ISSUE 38
C E L E B R AT I N G
VOLUME 51
49 YEARS
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JUSTICE FOR JAAHNAVI “She had limited value”: SPD under fire for officer’s comments about the killing of Kandula
by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff Writer On August 2, 2023, the Seattle Office of Police Accountability received information about an incriminating bodycam tape wherein Seattle Police Officer Daniel Auderer made seemingly flippant and insensitive remarks following the police killing of 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula.
see KANDULA page 5
Photo by Lindsey Wasson / AP
Starbucks workers up the ante with National Day of Action
Also join Homegrown sandwich workers on the picket line Photo courtesy of SBWU
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Starbucks workers upped the ante in their struggle with the giant coffee corporation with a National Day of Action on September 14. The plan was to draw Starbucks customers and community supporters into the fight with customer-led informational picketing and flyering at many Starbucks locations.
“Starbucks is doing everything in its power to ignore its unionized workers, but it has to listen to its customers,” said Daisy Pitkin, field director of the unionization drive. “We’re calling on customers to join the fight and stand with Starbucks workers on September 14.” Pitkin said thousands of customers and allies would “join us at stores all across the country.
see STARBUCKS page 6
“BellingQueerstory” with the Good Time Girls Julian Eltinge in The Fascinating Widow – Photo by White Studio New York Public Library
by Cameron Martinez SGN Contributing Writer While Bellingham’s slogan is “City of Subdued Excitement,” the Washington town has a lively history that Kolby LaBree has embraced wholeheartedly. Walking down the streets of downtown, she wore an entire outfit inspired by the vaudeville male impersonators Hetty Urma and Vesta Tilley,
all while telling the stories of Bellingham’s rich Queer history. LaBree is the owner of Good Time Girls, a local group that hosts a slew of historical walking tours, ranging from a focus on prostitution (“sin and gin”) to crime (“gore and lore”). The “BellingQueerstory” tour is the realization of her five years’ worth of research into the Queer community.
see BELLINGHAM page 4
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BELLINGHAM continued from cover
“The business that I’m involved with has always been… researching and talking about marginalized groups and… specialty populations,” LaBree said in an interview with the SGN prior to the tour. “As someone coming out of a history researcher background, I love the challenge of ‘difficult populations.’ I’ve researched sex workers. I’ve spent a lot of time [researching] vagrant populations, people that move around a lot… and I think [the] LGBTQ population falls into that similar category of not always… [having an] easy-to-follow paper trail in terms of archival records.” The stories LaBree tells are mainly from newspapers, oral histories, and interviews, starting in the late 1800s and ending in the near present. They consist of a mix of crossdressing, secret or not-so-secret Queer spots, the remains of what used to be Bellingham’s gayborhood, and the bars and saloons that led to the creation of Rumors Cabaret. “The thing that I love about a walking tour is that it brings home the story when you’re in a physical location,” LaBree said. “Someplace that maybe you walk by all the time and never realized [its history] ... I feel like this is history that people don’t generally hear about. You might at a university class or something, but not most of the general public.” The tour was supposed to be accompanied by Queer Bellingham icon Matt Endrizzi — better known as Betty Desire — dressed as female impersonator Julian Eltinge, but unfortunately on the day, he was sick. “[Endrizzi and I] got the idea to incorporate historical recreation of a female impersonator, as they were called back in the early 1900s,” LaBree said. “[They
were] precursors of today’s drag perform- the audience has since dwindled, with the While the tour may be over for the year, ers, doing different gender impersonations. final tour on September 17 having around people can still book a private version of So, we had a lot of that going on here in our 10 participants. “BellingQueerstory” for a minimum of four “[The tour] was kind of experimental, to people. vaudeville theaters. …Betty does an impersonation of Julian Eltinge, who was sort of see what the demand is,” she said. “I think this [tour] would be a good… happy-hour the RuPaul of the day.” The Good Time Girls also have a variety The first “BellingQueerstory” tour was kind of a thing, where we could present of other tours to choose from year-round. held in 2019 to acclaim, but after the events some of the history. But also Betty can For more information, visit https://www. of the pandemic, it was shelved until 2023. do a performance… We’ll probably try to bellinghistory.com, or follow its Instagram LaBree said it was a hit during Pride this schedule some events like that, where it’s @goodtimegirlstour and Good Time Girls year and the months leading up to it, but kind of a fun but also educational time.” Bellinghistory Tours on Facebook.
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Kolby LaBree – Photo by Cameron Martinez
Courtesy photo
C E L E B R AT I N G 4 9 Y E A R S!
