Unfiltered Friends

The Trans Handy Ma'am w/ Mercury Stardust

• Chris Thompson • Episode 34

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[Supdaily]:

including 16 by 9, right? The camera is not vertical, it's horizontal.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah, I'm not

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

shooting off my camera. I'm not shooting off my phone right now.

[Supdaily]:

Okay.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So this is my web thingy. So whatever Matt did.

[Supdaily]:

Okay. Yeah, it's it's relevant because I've had two episodes where it was two different video formats

[Mercury Stardust]:

Okay.

[Supdaily]:

and I can't and I want to be able to use all of this.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Matthew Matthew are we doing it the right way? Cool,

[Supdaily]:

Cool. Cool.

[Mercury Stardust]:

thank you Matthew. I love you. I love you too Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

That's so cute. I want to be on your team now.

[Mercury Stardust]:

best friends for he's been my bet one of my best friends for 17 years, so yeah

[Supdaily]:

So my producer is a big fan of yours and it's like, we love you, Matthew. Like she, she knows all about your team, has your book. So she is very excited and she's listening

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

right now.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh, my starlings are everywhere.

[Supdaily]:

All right. Hello unfiltered friends. Today we have on Mercury Stardust the trans handyman, which I love a pun. I love a pun so much. It makes me what the that was initially what made me follow you. I was like handyman. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then I got to know you as a creator and it was even more wonderful. But say hello to everyone.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Well, hi everyone.

[Supdaily]:

And also I'm obsessed with your laugh because

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

when people laugh that hard, you know it's coming from a real place. Like

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh

[Supdaily]:

when

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah.

[Supdaily]:

I belly laugh, when I snort, you know that it's real.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I laugh all the time too. It doesn't take much. I'm an easy laugh. But also like, I'll take an easy laugh over a hard laugh anytime. Like I'm just, I'm having fun and giggling all the time. So you know that, you know, I'm just an overall happy person.

[Supdaily]:

But have you always been that way? Have you always been like an overall positive person or was that something you had to develop?

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh, you know, when you grow up in a northern Wisconsin town and your dad is like super duper farmer man, you kind of have to be able to laugh or you'd be crying

[Supdaily]:

Yeah,

[Mercury Stardust]:

a lot. So,

[Supdaily]:

yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

you know, not to get dark right out of the gate, but

[Supdaily]:

Let's

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah,

[Supdaily]:

get dark.

[Mercury Stardust]:

it's a mechanism. It's a defense

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

mechanism, you know, and my dad, you know, you know, even though he was not a great person to me when I was growing up as a kid, he was also an extreme big laugher. You know, like

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

our family, often we would laugh at each other, not necessarily with each other. But like, we were big laugher. Our whole family, you know, like, you just knew one of us was around when you heard. You know?

[Supdaily]:

I love that. I love that. Yeah, it's when you when I figured out where you live after researching you and then you know, you're a trans person. I understand that area as I am from that area a little bit. I can imagine that your process of of coming to an understanding of your identity had to have had extra layer of difficulty there in. one in a rural area, but also with a farmer dad. Like, a lot of these things are not aligning for, shall we call, acceptance. Was that true for you?

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh yeah, but you know what it does align for though? Really good

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

at handy shit.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah, that's true.

[Mercury Stardust]:

You know what I mean? So like, yeah, you're right. I, it doesn't align with, you know, LGBTQ friendly upbringing, but it does align with like, learning how to survive in a world that is pretty rough and tumble sometimes.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And even though I, you know, I wish I had you know, gentle parenting done to me when I was a kid. I wish I had supportive parents when I was a kid. But the plus side to all of it is that I survived in spite of those abuse, and I survived in spite of those negative aspects. But it also built a very strong layer of like, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do and no one's gonna stop me. So, you know, I've had a rise past it, but now that I've risen past that part of my life, everything else is just like, an easy downhill slope, instead of me climbing a 500 story building every day.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm. Did you have a natural affinity towards fixing things or was that a way for you to connect and be safe in your environment? Which one is, was it for you, was it both?

[Mercury Stardust]:

If it wasn't on Barbie, I didn't know how to do anything with it. Like I

[Supdaily]:

Ah!

[Mercury Stardust]:

was

[Supdaily]:

Hehehehe

[Mercury Stardust]:

really, I was inept when it came to anything masculine. I, my dad would chase me around a baseball diamond and, you know, just push me in the mud and just scream at me and stuff all the time. Whenever we did anything with T-ball or baseball. So I didn't really have a natural affinity to anything that was traditionally masculine. But. when my father would treat me in such a way, I started learning, well, if I don't like start learning how to adapt to this world, I'm not going to be able to survive. And I do think, you know, in spite of all the my feelings and my things my dad has done to me, I do believe there was a frame and a thought from him where this kid is so different that if I don't get this kiddo to be in a spot of like being able to survive in this world that's not gonna like her. I don't think she's gonna survive. That's honestly what I think my dad thought for a long time. Don't think it's a natural, like a really healthy way to upbringing a kid. But I do think there's some good attention behind it because it wasn't like he was the only person who was awful person towards a queer community in my neck of the woods. You know what I mean?

