Alex L Combs and Andrew Eakett Interview - Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day

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[00:01:29] Head to 2000AD.com and click on subscribe now or download the 2000AD app and why wait? Start reading today. I'll put links in the show notes for you. Now in year three of my Pride Month feature coverage on the Cryptid Creator Corner, I'm more excited than ever. I've been about shining this light on the diversity of projects from the queer community and focusing on queer characters and getting to chat with the creators of those projects has been a real joy.

[00:01:56] For myself, Pride this year feels like more of a somber affair as the current administration seeks not only to suppress the struggle of the queer community, but also to attempt to eliminate their history and in the most extreme cases, invalidating certain people's right to even exist. But instead of letting that get us down, let's flip the script. So it is my pleasure to introduce creators Alex Combs and Andrew Eckett on the show with me.

[00:02:21] They have an engaging new graphic novel out now called Trans History from Ancient Times to the Present Day. I read through the review copy that publisher Candlewick Press sent over and it gave me a little glimmer of hope, I've got to say. So Alex and Andrew, thank you for coming on and joining with me today. Absolutely. Thanks for having us. This is Alex Combs. Thank you so much. This is Andrew. Well, when I think of Pride, it sets off a cascade of memories of very different experiences down the years.

[00:02:49] There's everything from my first Pride experience in San Francisco and the intensity and kind of overwhelming nature of just everything that was going on. It's amazing, but like there was a lot to being in Colorado Springs on the polar kind of opposite end of things and seeing the police have to remove protesters who were dressed in full on like Franciscan monk robes carrying a full size 12 foot cross.

[00:03:13] That was pretty amazing to attending drag show hour in drag show with the kids where they were doing reading in Seattle with my son when he was bitty bitty. So it's hard to imagine one thing that has presented itself in terms of personal memory in so many varied ways. And that's from the perspective of the cis straight white guy. What does Pride Month mean to you both? Shall I go first? Yeah, I can go first, Alex. Okay, cool.

[00:03:38] Even though I came out when I was in high school as a lesbian, I didn't still fully understand Pride Month. We didn't have it in my hometown. We didn't have any parades at that time. And I had some liberal family, but they weren't really interested in gay right.

[00:04:01] And I had a lot of conservative family, so I didn't really get it either in a way. But now that I've studied history, I absolutely understand the importance of having some pride month or pride day. Some time that we explicitly recognize these groups of communities that have struggled so much, right?

[00:04:29] So they've faced a lot of hardship and they've faced a lot of repression from the government. They've faced a lot of violence. So from that context, it makes a lot more sense that these communities need to have a time where they can experience joy and also to bring to light some of the negative things that have happened so that we can educate so we hopefully don't repeat that history. Andrew?

[00:04:59] Yeah. There wasn't a pride month for a long time growing up for me. I think it started in like 1999. It was when instead of just being, there were pride parades in different cities. It became, yeah, pride month. Growing up, it meant pride meant, yeah, like a parade in big cities having parades with queer people in it.

[00:05:24] And I also have memories of San Francisco pride, my first pride that I actually went to in the early 2000s, I guess. And yeah, it being just very big and overwhelming and really exciting.

[00:05:40] I think the sense of so many LGBTQIA plus people in one place at one time just being together, it was very, it felt revolutionary. It felt like, it felt like, it felt like welcoming in a way. Even though I didn't feel like they were all my people or anything. Sure.

[00:06:09] It was a sort of cool to see so many beautiful people celebrating and enjoying being queer and enjoying being together. And as I got older and learned more about history, I started to understand the rebellious nature. You know, like why it's not just a celebration. It's also a protest. I feel like it can be all these things, even to the same person. That can be something that's really happy and celebratory.

[00:06:39] It can be something that's somber if you're learning about dark history. It can be something that gives you hope as you learn about happy, joyful history. It can be just a time just to be together. And now, depending on, as politics wax and wane in favor of queer rights, sometimes it's just a time to see rainbow stuff in public.

[00:07:08] Which can be, it can be performative, but it's a nice performance. It's one that I've appreciated. So, yeah. Pride. Pride Month. I'm glad that there's a whole month for it now. And that it's not just some parties and parades scattered across the country. Yeah, I guess it was probably around 2002 when I was in San Francisco for my first Pride Month.

[00:07:35] And I very much did get that perspective of unity and celebration. And I'm coming from the perspective of that, at that time, of having no basis. I grew up in a very conservative Southern Christian family for the struggle of it. And, you know, I had heard a lot about, I was in comic shop and in the 90s and we had, you know, queer owners.

[00:08:01] And that was really my first experience getting to see and expose to some of that struggle. And that era, it was more of the AIDS crisis that the community was going through. And so that was really eye-opening and special. And I was glad to be welcomed as somebody who wasn't part of the community into a celebration like that.

[00:08:24] And just people being able to express themselves authentically was very foundational to me and opening as a young person to just be comfortable in my own skin and to be able to explore who I was. So it allowed me to be more free with the most authentic version of myself just by virtue of being there and seeing so many other people who are doing that. And that's, I think why I think this project is particularly important.

[00:08:53] As I understand it, you've been working on it for like a decade. Is that true? No, not exactly. It's just been five years that we've been working actively on the project. But we always studied feminist history and gender studies ever since we were in college over a decade ago. Okay. Yeah, I know for myself, I guess 2016 was that big turning point.

[00:09:21] The election, I decided I had to get off my ass. And I thought, I did, I did a whole bunch of things in response to it. But I thought surely after four years of that experience, we were all past it. But turning the page in 2025, in a lot of ways, it's seeming to feel worse to me. And now the book and trans culture kind of sits in the crosshairs of America's culture wars in a way I don't personally think I've ever seen it before.

