Looking Weird on Purpose: Rae Hill on the Tongue First Podcast

Our founder, Rae Hill (they/them), was a guest on episode 23 of Tongue First, a queer podcast hosted by Aubrey "Siren" Jones and Wendy Reeves. It's an hour+ of gender-affirming garments, community care, being "bad at gender," and a surprisingly heated debate about pineapple on a baked potato. You can watch the full episode or read the transcript below!

What Is Tongue First?

Tongue First is an unscripted queer podcast built on a simple idea: honest conversation can make people feel a little less alone. Siren and Wendy talk about relationships, identity, intimacy, internet culture, and the messy realities of being human. Some episodes are deeply vulnerable, some are completely unhinged, and most are a little bit of both.

Aubrey "Siren" Jones (she/her) is a trans content creator, speaker, poet, storyteller, and mother of two who came out at 33. She brings the emotional depth, the curiosity, and the questions that get under the surface (and yes, she cried on this episode).

Wendy Reeves (she/her) is a content creator, community builder, and self-described "spicy nice" human. She brings the sharp wit and the fierce protective streak, and she has a real talent for making hard conversations funny without making them smaller.

Behind the scenes, Bo Dara McEntire produces the show and keeps the guests coming.

Why We Were So Glad to Be on This Show

Rae gets interviewed a lot, but rarely by other trans people. As Rae said on the episode, it's a different conversation when the hosts already know the right questions to ask. Nobody needed a 101, so we got to go deeper.

Siren and Wendy also reached out because they wanted to support a trans and queer-owned business. When we told them we didn't have an advertising budget, they gave us an ad read anyway. That kind of small, generous move is how queer businesses survive, especially when Meta won't let us run ads showing trans people. Shows like Tongue First are how a lot of people find us, and we're very grateful.

What Rae Talked About in Episode 23

The episode is called "Weird on Purpose, Strong Like a Vagina, and Origami Customs with Rae Hill," which tells you a lot about the vibe.

Rae shares how Origami Customs started: sewing swimwear for scuba diving friends on a small island in the Caribbean at 19, then coming back to Canada and realizing their trans friends were making their own gear because nothing on the market fit. Today, our Community Program works with about 100 organizations on five continents to get free gaffs and binders to people who can't afford them, and every dollar goes back into our makers' wages and gender-affirming healthcare.

They also talk about the work that's changing right now: training pharmacists in Ontario who want to stock gaffs and binders, hearing from more and more parents of preteens who are looking for non-medical gender-affirming support after losing access to care, and why it gets harder every time a partner organization loses its funding.

Then it gets personal. Rae explains how reading Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto at Concordia helped them peel apart the gendered labels they grew up with, why they got a full head tattoo and never grew their hair back, and what it means to want to look weird on purpose. Siren talks about feeling like she was doing gender wrong because she's a flannel girl who wears a dress once every other month. Wendy talks about being a masc girl who has never once felt comfortable in lace.

Also in this episode:

• Being the educator when you're tired, and how to tell a curious question from a bad-faith one
• Why having a place to log off matters
• A rant about why vaginas deserve way more credit for being strong
• The secret trans takeover meeting
• Pineapple on a baked potato (the debate is not resolved)
• What sixteen-year-old Rae, in a pirate hat, would think of the life they have now

If you want one practical takeaway, it's Rae's advice for supporting someone who's figuring out their gender: don't give them the job of teaching you on top of their own self-discovery. Learn the 101 yourself, read books by trans people, watch movies by trans people, and go to art shows by trans people, so the person you love doesn't have to answer the same questions over and over.

Watch or Read the Full Episode

If you've ever felt like you were doing gender wrong, or you want to know how to show up for someone who's figuring theirs out, this one is for you.

A quick heads-up: Tongue First is an adult podcast, so expect swearing and a few spicy tangents!

You can follow Siren on TikTok at @Sirenegade_440 and Wendy at @Wendy6181981. For bonus episodes, behind-the-scenes moments, and the Tongue First After Hours community, or just to contribute to these awesome humans, check out their Patreon!

Transcript for Tongue First, Episode 23

Siren: Welcome to Tongue First Podcast. My name's Siren. I am one of your hosts here. My pronouns she, her, and I was gonna say bad bitch, but that's Wendy's line.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: she, her,

Wendy Reeves: Better not.

Siren: and goddess.

Wendy Reeves: Hi everyone, my name is Wendy of course. My pronouns are she, her and bad bitch.

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: And of course we have a guest tonight, so I'm very excited to get to know you if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself.

Rae Hill: Thanks for having me My name is Rae Hill. I use they them pronouns, and I am the owner and founder of Origami Customs, which is a gender-affirming line of garments made here in Montreal by queer and trans people. But the exciting part is that we work with organizations all over the world to get gender-affirming garments to people who need the most for free.

Siren: So we did our research on Rae, but Rae was not required to do any research on us. So

Rae Hill: That is true.

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Siren: I will add did you did you listen to the podcast at all?

Rae Hill: Yeah, I listened a little bit, but just clips.

Siren: Just little clips. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, cool. So you got a little bit of a gist of what we do here.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Siren: I just, I kind of want to just chat and get to know you

Rae Hill: Totally.

Siren: and get to know what you do. because I read a little bit about your community organization and like making these clothes and for like trans people, gender affirming clothes for people who need it. And most of our audience on top of this, I'm gonna say is in the states. Not everybody though, and you're not.

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Rae Hill: not, but most of my clientele is. And most of the organizations I work with are also

Siren: interesting.

Rae Hill: in the States just because of population density.

Siren: Gotcha. Gotcha. That makes sense.

Wendy Reeves: You're in Canada?

Rae Hill: Yeah, I'm in Montreal.

Wendy Reeves: Okay. That's what I thought I read. My brain likes

Siren: I was seeing some

Wendy Reeves: to remember some things, but not all.

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Siren: I saw some of this stuff on the website was offered in both English and French and I'm like, Okay. That that makes sense. Being based in Montreal.

Rae Hill: Yes, legally we do have to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I can't

Wendy Reeves: Ho ho ho, wee wee.

Rae Hill: have big French coming after me. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: That's the extent of my French.

Siren: so do us a favor then Rae, take us back to the beginning. What made you start a clothing line specifically rather than some other kind of advocacy work? and then maybe we can get into your like coming out story if that becomes relevant.

Rae Hill: Yeah, for sure. let me give you the the two liner what I'm doing now and then I'll flash back sixteen years just so people have a little bit of context. So origami customs is essentially a line of gender-affirming clothes that we make here in Montreal. It's all custom made and it's made by queer and trans people. All the money of the company goes back into their wages and the gender-affirming health care of the people who are making the garments. That's c that's kind of the gist. And now the community program is like what I wanted from my sociology degree, but without all the student loan debt. So essentially like I started this when I was 19 and I lived in Honduras and I had I was in the middle of my sociology degree. And then all my friends around me were like kind of in similar types of programs and they were graduating and being like, fuck, I actually can't get a job like as a social worker or in similar fields and I'm saddled with all of this debt. And I was like, okay, maybe I need a hard left, because this is gonna be really challenging. And I thought about like what I really wanted to do. And I wasn't out when I was 19. but this like customizing garments was really close to my heart for a lot of different reasons. I was actually a scuba diving instructor and I was making swimwear for my friends who were scuba divers. and I didn't really start doing gender-affirming stuff until a bit later, but I was like, okay, I know how to sew really well, and I know how to sew custom clothes really well. And I think that I can like wiggle my way into advocacy work through this practical skill set that I have. So it started really humbly. I had like an Etsy. I had a little little like beachware shop, this little island in the Caribbean. Yeah.

Siren: That's cool.

Rae Hill: And it kind of just grew and grew and grew. It was me for a really long time. And I moved countries a couple times. I lived I lived in Honduras for five and a half years, and then I moved to Costa Rica for two years. And then I ended up back in Canada later on. and really like reconnected with my trans and gender diverse community when I got back to Canada. and I realized that everyone was like making their own garments, kind of like DIY, you know, like things for packers and things for breastforms. And swimwear and things like that that like people just couldn't find on the market anymore. There was like a few binders and a few gaffs, and that was all. And I was like, okay, wait. I I have the very, very niche skill set that you need for this. So I started like prototyping with my friends and we would like test them out and put them online and they sold like crazy because there wasn't a lot of stuff online for trans people. And Yeah, the rest is kind of history. Like down the road, I started working with NGOs. actually Point of Pride, which is kind of the biggest org in the States, they found me and said, like, hey, we wanna send out free gaffs and binders. Can we work with you? We wanna support a trans-led business that's working for, you know, trans people who's made made by trans people.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: And that the first That was the first organization that kind of birthed the community program. So we decided that we wanted to get product out to people who face access barriers around the world through this network of like NGOs, healthcare organizations, universities, you name it. Like where were trans people going to access gear that they couldn't afford and we were just like producing and getting

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: it out to them.

Siren: Yeah. I I d I mean, Wendy, your experience with like gender affirming clothes has obviously been quite different than mine. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Siren: Slightly. I mean, you you still do you wear clothes that people would typically consider to be masculine or male clothes? Has it been difficult

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, yeah. I mean

Siren: for you to like find stuff in that respect?

Wendy Reeves: It it's difficult finding things that is actually really comfortable 'cause I'm not I mean I'm not I'm not trans. I'm just a masked girl that likes men's clothes and I have to wear a bra. So

Siren: Yeah. They sit different, right. Yeah.

