DIY and Trans Self-Sufficiency

Speaker 1 [00:00:09] Hey fam, it’s me, Imara. Welcome to the TransLash Podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives. Well, for generations, trans people have had to rely on ourselves, building our own networks and creating the resources that we need in order to survive. And with a tax on our rights escalating every day, day by day, today we’re going to explore DIY and self-sustaining living, taking a look at how trans people are building homes, skills, and communities all on their own terms. Whether it’s fixing what’s broken, growing what’s needed, creating spaces where we can truly thrive, these approaches aren’t just about survival, they’re essential to our freedom. First, I’m joined by the one and only trans handyman, Mercury Stardust, to discuss the power of learning DIY skills.

Speaker 2 [00:01:06] giving patience to yourself, learning how to really just process information before you go into it, and then knowing when to stop and knowing when to call in on reinforcement.

Speaker 1 [00:01:20] Then I sat down with Flint Del Sol to learn more about how he’s building a life of autonomy through his off-the-grid farm and a new Airstream home on wheels.

Speaker 3 [00:01:33] I also love really having to prove to myself that I’m capable of a life that wasn’t prescribed to me.

Speaker 1 [00:01:41] But before we get to these empowering conversations, let’s start out as always with some trans joy. There’s a special kind of joy in creating what we need for ourselves, whether it’s through upcycling, mutual aid, or building community resources. The Safe Combinations thrift store in Portland, Maine is doing just that. Operated by Maine Transnet, Safe Combination is more than just a place to shop. It’s also an affirming space for Mainers to access free binders, bras, and an affordable gender-affirming wardrobe. All proceeds from their Pay What You Can model. go directly to supporting the Pine Tree State’s trans community. Here’s Brie Danvers Kidman, Executive Director of Maine TransNet, to tell us more.

Speaker 4 [00:02:52] The idea came about to have an anti-capitalist thrift store, essentially, that is, pay what you can in nature and, you know, it would allow people to access the material needs and also material wants, right? Like clothing can be for a need, for sure, but it could also just be because you’re having a bad day and you need a little pick me up and you came into the store and you saw a shirt that was really cute and you don’t have any money. So take it. Have a good day. Like being able to do that in community is so special. It feels so good to be able to be the person that’s like, hey, does that speak to you? Well, then obviously it was meant for you. Just because we’re having a rough time doesn’t mean we can’t also have a good time. We’re gonna find ways to have a time.

Speaker 1 [00:03:35] You and the team at Safe Combinations are trans joy. Do you know someone like Bree who embodies trans joy? Well, send us an email at trans slash underscore podcast at transslash.org and make sure to include their name, contact information, and why you think they should get a shout out on a future trans joy segment. And with that, let’s get into my conversation with Mercury Stardust. I’m so glad to be joined today by Mercury Stardust, better known as the trans handyman. Mercury isn’t just a professional home maintenance technician, she’s also a performer, author, and activist known for teaching her audience the ins and outs of home repair, whether it’s fixing clogs, patching drywall, or negotiating with landlords, she empowers renters and homeowners with the skills they need to take control of their spaces. Her technical expertise and accessible teaching style have helped countless queer and trans people gain confidence in home maintenance. And she’s even written a book. It’s called Safe and Sound, a renter-friendly guide to home repair. Mercury, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 2 [00:04:54] Thank you for having me, darlin’. How ya doin’?

Speaker 1 [00:04:56] Good. I almost expected you to turn up in a construction hat and, you know, giving us, like, you, know, sort of construction contractor drag.

Speaker 2 [00:05:07] Yeah, like with like a tool belt that’s completely rhinestone.

Speaker 1 [00:05:12] Yeah, and purple hair. Absolutely. I mean, it would have been just a break from your normal esthetic, so.

Speaker 2 [00:05:19] I mean I used to do that for when I did burlesque. I used to show up in like rhinestone overalls and I would do like a construction burlese act and everything. So I do have the outfit.

Speaker 1 [00:05:31] I want to see Burlesque and Home Repair in the same video. You know what I mean? Like, you know, changing a PVC pipe to Burlesques music or something.

Speaker 2 [00:05:41] Yeah. Yeah. Like do a strip tease while I do plumbing. Yeah, I can see it happening. Precisely. I kind of already do that though. Like I, like I, I sprinkle in a lot of my burlesque Tennessee’s in the way that I do my videos. So like my really infamous springing stool, the jumps up sometimes in my videos, that stool is from my burless ex. I used to end every number with like picking something up off the stool and then I would you know Do the chair trick and then it would catch the stool And then the audience would react so I just put that in the videos in order to retain people’s attention Because you’re always fighting for four or five seconds of just grabbing someone’s attention and holding on to it for at least Five seconds in order get that algorithm bump, you know

Speaker 1 [00:06:32] Right, right, right. Verso, can you talk a little bit about the smashing of the stereotypes that is embedded in what you do and how you know and the way in which you present yourself, which we’re already touching upon, but you’re bringing together two things that people don’t normally associate with each other. And so I’m wondering if you can just talk a little about how you found the way to express those things kind of in yourself.

Speaker 2 [00:07:01] For the longest time, I hated combining the two. Like before I made it big as the trans handyman, I was just a maintenance technician and I did burlesque on the side. And in the burlesques shows, I was very much feminine expression, very much like feminine empowerment. But at work, I was much like living the life as a cis man, very scared to come out, very scared interact with the queerness in that space. because I wore camouflage, you know, like they saw me as a cis man in that space, so they would just say things that were extremely messed up, you know? Homophobic, transphobic, and you were always scared that they were putting a target on your back, you know. So I kind of try to keep those two worlds separate until I made one video essentially where I put in a little of my intersectionality into it. and I put a little bit of my handy brain into it. And then just for whatever reason, it clicked in that moment. And I’ve, you know, it just took off from there.