KANDULA
continued from cover The tape, recorded on January 24, 2023, picked up Auderer’s half of a phone conversation with the president of the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild, Mike Solan, after the former had wrapped up his investigation of Officer Kevin Dave, who had hit Kandula with his SPD vehicle while driving 74 mph in a 25 mph zone. “Yeah, just write a check,” Auderer said in the video. “$11,000. She was 26 [sic] anyway. She had limited value.” The video was posted online and viewed by millions. It sparked a protest in Seattle on Saturday, September 16, in which over one hundred members of the South Asian community gathered at Denny Park to protest the handling of Kandula’s death. State Rep. Vandana Slatter of Bellevue spoke at the event, saying, “We’re not a monolith, the Indian community. There is a diaspora in the community, but we are all united today.” Claims comments were “sarcasm” While many have rallied in support of Kandula, with some even postering local neighborhoods with signs reading “her life had value,” the SPD seems less united. Despite refusing to comment on the incident to the press, Auderer submitted a statement to the department. Local conservative radio host Jason Rantz allegedly obtained a copy. According to Rantz, Auderer filed his account to the Office of Police Accountability once he realized his body cam had ing of the situation are in direct contrast to recorded his conversation. Auderer has said his comments were official claims made by the Seattle Police taken out of context and that he had meant Department. The SPD’s official release of to mock city lawyers about how he antici- the video says, “The following video was pated they would handle Kandula’s death. identified in the routine course of business He claimed he was “imitating what a law- by a department employee, who, concerned yer tasked with negotiating the case would about the nature of statements heard on be saying and being sarcastic to express that that video, appropriately escalated their they shouldn’t be coming up with crazy argu- concerns through their chain of command to the Chief’s Office, which, following a ments to minimize the payment.” “I do understand that if a citizen were review of the video, referred the matter to to hear it, they would rightfully believe OPA [the Office of Police Accountability] I was being insensitive to the loss of a human for investigation into the context in which life,” he added. “I also understand that if those statements were made, and any I heard it, [it] could diminish the trust in the policy violation that may be implicated.” It seems Auderer only self-reported in Seattle Police Department and make all of our jobs more difficult. With that being said, August, eight months after the incident, and the comment was not made with malice or a after it had been discovered and reported to the OPA. hard heart. Quite the opposite.” According to Rantz, Auderer requested a Video shows laughter and jokes “rapid adjudication” by the OPA, though it has about the death decided to launch a full and lengthy investiFurthermore, in the video, Auderer gation instead of opting for a quick resolution. Auderer’s comments and Rantz’s report- seemed to address Kandula’s death with
a lack of concern, even before the alleged lawyer-related sarcasm. The video begins with Auderer saying, “I mean, he’s going 50. That’s not out of control. That’s not reckless for a trained driver.” This information was incorrect, as a later investigation showed Dave’s peak speed hit 74 mph and that he only slowed to 63 mph when he hit Kandula, who was in the middle of a crosswalk. Onlookers reported that Kandula attempted to run out of the way. According to official reports, had Dave been driving 50 mph, Kandula would have been able to run out of his way before the impact. “I don’t think she was thrown 40 feet, either,” Auderer continued. The investigation found this was correct: Dave’s Ford SUV threw Kandula 138 feet. After addressing what he believed had happened in the accident, Auderer continued, “But she is dead.” There was a momentary break in the conversation as Solan said something inaudible, which caused Auderer to break out in a full belly laugh before
Worth more than $11,000 Kandula was actually 23 years old. She had recently moved to Seattle to finish her education, planning to graduate from an MFA program in December and to financially support her mother, who remained back in Adoni, India. She was a daughter, a friend, and a scholar. Her life held limitless value, and was unfairly cut short due to the negligence of a department whose purpose is to protect community members like her. “The family has nothing to say,” her uncle, Ashok Mandula, told the Seattle Times. “Except I wonder if these men’s daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life.” The released body cam recording is just the latest in a series of scandals the Seattle Police Department has faced in recent years. Police were also recently under investigation for holding onto a mock tombstone for Damarius Butts, a Black man killed by them in 2017. The department had been under federal oversight through a consent decree since 2012, meant to address concerns about excessive force, community trust, and other issues. Most of that federal oversight ended this month. Previous incidents Auderer, employed with the SPD since 2011, has contributed significantly to the strained relationship between the department and the Seattle community. Before his hiring, he was recorded stopping several Mexican immigrants under false pretenses in one incident, and was later implicated in the beating of a mentally ill man, Brian Torgerson, who suffered significant brain damage. After joining the SPD, he was also accused of sexual harassment in 2014 by a woman he arrested. In 2015, he was recorded assaulting a homeless man in the Harborview emergency room. In 2016, he faced bias charges for using excessive force when arresting a Black woman; he was cleared of those through an investigation. He was also cleared the same year after punching another woman in the face. The Office of Police Accountability is continuing its investigation into the context of the statements in the video. Both Auderer and Dave are still on the Seattle Police Department roster. The latter makes $95,380 a year, according to the City of Seattle salary data, while the last reports of Auderer’s salary, from 2021, show he made $148,571.
Photos by Lindsey Wasson / AP
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responding, “No, it’s a regular person.” After another pause, Auderer laughed again, saying, “No, just write a check. $11,000. She was 26 anyway. She had limited value.”
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Photo courtesy of SBWU
STARBUCKS continued from cover
“Our theory is that if every customer who supports unionized Starbucks workers talks to 10 or 20 other customers, then we are building a powerful consumer network that Starbucks can’t ignore.” According to post-action reports by Starbucks Workers United (SBUW), the workers’ union, the plan succeeded brilliantly — with 1,700 customers at 592 stores and 11 colleges campuses in 47 states taking part. “Thank you all so much for joining the fight,” SBWU tweeted on September 15. “This is about more than just Starbucks — we’re fighting for fair workplaces together! Yesterday may have been our biggest day of action yet… but we’re just getting started. Stay tuned!” Some 331 Starbucks locations, with over 8,000 workers have unionized, but SBWU charges that the company is dragging its feet in contract negotiations. In many places, SBWU negotiating teams arrive for bargaining sessions, only to find that the employer’s team will walk out only minutes into the session and never reappear. In addition, the union charges that Starbucks continues to retaliate against union organizers and has even closed unionized stores — the popular Broadway and Denny store on Capitol Hill being one. According to SBWU, more stores join the union everyday — so many that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is having trouble keeping up with the demand for NLRB-supervised union elections. The newest union store in Seattle is the Seattle Center Starbucks, which voted 17-0 to unionize on September 15, the day after the National Day of Action. Seattle Starbucks workers also joined picket lines supporting Homegrown Sandwich workers, who have also unionized, organized by UNITE HERE Local 8, but are still fighting for a fair contract. Some 150 workers shut down six Homegrown locations in the greater Seattle area starting on September 14. According to their union, the workers are demanding job security and affordable health care plans. “I’m fighting for a contract that will allow me to stay in the company long-term, and I need to know that I can keep this job if the company is sold,” said Emily Minkus, who works at Homegrown’s Queen Anne location. Employers like Starbucks and Homegrown often try to deunionize their stores by drawing out contract negotiations in hopes that workers will get frustrated and look for other jobs, allowing the company to replace them with antiunion substitutes.
