Beck and Dash chat on Queernecks about haircuts, scar care (Bio-Oil, silicone tape), and trans products like trans tape and stand-to-pee packers, then mark Transgender Day of Visibility with humor and a plug for KB Brookins’ Substack “Trans News That Doesn’t Suck.” They discuss inclusive language as “being correct,” classroom practices around names/pronouns, and teaching about Indigenous issues and why Native mascots are offensive, alongside reflections on a university’s boarding-school history and restorative justice mission. They touch on rural/appalachian memories, including a comedic “sponsor” segment about Camel Cash rewards and scavenging cigarette butts, plus scams, toll roads, and a story about being jailed due to a traffic-school mix-up. The episode ends with plans to watch “Kinky Boots,” adopt a small dog, and everyday updates.

00:00 Podcast Welcome and Catch Up

00:19 Haircut After Loss

00:53 Scar Care Tips and Bio Oil

02:08 Trans Tape and STP Devices

03:49 Trans Visibility and Political Irony

04:42 Drag Gear and Kinky Boots

07:23 Queer Reads and Trans News

09:12 Facebook Clapback Story

11:44 Trans Students and Inclusive Classrooms

13:41 Inclusion as Correct Language

16:52 Mascots and Teaching Native Issues

21:40 Boarding School History and Haunted Campus

24:28 Growing Up Around Colleges

26:34 National Parks Thirst Trap TikTok

28:37 Celebrity Lookalikes and Drag Hosting

31:11 Balding, Testosterone, and Gender Euphoria

34:18 Feeling At Home

34:58 Body Dysmorphia Talk

36:09 Bodies As Medium

37:42 Roasts And Dignity

40:51 Camel Cash Sponsor

43:07 Cigarettes And Coupons

46:02 Tamarack Marketplace

48:41 Tolls And Scams

52:29 Jail By Mistake

01:00:56 Police Anxiety

01:01:51 Adopting Meredith

01:04:07 Food And Wrap Up

The Fighting Jesus Christs

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your hair looks pretty fierce.

You feel like you wanna do something.

I have a scar on my chin. Have you ever used bio oil before?

Put it on there. You can actually feel, you know, that itchy feeling when a scar is healing. You can actually feel that after you put that stuff on, on any scar. It's good for a c-section scar too.

me.

I was like, like I knew that in theory. I knew the one about the one you can take camping or whatever, that isn't trying to be something, you know what I mean? I didn't know there was one that you could use as like a packer. I was like, wow, that's really cool.

If we have any Transfeminine listeners, I would love to know like what products y'all use. How did you learn about this? Were you just doing some research or,

And my parents were more than happy to special order stuff for him. So,

I

less social anxiety.

I would, I love the story of The Wizard of Oz and that kind of thing, and I, I guess Wicked is a book. Um, and I've thought about reading that. Um, I just, speaking of reading, I just read, uh, atmosphere by Tara Jenkins read. Um, it was a, it was a lesbian novel that did not exploit the lesbianism. It was really good.

It was good.

And so like, everything they write is just cool stories about trans people do and stuff. and I enjoy, I, I read the, the TDO version today and it was pretty fun.

Right. I'm, I'm willing to have fun and stuff like that. the, I don't know the name of the. Cincinnati or Hamilton County, Ohio

has

some Facebook page for something like a, a news or maybe it's a government building or something like that observer type thing. And they posted that they were raising the trans flag on Transgender Day of Visibility, which is a pretty big deal in a state like Ohio.

And so, and then his profile picture of him topless, and I was like, wait a minute. So I, I like screenshotted his profile and then highlighted that and then commented, uh, mother would not be impressed with your if you bullying trans people. Little monster. I

Just, you know what I mean? Like I have had. Like I, it's not a, it's not a, I recognize it when I see it or whatever, but like, usually it in, as I know of, they, they usually tell me in some way, either in a worksheet or, you know, it comes up. 'cause we talk about identities a lot and that kind of thing. But they didn't mention it until they just broadcast it to everybody.