[00:09:50] So first, as the cis straight white guy in the room, thank you both for having the courage to put this out into the world. And hopefully it gets in the hands of a lot of people, a lot of young people especially, and helps them see a path forward. So thank you. You know, I've heard a lot of other like straight people or cis people say similar things to you, which is that being in proximity to groups of queer people makes them feel a little bit more free.

[00:10:20] And I think that's really cool and something that doesn't get talked about enough. Because like, maybe this book will hopefully, you know, get in the hands of trans and queer people to help them, you know, feel better and understand, you know, our history. But also for non-queer people or people who identify as cis or straight. But hopefully, you know, I feel like it's for everyone.

[00:10:48] And hopefully other people are going to have that experience just like what you had. Hopefully so. What was the catalyst for kicking this thing off from the beginning anyway? So I knew I wanted to do something with history while I was getting my master's degree in comic. But I wasn't sure what exactly. I've been kicking around some ideas for various LGBTQIA plus topics, comics.

[00:11:17] But as soon as pretty much like right when I graduated, Andrew and I went to the GLBT History Archives, which are here in San Francisco. And they're political archives that you can make an appointment and go visit. And they actually have their all of the diaries of a gay trans activist named Lou Sullivan, who lived here in San Francisco in the 1990s or 80s.

[00:11:44] And he kept the diary ever since he was a little kid, like consistently. And then he donated all of his diaries to this archive, which I think he helped found. And you can actually read his diaries in a collection now that's been published since then. But at the time, there was no published version of it. And we made a little zine. So just a little zine comic that was like two or three pages long talking about Lou Sullivan.

[00:12:15] And it was really fun. The whole process was so energizing. I took the zine to zine fest and was just like giving them out to people because we were just so excited about it. And after that, we were just like, we want to keep going with this. We want to keep researching trans history. Yeah. What was it challenging to find all the information you felt like that you needed? So it was easier than I thought it would be.

[00:12:43] We ended up using a lot of online materials and the library. Basically, we couldn't go to archives in person like we thought we were going to because of COVID. But it turns out that through places like the San Francisco Public Library, they have access to a lot of academic journals like JSTOR, which I use a lot.

[00:13:11] And that in combination with archive.org, the Internet Archives, where you can find a lot of online. It's an online library where you can check out books digitally. Honestly, right now they are in limbo because there was a lawsuit that was brought against them. And I'm hoping that will get resolved because it's such a wonderful resource.

[00:13:37] But basically, I kept being surprised by what I found because it had just a lot of it had just come out like in the previous several years. So researchers have been doing that. They've been out there, you know, on the ground writing these academic papers, writing books. But a lot of them were in, again, that academic realm still. So I felt like it was I just kept being like, oh, my God, like this information is so exciting.

[00:14:07] This is like needs to be out there for a wider audience. So that's what we're hopefully doing is picking what was already out there and a lot of it just having come out. And hopefully getting it dispersed a little bit into the public knowledge. Yeah, I was previously unfamiliar with the transgender archives that are at the University of Victoria and started playing around with their discovery tool on the website.

[00:14:36] And it looked like the majority of the research was from the U.S. and the U.K., which scares me a little bit, especially considering you just said that there's a lawsuit that's already going on about that. Is that is that a concern that that you both have about some of the information either being suppressed or just eliminated given what's happening right now?

[00:14:57] Well, the lawsuit is specifically for this one website called the Internet Archive that is essentially a digital online library. So they digitize books. So these are books that they're checking out to people digitally. And that's where it becomes into question. As far as private archives like University of Victoria, that shouldn't be a problem. They're run by the university.

[00:15:24] And then there's a lot of other digital private archives that are just run by, you know, private groups, you know, LGBT archives. There's a lot out there, which is really great. So that type of lawsuit at least wouldn't affect those. OK. Yeah. Well, that's good to hear that. I mean, that's at least a little bit comforting.

[00:15:49] I mean, it's been really, really I can only imagine it's been super scary to me just to see the suppression, the elimination and everything that's going on with our current administration. There were some public things that have been taken down. Like when I went back to do my extended bibliography, which is available on my website, which includes all the sources I use. And it's almost 70 pages long.

[00:16:15] But there was some links that have been taken down by the current administration, such as links to teaching material about, you know, LGBT history and stuff that was on like public, I guess, like PBS and stuff like that.

[00:16:36] But, yeah, there was a few things that I encountered that have been removed that were under public website, you know, government run website. That's tough to hear. Yeah. Not, I guess, not surprising, though. Well, getting into kind of my personal read, jumping into the book itself, I was kind of surprised. You know, history for any group of people is messy. I mean, I'm Scotch-Irish. Our history certainly is.

[00:17:04] And the struggle of the trans community has not been an easy one. But there's a sense of not just optimism. But what I thought was particularly interesting was the curiosity in the way that you explored the topic. So did you start with a concept of how you wanted to portray the whole thing tonally? It definitely changed shape over time as to exactly what it was going to be.

[00:17:28] But I think from the beginning, we wanted to present the information in a relatively neutral tone. Okay. Yeah. I think we tried to, like, present it in a way that would hopefully allow people to think their own thoughts, form their own feelings and conclusions. And hopefully, like you said about curiosity, get curious and want to learn more.

[00:17:57] There were definitely times where the editor would come back with certain words that I felt were, like, too emotionally loaded or, like, had too much baggage where I would want to change it to be something more neutral. So, yeah, I feel like overall we did our best to try to present the information in a, like, more toned down, like, straightforward way.

[00:18:20] Yeah, I feel like the information is emotional enough when it's just presented without commentary, you know? Yeah. There's enough going on there that doesn't meet our editorializing necessarily. And I'm glad that that shows that we're trying to suspend judgment about what we're, you know, other than atrocities.

