Trans Media

TRANS ALLEGORIES IN POPULAR MUSIC, PART 2

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Things are gonna move from vaguely transy to seeming a lot more specific this week, as we get into TRANS ALLEGORIES IN POPULAR MUSIC, part 2!

Be sure you’ve read PART 1 first, because it’s got the context you need!

And then let’s dive right back in, picking up with the fours, on my pop music transy 1-10 scale!

THE FOURS:

Journey’s Separate Ways. Reads to me like a nonbinary person who’s chosen to reject their truth and go on pretending to be a man, as spoken from the true person they are inside, letting the false shell know they’ll always be there waiting for them, whenever they’re ready.

Here we stand
Worlds apart, hearts broken in two
Sleepless nights, losing ground
I’m reachin’ for you

Feelin’ that it’s gone
Can change your mind
If we can’t go on
To survive the tide, love divides

Troubled times
Caught between confusion and pain
Distant eyes
Promises we made were in vain

If you must go, I wish you love
You’ll never walk alone
Take care, my love
Miss you, love

Someday love will find you
Break those chains that bind you
One night will remind you
How we touched and went our separate ways

If he ever hurts you
True love won’t desert you
You know I still love you
Though we touched and went our separate ways

Heart’s These Dreams. A trans man who has dreams of being his true self, but doesn’t know how to keep them from evaporating every time he wakes, or how to grab something so ephemeral and make it real.

Spare a little candle, save some light for me
Figures up ahead, movin’ in the trees
White skin in linen, perfume on my wrist
And the full moon that hangs over
These dreams in the mist

Darkness on the edge, shadows where I stand
I search for the time on a watch with no hands
I want to see you clearly, come closer than this
But all I remember are the dreams in the mist

The sweetest song is silence that I’ve ever heard
Funny how your feet in dreams never touch the earth
In a wood full of princes, freedom is a kiss
But the prince hides his face from dreams in the mist

These dreams go on when I close my eyes
Every second of the night I live another life
These dreams that sleep when it’s cold outside
Every moment I’m awake the further I’m away

Lady Gaga’s Edge of Glory. A trans man on the cusp of transition and self-acceptance, assuring their old selves that they can do this, and find joy and life on the other side.

There ain’t no reason you and me should be alone
But I got a reason that you’re who should take me home tonight
I need a man that thinks it’s right when it’s so wrong
Right on the limit’s where we know we both belong tonight

Another shot before we kiss the other side
I’m on the edge of something final, we call life tonight
Put on your shades ’cause I’ll be dancin’ in the flames
It isn’t hell if everybody knows my name tonight

It’s hot to feel the rush
To brush the dangerous
I’m gonna run right to, to the edge with you
Where we can both fall far in love

I’m on the edge of glory
And I’m hangin’ on a moment of truth
Out on the edge of glory
And I’m hangin’ on a moment with you
I’m on the edge with you

Olivia Rodrigo’s Making the Bed. A trans man who hates his life pretending to be a woman, but knows that he did it to himself by rejecting his truth long ago, and that eats him up inside.

Want it, so I got it, did it, so it’s done
Another thing I ruined I used to do for fun
Another piece of plastic I could just throw away
Another conversation with nothing good to say

I thought it, so I said it, took it ’cause I can
Another day pretendin’ I’m older than I am
Another perfect moment that doesn’t feel like mine
Another thing I forced to be a sign

And every night, I wake up from this one recurrin’ dream
Where I’m drivin’ through the city and the brakes go out on me
I can’t stop at the red light, I can’t swerve off the road
I read somewhere it’s ’cause my life feels so out of control

And I tell someone I love them just as a distraction
They tell me that they love me like I’m some tourist attraction
They’re changin’ my machinery and I just let it happen
I got the things I wanted, it’s just not what I imagined

Well, sometimes I feel like I don’t wanna be where I am
Gettin’ drunk at a club with my fair-weather friends
Push away all the people who know me the best
But it’s me who’s been making the bed

I’m so tired of bein’ the girl that I am
Every good thing has turned into something I dread
And I’m playin’ the victim so well in my head
But it’s me who’s been making the bed

THE FIVES:

Paramore’s Proof. Feels a lot like a nonbinary person choosing to reach out and bridge the gap between who they are inside, and who they’ve been pretending to be, in order to be who they truly are.

It’s really hard
I can’t cry in your arms ’cause you’re not here
It’s not your fault, and if it was, I wouldn’t care
My heart is bigger than the distance in between us
I know it ’cause I feel it beating
So strong, it’ll knock you down

Over here
I can count the miles away from where I wanna be
I bet your skin is warm and that you’re smiling
That’s what I always loved the most about you
So strong, come and knock me down

I’ll get in my car
Driving faster than I ever did before
Head out west until I finally reach the shore
And then I’ll swim back to wherever you are
And we’ll ride the undercurrent down to the floor
Making friends with all the unfamiliar creatures
And pushing back on the unnecessary pressure
Come up for air just so you know we won’t drown
We’re so strong, the world can’t keep us out

So do you love me? 
All you got to do is say yes
Now, do you love me? 
And I won’t ever second guess
Now do you love me?
All you got to do is say yes
Now do you love me?
Then you already proved it

If I’m half the man I say I am
If I’m a woman with no fear just like I claim I am
Then I’ll believe in what you say
There’s nothing left for you to do
The only proof that I need is you

Taylor Swift’s Red. A trans man who let his true self go, because being that person felt wild and dangerous and unsafe, but can’t get the thought of his true self out of his mind.

Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street
Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly
Loving him is like trying to change your mind
Once you’re already flying through the free fall
Like the colors in autumn, so bright, just before they lose it all

Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted
Was right there in front of you
Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words
To your old favorite song

Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword
And realizing there’s no right answer
Regretting him was like wishing you never found out
That love could be that strong

Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes
Tell myself it’s time now gotta let go
But moving on from him is impossible
When I still see it all in my head
In burning red

Losing him was blue, like I’d never known
Missing him was dark gray, all alone
Forgetting him was like trying to know
Somebody you never met
But loving him was red
Loving him was red

Dua Lipa’s Levitating. A trans person’s inner self, talking to the false shell, and trying to convince them that if they live their truth, the weightless joy of GENDER EUPHORIA is waiting for them.

If you wanna run away with me, I know a galaxy
And I can take you for a ride
I had a premonition that we fell into a rhythm
Where the music don’t stop for life

I believe that you’re for me, I feel it in our energy
I see us written in the stars
We can go wherever, so let’s do it now or never
nothing’s ever, ever too far

Glitter in the sky, glitter in my eyes
Shining just the way I like
If you’re feeling like you need a little bit of company
You met me at the perfect time

I got you, moonlight, you’re my starlight
I need you all night, come on, dance with me
I’m levitating

Hoobastank’s The Reason. I know, I know, but it’s true. The old shell saying goodbye as a trans person transitions and is reborn, apologizing for the ways they harmed themselves by denying their truth for so long, and realizing the entire reason they held on was for this moment, when they’d no longer exist as who they used to be.

I’m not a perfect person
There’s many things I wish I didn’t do
But I continue learning
I never meant to do those things to you

And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know
I’m sorry that I hurt you
It’s somethin’ I must live with every day
And all the pain I put you through
I wish that I could take it all away
And be the one who catches all your tears
That’s why I need you to hear

I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
And the reason is you

I’ve found a reason to show
A side of me you didn’t know
A reason for all that I do
And the reason is you

THE SIXES:

Phil Collins’s In the Air Tonight. Reads a lot like a trans person who realized their transness, and actively denied it, possibly even to the point of leaning hard into transphobia to “prove” how not trans they are. And how utterly fucking mad about it their true self is, and they’re going to force themselves to confront what they’ve done.

If you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
I’ve seen your face before, my friend
But I don’t know if you know who I am

Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you’ve been
It’s all been a pack of lies

I remember, I remember, don’t worry
How could I ever forget?
It’s the first time, the last time
We ever met

But I know the reason why you keep your silence up
No, you don’t fool me
The hurt doesn’t show, but the pain still grows
It’s no stranger to you and me

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
And I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life

Incubus’s Drive. A trans person realizing that pretending to be cis, like everyone else, leaves them without any control in their life. And if they want that control… they’ve got to choose to take it, and be who they really are.

Sometimes I feel the fear of
Uncertainty stinging clear
And I can’t help but ask myself
How much I let the fear take the wheel and steer

It’s driven me before, and it seems to have a vague
Haunting mass appeal
But lately, I’m beginning to find that I
Should be the one behind the wheel

So if I decide to waiver my
Chance to be one of the hive
Will I choose water over wine
And hold my own and drive?

It’s driven me before, and it seems to be the way
That everyone else gets around
But lately, I’m beginning to find that
When I drive myself, my light is found

And whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes

THE SEVENS:

Ninedays’s Absolutely (story of a girl). Realllllly reads to me like a trans woman realizing how tough her life has been, how it’s at least partly her own fault for not accepting herself sooner, and how it’s wrecked her emotionally.

This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
And while she looks so sad in photographs
I absolutely love her
When she smiles

How many days in a year?
She woke up with hope, but she only found tears
And I can be so insincere
Making her promises never for real

As long as she stands there waiting
Wearing the holes in the soles of her shoes
How many days disappear?
When you look in the mirror
So how do you choose?

Now how many lovers would stay
Just to put up with this shit day after day?
Now how did we wind up this way
Watching our mouths for the words that we say?

As long as we stand here waiting
Wearing the clothes or the souls that we choose
How do we get there today
When we’re walking too far for the price of our shoes?

Your clothes never wear as well the next day
And your hair never falls in quite the same way
But you never seem to run out of things to say

This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
And while she looks so sad and lonely there
I absolutely love her
When she smiles

Michelle Branch’s Everywhere. I was such a huge fan of hers (yes THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE), and this song was a big reason why. It spoke to me in ways I didn’t understand, about the real woman that was inside me, who I could only dream of (which I did, literally! I used to have a lot of dreams where I was a woman), but had no way to understand or make them real.

Turn it inside out so I can see
The part of you that’s driftin’ over me
And when I wake you’re, you’re never there
And when I sleep you’re, you’re everywhere

Just tell me how I got this far
Just tell me why you’re here and who you are
‘Cause every time I look, you’re never there
And every time I sleep, you’re always there

I recognize the way you make me feel
It’s hard to think that you might not be real
I sense it now, the water’s getting deep
I try to wash the pain away from me

When I touch your hand
It’s then I understand
The beauty that’s within
It’s now that we begin

You always light my way
I hope there never comes a day
No matter where I go
I always feel you so

‘Cause you’re everywhere to me
And when I close my eyes, it’s you I see
You’re everything I know that makes me believe
I’m not alone

‘Cause you’re everywhere to me
And when I catch my breath, it’s you I breathe
You’re everything I know that makes me believe
I’m not alone

You’re in everyone I see
So tell me
Do you see me?

Paramore’s Miracle. A trans person’s inner self refusing to let the false shell give up on them, because they believe they can hold on long enough to let the true person out.

I’ve gone for too long
Living like I’m not alive
So I’m gonna start over tonight
Beginning with you and I

When this memory fades
I’m gonna make sure it’s replaced
With chances taken, hope embraced

We’ve learned to run from
Anything uncomfortable
We’ve tied our pain below
And no one ever has to know

That inside we’re broken
I try to patch things up again
To calm my tears and kill these fears
It’s not faith if
If you use your eyes

You’ll lie
We’ll get it right this time 
Let’s leave this all behind
Oh, I will get it right this time
It’s not faith if you’re using your eyes

And have I told you
I’m not going
‘Cause I’ve been waiting for a miracle
And I’m not leaving
I won’t let you
Let you give up on a miracle
When it might save you

Queen’s The Show Must Go On. A trans masc trapped, pretending to be a woman, not sure they can continue to deal with the pain of the false shell, imagining how freeing it would be to live their truth, but afraid to let it show.

Empty spaces, what are we living for?
Abandoned places, I guess we know the score
On and on
Does anybody know what we are looking for?

Another hero, another mindless crime
Behind the curtain, in the pantomime
Hold the line
Does anybody want to take it anymore?

Whatever happens, I’ll leave it all to chance
Another heartache, another failed romance
On and on
Does anybody know what we are living for?

I guess I’m learning, I must be warmer now
I’ll soon be turning, ’round the corner now
Outside the dawn is breaking
But inside in the dark I’m aching to be free

My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies
Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die
I can fly, my friends

The show must go on
Inside my heart is breaking
My make-up may be flaking
But my smile still stays on

Avril Lavigne’s Complicated. Reads like a trans woman who knows who she is inside, but keeps betraying that to be the man people see, and how that makes her so incredibly frustrated with herself.

Chill out, what ya yellin’ for?
Lay back, it’s all been done before
And if, you could only let it be, you will see

I like you the way you are
When we’re driving in your car
You come over unannounced

Dressed up like you’re somethin’ else
Where you are and where it’s at you see
You’re making me

Laugh out when you strike your pose
Take off all your preppy clothes
You know you’re not fooling anyone
When you become

Somebody else
‘Round everyone else
You’re watching your back
Like you can’t relax
You try to be cool
You look like a fool to me

Tell me
Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you’re acting like you’re somebody else
Gets me frustrated

Life’s like this
You fall, and you crawl, and you break
And you take what you get, and you turn it into
Honesty and promise me I’m never gonna find you fake it
No, no, no

Olivia Rodrigo’s What’s Wrong With Me. A trans person waking up to the reason that bad feelings they have inside are because they’ve been repressing their truth for their entire life.

I’m just staring at the ceiling
Can’t describe this feeling I’ve got in my head
I’m out of body in my bed

And I’m just searching up my symptoms
Desperate to fix ’em, I’ll do anything
‘Cause lately I’ve been spiraling

I’m not feeling like myself and
Nothing ever seems to help
I keep looking for distractions
Hope the feeling passes
But I’ve got to say

It’s getting harder every day
And I can’t seem to get around it
Head just keeps on pounding with
The simple thought
What if this isn’t what I want?

I’m not feeling like myself
All amber lights and warning bells
I’m not feeling like myself
I’m not hiding it well

Went to the doctor and she said I was fine 
But every movie that I see makes me cry
It’s like somebody put a weight on my chest

I should talk to a friend
But I can’t get out of bed
My head is spinning and my stomach is sick
Say I’m in love, so it’s hard to admit

I can’t eat, I can’t sleep
I think you’re what’s wrong with me

Ariana Grande’s Break Free. Reads like a trans woman finally rejecting the male shell she’s been imprisoned in for her whole life.

If you want it, take it
I should’ve said it before
Tried to hide it, fake it
I can’t pretend anymore 

You were better, deeper
I was under your spell
Like a deadly fever
On the highway to hell

I only wanna die alive
Never by the hands of a broken heart
I don’t wanna hear you lie tonight
Now that I’ve become who I really are

Thought on your body, I came alive
It was lethal, it was fatal
In my dreams, it felt so right
But I woke up every time

This is the part when I say I don’t want ya
I’m stronger than I’ve been before
This is the part when I break free

We’re gonna break there, but do not miss next week when we go from eights to tens, because if you thought some of the songs in this installment were super transy, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Also, uh, if you didn’t find them all that transy, you also ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – I made a YouTube playlist of these songs, which I’ll add to as Part 3 is released!
PPS – My friend Duna made an Apple Music playlist for this, if that’s more your speed.
PPPS – Part 3 is here!

TRANS ALLEGORIES IN POPULAR MUSIC, PART 1

Art by Chakkree Chantakad from Pixabay.

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This may surprise you, but trans people are human beings! I know, I know, but it’s true. And that means art made by humans, even cis ones, can speak to the trans experience in wonderful ways. It’s time for TRANS ALLEGORIES IN POPULAR MUSIC, part 1!

Unless you’re brand new to Trans Tuesdays (and if you are, OMG hi! I’m so glad you’re here!), you’re familiar with my myriad deep dives on trans allegories in film and television, which includes my book Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix.

It’s kind of what I’ve become best known for. And in the course of talking about the ways human-made art can speak to all humans, there’s a thing I’ve said multiple times, which also serves as this essay’s subheading:

TRANS STORIES ARE HUMAN STORIES.

You’ll see that phrase pop up a lot in the discussion of films or television that I believe to possibly be unintentional trans allegories… things like season one of SILO, THE TWILIGHT ZONE’S “NERVOUS MAN IN A FOUR DOLLAR ROOM,” KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, and (maybe) LISA FRANKENSTEIN.

But what does that really mean?

I’m delighted to get to be the one who tells you this, but trans people are human beings, actually! I know, I know, society and Republicans would have you believe otherwise.

But because trans people are human beings, art made by human beings (fuck LLMs!) can speak to and even about us, even if made entirely by cisgender people.

It’s the same way you can read a book, or watch a movie, with a lead character who does not share your specific identity, and yet in a lot of ways you identify with them and whatever it is they’re going through in the story.

This is one of the things that makes allegory so powerful, because if cis people find themselves identifying with a seemingly cis character, like Neo in The Matrix, or Barbie in BARBIE, and then later they learn how much that character intentionally (or even unintentionally) speaks to trans people, you can suddenly understand us a bit better.

And another way you can see this in action is in the popular music of our culture, and songs that speak to trans people, and connect with us on a deep level, even if they’re seemingly not about being a trans person.

I’ve mentioned in several essays how I’ve got a giant list of songs that I’ve been adding to over the years (literally since Trans Tuesdays started way back in July of 2020!), and now it’s time to talk about them!