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Like, you know, there was, it wasn't abnormal for at least once a year or twice a year at my high school. where someone who had the affinity to be a little bit queer, you know, unalived themselves. It wasn't an

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

abnormal thing. One of my best friends in high school unalived herself a year before that. Someone I knew unalived themselves. And it was very like, you know, everyone knew that they had the affinity for the queerness. So like, it was just a very prevalent reality for us.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So I didn't know how to fix anything. but my dad forced me to learn how to do stuff. But I always thought about things way different than him. Like I got, I was really bad at it for quite a while and then all of a sudden I started being really good at it because my grandpa would tell my dad, you know, this kid doesn't get the way that you're teaching them, but there is something there. There's something there, so just listen to them. And that changed everything. because then I started fixing things in very different ways than my dad, but it would always work, right? So I'm trying to think of a good example, but even just look at drywall. There's 500 different ways to fix drywall, and everyone has an opinion of what is the best way to fix drywall. You know, you get your California patch, you get your one-for-one patch, you got all these different kind of patches you could do. What is the best way? Whatever the best way is, is what you're currently doing. It's like... There is a reason why you're patching it the way you need to patch it. And sometimes it's going to be this way and sometimes it's going to be the other way,

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

but knowing all those differences, knowing all the different paths to fix something is just as important as is knowing the right way to fix something. Right?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I don't think there is anything such as the right way. There's

[Supdaily]:

Does

[Mercury Stardust]:

better

[Supdaily]:

it get

[Mercury Stardust]:

ways

[Supdaily]:

fixed?

[Mercury Stardust]:

and wrong ways. Yes. Yeah, exactly. This is to get fixed and are you safe afterwards. Those are the things that are important.

[Supdaily]:

It's so interesting. I'm drawing some parallels between, I mean, without the element of being trans, but my dad learned how to fix drywall from his abusive. stepfather and that was his way of adapting. And I think grandma also taught him when you get angry, punch something you can fix and you can't fix people. So my dad would put his fist through drywall and his adaptation was to fit in with that environment because he would get respect for showing up in that way was to learn it. So he has all those skills, just maybe not the best

[Mercury Stardust]:

Hmm.

[Supdaily]:

connection to those memories.

[Mercury Stardust]:

But I think that's what happens a lot with masculinity, right? We don't really go in depth in those things. We go in depth in maybe how to fix something, but we don't go in depth with emotional aspects of things. And I think a lot of times, if you ask a person, why are you fixing something the way that you're fixing it, they will say something along the lines, because this is the way I was taught. And I think that relates to emotions, and I think that relates to reality too. Why are you doing, why are you believing the things that you believe in? Why are you doing the things that you're doing? Always because this is how you were shown. And

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

because this is how you're shown, there is no other alternative to that. And I think that's always been the problem, right? There's an alternative for me. There's always been an alternative for me. So when I naturally got into handy stuff, the more that I went down that path, the more that I went to the alternative. To me, my very existence is different than everyone else's. I might not have had the vocabulary, the words, or the understanding of myself, but I knew that there was something different. So I always went the different path, right?

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Which is often poked fun at, ridiculed. You know, I was often told that I was an idiot. for the way I did things. And now I look back and I go, no, I wasn't. I actually wasn't a right path. But because they want you to do things in a certain way, in a certain order, you're perceived a certain way.

[Supdaily]:

has to connect to their perceived reality, not just what works for fixing the issue. I think there's also, I think the emotional aspect could be also connected to a bit of ego. Like,

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh.

[Supdaily]:

my way is the way to do it, and if you do it another way, then that attacks. I think it's a lot of what you see on social media right now, especially, is ideas are no longer ideas. Ideas are identities. So if you attack this idea, which is, in this example, a way that you fix something, you're not attacking the idea. You are attacking me as a person. And if you don't have the emotional regulation to process that, it can manifest itself in not the best ways.

[Mercury Stardust]:

100%, 100%, I think you hit the nail right in the head. Ha ha ha, puns.

[Supdaily]:

Ha ha

[Mercury Stardust]:

But I

[Supdaily]:

ha!

[Mercury Stardust]:

do,

[Supdaily]:

I love it!

[Mercury Stardust]:

I do generally think that that is a large part of it, I think that people will say you're looking too much into it and when people say those kind of phrases to me, to me I'm like, you're actually not looking enough into it, your actions stem from something within inside your head. And if you're not examining why your actions, although your actions and why you're responding to certain things, I think you do yourself a great disservice and other people's disservice. When you're having a negative response to something, regardless if you think you're on the right or not, you should examine why you're having that response. That's what growth is. And that's how we learn how to fix stuff in general, right? You ask yourself, why are you doing it this way? And is this truly the best way? The same thing applies to us as human beings.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah, the challenging those ideas is painful for a lot of people. People just don't want to admit that either there's a different way of doing something or maybe their mindsets about things are harmful or wrong and they entrench themselves in that idea. And it's like, it's so frustrating as someone who wants to like bridge a gap and like have conversations between groups where people are like, this is my idea. Your idea is wrong. And it's so polarized at this point that no progress happens. at all. And then you see the stuff that's going on with a lot of the legislation where people are just, I feel like falling back into like we always we already had a long ways to go. But I feel like right now, society, we're taking a step back for a lot of things that are very pertinent to your community, especially.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I saw this 10 years ago. Me and my very good friend Matthew have talked

[Supdaily]:

Love

[Mercury Stardust]:

about

[Supdaily]:

you,

[Mercury Stardust]:

this.

[Supdaily]:

Matthew.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah, we love Matthew. Matthew,

[Supdaily]:

We love Matthew.

[Mercury Stardust]:

who is my sound engineer now in my life, but Matthew and I were, he was my co-host of a weekly burlesque show that I did for years here in tropical Madison, Wisconsin. But Matt and I talked about this years ago, about how the harder that... we pushed for equality, that the more that we became vocal about things, the more that the strength of the voices to push those voices out became. And I think that there was such a huge misunderstanding of what will happen sometimes when we make progress. I think that like I saw this because I worked in an industry that was dominated by conservative men, right?