[00:18:49] We're not saying, like, these are good people, these are bad people. Or just saying, this is what people did. Yeah. And I think most people can agree that if it's an atrocity, it's bad. You know, it doesn't require, you know, we don't have to. Yeah. We wanted to have a neutral tone. Not neutral, but, like, trans-positive, but not scolding. Okay. We wanted to make sure we weren't, like, preaching or scolding. Yeah.

[00:19:15] And just letting people go on this ride through history and have space for them to feel what they're going to feel about it. Okay. Well, then how did you go about wanting to organize the whole thing? How did you break it down structurally from the beginning? A lot of it was just going through time. I kept trying to organize it in different ways. And my editor was like, yeah, you should probably just keep it in chronological order. I liked it. I was pushing for that.

[00:19:45] I'm going to do the chronological order, just seemed. And she was right. And she was a wonderful editor. And the book would not be as good as it is at all about her. So, yeah, like, chronologically, number one. And then we did start to see some sort of overarching themes develop, which helped us decide what the chapters were going to be.

[00:20:09] And, yeah, a lot of times we had to choose and cut certain stories or certain figures that we wanted to cover. And we made those decisions based on which ones supported the themes that were developing for each chapter. Okay. Yeah. Well, do you feel like presenting the trans history in the comic formatting sort of? Because I guess on my read, it was very historical.

[00:20:38] It was very neutral. And I don't know why I expect it. Maybe that's just what we've come to expect. And we get conditioned in our kind of polarized media to seek and try to be astute about when there's an agenda. And they're really, I mean, aside from just presenting the information, I didn't get agenda out of it at all in any way.

[00:21:04] Do you feel like putting it in comics translated that way for you in a way that if you were trying to do it pictorially or, you know, you took archive pictures or something, it might have changed it? Sure. I mean, I think the format definitely, like, shaped, I guess, the tone in some way. Because I feel like there's no way to avoid when you're looking at, especially the way that I draw. A lot of my cartoons are kind of silly looking.

[00:21:34] And I think, yeah, that does sort of help, I don't know, lighten the mood a little bit. Or to the twine. Yeah. Yeah. The neutral, but playful. Yeah. Playful. Hopefully a little bit fun because, you know, you want it to be fun to read.

[00:21:52] And, you know, we did have an agenda, but we tried to, like, be really clear to what our original agenda was, which was to show that trans people have existed throughout history and that we're not a new phenomenon. Yeah. It was a surprise a bit for me because I had the perspective going in from the historical lens. I thought I was pretty well read. It turns out not so much at all. I had an anthropology degree.

[00:22:22] I know the ins and outs of transgender expression in Native North American people is that culture, that group of cultures broad brush was kind of my specific focus in college. But the idea of there not being like a pre-20th century word for sex in Chinese, that blew my mind because I had this perspective that we think of in Eastern Western culture. I just didn't think in the Eastern culture. I don't know.

[00:22:51] I guess I just didn't have that perspective. So that it just confirms that there's been a lot of gender fluidity across world cultures. And even those that we think of us that we think we might have a good grasp of it all, but still use a little bit of education speaking for myself. So this was a cultural anthropology dive for you. So what did you unearth that surprised you?

[00:23:16] Well, first of all, like it's really interesting what you said about knowing about North American stuff, but not about other cultures. And there's a good reason for that, which is because Europeans, as they were colonizing North America, they were also studying the people they were committing genocide against, which is talked about in the chapter about Wewa.

[00:23:44] And the government actually sent what was called salvage, salvage, salvage ethnographers to study the people that they were committing genocide on. And the individual anthropologists may have felt more or less like on board with that, but they still were anthropologists and they wanted to genuinely learn about these people. And so there's a lot of information that was collected that way.

[00:24:14] And a lot of times that's the only information that's available to these communities now, as far as that's written down. A lot of them still have their traditions and their stories that's been passed down as well. So a combination of those things is why we have so much information, I think, about North American indigenous genders, which were very, very varied across the continent.

[00:24:43] But as far as other cultures like China or something like there's less it's a little bit harder to access that information. I did at first try to research a little bit more about ancient China. And it was there were some people who had written some academic papers about it, which were very interesting.

[00:25:09] But again, like there wasn't that body of knowledge that had been collected like what happened in North America. But like in China, for example, it wasn't that from it wasn't that there was like gender fluidity. It was just that gender was seen in a really different way than we see it. And it's really interesting to try to study different cultures for sure.

[00:25:37] But you really, really have to familiarize yourself with that culture to a point that might not be possible for someone who's outside of that culture.

[00:25:53] Which is why we tried to just focus on the Western perspective as far as the fact that the Europeans showed up and saw all these gender diverse people that to them were like gender diverse people. And they wrote about it shows that they exist. But it doesn't really give us that much insight into what it was like as being a member of that culture, right?

[00:26:24] But just to know that, you know, they existed and that there is other ways of thinking about it, even if we don't really get it without doing a super deep dive, I think is the important takeaway. So just it wasn't exactly a surprise, I guess, going back to your question of was there anything that surprised us.

[00:26:47] But the fact that there is so much to look at throughout recorded history in any culture that you want to look at, just bend the globe, close your eyes and, you know, put your finger on there and try to dive in and research. And you can't really search the history of that particular location at any time in history. And you will find something.

[00:27:15] Not going to be the exact same thing as the modern trans people because that is culturally specific to us. But it's going to be part of the similar phenomenon. Is there, with respect to China, with the cultural revolution that happened with Mao, is there any evidence that a lot of those histories were destroyed or eliminated at that time?

[00:27:41] Do you feel like that is why some of that is just difficult to get access to? It definitely has to do with probably that at some point. But I know like the entire time that they had an emperor for like a thousand years or something, they actually have records, which is like a big deal. But a lot of times it's like what was recorded.