Speaker 1 [00:08:11] How did you develop the courage to do that? Because even that experiment, given what you said about how you lived your life up until that point, would have been unthinkable. So how did you in that moment decide, I’m gonna sprinkle in a little bit of my gender identity into this? Because even showing a little leg can sometimes be considered risky if you’ve never shown anything. So how do you determine that you were going to show something in that moments?

Speaker 2 [00:08:40] You know, what’s interesting about that is that I had been out for three years at that point and I just wasn’t out in all of my circles, you know? And I think that this is like a year into the pandemic. So I was, at that time, I wanted to start fresh. I wanted be myself. And I after three years of like keeping a closet, I think at some point, You just got to rip the band-aid off and you got to be like, I know this is an exposed nerve and I know, this is not going to heal, right? This is going to be exposed and rip open like a bat scab over and over again. But the bandaid has got to come off at some point. And I think that’s what it was at that point, you know, like just go for it and see what happens, you.

Speaker 1 [00:09:31] So you decided to combine those two because you had been growing into who you were, right? And then, you know, it found expression in that moment. Were you surprised by the reaction of other people? Like, were you surprised by how engaged people were and how you blew up?

Speaker 2 [00:09:49] In the back of my head, I think maybe there might have been like, oh, this could be good, you know, but I don’t think… this could be good would turn into an international career where I’m a number one New York Times bestseller and I’ve raised over, you know, $5 million for gender affirming care. Like, I would never, that is like not even in the realm of possibilities in that moment, but I did want to be seen as a trans person and I had a deep insecurity that I looked too much like a cis man still. This was like three years in, and because I was like partially in the closet and partially not, I would like blend. I was so scared to embrace my femininity fully in the public. So in that video, I’m in my car after I was done working an entire day of maintenance. I’m In my overalls. I’m, in my flannel. I am no makeup on. Maybe I have eyeshadow on maybe in that video. And I named myself, I called myself the the Intersexual Feminist Trans Maintenance Lady. It was like a it was a very long title. It took me 22 seconds to intro myself before I got to the actual how-to itself. But I was just so hell bent on being seen as a part of the community. So I labeled myself and I didn’t know that was going to turn.

Speaker 1 [00:11:16] into a brand? Well, I’m glad it did because it would have taken you too long to keep introducing yourself. So the fact that you like became the trans handyman is a good thing. One of the things that I think is fascinating is I think I first heard of you not long after you started. And I know that for many trans people who are first time homeowners, for example, that your videos are standard, right? And there’s something about your. ability to manifest all of these different parts of yourself, which does inspire people to think that, oh, I can own a home. And if I own a a home, I be responsible for it. And I can take care of it. And I learn these new things and new skills. Do you have a sense of that? Are you aware of that in any way?

Speaker 2 [00:12:04] Well, first off, the trans community, because we’re such a small community, right? Because we’re like, we’re 1% of the population. That’s right. A lot of us have to manifest relationships through online culture. And I think that, A, that’s kind of like what’s like laid the groundwork for me. Looking for the answers and looking for community is really important. And in every community, we all have one. In every community we’re always short of plumbers. And I think that I kind of fit that niche a lot. I think, that’s why it just caught on so fast. And I didn’t really have a full concept of how it was affecting the trans community until probably a year into it, when I was like the grand marshal at a Pride event in Alabama. I went there and I had like hundreds of people who showed up just for me. And I was just taken aback by it. Like, I was like, holy cow. It’s like tons of trans people who support me.

Speaker 1 [00:13:10] and follow me, it was quite overwhelming. I am a person who, when it comes to anything handy, I am, I’m an idiot. Like when it goes to following instructions on like how to put things together or how to like, I don’t know, do anything. Like I immediately become not very smart. I’m wondering, have you always been handy? Like was it just something that you knew how to do and then you just became excellent at it because you already have the intrinsic skill. or were you a person who you didn’t know how to do anything and then you learned it and you picked it up?

Speaker 2 [00:13:45] Well, I had to be handy out of survival. I grew up in a really, really masculine Catholic household. I grew in a farm in Northern Wisconsin. And, you know, every day we woke up at like four o’clock and we milked the cows before I went to school. We got off the bus after school and I milked to cows again. And then I milk the cows before we went to bed, right? Like that was our life. And that was how I functioned. And it was just this constant cycle of work always has to be done. And in that environment, you’re fixing things with like shoestrings and duct tape and the massive overhead that farms have. Dairy farms are just so much. A very hard thing to run, especially if you’re a family run dairy farm, that like, it was all hands on deck. Every cousin would help bale hay. The next door neighbor’s best friend’s kid who comes here every two years would come over and help us take care of things on the farm and pick rocks out of the field then. all that stuff. So I got handy, or necessity, like I had to learn how to do electrical, I had a learn how do drywall, I had do those things. But also, because I viewed the world differently as a trans person, even though I didn’t have the labels, I think that for me, I processed things very differently. And I solved problems very differently. And when you’re in a room and everyone thinks the same and acts the same and they’re all machismo in the same way and they all think they can fix everything with brute force, when you come in with a little bit of finesse, it’s very different. It changes the entire dynamic of. of your team. So I think that in some ways, yeah, I had very innate skills that I brought to the table, but I don’t think they’re traditional tools, you know? Like I don t think they’re the same tools that every single person comes with to the tables.

Speaker 1 [00:15:50] On that particular point, what do you think is the one skill that everybody should learn that would be the most useful? Like if you learn how to do this, it’ll help you immensely. What is that? Patience.

