAH: Yeah. I feel like a lot of the bathrooms in Europe, it's like an entire ass door.
KAYLA: Yeah. Well, I'll ask Dean about what the urinal situation is like.
SARAH: I don’t know. My instinct is that it's less door-y on the British Isles. Just because I don't know.
KAYLA: That's where I'm going.
SARAH: I could be totally – well I know, that's why I said that. I could be totally making that up though.
KAYLA: Well, I'll do our on the ground research. Or you know what? There's a lot of people that listen to this from a lot of places. Let us know.
SARAH: Yep. What is your toilet situation?
KAYLA: What's your bathroom stall going on over there? What's going on over there?
SARAH: Do you have to pay for your bathrooms?
KAYLA: We don't.
SARAH: We don't. And it shows.
KAYLA: Yep. And they are stinky.
SARAH: Also men's bathrooms just tend to be in worse condition.
KAYLA: Yeah, because men are stinky.
SARAH: You know what was good though? Recently I was at a concert where the audience skewed more towards people assigned female at birth. And so they swapped some of the men's bathrooms into women's bathrooms.
KAYLA: That's nice.
SARAH: And I used one that was traditionally a men's bathroom. And you know what? I was like, wow, they still have the little trash cans in the stall.
KAYLA: That is nice. I saw a video of someone at a Taylor Swift concert, which is mostly non-urinal users
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: in attendance. And so they just went into the men's bathroom because the lines are too long and no one's in here. And then they got kicked out of the concert.
SARAH: I've heard of that happening.
KAYLA: That's tough. You know what? I do love that –
SARAH: They got kicked out of the concert?
KAYLA: Yeah. No. The whole thing.
SARAH: They got kicked out of the concert?
KAYLA: Took them right away.
SARAH: Was this at the beginning? In the middle? In the middle? At the end?
KAYLA: I don't know. They got taken away. What I do love though is Waitress the Musical. I remember when they were on Broadway, there was, I think, 90% women's bathrooms. And then like one men's bathroom, which is sick.
SARAH: That was for Jeremy Jordan.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Just for Jeremy.
SARAH: Just for Jeremy and Noah Gelvin. Okay. Gender, we should eradicate it. It serves no purpose.
KAYLA: Make public bathrooms urinals versus stalls. This is my new stance.
SARAH: I understand from a medical perspective why there needs to be some differentiation.
KAYLA: But that’s sex
SARAH: But that is the difference between gender and sex. Yeah. That is a whole other thing. So we can keep sex markers and you know what? There should be not just two
(40:00)
KAYLA: Nope
SARAH: because some people are intersex.
KAYLA: It's true.
SARAH: So we should keep those in situations where, in like healthcare situations. But healthcare situations only.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like, your high school teacher does not need to know what your sex marker is.
KAYLA: Now that's weird.
SARAH: Like, that's unnecessary.
KAYLA: Get out of here.
SARAH: Get out of here, please. Gender, get rid of it.
KAYLA: Yep. Detach. Let's all group detach.
SARAH: Group detach.
SARAH: We don't need it. Will that happen in our lifetimes? No way.
KAYLA: Probably not. But we can move in that direction.
SARAH: Okay. Kayla, what's our poll for this week?
KAYLA: Are you attached to your gender?
SARAH: How attached are you to your gender on a scale from one to six?
KAYLA: Oh, you know what? I'll do. There's an Instagram thing where you just do the slider.
SARAH: Oh, you do a slider.
KAYLA: I'll just do how attached you are.
SARAH: That's good.
KAYLA: I'll do a slider.
SARAH: Okay. That's good. That's good. Perfect. Okay. Kayla, what is your beef and your juice this week?
KAYLA: My beef is the air.
SARAH: Yeah, is it bad there?
KAYLA: It was yesterday. It's better today. There was some wildfires in Canada this week, and so the air has been flowing down onto the East Coast. Yesterday it was just pretty like… It wasn't like in New York today where it's like orange outside. It was just kind of smoky. By the time I went outside yesterday.
SARAH: Do you know what the index was?
KAYLA: One something.
SARAH: Like 130 something, 160 something?
KAYLA: It was like unsafe for even not sensitive people. Yeah, definitely at least 130. Let me check it today.
SARAH: Because I get those warnings sometimes just by virtue of living in California, but obviously it's not as extreme because...
KAYLA: I'm still on air quality alert until tomorrow morning. Air quality is 37 today.
SARAH: Mine's 38. Mine's worse than yours.
KAYLA: Yeah, I think it's cleared out of Boston yesterday. I wish I had looked at it. Yesterday was worse. But yeah, it wasn't as bad. But yeah, in New York especially, yesterday, today it's like orange out. It's really bad. It's 250 right now in New York.