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Seattle Center Starbucks – Photo courtesy of SBWU Seattle
Photo courtesy of SBWU
Photo courtesy of SBWU Seattle
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Arts & Entertainment
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood indie game blends visual novel with custom tarot
by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer Whether or not one is skeptical about the fortune-telling power of tarot, there’s no denying that it’s a sticky concept. Unlike astrology, it’s not quite pervasive enough to show up in a good portion of online dating profiles, but if you’re in the LGBTQ community, the odds are pretty good that you know someone who owns a tarot deck. You may also know, then, that choosing a deck can be a deeply personal affair. While each one usually consists of the same 56 suit cards, plus the 22 “major arcana” used for divination — The Moon, The High Priestess, The Fool, and so on — the art on those cards distinguishes one deck from another. A furry might opt for animal symbolism, while a mycologist might prefer art with mushrooms.
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a game that plays beautifully to that personal decision about tarot art, by letting players have a hand in designing it themselves. It tells the story of Fortuna, a witch who, after centuries of exile, enlists the help of a demon to rebuild her fortune-telling deck and free herself from her cosmic prison. It comes during what could be called a renaissance of games in the “deckbuilder” genre, which is distinct from most collectible card games in that decks aren’t put together in advance; rather, players start with a few basic cards, and then gain more as the game progresses. These games rarely dwell on the symbolism of the cards themselves, however, even when they bother with a narrative deeper than “reach the final boss and defeat it.” The most enigmatic and famous deckbuilder so far is likely Inscryption, but even
its narrative is impersonal and fairly linear, and is better left unspoiled anyway. Building a deck Building your deck in Sisterhood is all about the symbolism. You create each card in your deck by choosing from a set of lurid backgrounds, and then adding a mystical figure and an esoteric accessory. For example, one might choose “The Opera House” background with a “Deer Knight” and “The Glass Trident.” From those components, you’re given the freedom to build a kind of collage, repositioning and resizing them, or adding little extras. And when you’re finished, the game interprets the card by mashing the stories of those components together into something new. You might have a ballpark idea of a card’s themes as you’re building it, but there’s a dizzying number of combinations —
Players should note that the game warns of “mature themes” like mental health, self-harm, suicide, gender dysphoria, and discrimination.
Images courtesy of Devolver Digital Deconstructeam
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enough that you won’t see them all during one playthrough. Those themes matter, because you’ll be using your deck to tell the fortunes of different visitors as the game’s plot progresses. It’s all very mysterious, as magic should be. A given card never has just one possible interpretation. You get to choose from at least three for each card drawn during a reading, and it’s implied that this choice holds real sway over a character’s fate. Fortuna’s readings have never been wrong. One might think it best, then, to interpret the cards as kindly as possible, but there’s a finger on the scales: each interpretation awards the player with a different type and amount of card-building resource. What’s one stranger’s mishap if you can add an especially portentous new card to the deck for next time? And what options will give you the upper hand in your situation? After all, Fortuna has enemies, if her exile didn’t make that clear from the start. The game’s atmosphere is peaceful and reflective, but it comes with an edge. Even as you spend much of your game time in a house floating in the void of space, listening to gentle ambient music and mulling over card designs, the cosmic, shrimp-tailed behemoth you summoned is a reminder of the forbidden pact you made with it — one that comes with an eventual sacrifice. If you’re into that, you’re in luck, because Abramar (that’s the behemoth) casually propositions Fortuna pretty early on. He also makes for a great tutorial, easing the player into the process of making cards as he seals each portion of the pact. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is more of a visual novel than a deck builder, so tacticians might prefer to look elsewhere. But the studio that made it, Desconstructeam, has been most consistently praised for the quality of its writing, which here may have found its most fitting form yet.
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Film
Elevator Game breaks down as it descends to a ruinous conclusion
by Sara Michelle Fetters SGN Staff Writer ELEVATOR GAME Shudder Becki (Megan Best), little sister of Ryan (Gino Anania), has gone missing. She was last seen playing the “elevator game,” a creepy urban legend that — if done correctly — is supposed to transport a person to a parallel dimension guarded by a malevolent spirit. Her brother, a recent high school graduate, infiltrates a close-knit group of friends who run a popular online video series in which they play spooky games and debunk crazy supernatural folktales. He believes they can help him find out what happened to her. Ryan convinces them to take a crack at the elevator game, including their de facto leader, the pompous and self-possessed Kris (Alec Carlos). But he never imagined what sort of merciless demon would be unleashed if the group broke the game’s rules or failed to play it to its conclusion. Now Ryan, Kris, researcher Chloe (Verity Marks), producer Izzy (Madison MacIsaac), cameraman Matty (Nazariy Demkowicz), and financier Kevin (Liam Stewart-Kanigan) are all in danger the same way Becki was when she played the game, and the opponent they’re up against won’t stop competing, even after they’ve stepped off of the elevator. I had high hopes for Elevator Game. I really dug director Rebekah McKendry’s freewheeling and loopy Lovecraftian, gross-out comedic horror yarn Glorious, and felt that her segment “Trick” from 2015’s Tales of Halloween was one of the anthology’s highlights. While I wasn’t familiar with the viral urban legend the plot was built around, I did think it had enough beguilingly sinister undertones to get me
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intrigued as to what the filmmakers were going to make out of it. As talented as McKendry is, the screenplay — written by her husband (and frequent collaborator) David Ian McKendry and relative newcomer Travis Seppala — leaves a great deal to be desired. But as rudimentary and strangely uninspired as the pair’s scenario ends up, the director does still man-
age to get a great deal of mileage out of it all the same. The prologue is suitably chilling, while the central set piece involving Kris, Chloe, and Kevin filming themselves as they attempt to play the game is malevolently playful in all the right ways. But things get progressively less interesting. With ticking-clock precision, the cast begins to get whittled down one after
Elevator Game – Photos courtesy of Shudder
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the other, pretty much in the exact order I’d anticipated. While the entity responsible for the carnage is bewitching, there’s honestly not much in the way of rhyme or reason in how it’s going to attack and what the full extent of its powers are. Sometimes it can appear to be omnipotent. At others, running away in the opposite direction is all that’s required to make it to the next scene alive. Honestly, even if none of this feels especially original or innovative, it’s still enough to moderately entertain. Once Anania and Marks team up to put an end to the madness, I was mostly willing to go along for the ride. The characters have a spunky chemistry that’s appealing, and as slight as everything was, I liked both of their characters just enough that I did become invested in seeing whether they were going to make it out of this paranormal activity alive. I was also taken with McKendry’s visual compositions, not the least of which is the ethereal “red floor” one of the characters ends up visiting when they play the game to its conclusion by correctly following the rules. It’s spooky stuff, overflowing in eerie idiosyncrasies and sinister possibilities I wish the film had spent more time exploring. Still, it’s good stuff, and throughout this sequence, the director is undeniably at her best. Pity it doesn’t matter. The final moments of Elevator Game are a disaster. Not only are they rushed, but they also feel like a colossal cheat. It’s shock for the sake of shock. It’s unearned misdirection. It’s a stupefying turn of events that inadvertently transforms the thriller into a mystifying bad joke played on an unexpecting audience. This ending made me so angry, I wanted to throw something at the screen, and considering how inoffensively harmless the majority of this horror outing is, I can’t say I saw that coming. What a waste of time.