Speaker 2 [00:16:12] It’s 100% patience. Because here’s the thing, I believe that if you like watch three to five videos of whatever task you wanna do, and you give yourself grace, and you allow yourself to have time to process this information, anyone can do this stuff. Like the stuff I write about, right? The fundamental, the basics one would say, right. All of that stuff, I think, is very obtainable for the vast majority of people. I think people in our community have been made to feel like we’re inferior in a lot of various ways, especially when it comes to masculine culture. In our community, we’re made to feel like a lesser than or a lower grade of masculinity in whatever way we have it. And I think in this field is so driven by that that I think that sometimes we don’t have Patience with ourself. and we tell ourselves, even before the job starts, that we’re not able to do a good enough job, so who cares? So I think patience. I think giving patience to yourself, learning how to really just process information before you go into it. And then, knowing when to stop. And knowing when calling on reinforcements. The skillset that it takes to do a lot of this stuff isn’t like, Oh, this person is really good at laying cock. You know, Oh, this person can turn a screwdriver real good. All that stuff. I feel like it’s very rudimentary in a lot of ways. Like that can be taught. I think it’s harder to get the fundamental things that can shape how you view the world and how you view the work that you’re doing. That’s harder, I think.

Speaker 1 [00:18:01] Yeah, I mean, I also think that it is whether or not you have the patience to learn something new. Cause as you say, like you can, with repetition, you can learn a great many things, right? If you don’t have the skill or if you don’ have the innate ability, then it can just be a lot harder than someone who does, but you can still become proficient in it, right. There’s, you know, there’s gift in their skill, right, and So I think that like, that’s the whole point. And maybe my own personal problem is that I don’t have the patience for these things, but I think it’s really important that, if you’re out there and you want to learn how to like, like I have a friend that builds wood furniture, who’s also like an AI engineer person. I’m like, how do you build furniture? How do you make furniture? How do know how to do that? It’s because they like doing it and they just have done it. you know, probably at least 10,000 times to perfect those skills.

Speaker 2 [00:19:01] you’re worth the time it takes to learn a new skill. It’s how I finished the vast majority of my videos. And I think that like, we’re kind of hitting on it. It’s why I say it, right? You’re worth time it take to learn that new skill and I think a lot of folks. I think we get discouraged. I think that there isn’t like a blueprint of how we as a queer community are supposed to fix those things, right? There’s a blueprint of us wearing makeup and us doing drag and us doing various artistic and crafts things. There isn’t a lot of blueprint and a runway that’s made for us when it comes to like, how does a queer person approach these subject matters. And I think that there is a part of that too, like it’s a, it’s a brick wall that we’re kind of walking into sometimes and we got to find a way to walk around it instead of going right into it.

Speaker 1 [00:19:57] Well, now there’s a model in a way, right? On YouTube, no less. I’m wondering if you have thought about kind of the changed environment that we’re in, the greater hostility there is against our community, the way in which, you know, trans people already are hyper-marginalized and have less access to resources. And additionally, the ways in which the entire country and economy may be being remade right now. does that for you increase the importance of what you’re doing? Do you believe that what you are doing moving forward is even more important than when you started because people will need to have and know these skills more and more?

Speaker 2 [00:20:42] I think there’s an aspect of it. I think that what drives me more than anything is the fundraiser I do every year. I do the gender affirming care access fund fundraiser for Point of Pride where we raise millions of dollars for other trans people in America to access gender affirmed cares like binders, gas, HRT, electrolysis, and surgeries. And I kind of always viewed my drywall skills and my plumbing skills and my, my flooring skills or what have you as a trade-off. I’ll give you these skills, I’ll gave you this information, but once a year you have to in return help me out with my community. And that to me is like a weird kind of like online mutual aid. I think these skills are incredibly important right now, being self-efficient and self-reliant in a time period where we’re kind of getting cut off from society in a lot of ways. And I think there is a reality we live in right now where we could be cut off further. And I don’t want to go back to the days where, I mean, it’s already hard for us to find a job, but I think it might become harder for us define employment. And I that because of that being self-efficient in a field. that is so incredibly important. I encourage people to go in this field all the time, that the trades are such a high demand field, that at some point in time it doesn’t really matter what your sexuality is, what your gender identity is. They just need bodies because there’s a shortage of us now in the world. So I think there’s also an aspect of that too. It’s like giving people that skill set to even enter that field that can revolutionize that field.

Speaker 1 [00:22:29] I mean, and also, if you do enter a trade as a trans person, you’ll never be without a date. Can you imagine being like, I’m this, I am that, I’m that tall, I like this, and I’m a plumber, or, and, I lay, well, laying floor, but you know what I mean. You put down floors, like if you are…

Speaker 2 [00:22:49] I know how to lay a good pipe, you know?

Speaker 1 [00:22:50] Listen, real skills, real scales, like things that you can actually use. Like pretty, pretty amazing. Never be without a date.

Speaker 2 [00:22:59] It’s so funny that a lot of cis straight men on the internet just don’t know how queer culture functions dating. Like I’ll get a guy who will comment something like, who would ever wanna date you? And I’m like, honey, I gotta beat them off with a stick. I am a trans woman that leans towards lesbian. I have a ton, I’m a butch, babe. And I am in demand, very much so. And I think that it’s funny to me because I think it really showcases the fact that men, especially cisgender straight men, don’t always have a concept of what life can be outside of their own bubble, you know? And I also think there is also an aspect of the world where folks sometimes… like to say that we’re, you know, we’re sheep, we are following the trends, you know. But in reality, we actually breaking the mold. We’re very much going off the beaten path and going down roads that very few people go down. It’s quite the opposite, I would say.

Speaker 1 [00:24:11] Well, they’re very prescribed people, right? Which means that when they do everything that they are supposed to do, they think and check all of the boxes, that’s why it’s easy for them to end up unfulfilled and then suddenly on K ruining the entire country. Night follows day.

Speaker 2 [00:24:34] But I’ll be honest with you, though. I was in the alt-right pipeline for years. Like before I came out, before I come out, you know, I very much believed in the disposable man theory. Like I very was like very close to taking the red pill. And I think that for me, a larger of the reason is that internalized transphobia, the internalized misogyny, like. I hated myself. I hated women. I hated everything that was queer. Yes, I went to gay bars. Yes, I went to the nightclub, but I’ve met so many self-hating gay men over the years that going to a gay bar doesn’t automatically make you progressive, you know, that I had a hard time decompressing that and deconstructing that and working through that. And I can sometimes, and I think this is why I kind of call myself the the troll whisperer, because I think that because I come from that background and I have that kind of patience with people, I can kind of see through the bullcrap that they throw at me. You know, like when they say things to me, what I see is just a bunch of projection. What I see, is a lot of self-loathing. And I think that it helps me have those difficult conversations and to open eyes that maybe some other people might not be able to.