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I would go to nightclubs and be with all my friends and they would make fun of the blue collar people all the time and talking about how uninformed they are and all the stuff. And then I would go to work. And then I would hear these people who, yeah, definitely went about things in a much more rough and tumble way, but were really well informed. And I think that is the part that people missed, especially in the 2016 election. is that there was a lot of people who, even if they were informed incorrectly, they knew about issues in ways that a lot of people, honestly, who are leftists, don't always know all the issues. We get burnt out by it because we're empathetic and we try to be empathetic. But when you are really worried about self-preservation, like a lot

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

of people in the blue collar industry is, then you have a very different approach to things. is you wanna be aware of the issues so you can make sure you make the best decision for yourself and no one else matters. You and your family matters and that's it. And I think

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

that mentality, that's the big disconnect where I think there is one humongous group of people who want to help each other and there's another group of people who think by helping each other, they weaken their individuality and their family units. And

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I think that is the biggest disconnect. And until we understand how to patch that disconnect up, I don't think you fixed this, you

[Supdaily]:

or

[Mercury Stardust]:

know?

[Supdaily]:

think an aspect of it is being able to talk to each other. And that is it's So when I was covering a lot of like LGBT issues on my YouTube channel for a long time, I would sit and talk to people that I disagreed with. I'd sit and talk to, and I wouldn't make content surrounding it. I was just educating myself. I would sit and talk to transphobes. I'd sit and talk to homophobes. But it's not because I advocate the behavior, but now I'm educated on their mindset. And I think too often what people are doing now is instead of trying to just have a conversation, exchange ideas, they're trying to change the way the other person thinks conversation and that's

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

never going to breed understanding.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I call myself a gateway queer because

[Supdaily]:

Gateway

[Mercury Stardust]:

I,

[Supdaily]:

queer.

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah, I call myself a gateway queer because think about it for a second, right? I'm in an industry that is dominated by people who are not like me, right?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And now the majority of people who follow me are, you know, queer, single moms, right? But there are definitely men in the industry who follow me, right? Who follow me because I'm damn good at what I do. I'm very

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

intelligent, I'm very well informed. and I try to make sure that I'm always as well-affirmed as the next person, if that more, but that means that I'm a source of information for them.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And if they trust me enough to listen to me about how to fix their tire, or how to fix a certain thing in their home or a ceiling fan or something, maybe they trust me enough to listen to my life experience. And that's where I focus. I don't focus on what's right and wrong. I focus on my life experience. Because if they like me enough to listen to me, maybe they like me enough to actually see a point of view. Now, it probably won't be the thing that sways them completely, but it could be a stepping stone, hence, Gateway Queer. Because it gets

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

you into the door, it gets you into the village of queer, right? It just opens,

[Supdaily]:

Right.

[Mercury Stardust]:

it cracks up the little door, and maybe they can step into it, but you gotta invite them in. You got... I know it's scary. I know it's scary. But if you don't invite them into your home, they'll never see you as a person. So you have to be willing to open the door and then you gotta make sure that you don't close it right away when you're getting a bad vibe. You gotta

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

just ride it out. And it's very hard to do. That's an extremely hard, difficult thing to do. And not my place to tell other people to do it. But for me, that's what I wanna do. And I think we do it quite well.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah, it's a it is a brave thing. You just have to possess the emotional capacity to talk to someone who might hate who you are, what you are, you know, like

[Mercury Stardust]:

Mm-hmm.

[Supdaily]:

you have to be able to sit across because you say gateway queer. I always say for me, I'm a thought disruptor. I'm not trying to change your mind, though. I hope you do. But I'm going to implant. a little seed of new information, and I hope it grows, and I hope you use it. If you don't, you can no longer claim ignorance because I've educated you.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I thought disruptor is a much more intelligent way to describe that. HAHAHAHAHA

[Supdaily]:

Well, I can't call myself a gateway queer, so I'm gonna go with Thought Disruptor. I would get into a lot of trouble if I started doing it.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah, I mean yeah, again, there's some perks to being very queer. Hahaha!

[Supdaily]:

Yeah, but I mean, you get into trouble too. Like, you probably face within your own community some things that I have faced, where if you do sit and you do talk to someone, you invite them, so to speak, into your home to have that conversation. A lot of people will look at that as you advocating or rising that person's status in some way. How do you respond to that? Or do you face backlash for that?

[Mercury Stardust]:

I really don't face almost any backlash for it. I think the reason why is because people know that I tread very lightly on that, right?

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

Like I am, I don't invite my platform to outright hate. Do you know what I mean? Like

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I think sometimes the things I see the most on TikTok especially, on Instagram as well, but on TikTok more than almost on any other platform, I'll see people responding or stitching or duetting people who are just, there's no, what are you doing? What

[Supdaily]:

What's

[Mercury Stardust]:

are

[Supdaily]:

the

[Mercury Stardust]:

you

[Supdaily]:

point?

[Mercury Stardust]:

doing? All

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

you're doing is you're elevating a voice of hatred or clout chasing. You're not necessarily

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

having a conversation. What I like to do, instead of speaking, you know, as if I'm talking to them by doing a stitch when you're not talking to them, you're speaking over them by doing a stitch, not talking to them. And that needs to be reframed in how we approach this type of media. What I like to do is use my voice to talk about these subjects with nuance. And sometimes you do get a little bit of like pushback. I mean, I worked with Lowe's, right? So by working with Lowe's, which is a company that, yeah, I mean, it's more left than other hardware companies, but it's still a major corporate company. So you're going to have people who are like, yeah, but Lowe's did this, Lowe's did that. And yeah, but you know what else Lowe's does? Lowe's pays our bills. So me as a queer person, can pay other queer people in order to support another group of queer people online. And sometimes we have to understand nuance. We're not going to fix the world all by neglecting the reality of capitalism. I hate capitalism very strongly, but there is ways to use it in our benefits to help each other currently and not 30 years down the road. And

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I think that, you know, again, A bayonet, it's a bayonet, it's not a great solution, but I work in these fixes every single day, right? I grew up in an industry for 16 years where I couldn't always just repair the whole wall. I had to repair patches. And I have the same mentality when it comes to this, right? I can't fix everything, but maybe I can raise a little bit of money for trans healthcare. Maybe I can educate a person here and there when it comes to hate. And maybe I can have a conversation with someone who is a little bit more right than me and bringing them a little bit closer to the center. Maybe. And if it doesn't

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

work, it doesn't work, but at least my voice was there.