Rae Hill: Mm.

Wendy Reeves: yeah, so like when it comes to like you know, especially like swimwear. So I wear like swim trunks and normally like a s a sports bra, you know what I mean? So it's like things of that nature and then, you know I'm a little bit thick, so you have to worry about like for boxers like them rolling up your leg

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: and then down your stomach. So there's a lot of things that like it's not always as comfortable. with I don't feel comfortable in like women's jeans at all, women's undergarments, most of women's like lacy like bras or anything like that. It's a no for me. I just feel very uncomfortable, like I'm gonna crawl on my skin and it I think it's a sensory thing as well, 'cause the older I get

Siren: That's what I was about to ask. Is it more of a sensory

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Siren: thing or is it more of like a like just the way you look thing? Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: I think it's a little bit of both. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. Like to see me in like women's clothing, like that's specifically made for women, it not only do I look fucking weird, it feels so uncomfortable on me.

Siren: I can't imagine you would look like what you would look like in a bridesmaid dress, Wendy.

Wendy Reeves: my gosh. I had a fucking Jessica one time had me try on like a like a lingerie top and bottom and I was like, this is the most uncomfortable s thing I've ever

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: lacy underwear and bra the uncomfortable thing. I don't I did not feel

Siren: It's not made to be comfortable. It's made to be sexy, Wendy.

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: bonita at all. I felt

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: like a fucking whale in a bikini. So yeah.

Rae Hill: Well, I like to say gender affirmation is for everyone, not just trans people. Lots of cis people use gender

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: affirming garments for reasons of feeling great

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: in their body also. I think a lot of pe cis people forget

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: that.

Siren: Yeah. Yeah. That's very true. And I think like a lot of cis people that are still trying to like live up to whatever norm that they've invented in their mind forget that

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: a lot. what so

Wendy Reeves: She's an Idaho.

Siren: Rae, what's been your experience yourself then? 'Cause you you said you came out at nineteen.

Rae Hill: Yeah, I came out as queer actually that's not true. I came out as queer when I was like fourteen. I started the business when I was nineteen. I was very much out of the closet, but becoming or like starting to talk about being non-binary kind of happened. when I was actually when I was in Montreal, so I don't I don't know, like six, seven years ago. And you know what, it's kind of crazy because for someone who makes gender affirming clothing, I don't experience a huge amount of gender dysphoria. Like I bind every once in a while. I actually am getting top surgery, hopefully, this year. But I think my experience thank you so much. it's it's pretty fucked

Siren: Congratulations. Yeah.

Rae Hill: to try to access it through the Quebec system here, but also I shouldn't complain because Canada does have free gender affirming care for everyone. I know it's not the same there. Yeah.

Siren: Yeah. Yeah. Which is incredible.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, that's awesome.

Siren: I g I was so lucky in my own experience

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, that's amazing.

Siren: to be able to get my bottom surgery completely covered by the insurance that I was on at the time. So I realize how lucky that is overall. Yeah.

Rae Hill: Whoa, nice. Yeah. It's life-changing. Yeah. But I I don't know, like sometimes I feel like a bit of a like an imposter, because I'm like, well I ha I think have a different experience of gender, but then everyone has a different experience of gender. It's like y you know, I f feel shitty in my body sometimes too, and maybe it's like just a different flavor of dysphoria than the next person. you know, like it's it's such a passion to be able to like Imagine how people are gonna feel when they get a gender affirming garment. Like I know the feeling of dysphoria, I know the feeling of euphoria. And it's like every time you make something with your hands, you can be like, What is this person gonna feel like when they put it on? What are they gonna use it for? Like what outfit is it under? Like we actually get to go through that process every time of picturing the human on the other side of this.

Siren: And it's such a growth process too for so many trans people when they start coming out. I've been transitioning like for five years.

Rae Hill: Mm.

Siren: I've been on hormones now. so I I remember like the first three months was so different of an experience than it is now when it comes to

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah. That's real.

Siren: like w when I first started, it was basically my ex's closet

Rae Hill: Classic.

Siren: that I had, and she was very supportive of that. that and like, you know, we went out to Kohl's together to buy a bra for the first

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Siren: time after I got some like like silicone breast forms from Amazon or something like that, just to have something.

Wendy Reeves: I'm gonna buy some abs from Amazon.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Fucking put these babies on.

Siren: You could do it. Go buy some abs, Wendy. 'cause and and at that time it was like for me, it was like trying to realize who I was underneath this shell that I had built

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: up for so long, you know, and you can make cracks. I th I just this image of like, you know, those like robin egg candies that are like the hard exterior shell and you have the chocolate and the malt in the middle,

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: right? So you can bite through the shell. and make cracks in it, but you're not going to get it all off unless you like literally like take time and dissolve it and suck on it and get to what's underneath.

Rae Hill: Like that. Yeah.

Siren: I guess it could be an MM too. I don't know. Like what whatever. but like, yeah,

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah. But no I know what you mean. It's not overnight.

Siren: you took bites. I took I took bites and little cracks of seeing who I was, but it wasn't until like a few years in. And I I imagine you probably go through with clients. Like you call them clients, but like if you go through with people like that,

Rae Hill: Yeah, sure, customers. Yeah.

Siren: early in their journey to later on.

Rae Hill: Yeah, absolutely. I mean the cool thing about clothing is you're literally just trying something on and it's not permanent. So I'm usually working with people, I'd say like mostly before they've had access to other like medical gender-affirming care. sometimes it's like people who are like just starting on HRT. but like generally it's people who are like pre-surgery if surgery is along their journey. So it's tends to be like newly out folks more more often than not. And you do get to see them go through this process.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: We have a lot of return customers, like a huge amount. And so we've seen people, you know, like over all sometimes decades, I've had customers come back after like 10 years and be like, I finally need a new binder, you know. And it's it's really fucking cool.

Siren: my god. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, that is really cool.

Rae Hill: Yeah, you really connect with people.

Wendy Reeves: I have a I do have a couple of questions about, you describe the business as like trans own and sustainable and Like how do you balance the ethical and the financial portion of the business?

Rae Hill: Ooh, the ethical and the financial. I mean, that's it's always like a fucking tightrope that you're walking. it's really, really hard and it's harder now than ever with the thing things like tariffs going into effect and just generally how expensive it is to run a business and cost of living. Like we want to pay our employees fairly. We actually offer the highest wage for this type of like sewing position in the world, as far as I know.

Siren: I I saw that you had listed on your page that you offered a living wage to your people and I think that's like Yeah.

Rae Hill: It's much above a living wage, actually. Yeah, it's almost double minimum

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: wage and they get f like full gender-affirming healthcare benefits, which is super unheard of in the fashion industry

Siren: That's awesome.

Rae Hill: for like quote unquote manual laborers. Like they're very skilled and very talented, but you know, for like a job that you do with your hands mostly. so that's really important. And also those people like deserve to have increases and healthcare gets more expensive every year, and fabric gets more expensive every year. so One of the ways that we've been able to kind of mitigate that over especially the last year with the cost of materials rising is to just kind of like go back to basics and instead of having all of these like cool collections with these really like interesting, more detailed, maybe more expensive pieces, we've really pared down to just the basics. Gaffs and binders, we've got a line of bamboo underwear, and that's pretty much it. And what I started doing was collaborating with other brands, being like, you know, I could make like, you know, a feminine style boxer with a flat front. And I did used to make it, but I found this other amazing black-owned, queer-owned company who's also producing in Montreal. And I was like, their boxer's better than mine. Why don't I just sell theirs? like the way that we're

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: getting through all of this is together, is making connections and forming coalitions. Not just like as a small business, but absolutely as a small business within the fashion sphere of Montreal. And in a greater way within the kind of NGO, grassroots, trans affirming movement, more globally and more politically, I work with these organizations. Like I don't just like send them product, like we we have phone calls together. I'm like, what do you guys need? You know, we're doing programming, we're doing workshops. I'm flying all over the world sometimes. to go in and like teach healthcare professionals how to give out binders and gaffs safely. What is the most updated medical knowledge that they need to know about gaffs and binders? You know, how do you fit people? How do you talk to parents? Like all of this kind of stuff.

Siren: Yeah. O of all those partnerships, 'cause I I'm I'm sure you could you you said you have on the the website over a hundred plus organizations that you've worked

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: with. Is there one in particular that kind of changed changed the way you think about what you do?

Rae Hill: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, like you said, we're at about a hundred now, we're on five continents. And last year, I I had the privilege to go out to the University of Victoria in British Columbia and Canada. It's actually the town that I'm from originally, and go to their university and speak about what I do at what's called the Trans Chair. It's this like big international convention of trans people talking about the cool work that they do generally surrounding trans healthcare. and the person another person who was presenting at the same time as me, her name was Samantha, and she runs the Feminist Inclusion Leadership Center in Uganda. And so I got to connect with her. She wasn't there in person, she was zooming in, but I got to hear about the amazing work that they are doing. It is a trans-run, trans trans woman-led coalition, a grassroots organization working out of Uganda, where being trans is punishable by death sometimes. And we were able to start a relationship where not only are we sending them product to distribute to the people running the organization and the people in their community for free, we're also providing trainings for them so that people can kind of take a harm reduction approach because not everyone's gonna be able to access the care that they need safely. So talking about like, okay, what are some things that you need to know about like health care and safety around these gender-affirming garments? So yeah, that's an ongoing relationship that I'm super, super happy is making a real difference there. And that's the kind of thing that I'd really like to be pushing more for.