It is important to note that there is no evidence any of these songs were intended to speak to or about trans people. There’s not necessarily any evidence that trans people were involved in any part of the production of these songs, from performing to writing to producing.

However.

There could have been trans people who are not out publicly, or who are closeted, who worked on these. There could even be eggs (trans people who don’t know they’re trans yet) who worked on these, and have not yet discovered their truth.

It’s actually quite possible for trans people who are eggs to be examining their gender feelings through the art they make without consciously realizing it. That doesn’t make the ways that art speaks to trans people unintentional, however. 

In my own writing pre-transition, I was exploring my complicated gender feelings for years before I realized and accepted my transness. I couldn’t have told you that’s what I was doing at the time, but I was absolutely intentionally exploring a facet of myself that I did not yet understand.

One of the best examples of this in action is writer and director Jane Shoenbrun’s film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. It is very clearly an intentional examination of gender dysphoria through allegory (albeit not as clearly as their film I SAW THE TV GLOW is), and Jane themselves has confirmed this. But they didn’t realize that was what it was about until making the movie, when the process of making it cracked their egg and they realized they were trans.

Schoenbrun realized they had written We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a movie about someone willing to mutate herself if it might make her feel whole, as a way of acknowledging their own transness. Schoenbrun had long felt a dysphoria they couldn’t classify, an otherness that sent them searching for corollaries in Judith Butler texts. Turns out the answer was right there in the script. Upon wrapping World’s Fair in early 2020, Schoenbrun “disappeared for two years, and came out a girl.”

So who’s to say if somewhere along the way, in the creation of some of these songs, people who were trans and didn’t yet know it were examining those same kinds of things? We just don’t know.

And I hear some of you thinking (yes I can hear your thoughts, sorry this is the way you found out), “C’mon Tilly, songs that aren’t about trans people can’t actually speak to transness,” and my friend, it is to laugh.

I’ve struggled with how to present all these songs, as they vary wildly by type of music, the year they were released, and more. What I’ve settled on is presenting them in a least-to-most sort of order, so at the start, the songs I mention may merely glance across the bow of transness, but by the time we get to the end you’re going to see some direct hits that may explode your heart. So I’ve ranked them all from one to ten, in terms of how transy they read to me, and we’ll start on the low end and work our way up.

Though I’ve just explained the order I’ll be mentioning these in, I’m going to first break my own framework (because no one’s the boss of me, not even me!) and give you one of the mid-range songs on my list… because it’s been on the list for a long time and because it’s sung by the lead character in LISA FRANKENSTEIN, quite possibly to intentionally make the scene more about her realizing and accepting her transness! If you want more explanation on that, just read the essays on it if you haven’t yet.

The song is REO Speedwagon’s I Can’t Fight this Feeling. On the surface, it’s a song about a guy in love with a woman and choosing to not resist it. In the trans reading of the song, and in Lisa Frankenstein, it’s about a person choosing to no longer resist their truth and embrace the trans masc they are inside.

It’s important to know that things that are seemingly a “romance” between a man and a woman can be used in allegory to show two versions of a person on opposite sides of transition, learning to love themselves enough to transition to their true self in spite of everything society throws at us to stop that from happening. That’s what the entire romance between Neo and Trinity in The Matrix is about, allegorically. Just read my book!

Okay, so, the song at hand (the video’s kinda hilarious, but it was the 80s, which explains a lot).

Let’s dive into those lyrics. Imagine them as that trans masc on the inside, talking to the false costume of a woman he was forced to pretend to be for his entire life, who is finally ready to break out of the shell. On my 1-10 scale, I’d probably put this one around a six.

I can’t fight this feeling any longer
And yet I’m still afraid to let it float
What started out as friendship
Has grown stronger
I only wish I had the strength to let it show

My life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you
I’ve been running ’round in circles in my mind
And it always seems that I’m followin’ you, girl
‘Cause you take me to the places
That alone I’d never find

And even as I wander
I’m keeping you in sight
You’re a candle in the window
On a cold dark winter’s night
I’m getting closer
Than I ever thought I might

And I can’t fight this feeling anymore
I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for
And if, to bring this ship into the shore
Come crashing through your door
I can’t fight this feeling anymore

Eh? Do you see? Do you feel the yearning of a trans person to be free, hidden inside this old kinda schmaltzy love song?

Okay, now we’ll start with the songs that hit transness a little askew, and move to the ones that are so incredibly pointed at the end. 

Do note this is not an exhaustive list. I mean, it’s very long with a lot of songs! But it’s not every song that speaks to transness in allegorical ways. There are so many more! 

I’m also specifically not including songs from musicals, because there are so many, even within just animated Disney films… Mulan’s Reflection, Tarzan’s Son of Man, THE LITTLE MERMAID’S PART OF YOUR WORLD. And with Broadway shows, like, look out. Wicked’s Defying Gravity is like a whole-ass trans anthem!

Let me also quickly mention Dua Lipa’s Dance the Night, which if you look at it on its own, might not necessarily speak of transness at all to you, even if you’re trans. But in the context of the Barbie movie, which it was written for, it takes on an extremely trans meaning that is low-key intentional. See my deep-dive on THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF BARBIE for more.

Okay, first up–

THE ONES:

Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s Won’t Back Down. This is one of the songs on this list that is most easily applicable to basically everyone in existence, but you can definitely also read it as a trans person refusing to give up being who they are, even in spite of all society does to make life so hard for us.

Well, I won’t back down
No, I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of Hell
But I won’t back down

No, I’ll stand my ground
Won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground
And I won’t back down

Well, I know what’s right
I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground
And I won’t back down

There ain’t no easy way out
I will stand my ground 
And I won’t back down

Selena Gomez’s Lose You to Love Me. It at least partially reads, to me, like a trans person realizing they had to not just let go of, but blame their past selves for keeping them locked up for so long, because they needed the fire of that anger to push them to transition.

You promised the world and I fell for it
I put you first and you adored it
Set fires to my forest
And you let it burn
Sang off-key in my chorus
‘Cause it wasn’t yours

I saw the signs and I ignored it
Rose-colored glasses all distorted
Set fire to my purpose
And I let it burn
You got off on the hurting
When it wasn’t yours

We’d always go into it blindly
I needed to lose you to find me
This dancing was killing me softly
I needed to hate you to love me
To love, love
I needed to lose you to love me

THE TWOS:

Actually only one song in this section! Mike and the Mechanics’ All I Need is a Miracle. Reads like a trans person who rejected their truth, pretended it wasn’t real, is starting to regret it, and hopes they can maybe find a way back to who they really are someday.

I said go if you wanna go
Stay if you wanna stay
I didn’t care if you hung around me
I didn’t care if you went away
And I know you were never right
I’ll admit I was never wrong
I could never make up my mind
I made it up as I went along

I never had any time
And I never had any call
But I went out of my way just to hurt you
The one I shouldn’t hurt at all
I thought I was being cool
Yeah, I thought I was being strong
But it’s always the same old story
You never know what you got ’til it’s gone

If I ever catch up with you
I’m gonna love you for the rest of your life
All I need is a miracle, all I need is you

THE THREES:

Queen’s Somebody to Love. When you remember that transition is the greatest act of self-love a person can ever have, the “somebody” in the song becomes about a trans person who isn’t sure they can love themselves enough to do what they have to do to actually become their true self, especially given how SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING tries to make us all doubt we know our own truth.

Each mornin’ I get up I die a little
Can barely stand on my feet
Take a look in the mirror and cry
Lord, what you do to me?
I’ve spent all my years in believin’ you
But I just can’t get no relief

I work hard everyday
I try and I try and I try
But everybody wants to put me down
They say I’m goin’ crazy
They say I got a lot of water in my brain
I got no common sense
I got nobody left to believe

Got no feel, I got no rhythm
I just keep losin’ my beat 
I’m okay, I’m alright 
I ain’t gonna face no defeat
I just gotta get out of this prison cell 
Someday I’m gonna be free

Can anybody find me
Somebody to love?

Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone. A trans woman who hated the fake man she used to be, and is so glad to have kicked him and his lies out of her life. I’ve come to forgive and understand and have sympathy for who I was, because he was doing the best he could at the time, and held on long enough for me to get here. But early on, yeah, I was definitely pissed at him for keeping me trapped inside for so long.

Here’s the thing, we started out friends
It was cool, but it was all pretend
You’re dedicated, you took the time
Wasn’t long ’til I called you mine

And all you’d ever hear me say
Is how I picture me with you 
That’s all you’d ever hear me say

How can I put it? You put me on
I even fell for that stupid love song

How come I’d never hear you say,
“I just wanna be with you”? 
Guess you never felt that way

You had your chance, you blew it
Out of sight, out of mind
Shut your mouth, I just can’t take it
Again and again and again and again

Since you been gone 
I can breathe for the first time
I’m so movin’ on

Thanks to you
Now I get, I get what I want 
You should know
That I get, I get what I want

Train’s Meet Virginia. A trans woman, pre-transition, thinking about the kind of woman she might be if she transitioned, and the ways that doesn’t fit into the stereotype of what a woman should be, and worrying that doesn’t make her a “real” woman at all.

She doesn’t own a dress
Her hair is always a mess
If you catch her stealin’ she won’t confess
She’s beautiful

Smokes a pack a day
Wait, that’s me, but anyway
She doesn’t care a thing about that, hey
She thinks I’m beautiful

She never compromises
Loves babies and surprises
Wears high heels when she exercises
Ain’t that beautiful?

She only drinks coffee at midnight
When the moment is not right
Her timing is quite
Unusual

You see, her confidence is tragic
But her intuition magic
And the shape of her body?
Unusual

Well, meet Virginia, I can’t wait to
Meet Virginia

Well, she wants to be the queen
Then she thinks about her scene 
Well, she wants to live her life 
Then she thinks about her life 
Pulls her hair back as she screams 
I don’t really wanna be the queen

Taylor Swift’s I Think He Knows. A trans man realizing they can be the man they’ve always dreamed of being, and realizing they just might be able to actually make it happen.

I think he knows
His footprints on the sidewalk
Lead to where I can’t stop
Go there every night

I think he knows
His hands around a cold glass
Make me wanna know that
Body like it’s mine

I think he knows
When we get all alone
I’ll make myself at home
And he’ll want me to stay

I think he knows
He’d better lock it down
Or I won’t stick around
‘Cause good ones never wait

He’s got that boyish look that I like in a man
I am an architect, I’m drawing up the plans
He’s so obsessed with me and, boy, I understannd

He’s got my heartbeat 
Skipping down 16th Avenue
Got that, ah, I mean 
Wanna see what’s under that attitude like
I want you, bless my soul
And I ain’t gotta tell him, I think he knows
I think he knows

Wilson Phillips’ Hold On. Oh yes, believe it! A miserable, closeted trans person who’s intentionally denied and hid their truth because society told them to, being encouraged by an out trans person to literally hold on until they have the strength to finally stand up for themselves, and make the choice to come out and transition.

I know this pain
Why do you lock yourself up in these chains? 
No one can change your life except for you
Don’t ever let anyone step all over you
Just open your heart and your mind 
Is it really fair to feel this way inside?

You could sustain 
Or are you comfortable with the pain?
You’ve got no one to blame for your unhappiness 
You got yourself into your own mess 
Lettin’ your worries pass you by 
Don’t you think it’s worth your time
To change your mind?

I know that there is pain, but you
Hold on for one more day, and you
Break free from the chains

Some day somebody’s gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye 
Until then, baby, are you going to let ’em hold you down and make you cry?
Don’t you know, things can change 
Things’ll go your way
If you hold on for one more day
Hold on for one more day

Okay, we’re going to wrap it there for this week. I know, I know, these don’t seem too transy yet, but we’re only through the threes! 

Next week we pick up with the fours head up through the sevens, and the transiness meter takes off like a rocket.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – I made a YouTube playlist of these songs, which I’ll add to as Parts 2 and 3 are released!
PPS – My friend Duna made an Apple Music playlist for this, if that’s more your speed.
PPPS – Part 2 is here!

THE IMPERFECT TRANS ALLEGORY OF KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, part 4

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Time to wrap this discussion up with some truth, and final, actual acceptance… right before it all breaks down. Here comes THE IMPERFECT TRANS ALLEGORY OF KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, part 4!

And I presume you wanna actually understand what’s going on, or else why are you reading this? And so, here’s parts 1, 2, and 3 for your edutainment!

1:09:35 – Rumi finds Jinu, with the two demon Mira and Zoey impersonators. He snaps his fingers and they revert to their demonic forms, before disappearing.

Rumi: “How could you do this?” Jinu: “It was all a lie.” Rumi: “It was real. What we had was real. I know it was.” Nah your dream of us fixing things and being accepted by society, by pretending to be cis, was never going to work.

Jinu: “I just needed you to trust me. That’s all.” Rumi: “No, I know your story. You were a good person, and you still are. You just made a mistake.”

Jinu: “I left them! That’s right, I lied to you. I only made a deal with Gwi-ma to get myself out of that miserable life. I left my sister, my mother, alone, while I slept on silk sheets in the palace with my belly full every night. I left them.”

Jinu’s truth was “living in luxury” from abandoning his family, and you have to understand that’s what a lot of cis people see transitioning as. A “luxury” we do for fun, or because it’s a trend, or because we just want to, not that we need it to survive and be ourselves.

This is not true for every trans person, some of us don’t need to transition but choose to, and that is absolutely valid. However the majority of us need it to survive. Two things can be true. No FALSE DICHOTOMIES.

Jinu: “You’re a demon, just like me. All we get to do is live with our pain, our misery. That’s all we deserve.” This is what society will tell you, yeah. Be yourself and all you’ll get is a life of misery.

1:10:55 – As Rumi walks, her path opens a pink tear in the Honmoon.

1:12:00 – The crowd walks in a zombified stupor, as Gwi-ma whispers to Mira: “You thought you found a family? You don’t deserve one. You never have.” Then Gwi-ma whispers to Zoey: “You’re too much. And not enough. You’ll never belong anywhere, but I can give you a place to belong.”

These are some of the lies society makes us believe about ourselves when we don’t conform in even the slightest way.

1:12:45 – Rumi, voice warbling through demonic tones, confronts Celine. Rumi: “I thought I could fix it all. Fix me. But I ran out of time. They saw. They know. There’s no denying it now. This is what I am. You knew I was a mistake from the very start. Do what you should’ve done a long time ago.” Rumi hands her sword over. “Before I destroy what I swore to protect.”

Celine: “I can’t. When we lost your mother, I swore to protect all that was left of her, but I never thought that that would be a child like you. Everything I was taught told me you were wrong, but I made a promise. So I did my best to accept you and help you.” Did you tho?? Your “best” was to not accept her and force her to hide?

Get the entire fuck out of here. You are the fucking monster.

This is literally what leads to the high rates of trans kids feeling like they can’t go on. See TRANS KIDS 1: FACTS AND DANGERS, and TRANS KIDS 2: THE INTAKE EXAM AND TRANS FLIGHT.

Rumi: “Accept me? You told me to cover up, to hide.” Celine: “Yes, until we can fix everything. And we still can. We can cover those up and put everything right again. I’ll tell Mira and Zoey that it was all a lie, an illusion by Gwi-ma to break us apart.” Rumi: “No. No more hiding. No more lies! Don’t you get it? This is what I am. Look at me. Why can’t you look at me? Why couldn’t you love me?” Celine: “I do!” Nope, conditional love is not love. Rumi: “All of me!” More ripples run through the Honmoon.

Finally, Rumi is starting to get it. But oof does, “why can’t you look at me? Why couldn’t you love me?” hit so hard for any trans person with people in our lives whose love for us was conditional.
Celine: “This is why we have to hide it. Our faults and fears must never be seen. It’s the only way to protect the Honmoon.”

Rumi picks up her sword. “If this is the Honmoon I’m supposed to protect, I’m glad to see it destroyed.” She disappears, just like the other demons do. She’s more of her true self than ever before.

Rumi is really starting to get it now. Staying hidden, lying about the truth, is not the right way for anyone to exist. The entire idea of people being forced to stay closeted is flawed from the ground up, and needs to be destroyed.

I do want to point out that it is perfectly fine for trans people to be closeted if you need to be. If you’re not ready to COME OUT, if it’s not safe for you to come out, if you could face violence or lose your home or job for coming out, the closet provides some protection.

But I also want you to know that all of those reasons are the fault of an unaccepting cis society. To the point:

If society were not like that, none of us would ever have to be in the closet.

And that is what Rumi’s realized. It’s the system (or “cis-tem,” if you will) that is bullshit.

1:15:55 – The Saja Boys do their midnight performance, as their true demon selves, and Gwi-ma appears.

1:17:46 – Rumi enters, voice demonic. “We are hunters, voices strong. Slaying demons with our song. Fix the world and make it right. When darkness finally meets the light.”

Gwi-ma: “You come here like this? You think you can fix the world? You can’t even fix yourself.”

Rumi: “I can’t.”

Gwi-ma: “And now everyone finally sees you for what you really are.”

Rumi: “They do.”

Yes, yes! Go go go!

Gwi-ma: “And the Honmoon is gone.”

Rumi: “It is.”

YEAH!

Rumi: “So we can make a new one.”

Wait… what?

There are transy colors in Rumi’s eyes as she says they’re going to make a new Honmoon.

1:18:24 – Rumi walks forward, singing.