C E L E B R AT I N G 4 9 Y E A R S!
Fun Dumb Money a satirical yelp of crowd-pleasing social commentary
by Sara Michelle Fetters SGN Staff Writer DUMB MONEY Theaters Dumb Money is a satirical yelp of social commentary chronicling the GameStop short squeeze of 2021. It primarily follows real-life YouTuber Keith Gill (a superb Paul Dano), aka “Roaring Kitty,” as he shouts into the social media void his confident belief that the floundering gaming company’s stock price was severely undervalued. This puts him at odds with multibillion-dollar hedge fund managers, including Melvin Capital founder Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), all of whom think Gill and his followers are insane — and about to lose their proverbial shirts — for betting against them. It’s a ripped-from-the-headlines story, and it’s so unabashedly absurd, it obviously has
to be true. Director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya, Cruella) and writers Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo (adapting Ben Mezrich’s book The Antisocial Network) keep things bouncy and light, playing up the “little guys” who took on the Wall Street “fat cats” more than they attempt to make any broader observations about the uneven playing field all of the participants are competing upon. This makes for a fun time at the movie theater, but not an especially edifying one. Thankfully, the humor is strong enough for the lack of depth to not matter nearly as much as it otherwise would. Dano is wonderful as Gill, and the supporting cast is filled with crackerjack character actors, all of whom deliver the emotional and comedic goods. The film also boasts a superb ending, one that is as quietly understated as it is cathartically effective, and it’s no wonder my packed preview audience burst into applause.
The best thing the film does is keep its focus on Gill, specifically his relationships with his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley), his parents Steve (Clancy Brown) and Elaine (Kate Burton), and his nincompoop brother Kevin (Pete Davidson). The naturalism of their interactions is frequently wonderful. They’ve felt the pandemic’s pain, and they’re all doing the best they can to get through it in their own ways. But they’re also determined to do it together, and this comforting dynamic full of empathy, pain, compassion, understanding, and most of all love tugged at my heartstrings something fierce. What does not work quite as well are the examinations of the hedge fund players. Rogen has a couple of nice scenes with Olivia Thirlby (playing Gabe’s icily intelligent wife Yaara), but otherwise he wanders through things with a look of intense befuddlement that’s coupled with a physical deportment
Dumb Money – Photos courtesy of Columbia Pictures
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akin to a constant state of scratchy constipation. The film also doesn’t really know what to do with his character, either, and this uncertainty unavoidably bleeds into Rogen’s overall performance. But that’s better than how Nick Offerman or Vincent D’Onofrio are handled. The latter makes the most positive impression, but that’s only because he’s clearly having a blast cutting loose as his character (fellow billionaire Steve Cohen, who helps bail out Gabe when he’s at his lowest) exuberantly cheers Gill on from the sidelines. This is because Cohen doesn’t have as much skin in the game against this David as most of his fellow Goliaths do, so his joy in seeing his brethren being taken to the cleaners only exists because he has so much less to lose. Offerman’s character, rich Wall Street fat cat Ken Griffin, who makes Gordon Gekko look like the little green lizard his name reminds one of, is undeniably supposed to be the story’s true villain, but I didn’t know any more about him or how he operated after it all ended as I did when he was introduced. I only know he’s awful because even his fellow hedge fund operators continually state how much they hate him, and while Offerman exudes just the right aura of detached superiority, I still wish Gillespie and his creative team would have given him more to work with. The remaining members of the ensemble include the likes of America Ferrera, Anthony Ramos, Talia Ryder, Dane DeHaan, Sebastian Stan, Rushi Kota, and Myha’la, and all get at least one moment to shine. Ferrera, Ramos, Ryder, and Myha’la get the most to do, and I pretty much loved them all, but Stan — playing Robinhood investment app cofounder Vlad Tenev — has a bit where he fails miserably to bluff his way through a television interview, and it’s so painfully amusing that my side began to hurt from laughing so hard. Ultimately, I keep coming back to Dano. There’s something about what he’s doing that fascinated me. He makes Gill leap off the screen, and even when the film refuses to fully eviscerate the billionaire elitists and the systems that allow them to exist with few (if any) constraints as it’s apparent it would like to, the actor’s spellbindingly minimalist performance kept my eyes glued to the screen. Dumb Money is Gill’s Campbell-esque hero’s journey, and thanks to Dano, it’s one I’m very glad I went on.