[Supdaily]:

I mean, the one of the strongest indicators for someone getting over their bias, say, for an example, they're transphobic is having someone that they know who's trans,

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

you know, and if

[Mercury Stardust]:

100%.

[Supdaily]:

they never if no one who's trans ever talks to them, how are they supposed to cure that ignorance whatsoever? And I understand you need to stay safe. But if you have the capacity, that could make a major difference for a lot of people.

[Mercury Stardust]:

This is where this is really important to talk about is being a white trans person is the privilege and the position that I hold, right? So you're right, you're right. But I think it becomes more difficult the more marginalized you are, right?

[Supdaily]:

100%.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I think like for me, I know my privileges. I am in, you know, we're in a basement of a historical building here in Madison and we are behind thick, thick brick and we are in, we have like several security doors. It's hard to hurt me in this building, right?

[Supdaily]:

Hehehe

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I'm protected at home as well. You know, like I'm sitting on a place of privilege and I know I can say things and be a lot safer than other people can.

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I do think it's my responsibility as an ally to other marginalized groups, right? And as a trans person myself, but as an ally to other groups, I think it's really important to not be a passive ally and to be an active advocate or an active person in there, trying to get over oppression or through oppression or trying to break down that wall. So it can be really difficult, but those conversations need to happen. And if you are also, if you're listening to this and you also are an ally to the trans I think it's your job to elevate our voices, not speak over us, but elevate our voices, right? And those are things that can definitely happen.

[Supdaily]:

It's as someone who's been an ally in the community for a long time. It is, I will admit, sometimes really difficult. And at times. dangerous to enter those conversations because the backlash can be pretty extreme. So how do I, as someone who's not LGBT, who wants to be an ally, what in your opinion is a way for me to speak on those issues while not speaking over the people who have those issues?

[Mercury Stardust]:

That's such a good question. I think that being rehearsed in these things, but by just listening to me right now, you're kind of doing it. You're kind of doing it. Do you know what I mean? And I think

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

that it's that simple sometimes. And then when you have a conversation, you can always say, you know what, there's a woman by the name of Mercury Stardust who teaches compassionate DIY on the internet. And her lived and experiences, even her as a nice, sweet person who's just trying to help people. she gets death threats on a daily basis.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So is that right? Does that make that okay? And then if their response is something around the lines of like, we all get death threats and that yeah, based off of your gender or not. You know what I mean? Like

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

it's a very important contrast to make. And I think that those kinds of things, listening to our stories and then retelling those stories and then redirecting them to our voices makes a huge difference. I also think that like, you know, it's as simple as people sometimes do wedding a video and putting a black screen on the other side. Yeah, does it necessarily get the views? No. But does it showcase that your willingness to uplift our voice without speaking or over us or showcasing your own voices? I think it does. I think it says a lot about your character and about the kind of ally you want to be.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah, I think, I think that there's, it's so, since the beginning, so I started getting involved with that sort of advocacy in 2008. And it's become much and much more complicated to enter those conversations. And thankfully, there's so much more, so much more representation, because I didn't even, when I first started, I didn't even know what transgender was. You know, that wasn't really something people

[Mercury Stardust]:

I didn't

[Supdaily]:

talked

[Mercury Stardust]:

know either.

[Supdaily]:

about.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah, I mean, we could talk about that. I mean, I was surprised you came out as trans in 2019 is what I researched.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Wow, you did real good. Yeah, I did. I

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

came out in 2019, January 18th,

[Supdaily]:

I

[Mercury Stardust]:

2019.

[Supdaily]:

mean, that is all. And when did you start to realize that you were trans

[Mercury Stardust]:

27

[Supdaily]:

or?

[Mercury Stardust]:

I was probably 27 years old like four years prior I Like so I baby step myself right like when I was like seven or eight years old I knew I was different. You know what I mean? Like I related more to every single girl woman Lady around me every I all I ever did when I played video games was I was always the woman character

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I always related to the female leads and and and everything And I could not understand, you know, like I thought it was like normalized in my brain. You know, I made several TikToks about this, but like I would be on job sites with people and, you know, I would talk to people about stuff and bring things up and I would be like, yeah, I mean, everyone wants a pair of tits, right? That's a thing everyone wants, you know?

[Supdaily]:

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[Mercury Stardust]:

And then the other guys would look at me and be like, yeah,

[Supdaily]:

What? Hahaha,

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah, yeah,

[Supdaily]:

sure!

[Mercury Stardust]:

sure. That's a. I mean, tits are nice, I don't want them on my chest, but yeah,

[Supdaily]:

I would

[Mercury Stardust]:

sure,

[Supdaily]:

play

[Mercury Stardust]:

you know?

[Supdaily]:

with them, but not have them. There's

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

a difference.

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah, 100%, right?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

But there was things like that, it just normalizes in your brain. And I also conflated the idea of gender identity being the same as sexuality. So

[Supdaily]:

Right.

[Mercury Stardust]:

for the long time for me, you know, when I was, I'm paying sexual, right, but when I was a kid I didn't have terminology for that. So

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

when I was younger and I was in high school and I liked boys, but I also was attracted to girls, I thought that I was gay because I didn't think there was another option.

[Supdaily]:

It's

[Mercury Stardust]:

Right.

[Supdaily]:

so common.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I didn't know there was another lane. So I came out as a gay kid when I was like 16

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

or 17 years old.

[Supdaily]:

how'd that

[Mercury Stardust]:

And

[Supdaily]:

go?

[Mercury Stardust]:

then, oh, awful. I got kicked out of the house, lived on my own for a year or so while I finished high school. And me and my best friend, Danny lived together for a hot minute before, you know, we went to college.

[Supdaily]:

Where did

[Mercury Stardust]:

But

[Supdaily]:

you

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah.