Nothing but the truth now
Nothing but the proof of what I am
The worst of what I came from
Patterns I’m ashamed of
Things that even I don’t understand
I tried to fix it
I tried to fight it
My head was twisted
My heart divided
My lies all collided

It’s waking up Mira and Zoey from the demonic trance they were in with the audience.

I don’t know why I didn’t
Trust you to be on my side

Wellllll Mira and Zoey gave Rumi good reason to believe they wouldn’t be on her side, though…

I broke into a million pieces
And I can’t go back
But now I’m seeing all the beauty
In the broken glass
The scars are part of me
Darkness and harmony
My voice without the lies
This is what it sounds like

Zoey sings.

Why did I cover up
The colors stuck inside my head

Mira sings.

I should’ve let the jagged edges
Meet the light instead

All three:

Show me what’s underneath
I’ll find your harmony
The song we couldn’t write
This is what it sounds like

Important to note here that this is not Golden, which they were sure was what would defeat Gwi-ma, but was about upholding the lie even when it hurt Rumi to do so.

This is something new, something different. Which is what it takes to beat hate, and is the point of this song.

Acceptance. Compassion. Love.

Gwi-ma sends hordes of demons to stop them.

We’re shattering the silence
We’re rising, defiant
Shouting in the quiet
“You’re not alone”
We listened to the demons
We let them get between us
But none of us are out here on our own

Huntrix fights the waves of demons. It wakes up the crowd.

So we were cowards
So we were liars
So we’re not heroes
We’re still survivors
The dreamers, the fighters
No lying, I’m tired
But dive in the fire
And I’ll be right here by your side

They hug each other, and it sends a Honmoon over the crowd.

But they destroyed more demons in doing so, even though they know all the demons have been manipulated by Gwi-ma, just like Jinu and Rumi were…

1:21:11 – As they continue singing, Gwi-ma draws all the demons into himself, growing ever more powerful. Gwi-ma: “Your voices cannot defeat me.”

1:21:36 – Rumi’s overwhelmed by Gwi-ma’s attack, until Jinu steps between them and saves her. Jinu: “I’m sorry for everything.” Rumi: “I wanted to set you free.” Jinu: “You did. You gave me my soul back. And now, I give it to you.” He’s destroyed by Gwi-ma (or maybe just sent back to the underworld?).

In any case, this is community: we protect us.

1:22:22 – Empowered by Jinu’s sacrifice, Rumi splits Gwi-ma in two, but he recovers. But the audience, now awake and aware, lend their support and the power of their souls to Huntrix. Community is the only way we can make it through, no one can do it on their own. Huntrix destroys the rest of the Saja Boys.

1:23:24 – Rising into the sky, Huntrix sings together, in harmony. It destroys Gwi-ma, and fixes the deteriorated Honmoon. The sky is transy!

The new Honmoon is not just blue, but pink and blue and gold mixed together, something altogether new that didn’t exist before.

1:24:15 – Huntrix stands on stage united as the crowd cheers, Rumi showing her patterns, unashamed. She’s accepted herself and, at least as much as these humans understand demons and these cis people understand trans people, she’s accepted for who she is.

But also she was instrumental in saving all of their lives, which might make them biased. I’m just saying that there are a contingent of cis people who think the one trans person in their lives who was nice to them is okay, it’s “all those other trannies” they have a problem with, y’know?

It’s like saying you can’t be racist because you have one Black friend. That’s not how it works.

1:24:36 – Rumi has finally gone to the bathhouse with Zoey and Mira. She’s comfortable with her body now, as it is, patterns fully visible.

She, sadly, gets no apologies for the way they rejected her, other than what comes in their last song together. Which was an admission of not being accepting, but not an actual apology for the ways they upheld and perpetuated the beliefs and the system that were causing Rumi harm.

Which is unfortunate, but not what really makes this allegory imperfect. I’ve shown you everything I could about the ways this film speaks to trans people, and a fairly strong trans reading that works all the way through the film…

So what the heck makes this an imperfect allegory, Tilly? Well I was just getting there, give a gal some dramatic license, willya?

Because the allegory works all the way through the film until the end, and I don’t mean the scene in the bathhouse.

Rumi’s realized the old system has to be torn down so something better can take its place, where she can accept herself, and be accepted by others, for who she really is. Which is great! And correct!

But then what do they do?

They create another Honmoon, which… traps all demons in the underworld, seemingly forever! Or until a couple years from now when we get the sequel that’s in development, but we can’t count on that here. We have to take this story on its own terms.

And what it ends up saying is that for Rumi to accept herself and be accepted by cis people, she had to force every other trans person back into the closet and uphold their oppression. And she was “allowed” to do this because she saved a whole bunch of cis people.

It equates to pick-mes like Caitlyn Jenner and Brianna Wu, who routinely sell out the entire trans community (they literally “sacrifice” Jinu/community to the hatred of Gwi-ma/transphobia!) because they believe it will allow them the ability to live as themselves and be accepted by the hateful people in power.

They don’t realize, of course, that they’re supporting the leopard and that their faces are next on the menu. There’s nothing to indicate the crowd at the end is going to suddenly turn on Rumi, but this is still what it draws allusions to.

Because Rumi basically says “I got mine” and never mind all the other trans people suffering in the closet. She asks one of them if they’re suffering under Gwi-ma, remember, and doesn’t get an answer… and never mentions it again. The allegory is saying the only way we can maybe be accepted and live our truths is by selling out every other trans person, and forcing them to go back in the closet.

And if the entire story doesn’t hold up in terms of an allegory, to me that makes it not an allegory. Or, in softer terms, it’s an imperfect allegory. It’s almost a trans allegory, but it doesn’t quite work.

That doesn’t mean Rumi’s story doesn’t resonate with you. Or that we can’t see ourselves in her. She resonates with me, a lot! It doesn’t mean that some scenes don’t speak deeply to our experiences as trans people. All of that can be true, and it can not quite work as an allegory on the whole.

Two things can be true. No FALSE DICHOTOMIES, remember.

And there is definitely queerness at work. Hannah McMechan, one of the film’s six writers (there may have been more that we don’t know about, movies just work that way) said that the process of writing the film helped her realize she’s bisexual!

But I think, in these times where we can never be sure what’s real at first, due to the rise of disinformation, propaganda, and LLM-generated nonsense, it’s more important than ever that we’re clear about what things are and aren’t.

Words mean things. They have to. Because the fascists want them to not.

I mean, that’s not the only reason words mean things, but it’s a very important one right now.

And if Kpop Demon Hunters were an allegory on the whole, it would be advocating for the forced closeting of trans people, and that’s not good!

So, to me, we have to be careful with what we say is an allegory, because otherwise some folks who are just discovering the beauty of transness, via allegory and metaphor, could accidentally take a really harmful message from some things.

Thank you for coming with me on this journey, keeping an open mind, and being curious enough about art to want to dig in and explore it in detail. It’s one of my favorite things to do, even though it’s so much work it flattens me. I’m delighted to do it, there’s nothing better than wrapping yourself in art for a while and looking at all its nuances.

Kpop Demon Hunters is a remarkable, wonderful movie that I love a lot. It is also an imperfect trans allegory that I still connect with, and see much of myself in. But it is imperfect in that regard.

That doesn’t mean it’s bad. That doesn’t mean it’s not important. That doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful.

It just means it’s an imperfect allegory.

And that’s okay.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

THE IMPERFECT TRANS ALLEGORY OF KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, part 3

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! We fight and we struggle to do the work to accept the truth of who we are… and a whole lot of people in our lives are primed to punish us for it. Let’s get into THE IMPERFECT TRANS ALLEGORY OF KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, part 3!

Okay, let’s dive right in! Because you’re waking up to the ways of the world, you’ll want all the information you can get your hands on, and reading  PART 1 and PART 2 is the way to do that!

42:49 – Huntrix works on their song to take down the Saja Boys, but Rumi coughs when only speaking lyrics, it’s getting harder and harder for her to keep up the facade.

43:15 – Rumi corners a demon. “Are you a prisoner too? Is Gwi-Ma making you do this?” Mira kills the demon before it can respond. Rumi has never asked this before, and she reacted emphatically against demons being anything more than evil and worth destroying, when Zoey suggested maybe they weren’t all evil. Her growing doubts about maintaining the cis lie, and her encounter with the community in Jinu, are changing her.

43:44 – While working on their Saja Boys diss track, Mira suggests the lyrics, “A demon with no feelings doesn’t deserve to live.” Zoey says “it’s so obvious!” Rumi’s bothered by it, but doesn’t say anything.

45:36 – Jinu: “Look, if I help [Gwi-Ma], he’s promised to erase my memories, and those voices in my head will be gone.” This is just like Cypher in The Matrix, wanting to “go back in” and forget that he knows the truth, because it’s too difficult to deal with.

Rumi calls Jinu pathetic. Jinu: “I’m pathetic? You can’t even talk about your patterns.” Rumi: “You want to talk about patterns? I hate them! Just like I hate all demons. How I hate Gwi-Ma.” Jinu: “If hate could defeat Gwi-Ma, I would have done it a long time ago.”

Hate can’t defeat hate… which, okay, I’m sorry, but is a key theme of Matrix Revolutions. Really, please, just read Begin Transmission already maybe. Ask your library to get it or whatev!

46:24 – A young fan gives Jinu a drawing of him as an angel that says, “Jinu, you have a beautiful soul.” It makes him think.

46:56 – Rumi’s working on the diss track, quietly sings: 

When your patterns start to show
I see a pain that lies below

She knows. Is she finally admitting it to herself, even while thinking she’s singing about Jinu?

47:56 – Mira asks why Rumi’s changing the lyrics. Rumi: “Do you really think this is the song to beat Gwi-Ma? It’s so hateful.” Mira: “Yeah, because we hate him, and we hate demons.”

48:20 – Mira: “…I just can’t shake this feeling that you’re keeping something from me.” Rumi lies and denies it. Mira apologizes. “I can’t wait until every [demon] is destroyed and sent back to suffer with Gwi-Ma for all eternity. Right, Rumi?” Rumi: “Yeah, eternal suffering. Sounds fun.”

Hey, that’s what she’s already dealing with by being forced to live a lie.

49:06 – The Saja Boys’ popularity grows and they harvest more souls, which leads to “missing persons”. So we see that when souls are harvested for Gwi-ma, the people they belong to disappear from the world. Which is definitely how it feels when someone you knew and cared about falls over the edge into transphobia and makes it their entire personality (like they always do).

49:55 – Rumi meets with Jinu again. Rumi: “What if I told you there’s another way to get your freedom? …Help us win the Idol Awards. Because when we win, the Honmoon will be sealed. And that will guarantee your freedom. Gwi-Ma will be permanently cut off, and all the demons will be gone from this world. I will finally be free of these patterns. No more hiding. No more secrets. You can be on this side when the Honmoon is sealed. Away from the demon world, away from Gwi-Ma. You can be free from those voices forever.”

If you don’t see where this is leading, stick with me until the end…

Jinu: “What makes you think the Honmoon can save a guy like me?” Rumi: “A guy who tried to help his family? You made a mistake, Jinu. …But I am a mistake. Have been since the moment I was born. So I have to believe. Because if there’s no hope for you, what hope is there for me?”

Rumi: “That’s the funny thing about hope. Nobody else gets to decide if you feel it. That choice belongs to you.” Jinu: “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a mistake.”

Note how they can each support the other in ways that they cannot support themselves, even though they both have demon patterns aka are trans. This is again another aspect of the importance of community, we can often spot INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA in each other easier than we can spot it in ourselves.

52:15 – Huntrix is rehearsing the Saja Boys diss track, but Rumi’s again thrown off by the lyrics. 

53:21 – Huntrix argues as they kill demons. Mira: “Why are you questioning everything we stand for when we’re so close to sealing the Honmoon? What are you not telling us, Rumi? What are you hiding from us? …If you’re with us, prove it.”

And they all then kill a whole lot more demons.

Rumi, singing, trying to convince herself, all while hating herself:

A demon with no feelings 
don’t deserve to live
It’s so obvious

Zoey: “You know I’m always on your side, but it’s really hard to understand this time. We can’t win this without your voice, Rumi.” Even your friends, even those you love the most, and who claim they love you, will withdraw that support when you display signs of your truth. Again, this is what my mother did to me at every hint of the inner girl I was, all while claiming that she loved me “no matter what.” But her love was always conditional and based on me living up to the idea of who I was in her head, and not who I actually am. See TRANS PARENTS (Mother’s Day) for more on that complicated issue.

55:53: Rumi meets with Jinu again. Jinu: “I want to believe in your crazy plan, but I don’t think I’m the one to help you.” Rumi: “Actually, you already have. I spent my whole life keeping this secret, this shame of what I am, and the more I hid this shame, the more it grew and grew until it started to destroy the one thing that gave me a purpose, my voice. But since I’ve met you, and the more I talk to you, I don’t understand it, but somehow, my voice has healed.” 

Being around other trans people, around community, makes her feel like there is a place for her. Like she belongs, even while she’s still struggling to accept herself.

Singing:

I tried to hide, but something broke
I tried to sing, couldn’t hit the notes
The words kept catching in my throat
I tried to smile, I was suffocating though
But here with you I can finally breathe
You say you’re no good
But you’re good for me
I’ve been hoping to change
Now I know we can change
But I won’t if you’re not by my side
Why does it feel right
Every time I let you in?
Why does it feel like
I can tell you anything?
All the secrets
That keep me in chains and
All the damage 
That might make me dangerous
You got a dark side
Guess you’re not the only one
What if we both tried
Fighting what we’re running from?
We can’t fix it if we never face it
What if we find a way to escape it?
Let the past be the past
‘Til it’s weightless

Jinu, singing:

You’re waking up all these parts of me
I thought were buried for good
Between imposter and this monster
I been lost inside my head
Ain’t no choice when all these voices
Keep pointing me towards no end
It’s just easy when I’m with you
No one sees me the way you do

Rumi:

So take my hand
It’s open
What if we heal what’s broken?

So the beauty in this song is both Rumi and Jinu think they’re talking about banishing their transness so they never have to think about it again, but subconsciously they’re both actually talking about living a life where they’re free to be their trans selves and they’re banishing the false cis shells so they never have to think about those again.

When they rise into the sky together, the colors are super transy.

59:26 – Jinu: “I don’t hear [Gwi’Ma’s] voice. I’ll make sure the Saja Boys lose tomorrow.” Rumi: “Then we’ll both win.” Jinu almost comes clean about his past, but then chickens out.

1:00:14 – A now much more powerful Gwi-Ma, due to all the souls the Saja Boys have harvested (because hate grows in strength the more it propagates itself, this also happens in the Matrix until it threatens to destroy all of society, just read Begin Transmission already!), pulls Jinu back to the underworld. Gwi-ma: “That’s funny, I thought for a moment you actually believed you could be free. …Because if you really believed her, if you really thought you could escape what you are, what you did… you would have told her the truth. You betrayed your own family. You left them behind. …Don’t forget about our deal, Jinu. Because I can turn those voices up. Or, they can be gone. Don’t think you can escape what you are.” 

Jinu betrayed his family and “left them behind,” and Gwi-ma calls this a betrayal.

But when we transition and our cis family and friends and society don’t accept us, that’s not a betrayal. We weren’t lying to everyone, we were trying to be who they said we had to be. They lied, explicitly or implicitly, by acting like cis was all we could ever be. See SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING and CIS SPOUSAL SUPPORT and CIS GRIEF for more.

Also, and this is super, super important:

You used to be required to leave your family, friends, and life behind in order to access medical transition care! It was required of us, by cis people! See TRANSMEDICALISM for more on those horrors that cis people put us through.

This is what society does to us. Tells us there’s no such thing as trans people, we’re not trans, we can’t be trans, being trans is wrong and bad, okay well if you must be trans you have to pretend to be cis and never ever let anyone know you’re trans, and leave all your loved ones behind (they probably don’t support you in this anyway), and then blame trans people for “abandoning” our families.

That’s some fucking insidiousness.

Also a very real issue many of us still deal with today is being abandoned by our families once we come out (and they put the blame for their choices on us). See the 2022 US TRANS SURVEY REPORT part 1, 2, 3, and 4 for statistics on that.

1:01:20 – Rumi rides the magic tiger back, and we again get a flashback of Celine telling Rumi: “Nothing can change until your patterns are gone.” Breaking that conditioning is really, really hard. Especially when we don’t have examples we can look to, of other people who’ve already transitioned and are happy, and prove it’s possible.

1:01:52 – Huntrix discusses how the diss track isn’t the right song to win the contest, and it won’t unite their fans because it doesn’t even unite them. Hate is like that.

Mira: “I know our faults and fears must never be seen, but look, I’m kind of a difficult person. Overly blunt, short-fused, highly aggressive. My whole life those things were a liability. But somehow, with you guys, they’re okay.” 

Zoey: “I feel the same way. Before I joined Huntrix, I felt like my thoughts and my lyrics and all my notebooks were just useless and weird. But with the two of you, they mean something. I mean something.”

The importance here is that cis people don’t and can’t fully understand what it’s like to be trans, but they know what it’s like to be shunned for who you are, and to have expectations to live up to that don’t align with who you are.

They can empathize with us on other levels.

If they want to.

Rumi: “I’m afraid of losing you guys too. …All these fears? It’s the demons talking. But tomorrow we can win this war, and when the Honmoon is sealed, we will be free of these demons. Free of these fears forever.” Rumi then says after, maybe they can relax and go to the bathhouse… because she believes her patterns will be gone. She can ignore her transness and just be like the other cis girls.