[00:28:05] So I know like within those records, they have found stuff that alludes to gender nonconforming people. But it's in a way of like, I remember reading about this one story that was like about a masculine woman. May have been passing of the man, I'm not sure.

[00:28:23] But this is someone who presumably actually existed and they blamed her for some kind of natural disaster because she had like risen in the ranks of something. I don't remember the details. This was quite a long time. So it's like you can see like little glimpses of, OK, people like this existed.

[00:28:47] But we're not getting any insight to like how this person identified, how they saw themselves, you know, nothing like that. They're just saying essentially what modern like evangelical certain evangelical preachers say, which is, oh, God brought this hurricane because God doesn't like gay people. And it was like the exact same thing. So it's like, but still, it's like a little tiny glimpse to, OK, gender nonconforming people still existed.

[00:29:18] Sure. And there's evidence of that. Would you have a favorite or was there a particularly meaningful figure that impacted your work at all that you found over the course of doing the research? Do you want to do this one or shall I? You do it. I'll do it. You're allowed to have different ones, too.

[00:29:35] You know, I answer with the Pharaoh hot chefs that I got super obsessed with just because I kept I really went into it thinking, OK, this is just a woman who was doing a power play and, you know, presented this masculine like facade in the official artwork. But I'm not going to find anything like a trans person here.

[00:30:05] But then like the more I kept digging into the story, like nothing I learned really contradicted or made impossible that possibility that this person could have had an internal gender thing going on. In fact, it continued to confirm it like the more that I read. And it just was like, you know, this relief. I think it's like also such a burnt.

[00:30:31] It just felt like this burning need to know because the fact that we will never be able to know. But we have all these like monuments because hot chefs that built a ton of monuments. So I would love to go to the Met Museum and see like some of the statues they have there. And I would love to see like some of the monuments sometime and just, you know, imagine.

[00:31:00] But, yeah, it's frustrating because it's like it's impossible for us to ever really know the whole story. Yeah, absolutely. Andrea, what about you? Yeah. Well, I love them all, so I have to pick one. But I like I like to talk about Michael Dillon.

[00:31:17] I think he had a really interesting arc coming from a place of relative privilege and then going having a lot of amazing like lucky circumstances leading to him being able to medically transition. And then while while he's having his adventures, getting caught by the press and kind of renouncing it all.

[00:31:42] He went from yeah, he went from being like kind of a little typical imperialist. Not to totally. He was he was he was insightful and reflected on himself. But he still wanted to bear. But he's safe. Yeah, but he still wanted the baron. See, I still wanted his title and everything.

[00:32:00] Once he realized he couldn't have it, he just his his pilgrimage to India, his dedication to that form of Buddhism that he was practicing. And then the fact that he at the last minute wrote his autobiography. That that we almost never got to see. Because the public because his brother would have destroyed it if he'd been able to get a hold of it.

[00:32:30] I just yeah, I like the Michael Dillon story. Pretty amazing. I also like that he was kind of a doofus when it came to women. I think that's like that he that he he was really like concerned with wanting to be a good like a good man and a good husband. And if he couldn't provide children, he couldn't provide those those social expectations. He just pushed them away. No, he mustn't be breaking any hearts. It's not said he was like kind of awkward and abrupt.

[00:33:00] Yeah. Yeah. I like I like Michael Dillon. I like to hear you talk about that because there's a tendency in in narratives with the central trans protagonist or in general protagonists in this case to focus on trauma. And there's a lot of joy in hearing you talk about that. And the whys of focusing on trauma are obviously that's obvious. Is it holding back the the social progress in any way?

[00:33:29] Do you think to kind of centralize around these trauma narratives? You know, are we normalizing the experience of trans people in a negative way by doing that? I don't think so. Personally, I think that, like you said, trauma is unfortunately a part of a lot of people who aren't even trans. It's part of everyone's life in one form or not. We all go through difficult times, you know.

[00:33:55] And I think there's a couple like I think there's a couple of things to remember when dealing with like trans people and trauma and trauma and fiction and just trauma narratives is talking about it with a protagonist. I feel like is is is good. It can show death. To the experience, you can show joy alongside struggle and show.

[00:34:21] You can show people dealing from trauma or just moving on, even though they're still traumatized. Sure. I think that I think when we hold it back, hold society back a little bit is when every trans supporting character is suddenly is also like they're all about trans trauma. OK. Like you can't even have a trans friend. And the protagonist can't even have a trans friend without that trans friend like having bring heavy trauma into the narrative every time they show up.

[00:34:51] Like that kind of thing, I think, does a disservice. When it comes to. When it comes to. If it comes to when it comes to seeing too much trauma. Too many trauma narratives around trans people, I think. Another solution would be to just have more stories by trans people. We all have different tastes. We all want to talk about different stuff. Some people will get through trauma by talking about it a lot and making art about it a lot. And yeah.

[00:35:21] And other folks kind of just need to escape for a while, you know, and I think there's a place for all of that. All right, everybody, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Far in the future and deep in space. Humankind has been lost to the star. Quiet rumors circulate of righteous heroes willing to fight and save the enslaved and oppressed masses.

[00:35:46] Stories of beautiful, habit-clad saviors are giving hope to those crushed under the thumbs of tyrannical rulers and alien parasites. These are the stories of the Order of the Nenya. Interesting. Interesting. Now, if I can avoid all the Nenya knock-knock jokes in my head for a moment, this is a great new Kickstarter project from a few Yeti friends you should check out with a story inspired by a 1937 Vatican photo. These weapon-wielding heroines strike me somewhere between

[00:36:14] warrior nun and 80s sci-fi adventurers like Flash Gordon. Who doesn't like a nun running around with a collapsible battle axe? Halberd? Hey, it's future check, so I don't ask questions. And she's trashing robots in stylistic fashion, riding around like Marty McFly on a... Well, I can't tell you more. But if it piqued your interest to hear about it, head on over to the Order of the Nenya on Kickstarter so you don't miss it. I'll put a link in the show notes for you to make it easy.