Speaker 1 [00:26:00] Given that, in terms of like learning new skills and everything that you have just laid out, I’m wondering if you can just leave us with what you think is the possibility of hope. Because the life that you lived gives you insights into the people that are attacking us, right? And that are leading the charge specifically, as you’ve described. in a way, you still have something in common with them. Like you do have common ground, like, you know, in terms of like what you know and how you kind of can maneuver in those spaces. What would you say to the rest of us that is a hopeful note that we can draw that there’s a way out of the current conflagration or the ongoing conflict with this group of people?

Speaker 2 [00:26:51] Nuances are key to salvation. Finding a way to have nuanced conversations that are very difficult, that are sometimes very uncomfortable. I think that often, sometimes within our own community, we don’t understand that intersectionality means having a space for nuance. That there isn’t any such thing as a true safe space. They’re safe for our spaces. But the only way that you achieve that is bye. having difficult conversations, and making room for other people’s flaws, because we’re all a victim of the patriarchy. We’re all the victim of that. even those who are victimizing us, even those who are attacking us, they might not see it, but someday they might. And I think we need to understand that if we don’t find a bridge for people to walk over after they leave the delusion of misogyny and leaving that delusion of hatred for others, if we make a bridge for them to walkover, they will stay on the other side that river for the rest of their lives. and they will work against us. So my attitude towards this has been you can’t make them fully understand, you can make them walk over that bridge, but you can leave it open. We don’t have to associate with them, we don’t like them, we don’ have to do any of that, we don have to forgive them, right? But making sure they can find community. And I think that that is the overarching idea that I always go back to is community. I don’t like some of my neighbors, some of my neighbors and I do not get along, but I would go to bat for any one of my neighbors. I know they would do the same for me. And I think that’s what community is. Sometimes community is not necessarily that we all agree. It’s our proximity to where we live and how we’re being affected by others. And that proximity is what can unite us. And our proximity is our queerness and our marginalizations, and sometimes the people who are hating us are trans, but they don’t know it yet. and making sure that those folks, like, you know, 22 year old me, could find a way over that bridge. And then maybe that person grows up to be the trans handyman. You don’t know, you don’t now, you now? I’ve raised almost $5 million as we’re talking right now for gender affirming care. And the only way that I was able to do that was because at some point I crossed that bridge and there was a ton of amazing people who had patience with me while I crossed that bridge. But I was willing to do it and I wanted to do. That’s the difference. You have to wanna do that.

Speaker 1 [00:29:46] Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. And I know for me that if you were my neighbor, I would always be nice to you because I know who could put in my new heat pump. So there you go. So whatever you needed, it would be there. But listen, priorities. I’m your crew Stardust. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your time and your insights in all that you have done for our community. Thank you, so much. Thank you darling. Bye bye. That was Handyma’am, author and fundraiser, Rikri Stardust. I’m so excited to dive into this conversation with educator, author, and advocate, Flint Del Sol. With over a decade of experience in the classroom, public health policy, and national LGBTQ education, Flint has dedicated his career to empowering others through knowledge and action. And his impact doesn’t just stop there. Clint has a powerful social media presence where he creates videos on trans history, mental and emotional wellbeing, and the everyday realities of trans life. But today I’m excited to talk to Flint about his journey towards more self-sustained living. Over the past year, he and his husband Shiloh have traded city life for hands-on learning, working on a farm, raising chickens, and gaining the skills to live more independently. And now they’re setting off in a 27-foot airstream to travel, connect with community, and continue their journey towards self-sufficiency. Flint, thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 3 [00:31:35] Thank you so much for having me. I sound so impressive when you read a bio that way. It’s amazing. Well, you know, that’s our job.

Speaker 1 [00:31:43] That’s our job. I just wanted to say that it’s so great to be talking with you today because I also follow you on Instagram and have really appreciated a lot of your content recently especially. So thank you so much for that.

Speaker 3 [00:31:55] Of course, yeah, I love sharing my life in 90-second clips with as many people as possible.

Speaker 1 [00:32:00] Yes, yes. I can vouch that you are a real person, not an AI bot who only does it for 90 seconds. What led you towards the idea that it was time to become self-sufficient? And I say that because I know a lot of people have dreams about that, particularly in this moment where people feel that where they are may not be safe or their way of life may not be able to continue due to all of the changes and want to have a way to be able to live more independently. So how did you come to that conclusion, first of all?

Speaker 3 [00:32:34] Yeah, right, because I think that you can learn a lot about a community from what their top fantasies are. What are the things that we all project? And I think the queer community has these top fantasys. Either we all want to own a commune where we have all of our friends around. We want to have a performance space slash library slash coffee shop, or you want to go work on a homestead and have your own self-sufficient way of living. And I think it’s important first to say that like self-sufficiency Is it an admirable goal? But it’s kind of like you can never quite get it, like the limit does not exist. You can’t quite get all the way to self-sufficiency with the skills that I have, at least. I know some people can. But I think that for a lot of the reasons a lot queer people want to be as self- sufficient as possible, that we’ve lost a lot of trust in institutions and in systems that we know aren’t always there for us and are more and more showing us that they’re not going to be there for and so. It’s a fantasy, yeah, and it’s a personal ambition, but it’s also becoming more a necessity.

Speaker 1 [00:33:32] Why do you think it’s a necessity like translate that into

Speaker 3 [00:33:36] Sure, I think it’s a necessity because once we realize we don’t have some of the protections that other communities have, we run out of options, right? So a good example is employment protections, right, so the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, like the EEOC, is no longer pursuing cases that have anything to do with gender identity and sexual orientation. So if you are discriminated against at work, sucks. Like, there’s not a way the federal government is going to come and help you. And so if that’s true, if I could just be right, if I’m a federal employee right now, if I can just be fired for no reason with no repercussions from the person who fired me, I need to have other options. I need have other ways of keeping myself alive. And that’s the way in which we continue to show up for our communities is by surviving as long as we can.