They decide to sing Golden for the contest. Rumi: “It’s a song about the best of us.” I mean, is it though? Rumi’s still hoping this will all just go away.

1:06:04 – As Mira and Zoey get lured away by demons, Rumi sings Golden on her own, and the Honmoon starts turning gold.

1:06:20 – The power cuts out, Golden stops dead.

1:06:54 –  The demons take the form of Mira and Zoey, and switch the song to the confrontational Takedown, which Huntrix decided not to use because it was not who they were. They rip off parts of her costume, exposing her demon patterns. Rumi’s terrified of how people are going to react.

1:07:30 – The demons whisper to Rumi: “We know what you are. You’re a demon. A mistake. You have been since the day you were born.” They’re forcefully OUTING her to the entire world, so she’ll be rejected and it will feed the anti-trans hate.

1:07:41 – Rumi screams with her demon voice again, the transy lights shatter. They’re also representative of the blue of the Honmoon/closet, and the pink of the demons/trans people. 

Her demon patterns glow in the dark. She’s alone, scared, in the only remaining spotlight in the dark. She’s out, and the whole world can see her for who she truly is.

1:08:06 – Rumi runs offstage, meets the real Mira and Zoey. As she steps toward them, they step back, eyes wide in shock. Rejection.

Zoey: “How do you have patterns?” Rumi: “These were supposed to be gone.You were never supposed to see!” Mira: “You were hiding this from us this whole time?” Rumi: “No, I have a plan to erase them. … I was using [Jinu] to fix all this. To fix me! So we could all do our duty! We could all be strong. Be together.” Zoey: “How could we be together if we can’t tell your lies from your truths, Rumi?” 

Yes, it’s your fault for not telling us about the thing that would make us hate and reject you, not our fault for hating who you really are. This is, sadly, the standard cis transphobe line of thinking.

1:09:01 – Rumi: “No! Don’t leave! I can still fix it!” On “fix it,” her voice warps and sounds demonic, and sends more pink ripples through the Honmoon.

1:09:17 – Mira and Zoey raise their demon-slaying weapons, ready to oppress the person they claimed to care about. Rumi cries and runs away.

Rejected by those she loves for the truth of who she is. It’s an incredibly awful bit of bullshit that way too many trans people have to deal with.

Next week we wrap it all up with truth, acceptance, and… you’ll see why this allegory, that speaks to us in so many ways, is “imperfect.”

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – Part 4 is here!

THE IMPERFECT TRANS ALLEGORY OF KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, part 2

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! It’s time to see how wishing your transness away will never work, and how the first time you encounter the trans community can truly change things. Let’s talk THE IMPERFECT TRANS ALLEGORY OF KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, part 2!

Be a good demon hunter and be sure you’ve read PART 1 first!

15:28 – Mira and Zoey are ecstatic and excited for the first performance of Golden, but look at Rumi. Alone in a dull and lifeless room, worried. Just like Neo in his cubicle in The Matrix (see my super good book, Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix, for more).

Rumi, singing: 

Waited so long to break these walls down
To wake up and feel like me

She knows that locking her truth away is going to kill her inside. She wants to be free to be herself, but doesn’t think she can be. It’s not how she was raised.

She removes her robe, and we see she has the same jagged patterns the demons have. Here, alone, in the mirror she sees her own truth, that her body is not the way she wants it to be (see PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS for more). Only alone can she reveal the truth about herself, that her body is not like everyone else’s. And she’s not happy about it. 

Put these patterns all in the past now
And finally live like the girl they all see
No more hiding
I’ll be shining
Like I’m born to be

She sings that as she literally hides her demon patterns under a costume. Our bodies being wrong makes us want to hide them. Pre-transition, many of us wear oversized baggy clothes to hide our bodies, in an attempt to lessen our GENDER DYSPHORIA.

‘Cause we are Hunters, voices strong
And I know I believe

Does she, though? Seems like she’s having some doubts, doesn’t it?

16:23 – During the Golden rehearsal, Rumi’s voice breaks and she can’t continue, right on the “be” in “like I’m born to be.” Subconsciously she knows what she’s doing is wrong.

But the more Rumi thinks about her patterns, the more they grow and take her voice from her. The more you become aware of what’s causing your pain, the harder it becomes to ignore it.

See BOYMODE/GIRLMODE for how, as I eased into existing as my true self, every time I went back the other direction became ever more painful… until it got to the point where I literally could not do it anymore, because it hurt so much.

16:37 – They try the song again, and Rumi’s voice breaks again. At the same spot.

17:11 – Rumi discovers her demon patterns have risen up to her neck.

She’s maybe realizing that were she to actually be her true self, she’d lose her voice. And other than being her mother’s daughter, it’s literally all that anyone values her for. And this is not just her singing voice, but her voice in society… her ability to stand for what she believes in and who she is, and be listened to and respected.

Because society will absolutely strip that from you when you come out as trans. It’s why it’s so important for cis people, who have voices that will be listened to by other cis people who ignore trans people, and for those who have the most voice in our society, cishet white men, to use that voice to help us. Because other cis people will listen to you. See TRANS POLITICS 1: STOP TOLERATING TRANSPHOBIA for more.

Rumi, here, was using her voice the way she was taught… to hurt people like herself. But she’s realizing that no matter what she uses her voice for, as a seeming cis person, she’d at least be listened to and believed… and if she can’t tamp down this whole trans thing, she’s going to lose that for good.

The loss of privilege, of power, of societal voice, is something the Matrix films also deal with, via both Neo and The Merovingian. See my book Begin Transmission! Again! I wrote it for youuuuuuu!

17:29 – Rumi runs away, as we see her singing the same song as a child, as Celine brushes her hair… this is Celine making her conform to “girl” expectations. 

Young Rumi: “…do Hunters kill all demons?” Celine: “Yes.” Young Rumi: “So everything that has patterns?” She reveals the demon marks she has on one shoulder. Celine forces Rumi’s sleeve back down. Celine: “Cover those up. You only have those because–” Young Rumi: “My dad was a demon?” Celine: “You’re not one of them, Rumi. You’re a Hunter, like your mother was. When the Honmoon is sealed, all demons will be gone from this world. And so will your patterns.” 

Remove the ability for trans people to openly exist, and you will no longer have to worry about being trans, Rumi. This is what she was taught for her entire life, and honestly, so many of us were taught that too, even if not explicitly.

It’s every time we laugh at a man in a dress or a boy who likes dolls, or laugh at a woman with a deep voice or a girl with a short haircut.

We are taught to mock, deride, and hate ourselves. And most of us spend our entire lives trying to undo the INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA that society implanted in us.

18:12 – In a short flashback, Zoey and Mira are going to a bathhouse, but Rumi doesn’t want to go… because her demon patterns would be visible. This is very in keeping with trans people being uncomfortable with our pre-transition bodies. Every time I went swimming, I wore a t-shirt, even though boys were expected to be bare-chested. I hated the sight of my flat chest, it spiked my dysphoria. I needed it hidden.

Sadly pools can be very fraught for trans people even after transition, as trans men and nonbinary people who’ve had top surgery and want to go bare-chested will have visible scars (outing them as trans to everyone present), and trans women who’ve not had bottom surgery can have trouble TUCKING in bathing suits.

18:22 – Rumi: “Maybe they’ll understand.” Celine: “No, Rumi. Nothing can change until your patterns are gone.” Celine is literally forcing her to be someone she’s not. Just like every time my own mother made fun of me and punished me for any hint of femininity that I ever dared to show. 

Remember that “Celine” traces back to multiple masculine names, including the god of war. There’s a possible read on Celine that she also has hidden demon patterns, or is a self-hating trans man who’s passing on to Rumi the same self-hate that she was taught.

18:37 – Alone on a rooftop, Rumi throws off her coat to just exist as her true self…alone, where no one else can see her. She sings:

No more hiding
I’ll be shining
Like I’m born to be
‘Cause we are Hunters, voices strong
And I know I believe

Her voice breaks again, and she cries. “How am I supposed to fix the world, fix me, when I don’t have my voice? Why now, when I’m so close? Why?” Neo goes through the same thing in The Matrix, and even Barbie in BARBIE goes through a similar moment. Most trans people hit this at some point, pre-self acceptance. Why did this have to happen to me? I didn’t ask to be trans!

Note that on her last “why,” her true/demon voice comes out, and it’s deeper and more intense, even though not every other demon has a voice like that. Huh. It sends pink ripples through the blue Honmoon.

22:23 – Doctor: “You have lots of walls up. So many walls.” Rumi: “I don’t have walls.” Listen, we put those walls up because we’re told we have to, just like Rumi was told to by Celine. Walling our true selves off from the world, and from ourselves, is what we’re often forced to do when we’re not accepted for who we are. And we’ve been trained to do it all our lives, by society and everyone around us, which means sometimes we don’t even consciously know that we put those walls there.

26:00 – Huntrix sees the Saja Boys performing “Soda Pop.” Everyone loves them, even Huntrix themselves, when they think they’re humans.

27:25 – Huntrix sees the demon patterns flash by on the Saja Boys’ arms.

27:41 – They debate if they should kill these demons. Zoey: “It doesn’t look like they’re gonna hurt anyone. In fact, it almost seems like they’re nice demons?” Mira and Rumi together: “Demons are never nice!”

Zoey is the first to say… maybe trans people aren’t really bad? Maybe they’re not the evil we’ve been taught they are? But even as she wrestles with her own truth, Rumi repeats the lie she’s been taught, “demons are never nice.” A trans person’s a trans person, right? Oppress them.

30:12 – Huntrix gets into their battle gear and tries to surprise the Saja Boys while they’re on a game show, but Jinu knows they’re there. But look how even here, Rumi’s covering up so much of herself. No skin showing other than her face.

31:35 – They confront the Saja Boys in a (men’s) bathhouse, which… sure seems pointed. The Saja Boys, despite just running in, are now all in pink, the color of demons. Water demons attack. Huntrix kills a lot of them. Rumi runs after Jinu as more demons break through the Honmoon.

32:36 – During the fight with Jinu, part of Rumi’s costume rips, and Jinu sees her demon patterns. He knows they are the same… demons, aka trans.

Mira and Zoey are getting overwhelmed and call for Rumi, who has one hand covering her exposed demon patterns and doesn’t know what to do. Jinu wraps her in a hug, and when he leaves, there’s a bandage over the ripped part of her costume. Despite having no reason to, he protected her secret and didn’t out her before she was ready, which is a terrible thing that sometimes happens. See to COMING OUT AS TRANS for more. 

Remember that “Jinu” means community, and that’s what we do: protect each other. (Yes, this happens a lot in The Matrix too, where the community is represented by a character named Tank (an armored weapon), and later by a heavily defended literal community). My book, Begin Transmission, yadda yadda yadda.

34:04 – Some souls have been taken (from Saja Boys’ new fans) and are delivered to Gwi-Ma. 

Let me just remind you that trans people don’t want to “corrupt” anyone, or “turn you trans” (literally impossible!), we just want to be left alone to live our lives, and for your trans kids to grow up into trans adults.

But I see this as societal hate “corrupting” humans (cis people). Cis people’s hatred of us isn’t our fault, it’s theirs. And as we learn later, Gwi-ma whispers his hateful lies into the ears of everyone, which tracks with my read of him as the terrible things society tells us to believe, both about others and ourselves.

And Jinu’s willingly helping him stoke that hate by being ashamed of who he is, and believing he was selfish for transitioning.

It’s a little imperfect, but it kind of works. We’ll have much more to discuss on imperfection when we get to the end.

34:34 – The Honmoon (blue) is breaking down where demons come through (pink). The more trans people in the world, the less of us will be trapped in the closet. Our visibility helps others think they can do it too. I thanked all the trans women (especially writers and creatives) that made me feel I could transition and still have a writing career when I came out, in my book, and every time I’ve been lucky enough to have one of them on the podcast version of Trans Tuesdays.

35:57 – Their plan is to write a new song that exposes the Saja Boys and makes them lose their fans, so they’re sent back to the underworld. They’re going to out them as trans, so they’ll be shunned and lose popularity. Ouch.

36:25 – Rumi is going to try the tonics from the doctor to “fix her,” but it’s just a placebo. It will not address her true problem of losing her voice. It’s akin to “just wear a dress and forget that it makes you feel awful”… or a tuxedo or suit, in my case. It doesn’t actually change or fix anything, it’s just more lies.

38:51 – Rumi meets Jinu, and tries to kill him repeatedly, but he convinces her that he just wants to talk. Jinu: “I could’ve told your friends what you are. But I didn’t, did I? Because they don’t know. I did guess right, a demon girl, who is also a Hunter. Hiding, walking around free in the human world.”

Look at you, pretending to be cis, all the while you’re oppressing trans people like yourself.

Rumi: “Just Hunter, not demon.” Jinu: “Then how’d you get the patterns?” Rumi: “That’s none of your business.” Jinu: “I know what it feels like to have them.” Rumi: “Feel? You’re a demon. Demons don’t feel anything.” 

Republicans are still constantly dehumanizing us, trying to get cis people to see us as a threat and a problem and not actual human beings, because then they might empathize with us and care about what happens to us. And then more trans people would feel safe to come out and exist, and the Republicans’ power is further threatened by having the lies of compulsory cisgender heterosexuality exposed.

Jinu: “Is that what you think? That’s all demons do. Feel. Feel our shame, our misery.”

That’s what society wants us to feel, but being trans is nothing to be ashamed of. And if cis people would stop oppressing us, we’d have a whole lot less to be miserable about.

Jinu: “…My family was extremely poor and miserable. …I was desperate. We were starving. Then, I heard him. ‘You can’t do anything for your family. You’re not good enough for them. But I can help you be good enough.’ Overnight, my fate was changed. I was praised for my voice. Even by the king himself. My family and I lived on the palace grounds. Our bellies were finally full, our clothes clean. We were happy. But the patterns, they kept spreading until they consumed me. And I was condemned to the demon world. Prisoner of Gwi-Ma for all eternity. My family lost everything. …Every day since, I’ve been haunted by the memory of failing them.” Gwi-Ma: “You left them. Left them behind. Failed them.” 

Jinu’s lying a bit here, because he’s ashamed. Because this is how Gwi-ma, and societal bigotries, want us to feel when we choose to transition.

Don’t mistake that for meaning we should be ashamed to transition. I know Jinu’s past is more complicated, but we’ll discuss that when he reveals the truth.

Jinu looks at the demon patterns on his hand. “These are a constant reminder of my shame. A shame I can never escape.” He touches her, and Rumi’s own patterns appear. Jinu: “Your [patterns] are a reminder too. Of a shame of your own.” 

Rumi: “You don’t know me.” Jinu: “You know, you can tell me. I’ll understand. I’m the only one who can.” Rumi: “I’m nothing like you.” Jinu: “Denial, I get it. I was once there too. I’ll be here when you’re done pretending.”

Rumi’s first real encounter with another trans person, with the community, and she can’t open up because she can’t admit that she’s the same. Next time we see the ramifications of that encounter, and how people in your life might react once you’ve self-accepted.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – Part 3 is here!

THE IMPERFECT TRANS ALLEGORY OF KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, part 1

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! So many people love my trans allegory deep-dives, and so many people loved a certain huge animated movie, so let’s marry the two! Only… this might not go the way you think. Here’s THE IMPERFECT TRANS ALLEGORY OF KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, part 1!

So let me just get this out right upfront: I love this movie a lot. It’s joyous and original and kinetic and gorgeously animated with nearly every song a total banger. And it’s steeped in Korean culture and has a Korean cast, and anything that gives a spotlight to communities that are marginalized in the US, is wonderful and badly needed.

When I first watched it, there were parts of me going… oh? OH?! My trans allegory radar was pinging all over! Until a part of me went… oh. And the radar shut off.

Is Kpop Demon Hunters a trans allegory? I had to watch it again and again, and I couldn’t quite figure it out. I pondered it for days, turning the details over and over in my head. And obviously I’m doing this writeup, so you’d think that I determined that it was, in fact, a trans allegory.

But is it a trans allegory? I think… yes and no, with some bright spots of… kinda. But it’s absolutely worth talking about, not just in terms of its possible allegory, but also because of the ways I think it might not be. I love talking about art and media (you may have noticed, since I won’t ever shut up about it), and there’s a great discussion to be had here. If you’ve missed all my other allegory writeups, the TRANS MEDIA category of essays is full of goodies just waiting for you.

This also gets to something that I think it’s important for all of us to understand, when talking about these kinds of things, which I’ll cover at the end.

I think there’s a lot for trans people to identify with in this movie, and I absolutely understand why so many of us, myself included, saw ourselves in Rumi’s story. I also think the movie’s color scheme of blue representing the Honmoon and pink being the color of demons, and the intermingling of the two, certainly helped trans people see transness within it.

I’ve said so many times in these trans allegory writeups that everything in a movie is a choice, and that’s absolutely true. And trans people are always gonna perk up when anything seems to be trans pride flag-coded. We’ve had to look for these subtle nods to us in everything we watch, because so often that’s literally all there is. See my 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 TRANS REP IN MEDIA reports if you’re not aware of the state of actual trans representation in movies and television. And sometimes they’re glaringly obvious, like it is in one of the opening shots of STAR TREK STRANGE NEW WORLDS’ AD ASTRA PER ASPERA.

I believe, though, that the use of pink and blue together in Kpop Demon Hunters, while intentional, is not intentionally a nod to trans people, or hints at a trans allegory underneath. I’ll explain why as we go. 