SARAH: That's bad.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's really bad. That makes me wonder if we're going to get like a second wave.
SARAH: I don't know. I've never been in a situation where it's been nearly that bad.
KAYLA: No, I've seen a lot of videos today of it looks like dune outside.
SARAH: Yeah. Did you see that picture of it was a Diablo ad that said, Welcome to Hell, New York?
KAYLA: Oh, why'd they do that?
SARAH: And then it was like orange outside.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's fucked up, but also good ad.
SARAH: Well the ad didn't anticipate that.
KAYLA: Oh, yeah, I guess that's… I was thinking that they did it on purpose. That's fair.
SARAH: They caused a gigantic wildfire in Canada?.
KAYLA: No, I thought they were just like really quick on it and they were like, put the ad up. No. Okay, nevermind. Anyway, that's my beef. I hope everyone's doing okay on the East Coast. Wear a mask if you have to go outside.
SARAH: In Michigan it's 147. Yeah, especially if you're in New York. I mean, it's going to be several days later, but like if your air quality index is like above 150 or 160, don't go outside without a mask on.
KAYLA: Yeah, especially if you're immunocompromised, which I'm sure if you are, you know that anyway, but if you're a sensitive little guy.
SARAH: In Asia, that's a lot of the reason why people would just like wear masks is when the flying dust is bad, they wear a mask because it fucks you up. Anyway, what's your juice?
KAYLA: That's my beef. My juice is I restarted my Animal Crossing Island.
SARAH: Mm.
KAYLA: It's been going well, already paid off two of my debts.
SARAH: I stopped doing that after like three days.
KAYLA: What, paying your debts?
SARAH: No, just when I restarted my island.
KAYLA: Uh huh
SARAH: And then I did it for like three days. And then I stopped.
KAYLA: Oh, and then you stopped. Good for you. Um, I feel like I had another one, but I forgot, so that's it.
SARAH: Okay. Um, let's see in Toronto, oh, they use a different index.
KAYLA: That’s stupid
SARAH: There's is six, moderate health risk. What does that mean?
KAYLA: Maybe like, it's one to 10.
SARAH: It's about halfway through the thing, which is a little bit lower than where New York was.
KAYLA: I bet they do a one to 10, which honestly seems more helpful.
SARAH: Yeah, let's see what they use in Seoul. See they have the same index, at least, at least on my weather app for Seoul.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Um, what about Dublin? I'm just looking at the cities that I have on my weather app now.
KAYLA: Um, I'm trying to find what the index was yesterday.
(45:00)
SARAH: It doesn't fucking say for Dublin. Says that the UV index is zero, probably because it's nighttime. Brisbane. Brisbane also doesn't say.
KAYLA: Well.
SARAH: Tübingen? Air quality is just very good.
KAYLA: Good for them?
SARAH: Great. Uh, London. Oh, London also has the one through 10. It says 3.
KAYLA: Honestly I feel like it's better. That seems more helpful.
SARAH: It's less specific, but it's more helpful to the general public.
KAYLA: But what is it here? One to 200?
SARAH: No, because New York's at 250.
KAYLA: Well, when does it end?
SARAH: Um, 500, maybe? Because 250 seems to be about in the middle.
KAYLA: 500 I will accept, I suppose.
SARAH: Air quality index, quality index, max, zero to 500.
KAYLA: Well.
SARAH: 101 to 150 is unhealthy for sensitive groups, 151 to 200 is unhealthy, 201 to 300 is very unhealthy, 301 to 500 is hazardous. Did you see that picture of people doing their fucking Equinox yoga outside in New York?
KAYLA: (laughing) No. That's stupid.
SARAH: And it's like fucking rich people shit. And it also, I saw some interesting discourse, one of it was from Imani Barberin, who is a disabled activist. She's also black, so she has some very interesting intersections to talk about. She's very good. She's a good follow. But she was basically saying that's just proof that it was never about fitness.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It was always about-
KAYLA: It was never about health.
SARAH: It was never about health. It was always about status and, you know, aesthetics and looking a certain way. Anyway. You did your juice, right?
KAYLA: I did it all.
SARAH: Okay. My beef is, I need to go back to writing this shit down. My juice is, I have a gravy, which is that my interns started this week, which is good because they can help me do stuff, but it's bad because it gives me more work to do.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because like I have to make sure that they have stuff to do and oversee them and all that jazz. But it does mean that I get free lunch pretty much every day.
KAYLA: That's fun. I love free lunch.