Speaker 1 [00:34:26] How did you decide that you were going to do actual homesteading as it were? There are lots of options. You could have gone, we’re gonna go to a cabin. We’re going to, you know what I mean? There are other options that exist. So how did you say this is how we’re going to begin our self-sufficiency journey?

Speaker 3 [00:34:49] Right, I think that one of the reasons this became not just a fantasy, but an actual reality was through, again, necessity. I needed to leave my teaching job. It was not possible anymore for me to safely teach high school in a really conservative part of Southern California. And so I looked at the options that I had available to me. Land is really cheap. Where we are right now, we’re in the middle of the desert, essentially, in California. I always say that if you live in Los Angeles and you’re driving to Las Vegas and you stop for lunch, that’s where we live. And so we just have an acre and a half we’re able to get for month to month, super dirt cheap. the option that became available. We didn’t go to a cabin because I don’t think I could have swung rent on a cabin and we didn’t have the equity, right? And so this was the easiest option and it was supposed to be a really, really temporary one. We didn’ think we were gonna be here for very long. And then once we got here, we loved it. We loved waking up at 6 a.m. and feeding chickens. We loved trying to figure out how to get sunflowers to grow in essentially clay. Every day was a puzzle and it really fun to feel like you were working. for yourself and not just for somebody else’s benefit.

Speaker 1 [00:35:59] Because sometimes for some people, the challenges can be overwhelming and they can be stifling. I think one, what you’re talking about is that you all approach these challenges with curiosity and with excitement. And also, you must have confidence in your ability to learn new things.

Speaker 3 [00:36:17] I think that that word curiosity is so pivotal, right? That if you think of any of these problems as being something that’s like, you know, a huge issue every day, that’s something that could really hurt you, or my personal mantra, right, is I’m never down for long. I can figure something out pretty quickly. And if I can’t, I have a really capable husband who wants to help me figure it out. And so yeah, being curious and being excited. That was key, right? To never think that there was any problem that was insurmountable. Because especially, you know, both of us are trans and we both worked in public education. My husband used to live in the Dominican Republic in the Peace Corps. Like we’ve both been through harder things with our families socially. And so, yeah, figuring out how to raise 13 chickens seemed pretty small in comparison.

Speaker 1 [00:37:05] Do you find that your being a trans couple allows you to be able to see and understand the world in the same way that allows you to be to do something like this? What I mean by that is that you both are trans, right? So you have a similar experience for what is happening in the world, seeing it clearly, understanding what that means for you all personally, and then taking action.

Speaker 3 [00:37:33] Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s no love like tea for tea love right like when two trans people Find each other and manage to to create a life together. I I don’t know if I have seen love more in tune and beautiful than tea for teal of like I’m all about it and Both of us sort of describe our gender as being you know externally he internally they historically she And that is such a unique set of perspectives from which to see the world. There are no established gender roles in our relationship and we have gone through similar journeys. And so, yeah, it’s critical. I can’t imagine a relationship. other than the one that I’m in now in the situation that we’re both in. To be with somebody who doesn’t understand, because you can empathize, that’s different than understanding, right? Like really deeply getting what these experiences are like and feeling like I have a partner to do these things with, I don’t know if it’s possible otherwise. Hopefully, I’d like to think it is, but I’m glad I don’ have to find out.

Speaker 1 [00:38:43] So you made the decision, it was a logical decision based upon what’s happening in the world, your profession. You all are approaching this together.

Speaker 3 [00:38:54] Do you like it? I, yeah, I do. I really do. I think that, you know, when you’re trans and you have to make some of these decisions out of necessity, right? Like I didn’t leave teaching on purpose. In fact, when I started teaching, you could have threatened me over an open volcano. I would have told you I was staying in that job until I retired. Like I was sure. And leaving was really painful. And I get a lot of, I’m sorrys about it, right? People are really sorry that I’m not in the classroom anymore. And now that we have to leave this property, right. And we’re traveling the country and the airstream. I’m getting a lot I’m sorries about that too. And I understand it. And also I love it so much. I love the novelty of our life. I also love really having to prove to myself that I am capable of a life that wasn’t prescribed to me, right, that I didn’t have a plan for. Being a master pivoter right at this point, like we, my husband and I, we have a publication called The Pivot Club because we’re always having to change, right? To go in a completely new direction from where we were going before. Every single time we have to do that, we get to prove over and over again that we are not only capable of it, but that we can create a life of joy and of interest and of art, right, and love every time.

Speaker 1 [00:40:14] Tell us about the decision to go Airstream, right? Like, why wouldn’t you just say, we love this sort of homesteading life in the desert, let’s go find another place in the country. You know, America has no shortage of deserts, right. So like, you could have just been like, we’re gonna pick a new desert and we’re just going to wash, rinse, and repeat on the thing that we’ve been doing. What made you go, actually let’s pack it all up and get on the road.

Speaker 3 [00:40:41] First of all, I love the phrase. Let’s just find a new desert. I love that. There’s no shortage of deserts You’re right. There are so many places and Yeah, when we were thinking about okay if we have to leave here, where are we gonna go? It didn’t make sense to stay in the United States, right? We were looking around and we were taking with the new administration I can’t think of a place that’s untouchable Where we’re not gonna find our health care threatened where we’re gonna find are protections taken away. The fact that there are, you know, a lot of these states I can’t pee, right? there are no safe places in the US left. We’re already in California, right? Like, and I’m already feeling it here. Thought about, do we just go to another country? But as a lot of trans people are finding out right now, that’s not easy, right. There are so many barriers that keep you from being able to go to a another place. And so that stuck feeling, which I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced, but I know a lot people who have, where you’re looking around, you feel cornered. Like what do we do? And we ended up feeling like we needed to push so far, pass that into the other direction. Like, well, if we can’t be anywhere, then we’re going to be everywhere. We want to be in a place in which we can find like the richness of our community’s experiences in all 50 states in Canada and Mexico. We wanted to travel and learn about the way other people, other trans people specifically, were weathering this moment. We wanted go and see national parks while we still had them. And we had decided when we made this decision together that we wanted to renew our vows individually, right? Like just the two of us in a hundred beautiful places. So we’re gonna try to find places from here to the Atlantic to stop and pull over and renew our love for each other. And that’s the only way we could think of for moving forward was to. to not let ourselves feel cornered, but to project ourselves outward.