[Supdaily]:

live? Where did you

[Mercury Stardust]:

I'll

[Supdaily]:

go?

[Mercury Stardust]:

cross the street from the high school.

[Supdaily]:

Oh, okay, so you weren't

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

far.

[Mercury Stardust]:

No, I wasn't. But I, but my, my, my family was outside of town in a town called Maribel. It was 387 people. We had more cows on the farm than we did in the town. Uh, you know, people in the town.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So like, you know, uh, and our next door neighbor was the mayor and I'll show the town plumber and our other next door neighbor was the blacksmith, the town blacksmith,

[Supdaily]:

Yelp.

[Mercury Stardust]:

the town

[Supdaily]:

Of course.

[Mercury Stardust]:

gunsmith. and also the Tom Grumpy Jackass. So

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

we had a really diverse, you know. Oh yeah.

[Supdaily]:

There's a lot going on there, but with the same people.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh, absolutely, you know.

[Supdaily]:

Can you tell me about the coming out as gay? Like what happened when you came out as gay? What was the process for getting to that point?

[Mercury Stardust]:

I mean, again, when I was like around 15 or 16 is when I started realizing that I was not, like the words, the only vocabulary I had was gay.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So I knew it was different from early on, I just didn't know what the fucking words were. So

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

when I was like 15 or 16, I was like, well, I guess I'm gay, it's just a matter of time I'm coming out. You

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

know, and then it was just me slowly coming out to my friends and getting various reactions. One of my friends said I was too flamboyant. that they said to me, I think you're trying too hard. And the worst part was I wasn't at the time. I would then later on in life realize that actually what I was doing was embracing this part of me. But I didn't understand and I really enjoyed what they perceived as flamboyant. But

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

I felt like I couldn't be. So I had to be the likable gay. I had to be.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

You know, I had to be a gay character in Frasier, or a gay character on TV, where it's one dimensional, you exist for entertainment for the heterosexuals, and that's about it. So I came out to gay to some people in school, and then I started dating a guy in basketball. And then him and I dated in secret, and we didn't tell anybody. And I then thought, hey, you know, this is going to get out. So I should probably tell my dad. And then I told my dad, and then he called me the F slur and all the other things under the sun and then kicked me out. And the same day I went over to Danny's house and she was a lesbian and she told her dad, she was a lesbian. And the same day he kicked her out of the house. And, um, one of my very early recollections of that time period is. him screaming at her and then me stepping in between them and saying,

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

you know, leave her the hell alone, you know, with meaner words than that. And then him saying, I hope you die in a ditch. You know, so like, I remember that being, I mean, me and Danny, we were, we were kids. We were kids.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So we just went and we, we met with the landlord and that day we moved in. That was, that was what And I wrote about it in a diary or a journal recently. Like back when I was a kid, I read it recently. And I looked at my words and I talked about it so nonchalantly. Like it was just another day in the life

[Supdaily]:

What are you gonna do?

[Mercury Stardust]:

of me.

[Supdaily]:

Like that's just

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

your reality,

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah,

[Supdaily]:

yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

exactly. And this was like, you know, this was a, this was just another day in survival mode. And then later on when I was going to college, my dad, my mom wanted me to reconcile with my dad. So this became a series of me trying to reconcile a relationship with a man who probably didn't necessarily want me in his life to begin with, but you know, because my mom was such an influential person in both of our lives, we tried. And it didn't necessarily ever work. But when I went to college, I went down here in the liberal capital of Wisconsin, which is Madison,

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

and I, it was like an oasis of different ideas in a world that I often was never introduced to. And I went for theatrical production and design. And I fell in love with the world. I didn't really necessarily fall in love with my private college, but I fell in love with my, with my, um, the world that I was in. And that's how I found burlesque and cabaret because I went to the gay bars. And then I met people through the gay community. And I then found an ad on Craigslist from someone looking for an attractive twink who would be willing to dance in the background of a show. And then I auditioned, I went to his condo privately, which, you know, don't do this. This is like,

[Supdaily]:

Don't.

[Mercury Stardust]:

all

[Supdaily]:

Mm-mm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

the red flags are going

[Supdaily]:

No,

[Mercury Stardust]:

off, but

[Supdaily]:

don't!

[Mercury Stardust]:

I- I went to the audition and it was fine. It was wonderful. It was a great experience. And I became really good friends with this guy who's a drag queen by the name of C.C. Ray.

[Supdaily]:

Mmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

And C.C. Ray was a drag queen who worked with RuPaul and everything in the 90s, had his own traveling show for five straight years, traveled all around the country. And he started a new show in the late 2000s. And I became a backup dancer. And then I started doing more and more. and developing my own acts and became a solo burlesque entertainer. And then because that doesn't pay anything, you know, you don't get paid shit.

[Supdaily]:

No.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I then got lucky enough that someone said, Hey, you would be a great maintenance technician. Do you want to apply for an internship? So I did. And I got the job that day and I started the next day. And then within four months, I was a full-time maintenance technician. And I then started getting my degree in 14 different certifications over the course of five years.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So yeah, that's my mini story of how that became the B. But none of, I couldn't be who I am right now if it wasn't for that journey. Because then that, the burlesque world led me deeper down this rabbit hole of learning who I was. But the maintenance world prepared me for my future. And I didn't know that. I thought these were two separate entities, right? I didn't think

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

these could ever line up, but they were actually working together. Like, this is when I talk to people about like, what would my advice be to a younger me, or what would my advice be to younger kids, is that pay attention to the journey that you're on, and don't miss an opportunity to educate yourself. Because while I was learning who I was, I was learning skills that I'm using every single day. and now making my living as. But I could never have known that. I thought I was gonna eventually be a world famous burlesque entertainer. I

[Supdaily]:

I

[Mercury Stardust]:

was

[Supdaily]:

mean,

[Mercury Stardust]:

hell bent. I mean, also

[Supdaily]:

yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I was pretty good. I don't wanna sell myself short. I had 12 different international awards. I competed at Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender, which is like our Super Bowl in the burlesque world.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

One of only three Wisconsin entertainers ever to do that. Yeah, and I was very well known regionally as a great Boylesque performer, which was a male equivalent.