Siren: The way you talk about this, I I'm not sure if you were involved in the church when you were growing up at all.

Rae Hill: No, I no, I'd a I had a Buddhist mom. Very much the opposite. Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: That's fucking awesome. God damn. Like jealous

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Siren: over here just a little bit.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: but I I was wondering if like but well for me when you when I hear you talk about it, it it feels like a pastor talking

Rae Hill: Mm.

Siren: about the mission work that they're doing. Like it's so wild

Rae Hill: A trans pastor.

Siren: and I'm like, I wanna get involved. Like w gimme give me like a little packet with like someone's face on it, you know, like

Rae Hill: Should I should I be like converting people to to be trans all over the world? Isn't that what conservatives are scared of?

Siren: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Everything the Conservatives are scared of. We're gonna do it.

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Rae Hill: I don't yeah.

Siren: my gosh.

Wendy Reeves: So you work with a lot of different companies, with your company itself. Like how many like employees do you have as across like your your business, your platform, so to say?

Rae Hill: so we're a team of six right now. we have one person who's out on

Wendy Reeves: Okay.

Rae Hill: Mat Leave, but my myself a business manager, three people doing the sewing full time, and then a marketing manager. Yeah, that's all of us. so yeah, if it fluctuates. We've been up to nine and as small as five, depending on you know how the economy is doing. But it is a really, really small

Siren: Right.

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Rae Hill: team, you know, it's just us. When you email, it's like I'm the one answering those emails, you know.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: And I imagine being so like gender affirming in terms of like the healthcare you offer that you have a lot of trans people that work for you.

Rae Hill: Yeah, it's there's only two people who aren't trans who work for us and they are very queer and very trans affirming. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But generally we do have to

Siren: Okay. So like maybe their egg hasn't cracked yet, kind of vibe. Yeah, okay, cool. Gotcha.

Rae Hill: g generally we do really want to try to create positions for people who have historically been left out of the industry and

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: haven't had access to like higher paying. quote unquote manual labor jobs because one of the things we do is like

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: teach people to do really like high level tailoring through our custom work, which you know, if they ever decide to leave and go somewhere else, then they're really gonna be able to move up in a company.

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: Yeah. Then that was another question I had too was like, do you offer like training programs outside of the people that just work for you directly, if you want to learn how to make their own clothes or make their own like gender affirming things?

Rae Hill: I have in the past. It's one of the things that I would do specifically with another organization. like, for example, there's an org

Siren: Makes sense.

Rae Hill: that I work with here in Montreal called AGIR. And the acronym is in French, so I'm not gonna give it to you, but it's essentially an organization that works with new refugees and immigrants, specifically who are trans. And one of the yes, of course.

Siren: Didn't you hear Wendy earlier she speaks fluent French?

Rae Hill: I'm so sorry. Yes. We will have a conversation

Wendy Reeves: I do. We we wee. We wee.

Rae Hill: later. Actually, my French is terrible, but

Wendy Reeves: That's right.

Rae Hill: Yeah. But the this organization, one of the things that they do is they offer like services f that new im immigrants and refugees can alter or mend your garments for like a pay what you can price because often, you know, people are coming with this really high skill set but aren't able to get work here. So one of the ways that we partner with them is like kind of going hand in hand with the gender affirming garments that we also give them. People can come and have them altered or start to like design specialized custom gender-affirming garments kind of through through the work that they're already doing. And it's neat because every org that we work with is a little bit different and they have a little bit of a different population. And so we get to have these really customized, like deep relationships.

Siren: Yeah. It's pretty cool 'cause no,

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, because it seems like a lot sorry, Siren, go ahead.

Siren: I was gonna say it's pretty cool because we found you because we were looking for an organization to work with that was trans

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: and queer owned. So I imagine that a lot of these

Rae Hill: There you go.

Siren: places reach out to you because of that. And when we reached out to you, we were looking to advertise for you like on the podcast and you were like, Well, we don't have that yet, but if you want to like have me on the podcast, I'm like, Yeah, that sounds great.

Rae Hill: Yeah. We don't have any money right now, but if you wanna talk

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: We can talk and I mean you get a f we'll get you a free plug for sure.

Rae Hill: Yeah, right.

Siren: We can we can run a fun goofy little commercial too if we if Wendy's up for it.

Wendy Reeves: Exactly. Exactly.

Rae Hill: I love that. That's awesome.

Wendy Reeves: yeah, always.

Rae Hill: Cool.

Wendy Reeves: I mean i a lot of the mainstream, you know, fashion overlooks like the needs of people that are non binary, trans, you know, just even being masked presenting, do you ever have to fight to get people to take the idea seriously with your with your line of clothing and and what you're offering people?

Rae Hill: I mean, y sure, like we're fighting with like conservative people all the time to legitimize this type of non-medical health care, but that's nothing new. I think like if we're gonna go a little bit more nuanced in it, we're also fighting against a binary within gender affirmation or transness itself, in that like transness is seen as something that we're required to pass or look a certain way if we are in transition. And that's also really damaging

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Rae Hill: to the community. Sure, there's lots of try binary trans people, and I don't invalidate that identity, but there is a huge spectrum as well of people who don't necessarily want to look like a man or a woman that just goes by this rigid expectation of what a man or a woman is supposed to look like from a cisgender white, you know, perspective. So even within the company, we're looking at

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: like how do we describe these garments without saying like this is a men's item, this is a women's item, we're able to kind of make any garment for any type of body or genitalia. So we don't have to talk about people in that binary way. And the customization really helps with that.

Siren: Right. Yeah,

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: I can imagine.

Wendy Reeves: I mean society makes, you know, all clothing is gender specific, like colors are gender specific, and it's just like it's hard to get people to look outside of that like realm of thinking that they've been conditioned to just hear their whole life, this is a girl shirt, this is a boy

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: shirt, it's just a shirt, it's just clothing, it's what you're comfortable in, you know.

Rae Hill: Or if you get genderless or like non gendered brands, it's just kind of like this shapeless, beige, usually like neutral, big loose garment, and you're like, Yeah, exactly. It's a y it's a unisex and you're like, That's not what

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Unisex. It's a unisex. Yeah.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: everyone wants. Yeah.

Siren: It's just fabric and thread, you know? Like it's just like let's

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, it's just like let us live, you know, let us just be comfy.

Rae Hill: Yeah. And we want interesting things.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Cause it's hard to find

Siren: Yeah. I find it interest

Wendy Reeves: things that aren't just normal and plain and you know.

Siren: Yeah. I I find it interesting. I I I don't know when I like mentally switched, but I I think for a little bit I felt like something was wrong with how I did being trans because the clothing I decided to wear wasn't super femme. Like I'd I'd I'll wear a dress and I'll w right. I'm like I I mean I'm I'm wearing a flannel

Rae Hill: Mm, that you were like bad at gender. Mm-hmm.

Siren: and know something cute but like I'm not like I'm not walk I'm

Wendy Reeves: Gay

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: I I wear a dress once every other month, you know, maybe and have like six in my closet total.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: so that evolution too, I think through like as a trans person, myself and going through that journey of discovering kind of my style and who I was, it was interesting because I discovered the base and you have to rediscover the base before you can start figuring out what feels good afterwards. and like I don't know. I I I I think it it started to feel like I was like I joined roller derby and I think that

Rae Hill: Nice.

Siren: helped a lot with me like saying fuck whatever expectation there was out there. and I think when I dyed my hair, that was such a big thing for me. and I'm wondering with you yourself, you have a had like a tattoo on your head that's kind

Rae Hill: I do have a tattoo on.

Siren: of like has a bit of a hair vibe kind of.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah you

Siren: Was that tell me about that 'cause tattoos are so huge and they they're such like a it can be such like a inner healing, like a mental thing. And I'm I'm just curious if that one in particular

Rae Hill: Yeah, I got this just during I think the first year of the pandemic and I didn't plan on having my head shaved consistently after that. My idea was like I've always really wanted a full headpiece because I do keep my hair short normally or I did back then. But I had to shave it every six weeks for the tattoo appointments. I had about six in a row over a winter every six weeks and when it was finished I loved it so much. I never grew my hair in. After that. And it it became part of gender affirm affirmation for me. You know, I've been on testosterone for three years and I'm getting like a little bit of a receding hairline now. And I'm like, that's not my favorite thing in the world. But, you know, this really helps with it. And more than that, it just like having a shaved head removes me a little bit visually from femininity enough that when I'm in public, even if I'm not necessarily getting gendered as male, I'm getting gendered as other or like that I'm. opposing to normative femininity. And sometimes that's enough. Like as a non-binary person, the goal is not to be men.

Wendy Reeves: I mean, head tattoo is badass. I have a lot of tattoos, but on the head is not one of if I w went through all that, I'd probably wanna just shave it all the time too, so people can see it. For sure.

Rae Hill: Yeah, yeah, it's really a part of my gender identity to have my hair like this. And like I said, it's just like a visual flag that like I I don't want to be seen as a man. That's not part of how I wanna express my gender, but I wanna look fucking weird. Like I want people

Siren: Right.

Rae Hill: to be confused and this helps with

Wendy Reeves: Exactly.