And I was like, all right girl, go ahead.

Uh, when I look at this, let me know.

It's also more likely, it's more correct. I, it, it came up in the context of, you know, how, in Alaska and Canada, the like indigenous people there, different tribes, they have so many different words for snow

Why can't I just say this word? And even if that, that's not really neither here nor there, you just wanna be correct? Wouldn't you want to be more correct? 'cause that, first of all, that seems like your, your whole deal, right? That you identify as correct about everything.

Knowing the correct name for something, even if we're just talking about, let's take it back to snow instead of people, it's more useful and, probably more functional use the correct term for something instead of trying to use one that a lot of people have said is fucked up anyway.

And I say, all right, how do you pronounce this word? And I get several saying Appalachia and several, several saying Appalachia usually. And I was like, does it matter? And, you know, I was like, who does it matter to? And they're like, well, no, not really. And then I played this video I might have told you about this before.

The, there's an island in Ireland, there's a place called Derry. And if, if you call it London Derry, you are saying that you side with the British, right. But if you just call it Derry, you side with the Irish. So by using one word, you are telling the person that you were telling where you're going. Everything about you, your religion, you're telling them your what, your politics.

And mascots came up. And the kid that I, I told you I had an issue with a couple of weeks ago, um, he just, he, he picks at things that don't need to be picked at. Like, he's just a pain in my, my butt. Really?

great.

What did he have to.

It's. Eight minute presentation, but it means I don't have to do the readings every time and it forces them to read at least one thing that freaking semester. Right. So his was the last group and they did the Native American group and he, the mascot part came up 'cause it was in the reading and he basically said that it wasn't a big deal and that people should get over it.

a few things I wanna add. And, and so the mascots, the, the way that I usually explain it, you're, you're hearing all my fun tricks. I say, so what would happen if, uh, if I'm starting a high school, that's not how it works, but let's just pretend I'm starting a high school, right?

And so it comes time to come up with a mascot and I decide we're going to be the fighting Jesus Christ. And every Friday night we drag a cross out with a guy hanging off of it with posters with like, send them to hell boys. Right. How offensive would that be to you? And people like are like appalled by it.

I was like, name any, any other mascot that's a person that isn't uh, that isn't not doing a job besides Native Americans. And they're like, well, the, the fighting Irish. And I was like, well, their mascot is a leprechaun. That does not count. We're talking about mascots, not the, you know what I mean? Like we're talking about the actual mascots and somebody else was the flying Dutchman and they were the shoes.

And I was like, again, it's not, I mean, you know what I mean? It's like they're not real things.

birthright citizenship debates.

You know? I feel like if so many things that I teach that if we could do it at a remedial, like at a much younger age, so many problems would be solved. Like stop teaching fucking pre-calculus. Nobody needs pre-calculus, except a few nerds,

Maybe somebody is asking you to do that, and that person's fucking stupid. am not asking you to do that because I've taught, and I know young people, and I know that teaching and young people are oil and water

And I'm a transgender person and a queer hillbilly or whatever. I have been in many a fucking closet dungeon office at a university. This one is a fuck. It's haunted. It actually, the walls talk and I don't even really believe in that, Stu. Well, I don't know. I don't know if I can say that because I believe in a certain way that I feel when I go to work. And I know for a fact that I became just psychically unwell as soon as I came to work here. And I don't think it's the ghosts of, you know, native children who were murdered here because they were, I think it's the identity of this place can't get a grip with itself. And it's, it has this what's it called?

The university that I taught at when I moved back home I just saw the other day they're having their 40th anniversary. It used to be Ohio University Southern Campus, and now they're, they're something different. But, 40 years I was like, wow. Like, wow.

They had these special. I don't know. At the, at the college, every summer they had these two week long classes where you learned all kinds of different things, uh, from rock tumbling to drawing, to tracing from a projector. Yeah. And I got to do them, like every year. I, that's one of the cool things my mom paid for.

