Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

An Open Letter to the Guy Who Arrived Late to the Live Show, Sat in the Front Row, Pulled Out His Phone, Asked Repeated Questions About Whether We Subscribe to Identity Politics, Then Stormed Out

Dear Guy Who Arrived Late to the Live Show, Sat in the Front Row, Pulled Out His Phone, Asked Repeated Questions About Whether We Subscribe to Identity Politics, Then Stormed Out,

Jay here. I answered your questions in the episode, but I also want to take a minute to talk about some things I haven’t previously mentioned on the podcast:

My kid has never seen the city where I grew up.

They have never visited my parents’ house.

See, if we go there, I can’t use public restrooms that align with my gender identity and presentation. If I have a medical emergency, doctors can refuse to treat me because I’m trans. If my child has a medical emergency, the police can take them away; again, because I’m trans.

Do I subscribe to identity politics?

I would love for my identity to be apolitical, random guy. I would love it if my very existence weren’t treated by lawmakers as tantamount to public pornography. I would love it if my access to necessary medical care—not just gender-affirming care, but any medical care—weren’t subject to public approval of my gender identity. I would love it if the current administration weren’t doing its level best to erase people like me from both history and existence.

Do I subscribe to identity politics?

Last December, someone filed a malicious report to CPS about my family. Why? We don’t know. Fortunately, the caseworkers who showed up were sympathetic; fortunately, the claim was something immediately and definitively disprovable; but I would love to live in a world where I didn’t have to wonder if it was because my spouse or I disagreed with someone on the Internet while openly queer—and in my case, openly trans.

Do I subscribe to identity politics?

When we started this show, I still identified as female. The majority of the criticism we got during those years was of my voice and appearance.

Do I subscribe to identity politics?

As I said when you first asked, I believe that when lawmakers and public figures politicize specific identities, those identities become—without the consent of the people who carry them—political.

When some identities and relationships but not others are treated as pornographic, publicly acknowledging those identities and relationships becomes a political act.

When your government is attempting to erase you, continuing to live honestly becomes a political act.

And here you come, strolling into my space with your phone and your bad-faith questions, ignoring our answers because they don’t align with your petty agenda, storming out like a displeased toddler when the rest of the crowd increasingly clearly demonstrates that they’re not on your side.

Do I subscribe to identity politics?

Motherfucker, I subscribe to reality.

Help Us Support Queer and Trans Youth!

Actual map of Florida.

On Monday, March 28, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB1557–the notorious “don’t say gay” bill–into law. This bill is part of an unprecedented wave of legislation targeting queer and trans youth, with potentially deadly consequences.

Florida may be America’s favorite trash fire, but we’re not willing to give up on our home state; and we’re DEFINITELY not willing to give up on the queer and trans kids who live there.

So we’re fighting back.

All April, we’ll be raising money for Equality Florida. Between our own contributions and the generous support of anonymous donors, we’re in a position to match up to $6000 of your contributions AND offer some very cool prizes.

HERE’S WHAT WE NEED YOU TO DO:

AND HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL GET:

  • IF YOU DONATE UNDER $25 – You’ll have our eternal love and gratitude, as well as the warm, fuzzy feeling of making a difference.
  • IF YOU DONATE $25 OR MORE – We’ll thank you on the podcast. (Note: these’ll be straightforward thanks, not the silly kind we do for patrons.)
  • IF YOU DONATE $50 OR MORE – Miles, who is adamantly Not an Artist, will draw you an earnest and possibly terrible social media X-avatar.
  • IF YOU DONATE $100 OR MORE – We’ll record a custom voicemail greeting for you.
  • IF YOU DONATE $200 OR MORE – Jay will knit you a hat.
  • IF YOU DONATE $500 OR MORE – We’ll record a Hawk Talk on a subject of your choice.

Thank you, so much, for fighting with us. <3

-J&M

As Mentioned in Episode 274 – The Red Shoe Prophecies

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

Listen to the episode here!