Siren: Yeah. I almost felt like I got to a point before I like dyed my hair and stuff like that that it was getting it not only too performative, but it was getting too much like I I didn't I blended in too much. You know, like I don't I don't wanna blend in. I don't want I don't wanna just be like and that's just a personal thing, I think, more than being a trans person. But I can I feel the vibe of like I don't wanna fit the I don't wanna fit the molds. I clearly don't fit the mold, so why would I try?

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I don't want it

Siren: Right.

Rae Hill: I don't want people to think I'm cis. That's the bottom line.

Siren: Right.

Wendy Reeves: Right. Ew.

Siren: yeah, definitely.

Rae Hill: For me personally, that's my worst nightmare.

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, yeah.

Siren: Well I do I do really like the way you serve gender ray. I'm yeah.

Rae Hill: Mm, thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: always evolving.

Wendy Reeves: Do you have like a like a customer story that you remember, like that really impacted you?

Rae Hill: customer story. I mean, yeah, for sure, like over the years. I mean, okay, let me say this. There's not like one person that comes to mind, but more consistently lately I'm working with a lot of parents of young people. Like we're talking kind of like preteens. And this is really new. I think the parents are like coming into the knowledge of gender affirmation, especially like non-medical. And sadly I think that that is because a lot of people in the States who is mostly my clientele have lost access to gender affirming healthcare. Through their like statewide or or federal programs. And so they're kind of looking for other supports

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: to get those kids through a really tough time and they're finding me. And because part of what I do is a lot of education. Like I come out with a blog a week and it's not just like puff pieces, it's talking about like information that parents would really need to know. We're like deep diving into safety, we're talking about advocacy. And so I think that a lot of people find me.

Siren: As the parent of a chance child, I appreciate that work. That's incredible.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: Yeah, that's so cool. It is really important.

Wendy Reeves: 'Cause I'm sure they're just looking for a lot of different answers and that's like comforting, you know.

Rae Hill: I think it is. I think I think I've been established for long enough that people have some sort of trust in what we do and they want to talk to people who are also trans. and there's so many wonderful parents who you know, they're they're taking steps, they're fumbling sometimes, but they're really trying. You know, I got a lot of parents being like, I don't know what any of this is. Like, please help. My kid needs help. Like walk me through this, I'm open to it. And that's just a really different conversation than we were having, even like a couple

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: years ago.

Siren: Yeah. That's the difference between fumbling a and like just like

Wendy Reeves: I mean, kudos to them. That's amazing.

Siren: throwing the ball on the ground and being like, Fuck it, you know? Like 'cause that's what I feel

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: like so happens way too often.

Wendy Reeves: I love that you have parents that like do that though, 'cause that's there's a lot of parents that are like, We're not doing that, no, it's a phase, like, you know what I mean? So the fact that you

Rae Hill: It's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: do have parents that are like, Let me try to educate myself as much as I can for my child, that's that's amazing 'cause that's

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: exactly the reaction that it should be. So that's awesome.

Rae Hill: Yeah. And even kids who don't have supportive families, you know, more and more we're seeing programs where they can access free gaffs and binders through schools, through healthcare organizations. often even like sex stores, well, they're used to eighteen plus, but they have now more commonly programs where you can get like reduced price or even free gaffs and binders. So there's a lot of different places where people can access this that didn't used to exist.

Wendy Reeves: I mean, that's that's really amazing 'cause I don't hear a lot of like that happening. I know it happens but like it should be more loud and out there than it is, you know.

Rae Hill: Well, also people have lost a crazy amount of funding, even just this year. Like I was reading article that n nine out of ten queer organizations around the world have faced reduction or loss of funding since January twenty twenty five. That is a huge number. So we've seen yeah, it doesn't surprise me either.

Siren: I don't it doesn't surprise me at all. It's it's crazy

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. No.

Siren: the the the way things have changed recently.

Rae Hill: Yeah. And so a lot of the orgs that we work with have closed.

Siren: Yeah. I came out like I feel like in like five years ago in this era where it felt so like the future looked really bright.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah, for me too.

Siren: and it got dark fucking fast.

Rae Hill: Yeah, I had a couple of good years and then it was like, yeah, everything changed.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: It's tricky, but it's why this work is so important. And we're finding other people who are doing the work and it's like the only way forward is together. You know, no one's doing this in competition with anyone else. We're all just trying to like get people through this and get the products out to people who need it, you know, people who are losing access to healthcare. Okay, if a binder can get you through, that's saving lives. Quite literally.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: simple fact knowing you're not alone, knowing someone else out there supports you, the fact that someone put

Rae Hill: Mm.

Siren: the time and the care into making this thing specifically for you. It

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: didn't come off a factory line. It came out of someone's like love and sweat that they put into it. Right. I'm a little witchy. I

Rae Hill: Little trans hands. Yeah. Blessed with trans hands. Uh-huh.

Siren: that kind of came with my transition. I'm a little witchy, a little into that kind of stuff. and One of my bestsies considers herself a kitchen witch. And the way she describes that is when she's in the kitchen and she's cooking, anything she does, she does with intention. And like she does with like, you know, putting love into that moment, into that meal. And I imagine that happens too with the garments that you make. And that's really cool. You make me fucking cry. I'm gonna make myself cry right now. Like it's like it's amazing. I

Rae Hill: That's so sweet. That's a really nice way of looking

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. It's a it's every it's every episode, Rae. Th there's gonna be tears. Siren will Siren will cry.

Rae Hill: at it. I love that.

Wendy Reeves: Do you feel like there's a do you ever feel like burdened having to educate people all the time about Like the garments being non binary, trans, anything of that nature, are you just happy to always like educate someone?

Rae Hill: You know, I'm always happy to educate someone when there's a genuine intention of curiosity. And it's pretty rare that

Wendy Reeves: Yes, yes.

Rae Hill: I meet people who aren't even just a little bit open to learning. But I don't really care if they're getting it wrong. I don't really care if people are getting my pronouns wrong or saying, you know, a transgender or something like that. If they're really like,

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Rae Hill: I wanna know more. I wanna know like why this is such a huge thing in the news the last two, three, five years. You know, what is going on? Like who are these people that I keep hearing about? If someone approaches me like that, even if they're very removed from the community, I always want to have that conversation.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, I mean I

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: I feel like we're both the same way on our platforms. Like we have a lot of people that try to troll us, of course. 'Cause and

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: we have to like, you know, is is this a question that you're asking to learn something or are you just kind of being an asshole because Yeah.

Rae Hill: And it's c it's hard to tell online. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Be careful how you ask it 'cause that's gonna determine if you're an asshole or if you're

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: just being like genuine.

Rae Hill: Yeah, totally.

Wendy Reeves: And I'm always open to like educate someone about any questions that they have if I if I know the answer to it, if I have personal experience with it. So

Rae Hill: Yeah, yeah, I'm the same. Like I'm fine kind of being the scapegoat of people like online asking me questions or, you know, not understanding my gender because it's it's fine. Like my face is out there

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: now as kind of the face of the company and that's not gonna change, but it makes it easier for other people when I'm kind of facing forward and answering those questions first.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Sometimes you get in situations where you're just tired for the day and you're like, pick up your fucking phone and Google that shit. Like it's r

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: Right.

Wendy Reeves: you have some like phone a fucking friend, do something because, you know, you can educate yourself all on your own. You have a computer right in your hand. So sometimes it Yes.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah. That's also also why I write blogs because I'm like I'm sick of answering the same questions. I'm like, I wrote a blog about it. Go read it. Yeah. It's great. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Go go fucking check it out. I

Siren: Yeah, go read the blog.

Wendy Reeves: don't 'cause once you answer the same question repeatedly, it does get a little bit you're just like, here we go again. Like, you know.

Siren: we were just talking about how like you know, there's this pressure sometimes of being an educator and how

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: like

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Siren: we're like I I feel the same way. Like I'm always open to have the conversation. But I also

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: have like a safe place where I don't have to, like

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: a place to retreat to. Do you have like a safe like place where you just can be off duty, just exist as you?

Rae Hill: I mean, I'm super lucky that most of my friends are trans. So if I just need to like be

Siren: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Rae Hill: around people, but also like get feedback on what that experience is like, I know a lot of folks that really understand where I'm coming from. And I think I'm super lucky in that way. And my work is mostly online and I can just log off. Not everyone gets to do that.

Siren: Yeah, that's true.

Wendy Reeves: Exactly.

Siren: It is nice to have someone who understands the plight without you having to explain every minor detail of what happened, you know, in a situation where it's like, Yeah, they said what? Okay, whatever. Like, no. And like Yeah. Yeah.

Rae Hill: Yeah. People who just get it.

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: I think also like when it comes to like gender, there people often seem to misunderstand that just because someone is queer, that doesn't mean I know what it's like to be trans or non binary. So that gets in a situation where even I have to educate myself on it and I struggle with they them sometimes. so for s someone that is trying to figure out that aspect of them, what would you describe that for them?

Rae Hill: Like what are some of the ways that they can kind of wrap their head around it, you mean?

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, and like what does that mean to you to be non binary? Like what is the like gist of it? Like what how does it

Rae Hill: What does mean to me? gosh.

Wendy Reeves: like how do you feel and that 'cause I don't you know, that's something that I'm very curious about it myself, you know?

Rae Hill: That's such a big

Siren: She's actually got a notebook out right now and a pencil. She's gonna write some stuff down.

Rae Hill: question. I I think

Wendy Reeves: That's all right here.