[Supdaily]:

Boy-lesque. I've never heard boy-lesque

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

before.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Boylesque is the equivalent to Burlesque. And now why do they gender it? I don't really

[Supdaily]:

I

[Mercury Stardust]:

know.

[Supdaily]:

don't know. At that. Ha ha.

[Mercury Stardust]:

It doesn't really make sense, but there is a long history of men

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

in Burlesque. There's like over a hundred year history. If you ever think of a guy who's really muscle bound and whatnot from the 1920s and 10s, and he has a fig leaf on him, that's called the beast archetype. And the beast archetype was a burlesque entertainer type of performer. So

[Supdaily]:

Interesting.

[Mercury Stardust]:

if you ever think of a muscle man who's bald and has like a handleball mustache with a fig leaf in front of his, you know, ha ha ha, that's definitely

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

a burlesque entertainer. So

[Supdaily]:

I mean,

[Mercury Stardust]:

like.

[Supdaily]:

I've gone to enough gay bars where like I've seen that. So I

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

associated with that. But if I didn't have that perspective, I don't think I would have.

[Mercury Stardust]:

There's also the stage door Johnnys, and stage door Johnnys were men who were bringing women on and off stage. It'd be like a group of men who would carry women on stage or undress in their own way and show the major sex appeal of this female character on stage. So men have always been integrated into the art form. It's just like as a society, we reject those type of things.

[Supdaily]:

Well, I think like listening to you talk about you doing the boy less and then you doing the maintenance, there's an there's a dissonance when you hear that because of the gender norms that are placed upon those things. And so this seems like the beginning because you're not out as trans or maybe don't even have. the term trans in your vocabulary yet. So you are unknowingly already breaking down gender norms

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

by doing both of those things at the same time.

[Mercury Stardust]:

When I first told a friend of mine that I was doing burlesque, I had to explain to them it wasn't drag. I had to explain

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

to them that I was not pretending to be a woman. That was a real thing that I had to do to multiple people. Because

[Supdaily]:

Did you

[Mercury Stardust]:

people,

[Supdaily]:

want to?

[Mercury Stardust]:

what, be

[Supdaily]:

At that

[Mercury Stardust]:

a woman?

[Supdaily]:

time,

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh,

[Supdaily]:

did

[Mercury Stardust]:

fuck

[Supdaily]:

you want

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah.

[Supdaily]:

to like, yeah, did you want to be a drag performer?

[Mercury Stardust]:

For my 22nd birthday, my 22nd birthday, I asked Cece Ray.

[Supdaily]:

Uh huh.

[Mercury Stardust]:

my friend who got me into the industry, I asked her to put me in drag. That was my 22nd birthday wish.

[Supdaily]:

Well?

[Mercury Stardust]:

Now, here's the thing, you can hear the egg cracking, but for some reason I was like, no, just duct tape the egg back together, we're good. I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not bad, you know. For those

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

who don't know what I'm referencing is when you're finding out who you are as a trans person, it's called cracking your egg, or egg cracking. Have you ever heard

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

this?

[Supdaily]:

I've never heard that.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah, it's an egg cracking moment. And then you open it up inside and the yolk oozes out. You can't stop it. Once you crack

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

it, it oozes out and that's, you know.

[Supdaily]:

It can

[Mercury Stardust]:

Once

[Supdaily]:

never

[Mercury Stardust]:

you

[Supdaily]:

go back.

[Mercury Stardust]:

really, yeah, yes. Once I wore drag, you know, oh my God, 2011 maybe?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

The floodgates of just, my life was just, you know, I just doubled down and tripled down and quadrupled down.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

as I went around. I would keep a really flame-boing guy. I mean, all my suits, this is true, all my suits and every all my my button downs, all them were rhinestone. I had

[Supdaily]:

Of course.

[Mercury Stardust]:

everything rhinestone.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I had I had blue hair like I do now, but then I had a short and I always pompadored it. It was always pompadored.

[Supdaily]:

Of course.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I always had gel with me.

[Supdaily]:

Like

[Mercury Stardust]:

I

[Supdaily]:

V.

[Mercury Stardust]:

always uh yeah one yes.

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I was telling V that when me and V were talking from under the desk news, but also I always wore combo boots that were rhinestone. Um, and I always wore a bow tie that was rhinestone. So like

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I, my, my, my wardrobe was just glittery and insane. And that was not even on stage. That was just in casual. I would hang out with my friends in rhinestone outfits. And Matthew knows this is true. who's doing the recording right now, I would do the podcast with him in rhinestone shit.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

So like, it was just who I was. And I was slowly going down this road. The very first thing I did for myself that led me down that road was I got my blue hair.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

That was an act of pure rebellion. I had been an actor prior to this too, and in the stage world, you're not allowed to modify your body. You're

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

not allowed to get tattoos, do... you can do these things and if you do, you'll limit your options, right? Which is

[Supdaily]:

Right.

[Mercury Stardust]:

laughably absurd if you think about it. I think you actually open up options, but that's a whole different argument. But anyways, for me, I just started becoming more and more me. And it started with blue hair, then it started with me picking the name Mercury Stardust. I have been Mercury Stardust since 2014. I have... I might have been out since 2019, but I've been Mercury Stardust for over a decade now.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah. So at what point, at what point are you able to like, would you hear the word or understand what transgender was and you're like, that.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh, fuck no. I mean, it took me, I think one of the very first times I really got it was probably when I met Casperi Domino. Casperi

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Domino is my older sister now. She's a trans woman in Madison who has been out for almost 25 years now.

[Supdaily]:

Whoa.