Speaker 1 [00:42:43] And also to create beauty, right? That’s the other thing that you’re talking about is that like we’re taking a situation in which we’re being forced to move and we are turning it into an opportunity, right, not only for yourselves, but to also connect to the beauty of America, the beauty at this space, right. Not to let what’s happening in Washington and in half the states essentially overshadow your ability to be able to experience life and beauty. Exactly. So have you bought the Airstream, did you buy it? Are you renting it? Knowing you, did buy one that was broken down and you’re rehabilitating it first before you get it on the road? Tell us about your home on wheels.

Speaker 3 [00:43:28] It has been such a trial trying to find and purchase it. We have. Actually today we are finalizing the paperwork for our trailer. We found it a couple of weeks ago. We have been, we had a GoFundMe up for a while. Some people thought the GoFindMe was for the full amount. Do not understand how expensive airstreams are. Like they are out of control. But they’re also, they last forever. We wanted something that wouldn’t just, and this speaks I think to the trans experience as well. We wanted to own something. in a life of renting, right? Like throwing money into rent, like feeling like there is nothing that is allowed to be ours, and that we are always living on borrowed time in borrowed spaces, in places in which people can kick us out. I was tired of feeling that way. I was tried of feeling, you know, pushed out of my job and pushed out to the places I was living. And so we wanted to own one. And so, yeah, I. did something that made my dad have a heart attack. I cashed in all the retirement that I spent 10 years saving as a teacher and bought an Airstream. And so we bought it from a couple living on the California coast and we’re picking it up this weekend. So is it in good condition or do you have to do something to it? It’s in pretty good condition. I was not ready to take on an entirely new project. We have to redecorate because they are an older boomer couple that have been living on a beach and that is a different esthetic than the esthetic that we have. and they are not great at organizing. We’re a bins family. We love a good bin, small bins, large bins. So we’re gonna be doing a lot of reorganizing. Nothing structural. And then I will say we are working on figuring out how to get a composting toilet.

Speaker 1 [00:45:10] Yes. Yeah, these are, they’re expensive. Like they were really popular in America in the 1950s, right? That’s when they kind of burst on the scene. And, you know, they can be like 50,000. I even saw one for 75.

Speaker 3 [00:45:26] Yeah, they can be. Their Airstream is, not to turn this into an Airstroom ad because they’re not giving me any money. I wish they would, but they’re uninterested. I think it’s something like, they’ve been around since the early 30s and 70% of every Airstreaming ever made is still on the road. So they’re indestructible. They retain value. And so we figured when we’re ready to if we find a place that we love and…

Speaker 1 [00:45:51] You can sell it again.

Speaker 3 [00:45:52] We can sell it again and we can live in it for as long as possible because I think sometimes we wanted to not be short-sighted, right, where we thought let’s get something super cheap and then we have to figure something else out in less than a year. We wanted to make sure we were doing it as good as we could.

Speaker 1 [00:46:07] So you’re gonna be doing essentially a travel log or a blog, you know, as you all go along. How do you feel about that shift? You know, cause that’s gonna be, that’s different than what you are doing now.

Speaker 3 [00:46:22] Yeah, it is gonna be a big shift. I think it’s important though, we’re not restoring it, but it is still a huge amount of physical labor. Like the…

Speaker 1 [00:46:30] Tell us

Speaker 3 [00:46:30] The owning and trying to be, I think you see these people on Instagram, YouTube, you’re like, oh, van life couples, the people that have the Partridge family, they’re living in a school bus or whatever, right? The amount of work and effort to keep these things on the road is out of control. It is a lot of effort and work because your house is on wheels and you’re driving it and shaking it all over the place. Things fall off and come loose and you have to. essentially like an auto maintenance person for a couple weeks at a time. And so we have been very much a YouTube tutorial family lately and we’ll continue to do so. So I’m nervous, but I think I’m approaching it the same way I did when I was leaving teaching and coming out to the farm, right? That never down for long. Like we have general competence and I think that we can figure it out. I don’t have evidence that we can’t figure it yet.

Speaker 1 [00:47:53] But Flint, you guys must have a knack for this because one of my favorite weekend obsessions is watching Homestead Rescue, the show on Discovery, where a lot of, and there were so many stories on there, people who were like, we lived in New York and we watched YouTube videos and we decided we could homestead in Virginia. And it turns out to be a disaster, right? Because life isn’t YouTube and you have to, there’s some natural knack and skill that you have for. doing things that are mechanical or doing things that are physical or analog, right? That you’re applying. It’s not only YouTube. It has to be something that you guys have found in yourselves that you have this capacity.

Speaker 3 [00:48:33] I would say, yeah, it’s kind of like, do you remember Ratatouille? Did you ever see that? And it was like, not it’s not that anyone can cook, but a good cook can come from anywhere, right? Like that there’s.

Speaker 1 [00:48:43] That’s right.

Speaker 3 [00:48:44] I feel that a little bit, right? That like, I don’t know if I had the evidence when I was a teacher that this was something I was capable of, but it is something that I enjoy learning. And if you don’t enjoy learning it, you don’ find yourself leaning into and getting excited about figuring out how to repair a water tank because all of a sudden the chicken water isn’t coming through because it’s freezing and you didn’t realize that was gonna happen, then you’ll have a hard time. I’ll say also the people on like Homestead Rescue or that really, really struggle, try to take the entire life at once.