I’ll also explain, when we get to the end, what I mean by the film being an “imperfect” trans allegory, but I need to show you everything the movie’s saying first.

So I do believe the allegory within Kpop Demon Hunters, such as it is, is unintentional. Don’t take that as me saying you can’t identify with it or that it can’t mean a lot to you!

I’ve covered other unintentional trans allegories, like I believe SILO to be. In that one specifically, you can see that the allegory doesn’t always work on some minor details, but overall it absolutely does.

I’m not sure the character names in this film are in any way linked to its potential trans allegory, but let’s take a look and see what we can learn.

“Rumi” could mean, literally, lapis lazuli, which is… a vibrant blue rock. Which is maybe something, given that the normal Honmoon is blue. But it could also mean “stop” or “beautiful.” You could combine those into “stop being beautiful,” or “don’t pretend you’re a girl when you’re not,” but that might be a stretch.

“Mira” could mean sea or ocean, which is another blue connection. But it could also mean “peace.” Given her personality, that’d be pretty delightfully ironic.

“Zoey” means “life,” which works for how exuberant and energetic she is. But it also traces to Eve, which also (for biblical reasons) can mean “to live,” or “to breathe.” Eve being the “first woman” in some religions may also play a part, though as I’m not religious in any way I can’t really parse the meaning of that in relation to the character.

“Celine,” though a minor character, is an important one, and her name… either traces from the masculine Caelius, which means “heaven,” or is short for Marceline, which traces to the masculine Marcellinus, which is derived from Marcellus, which comes from Marcus, which it’s believed came from Mars, the Roman god of war, which may be related to mas in Latin, which means “male”.

There cerrrrrtainly could be some gender stuff going on there.

“Jinu” could come from jin, which could mean “town or marketplace” or “precious or rare,” combined with u, which could mean “house or universe” or “friend or companion”. There are also other Korean hanja that the name could be derived from. If you take all of that together though, he’s about a gathering of friendly people, or a place where friendly people are, and how rare and important that is. In other words, community. This actually works remarkably well, given what he comes to represent to Rumi.

“Gwi-ma” translates from Korean to mean “evil spirit.” Which is quite literal, but it’s the spirit of evil that society works into us, also known as INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA (or bigotries and evils of other flavors, like IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA). He’s portrayed as fire, which is one of the most destructive forces in the world. But it can also be live-giving, or in this allegorical sense, is fueling the hate of bigotry.

So let’s get into the timestamps!

During the opening scene, note that everyone loves Huntrix. But also remember, as you’ve seen this film before, that everyone who loves Huntrix also believes they’re all human.

1:03 – Celine, narrating: “Demons have always haunted our world, stealing our souls and channeling strength back to their king, Gwi-Ma. Until heroes rose to defend us. Born with voices that could drive back the darkness. Singing songs of courage and hope, but hunters are more than warriors. Our music ignites the soul and brings people together. With this connection, the first hunters created a shield to protect our world, the Honmoon. Every generation, a new trio of Hunters is chosen to fulfill our ultimate duty. A barrier so strong it is impenetrable, that will keep demons and Gwi-Ma from our world forever, the Golden Honmoon. And now, that duty falls to you. That victory is within your reach. It is your voices, your song, that will create the Golden Honmoon.” 

It’s important to note that the Honmoon is created with the power from the souls of people saved or protected. Souls, and the Honmoon, are blue, showing their connection.

And through the montage of all the past hunters, there are trans colors everywhere, especially on the group of hunters that Rumi’s mother was part of. From this you might think that trans people, or at least one trans member of each trio of hunters, was vital to stopping the demons. 

That kind of works with where the allegory is going, but also maybe not in the way you think. Read on!

3:00 – Rumi is “pop star royalty.” Her mom was also a demon hunter as part of the Sunlight Sisters, and Celine raised her and built Huntrix around her.

In here, note that everybody loves Mira and Zoey for who they are, but loves Rumi because of who her mom was, and (seemingly secondarily) her voice. While appreciating her art is nice, none of these fans appreciate her for who she is, unlike with her fellow hunters. They only appreciate her because of her art, or because of who she is related to.

There’s hints at a bit of trans connection there, right? For trans creatives (oh hi that’s me), people might love our art, or love the “family” we come from or the people we work for, but that love may not extend to us personally, if they know we’re trans.

5:00 – Rumi, to the flight attendant: “You’re a demon, right? You’re smiling all weird, watering plants with coffee, and those guys?” She gestures to another flight attendant and the pilot, both of whom don’t know what they’re doing.

Very important to note here that demons are shapeshifters. They can change their form.

What do you think that means? Especially having already seen the film?

5:11 – Rumi: “Oh look, patterns.” Demons have jagged lines on their skin, that kind of look like tattoos, but they’re not anything they intentionally added to their bodies. 

There are physical features that make them different from “normal” humans, that they have no control over. They have a lack of BODILY AUTONOMY.

Do you see the link already being made? In this film’s allegory, demons are the metaphor for trans people (this will get confirmed a few more times). 

When asked what superpower we’d most like to have, a large portion of trans people will answer “shapeshifting.” The reason should be obvious, as it would help us escape GENDER DYSPHORIA.

We also have to deal with SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING about our very existence, and the general public in Kpop Demon Hunters kind of ties in to that. Growing up as a kid, through a GENDERED CHILDHOOD, I had no idea trans people existed, or it was a thing some people could be.

This is by design. See TRANS HISTORY 1: HOW AND WHY WE NAME TRANS PEOPLE IN HISTORY for more on the intentional erasure of trans people from history. It’s why Republicans in the US (and right wing politicians worldwide) are working so hard to try to force us all back in the closet. If trans people don’t know trans is a thing we can be, how can we come out as trans (and then be a threat to the entire system of white supremacist patriarchal lies our society is founded on)?

If the metaphor for trans people is demons (and it has to be to make the allegory work as much as it does), the metaphor for cis people are humans. And right here, you can maybe see some of where this is going. Trans people being monsters and cis people being normal humans is a pretty othering setup, in a movie that is, as far as i know, entirely written and directed by cis people.

5:20 – The demons reveal their true forms, as fanged monsters. Mira: “Oh, you got the patterns. Now you gotta die.” The demons threaten to eat Huntrix’s fans, and then a fight ensues, and the demons are killed by Rumi, Mira, and Zoey.

Despite Mira saying the demons have to “die,” the movie doesn’t show them actually dying. They’re just sent back to the underworld. If this is allegory, this isn’t really death. So what is it?

This scene is showing you that society has trained these three, who are aware of trans people, that the response to us should be violence. This includes legislative violence, this includes gaslighting us about our existence, this includes not believing we are who we say we are, and so much more than actual physical violence (which is also a very real problem). See THE CONSTANT FIGHT (of existing while trans).

I do want to stress, at this point, the film’s allegory isn’t saying this is how it should be, but this is how it is now. Rumi, a trans person, has been trained to visit all this violence upon trans people.

This is the implicit transphobia society works into every single cis person (see IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA), and the INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA society works into every trans person.

In the lead up to the concert, the colors get super transy again. And during their performance, we see the (non-Golden) Honmoon spreading to protect the world, and demons trapped underneath it.

By upholding the implicit transphobia of society, they’re keeping trans people trapped away from society, away from cis people. 

In the closet. That’s what the underworld is, trans people trapped and isolated from the rest of the world.

9:10 – In the underworld, the flight attendant demon that failed to stop Huntrix is confronted by Gwi-Ma. She’s destroyed for it (this appears to be an actual death in the surface-level story), as Gwi-Ma berates all the other demons for being useless.

Note that Gwi-ma, king of the demons, is also blue and pink, tying in to my read of him as societal hate, bigotry, and transphobia.

10:29 – Jinu has a plan, for he and some fellow demons to impersonate humans and try to steal Huntrix’s fans, to rob the Honmoon of its power.

11:11 – Gwi-Ma: “I know you, Jinu. In four hundred years, you’ve never done a single thing that didn’t serve yourself.” Jinu is selfish, or at least believes himself to be, and Gwi-ma is feeding into that. Society wants us to feel that way.

So much of society will tell trans people we are selfish for wanting to live authentic lives free of pain, due to the cis people around us not being able to handle it. And it’s those very cis people who are being selfish, and asking us to live a painful waking nightmare for their own comfort. See CIS GRIEF and CIS SPOUSAL AND PARTNER SUPPORT for more on that.

11:40 – Huntrix saw some gold in the Honmoon, which means it’s time to release the song that will truly turn it gold. Rumi coughs. She knows, inside, that sealing the Honmoon means she’d be trapping everyone else like her, everyone trans, in the closet forever. Even if only subconsciously, here… she knows it’s not right, and her body reacts.

13:31 – Rumi immediately launches the new single and puts on her new outfit. She has to wear a costume. Like, there are a lot of costume changes in this film, but the one for Golden is special. It’s the costume of the cis person she has to wear to pretend that she, too, isn’t trans… especially if she’s going to lock that closet door on every other trans person, like she’s expected to.

“Golden” plays for the first time, and this is the first hint we get that Rumi is living some kind of “double life,” or has a “secret” she doesn’t want to get out, both of which are just super trans. Let’s look at the lyrics.

I was a ghost, I was alone
어두워진 앞길 속에 [In the darkened path ahead]
Given the throne, I didn’t know how to believe
I was the queen that I’m meant to be

This song is about trying to deny who she really is and live up to who she’s been told she is, and is “meant to” be. If you take the “queen” part of that literally, in terms of gender, that would make Rumi nonbinary or trans masc, and she’s trying to live up to the false expectations that have been put upon her – that she is a woman.

I lived two lives, tried to play both sides
But I couldn’t find my own place
Called a problem child ’cause I got too wild
But now that’s how I’m getting paid 끝없이 [eternally] on stage
I’m done hidin’, now I’m shinin’ like I’m born to be
We dreamin’ hard, we came so far, now I believe
Oh-oh-oh, I’m done hidin’, now I’m shinin’ like I’m born to be
Oh, our time, no fears, no lies
That’s who we’re born to be
Waited so long to break these walls down
To wake up and feel like me

Rumi’s not the one who sings all of the above lines, but it still sounds a lot like a trans person about to come out, right? Done living the lie. But then it takes a turn:

Put these patterns all in the past now
And finally live like the girl they all see
No more hiding, I’ll be shinin’ like I’m born to be

“Putting those patterns in the past” and “live like the girl they all see” show you that now it’s about locking her own true self away in the closet forever. This will also get confirmed later on.

Rumi believes that locking that closet door will free her from her transness, but that’s not the way it works. So many of us try to ignore it, even though THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE. We pretend it’s not there, or deny it, or try to bury it. But it doesn’t go away. You literally cannot change the truth of who you really are, no matter what you do.

15:05 – Mira, about Golden, “It’s the story of us.” Rumi: “It’s a song about who we are, and where we’re going next.” This confirms that for Rumi, Golden is about putting her transness behind her forever (ha, good luck). The story of them is upholding transphobia, as we are all implicitly taught, and as they were explicitly taught to do. 

How many of us have been conditioned, and even explicitly taught, to mock a man who does anything feminine, like wear a dress? Or to mock a woman who doesn’t shave her legs? And on and on.

Huntrix believes that where they’ve been, who they are, and where they are going is more of the same: oppressing trans people, it’s what they’ve literally been trained to do.

We’ll wrap it there for this week, but come back next time as Rumi learns that pretending you’re not trans doesn’t make it go away, and we’ll see how her first encounter with the trans community affects her.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Part 2 is here!

INTERVIEW WITH MIA V. MOSS ABOUT “THE HERESY OF THIEVES”

NOTE: This week’s update is a transcription of a live interview done as part of the Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays podcast. Special thanks to Kestrel Clayton for the transcription!

Tilly Bridges: Welcome to Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays! This week, we interview author Mia V. Moss on their upcoming novel The Heresy of Thieves.

TB: Hi, I’m Tilly Bridges, your host, and I’m joined by my writing partner, my best friend, my wife, our token cis representation, the lady who may be a heretic, but the only thing she’s ever thieved is my heart, Susan Bridges.

Susan Bridges: Hello! Wow, you worked hard for that one.

TB: Thank you, I tried. Our guest this week, as you might have expected from the spoilers in the episode introduction, is Mia V. Moss, a science fiction and fantasy author from the East San Francisco Bay Area. They are the author of the cli-fi noir novella My Ties for the Lost, and the creator of The Breakfast Serial, a food blog written from the perspective of a human settling on a new planet far from Earth. Their debut novel, the epic fantasy The Heresy of Thieves, comes out October 6th from Dark Matter Ink. Welcome, Mia!

Mia Moss: Hello! Thank you so much for having me.

TB: Yeah! Okay, so I need to ask you a little bit about this Breakfast Serial blog, because I went and read some of them, and they’re these little short posts, and it is such a fun idea! Where did you get that from?

MM: Thank you! Well, yeah, so it’s mostly just from reading a bunch of food blogs, and they always get really conversational about their day to day lives, and I was just thinking “What would that be like for someone on a completely different planet, and they had to move there, but they wanted to keep doing their food blog?” And so that’s where– I just went with it.

TB: It’s so fun! And it’s just got this great whimsy to it, so I think it’s really really cool.

MM: Thank you! Thank you very much. It started in the during the hardest times in 2020, and back then I had more time on my hands to do recipes. So it was weekly, and now it has gone to monthly, but maybe someday I’ll get to go back to weekly again.

TB: Yeah, we all had a lot of time on our hands back then, so… relatable. I find this answer varies a lot for non-binary folks, so I want to get your thoughts: Do you feel like you had a transition?

MM: I think I did, and it was a gradual one, though.

TB: Sure.

MM: And I actually didn’t even really consider it in those terms, until last summer… I was out at Burning Man; I lead a camp — we’re called Space Goats — and we had nonbinary and trans campers, and a lot of them are from the San Francisco Bay Area too. And we were just getting to know each other, and one of them asked me, when I said I was nonbinary, and they were like “Oh, do you go to the trans nerd meetup that Charlie Jane Anders does in San Francisco?”

And my default was “Well, that’s not my space. I don’t want to take up space for other people.” And that’s the moment I was like “Wait!” So, after that, I did give it a lot of thought, and I realized that I kind of… in general, with how I perceive myself, and in public, I do tend to kind of try to… not intentionally, but I think as a residual form of masking… I’m pretty stealth about it. People will know me, have known me for years, and not realize my orientation, for instance, and then I show up with a female-presenting person as my date to something. (Not anymore, I’m married now, but in the past…) And they’d be like, “I had no idea!” And so I’m just generally very stealth, and so with the nonbinary thing… I started out “My pronouns are she / her,” and then it was… “Actually, on Zoom, I’m just gonna change that to she / they.” And then later on… okay, “I’m just gonna flip those, and now it’s they / she,” and so it just kind of gradually goes into non-binary land. So that was… that was my thing.

TB: Yeah. It’s a journey for all of us.

MM: Yeah.

TB: And I think what you said is really important, because I think so many of us do this sort of self-gatekeeping. Like “That trans meetup is not for me. I’m obviously not one.” And that’s… it’s… I don’t know. Society trains us to do that to ourselves. But you’re trans if you say you are, and you are trans enough. Everyone is. So have you gone to those meetups with Charlie Jane?

MM: I haven’t yet, but I want to. I don’t go… and that’s… not because I no longer feel like, “oh, I shouldn’t,” but just because I tend not to go to a lot of meetups. I need to force myself out of the house more, so… I do. I want to go.

TB: Yeah, I see her posting about those all the time, and I’m always upset that we’re in LA, so I’m like “I can’t drive up there just for a 3-hour afternoon trans meetup!” But that would be so fun. I really want to go sometime.

MM: Yeah, they sound like a lot of fun.

SB: I feel that, though, what you were saying about, like… it’s just kind of easier to be stealth, because, like, I feel like that stood in the way of me exploring my queerness for a long time. Because I looked like I was in a hetero marriage for a long time —

TB: Before I transitioned, yeah.

SB: — I mean, “I know I’m queer, and that’s all that’s important,” and… it did kind of stand in the way.

TB: I feel like you felt at the time that it was keeping you from being– feeling part of the queer community. It certainly felt that way for me before I came out.

SB: It definitely did. I felt like… not accepted. I remember one time we went to a queer restaurant, and I felt like someone looked at us like we didn’t belong there, and I was just like… “Oh. Yeah.”

TB: People like to make a lot of judgments.

SB: So I felt like “Okay, this isn’t my space, I shouldn’t be here.”

TB: Yeah.

SB: And that was hard, for a long time.

MM: Yeah, I’ve had exactly the same kind of experience, I went to high school in the late 90s, and terminology and stuff was… I mean, it was there, but it was kind of understood a little differently, and my first partner in high school — I dated a girl and kissed a girl before I ever dated and kissed a boy, or anything like that. In those times I went, fortunately, to an amazing arts magnet academy thing. It was still a public school, but you had to apply to go there, and it was a bunch of weirdos who did art and wore capes, and it was so much fun! But, like, the minute I… I identified as pansexual at the time, and I also… I oftentimes use bisexual and pansexual interchangeably, because it’s just… it’s stuck in my head as, like, bi, but, like… at the time, you know, I was attracted to both, and it’s high school and confusing. But, like, the people way more comfortable with their sexuality at that time than I ever was, were like “Oh, you date girls, so you’re a lesbian, then.” And then I started dating a boy, and they’re like “Well, you can’t call yourself that because you’re dating a guy, so you’re straight, actually.” And there’s a lot of little boxes.