[Mercury Stardust]:

She, yeah, she's been out, you know, I don't wanna say the dark ages of trans activism, but kinda.

[Supdaily]:

It

[Mercury Stardust]:

You know,

[Supdaily]:

is what it is, yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

she's been out for a long time. And she has a really incredible story. But all that being said, I was doing a show here at a bar. It was just me and her. Never met her before, but I had heard about Cas Marie. And she was a really well-known drag performer. Everyone knew of Cas Marie in town. Everyone knew of me too, because I had already had like half a dozen awards by the time I met her. and I ran the Wisconsin Burlets Association and the festival and did all this stuff and it was developing a weekly show. So she was aware of me, but we never met. It just so happened we never met. So we did this show at a bar and I showed up and she came in and she was so over the top, flamboyant and wild. She was like, oh my God, Mercury, oh!

[Supdaily]:

Hahaha

[Mercury Stardust]:

And she like gave me a big hug. And then I would be like, okay, this is a little much, you know And then I just kept on seeing her the whole night. That was who she was

[Supdaily]:

Mmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

That it wasn't a show. It was 100% who she was to the very core of her as a person And then I saw that she was dating a trans man by the name of Ryan and I was like what is a trans man? And I was so out of the world. I didn't know that trans men existed,

[Supdaily]:

Mmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

which a lot of people outside of the community don't fully comprehend. So

[Supdaily]:

Why?

[Mercury Stardust]:

I don't really know. I think it's misogyny. I think for a lot of people, I think for a lot of people, the biggest threat to them is men weakening themselves. And I think that, you know, we heard these stories way back in Theodore Roosevelt's era, where he would describe men being, you know, um, you know, pacification of men, right? You know, becoming too pansy. You know, we need to have more violence in sports is what he said over a hundred years ago. Right.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

It's always been a fear of masculinity, not being strong enough as the previous generation. And I think there is a framework of right now, especially. that when you see trans femme people, it's like threatening. Like, oh no, there's too much soy in the milk. You know what I mean? Like they

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

get worried about these things that are just like, that doesn't make you femme. It doesn't, we're just embracing realities of ourselves and we're not hiding it like we once did, you know? But all that being said, I met Cass, met her now husband and I just fell in love with her and we talked and... I started realizing that I could be trans femme, but also date people who were women or non-binary or transmasc. I started realizing these things. It started expanding not only my gender identity, but my sexuality. The ironic thing about all of this, it was like 2014, 2015, I had dated someone who was very much a TERF. Now you would call her a TERF.

[Supdaily]:

Can you describe what turf means?

[Mercury Stardust]:

um trans radical um feminists a trans exclusionary radical feminists

[Supdaily]:

What does

[Mercury Stardust]:

so

[Supdaily]:

that

[Mercury Stardust]:

that's

[Supdaily]:

mean?

[Mercury Stardust]:

somebody who very much uh thinks themselves as a feminist and believes that trans women should be excluded from femininity and womanhood like they're not real women right

[Supdaily]:

because

[Mercury Stardust]:

now

[Supdaily]:

they're trying

[Mercury Stardust]:

some

[Supdaily]:

to take away from the attention

[Mercury Stardust]:

yes

[Supdaily]:

that women need.

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah like some people

[Supdaily]:

It's almost

[Mercury Stardust]:

and

[Supdaily]:

like a, maybe appropriation a bit

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

or.

[Mercury Stardust]:

you hear that a lot. You hear that same thing with drag queens, that it's

[Supdaily]:

That's

[Mercury Stardust]:

like

[Supdaily]:

so...

[Mercury Stardust]:

we're appropriating gender. And the thing is though, it's so interesting when they say things like that, because what you're saying is you're actually walking up to the point and then missing it.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Because if you think about it, okay, how could I appropriate gender, right? And all because you're doing this and this and this and this. We all agree that doesn't make me a woman, right? Because I don't think me wearing a dress or me wearing makeup or me having earrings or long hair, I don't think any of that makes me a woman.

[Supdaily]:

Mmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So I don't know why you would think that, you know?

[Supdaily]:

there's still aspects of patriarchal ideas.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah, and by the way, I always wore makeup like this. I

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

wore dresses as a Boylesque performer. I had earrings before I came out. I had long hair before I came out. None of these things, none of these things make me a woman. The thing that makes being a woman is I know that's my real identity, and that's hard to explain. But I don't ask people to explain every part of their identity to me, so why do I have to explain myself to you? Because it's just innately so different from your lived experience, it's hard for you to comprehend. But I'm telling you right now, as a person with a big heart and willing to listen to you, that I am who I am, and I trust you're who you are. and I'm not gonna make you question yourself, and I'm tired of you making me question myself, right?

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I think that's all I'm asking. I think that's all most trans people are asking, is just like, leave us alone. You

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

know what I mean? I wanna exist outside of my transness. I wanna talk about DIY. I wanna talk about fix-it stuff. I wanna do those things. I don't wanna be linked to my trans identity for

[Supdaily]:

You

[Mercury Stardust]:

my

[Supdaily]:

don't

[Mercury Stardust]:

entire

[Supdaily]:

want to be boxed.

[Mercury Stardust]:

life.

[Supdaily]:

You don't want

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

to be

[Mercury Stardust]:

I don't

[Supdaily]:

stuck

[Mercury Stardust]:

want to

[Supdaily]:

in,

[Mercury Stardust]:

be box.

[Supdaily]:

you're a multifaceted human.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah. As we talked about off air, you know, my tick talks are not one angle. There's like 10 different angles,

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

you know, on my podcast, the handyman hotline, which you use your old listen to by the way,

[Supdaily]:

Yep,

[Mercury Stardust]:

um,

[Supdaily]:

good

[Mercury Stardust]:

is

[Supdaily]:

pitch.

