Episode 62: Cyrus Dunham
Gender Reveal
Tuck Woodstock
4.7 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2020
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the Season Five premiere, Tuck speaks with Cyrus Dunham (he/him), author of the memoir A Year Without a Name. Topics include:
- Top surgery's role in colonialism
- The guilty eroticism of he/him pronouns
- Writing for trans people that don't have all the answers yet
- Watching your loved one become a commodity
- Is cisness a delusion?
- Also: Big Libra Energy and the destruction of the state
This Week In Gender: Tuck discusses The Word of the Year Is "They" on NPR Morning Edition.
Buy Cyrus's book, A Year Without a Name, via Powell's or your local bookstore.
Support Tuck's wild new full-time gender detective gig! Pledge any amount at patreon.com/gender to receive our weekly newsletter. We also appreciate donations via PayPal or Cash App.
Learn more about Tuck's trans-focused equity consulting company at Sylveon.co. (Also, heck, order the Portland visitors guide for free if you want, why not???)
We've got BRAND NEW merch that raises money for trans designers & LGBTQ orgs! Browse our shirts, stickers, totes and more at bit.ly/gendermerch.
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Production help: Isaura Aceves
Logo: Ira M. Leigh
Music: Breakmaster Cylinder
Additional music: "Boston Landing" by Blue Dot Sessions
Sponsors: YOU! Thank you!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What? Welcome to Gender Reveal, a podcast where we hopefully get a little bit closer to |
| 0:19.7 | understanding what the hell Gender is. I'm your host and resident gender detective Molly Woodstock. |
| 0:27.0 | Welcome back. Great to see you. Love that you're here. Thank you so much to |
| 0:40.3 | everyone who waited it out through the longest season break we have ever taken. |
| 0:45.2 | Thank you to everyone who has joined us since our last season ended. |
| 0:48.8 | I am so excited that you are all here. I am excited to be here with you. This week on the show we spoke with |
| 0:54.7 | Cyrus Dunum, the author of the book A Year Without a Name, which came out last October. |
| 1:00.3 | I had an extremely delightful time talking with Cyrus about whether top surgery contributes to colonialism, |
| 1:07.0 | how changing your name can feel a lot like falling in love, how proximity to fame can affect your transition or not, and whether being |
| 1:15.5 | Sis is like even a thing. I don't know how much I even believe in sisness. I'm kind |
| 1:21.0 | of like sisness is a delusion and I wanted to write something |
| 1:24.6 | that hopefully some people would be able to read and be like wait actually it does |
| 1:28.5 | suck being a sis man. Actually being a sis woman has been so so painful for me. |
| 1:35.0 | But first, I want to address the reason it took extra long to get this season together, |
| 1:40.0 | and it was because during the season break I quit my day job. |
| 1:45.0 | I had been working as a full-time journalist for close to seven years. |
| 1:50.0 | I edited the entire Portland Visitor's Guide this year which you can get for free online if you want to see the other part of my life |
| 1:56.4 | But the point is that I quit that job. I gave up my health insurance, which I still am not 100% sure was the best move, but here I am a full-time professional trans person, who is now supporting themselves through two avenues both incredibly |
| 2:14.3 | homosexual. One is I am working at Sylvian Consulting, a equity consulting |
| 2:20.6 | business that I started with my friend Cass Adair. We work with businesses, |
| 2:25.0 | schools, organizations, individuals with all manners of particularly trans equity |
| 2:30.0 | topics, but I do general equity as well. |
... |
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