Speaker 1 [00:49:14] That’s right.

Speaker 3 [00:49:14] They say, we’re going to get chickens and goats and cows and we’re gonna have an herb garden and trying to do all those things at once means one day you wake up and you don’t feel like doing a couple of them and everything breaks down. You need to do it in bits and you need to be, you know, a little bit more judicious about your time because if you, yeah, assume that you can suddenly take on an entire persona that the Amish spent thousands of years perfecting, it takes time to learn things. you gotta do it in bits.

Speaker 1 [00:49:44] That’s right, that’s totally right. It’s a great piece of advice for everyone who’s listening. It’s really, really powerful. You have any fears as you’re about to trek across America? Like we’ve talked about the hope and the inspiration and the positivity, but do you have any fears or hesitations about, you know, kind of roaming across United States?

Speaker 3 [00:50:07] Oh, absolutely. I think that the most terrifying part isn’t even any of the outside threats, right? Like we know that those exist and they exist really anywhere. I think a lot of people assume that if you’re in a more liberal state that you don’t experience some of these things, but you do, right. There are not places to escape these outside threats and problems. I think, mostly, any time you take a leap away from stability… that’s where the fear really sets in, right? Where anything could happen. But also, right, like anything good that has ever happened to me has come on the other side of stepping through that instability and leaning into like the unknown. And it’s really uncomfortable, right. Like living in the unknown is super uncomfortable. It’s why so many of us feel like our nerves on end when we feel like we were out of control. And so, yeah, the instability is really scary because, you know, in a couple of months, what if something happens and now I have no way of fixing something or nowhere to stay and that could happen. But I think people more deeply regret the things that they don’t do more than the things that they do historically. And so I would rather try and be wrong and have to pivot again than stay in a situation that I know for sure is unsafe and uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 [00:51:28] What’s the one skill that you learned that you didn’t think that you could master? Or is there one? You might say, there is no skill I didn’t.

Speaker 3 [00:51:38] I am not delusional enough to think that there are no skills that I can’t, that I am incapable of mastering. No, I think that I want to answer you with a practical skill. I want say something about assembling our chicken coop, right, or figuring out how to grow food out here. I want a say that, but I think the answer is maybe a little bit more woo-woo therapy than it is practical, and so I’m going to go in that direction with it. I think a skill that I didn’t realize that I could master. was living in actual harmony with another human person in a way in which I feel like I am growing consistently. I think that my relationships have in the past felt antagonistic in relationships, right? That I was always working against the person that I was with or I was having to compromise. And I think I’ve learned a new kind of humility out here. It’s just the two of us and. figured out how to be an actual equal partner with somebody. And that was a skill I didn’t know was gonna be really possible until I had it, right? Until it was something that I was actually doing. And I thought, wow, like there really is nothing that the two of us can’t accomplish together.

Speaker 1 [00:53:02] Is there a skill that you haven’t learned yet that you want to learn?

Speaker 3 [00:53:06] I, yeah, that one is going to be an easy one. I would love to be more competent with my vehicle. I think that I am so scared of automotive maintenance. I think because it’s such a hyper-masculine set of skills, right? It’s a thing that a lot of boys lean into when they’re growing up. And, um, it always felt a little bit out of reach and it’s a place that is. very masculine, not that it’s only right, a male space that is not, I think the most competent people I know with cars are women, but it is a scary barrier, like gender barrier. I find myself feeling allergic to it a little bit, not in any kind of like real way, like there’s no one that’s physically keeping me out of learning some of these skills, but I am nervous about.

Speaker 1 [00:53:54] Well, I have a feeling that, as you say, because you’re gonna be camped out on parkland for weeks at a time, that, I don’t know, I think that after the 100 beautiful places, you’re probably gonna be an expert. I wanna turn a little bit to kind of the atmosphere that’s surrounding this, right? We’ve talked about it and we’ve alluded to it. As a teacher, an educator, did you ever think that we would arrive at a place where there’s a combination of hostility both to education and to trans people?

Speaker 3 [00:54:34] I started teaching in 2012. When I started I was hyper feminine, straight girl in a heterosexual marriage, and I didn’t know what trans was. I had never heard of it before, which is why I struggled so much to understand who I was, right? When you don’t know what your options are, it’s hard to find out what fits correctly, right, and I sort of stumbled into trans advocacy. a year or two later. And I remember going to PTA meetings, going to school board meetings, sitting down with my principal and explaining some really, some things that I thought I was gonna get more backlash for, right? I was talking about how can we create spaces that are better for our trans students. Again, this is before I realized I was trans at all. And I was always explaining to people for the first time something they’d never considered before, right, there’s no one. In the PTA, the principal had never heard of these things, didn’t know. We were talking about transition plans, right? Bathroom access, locker room, sports. We were taking about pronouns and how to make sure substitute teachers were using the right name. And I never experienced an individual person no matter what their background was or their political affiliations. I never came across somebody who didn’t get it. Everyone always, when they were introduced to the concept for the first time. understood the basic human empathy underneath it that made it necessary. And they were like, you know, I don’t know any of these trans kids, or, you now, I know just one of them, but I understand and we’re gonna figure it out. And we were doing such a good job. We were getting closer. And I was watching, right? I was as all of a sudden these students who used to come out to me on their way out the door, right, they would still be in their gender assigned at birth, or they’d still be dressed the way their parents expected them to. And they would say as they were leaving, maybe I’ll transition next year or the year after. And I saw year after year, students get more and more comfortable with who they were. I saw our queer student alliance growing. I saw a community getting bigger, not because it was actually getting bigger. But because people who already had this inner knowing felt like it was safe. And we got so close. There’s no way I could have anticipated. You know, they say that history comes in waves, right? That it’s a pendulum. But it really, really looked like we were learning something and it wasn’t hurting anyone. There didn’t seem like. there didn’t seem like a path away from that. I’m really surprised about where we are right now. And I’m so continually heartbroken by people that are willing to ignore not only the face of reality, but their own. I don’t know how you reject that. I don’ know how your rejected at all.