[00:36:43] Y'all, Jimmy the Chaos Goblin strikes again. I should have known better than to mention I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media. My bad. He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know, and now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we can start playing. Another friend chimes in, Are you going to make maps? It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together, so I guess, question mark? It was then that I discovered Arkenforge.

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[00:37:40] Check them out at arkenforge.com and use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off. I'll drop a link in the show notes for you, and big thanks to Arkenforge for partnering with our show. I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even. Welcome back. So going through the process of creating this book, you said over five plus years of time, you're not just doing this as a creative duo.

[00:38:08] You're doing this as partners as well. So how do you balance out sort of the trauma of going into a history like this and keeping yourself sane and managing the partnership balance? Does one person take the brunt of the load for a while, or was it just explorative and curiosity, and that's what carried you through?

[00:38:36] So originally I pitched the book just as my book. Okay. Yeah. Andrew's disabled, and he was going to try to support me through the process the best he could. And that was sort of how we started out doing it. But the thing is, we have been together for, I think, two or so years.

[00:39:02] And so whenever I've been making any art projects, or over the years, we always like to do stuff together. So what would happen is I would be doing all this research, and Andrew would support me a lot of the time while I was doing all the brunt of the research by making sure to feed me and stuff like that. That's important. And then I would end up turning around and processing what I've been reading with him.

[00:39:31] So telling him the important parts and stuff like that, and insights that I got out of it. And then we would talk about it. And so by the time I'm putting it onto the comic pages, he's familiar enough with the information as well, that he can say, okay, is this your main point here? What are you trying to say? Why do you feel that you need to have this sentence here? Does this support your point? You know, that kind of thing.

[00:40:03] And by the time we were putting the images in, I would ask him, like, what do you think? He basically did art direction. I'd be like, what do you think should go in these panels here? We have this text, but we're not sure what images to code this text. And he would suggest an image sequence, which I would sketch out. And then by the end, he ended up doing the coloring. So, and I helped a little bit with the coloring.

[00:40:33] So by the time we were much further along in the book, we stopped calling it my book. And when we started calling it our book, then we asked the publisher, like, we really think we need to have this be our book. Cause we've really ended up working together on it, but we didn't know how it was going to be in the beginning. Yeah. We hadn't, we didn't know in the beginning. I just knew I wanted to help him. I wanted to help pick up some slack, do what I could. At first I thought that would mean just doing whatever he'd been doing when he got tired. And I was just kind of,

[00:41:03] that was like, that's not how it, that's not how it ended up going. Like, like it was like he described where it was a slow process of me getting nosier and nosier and nosier. Well, finally I'm writing things and telling him what to put in. Yeah. So it was, it was not a struggle in that regard. It was like a natural extension. Of our relationship up to that point. And it took some figuring out, like there,

[00:41:29] there were some instances where there was friction a little bit as we figured out what our roles were and like, who was responsible for it. But it, uh, I feel like our partnership really, uh, our partner show up to that point really helped with the creative partnership of going through such a, uh, large project. Yeah. I can only imagine and bless you, Andrew, for playing the supportive role. I feel some, uh, familiarity with this role.

[00:41:56] My wife is a trauma psychologist and I hope she never gets it in her head to write a book. So, well, with respect to comics, first, how do you feel the comics medium is doing with respect to representing the queer community? And second, same question with respect to trans representation. Is there a difference here? I don't read a lot of mainstream comics, but from what I understand, there has been some,

[00:42:26] uh, pretty serious efforts to include LGBTQIA plus characters. Um, yeah. Including trans characters. I think there's like someone in super girl or something. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that, but, um, which I think is great. I mean, cause we exist and like, we deserve to at least have some characters in those, you know, sprawling worlds that like everyone are fans of.

[00:42:54] And also like, there's been this wonderful indie comic scene that has included a lot of queer creators in San Francisco. And I think other places, but I can speak definitively for San Francisco. There has been such an amazing, like, I don't want to say underground, but just like independent, uh, comic artists who just may are making their stuff, bringing it to the in festivals,

[00:43:23] bringing it to small press festivals. Um, street fairs, whatever. And, um, these are queer creators writing. Either a lot of times they're writing their own stories or, you know, they're writing stories about queer characters based in their own experiences. And, um, I think that's really exciting. There's so much amazing work coming out from these people.

[00:43:52] Does anything come to mind that you want to give a shout out to that you feel like just deserves more attention? Yeah, sure. So there's actually two comic artists who have, uh, now published books out who are in the community voices section of our book. Um, um, first of all, a one man who wrote gender studies and, uh, gender studies. It's just like a really fun, uh,

[00:44:20] it was an indie comic and now it's being published as a, with a publisher and just about being a black nerd, um, growing up and trying to go through school and go through college. And, but it's like, it's shows the struggles, but it's, it's got a humorous twist to it and it's drawn really beautifully in a one really unique style. And the second person is the shock Psalm,

[00:44:49] who is also interviewed in the community voices section. And, um, she just has, keeps putting out stuff on her own as well as, uh, she's got some published books. The one I'm going to recommend is called spell bound, which, she wrote, um, sort of like as she was before she was really out completely. And she used this character. It's cool. Cause she has like a comic, uh, like she drew like a,

[00:45:18] an introduction and sort of like an outro framing the story is how she used this to like, uh, deal with like her feelings as she was trying to come out and this created this character that she got to like live through for a little while. And now she gets to live as well. But yeah, I definitely recommend both of their books. Um, let's see another trans couple. I definitely want to recommend is Brina Nunez and Lawrence Lindahl.