Rae Hill: I think honestly it comes down to just wanting to be seen as like kind of a gender fuck somewhere in the middle of a man and a woman. And honestly, I came out because I read Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto when I was in university at Concordia and she talks about some amazing things about how like kind of humans are cyborgs already because we are always like altering our bodies. And she also has this really great concept of separating like like an emotion or a way of being from the label that we put on it. So for me, I was like, Well, I want to be someone who's like soft or caring or empathetic, not because I'm a woman, but just because that's who I am. I wanna be strong and powerful, not because it's like a masculine thing to do, but because that resonates with my personality. And so I started this process

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: of kind of like detaching myself from the gendered labels that you know I had grown up with, kind of like peeling apart those layers and being like, okay, what parts of me are the femininity that was put on me and the masculinity on honestly, because I went through this period of like wanting to To be more masculine when I was a queer person that wasn't out as non-binary, a queer woman. And, you know, picking up the pieces that still felt good and playing around with it. But I I see gender as like this constantly moving, fluid kind of river where all of our experiences are going to like alter the course a little bit. And we're always trying things and seeing how it feels, and just kind of like noticing in our body like. Well, how d how did it feel to wear this thing or be called this thing and then just, you know, fine tuning from there really.

Wendy Reeves: Like a constant like discovery of yourself.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: Yeah, I would agree with that wholeheartedly.

Rae Hill: Yeah, kinda. Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Okay. And then you ha you have all these like

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: you have all these norms that you have to compare it to because you know, you have to be strong like a man. Well the the strongest people I've ever met in my fucking life was not a man. So

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: like let's just be real about that. And you know what other thing grinds my gears? I hate when people be like, Stop being a pussy

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Like, I'm sorry Can we like switch that up to stop being balls? Cause balls are really weak and like vaginas

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Wendy Reeves: are really fucking strong and that shit pisses me off. Like

Rae Hill: Yeah, that's a terrible one.

Siren: Powerful shit.

Wendy Reeves: hate it.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Anyway, you for coming to my TED Talk about that.

Rae Hill: No, I mean I get it. Like

Wendy Reeves: Fucking hate it. I'm like Vaginas are actually really fucking strong and they push push whole humans out and make y you know what, just fucking

Rae Hill: Yeah. They're badass. I wanna be strong like a vagina.

Wendy Reeves: Right, exactly. The fuck? Okay.

Rae Hill: Should start saying that.

Wendy Reeves: I'm I'm fine. I glitched

Siren: This is wild. This is wild. I love it.

Wendy Reeves: out for a second, but I'm back.

Siren: You're fine. We love you.

Rae Hill: It's a good rant.

Siren: okay, so you've spoken in a lot of countries, different pharmacies, hospitals, universities, all these different places. where did you find the most surprisingly open?

Rae Hill: that's a cool question. One of the cool things that I got to do recently, like last winter, was start working with this organization that trains pharmacists in one of our provinces called Ontario. They reached out to me because they were doing a training module on gaffing and binding because the pharmacies want to start stocking gaffs and binders as gender affirming care, which is so fucking rad. And this is like something, yeah,

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, that's awesome.

Rae Hill: it's something that I'm really pushing for here. And this is like the newest pathway of my career, is really trying to like ramp this up. but going into spaces that are really like medical spaces and training people who are like pharmacists or some of them like just working to like distribute these garments was Wild. I was like, this is so removed from my community. there was

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: also one pharmacy in like a small town in Ontario called Nipissing Pharmacy, and they were like so adamant that they were gonna get gaffs and binders because they really cared, and just like this little small town probably has two trans people, but they were like, we wanna do this right.

Wendy Reeves: Well, they'll have stuff for those two trans people.

Siren: I don't know, baby. You'd be surprised.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: I swear, like I run into I I I met someone, this was kinda early in my transition. I'd never met any trans person before in my life, really in person. And I was out walking my dog a half a mile from my house. And I met this trans woman who lived, I don't know, a block and a half away from me, just walking on the trail, and we became like besties from that. It's

Rae Hill: I love that. I love the little smile when you see a trans in the wild and you're like, Hey, I see you. It's really cute.

Siren: It's just so it's so good. It's so good. There's so many more of us out there. Yes. I see you.

Rae Hill: A wild thing. Yeah. Yeah. You jangle

Wendy Reeves: That you say in the wild, 'cause I say that too. In the wild

Siren: It's like when you see lesbians in the wild, you have to like whisper, lesbians.

Wendy Reeves: Exactly.

Rae Hill: your keys at them.

Wendy Reeves: Yes. Your carabiners. Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we gotta get the beaners out.

Rae Hill: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: I mean that's true though because I lived in a small town in Crawfordsville, Indiana, and I met there was there was like five trans women there. And I was just like, Wow And I worked at a bar in restaurant and so they would and I was just like you barely see any person of color there, you know what I mean? So I thought that was like I'm like, hell yeah. So that was really awesome. Exactly. Yeah.

Rae Hill: Yeah, we're everywhere. And if you think there aren't any trans people, you're wrong. Because they're everywhere.

Siren: We are everywhere. We're slowly taking over.

Rae Hill: Yeah. We are. We're gonna have our secret meeting later about the takeover. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: We are. It's good. Hope to we hope one day to all take over.

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Exactly.

Siren: the

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: the trans agenda, what it really is is we gotta do a hive mind. Some sort of hive

Rae Hill: Ooh I like

Siren: mind where we're all connected.

Rae Hill: I'm into it. Trans women are so smart.

Siren: Maintain our autonomy, right? Obviously.

Rae Hill: I need to learn everything

Wendy Reeves: But yeah.

Rae Hill: about technology from trans women because I am terrible at it

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: and they are so smart.

Siren: Trans women, well more lesbian mechanics, but trans lesbian mechanics that work on cars are like,

Rae Hill: yeah. Hot.

Siren: I'm gonna just like melt it and corner for a little bit. It's fine. I'll be okay. I'll be okay. It's fine. Meg

Rae Hill: The best. The best.

Siren: the mechanic, if you're listening, come on the podcast, please. okay.

Rae Hill: Meg the mechanic, we need you.

Wendy Reeves: God. Laura talks about this person too and I'm like, Who?

Siren: God.

Wendy Reeves: And then she'll send me videos and I'm like

Rae Hill: You get it?

Wendy Reeves: Like I see. It's almost to me. I see. I get it.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: Mm. Okay. Amazing.

Siren: you've been on other podcasts before, right? You said? You've been on

Rae Hill: Sorry.

Siren: other podcasts before?

Rae Hill: I have been on other podcasts before, yeah.

Siren: Yeah, okay, cool. Is this your first like lesbian podcast?

Rae Hill: Yeah, I think this is my first lesbian podcast. Yeah.

Siren: Hell yeah. Wendy high five. You're you're down here for me. It's fine. It's fine. We'll get there. The

Rae Hill: This is really cute, you guys are like

Siren: we we're we're keeping track. We we now have two people who've been on podcasts before, that this is our first lesbian podcast. So we feel good about that. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is.

Rae Hill: Hmm. It's better here. I rarely

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, we love that. Yeah, we love that.

Rae Hill: get people interviewing

Wendy Reeves: I mean

Rae Hill: me who are trans and it's so nice. You know the right questions to ask.

Siren: I I feel like for me it being trans is is it's not like I feel like we too get too caught up in it being our only part of our story. If like that's all we are is a trans person. Like I got so much more

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, you don't want to make it out of your whole personality,

Rae Hill: I mean I f yeah,

Wendy Reeves: you know.

Rae Hill: I fell into that because it's so much a part of my work. I also have to remember to like step back and be like, I'm not just

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, it's hard.

Rae Hill: a trans person.

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: It's hard when you have to fight so hard for something for it not to be your whole personality. Yeah, I

Rae Hill: Yeah, definitely.

Siren: Right.

Wendy Reeves: don't want it to be, but it's like you have to fucking be so loud about it because so many people are hateful about it.

Rae Hill: Yeah. And people know me as that too. Like people recognize me now for my work and I'm like, but I'm so much more than that. I can make bad art, I'll show you.

Wendy Reeves: Rae

Siren: No.

Wendy Reeves: I mean if you had to like strip down everything like who is Rae at your core without your business, without your advocacy, like you're you're being a entrepreneur, like w what would you tell someone?

Rae Hill: I mean honestly if I wasn't doing the work that I'm doing, I would be doing like community organizing. We do a lot of mutual aid here. you know, I'd love to use my talents just to be able to like teach people the skills that they need and organize to make sure that people are getting their needs met. I'm kind of like a caregiver. That's like, you know, at the heart of it where all my work comes from. And if I wasn't using that in a business context, I would probably be like, you know, either running a non profit or just like organizing with my friends.

Wendy Reeves: That's awesome.

Siren: I is it okay to ask you how you identify other than non binary?

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: Yeah. How do you identify other than non binary raps? Like I I

Rae Hill: I'm I'm just I'm trying to think.

Siren: it's like is that the question? Is I okay, Anyway, go ahead.

Rae Hill: No, no, in terms of like I don't know,

Siren: Like sexuality.

Rae Hill: sexuality. I'm I've always been queer. I think that that, if we if we want to get into like the nitty-gritty, I really care about having relationships with other trans people. That's what really interests me. I'm also non-monogamous, so I care about like creating a depth of relationship with everyone in my life that feels sometimes like what's reserved for romantic relationships. And that's just kind of like how I like to build my web around me. yeah, but like I I I wanna I wanna be with people who like know what this experience is like and says people are great, but I did my community service, you know?