TB: Bi erasure.

MM: Yeah, the bi erasure and the boxes, and I did… you know, I’ve… I felt a lot of times, like I didn’t want to take up space, because I wasn’t obviously queer, or queer enough, I felt a lot of the times, so I just… kept out of those spaces.

TB: Yeah, it’s sad.

SB: I’ve definitely heard “Bi is just gay in training.”

TB: Oh, yeah, yeah.

MM: Yes!

TB: We have to stop policing ourselves, and each other! It’s bad, actually.

SB: It is.

MM: It’s really bad. Yeah.

TB: Okay, well then: For you, what has been the best thing about transitioning?

MM: Being able to just, like, really more openly be honest about myself to myself.

TB: Yeah!

MM: It’s a huge part, yeah. I felt for a long time, I didn’t realize how much I was masking, in social situations until I just… it took a lot, and even when I started realizing that’s what I was doing… as soon as I started hanging out with someone I didn’t know, or wasn’t very comfortable with because we didn’t know each other, the mask would come right back on, and I wouldn’t even realize it. And so now, openly stating “I’m “they.” I’m nonbinary.” It just feels like that’s internally setting that level for myself. The mask has been off, so don’t worry about it anymore! And that’s been, honestly, the greatest part, I think. Just being able to be openly myself with other people.

TB: Yeah, I love that, because I feel the same way! I always hated to be perceived as the person that I wasn’t, but then especially because I would have to put on that mask, and that costume, and perform. “Oh, you’re expecting a dude here, now I’ve got to be all dude-like so that you don’t suspect, and I don’t suspect to myself, that I’m not a dude.” And it took so much mental energy and effort… it was exhausting.

MM: Yeah, yeah, I can only imagine, and it did for me too. Just, like, “I have to be a very certain type of way. A very certain type of…”

TB: Yeah.

MM: Going back to early memories, too, there was a little seed of that. Back in teenage years, I loved putting on glitter everywhere on my face. That was just my love, and it was kind of, like… squished out. Like, “That’s not how you do makeup! It needs to be austere, and not… not wild.” And I remember going to a party once, and I had just gone all out with how I truly wanted to be! And some guy, a student, he… he looked at me, and he was like, “Well, Boy George looked like a woman too, so you’re fine.” And he meant it as an insult, and there was this weird… [laugh] mix of feeling embarrassed and scandalized that I had failed to perform femininity enough, and then, also… “Okay, well, that also was a little validating, actually.” [laughter]

TB: That feels kind of similar to the thing I got a lot when I was a kid, that other boys would be like “Oh, you’re so gaaay,” and I was always exclusively attracted to women, so that didn’t make sense to me. But now the joke’s on them! Because I am very gay, just not in the way they thought, so…

SB: It’s true, though. I feel like I’m still figuring out my personal style and way I want to express myself, and…

TB: Sure!

SB: I’m buying feminine things, but having, a more masculine haircut… the juxtaposition of things, which I’ve always enjoyed in many contexts, and figuring it out as I go, and it just… it never ends, I guess.

TB: No, it never ends. It’s a lifelong journey.

MM: Absolutely.

SB: And some glitter. I like glitter.

TB: Okay, well then, on the flip side of that, what has been the worst, or maybe the most difficult part, of transitioning for you?

MM: The worst, probably, was having an internal expectation, like “Oh, some people are gonna take this the wrong way, and not approve,” and then having that actually be true. And when your internal little guardian tells you those things, it’s trying to protect you, of course, but then for that to actually happen, it’s like, “Okay, well, ha… great.” And so you’re really just learning who is safe to be open around, and who isn’t. It might not always be the people you think.

TB: Yeah, that is tough. I feel like, especially early on for me, I felt like… especially if I was meeting new people, I had to overperform femininity, and…

MM: Yeah.

TB: I was at the time when I was still trying to figure out how femme I wanted to be, you know? And I wasn’t really sure, and so it’s really rough to deal with those expectations that, again… it feels like it’s just more gatekeeping. “People expect this, so you’d better do it, or it’s gonna be weird, and they might be mean to you.” Nobody should have to think like that, you know? It’s terrible.

MM: A hundred percent.

TB: Alright, before we get into talking about your book, do you want to let folks know where they can find you online after listening?

MM: So my website is magicrobotcarnival.com —

TB: So good!

MM: — and that is also my Bluesky handle. [laugh] Thank you. Those are pretty much the only places. I don’t really do social media. In fact, part of my experiment this year with the book: after Meta went full mask-off fashy, I was like “That’s it for Instagram!” and so I deleted that. I don’t have TikTok, I don’t have any of those. I don’t have Facebook, definitely. And so I’m keeping a journal of what it’s like to debut a novel with basically no social media presence whatsoever. And we’ll see how that goes!

TB: All right, so let’s talk about that upcoming fantasy novel, The Heresy of Thieves. Do you want to give listeners a pitch for it, tell them what it’s about?

MM: So The Heresy of Thieves is the first book in the Spellfall trilogy, and, it is a queer epic fantasy featuring multi point-of-view characters, messes, really, wielding sacred power accessories, on a road trip through three kingdoms, which are in shambles after all magic stops working. And, just for representation, I would say this book has everything. [laugh] It’s got bisexuals! Asexuals! Royal lesbians! Evil gay hot priests! Pansexual Hermione, but if university got canceled, so she applied herself to being the best mercenary captain she could be. Sentient monsters, sentient armor. Extended family drama and nonbinary gods.

TB: Wow! I love this! You’re really selling it.

MM: [laughter] Good. Yeah, this book is really a book of my heart. I started it, actually, 20 years ago, and…

TB: Wow!

MM: Yeah, actually, it might be longer than that, because I started it in the year 2000, so… which is not 20 years ago, unfortunately. So yeah, I started it in the year 2000, and I kept putting it down, for years at a time, and I’d come back to it, because I started it when I was just coming out into the world as an adult, and a lot of older adults kept telling me that writing wasn’t really a lucrative or real career, and that I should do other things.

TB: Sure.

MM: I kept putting this novel aside, and it just kept coming back to me. Like, the characters… I would dream about. I would doodle little maps of the world. And eventually, I just realized I’m miserable every time I put this book aside, and I really, really want to get this story out. And I really want to do these characters — who have lived inside of me for so long — justice, and so then I really started working seriously on it around 2018, and then got it out in the world.

TB: That’s amazing, to have sat with a project for that long. What made you want to write this one specifically? What was it that grabbed you, that got into your heart so much about it?

MM: So it started out, one of the characters, the royal lesbian I mentioned, her name is Thealis Vareen, and, she’s the king of this nation called Dinestra, and I had recurring dreams about this character in particular. She was the first one I thought of, and I initially just kept picturing her just, alone in this really opulent tower, just looking down over this insanely gorgeous, sprawling, ancient city. And then the city had some kind of deep secret beneath it, and that’s really where it all started from, was me just trying to figure out who is this person, in this castle by herself? Why is everything so gray for her? And then also, what is this deep secret underneath this huge amazing city. The city’s called Silver Bastion, and it was really the second character I developed for the book: The City of Silver Bastion. And yeah, I just had to tell both of their stories.

TB: I love it! I love that you dream about them; that’s so cool. I don’t know if I’ve ever dreamed a story up.

SB: Yeah, I don’t… I mean, probably? And then I wake up and be like, well… that doesn’t seem like anything. [laughter]

MM: I’ve definitely had story dreams. I tried for a long time to write them down as soon as I woke up, with a dream journal, and there’s definitely been ones where I’d go back and read my dream journal and be okay, yeah, that was… that was just brain goo. No one needs to see that!

TB: Yeah, I feel like I mostly have brain goo dreams — although I did have one last year that I was so captivated by… I did take notes on it to maybe do something with sometime, so… we’ll see, I don’t know! But, what themes are you exploring in this book? What is it that’s underneath the surface that we’re getting at?

MM: The biggest thing, I think, that comes through the whole book is “Who gets to decide who is suffering for the greater good?” And “Who gets to decide what the greater good is?”

TB: I love that.

MM: Thank you! And then also, “Who gets to decide who you are, as a person?” And there’s a lot of characters in here going through a lot of things, and a lot of them are trying to either live up to the expectations of what other people have told them they should be… or are actively trying to figure out some way to get out of that trap.

TB: I love that, that’s… it’s in our work, that we do so much of the time.

SB: It’s a bit… yeah, it’s similar.

TB: Yeah! That’s right up my alley. Ooh, I’m so excited.

MM: Thank you!

TB: So what drew you to, like, fantasy and genre writing?

MM: Oh, I have just… fantasy really was my biggest avenue of escape as a kid.

TB: Sure.

MM: I did not have a great childhood.

TB: Same.

SB: Relatable!

MM: But I was… my parents, though, they didn’t really care. They just wanted me to read. They wanted all of us to read. I have two siblings; they just wanted all of us to read. And even though they were weirdly really controlling about what we saw on television, or movies, or listened to for music… for books, they just didn’t really seem to care! It was like “Just go to a library and get books.” And so…

TB: Aha! Loophole!

MM: Yes! [laugh] That was my way. They never checked what books I was reading, and so I voraciously read as much fantasy as I could.

TB: Have you written in other genres? Is there a difference for you between fantasy or sci-fi, or horror, or even something that’s not genre? Because I find I can write non-genre stuff, and we have a graphic novel that’s non-genre that’s coming out, but if you’re asking me, the first thing I’m going to do is dive into sci-fi. I just feel like that’s where my heart is, so…

MM: Yeah, I don’t know! Especially when I was in college and it seemed that everybody was writing non-genre, I tried my best to write literary only, and my mind just couldn’t really wrap to it or adhere to it. But I do like writing sci-fi a lot, too. My novella’s sci-fi, and I really, really enjoy writing in that world. But I do think the story itself just sort of takes it in one direction or another when I start kind of thinking of it. Mai Tais for the Lost, when that book started… I was just browsing some fashion stuff online — I love fashion — and I had come across an image of a very high concept underwater breathing mask for diving, but it was all crazy. The shape of it was very futuristic, and I think it had crystals or something on it. And the first thing I thought was “Futuristic high-tech mermaids wearing these… haute couture… mermaid tails and face masks and everything.” And then that kind of blossomed out into a society of very wealthy people living out these crazy, post-apocalyptic Bioshock lives under the water, in the location where their ancestors had sunk their yachts, kind of ritualistically. And then that blossomed out into a huge discussion about social inequity and economy and climate and everything. And so just that one mask, though, when I saw the image, my brain was just like, “This is sci-fi.” And then in other stories, I’ll come up with a… a concept will stick in my brain, and it will just automatically go straight towards fantasy. So, yeah, I guess it depends.

TB: Yeah, I love that, though! That’s the same thing, I think, that happens with me. I get an idea, or I see something that sparks an idea, but my brain will immediately take it to sci-fi. Like, “What’s the sci-fi version of this?” And “Oh, what if it was like this? We could get a whole story out of it!” I don’t know, I feel like my brain just wants to go genre all the time.

MM: Yes!

TB: I have to pull myself back to make it not genre.

MM: [laugh]

SB: Do you listen to the Articles of Interest podcast?

MM: No… but I’m writing that down!

SB: You should write that down. You are going to love it.

TB: A live recommendation from my co-host!

SB: Yes, it’s all about the history of fashion, and there’s all sorts of weird, weird stuff, and there’s so many episodes. Enjoy.

MM: Excellent, thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m very excited.

TB: So did you always want to be a writer? Like, how did you get into it?

MM: Yes, I always wanted to be a writer, but I wanted to be a lot of things, too — but writing did always kind of come back around as number one. And I got a little bit ofa taste of it, very early on, in fifth grade. I had written a short story about my cat, whose name was Trillian, and the neighbor’s cat, whose name was Stinky. I wrote a whole portal adventure about these two cats going into another world and exploring. And my teacher at the time loved it so much, she had me do a reading in front of the class — which at the time was very embarrassing, because I was being singled out, like, in a positive way, but my brain didn’t think that way

TB: Yeah.

SB: Right.

MM: But that felt really good, to have a story that I had written from start to finish, and actually lauded and pointed out as “This is good, you should keep doing this.” So yes, always. And like I said earlier, I think every time I kind of dropped that goal and looked to other things as a more, “serious occupation,” I just always felt like a part of myself was missing.

TB: Yeah, yeah, I had such a similar experience. It was, I think, sophomore year of high school for me. In my English class, we had to write short stories, and my teacher liked mine so much that she read it out in front of the class. And I was like, “oh, there’s something here! This is…” That’s where I think I really got bit by it. But then when I look back, even to my childhood, I was always making up stories for my toys and action figures, and what is that if it’s not writing, you know? Here’s these characters, here’s a story for them, and I’m going to play it out! So I think it’s always been with me too, and when I’m not writing, if I’m not writing or creating something, I just feel a little bit dead inside, so it’s like…

MM: Yes.

SB: Yeah, I have to, I have to do it!

MM: It’s in your DNA. It’s gotta get done.

SB: It is! Yeah, yeah!

TB: Did you have trouble finding a home for this book, especially as part one of a trilogy?

MM: I did. I kept track of all the rejections. I was rejected 124 times, I think? I’ll have to look, it was definitely —

TB: Wow!

MM: It was in the three digits, mostly from agents, and then I kind of… once I gave up on agents, then I started checking the small presses, and a lot of them, unfortunately… the small press world– it’s a little matter of timing, too. There were some that I think I might have tried, but they were closed indefinitely, or closed for the next 6 months, or something like that, so…

It was kind of tricky to navigate through that world of just even finding a place that would accept submissions. But the story itself was pretty hard to find a home. It took me a while. But I learned a lot from that whole process, too, about submitting your work, especially fantasy work. I had a spreadsheet, and I ended up making a tab just to make myself feel a little better, called “Ew, Not That Kind of Fantasy.” Because what I noticed was when I’m going through all these agent lists, there would be some that would say, like “Oh, and yes, and I want fantasy!” and then you would pull them up, and then look at what they were actually looking for… and it was basically anything but epic fantasy. They really just wanted “literary with a tinge of whimsy to it,” or more increasingly, as I was going through the process, a lot of the agents I found were like “Fantasy, but only if it’s also romance!” This has a little bit of that flavor to it, but not as much as I think they were looking for, so…

TB: Yeah, it’s tough out there. I’ve looked for representation and stuff too, and even finding ones who want LGBTQ stuff, they usually have very specific, narrow things beneath that that they actually want. So finding the actual right publisher or right representative can be so tough, and it’s so draining. All those rejections, I mean, that’s writing, right? It’s more rejections than acceptances in every type of writing field, but it’s so hard to keep up the morale as the rejections flood in.

MM: It really, really is, yeah. And I don’t think I could have done it without… I’m in a writing group, where we tried to kind of flip that around, and so we have a thing we do every year called “Race to Rejections.” And every time we get a rejection… we have a Slack. We go into the Slack channel, and we’re, like, “Rejected from so-and-so!” or “This publication,” and everybody puts a little confetti emoji on. And whoever has the most rejections — we break it up by category, like poetry, fiction, nonfiction, that kind of thing — whoever has the most rejections in their category gets a prize at the end. Like an e-book.

TB: I love that, though, that’s so good!

MM: Yeah, it changed a lot of how I looked at it, and it felt so much better, I think, and less isolating. Because when you’re just by yourself with all those rejections, it’s so easy, I think, to feel, like, “Well, I am trash and my book is trash.” [laugh] But then if you know… I think it’s kind of reinforcing… you know that the people in your writing group are really good writers, and they also are getting all of these rejections, and then you’re also all just celebrating each other, just doing the act of putting something out there to be rejected, and that’s what we’re really celebrating, is “You’re still in the game. You’re still putting it out there.” So.

TB: Yeah. I love that. It feels so similar to the trans community, and none of us can do any of this alone, and having other people to help us through, to be there through the low points, to lift us up…

MM: Yes!

TB: … in both terms of queerness and transness, and in writing, it’s all so important. Community is everything. So I love that so much.

MM: Yeah.

TB: Well, did you have any last thoughts or things about your book that you wanted to discuss that we didn’t cover?

MM: It comes out October 6th!

TB: October 6!

MM: From Dark Matter Ink, it will be available in bookstores. It’s coming out actually in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobooks…

TB: Amazing!

MM: …so pick your format. And, yeah, thank you so much.

TB: Of course! Thank you for being on the show!

MM: Thank you for having me.

TB: And folks, be sure to get yourself a copy of The Heresy of Thieves, out October 6th — that’s my birthday! — from Dark Matter Ink, and support trans art.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.

INTERVIEW WITH NICOLE MAINES ABOUT DREAMER

NOTE: This week’s update is a transcription of a live interview done as part of the Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays podcast. Special thanks to Nomi-Be for the transcription!

Tilly Bridges: Welcome to Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays! This week, we interview Nicole Maines, the driving force behind DC Comics’ Dreamer, both in comics and on screen, in anticipation of the Dream Girls weekly limited series that begins releasing next week.

Nicole Maines: Hi!

TB: Hi!

NM: I didn’t know… if that was something I should interrupt.

TB: It’s fine, it’s fine!

NM: Hi, thank you for having me, I’m excited to be here!

TB: Hi, I’m Tilly Bridges, your host, and I’m joined by my writing partner, my best friend, my wife, our token cis representation, my own real-life dream girl, Susan Bridges.

Susan Bridges: Hello!