Uh, and my mom took me and it, the Shawnee State was only one, it was only one building at that time, uh, Massey Hall. And they, they've added several buildings and, and really kind of built it up. They've added dorms. They've really grown so. They're adding a football team here in the next year. So they hired the head coach.

They'll probably use that as the stadium for the, for the football team. 'cause I don't know of anywhere else they could have put it.

And sometimes they'll edit in like somebody a really, a sexy person or imagery, evocative of a certain act. They'll include music or sound bites. And it's, it's really fun. They're all in on it now. Joshua Tree National Park, they'll like respond to each other and it's, it is just masterful. Whoever is, they're clearly like collaborating and each of them is doing their own thing.

So today I saw Blue Ridge oh shoot, what's it called? What's that? Blue Ridge Mountain

Lesbian. That's a fun word. That sounds like a band name

lesbian.

It was crazy.

And it was in Kentucky. But they loved it. The kids were like, has ever trusted us with content like this before. Like, we made them feel. we respected their discernment right? Like we,

You remind me of Ryan Reynolds. And I was like, oh, I think they thought it was a compliment, but

So literally any of us could have that. But if you have two X chromosomes, you're roughly twice as likely to experience baldness. If you introduce an androgenic, which trans men do, so it's more common. We're, we're actually a little more likely to go bald than a cis guy

I'm probably getting like bags and whatever, and I don't even fucking notice because I'm just like, God, yes. That's it. That's what was supposed to be there all this time.

There's something so amazing about feeling, cohesion without even having to go through all the effort of surgeries and hormones and stuff like that. But that's also, I don't have the right to tell anybody to be happy with how they look if somebody, there's a lot of re things that can cause somebody to not like that.

Did you, did you take Radhika's class with me about, it was a media class, of course. you were in there. We read this really awesome essay by Elizabeth Kraidy called body As Medium. it was, it was about that, it was about the ways that we, um, use our body as mediums to channel or transmit things about us. it can be like, one thing could be gender. Like say if I'm wearing a clothing item that is gendered a certain way, then I'm mediating through my body. But another is affect, you know, how much of our communication is nonverbal? Like, linguists can't agree, but like the, the spread is somewhere between 65 up to 90% of our communication is nonverbal.

Do you ever watch those? Like the

Like

he uses a chair. his name was Joe.

Like I hope she has some really big cousins or representation or something. Like, I'm just gonna put that one out there.

think about Camel jackets all the time .

So, but yeah, rally lights. Then they went to the, the, the blue ones. They stopped making the,

What about the ones that are real long and skinny? She ever smoke those? Yeah.

the name of the and Alien,

and I

know you wouldn't leave me down the wrong path. So

Did you bring a noun of Appalachian interest?

You're just driving along, minding your business, and then there's suddenly the this big red roof, like it's calling your name. You tell yourself you're just gonna stretch your legs, maybe use the bathroom. Nothing serious. And that's a lie because once you get inside, it's a whole experience. The Tam Rack is a one of kind, uh, shopping and cultural experience with 59,000 square feet of art, food, and entertainment.

Like it's no big deal. And that's the part that feels right. It just says, yeah, this is what I do. I do it exquisitely. And then there's the food. Appalachian food is the best. If you didn't go in planning to eat, you're now standing there thinking about fried green tomatoes. Like it's a life decision. It's the kind of food that makes you Paul's mid bite and reconsider every road trip snack you've ever accepted.

I mean, they have beans and cornbread on the menu. so now what it started as a quick stop has turned into you wandering around with a handmade, something in your hand, feeling like you just experienced a whole culture in under an hour. And that's really what the tamerac is.