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Books
The Girls in 3B: Little Women, Big City, Bad Time by Clar Hart SGN Contributing Writer THE GIRLS IN 3B VALERIA TAYLOR © 2003 The Feminist Press © 1959 Valerie Tayloe $13.95 206 pages Content warning: Sexual assault, pedophilia, incest, domestic violence Sometimes the stories with “happy” endings are the saddest of all. To summarize, three women from the sticks — Pat, Annice, and must-be-protected-at-all-costs Barby — go to Chicago to try to make their way. Pat works an office job, while Annice gets involved in the local beat scene and strives to be a poet. They struggle under the weight of an internalized patriarchy they don’t realize they’re carrying, i.e., they’re total pickme girls. Pat talks about the older single women in her office enjoying each other’s company with repulsion, unable to imagine that women without men could be happy. Annice detests the “ugly” girls in the beat movement, while lauding how attractive and intellectual the men’s ugliness is. After narrowly surviving predatory men, they find nice boys their parents would approve of and move back to the suburbs to start the family life they initially despised. Both had ambitions for independence and lives different than the ones their mothers lived, but, when faced with a world that sees them as consumables, they have fled back to what they originally thought of as stagnancy, seeing it now as stability. These characters’ happy endings are happy according to their own expectations, but damn if they aren’t tragic by mine. Barby, the last roommate, is the sweet cinnamon roll of the group. She was sexually assaulted at 13 by her father’s friend. She was unable to go to her mother, who had told her that to be assaulted is to be ruined. The only one who knows is her father, who has his own incestuous feelings toward her — unacted upon but tangible in every interaction. She’s trapped by the norms of the nuclear family and suburban life. She struggles with debilitating migraines and feelings of worthlessness and inner rot. When she gets to the city, she revels in the anonymity. In her invisibility, she’s safe. At work, Barby meets a beautiful older woman, Ilene, who takes her out to lunches and eventually leaves a Gay romance novel at her workstation. Barby, curious and eager, devours it. In one telling scene, Barby reads this book on a davenport — a symbol previously of suburban rot, her assault, and her father’s harassment — and, for the first time, she relaxes. The book ushers her into a world beyond the one she’s known, into one where she can finally belong and feel secure, something she had never thought was possible for her. A covert Gay novel slipped into her things by a mysterious older woman? If only every Queer landing could be so soft. Crucial to their relationship is that Ilene tells Barby she doesn’t have to speak about her past. To love and be loved is a baptism of sorts, where what Barby thinks is rotten about herself is cleansed. The Girls in 3B is notable for being the
Courtesy photo
first book in which a Queer gets a happy ending. Arguably, the only happy ending. Barby and Ilene’s relationship is the only one not saturated with deceit. Ilene is the only one to ask for consent. She alone acknowledges their difficulties and gives information that allows her partner to discover herself and make an informed decision. Barby, in turn, is honest about her attraction and expresses it. None of this is allowed in straight 1950s relationships. Pat’s fiancé, against Pat’s firm refusal, still attempts to have sex with her — and Pat says that, if he hadn’t,
she wouldn’t have felt desired. Pat’s husband also doesn’t know what it’s like to be desired by a woman or to feel attractive; since women of the time aren’t allowed to express desire, all he’s learned is to push. Beyond deceit, there’s overt violence. Annice’s husband tells her that he’ll beat her if she cheats, and Annice tells him that she wouldn’t respect him if he wasn’t willing to beat a woman. Internalized patriarchy’s a bitch. They all find themselves safely ensconced in a home and with a partner by the end. Each of these happy endings
is a refuge from an unwelcoming world, but that safety hinges on their isolation. None of them have friends or significant relationships outside of their partner. All of them go into their partnerships as a form of escape from something worse. The only option for women of this era in their circumstances was the abyss of domesticity and the prison of home. In the end, I can only give these characters the same response I give when yet another straight friend announces their engagement to a milquetoast man: a pained grin and an “I’m happy you’re happy.”
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Mac Crane explores shame and punishment in debut speculative novel
Mac Crane – Photo courtesy of the author
by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff Writer Author Mac Crane started the journey toward their debut published novel over ten years ago. In 2013, though, Crane was a very different writer. They focused on poetry, which is where they got their first seed of inspiration for the novel, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself. “I was struggling with a lot of shame,” Crane admitted. “I was fresh out of college, having trouble romantically, unsure of my footing in the world, and telling myself all these negative stories of who I am. I wrote this poem that said, ‘If the shadows of everyone you’d wronged followed you around, would you still be so callous with people’s hearts?’” The image of haunting shadows resonated with Crane for years, even as their reflection on the poem changed. “It was something I thought would be helpful, but in retrospect, shaming yourself is not helpful. That visual stuck with me, that idea of literal shadows following you.” Five years later, they were still thinking about that eerie line of poetry. “In 2018, the first line of the novel popped into my head — just ‘The kid is born with two shadows’ — and I had no idea what that was,” they said with a laugh. “I come up with so many first lines, and usually they just fall out of my head. This one was sticky. I was just like, what could that be? Why would somebody have two shadows? What kind of world is this?” Eventually, the world revealed itself to Crane: a dystopian place where transgressors are punished by carrying additional shadows for every person they’d wronged. At the center is Kris, a woman grappling with grief as she takes on the sole parental role of raising the child whose birth left her a widow.