LINKS & FURTHER RECORDINGS:

274 – The Red Shoe Prophecies (feat. Chris Eddleman)

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Chris Eddleman joins us for a close look at House of X and Powers of X; Doug Ramsey is highly relevant; resurrection is problematic in a universe with a documented afterlife; there is no reasonable in-continuity justification for the lack of trans Marvel characters; and your OT3 is canon.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Phalanx (more) (again) (retconned)
  • House of X
  • Powers of X
  • Krakoa (more) (again) (retconned)
  • Moira MacTaggert (retconned)
  • Bar Sinister
  • Sinister Secrets
  • Portentous red shoes
  • The Man-Machine Ascendancy
  • Chimeras
  • North
  • Cardinal
  • Rasputin
  • Homo Novissima
  • Transhumanism in the Marvel Universe
  • The metaphysics of Krakoan resurrection
  • The Five
  • The true nature of Goldballs’ powers
  • Trans representation and its absence
  • Retroactive foreshadowing

NEXT EPISODE: Still not quite Generation X


CORRECTION: The story Jay referred to as “Everything Burns” is in fact titled “Time Runs Out,” although a good many things do burn over its course.


Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 253 – Autumn in the Uncanny Valley

Listen to the podcast here.



LINKS & FURTHER HEADLINES

253 – Autumn in the Uncanny Valley

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which an engagement begins; Jean Grey’s Walden Puddle counterpart is definitely Nicole; Cyclops is the telepathic equivalent of a pit trap with spikes at the bottom; Charles Xavier’s subconscious is very dialogue-heavy; nobody ever has appropriate professional boundaries; Cable dabbles in passive aggression; and the best is yet to come.

X-PLAINED:

  • Some of Blaquesmith’s recent activities
  • Uncanny X-Men #308-310
  • A very sweet retcon
  • Thanksgiving “traditions”
  • How to scare crows
  • Emplates
  • Feelings and telepathy
  • A proposal
  • A misprint
  • Thanksgiving at the Xavier School
  • A somewhat alarming manifestation of a conscience
  • The lies Charles Xavier tells himself
  • Xavier’s depression beard
  • The evolution of Amelia Voght
  • Angry Claremontean Narrator: The Movie
  • The anticlimactic return of Carl “X-Cutioner” Denti
  • An unexpected resolution
  • Foreshadowing
  • Trans voices in the larger comics conversation

NEXT EPISODE: The wedding!


Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes, StitcherSpotify, or your favorite podcatcher!

Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

HAPPY PRIDE! This month, we’re donating all of the proceeds from our TeePublic shopto Trans Lifeline!

Mutant, Trans, and Proud

We sold out of the pins at ECCC, but this seemed like the right month to put this design on t-shirts (and notebooks, and phone cases, and a bunch of other stuff):

That said, we feel pretty strongly that this is a design that should be in everybody’s hands. You’re of course welcome to buy our merch above; but if you want to DIY your own, you can download a high-resolution stencil below. This stencil is free for use for any non-commercial projects.

It is ALSO free for use on specific commercial projects, with one major caveat (on the honor system):

If your business is not trans-owned, any proceeds from merchandise you sell with this design should go to Trans Lifeline or another trans advocacy organization.

(Also, we’d love to see anything folks make with this, private or commercial!)

Thanks to Dylan Meconis for design and file-formatting assistance!

As Mentioned in Episode 180 – Lawful Badass

Listen to the podcast here.



FURTHER READING, WATCHING, & LISTENING:

180 – Lawful Badass

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Jay is deeply invested in The Gifted; Trevor Fitzroy is generally inexcusable; there are a lot of reasons to be uncomfortable in the Hellfire Club; the mix just got altered in this little clambake; Jean Grey (kind of) dies (again); Earth-1191 gives the Age of Apocalypse some glam competition; Lucas Bishop is a pretty decent metaphor for fan culture; everyone is probably Kang the Conqueror; and now Miles really has no excuse for not watching The Prisoner.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Chronomancer and his Chronobots
  • The Gifted
  • Lucas Bishop’s creative origins
  • Trevor Fitzroy
  • Goatee Theory
  • X-Factor #67
  • Uncanny X-Men #281-283
  • Dapper Lesbian Shinobi Shaw
  • A briefly useful mnemonic
  • Cybernetic fuckboys
  • The return of Warren Kenneth Worthington III’s hair
  • Beef and Bevatron
  • The deaths of the Hellions
  • Warhammer
  • Some of the challenges of X-Plaining the ’90s
  • Bringing a knife to a Sentinel fight
  • Bantam
  • A bunch of bad guys from the future
  • Bishop
  • Randall
  • Malcolm
  • Earth-1191
  • The Gamemaster
  • X-Men we’d like to see come out as trans (revisited)
  • Whether either or both of us are Kang the Conquerer

NEXT EPISODE: Pouches and Guns


Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)