[00:45:47] And they are this amazing local couple who run Linnea house, which is a little indie comic collective. They, uh, are really, really involved in the, uh, queer comics community here. So, they do like interviews with local creators and that, and like spotlights. And they're just always making like really fun little comics. So Linnea house, go to their website. Um,

[00:46:16] definitely check them out. So with the community section in the book, I think that's a great opportunity to highlight that. Was that something you were always intending to do when you started it? Or you got done sort of with history and then you just decided, Hey, we need to include some more voices, some modern voices in it. So that was actually the first section I did. Um, it was from the very beginning, something that I knew had to be in the book.

[00:46:43] And so I immediately started reaching out to people and asking to talk with them. And, um, my conversations with those people shaped a lot out. The book ultimately went because I was so inspired by them. Um, I got so many ideas from them about what needed to be highlighted, what themes were important to bring out and highlight, um, that kind of thing.

[00:47:13] And just the energy I think I got from talking to trans activists and creators and, um, archivists like helped propel me because I knew I had this, I, you know, wanted to like honor these people that I was going to put in the book. So I want to make sure the rest of the book was my very best that I could make it. Yeah. So they were always, they were always the central part. That's interesting.

[00:47:43] I didn't realize that, that that was how you, how it ended up being structured. I mean, I think, relying on a team is always good. We actually have a group of people who try to keep me straight on the, the comic book Yeti discord server. And I regularly will solicit questions there. So I've got a couple of fuel and delgery here. Someone asked, what advice do you have for a well-intentioned cisgendered writer who is writing a trans character? I thought Andrew's advice was really good.

[00:48:11] Like it depends on if it's the main character or a side character. Um, no trauma inside characters. Maybe a little bit, but I feel like that makes sense. It could easily become like their whole thing. Yeah. Um, you know, I don't know, just do your best. Try to make some chance friends. Yeah. And I think I'd be the, that's going to help you make them more like a real person. Like consume media by trans people. If you can't make trans friends,

[00:48:41] but just, yeah. And, and try not to, um, try not to fill in gaps. Of your knowledge with just making stuff up. When it comes to like, like if you feel like you're unsure about your representation, maybe pull back on how important that character is until you're a little more confident. Know a few more trans people can show some trans people, the character, if you think something's weird about it, but really it doesn't,

[00:49:11] we don't have to be that different from any other character. That's, that's one of the things I think that people kind of get tripped up on that. They make us want to be like, make a trans character want to be like announcing their transness and like dropping little trans references every time they talk and stuff like that is so unnecessary. Like, like a lot of trans characters, you don't need to even know that they're trans until you learn more about them in later in the story. And then like,

[00:49:39] that's kind of the way it goes in real life sometimes. So, yeah, I think, I think dressing less, like get to know trans people because that helps demystify things and, and stress less about making sure everyone knows your characters trans. Okay. I know sensitivity readers are a really useful thing. Is there anybody that y'all know that does that? Hmm. Yeah, I think there's a couple of people. Um, I know, uh,

[00:50:10] Hans Lindahl, who's in the community voices section, uh, does, uh, sensitivity reading for, especially for intersex characters. Um, we went through, Oh gosh, I don't remember what, what we went through as service for our book that I was really happy with. And unfortunately I can't remember the name, but I could always message it to you if you want. Sure. Yeah. I mean,

[00:50:37] I'll include it in the show notes for anybody who happened to be listening and who was, who was curious. It just popped into my head. Uh, I, a while back, I'm from the disability community myself, and we started covering more books in that way. And I had a, both a writer of a, an image comic book and the sensitivity reader on it, on the, in the same episode to just get a better, more rounded perspective of, of covering that particular kind of disabilities. And I thought it was really useful. So somebody else had asked,

[00:51:06] and they wanted to know how you went about approaching the delicate matter of wanting to represent historical figures truths. When for so many of them, that truth had been lost to a society that lacked terms at that point to express it. And they use the example and forgive me if I pronounce this wrong, but, um, Antonio de Arauso is, am I pronouncing, am I close even? Yeah. Okay. But who lived as a man, but couldn't self identify as a trans man because those words weren't available. Well,

[00:51:35] that particular story is interesting because he actually wrote an autobiography. Um, so you can read his words. Um, yeah, they didn't have the name for trans man, but he actually asked the Pope and the King if he could continue living as a man and they gave him permission to. And considering how conservative his politics probably were, he might not have identified as friends. He might've just said,

[00:52:05] I'm a man who with a medical condition or something. Like who knows? Like he, but for the purposes of trans history, like he falls under the umbrella, uh, for sure. Uh, yeah. The, how do we go about the sense of the delicate matter? One by not putting, trying not to put words in anyone's mouth. Sure. Like identifying whether someone would have identified as trans if they, you know,

[00:52:34] like not knowing what words they may or may not have wanted to use because we're not really going into personality analysis in the book. It was kind of stating the facts of their life, the lives. Yeah. I think trying not to, trying not to label someone, trying not to jump to conclusions about trans people in general, based off of one example, and keeping that,

[00:53:04] that neutral, like nonjudgmental neutral. Oh, it's got, it was a lot to think about because people really do get caught up in the label. Yeah. Of trans and, and really kind of confusing it with the political identity and then confused with the, the medical side. And like, these are all different things that trans can mean.

[00:53:33] So that this, we just had to proceed very cautiously and slowly and just look at the facts as much as possible and not, uh, yeah, not, not assume what the historical figure, may, would or would or wouldn't have wanted. Yeah. I mean, and that's kind of irrelevant what they would have wanted. Right. But like, you know, I mean, I, I,

[00:54:02] I, I don't remember where this quote came from about medieval studies, but you know, the word medieval studies exist, but people at that time who are being studied did not have the word medieval. Right. But that's how we talk about and categorize them. So we have to use words of some kind to talk about concepts. Um, so it's, it can be hard. Like it's limiting.