TB: Our guest this week, as you gathered from the intro, because you are great at paying attention, is actor and writer Nicole Maines, who played TV’s first trans superhero dreamer on the CW Supergirl show, and you’ve also seen her in Bit, Yellowjackets, Clean Slate, and more. She is the author of It Gets Better… Except When It Gets Worth Worse: And Other Unsolicited Truths I Wish Someone Had Told Me, and is the writer of multiple comics for DC, including Suicide Squad: Dream Team, Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story, and is the co-writer of the Justice League Intergalactic Special (which was so good!) and the upcoming Dream Girls limited series. Welcome, Nicole!

NM: Hi, thank you for having me, I’m very excited to be here!

TB: Okay, well, before we get into talking about Dreamer, I wanted to ask you a question about acting, because I want to get your thoughts on this, as I… I talk so much on the show about representation in media, and what is the landscape like for you out there as an actor trying to find roles? Because the things I’ve heard from my other trans actor friends is pretty grim.

NM: Yes. So, I did an interview last year, I think, with The Wrap, and they were asking me specifically about the declining state of trans rep in Hollywood and media, and they were asking me, “well, Nicole, have you… have you personally felt that as a trans actress?” And I’m like, well, I’m definitely getting less auditions. It’s not because I’m… is it because I’m trans? Or is it because…. the state of the industry is such that we have gone through COVID, fire, strike, another strike, like…

SB: The collapse of the streaming industry.

TB: The collapse of streaming, yeah.

NM: …And given the keys to the kingdom over to people who, I think, have demonstrated that they do not have the best interest of the people that actually populate said industry at heart.

TB: Yeah, yeah.

NM: And so, what did we think was gonna happen, you know? Oh, surprise, surprise! Everyone’s losing their jobs! How many artists just got fired at Disney? So, like, you know… and this is true of politics, this is true of so much in the world right now.

TB: Oh yeah.

NM: Like, what did we think was gonna happen? Surprise, surprise! It’s not a game!

TB: Right?

NM: So… the state of the… like, I’ve been doing auditions, but I haven’t been booking. I talked to a friend of mine who’s a very successful actor, and he was like, I haven’t booked in a year and a half. And he’s straight, cis, white, successful man! So it’s all of us, I think.

TB: Yeah.

NM: I think then the, you know, intersectionality comes into it, and I’m sure that the hirability or un-hirability is exacerbated by the feeling of studios and productions not wanting to do a stunt casting, or not wanting to pull a headline, or pull the ire of the administration, or Fox News. And, you know, it’s become such a thing now that I’ve heard writers saying, “oh, I’ve had producers tell me… oh, script’s great, but this gay character needs to be straight, because it’s just not the time.”

TB: We’ve been told directly that we can’t put a trans character in something, that we can’t say the word “trans,” because it’s a bad word, and it’s just so awful.

NM: Completely. We’ve allowed this to become, like, a debated, politicized thing, and… it shouldn’t even be a discussion, it’s just…

TB: Right? Human rights aren’t a debate.

SB: Pizza toppings are a debate.

NM: Completely.

TB: Not people! Yeah. Well, let me ask you, though… on the times that you do see roles come up that maybe are specifically for a trans character, how have those been? Have they been…

NM: Fairly good, it’s been a second.

TB: Really?

NM: It’s been a second since I’ve gotten a role for a trans character. Most of the stuff I go up for is cis characters.

TB: Right.

NM: I don’t see a lot of trans characters, not nearly as much as I used to.

TB: Yeah, in my annual reports on trans rep that I’ve been doing, it’s just been declining and declining every single year, and the number of jokes at our expense has been going up and up and up. Last year, there were more jokes than trans people on screen, and that was so not cool. So it’s…

NM: Especially because they’re not funny. And there’s a way to do it.

TB: It’s not funny! I don’t understand that.

NM: I don’t understand it. Like, being trans is so *bleep*ing funny.

TB: Right.

NM: And it’s so stupid, and there’s so many parts to make fun of. How do you keep missing the iceberg of material to make fun of? I don’t understand it.

TB: There are, like… I’ve seen trans stand-up comedians do some really good trans jokes, and they’re not…

NM: I’ve seen some cis stand-up comedians do really good trans jokes!

TB: They’re rare, but I’ve seen a few.

NM: What was… there was this great one I saw, it was a cis Black man, and he was talking about one of his mates had just transitioned, and was… “his name was Tommy, and he was coming up, and I just knew he was gonna say Tammy, and I just knew, and he comes up, and he goes, ‘I wanna be Lavender.’ He goes… Tammy? I don’t know how I feel about calling a white woman the color purple.” And that was a long setup, but I like the payoff for that. And I was like, that’s how you do it! That’s something I like! I like the color purple, that’s *bleep*ing funny. Because we do be choosing some shit like “Lavender.”

TB: We do!

SB: Yes, it’s true.

NM: One thing about us, if we can sound like someone’s great aunt… we’ll take it.

TB: Yes, yes, there’s a trend, let’s say. Okay, for you, what has been the best thing about transitioning?

NM: I like looking in the mirror.

TB: Oh, isn’t it amazing?

NM: It’s fun. I love it when I’m having a good hair day, good outfit day, good makeup day, and I…

TB: Yeah.

NM: And the planets align, and all the pieces come together. I’m like, “I can’t believe people didn’t want this to happen.”

TB: Yeah!

NM: “I can’t believe there was anyone who voted nay on this.” Could you imagine?

TB: I could not, no.

NM: Look at the material!

TB: That was a thing too, for me, that I always, like, hoped one day I wouldn’t hate what I saw in the mirror, but I never knew if I would get there, you know? And when I did, it was just this most mind-blowing thing to me.

NM: Completely.

TB: Yeah, it’s wild. Okay, so, on the other side of that coin, what has been the worst or maybe most difficult part for you?

NM: This is something that I run into… consistently, is the struggle to get refills on some of my prescriptions. Or like, especially if I’m seeing a new doctor, and I understand how important working with your doctors, and getting blood work done, and everything like that. So many times, I’ve tried to go get my refill prescriptions, they’re like “well, we’d really love for you to come in, and so maybe we could get some labs done.” I’m like, shut the *bleep* up, I’ve been taking this medication for so- give me the *bleep*ing ‘mones, I’m not coming in because I know my *bleep*ing primary… I’m so sorry. How many times have I done this already?

TB: I’m not counting, but it’s been a few. It’s okay, though! It’s all right.

NM: Should we start over?

TB: No, we’re fine.

NM: I’m so sorry.

TB: It’s cool. It’s totally cool. No problems.

NM: Oh my gosh, this is why… this is why we don’t have rights. Because we can’t listen. We can’t listen, we can’t follow basic instructions.

TB: No, it’s fine!

NM: I’m so sorry. I’m just like, give me my- give me my meds. I’ll let you know if something’s going on. It’s really frustrating.

TB: It’s rough. But, like, with my endocrinologists, I have had a string of really rough experiences where they’re… like, the first one I had was working on 30 year-old info and refused to update…

NM: Yeah.

TB: Or change his mind about anything I sent him. It was… it’s just… it’s such a fight, and like, I know some trans friends have trans endocrinologists, and I’m just like, “what must that heaven be like?”

NM: Oh my gosh. Well, even for my second surgery, for my revision surgery, going to a trans surgeon… I was like… Oh. Oh! Luxurious.

TB Yeah, right…

NM: Wow!

TB: Who knew it could be so nice?

NM: I know! Well, for me too, my primary care doctor is never in the office. And I don’t… it’s not been nearly as collaborative as it was when I was growing up. And when I was a kid, I felt like there was a lot of working together, and now it feels very, just kinda… “set it and forget it.” And I’m- I don’t feel that I really have anyone to talk to if I’m like, “hey, can I try something new, or can I pursue this other medication that I’ve heard things…” I’m on Reddit. First thing about me, I’m on Reddit. I’m in the trans tag, I’m like, “so what’s…”

SB: There’s a lot of stuff on Reddit

TB: A lot of stuff. Yeah.

NM: Well, yeah, I’ve been on the progesterone kick recently. That’s been my journey, I’ve been trying to navigate that.

TB: Yeah. That’s another one, like, my doctor keeps trying to keep me on, like, really low doses of it, even though it’s so safe, and it works so well. They’re like, “well, it’s anecdotal.” I’m like, “everything’s anecdotal, because you don’t do studies on us!”

NM: Completely… oh, wake that up. Please, can we talk about… you don’t do studies on us! You don’t know! We know! Because we’ve been talking! I was telling my cis boyfriend about the difference, and they were like, “well, is that safe? You know, the doctors usually, you know… they prescribe a certain amount.” I’m like, let me tell you first thing, they don’t know what they’re talking about.

TB: They don’t know.

NM: Forget it.

TB: No, no idea.

NM: I can’t tell you the last time I saw my primary care. It’s been years. Every time I go in, they’re like, “hey, we have this other guy who’s in the office, your guy’s out, do you want us…” and I was like, “Sure! What are we doing?”

TB: Right.

NM: Every time I’m in there, I’m seeing someone new. No consistency.

TB: No, it’s terrible.

NM: Give me my meds, and don’t talk to me. Actually, don’t look at me.

TB: So say we all. It’s perfect. Just give us our meds and leave us alone.

NM: Completely.

TB: All right. Well, let’s get into talking about Dreamer, which is what we’re here to do in this episode.

NM: Okay!

TB: I was delightfully surprised, and kind of floored, when she first appeared on the Supergirl show, because a trans woman superhero on screen was not something I ever thought I would see. And you know, she wasn’t a victim of violence, or a trickster, or a sex criminal. She avoided all the terrible tropes.

NM: Completely.

TB: I think I’ve said this to you when we first met on an SDCC panel a few years ago, but, like, it meant so much to me to see you playing her every week, and this, like, good representation of what trans women can be.

NM: And then there was, like, this cute, nerdy boy who thought she was hot? And he was like, “oh, trans? No problem. Hit it.”

TB: No Problem. I was way into her and Brainy. They were… they were great.

NM: I… had problems with some of it, because it felt a lot of the time that both of us… and I think partially for Brainiac being an autistic-coded character, I think both of us fell into the, like, kind of infantilized character. And we became, like, “the kids” of the show. I was like, these are both… grown adults.

TB: Yeah.

NM: There should be no reason why we’re, like, holding hands.

SB: That’s fair.

NM: This is a hot green man. Can I kiss him? Like an adult would? There’s a significant increase in the sixth season after we found out we weren’t… it was like, “hey, we weren’t going on to [season] seven.” I walked in and I said, “okay, so the pussy bows and the little buttoned-up Mayflower looks… the girls are gonna be featured players.” Paid actors, each one, and there’s a significant increase in the amount of Dreamer cleavage in the last season of the show.

TB: That’s amazing.

NM: Because I was like, everyone else gets to be hot and sexy and grown up, why do I have to be, like, the innocent, pure- like, no! She’s worked so hard for these breasts!

TB: Right?

NM: I wanna put them on TV!

TB: Relatable. I wonder if part of that was their fear of not wanting to over-sexualize a trans woman?

NM: Yes.

TB: It happens so much, but you can go too far in the other direction, and we don’t feel real.

NM: Yeah! There… people get so self-conscious about our sexuality,

TB: They sure do.

NM: People get so self-conscious. I was talking to Abigail Thorne about this recently, another trans actress, and she was saying… that it’s… They’re too afraid to… I just totally lost my train of thought. I’m so sorry. What were we just talking about?

SB: That’s okay.

NM: We were talking about paid actresses, they’re afraid of our sexuality, they infantilize us. She said something really good, and it just… it was… I thought about it, and it just… Dang. Being trans is a curse.

TB: That’s the pull quote from this episode!

NM: Turns out, if it’s a mental illness, I got it. It was so… it was so good. She was saying… we were talking… because I was telling her about it. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is, they get so self-conscious about- oh, that’s what it was! We don’t want anyone to- my mind is a labyrinth. Thank God I can’t have children. I would never impart this on another living soul! This is a nightmare. But we don’t want, like, anyone watching the show at home, you know, casual 8 pm on a Sunday, to be like, “Wait. I feel something about this trans character. What’s happening to me? I mean? Am I something? Does that mean that I’m gay? I can’t be that because of the church!” Like…

TB: Yeah. Yeah, it’s terrible. How much input did you have? Like, so, like, you got things changed a little bit, like, on season six, and I… am I correct that there weren’t any trans writers on staff?

NM: They cared. I mean, it only really came up, like, once a season, let’s be honest. There was always, like, the one… the trans episode, and I was like, okay, we’ll… we’ll call Roxy Wood, the roommate, we’ll bring her in, and we’ll, like, you know, we’ll have a trans episode.

TB: Yeah.

NM: Which was always good, because I wanted to see Roxy, and we love to hang out. But they would, like, you know… they’d call Nick Adams at GLAAD, and, you know, we’d run through every… you know, they’d try to fill the room with other people who could proofread, and then they’d always ask me, “hey, Nicole, what do you think? Can I kind of, you know…” Should I have been paid as a writer? Who knows? But, they were really… you know, I could tell they cared. And they gave a crap. Which was, you know, nice to see.

TB: That’s a step up from a lot of cis writers.

NM: But… yeah, but I think specifically in season five, we had this big episode where, Nia, or Dreamer, was confronted by, a transphobe who- exactly what we were just talking about.

TB: Yeah, yeah.

NM: The hot new superhero! He found out she was trans and, like, had a trans panic moment. And that was, for a lot of reasons, a really good episode. And we made sure, like, the statistics that we were- it was a little “after-school special,” but, you know, we’re… what’s that meme where it’s, like, talking to trans people about gender, and it’s, like, Socrates, and then it’s, like, talking to cis people about gender, and it’s, like, playing with blocks.

TB: Yeah.

NM: So I was, like, it was a little “after-school special,” but I was like, okay, I get it. You know, we’re not gonna go back to Compton’s and, you know… all this stuff, which I wish we had. But we had, like, exact statistics to the date of filming about, like, the mortality rate, and whatnot, you know, it was… what it’s actually like to be a trans person.

TB: Yeah.

NM: And… and calling out, like, “no, Supergirl, the police are not going to investigate the assault of a Black trans woman.” Like…

TB: Sure aren’t, yeah.

NM: I wish, though, that that episode had, first of all, not been B-story, because it was promoted as kind of the story, and then it was the secondary-

TB: Yeah.

NM: -storyline of that episode. I think it was important enough, and interesting enough, and compelling enough, that that should have been the main story. And I frankly think it should have been the only story of that episode, if I could go back…

TB: You never see that. You never see a-

NM: Never see that.

TB: -show like that, no.

NM: That should have been, like, a full 40 minutes of Dreamer going Rambo.

TB: Woo, we love to see it.

NM: And that’s what Suicide Squad was. That was me, I was like, “this is what I wish we had done. I wish she was pulling people into the shadows.” I… and I stand by it, I think she should have. I think with the storyline with season… the overarch of season five, of kind of doing the, like, “oh, Lena Luthor’s going bad, and why are all Supergirl’s friends turning?” I think Dreamer should’ve… killed ’em. I think she should have… she was well within her rights, to have been, like, “Oh, no, I’m not going to leave this clear psychopath to the US justice system Supergirl, I’m gonna have my little vigilante moment, and have a valid crash-out.” Because at that point, she’d also deserved it. How many times had Brainiac broken up with her by that point? She deserved to snap somebody’s neck if it wasn’t gonna be his.

TB: That works.

NM: Poor girl.

TB: A little… a little adult for Supergirl‘s tone, but it would have been great.

NM: You know, and that’s the note I kept getting back. They’re like, “Nicole, why do you keep coming to set with gallons of fake blood?” I’m like,” “just to have. Like, it’s an option!”

TB: No reason!

SB: Just in case!

TB: You never know when you’re gonna need it.

NM: Completely. Look, I’m a genre girly.

TB: Same. Okay, so, well, here’s something, kind of wild that you might not know, but we have a friend who was writing some DC books years ago, and this was before Bad Dream had ever been announced. And I had mentioned to him that I would kill to write for Dreamer and maybe bring her into the comics, and he actually sent out some feelers and tried to check with the editors. And that’s when I first heard back, “something’s already going on with her.” I didn’t hear that you were involved, but that “somebody” was already doing something, and then Bad Dream was announced.

NM: I am… so happy to hear that there was interest from somebody besides myself. That makes me so happy!

TB: I tried!

NM: I need you to write Dreamer at some point. I see so many-

TB: I would love that.

NM: I see so many… like, stuff on Reddit where folks are like, “God, Dreamer needs a new writer. She’s just… Nicole needs to do something else, they need to separate them.” And I’m like: “Sure.” I’m like, “sure, man, there’s not a queue behind me! I know that if I stopped doing this thing, it stops moving! I’m more than happy to take a break for a second, and let someone else take a shot. Please!”

TB: When you are ready, give me a call. I am so there.

NM: Listen!

TB: Let me ask about that, then, because it is so rare that a character appears… that first appears in DC stuff outside of the comics actually makes it into the comics. And Dreamer did, which was so exciting, you know, but how did that happen? How did that leap into comic… were you involved with that from the start? Did they come to you? How did that go?

NM: That was my pitch. I set up the meeting with them,

TB: Okay.

NM: And I was like- and this is to illustrate how much I knew about comics going into this, I asked for an ongoing. And I was like, hey…

TB: Bold!

NM: Right? I was like, yeah! Just give me a… give it to me! I didn’t want to write it, either, is the thing. I went in with, like, a pitch for a story and, like, a loose proof of concept. I was like, “you guys are the comic book people, you’ll find someone to write this.”