SARAH: I definitely had other beef and juice that I thought of earlier that's just gone. You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your favorite type of free lunch on our social media @SoundsFakePod. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod, where you can tell us about your air quality index. I mean, you could do that anywhere, but you could just yell into the void if you want. Our patrons who support us for some reason are our $5 patrons who are promoting this week are Melissa Kaufman, Meredith, Nick Ford, Philip Rueker, and Phoenix Eliot with one L and one T. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote their puppy Ezra Bean, Martin Chiesl who would like to promote his podcast if Everyone’s Special, then No One, is Mattie who would like to promote gender euphoria, which I think is the opposite of, well, not necessarily the opposite of being detached.
KAYLA: I think you can do both.
SARAH: We don't work in opposites. We don't work in opposites in this town.
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Everything's a spectrum, but it seems like gender euphoria and gender detachment are probably far away from each other on the spectrum.
KAYLA: I just don't agree with you.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: I think you could be euphoric in your detachment.
SARAH: As someone who's more detached from their gender than you are, I don't know that I agree, but that's also my personal experience.
KAYLA: Well.
SARAH Mattie, you tell us.
KAYLA: You tell us.
SARAH: And Potater, who would like to promote potatoes, also Purple Hayes, who would like to promote their friend's podcast, The Host Club. Our other, what are these, $10? What the fuck if I know, our other $10 patrons, are Barefoot Backpacker, Ruby, Song of Storm, The Steve, Zirklteo, Arcnes, Alyson, Ben MacLeod, Benjamin Ybarra, Boston Smith, David Harris, Derick and Carissa, Elle Bitter, My Aunt Jeannie, and Koolin. Our $15 patrons are Andrew Hillum, who would like to promote the Invisible Spectrum podcast, Changeling and Alex the ace cat, who would like to promote StarshipChangeling.net, ClickforCaroline, who would like to promote Ace of Hearts, Dia Chappell, Twitch.tv/melodydia, Hector Murillo, who would like to promote friends who are supportive, constructive, and help you grow as a better person, John Young, who would like to promote detaching. When it's healthy. Just general detachment. Not always a good idea.
KAYLA: No, no.
SARAH: Sometimes, sometimes you gotta do it.
KAYLA: Sometimes good though.
SARAH: Yeah. This has gone in an entirely different direction.
(50:00)
SARAH: Maff, who would like to promote Catching Up on the Podcast, Nathaniel White, who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, Kayla’s Aunt Nina, who would like to promote KateMaggartArt.com, and Sara Jones, who is @EternalLolli Everywhere. Our $20 productions. Whoa.
KAYLA: Hmm.
SARAH: Our $20 patrons. Are Sabrina Hauck, Merry Christmas, you know, you know who's not really gendered? Santa's elves.
KAYLA: I disagree again. In all the Christmas movies, they're girl elves and boy elves.
SARAH: But what's the difference?
KAYLA: Some of them wear pink skirts and others wear green pants.
SARAH: (grumbling) Some of them wear pink skirts
KAYLA: I'm just telling you, have you seen the movie Elf?
SARAH: Yes. It's not like Oompa Loompas where they're all men that look vaguely like my grandpa.
KAYLA: Huh?
SARAH: In Willy Wonka and the, no, wait.
KAYLA: The OG?
SARAH: In the OG. Hold on. Let me just double check.
KAYLA: They look like your grandpa? They're orange.
SARAH: Not the orange part.
KAYLA: The green hair part?
SARAH: No, no, sorry. It's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Hold on.
KAYLA: Okay. At least those aren't orange.
SARAH: Um, Oompa Loompa. No. Okay. I don't know.
KAYLA: Are you thinking of Munchkins?
SARAH: No. What was I doing?
KAYLA: Elves, Oompa Loompas and Munchkins are the only like, fey little guys I could think of. So I don't know.
SARAH: Listen, just sometimes the facial structure was like, oh, grandpa.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Is that you? It was never my grandpa.
KAYLA: I bet not.
SARAH: And Dragonfly.
KAYLA: We're still here.
SARAH: Who would like to promote, um, what if I got, you know those little trolls guys?
KAYLA: Yes, I know trolls.
SARAH: I should get a little troll that looks like an Oompa Loompa. Just leave it at his grave.
KAYLA: I think you have to now. I think you gotta.
SARAH: He would be so confused by that. Okay. Thanks for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your Oompa Loompas because they could be Sarah's grandpa.
SARAH: Can one of my cousins please just tell me that like someone at some point said that they, there's some resemblance.
KAYLA: I really hope no one says anything and this was all just you.
SARAH: Like he doesn't look like an Oompa Loompa, but like at times. At times he does. I gotta go. Bye.
KAYLA: Okay.
(52:21)