[00:54:31] It's a little bit frustrating and it's probably going to piss some people off. Um, but we have to have, we kind of have to say, okay, this is the word we're using. We're using it in a broad way to describe a very general phenomenon. Does it mean these people would have wanted to take hormones? Does it mean they would have wanted to medically transition? I don't know. Would they not even identify as trans? Maybe. I don't know. You know,

[00:55:00] but we have to have some way to be able to talk about this general phenomenon. Yeah. And I think it, it makes the issue of talking about trans history very challenging. I would imagine because Republicans have very successfully weaponized the word trans. Um, and that it is what it is. Yeah. And I mean, historians even will argue about it, like regardless of, you know, their political affiliation.

[00:55:30] And it was the same with gay history. Like there's still a debate about whether you can call, you know, ancient Rome, ancient Romans who were men having sex with men, gay. Cause they didn't, they weren't out there doing gay pride or anything like what we think of as gay. You know, what might come to someone's head and you say a gay person. You know, and they might not have had even a similar identity necessarily, but it's like,

[00:55:58] you still have to be able to use that word to describe certain types of relationships, you know, cause we don't have another word. Well, our last listener question was what lessons can we of the modern era learn from historical trans people or boobits? What was that? Take your time. I heard a quotation where it was like, uh, like, we're going, you're going to get, you're going to get your ass kicked,

[00:56:28] but you're still going to win. It was so, I can't remember how this, how I wish I could remember. Like that's the jam. Social media does so much damage to people's quote retention. Uh, the ability agreed. Like, Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can really learn is that we cannot be like, we have this ideal in our heads of what kind of world we might want to live in. We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the not as bad. Like,

[00:56:59] we really, we really need to, it, Take the joy where we can get it and not be afraid to, to fight and lose most of the time. Like, because we have, like, I don't want to put reality. Reality on our side. We have like, yeah, exactly. We have reality. And like our lives are at stake in a way that people who just want to oppress don't necessarily,

[00:57:27] like they're there. They might be following a leader or a movement, but they're not like fighting for their lives in the same way or fighting for their existence in the same way. So like we can keep fighting. And if we do keep fighting, we will win sometime. Cause, and more friends and people under the queer and LGBT umbrella, we'll continue to be born. Yes. Except it's just something that happens. Yes. Yes. Yes,

[00:57:57] absolutely. Yeah. I think, I think that's a great place because I want to take a moment just in case we have a younger person listening and they are questioning who might need some guidance or even just a few words of hope or encouragement. What do you have for them? That one's a hard one. I feel like we've gotten asked that a couple times. And I'm actually kind of curious if you're comfortable with this. Sure.

[00:58:24] At the beginning of the podcast, you had said that picking up the book gave you a little glimmer of hope. And I was wondering if you would be willing to tell us why you felt that way. Sure. Absolutely. I mean, it goes back to my experience, I think, at, at my, my first pride. And for me, for me, people living their most authentic selves.

[00:58:54] I think, for me, my outlook, my worldview is very much a live and let live one. And that there's, that the, the human melting pot is this wonderful diversity of people. And that every single one of them should be celebrated. And every single one of them should have the opportunity to be that person, to be and work on through the messy aspects of becoming the best version of yourself. And you can't do that with barriers.

[00:59:24] Um, and I, I really want people to get to a point. Cause I've gotten a lot. Oh, you're really comfortable in your skin, you know? And I was not, I went through, give you a little background. Um, so Andrew being a fellow member of the disability community, I have lupus. I lived 40 plus years of my life where I was not in a box,

[00:59:52] except for that box being the cis straight white man, right? Who, who didn't have to struggle with any issues. And then this thing, this disability happened to me in the form of lupus. And it flipped my identity on its head because all these things I'd built myself up to be were taken away from me, you know? And I had no choice in, in that matter. And I want people to have choice.

[01:00:20] That's why I'm doing the, these pride month feature focuses. That's why I have more career creators. That's why I have more women on the show. And people ask me, why do you do it? And this is exactly why I do it because I, I want people to have choice. And I think that that's a fundamental part of being human. And I want people to find that earlier. So they don't hopefully don't have to go through situations like I did. And I really struggled with the label. You know,

[01:00:47] it took me a year and a half before I could embrace the idea of being disabled because it felt crippling to me to be able to say that. I felt like I was giving up agency in doing so. So hopefully that answers your question. That's my experience. Thank you. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that just goes back to like how it's not just about queer people and trans people. It's about how we,

[01:01:17] you know, live with other people of different backgrounds and how we can, by our existence, like benefit each other and learn from each other. Um, and I just hope that people can see like how, you know, just through you sharing your story,

[01:01:40] how just getting to be in community with people from a diversity of backgrounds can help uplift everyone. Yeah. Message of hope. Or it's not, or just some sort of, some little gummy thing. It depends a lot on what the questioning people are going through at the moment. Sure. But there are trans adults. For one thing, I would,

[01:02:09] I would encourage younger people. Try to be, try to hang in there. Like, I remember being young and trans and not knowing that that's what I'm doing. What was going on with me even. And it can be really hard. Uh, it feel like, like you're the only one. Sometimes I feel like that's less of a thing nowadays because people can go online, but that's not,

[01:02:39] that's not a replacement for like having a friend to sit with and hang out with. I want, I hope would be like, there are lots of trans people out there. And, and even if the ones, even if you have some trans friends like in your school or something and you don't necessarily get along that well, there are millions of trans people. Like, it's, it's, we can find our community if we try hard enough.

[01:03:08] I'd say, please just keep being weird. Keep hanging in there, keep making art. And, and, uh, yeah, there's, there's adults who are very invested in trans kids growing up. So, I want, I want them to do that. I think that's a good point about when you said there's trans adults out there. Okay. So you might not be able to imagine yourself as an adult.