Speaker 1 [00:57:45] It’s exactly what you described, that basically 10 years ago, communities were figuring this out, school by school, neighborhood by neighborhood, sports team by sports team, and there was progress. But there were people who saw that process as a threat to the project that they wanted to undertake and began to target us in these really intense and unrelenting and even downright vicious ways. And it is. horrifying to see how well it’s worked.

Speaker 3 [00:58:22] You know, I think that your point, right, about there are some people that saw us as a threat to their project, right? Their ideal version of a country. I think, that’s spot on. And I get why they’re targeting us. I know the threat we pose to them, because when you live your life authentically and you do it in a way that rejects some of these systems, it is a threat too, a controlling institution. Anybody who wants to exert control I get I get that I can I understand the logic of it. I’m still trying to figure out the people in the PTA Who said that they understood? ten years ago, I Want to know the people that don’t have a stake in the control? What happened? Internally there what happened to that knowing? that once they had the suggestibility, somebody else came in and said, actually, they’re a threat. How did that happen? How did the switch get flipped from love and from understanding and from joy and connection and community? I don’t know how that darkness gets turned on and I hope I never have to find out individually, but I still think about that. I still thing about that room of PTA moms that advocated for all of this. I still about that, you know. unanimous school board vote that gave us a new non-discrimination policy in my district. I don’t know how we go from that group of people to the group of that I I know we’re still there. Those are not the same people and I don’t know what happened to them.

Speaker 1 [01:00:02] What’s frightening is that the fear program, especially in Americans, but in a lot of people, is always there, and it can be turned on if you know the right buttons to push. And fear, once it gets unleashed, is a dangerous thing. And I think that that’s what happened. It’s one of the reasons why it seems that the whole country, or a good bit of the country, has all gone crazy at the same time.

Speaker 3 [01:00:26] I think that’s right. I think the second you said it, that felt correct.

Speaker 1 [01:00:31] Well, what’s not fearful is you’re climbing into this new adventure and driving across the country. I cannot wait. And I know that everyone listening will be following intensely in all the ways, on TikTok, on Instagram, to see what becomes of it. And I think that there are gonna be so many unexpected moments of beauty and joy that might just restore your and everyone who follows you. their faith in this country. And I think it’s gonna be a beautiful thing, and just wishing you all the best as you and your husband trek to a hundred beautiful places across America. Thank you so much. I’m looking forward to it too.

Speaker 3 [01:01:15] I gotta say my publisher will kill me if I don’t mention that I have a book coming out. Oh, let’s, yeah, plug away.

Speaker 1 [01:01:22] What’s about your book, Flant?

Speaker 3 [01:01:25] Well, on the heels of us talking about education, specifically with the trans community, I have a book called Teach Like an Ally, an educator’s guide to nurturing LGBTQ students coming out in July. And so it’s on pre-order now and I’m going to be wandering around with it as I go state to state, probably throwing to my publishers chagrin, throwing free copies into crowds as much as I can. Because it’s something that I feel like we could all use in a in a time in which we we know that it’s necessary.

Speaker 1 [01:01:54] So wherever you are in America, Flint and his husband may be coming to a small town, a rural area, a bayou, a desert that is near you and make sure that you follow along to pay attention to see when you can hear Flint talk about his book and maybe get a free copy or maybe just buy it to help them out a little bit. Cause these little trailers are expensive.

Speaker 3 [01:02:19] Yeah, they are, for sure.

Speaker 1 [01:02:23] Thank you so much for giving us your time today. It’s been wonderful to talk to you. As I said, I follow you and I can’t wait to see this new adventure. Thank you, so much. Sending you all the best. Thank you. So much. Appreciate it. That was educator, homesteader and Airstream traveler, Flint Del Sol. Thank you for joining me on the Translash Podcast. Now listen all the way through to the end of this show for something extra. If you like what you heard, make sure you go to leave a comment on Spotify or a five-star review on Apple Podcast. We’ve received a review from Still Learning at 40 the other day who said, white sis male here, this is journalism. This is legit. Imara is honest, professional, intelligent, and not afraid. She has done the work for you. All you need to do is listen. It’s free. Honestly, it’s the least you can do. That, and maybe leave a review. Well, still learning at 40, you did your part. You left a review, thank you so much. And yeah, you’re right. All you all need to is listen after you leave a view. So if you wanna help support the show, go ahead and leave your own review. You might just hear me read it out on the show. You can listen to TransLash wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out on the web at translash.org to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Follow us on TikTok, Blue Sky, and Instagram at TransLash Media. Like us on Facebook, if you’re still there, and tell your friends. The Translached podcast is produced by TransLash Media. The TransLash team includes Oliver Ash-Kliene and Aubrey Callaway. Xander Adams is our senior sound engineer and a contributing producer. This show gets to your ears with the help of our social media team. including Morgan Asprey. The music you heard was composed by Ben Draghi and also courtesy of ZZK Records. The TransLash Podcast is made possible by the support of foundations and listeners like you. Yeah, what am I looking forward to? I’m looking forward being home for a couple of days before getting on yet another plane, had a busy week at the GLAAD Awards late last week, and then in Washington for an event at HRC, a screening of one of our films and a talkback, which included so many amazing people, including a group of LGBTQ youth who had gone up to the Capitol to lobby for their rights. on Trans Day of Visibility. And so that was a busy week already, but a fulfilling one. So I’m looking forward to being home for a couple of days. And you can check out the documentary that we screened, American Problems Trans Solutions, which aired nationwide last summer on YouTube. You can look at it on PBS World and just look for American Problem Trans Solutions and put your feet up. But it was great to actually see people in real life and people who are. trying to figure out how to move forwards during a really difficult time. Y’all are out there.