Siren: Yeah, yeah. I was just curious. We we we talk about sex and we get a little spicy on here sometimes. it is called tongue first. Yeah.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: We have to say dingle hopper at least one time per podcast. So everyone

Rae Hill: Lol.

Wendy Reeves: listening, dingle hopper.

Rae Hill: Yeah. I'm so used to having to censor myself because I'm on the yeah, it's great.

Wendy Reeves: No. No censoring.

Rae Hill: I'm like I can't even say like porn on you know when I'm on like Instagram and stuff like that. It's like so hard to to talk about anything right right now and I'm always like super worried.

Siren: I'm currently sitting on a one-week suspension from live access on TikTok because

Rae Hill: no.

Siren: they're getting too weird about literally everything. I showed like a an a what was to me a really gender-affirming moment in my life when I got a boudoir photo shoot. and I it was a photo I'd shown before, because I'm mostly clothed. It's just, you know, the angles and the lighting and stuff like that. And they saw it and they were like, no.

Rae Hill: They're really cracking down. It's shitty.

Siren: Yeah, they yeah, it's really shitty.

Rae Hill: I've never been able to do any kind of advertising on like Meta or anything.

Wendy Reeves: It yeah, it's done with the stuff that's on there. It's it's really done.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: Yeah. You can advertise like what Viagra and Victoria's Secret and all that sort of shit, and you can't put like a trans person in their underwear. I get flagged

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, no.

Rae Hill: f

Siren: That's insane.

Rae Hill: yeah, I get flagged every single time I try to put trans people on an ad.

Wendy Reeves: It's ridiculous.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: I was wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants earlier today and was on for about two minutes on my backup account before it was flagged for body exposure and sexualized behaviors. Yeah. Yeah. I have apparently

Rae Hill: Whoa. Were they really, really sexy pajamas though? Was the t-shirt like absolutely sheer?

Siren: I actually honestly I got the pajama pants from this other amazing clothing company. What is it called? Primary, maybe. It's like a

Rae Hill: I don't know.

Siren: gender, it's like a gender neutral, like specifically supposed to be gender neutral. Their clothing is like for whatever. clothing company that I got a couple pajama sets from for Christmas with my kids that could match. It's really cute.

Rae Hill: it up. That's cute, little gay family.

Wendy Reeves: We love matching gay pajamas. Yeah,

Siren: We do. We do.

Wendy Reeves: when you can find them, they're lovely.

Siren: so you said you're non monogamous. Are you

Rae Hill: I

Siren: do you have like multiple like live in partners?

Rae Hill: No, not at the moment. I only have one partner at the moment. but the way like I was saying that I really like to practice non monogamy. Also I d I don't live with my partner. We we keep separate apartments. but

Siren: Okay.

Rae Hill: I really try to like go to d I wanna say like depths. That that sounds sexy, but I don't mean in a sexy way. Well, I mean sometimes in a sexy way, but not currently. W with my friends. Like I said, that you would like reserve for

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: Romantic partnerships. So like I help parent one of my friend's kids. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Siren: Right. We you can say it here. We make out with our friends sometimes. It's okay.

Rae Hill: I really I want people in my life to to spread out that like that beauty of of type of relationship. And yeah, that's that's where I'm like currently at. I'm like fucking tired. I'm like non monogamous, but I don't have any energy to date. That's crazy. The apps, no, thank you. Like polyamorous in theory.

Siren: That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. I I mean I'm recently I've

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, it's exhausting. It's

Siren: recently started

Wendy Reeves: exhausting today.

Siren: my journey

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: into non-monogamy a few months, like six months ago. wasn't planning

Rae Hill: really? Congratulations.

Siren: thank you. Wasn't planning on meeting anybody else.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: and my partner and I were on a trip with Wendy and some other people from our community to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Rae Hill: Mm. Mm.

Siren: And My partner and I made a connection with someone who came with us that was just like so wildly profound that like the first thing both of us said to each other after we like dropped her off at her car in Ohio because we did like a massive like carpool down there, was like, How do we get her to leave her husband and move in with us? She was yeah, she did, yeah. Yeah. She's the one that you've been

Rae Hill: And did she? Happy ending.

Wendy Reeves: She in fact did, yes.

Siren: talking to. That's Bo. Bo's Bo's

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: our like social media person.

Rae Hill: I love that. my god, that makes me so happy.

Siren: Yeah, and it's been a wild, amazing, beautiful, crazy ride and Wendy in the middle of it got married monogamously again.

Rae Hill: Married monogamously

Wendy Reeves: So I'm not as fun as everyone. I'm not as fun as I was when I was single. So

Rae Hill: again. That's still really exciting. Marriage is great. I've been married twice. I highly recommend. Yeah, but twice

Siren: Twice. Okay, fair.

Rae Hill: Divorcee.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: That's allowed. I'm once. I only have one.

Wendy Reeves: I mean, yeah, I'm actually technically divorced twice, married three times, married the same person twice though.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Ooh th that sounds like a story.

Siren: Listen to the last like four episodes of the podcast. You'll get like a full rundown.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, st listen to the last pot the last yeah.

Rae Hill: Okay.

Wendy Reeves: My wife was on there, for sure.

Siren: Yes, yes.

Rae Hill: That's amazing. I'm gonna go back in the archives.

Wendy Reeves: Also, there's another one that I interview like Siren and her partners. So Yeah.

Siren: Yeah, yeah. We talk a little bit about our relationship and how that kinda came together. So

Rae Hill: That's really cool. 'Cause often it can be really challenging, especially at the beginning, especially if you've had an established relationship to go to opening up to something new. There's a lot of paradigms that need to shift.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: Yeah. Yeah. I think we did get into that deeply. I think the biggest thing for me, without diving too deep, is like I went into the relationship that I have with my the partner I had going like that I'd had for two and a half years and we went to this trip. I started that relationship with very much like we are not we are separate people. Like we are not codependent on like I came out of a very codependent relationship. those both of ours are doing, but like I was very, very vividly going into this one being like, we cannot you have to be, you have to be self-reliant, I'd be self-reliant. We bring ac we bring whatever of ourselves we can together. so it was more and we always had like the it's okay to make out with your friends sort of deal. So I don't just kind of progress a little bit extra. Right.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Okay. You that's most of the work, honestly. You're already halfway there.

Siren: Right, right. But Wendy, do you have any more questions? I have a couple.

Wendy Reeves: Go ahead. I mean I have like literally there's a list of like forty.

Rae Hill: Forty.

Siren: Okay. That's a lot of questions. You when did you that's a lot of questions, Wendy? Damn.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. It's like more than that. Forty three to be exact, so.

Rae Hill: my god.

Siren: damn. so given the current like political climate both in the States and in Canada, in terms of like trans people and how we relate to culture, what does hope look like for you right now?

Rae Hill: Mmm, that's so beautiful. it's so okay, it feels hard to find until you know where to look. And I think for me, hope is about like, I would rather look right next door to the people who are around me for examples of people who are kind of subverting and creating and loving, and it's Harder to imagine when it's so outside of you. I I know that things are so terrible in the States right now, and in some ways in Canada too, but it's really hard to connect to on like an emotional level, like a one-on-one personal level. And so for me to foster my hope, like I have to go to the people that I know in my community. I mean, like, what are we doing? What are you doing? What are the tangible things? You know, are we showing up and bringing soup to someone who needs it? Are we doing childcare? Are we throwing a rave? Are we like creating art? Like what is going to happen right around us?

Siren: Yeah. I I I think that's that it has to be art. hope has to come through that. I mean and

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: you're doing it with the the clothing that you're doing.

Rae Hill: Yeah, kinda.

Siren: you know, I mean it's y I'm I'm sure you you have like You you have patterns and rules that you follow, but the fact that it's handmade for an individual person is

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: a unique piece. It is an art. It is just in the same way that you're a piece of art because you are unique and beautiful and one of a kind and have only existed one time ever.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: and that's something to be celebrated and worth celebrating.

Rae Hill: Yeah, you are absolutely right. I have a really hard time seeing what I do as art, especially because so much of my work now is on the administrative side of what a business is. But at the heart of it, when I was designing more and when I was being more creative, back in the day when I wasn't like focusing on gender gear, it was about making art. And I think I've gotten to a place where I feel a little bit jaded that I'm not doing that anymore. And I need to find other ways of like reinvigorating that artistic part of myself. 'Cause I think I lost it

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: a little.

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: what do you think some practical ways people can show up for their partner, their friends, their child with exploring their gender expression?

Rae Hill: Mm. I think one of the things that I talk about with parents a lot is like kind of becoming a protective filter for their kids, but this is relevant for friends or whoever in your life. Like we get really exhausted by being asked the same questions over and over and being asked to advocate and educate. And so if you are the supporting person in that relationship, you can take on that work. You can learn things. You can get the resources and compile them, and then when people come to you and be like, What does it mean to be a trans? You can be like, Hi, let me explain that for you so that when you go to this trans person, at least you have the 101. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: Right, right. That's so fair. Yeah, do the research. Google's free, y'all. And they pretty much just answers your question, whatever you put in at this point. Like

Wendy Reeves: Exactly. It's so free. It's so free and easy. Right. It's so free. Like, what's L G B T Q I A? What is the IA s I'm like go there's this thing called Google. You can just Google that shit right on. Like it's I

Rae Hill: But even more than that, like read books about trans people, w go to Yeah,

Siren: Yeah. Buy trans people.