[01:03:38] I think that's probably pretty true for most young people. Um, try not to worry too much about that because, uh, just be yourself and just sort of follow your heart. Um, that would be my advice because I could never imagine that my life would be a be what it is now. And I'm so happy. I never thought like when I was in high school, like pretending to be a boy, um, like with me and my girlfriend.

[01:04:05] And it was like our secret that I would get to live openly at, you know, now that I'm 42 years old that I get to live in San Francisco being, you know, being openly myself, um, getting to be with my husband. Like I'm so happy. And I never thought, I never imagined that being my future, but here I am. So just try to be yourself and just try to hang in there and just follow your bliss, follow your heart. Yeah.

[01:04:32] I think a big thing for people who are especially younger people is whatever journey you're on, they're not linear. And whatever, wherever you, you think you're going, just be open and receptive to change. Um, I, I'd shared before we started that, you know, my, my best friend is postdoc female now. And for her, the big thing was to be able to have kids. So new from a very young age that they wanted to transition and, you know,

[01:05:02] just wanted to wait and have time to have kids. And that was the right time for her. And so I think it's important also just that people give themselves space and have a little bit of compassion with yourself, not just with other people, but with yourself and know that, that, that the process of your better self and, and your, your authentic self is messy. Yeah. That's really good advice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what legacy do you hope the trans history project leave?

[01:05:32] I hope it just inspires more of the same. I hope people read it and be like, well, they didn't tell that story very well. I'm going to tell it even better. Yeah. Why'd they leave out this one? That's, that's not right. I need to write something just that everyone knows about my favorite. Yeah. We had to leave out a lot. Yeah. We considered for the book. Well, it's already pretty long, so I, I'm not going to fault you for that. All right.

[01:06:02] Well, I encourage everyone to pick up a trans history from ancient times to the present day and to approach it with an open and a curious mind. I went in not knowing exactly what to expect and came out with a, a much more rounded historical perspective and, and love the use of a comics formatting to make what many consider the drier subject matter of history in general, far more engaging. So, so thank you both. I appreciate it. I love the book. I think it's fantastic. thank you. Thank you. Thank you for reading it.

[01:06:31] And thank you so much for your wonderful, positive feedback. Yeah, of course. Well, I always like to wrap these things up on a bit of a positive note, uh, with a shout out segment. So this can be someone who did something nice for you or something that, you know, recently inspired you. And I'll go first to give you both a moment to think. I was watching YouTube the other night as I tend to do before bed. And apparently there's this really cool tree called a tonka bean tree that grows

[01:06:58] taller than all of the other trees in the rainforest, but it possesses this unique ability to withstand lightning. And it does this through a combination of like fiber density and concentrated resins and tannins. Uh, and all of the other stuff that are growing on it, like vines or what have you, the, the lightning will strike and it will use that energy and transpose it into the things that are holding it back. Whether that be the parasitic vines,

[01:07:27] whether that be the other trees that are trying to outcompete it in the forest floor. And I think that's a great metaphor in 2025 for transferring the negative energy coming our way and reflecting it to the things that are trying to hold back our growth. So that's my shout out. So as Taylor is want to say, shake it off. What do you both have? Oh, you have an idea too? No, not real. Okay. Yeah, I do.

[01:07:55] I wanted to give a shout out to my friend Fox, who is also a member of the disabled community. And, uh, it's been drawing it lots and lots of postcards and lots of art and sending it to all their friends, including me and Alex. But I find it really inspiring. Like, like they just, they have these beautiful, really detailed, uh, postcards with shiny marker pigments and all sorts of stuff.

[01:08:25] And, and I just, every time I think of them and say how much I appreciate it, they say, I just enjoy doing this. And I feel like that's, it's kind of inspiring me. Like it's, it's good to connect with your friends. And sometimes that means sitting at home and drawing pretty postcards. That's rad. That's really cool. Yeah. Alex, do you got anything? It's okay if you don't. Well,

[01:08:51] I've been inspired by the drag queens of drag race because they are honestly out there doing their thing and being fabulous and beautiful, being artists, being artists, Being performers. And now in a, especially political time where feminine presenting, uh, people who are born male are really, really being demonized. And, but like,

[01:09:20] they're just still doing their thing and it's inspiring. And they're super talented, funny, fun people. Um, so yeah, I would say, check out some drag YouTube stars. And your local drag. Yeah. Yeah. I never got to, uh, drag bingo when we, we lived in Florida and I really, really wanted to, because that's an experience I've never had.

[01:09:49] And it sounds like a blast. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Alex, Andrew, thank you again for coming on the show and being willing to put yourselves and your work out there and to highlight such an important topic. I really appreciate it. I'm sure a lot of the listeners do too. So thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Where can people find you both online? If indeed you want to be found online through a lot of us don't these days. Yeah.

[01:10:16] You can find me on a few social media websites under the handle, Alex L. Combs. That's Alex L. Combs, like a comb for your hair. And I'm on blue sky and I'm on Instagram. And, um, um, you can go to my website, which is also Alex L. Combs. Com. And I'm one of those who doesn't really want to be found. So that's me. All good.

[01:10:46] Well, I'll put links in the show notes of Alex's stuff. And I'm sure Andrew, you can be found through Alex if someone needed to. So it's the, yeah, it's right. Well, this is Brian O'Neill and behalf of all of us at Come Book Yeti. Thanks for tuning in and happy pride month, everyone. Take care. Happy pride. Happy pride. This is Byron O'Neill. One of your hosts of the cryptic creator corner brought to you by comic book Yeti. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast. Please rate review, subscribe,

[01:11:16] all that good stuff. It lets us know how we're doing. And more importantly, how we can improve. Thanks for listening.