It's not fancy, it's not trying to impress you. It's just proud. It's like, here's what we make, here's how we live. Take it or leave it. This is what's Virginia, almost heaven. But you're not really leaving it. You never really leave the tamarack empty handed. And honestly, that might be just the whole point.

it's it's a, it's a

marker. It's like a, a destination between West Virginia and Virginia like that. Everybody, if you're going to Myrtle Beach or whatever, everybody stops at the Tamarack.

I hated driving into Chicago.

Like it was, uh, I verified and they were having trouble delivering something and. there, there was a misprint, I'd sent it to my friend's house and I it was like they live on such and such avenue, but they're, it's south that, and the person hadn't put the south on it. I called them and I was like, yeah, I've got a package that is, that can't be delivered.

Anyway, um, they published my information in the newspaper because it was still the nineties, you know? And one of the newspaper, one of the people I hit was from Paducah, Kentucky. So they published my information in the pub in the Paducah newspaper, which goes to the Western Regional Jail. And I started getting letters because they were like, full name here, you know, and the full address here, Huntington, West Virginia 2 5 7 0 1.

I once got stuck by a dirty ne needle trying to get a TB test done. Like I got a lot of those stories.

And I was like, not my dialect. Like those are distinct. But anyway, the, the, I, I went to jail once when I was years old, think. And it started, the thing that took me there started when I was 16

So as soon as I got my license. I started driving us to school in the mornings and it was not safe. I was not a very good driver. I got my driver's license way too young when I was in, by going to Tennessee. At the time you could get a driver's license essentially at 15 in Tennessee, especially if you got a sob story about why you need it in the nineties.

And I honestly didn't, most of the time when I'm doing something wrong, uh, and you catch me doing something wrong, I honestly didn't know I was doing something wrong. I

So I said, all right, let's do traffic school. To me like that just meant, okay, I'll hear something when I hear something, which is actually what that means. And I was 16 so I just went on about my life, never heard anything, went on, you know, and I pretty safe driver, like I said, I like to obey the rules so I don't get pulled over a lot.

He'd driven through it. All these piercings. I was also, I did not look normal. I had purple hair, I had a homemade pants on bright orange, Chuck Taylors. Um, and the worst thing about it was that we were sober. Like, you know, we didn't, we weren't doing anything it looked like we should have been doing. So he, he pulled me out and he gives me a, a, what's it called? A sobriety test. And I passed that, there was open cans in the car at his feet, under his Confederate coat that they didn't see because when they ran my license, they realized that they could get their quota because my license was suspended and had been since six months after I got pulled over when I was 16.

So they arrested me, left the car sitting there, my crazy ass friend had to walk home and I got pretrial like three days later it was a Friday. the judge was like, yeah, it looks like um, you signed up to go to traffic school and never went four years ago. And I was like, it took me a long time to figure out what he was talking about.

And so the cop pulls us over and he makes me pour out all the beer on the side of the road, like all that was left of it. And then he assessed. He was like, have you been drinking? I was like, no, sir, absolutely not. I had. Definitely been drinking. And he, uh, he determined that I was more sober than the driver.

So he had me drive and I was the drunkest one in the car. And so I drove like a block. I pulled out and, you know, drove like a block and turned and pulled over and immediately let my friend get back in the car. But that's the, the time that the cop sanctioned my drunk driving. 'cause I don't drink. I don't drink, I don't drink.

And Dr. I, well I don't drink now. Um, but I was never a drink and drive kind of person. I've, I've always been willing to be designated driver. I have a couple of friends that really love that about me.

I've seen him, so now I'm going to jail. Anxiety's weird.

have one in

And she's just a little cute white dog. And she's petite and tiny, and we're hoping that she's the right fit.

always thought of poodles as small, but they're not

like, some poodles are really big .

And so she got hurt being in that house 'cause it was a chaotic house.

And Shannon and I moved in together and I took her, and she's been ours since she was ours from the day we moved in together. So,

So we're gonna have to go get those again. And their salsa is so good. Alvaro, I don't know if you ever ate there and the Toledo area, um, their little chain, but the one in Perrysburg is really good.