Wendy Reeves: Yes.

Rae Hill: bu trans people, go see art

Wendy Reeves: Yes.

Rae Hill: shows by trans people, watch movies by trans people, know more about what the experience is like and the diversity of experiences, because it isn't a singular experience. And I I think what we get shown in the media is a very singular trans experience where someone has like

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: really severe dysphoria and they're like, I hate my body and I need surgery. Yeah, that's true for some people, but not everyone and It's really it's yeah, it it allows us to connect to people like on a more personal level when we know more of the stories. And then we can communicate that to people. Like I was saying, there's like a curiosity that needs to be there.

Wendy Reeves: I think a

Siren: And

Wendy Reeves: lot of people have a misconception of like being trans and like you think you you can just go get your gender affirming care and surgery like just because you want to. There's like a process you have to go through. It's not just someone like just being like, on a whim, let's I mean, not only does that take a lot of process, ex like

Siren: Who would do that on a whim?

Rae Hill: This kills me. my God.

Siren: I'm like, what?

Wendy Reeves: Exactly, because you wanna go through all that fucking pain and like changing your whole s it's just like

Siren: I know whim.

Rae Hill: And money?

Wendy Reeves: when people say dumb shit like that, it's just like you're so ignorant to think that like that process is just so like just a fucking stroll in the park, like it's pain. It's like suffering, mental angu it's like so much stuff that someone has to go through and You're just like, well I can just change my gender. Shut up. It's like I really sh struggle with like even trying to have a tiny bit of space for someone like that.

Rae Hill: Yeah. I don't know what it's like down there, but up here, if you want to access any gender-affirming care through our medical system, sure, we have a lot of access in that like surgeries and hormones are mostly free. But there's all of these hoops that you have to jump through. You have to get signatures

Wendy Reeves: Right.

Rae Hill: from therapists and doctors. You used to have to do this thing where you had to like live as your assigned gender for a year. Before you could access any hormones, and you're like, How am I supposed to do that?

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm. Right.

Siren: Yeah, right.

Rae Hill: It was so backwards.

Siren: Yeah. It's come a long way and it's come a long way down here in the States and most states,

Rae Hill: Mm.

Siren: I think. but obviously there's some that have backtracked significantly. in Pennsylvania, where I live right now, I was able to get an endocrinologist like without like I he just took me like like what what is it called? When you don't have insurance. When you don't have insurance.

Wendy Reeves: Reference referral pro bono Free

Siren: No, I still paid him. No, I still fucking paid him.

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Siren: O over the table over the over the counter no, not over the counter. That's everything. Whatever. out of pocket. Out of pocket. Out of pocket. Out of pocket. Right. Okay. So

Wendy Reeves: Over the counter. Under the table? Under the table? Out of pocket, yeah.

Rae Hill: Over the c out of pocket.

Siren: 'cause I I had called and made an appointment with an endocrinologist prior to this. It was in my network and I called to confirm the appointment, and they like, We don't do those appointments. So God forbid I had shown up to this appointment.

Wendy Reeves: Right. That would have been such a awkward

Siren: And that was the only one. So

Wendy Reeves: Disheartening.

Siren: thankfully there was someone else that took me out of pocket and like cuts huge discounts for trans people. And I I find that like if you find the right person, it's in medical care and in even in my in my laser technician down here, if you find the right person, laser hair removal, it makes all the difference in the world.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. It's just hard to find them, but once you get

Rae Hill: Yeah, that's true. Mm-hmm.

Siren: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Wendy Reeves: you're not letting go.

Siren: Right, yeah. I will never see anybody else to shoot me with lasers other than

Rae Hill: Mm.

Siren: Jill or maybe a stormtrooper. but in a sexy way, yeah,

Rae Hill: But only like in a sexy way, right? Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: That's right, that's it. One of the two.

Siren: yeah, yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Pew pew bang. Never mind. That was my gun.

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Siren: if the let's say sixteen year old Rae before any of this,

Rae Hill: Sixteen. Okay, yeah.

Siren: like if you could tell them something, if you could give them a picture of who they become, what would you tell them? How would they react? What would be like that experience?

Rae Hill: I think they'd be thrilled. I was such a fucking weirdo at 16. Like the way I got into

Siren: Mm-hmm.

Rae Hill: fashion was because when I was young and in high school specifically, I was making these like elaborate fucking weird outfits with like pirate hats and shit. And I think that

Siren: yeah.

Rae Hill: I think the 16-year-old Rae would be like, my god, we still make clothes? That's crazy. That's crazy.

Wendy Reeves: Right. Yeah.

Siren: Rae.

Rae Hill: That I that I kept doing that and I didn't like sell out and do something that, you know, makes money.

Siren: Right. Right.

Rae Hill: yeah, I think I think that I would be like extremely proud to see where this ended up and maybe like where the places I went along the journey, because like most of my twenties were spent living in the Caribbean and then the rest of Central America, which I don't think I would have ever guessed at sixteen,

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: which was kind of a wild past life.

Siren: It almost be like, Hey, get ready for the ride 'cause

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: it's coming.

Wendy Reeves: Mm-hmm.

Rae Hill: I mean it's kinda cool though, b yeah.

Wendy Reeves: We're gonna do some shit.

Rae Hill: I applied for I think McGill when I was graduating high school. That's the the one of the big universities in Montreal and I ended up not going, but you know, like fifteen years later I ended up moving here. So it's kinda cool.

Siren: Yeah, that is quite cool.

Wendy Reeves: Full circle.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: Alright, Wendy, do you wanna ask the last question? Unless Rae, do you have any questions for us or we have

Rae Hill: gosh.

Siren: like a set last question. So

Wendy Reeves: We do.

Rae Hill: I don't know. I feel like we've talked about such interesting stuff. I mean I I I wanna know so much about the two of you, but I feel like you've already like talked it to death on your other episodes. So I should just go in one question each. who

Wendy Reeves: You may ask us one question each.

Siren: You can ask us a question, each I love talking about myself. What are you talking about?

Rae Hill: is your favorite Okay,

Wendy Reeves: We're both Geminis, by the way, Rae.

Rae Hill: this is making more sense now. who is

Wendy Reeves: With the same birthday.

Rae Hill: you guys have the same birthday? Shut the front door.

Siren: Same tattoo also. This

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: is before we met, way before we met. Where's it at?

Rae Hill: Wow meant to be weird.

Wendy Reeves: Where is it at? here it is. I was like what finger why when you have so many tattoos, you're like, where the fuck is it

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: at? Yeah, same birthday. I'm more seasoned than Siren, so yeah, eighty one,

Siren: Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: eighty one.

Siren: You don't look eighty one.

Wendy Reeves: Eighty one, nineteen eighty one. No,

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: I probably won't look eighty one, but I just turned forty five. So

Siren: Ha ha

Rae Hill: okay, well I was

Wendy Reeves: So

Rae Hill: gonna ask you like just generally what kind of guests you had the most fun with on the show, but instead I'm gonna ask who what was the guest that you've had on the show that most resonated with who you are as a person?

Wendy Reeves: a hard one. 'Cause I feel like we resignate I

Rae Hill: Hmm. You guys ask me so many tough questions.

Wendy Reeves: feel like we resonate with a lot of people, but I feel like I don't feel like there's been one person yet that I've been like

Rae Hill: That you see yourself in.

Wendy Reeves: Cause our stories are so different. Like they're the same, but they're different. And a lot of people have had like religious trauma and different like upbringings and how they came out. And it's just it's the feelings, some of the feelings are the same, but it's different. And then but I think Siren might be able to resonate more with like being trans and like 'cause we've had people that are, you know, transitioning like

Siren: Well, interesting enough, Wendy, the person I think I resonate the most with was your friend Heli. Yeah. Cause she

Wendy Reeves: Heli? Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: had this way about her that like she'd gone through this shit and or and like spent a lot of time finding out who she was. And like

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Trenches. Yeah.

Siren: and she's just fucking confident in it now. And it was

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: just like, shit, like this is like and she's younger than me. And I was like, fuck you, number one, number two, like

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: Like I feel like this is the promise. Like this is like, you know, she talks about this like long journey to get to a point of that. And then the last seven years have like, Yeah, let's fucking go. This is easy.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. She she's been like one of the I know her personally, but like I got to know her better in the the podcast because most of my relationship with her has been like we've worked together. She's been my supervisor. And she's significantly younger than me as well. So it's just like it she won't tell me exactly how old she is, but she I think she's like what'd she say, thirty five?

Siren: We learned on the podcast thirty five.

Wendy Reeves: So she's ten years younger than me, but She's just she's like really just smart and level headed and kind and just like have been through like so much shit that that's been

Rae Hill: She sounds like a powerhouse.

Wendy Reeves: a really you're surprised when you when you are are talking to people that like you know a little bit and then you find out some stuff about them that you didn't know and you're like, holy fuck. Yeah.

Siren: They drop something like, yeah, I was SA'd when I was four Or

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: like Y I started my sister this is Heli, my sister offered me hard drugs at fifteen.

Rae Hill: Mm, yeah. Yeah, that'll make you grow up fast.

Siren: And like, nonchalantly.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: There was a a guy that we interviewed. Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Like she was sold like for drugs, like an SA like situation or like Matthew's mom like hitting him or

Siren: Right. D have you heard the name Matthew Lush? He's like we

Rae Hill: I don't recognise that.