Image courtesy of Catapult
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Continuing to live in their created world Crane originally wrote Exoskeletons as a short story. “It was a 5,000-word story, but
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I wasn’t done with it. I finished and submitted it to a few journals, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to spend more time with these characters, deep in this world,” they said. They got the chance to spend more time in their created world later that year, after losing their job. “It was the first time I was unemployed in my adult life, and I thought, ‘This is the time I gotta do it. I gotta write this novel,’” they said. Crane treated the novel like a full-time job, writing six hours every day. “I wrote it very fast, and that’s not something I prefer to do now, but I felt this ticking clock. I wrote it in three months. I just went for it, because I knew I’d never get this time again.” Their process slowed down after they signed with an agent. After the grunt work, Crane recalled there being a lot of waiting. In January 2023, ten years after their first hint of inspiration came in a poem, Crane was a published author with books on the shelf. A lot has changed for Crane since they first started writing Exoskeletons. For one thing, they’ve now become a parent. “A lot of the book was me processing and working out some real-life things,” they recalled. “When we started drafting this, we didn’t have a kid, but we had just started the early stages of family planning. Some of Kris’s journey was top of mind for me at the time: anxieties about parenting, am I going to be a good parent, what will this be like?” Now the parent of a toddler, Crane admits they wouldn’t change much in how they interpreted the central parent-child relationship in the novel. “The only thing I could do was sharpen those beginning details, like ‘Oh, now I understand what blowouts are,’’ they said with a laugh. “I had more of a visceral experience of parenting a newborn, but there’s not much real parenting. It’s all just an imagined future and imagined problems.”
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Books
Fair Play an even-keeled look at the contentious topic of gender and sports
Image courtesy of St Martin’s Press
Katie Barnes – Photo courtesy of the author
How did sports “become a flash point for a broader conversation”? Author Katie Barnes takes readers back first to 1967, when Kathrine Switzer and Bobbi Gibb both ran in the Boston Marathon. It was the first time women had the audacity to do so, and while both finished the race, their efforts didn’t sit well with the men who made the rules. Then “thirty-seven words” changed the country in 1972: Title IX was signed, which prohibited discrimination in extracurricular events, as long as “federal financial assistance” was involved. It guaranteed access to sports for millions of girls in schools and colleges. It also “enshrine[d] protections for queer and transgender youth to access school sports.” So why the debate about competition
across gender lines? First, says Barnes, we can’t change biology, or human bodies that contain both testosterone and estrogen, or that some athletes naturally have more of one or the other — all of which factor into the debate. We shouldn’t forget that women can and do compete with men in some sports, and they sometimes win. We shouldn’t allow overinflated numbers of Trans athletes to stand, and we shouldn’t ignore the presence of Transgender men in sports. What we should do, Barnes says, is to “write a new story. One that works better.” Here are two facts: Nobody likes change. And everybody has an opinion. Keep those two statements in mind when you read Fair Play. They’ll keep you calm in this debate, as will Barnes’ lack of flame-fanning.
As a sports fan, an athlete, and someone who’s binary, Barnes is relatively evenkeeled in this book, which is a breath of fresh air for a topic that’s generally ferociously contentious. There’s a good balance of science and social commentary here, and the many, many stories that Barnes shares are entertaining and informative, as well as illustrative. Readers will come away with a good understanding of where the debate lies. But will this book make a difference? Maybe. Much will depend on who reads and absorbs it. Barnes offers plenty to ponder but alas, you can lead a homophobic horse to water but you can’t make it think. Still, if you’ve got skin in this particular bunch of games, find Fair Play and jump on it.
there are other routes toward change and real growth. Even the idea that there’s bad and good people — I want to soften people toward this idea that we all do fucked-up things, and it’s not about not doing them or not punishing people for them. It’s about finding ways to heal. Shame is not conducive to healing. Punishment is never going to help people heal. It’s cruel and violent.” The book focuses on several abstract concepts, from queerness and shame to resilience found in grief. It’s a haunting look at how surveillance often does more harm than good. However, in the end, the book is about hope. “The kid provides a nice foil for Kris as well, because the kid doesn’t take any shit,” Crane said. “She is so stubborn herself and from a very young age has all these ideas of who she is and what treatment she will take and what she isn’t going to take. Kris can see that spirit in the kid. That’s helpful for her in dealing with the shame.
There’s another option, there’s someone who doesn’t let the system shame her.”
Holding up a mirror to soceity While Crane admitted they didn’t think they’d be very good at world-building when writing early drafts of their novel, they found that creating a dystopian world is a great way to say something about real life. “Dystopian books have always resonated with me: the way there’s always this beautiful distance. I’ve created a world that’s different from our own, but because it’s just different enough, I’ve created this distance that holds up this mirror and shows what our world is like,” they said. “It feels a little bit alien, but without that, I don’t think you could connect with readers as much,” Crane continued. “A lot of readers are distant to problems in our world. If I wrote a book that was just like, ‘Our country is racist and sexist, homopho-
bic, and transphobic,’ I think a lot of people would be like, ‘OK, great.’ “If you can create that distance where it’s just different enough, [where] it’s not possible, I feel like it just gives people that window in, where they’re like, ‘Oh that’s eerily familiar.’ It lets them have that discovery on their own instead of just shoving it down people’s throats.” Crane hopes the book can function like a mirror to society and leave readers questioning how modern governments abuse power with punishment. “I want people to examine their relationship to shame and punishment, both internally — how we shame ourselves — and systematically, how we shame other people and police their behavior,” they said. “We live in a society so obsessed with punishment and quick to punish. When someone does something wrong, even a toddler, we put them in the corner. Then there’s incarceration. “I want people to sit with this idea that
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by Terri Schlichenmeyer Special to the SGN FAIR PLAY: HOW SPORTS SHAPE THE GENDER DEBATES KATIE BARNES © 2023 St. Martin’s Press $29.00 304 pages For sports fans, this may come as a surprise: we categorize sports according to gender. Football, baseball, wresting: male sports. Gymnastics, volleyball: women’s sports. And yet, one weekend spent cruising broadcasts, and you will see that all those are enjoyed by both men and women — but we question the sexuality of athletes who dare (gasp!) to cross those invisible lines for a sport they love.
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What will they do next? Crane’s fans hopefully won’t have to wait ten years for the next novel. They’re already working on a second book, although it has a different tone than the first. “I’m working on a Queer basketball novel,” they said. “I know that sounds like a weird book after this one, but I played basketball my whole life. It’s about the desire and the eroticism of playing a sport with another person. The sexiness of collaborating with someone really good at something you’re also really good at and you love.” Crane plans to continue writing LGBTQ+ literature. “I don’t even write straight stuff at all,” they said. I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is available in stores now.