TB: Yeah.

NM: “You guys, you guys got the contacts. I just think, like, this is what you should do with this character, she’s important, she means a lot to a lot of people, and I think it would be a waste for her to end with the show.”

TB: Yeah.

NM: And they were like, “well… An ongoing’s a big ask.” Oh, is it? I don’t know. And they said that they had their young adult graphic novel line really popping off, and they wanted more stuff for that, and they wanted a story about sisters. And I said, “well, Nia has one of those. Famously, an awful one.” And then… so that’s how that started. And then that grew, and Sarah Miller, who was my editor on Bad Dream, came in, and she was like, “hey, we also wanted to do a crossover with this other graphic novel we just had come out with another trans superhero, Galaxy.” And so they sent me that. Well… they sent me the first ninety-nine pages of Galaxy, so I started planning to that and writing that. And then I had to change my whole… back half of my plot, when they sent me the second half of Galaxy’s book, and she, like, on page one hundred, breaks the little space rock avocado, and she can’t shapeshift anymore. And that, like, was very-

TB: They could’ve told you!

NM: -heavily featured in my story. I was like, cool cool cool cool, okay. So I went from having a really nicely structured outline to, like, the last half of that book was improv. I was like, “whoa, I don’t know what’s going on.”

TB: No, when reading it, it looks like it’s perfectly planned and plotted all the way through.

NM: Thank god.

SB: (laughs)

NM: Not the case!

TB: You made it work, though.

NM: Hey, you know what? First draft’s only job is to exist.

TB: That’s right!

NM: And a final drafts only job is to- um, oh, shit, it was due yesterday!

TB: So it was editorial, then, that brought you and Jadzia together? Because we had her on the show just a few episodes back to talk about Galaxy, so I was wondering how that- because I love the relationship between the two of them in the comics, between Dreamer and Galaxy.

NM: It’s so great.

TB: It’s so great!

NM: It’s so amazing to see two… they are so similar in so many ways that you’re like, “oh, a trans alien superhero? Why do we need two of those?” Well, because one…

TB: Their personalities are so different.

NM: They exist on opposite ends of this superhero spectrum-

TB: Yeah.

NM: -and isn’t it so cool to watch the way that they specifically are still so… dedicated to each other, but have reached such… or maybe not reached, but been pushed to such polar opposite ends of this experience?

TB: Yeah. Yeah. We can have two.

NM: We should!

TB: That way one character doesn’t have to represent all of us, you know? That’s always the problem when you’re lucky enough if you get one, and it’s like…, that character kind of has to mean everything to everyone.

NM: It kind of has to mean everything to everyone.

TB: Yeah.

NM: And it’s so nice that we have variety, because, I mean, this is… I think this speaks to such a huge problem when we’re having a discussion about trans people, trans experiences, trans identities. We talk about it like it is this one universal thing, and it is not.

TB: No.

NM: Everybody’s body is different, everybody’s wants and desires, everybody’s transition goals are different.

TB: Yeah!

NM: But we talk about it in this way where I think sports is the perfect example. We talk about it like somebody who’s transitioned at one point versus somebody who’s transitioned at another point are the same, and we’re ignoring those same exact differences amongst cisgender people!

TB: Yep.

NM: And so we pretend… like, we’re completely ignoring the lived reality of everybody on Earth by pretending we all must… identify or correspond with one thing.

TB: Yeah, or that we all want the same things, or in the same way. We’re not a monolith, we’re all so different.

NM: No! And nobody is!

TB: Right, exactly! That’s, like, one of my favorite things about this [podcast], is having all these different trans people on, and asking people what’s good about it for you? What’s been bad about it for you? What’s been hard for you? We’re all so different, and it gives such a, I think, really beautiful picture of what the trans experience is like. Because there’s no one trans experience.

NM: And isn’t it interesting that all of our “bad thing” is the airport? That’s the only universal. Hate it.

TB: That and transphobia.

NM: Well…

SB: It feels very Hollywood to be like, “there’s only one kind.”

TB: Oh, sure, Hollywood tokenizes every marginalized community.

NM: Well, that’s the other thing. It was actually amazing. I went out to coffee with Abigail recently, and she had just come over to LA from the UK, and she was like [puts on English accent], “Girl, I know what things are like here, but I just want you to know… it is so much worse. Or it could be so much worse. There is one role for the trans girls, and we’re all fighting for it, and we all have to step over each other’s dead body to get it.”

TB: Yeah.

NM: The fact that, like, we here actually have a community, and people who are happy for one another, and support one another, and try to help one another? Is insane. And I was like, “oh, yeah!” Because it was just something I think maybe we take for granted, our sense of community and our- but it’s… it’s nice, it’s… and I think that’s the thing that I love about Galaxy and Dreamer too, is getting to see the… the way that they show up for each other in the comics, because I do think it’s really special.

TB: It really is. And it, you know, it’s another thing that we don’t get hardly any of. So it’s really this, like, unique unicorn, to get to see it, and it’s…

NM: Well, God forbid there be two trans people on the same show.

TB: Not that!

NM: And they’re not gonna be in the same scene. That’s just unrealistic. That’s just… What!? Why would there be more than one? That’s not-

TB: We don’t all know each other or anything.

NM: No! That’s completely the thing. It’s like, “Oh, Dreamer and Galaxy? How dare you assume they know each other? Obviously, they’ve been best friends for years, but it’s- it’s so transphobic to assume!”

TB: Right?

NM: I was like, oh my god, so… so unrealistic that there’s more than one gay person in a show.

TB: Yeah.

NM: When I was in college, I was in a, like, suite with all… I wouldn’t see a straight person for days.

TB: The dream!

NM: We’re not complaining! We had one girl in our suite who was a med student, so she was always locked in her room studying, who was such a sweet Jane, straight cis girl. She’d come out and we’d go… “Don’t scare us like that, oh my gosh! We were in gay sanctuary, we didn’t know, we weren’t prepared.”

TB: Okay, so Dream Girls is coming up, and it sort of spins off, I guess, directly from Justice League Intergalactic, right? So how did this project come about that stars the two of them? Like, was it a natural progression? Is it something you or Jadzia pitched? How did that go?

NM: As is true of everything good in comics, this really is, I think, a result of Andrea Shea. And she…

TB: Oh, I love her, she’s so great.

NM: She really wanted to do some Pride stuff, and Jadzia and I wanted to work together forever anyway, and wanted to bring Dreamer and Galaxy into the fold. And I think… I’m trying to, like, I’m trying to think if Dream Girls or Justice League came first. They kind of came about at the same time. I know Paul was really great in- Paul Kaminski was really great in securing us a story for Justice League Unlimited, and doing one of the quarterlies. That was really fantastic. And I think through that, it kind of grew. We knew we had the name. We had Dream Girls.

TB: It’s such a good name.

NM: We knew that’s what we wanted the name to be. And we were like, “whatever this turns into is gonna be great.” And I think it kind of just grew and grew and grew until… it became the Pride special, because Andrea’s, you know… Andrea’s been wanting to, like, up Pride for a minute.

TB: Yeah.

NM: And her whole goal, for those of you who don’t know, Andrea Shea is a brilliant editor at DC Comics. And she’s in charge of all of the DC Pride initiatives, and she’s fantastic. And you should absolutely tell her that, because it is… she hates it. She can’t stand a compliment, she can’t stand to be made the center of attention. Please, she’ll melt into a puddle.

TB: I will tell her the next time I see her. Definitely. And say Nicole said I should tell you how amazing you are.

NM: And all the listeners should do it, too. All the listeners should go on Bluesky and blow her up.

TB: She’s a wonderful person, too.

NM: Ugh, she really is. She… her whole goal has been, like, “I don’t want to sequester queer characters to just the month of June. I want DC’s queer community to feel present throughout the year.” Because we’re not just gay in June. Who knew?

TB: Exactly.

NM: We only remember in June, But we are subconsciously queer the rest of the year.

TB: Yes.

NM: And… and so that was how that kind of came about, and then the fact that they… I know they… last year’s Pride Anthology was the first one that, like, had a through storyline, kind of. We were still doing these little different anthologies and bits. And so this is kind of the next step in that, is a proper rooted in canon story, that we’ve still managed to get that kind of anthology feel, because we have so many different queer artists coming in and doing these little vignettes, as Dreamer and Galaxy pop from one dream to the next. Each one is a new, DC Justice League character kind of origin story, and it’s in the style of kind of… that feels kind of quintessentially that. So we go to Themyscira…

TB: That’s really cool.

NM: And we have Nicola Scott do just… beautiful Themysciran, Amazonian art that was featured at the end of Justice League Intergalactic.

TB: Yeah.

NM: And then, after that, we… I don’t know how much I can spoil, but after that, we kind of do, like, a fun… we go to Gotham, and we’re kind of doing a little bit like a Batman animated series kind of feel. We do… we go… I don’t know how much… I don’t know how much is… this is June. This comes out May…

TB: This’ll come out the last Tuesday of May, so, like a week before Dream Girls starts.

NM: Okay, I, I don’t know how much I can-

TB: Yeah, I don’t want to get you in trouble.

NM: No, I don’t want to get me in trouble either, but I do want listeners to… we have so many cute… there’s one where they’re, like, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, and then there’s another where they’re like, I’m really excited for Batlash and Jonah Hex. It looks so good. It’s…

TB: It’s such a great idea. Like, I don’t even know the story behind it, but just that concept alone is such a fun thing that you could do, like, in comics, that doesn’t work so much in other mediums, and I love that.

NM: Yeah, completely. It’s… and with all the different artists, too. And then we have Ro and Ted kind of doing our main line.

TB: Yeah, yeah.

NM: Kind of, like, in the waking world on board the Watchtower, when we kind of cut back to that. And we see the Justice League spinning out over, “okay, well, what do we do with these two unconscious… trans women… and also… we don’t super know if one of them should be in jail or not. Like, are we bad people if she wakes up in jail?”

TB: But she wouldn’t be in jail for being trans. That’s the important part.

NM: And that is… it’s because she is utterly incapable at her job, and everything she touches turns to ash. And she’s stupid and bad in the head.

TB: I love that we can have-

NM: And her brain is sick.

TB: -complicated trans women like that. it’s wonderful. The joy.

NM: I mean, this is the thing. Yes, I’m mentally ill, but I’m trans and mentally ill. I’m not mentally ill because I’m trans.

TB: There you go, that’s a perfect delineation to make, yes.

NM: I’m always here to help.

TB: So… writing comics, at least for us, is kind of a slow process. It’s not the fastest medium to write for, I think, and I know acting also takes a lot of work-

NM: Oh, totally.

TB: So do you struggle to find time to do both?

NM: I’m… I mean, I’m an out of work actor, so no.

TB: Okay. That’s a sad answer, but…

NM: I know. I mean, I’ve done… I’ve done both. I was working on the graphic novel… there was a point where I was doing… Bad Dream, I was finishing up Lazarus Planet… was it Lazarus Planet? No, it was Bad Dream, Action Comics, and Beast World at the same time.

TB: That’s a lot.

NM: And I was doing Yellowjackets at the same time, so I was, like, on set with my iPad writing comic books. And then I was like, “no, Juliette Lewis, don’t stab me in the face!” And then, like, came back and, like, got back into comics. But it was really- it was really, Simone Kessel was very impressed.

TB: Can I say, actually, you just reminded me that in that episode of Yellowjackets, where you got stabbed in the face, I was terrified that, “oh, here’s the death of the trans woman trope,” right?

NM: Totally!

TB: But then you didn’t die, and I was just so happy.

NM: And then I came back and was just so mean.

TB: I know! It’s great.

NM: Just shooting death glares. So fun. I wanted to… I wanted to be on that show forever. That was really, really fun. But I got what I needed. I came back for, like, two episodes… two episodess in season three, and it was kind of just, like, kind of writing me off. It was just so fun, and I got what I needed, too, because all the Yellowjackets lesbians on Twitter were like, “did Lisa get hotter?” I was like, “I did! Thank you for noticing! It’s cause I have nails on and I’m chain-smoking. Because I look like a rock star.” I said, “oh, two scenes? I’m keeping my nails on, thank you.”

TB: Any time the lesbians get excited, I’m very happy, so… yeah.

NM: It feels… it feels… it feels extra affirming, doesn’t it?

TB: Yeah, it really does.

NM: Like, from men, whatever. Like, ugh. We know there’s no standard, but from lesbians? Like, wow. Thank you.

TB: Exactly.

NM: Thank you. That keeps me going.

TB: Okay, so Dream Girls releases one issue per week through June.

NM: Yes.

TB: What’s next for you and Dreamer after that? Are there other things that you’re working on? Like, you probably can’t say, but is there more to come?

NM: Not yet.

TB: Oh, no!

NM: That’s the thing. I ju- I texted a really cute… is this going to be audio only?

TB: Yes.

NM: So I can show you guys something. Listeners will just have to listen to you see it.

TB: Okay!

NM: I… no, I’m actually gonna pull it up on my iPad.

TB: Sorry to the listeners, you should have been on this call.

NM: I’m… So, so… oh… this is so cute. I was sending this to Paul. This is from Dream Girls 3.

TB: Ahhh!

NM: No. Dream Girls… yeah, 3.

TB: Little kissy kiss! I probably shouldn’t say that, I’ll have to edit it now.

NM: Yeah, but we don’t know who it is.

TB: That’s true!

NM: So I sent… So I sent that to Paul Kaminski. And he was like, “well, your ears must be ringing, because I had an idea that I wanted to run by you…”

TB: Mmm.

NM: “But I need to work out some stuff first.” so I’m eagerly awaiting my next phone call with Paul. Because he and I always get up into trouble, and we always have fun. I love Paul!

TB: Yeah, we just had a call with him not that long ago, he was really great!

NM: He’s just… so incredible, I love him. And I love… he was the one who pitched Secret Six to me at Comic-Con. And he came up and he was like, he was like, “hey, hey, I was talking to Mark Waid, and we had an idea. We think you should write Secret Six.” And then that’s-

TB: That’s amazing!

NM: -how that started. I was like… “Okay! Sure!” And of course, I-

TB: “No, no Paul Kaminski and Mark Waid, no thank you. I don’t want that job.”

NM: No. Not even! I don’t want you to hand me Gail Simone’s lightning in a bottle, don’t touch it, it’s a fragile, perfect thing. Ugh.

TB: No pressure.

NM: No pressure.

TB: Okay, well, I need to… unfortunately, make it a little weird for a second.

NM: Okay…

TB: Because despite all of the signings and panels that we have done together, and the SDCC DC Comics parties that we have hung out at, there is something that I haven’t had the guts to tell you, but I’m-

NM: Oh my god.

TB: -going to do it now, because it is important to let people know the impact they had on you.

NM: Oh, God.

TB: So there are a handful of trans women, writers and artists who were really, really important to my own journey, and believing that I could do it too. That I could transition and still have a writing career. And they were like lighthouses as I weathered the storm and found my way to shore, and I thanked them when I came out publicly, and I thanked them in the back of my Matrix book, and I’ve thanked them when they’ve come on this show. And you are one of those few, so-

NM: Thank youuuu!

TB: Thank you for being so visible, and showing me that I could be myself and have a creative career, and for all that you’ve done for the community. It means so much.

NM: We are so happy and thankful and better to have you.

TB: Awwwwwwwwww…

NM: We are so happy you’re here. We’re so happy to have you aboard.

TB: Well, it’s my favorite team I’ve ever been on.

NM: Ugh, I have been trying to get, like, a proper DC Pride panel at Comic-Con. I want it to be, like, you, me, Andrea, Jadzia, like… I want to get everyone up there and, like, just have a gay old time. I think we deserve it.

TB: We do.

NM: I feel like DC Pride is popped off enough that we could get us all up there.

SB: Yeah.

TB: We haven’t been in DC Pride yet, but… we do have maybe something with them…

NM: But, like, DC… but, like, DC Pride, like… as a concept.

TB: As a con- okay, yeah, sure, then absolutely yes!

NM: That is the actual anthology, just like…

TB: You’re right.

NM: We are comic voices that are happy to be here.

TB: Yes!

NM: We- we just wanted to be on a panel and kiki.

TB: We do! Looking all cute and hot in front of people, it’s great.

NM: And you know that panel’s gonna be sold out, the T-turnt panel.

TB: T-turnt! Oh-

NM: I love those. I love those. I have those on under my jeans.

TB: That’s amazing! For folks that don’t know, there was a little back and forth Nicole and I had on Bluesky a couple months back. And it ended up in Nicole saying that at WonderCon, we were going to get T-turnt. And I said that should be our new slogan, and she said it should be in sparkly letters on booty shorts. And so I got those made and gave them to her.

NM: I love them, and they make my butt look amazing. Thank you.

TB: Oh, that’s so good!

NM: I be getting T-turnt all the time with them.

TB: Well, is there any better note to wrap up this episode on? I don’t think so. Thank you for being here, Nicole!

NM: Thank you for having me!

TB: Dream Girls premieres June 3 from DC Comics, and releases a new issue every Wednesday this June. It is the first time two trans women characters, written by two incredibly talented trans women, have headlined a book like this. Get it to show DC, and all of comics, that there is a demand for it. And get it because you want an amazing sci-fi superhero story in your life. For this trans woman mega DC fan, it is a dream…. come true. Tilly Bridges-

NM: Oh my god, how did you do that?

TB: -I’m a writer! End transmission.