Siren: he used to be like the the the the OG

Wendy Reeves: The he's the OG. Yeah.

Siren: what a influencer who's on YouTube in like two thousand five. No, gay god.

Rae Hill: Mm. Mm. Okay. You got

Wendy Reeves: Well that YouTube God? They YouTube God? Gay God, gay God.

Siren: If you search the word gay on Google, he was the first thing to come up for like two years. Yeah,

Rae Hill: No way.

Siren: his YouTube channel.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, he's been going deep for he's going hard for like twenty something year, twenty two years.

Siren: Yeah. But we were having a great conversation and then like we were asking about coming out and just all like without blinking an eye, without any emotion

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: shift, he's like, So I told my mom and she beat me. And

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Siren: I like then went into like the detail of that story and it just like we've been through so much.

Wendy Reeves: And they have a relationship now and I'm just like I couldn't

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: I couldn't imagine I'm not as forgiving, I guess. yeah. Yeah.

Siren: Yeah. But so many queer people have been through so much. Like there's so

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah.

Siren: much stuff. And I

Rae Hill: Yeah, you just never know.

Siren: I will say that like

Wendy Reeves: Mm mm.

Siren: so many because of all that, so many queer people I've met are so much stronger on the other side of it because

Rae Hill: Hmm. Yeah.

Siren: of it. And I think that's what this podcast has taught me is like, fuck, we all go through the trenches.

Rae Hill: Yeah, for sure. Stronger but I also see people being so much like softer and kinder when they've been through really rough shit.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: Yeah,

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: 'cause they don't want to end up like that.

Wendy Reeves: But it's like such a double edged sword. Like, you know, what kill what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. And it's like, but we don't have to go through that. You know what I mean? Like, why do we like the f we don't have to go through all this turmoil

Siren: Right, we don't have to die. Let's not. Well, we do have to die, actually.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: to like be this person and come out on the other side of it. But it's also you understand when you're in different situations that your past does mold you depending on what you've been through. So

Rae Hill: Yeah, absolutely. Well yes, I am. My turn.

Wendy Reeves: Okay, last question. Are you ready? What is something that you went tongue first on that made you just go, Mmm, this is Siren's voice. Mmm yeah, that's good.

Siren: yeah.

Wendy Reeves: yeah, that's good. And we're talking about food. Food. Mm hmm. Yep.

Rae Hill: Okay. we're talking about food. sure we

Siren: Food. Specifically food. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rae Hill: are. gosh

Wendy Reeves: No, but really we are.

Rae Hill: Okay. Okay, I'm I mean I've got a weird one. My favorite food in the whole world is raw fish. Like sushi grade, not just like yeah. So like I don't I don't Gollum it, you know?

Wendy Reeves: Little sha sashimi like

Siren: Yeah. You don't go fishing and just bite the spine out of it.

Wendy Reeves: Right.

Rae Hill: But don't put it against me.

Wendy Reeves: Bite the head off a cod.

Rae Hill: Maybe I wasn't a cod. that's a picture. So going tongue first, I'm just I'm getting in there with the little ribbons of fat, you know, getting all those oils. That's the perfect meal for me is just straight up fucking raw fish.

Siren: Yeah.

Rae Hill: Ha ha ha.

Siren: No, we'll Rae, we'll go out to dinner one night. I ever come up to March Montreal, you take me out to some sushi and we'll have a good

Rae Hill: Yeah, okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: I mean, I've tried sashimi. I've tried

Siren: time.

Wendy Reeves: I've tried it raw. And

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: I've had some that like didn't taste crazy. So I was like, I was surprised. I was like, okay. But then there's some things I have tried and I'm like, why is it so fishy? I know it's fish, but why the fuck is it so fishy?

Rae Hill: Some fish is fishier than other fish, it's true.

Siren: Why does it taste like a fish? It shouldn't taste like a fish. That's crazy.

Wendy Reeves: My gosh, I can't. That's probably why I'm

Siren: What about you, Wendy?

Wendy Reeves: Traumatized.

Siren: What's what's the last thing you went tongued first on that made you go, yeah?

Wendy Reeves: I've been making a lot

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: of like food lately. and actually last night I made BLTs. and we just had BLTs on toasted artisan bread.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: I got

Siren: Okay.

Wendy Reeves: heirloom tomatoes

Rae Hill: fuck yeah.

Wendy Reeves: and I made two packs of bacon and we had cottage cheese and chips and BLTs and it was fucking Chef's Kiss

Siren: Yeah. That sounds fire.

Rae Hill: Whoa.

Wendy Reeves: Stellar. It was so good.

Rae Hill: I'm gonna make that. That sounds amazing.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, it was so I was like, this is so easy. And the other day I made steak on the grill, zucchini, onions and peppers, and then I made a baked potato with broccoli

Siren: Okay.

Wendy Reeves: and cheese on it. And I forgot how much I loved broccoli and cheese together, and I put it in the potato and little crispy onions on top.

Rae Hill: Yeah. Mm. We used we used to call those pixie potatoes.

Siren: And you wouldn't do pineapple and a baked potato? We talked about this. You wouldn't do pineapple and a baked potato. Do you

Wendy Reeves: No, pineapple doesn't fucking go in a baked potato or pizza.

Siren: Rae, do you do pineapple and pizza?

Rae Hill: It's a bit weird. pizza, yeah, but I can't picture it on a potato.

Siren: So think about like a you how you like bacon bits on a baked potato?

Rae Hill: Uh-huh.

Siren: So it's like pineapple and pizza, but it's the same vibe at a baked potato. So

Wendy Reeves: No.

Siren: bacon bits, pineapple, cheese

Rae Hill: I think I'd actually go for it. I love pineapple and pizza.

Siren: I I'm not sure I'd get it every time, but I would definitely go tongue first on that chat.

Rae Hill: I'd fuck with that. Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: No. No.

Siren: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: I can't. I think pineapple's only meant to be cold. Room temperature, cold. It's not meant to be cooked.

Rae Hill: Well, to each their own.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah, exactly.

Siren: That's fair. That's fair.

Wendy Reeves: You all you can have all that. I will make you something with that on it for sure if you want it, because I love to cook, but no, I'm not eating.

Rae Hill: Yeah, send that in the mail.

Siren: In my kitchen it's soup season right now, so we're going hardcore. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Wendy Reeves: Sweater weather. It's gonna be sweater weather.

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love a squash in

Wendy Reeves: Yeah.

Rae Hill: the fall. Mm. Mm-hmm. yeah.

Wendy Reeves: Butternut squash soup.

Siren: I just made a split pea, split pea soup with ham. It was really good. They

Wendy Reeves: How did the kids like it, siren?

Siren: didn't touch it. They wouldn't eat it. They

Rae Hill: Rude.

Siren: they both tasted it, and I'm proud of both of them for taking an actual bite and tasting it. But they were both like, fuck that shit. And they made themselves ham sandwiches.

Wendy Reeves: This looks like baby shit, mom.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: It's okay. They they'll survive. They'll they'll make it through the next day. I'll make chicken nuggets tomorrow or something stupid. All right, Rae.

Wendy Reeves: They will. They won't starve. Nuggies for the win. Rae, thank you so much for

Rae Hill: Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm-hmm. Can't go wrong.

Wendy Reeves: being on the podcast. It was so good to getting to meet you and getting to know you.

Rae Hill: Yeah, this is awesome. Thanks for having me. Yeah,

Siren: Yeah. This was really cool.

Rae Hill: absolutely. This was great.

Siren: and I'm excited for hearing more about origami customs and where you guys

Wendy Reeves: Yes.

Siren: go with it. 

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Siren: I love the business model idea. I love the the the the spell work that you put into every stitch. I think it's really, really cool to be able to pass that energy around.

Rae Hill: Thank you. Yeah. Well, if you hear of any cool orgs that we should be in touch with, you let me know 'cause I'm always trying to find people, especially in smaller towns, you know?

Siren: Absolutely.

Wendy Reeves: Yeah. Where can everyone find you at, Rae? Plu plug yourself.

Siren: Yeah, plug us up.

Rae Hill: Yeah, so it's origamicustoms.com, that's our website. And then on all the socials we're just at origami customs. We do a lot of YouTube stuff. There's like long form videos. Like I said, we do blogs every week and I'm on Instagram. Yeah, that's it.

Siren: Okay, hell yeah.

Rae Hill: Yeah.

Wendy Reeves: On the on the gram. Did you name it origami? Because you it's shape shifting. We're we're shape shifting.

Rae Hill: It's one of the reasons, yeah, it has like a weird long backstory from when I started, but I like the idea of making something new out of something old.

Siren: Mm.

Wendy Reeves: Hell yeah. I love that.

Siren: It's like what this tattoo is like coming forth from something I just got this tattoo like less than a week ago. It's a cicada.

Rae Hill: okay. hell yeah.

Siren: So like coming up and being like the rebirth into something beautiful. Yeah.

Rae Hill: Mm. And screaming into the void. Screaming is important.

Siren: Yeah, yeah.

Rae Hill: Yes, thank you so much.

Siren: all right,

Wendy Reeves: I appreciate you, yes.

Thanks for Being Here

Thank you to Siren, Wendy, Bo, and the whole Tongue First community for making space for us, for the ad read we couldn't pay for, and for a conversation that felt like hanging out with friends. And thank you for reading, listening, and showing up for each other. Stay curious, stay queer, and (in their words) don't forget to lick responsibly.