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Op-Ed
My post-Roe sterilization is a form of resistance
Image by Daniel Crane
by Kali Herbst Minino SGN Intern A family member told me I had nothing to worry about, a week before Roe v. Wade was overturned. He and I both knew that the Supreme Court had a conservative majority, but it was so unbelievable that it would overturn a right that had been in place for decades. I was born years after both Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. There had never been a time in my life where I worried about whether or not I’d be able to secure an abortion, so it felt unworldly when I interviewed protesters who told me they’d heard the same reassurances. A right that’s been around for almost 50 years doesn’t usually disappear, so there was a state of collective denial about the possibility. In my second year of college, I was happily using an IUD. Permanent sterilization wasn’t on my radar, because my IUD worked, it was less invasive than a surgery (which is also expensive), and birth control would always be an option. So if my right to abortion in every state had been upheld, I would have never considered getting my fallopian tubes removed. However, there were a lot of practical reasons I decided to look into sterilization. I never wanted children. I wanted the ability to move to any state to pursue journalism. And a world without birth control side effects sounded blissful.
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There were less practical reasons, too, and there was a lot going on outside of abortion rights to be angry about. While the pandemic was on the decline, shootings were becoming common again. The New York Times published an article about the housing crisis in the small town I grew up in, and a few months after realizing I’m Trans, bills against gender-affirming care started to circulate nationwide. Besides voting, there was so little I could do about any of it. Getting sterilized felt like a little victory, a personal resistance — against both the people who had taken away my rights in the first place and every awful thing happening around me. Once I started the process, there was more to resist. The first doctor I approached about the procedure was aware that I’m Nonbinary, because I had started the process to find a top surgeon a couple months prior. To be sterilized, I was told, I’d have to get a WPATH letter, which is a requirement for gender-affirming care like top surgery. But the surgery I wanted had nothing to do with my gender: I wanted permanent birth control. I wasn’t treated as Nonbinary in health settings prior to this interaction, however. I had gone to urgent care and had to give both names for them to be able to pull up my record, my name and pronouns were often fumbled, and I would sometimes receive letters in the mail that laughably combined
Getting sterilized felt like a little victory, a personal resistance — against both the people who had taken away my rights in the first place and every awful thing happening around me. my two names into something illegible. I was only Trans when it prevented me from bodily autonomy, and an institution that had so badly wanted to treat me as cis added barriers to treatment readily available to my cis counterparts. The interaction only invigorated my decision, and I looked for another provider. The second provider did not require a WPATH letter. The number of people against my decision was surprising. I was told that at 21, I was too young to responsibly make that decision and that the emotional consequences would be dire if I regretted it. One of the most common questions was “Why not just use birth control?”
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It’s a fair question, especially in Washington, where I could have an abortion if I wanted one. Well, Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the decision overturning Roe suggested that same-sex relationships, marriage, and contraception could be reconsidered in the future. Suddenly, articles detailing worry from advocates and health professionals sprung up in the New York Times and on NPR. Birth control suddenly going away seems so unlikely — but so did Roe v. Wade being overturned. I can’t help but think of the state of collective denial we were in, and take comfort knowing I truly won’t have to worry about my right disappearing.
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National News
National news highlights
Michigan: Mural by Evelyn Gonzalez – Photo courtesy of Chandler Morris
by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff Writer Michigan school board to paint over Trans-inclusive student mural A school board in Grant, Michigan, has ruled that a student mural must be painted over by the end of October. The mural caused controversy for depicting LGBTQ+ imagery, including a child wearing the Trans flag on their shirt and two others with the Bisexual flags on theirs. The artwork was created by Evelyn Gonzales, who won a student art contest to create a mural for the health center. While angry members of the community may have gotten their way by securing a deal to cover up the mural, the school’s superintendent said they are proud of Gonzales, and a GoFundMe campaign has since been set up to cover her future college expenses.
Bisexual Awareness Week This week, America celebrated Bisexual Awareness Week. The annual recognition of the “B” in LGBTQ+ was first started by GLAAD and BiNet USA. The week aims to educate Americans on the unique struggles and experiences of the Biseuxal members of the community, who account for over half of all Americans who identify as LGBTQ+. Book bans continue to soar Book bans have reached a historic high in the United States as of Wednesday, September 20. A new report from the American Library Association revealed that between January 1 and August 31, 2023, there were 695 attempts to censor library materials and services nationwide. This is a 20% increase from the same time last year. The study also showed that 1,915
unique titles have been challenged and/or banned in 2023. Among them, books written by and about BIPOC and LGBTQ+ topics are the most challenged. Census prepares to add more questions about LGBTQ+ identities On Tuesday, September 19, the Census Bureau requested permission from the Biden administration to test new questions about gender and sexual orientation for participants 15 and older on its comprehensive American Community Survey, which collects data from 3.5 million households annually. Currently, the US Census only asks about married or cohabiting same-sex couples. Texas teacher fired for Anne Frank A Texas teacher was removed from an eighth-grade classroom for attempting
to teach The Diary of Anne Frank using a graphic novel, which reportedly contained content about genitalia and attraction to women, and images of nude statues. The teacher was sent home on September 13, and has since been fired. Kansas no longer allows adults to change gender identity on birth certificates The state health department of Kansas announced on Friday, September 15, that it will no longer allow Transgender people to change their gender identity on their birth certificates. The decision came after the state passed a new law on July 1, which defines male and female based only on the sex assigned to a person at birth. The state’s Republican attorney general, Kris Kobach, filed court documents earlier this year formally requesting the state to make changes to reflect the new law. Tennessee elects first Trans lawmaker Tennessee elected its first Transgender lawmaker on Thursday, September 14. Olivia Hill secured 12% of the vote to score a seat on Nashville’s Metro Council. Hill has an impressive résumé, having served as an engineer in the Navy for ten years, worked as an engineer at Vanderbilt University, and served on the board of directors for the Tennessee Pride Chamber. She was also one of the grand marshals in the 2023 Nashville Pride Parade.
Tennessee: Olivia Hill – Photo courtesy of LGBTQ+ Victory Fund
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Kim Davis to pay $100,000 for discrimination against Gay couple David Ermold and David Moore, a Kentucky couple who made headlines in 2015 when they were denied a marriage license by a county clerk, have now been awarded $100,000 by a federal jury who oversaw their discrimination case. Kim Davis, the former county clerk, must pay each man $50,000. Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples due to her religious beliefs. Her attorney argues that the ruling was unconstitutional and plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.
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Grindr union files unfair labor practice complaint against employer
Photo by Jonathan Brady / AP
by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Grindr, the popular LGBTQ hookup app, is now facing unfair labor practice charges filed by the newly organized labor union representing its 200 employees. The union, Grindr United, announced its existence on July 20. On August 3, their employer told workers in the US that they must begin to report for in-office work. US-based workers would be expected work at least two days a week from a hub in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Chicago, New York, or Washington, DC, the company said, or leave and take 2–6 months of severance pay. Workers had two weeks to decide. According to the union, 80 quit. Wired magazine reported that the return-to-office ultimatum pushed out eight openly Trans employees. Many had been hired by Grindr during the COVID pandemic and lived far from those brick-and-mortar offices, meaning they would have had to relocate to comply with the employer’s demands. Because of Grindr’s customer base, the company has been a haven for LGBTQ workers in the tech industry. The union has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, charging that Grindr’s policy was retaliation for union organizing, and that the firm’s severance packages illegally silence workers. “It is unimaginably disappointing that dozens of our colleagues have had to leave their jobs because Grindr management did not want to sit down with workers and respect our right to organize,” Erick Cortez, an organizing member of Grindr United, said in a statement. The Communication Workers of America (CWA), the parent union of Grindr United, called the policy “retaliatory and union-busting” and said that the 80 workers who quit “were forced to resign.”
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Grindr CEO George Arison – Photo by Web Summit / Flickr
A Grindr spokesperson said the charges have “no merit.” Grindr CEO George Arison wrote that “virtually all the leading technology companies” are opting for hybrid in- and out-of-office work, and Grindr is “following their learnings.” Nevertheless, the in-office work order
was a reversal of Grindr policy. In a March SEC filing, the company praised its remote team. “Our workforce is currently remotefirst,” the document says. “This allows us to find the right talent to serve our users, regardless of location.” Grindr recently returned to US owner-
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ship after four years as a subsidiary of Chinese gaming giant Kunlun. When the US government labeled the foreign ownership arrangement a “national security threat,” Kunlun sold Grindr to San Vicente Acquisitions LLC for $608.5 million.
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National/ International News
International news highlights
Photo by Eduardo Verdugo / AP
by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff Writer Mexico unveils new mausoleum for Trans women A mausoleum for Transgender women was dedicated in Mexico City, Mexico, on Thursday, September 14. The burial site was built in Iztapalapa and is the first mausoleum in the country reserved solely for Trans women. Many late Trans activists will be moved to the new location in the coming weeks. The first is Paola Buenrostro; 12 others will soon join her. The location has 149 open spaces. Mexico is currently the second deadliest country in the world for Trans women, with at least 25 murdered this year alone.
Nigeria releases people arrested for ties to a Gay wedding On Tuesday, September 19, a court in Nigeria released 69 people after they were arrested in August for ties to an illegal Gay wedding. Each faced a $645 bail. They did not receive a court hearing and are expected to return to register at the courthouse in Warri once a month until their hearing. Nigerian law bans Gay marriage and sex, and participation in LGBTQ+ groups. Breaking the law can lead to 14 years in prison.
Spanish soccer officials resign amid sexual assault scandal Between six and nine Spanish soccer officials are expected to leave their positions with the Spanish Football Federation in the coming weeks. If they do not go willingly, they will be fired. This exodus comes after international controversy following the Spanish women’s soccer team’s first World Cup victory. In the celebratory aftermath of the game, coach Luis Rubiales forcibly kissed midfielder Jenni Hermoso on the lips.
The sexual harassment seen globally opened the door to conversations about mistreatment of women on the team. Last week, multiple players signed a statement refusing to continue playing for the national team. They noted that people who “incited, hid, or applauded attitudes that go against women’s dignity” have continued to remain employed by the federation. Rubiales officially resigned from his position as coach on September 10.
Disney vows to avoid politics and social issues Global media conglomerate Disney announced it will “quiet the noise” in a growing culture war that has pitted the company against conservatives worldwide. On Tuesday, September 19, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that the company will also invest $60 billion in growing its parks and cruise attractions. Iger continued to press that Disney’s goal is to entertain, and moving forward, its media will not be “agenda-driven.” Biden meets with Brazilian president to discuss workers rights On Wednesday, September 20, President Biden met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The two launched a new initiative to advance the rights of working people in both countries. Both highlighted the importance of decent jobs, good wages, and ensuring that workers benefit from digital and green-energy transitions currently underway. The new labor initiative is expected to end forced labor and child labor, mitigate workplace stress, and end workplace discrimination against women, BIPOC people, and LGBTQ+ people.
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Photo by Temilade Adelaja / Reuters
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Episode 79: Aidan Key The SGN’s annual Travel Issue is out! Hear about the adventures of SGN staff to the far corners of the world, like South Korea, California, and Portland. Our co-hosts Benny and Lindsey are also joined by the paper's talented "social media god" Cameron Martinez for the first installment of a fun new segment. Lindsey interviews author and educator Aidan Key about his upcoming book Trans Children in Today s Schools. Learn more at: https://www.genderdiversity.org
NEW EPISODES WEEKLY! FIND US WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO PODCASTS!
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