[Mercury Stardust]:

100. Yeah. 100% it's all different angles. I don't even talk

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

about me being trans on the show most of the time. Right. Isn't

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

neatly in there because I'm a trans woman for the trans perspective. Right. But I talk about how to fix stuff on that podcast every single week with my cohost, Maggie Conrad. And we answer questions and we do our things and very rarely do we bring up queerness within the context of the show, right? Like

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

outside of the context of the show rather, you know, so like, I don't know. I think that people are more fixated on it than we are in a lot of ways, but.

[Supdaily]:

Is it okay that we've been talking about those issues for the

[Mercury Stardust]:

AHAHA

[Supdaily]:

majority of this? I'm just, I'm trying to make sure I'm not part of the problem, you know? But I'm just genuinely curious and I want to like educate other people.

[Mercury Stardust]:

This goes back to being a gateway queer. This is

[Supdaily]:

Mmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

what I'm talking about. This is the job in which I signed up for that I am consenting to. I am okay with these conversations if I know that there's a group of people out there who would probably never have heard this story the way that I'm telling it without you asking me these questions. Now, not every trans person is going to feel that way that I do, right? But me. knowing my, I know where I am and I know what I need and I know my position in the world. I'm very okay with being asked these questions, but I will say I'm much more than that, right? I'm a business

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

owner, I'm a CEO of this company that has come up from nowhere, you know, like I have five employees at this point, you know, like this is a company that I built from the scratch just by helping people on the internet. and the community in which that follows me feels so strongly about me that they've helped elevate my voice and my ability to do such things, you know.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm. So you come out in 2019 and you start that process. When does TikTok come in? When does TikTok come into your life?

[Mercury Stardust]:

TikTok doesn't come in until 2021. So

[Supdaily]:

See.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I came out in 2019. I came out to a group of eight people at a burlesque show.

[Supdaily]:

Okay.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I was hosting the show and I was, I ended the show and I was like, everyone have a good night, take care, by the way, I'm a lady. And I walked off stage. It was the

[Supdaily]:

Hahaha!

[Mercury Stardust]:

most Midwest way you could ever come out. It was

[Supdaily]:

Hi bye!

[Mercury Stardust]:

so Midwestern. Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

it was like, hey everybody, bye bye, you know? But I came out that way. And then I slowly developed the show around me being queer and trans. What I was doing was making a community strong enough for me to come out to.

[Supdaily]:

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

Right. And I didn't know what I was doing, but that's what I was doing. So then I, when I first came out the first month or two, we started raising money for trans stuff. We right away, we started raising money to help other trans people. We raised money for a local trans law company. organization rather, we raised money for my employee Basil, who's my production goblin. They were my very first ever person I raised money for for their surgery for their top surgery.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So like, we've always kept this in the family, right? Like I always use my platform even as a burlesque entertainer and host. So come 2021, we're in the pandemic for like a year or so. I'm now in property management. And I am just barely getting by, you know, not, not just emotionally, but financially. And

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

it's been rough sauce, but we have this online burlesque show that we're still doing, you know, and someone says to me, Hey, you should do TikTok. You'd be great on TikTok. And I said, why the fuck would I do TikTok? Like, why? No, no flipping way. I'm going to do

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

TikTok. So I did TikTok. And one of the very first videos I did was helping someone with a ratchet strap. Uh, and that video just, I don't know, it just struck a chord with people. I introduced myself as, Hey there, hi, my name is Mercury Stardust. I am the intersectional feminist trans maintenance lady. Terrible name. Terrible

[Supdaily]:

That's a lot of words.

[Mercury Stardust]:

name.

[Supdaily]:

So many

[Mercury Stardust]:

So

[Supdaily]:

words. Heh.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I mean, back in the day, you only had 59 seconds for a TikTok, right?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I used about 20 of them to introduce my goddamn self. You know what I mean?

[Supdaily]:

Hahaha!

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I'm like. I'm sitting there to just try to explain this ratchet strap and I'm just like, you know, this is an alligator mouth,

[Supdaily]:

Hehehe

[Mercury Stardust]:

you know? But I did it in a way that resonated with people that they liked. And I did it in

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

a way that wasn't condescending or speaking down to them at all. In all the other videos, all the other comments were doing that, but mine

[Supdaily]:

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

wasn't. So I went from like 100 followers to 20,000 by the next morning.

[Supdaily]:

Wow.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I had 600,000 views in that first night, in that first video. And then like a day later, I did a video about using toothpicks to fix your door hinge. And then that went viral, let's see by 1.4 million, I think. And then I had all like almost 150 to 200,000 followers at this point. And it just kept going. I had a million within the first three months. I had, I worked with this company as a technician. And my boss came up to me and said, hey, I saw your TikToks. Just wanna make sure you're not doing that on company time.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

We don't want any of that, you know? And he didn't see the value in what I was doing. And I think that's still laughable because I think there's so much value in what I'm doing that to me, like, why wouldn't you wanna be associated with that? Why wouldn't

[Supdaily]:

Mm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

you wanna be associated? with me helping renters if you're a property management company and as a trans person. Yes, 100%.

[Supdaily]:

they don't hire you then. It's like, it feels like a little bit of concern of erasure of what he's doing. And like, if you teach them these things, then I become less integral

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

to the process. Maybe the scarcity.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah, and I never did any of it on company time, never.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Anytime that I was asked to do a video, I would say, because people started recognizing me. My tenants would know who I was.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I would show up to their apartment and they would be like, oh my God, you're the trans handyman, and I'm like, yeah. And then they'd be like, oh my God, can you videotape this? And I'm like, I can't videotape it now, but how about this? I'll come by after hours and I'll videotape it. And that's what

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

we did sometimes. And some of my most viral videos are me doing it while the fucking tenant is holding the phone. Do

[Supdaily]:

Hahaha

[Mercury Stardust]:

you know what I mean? Like, one of my most viral videos ever is this tub draining video that I did. And the tenant like grabbed my phone and was so excited and like, okay, yeah. And they like, they almost dropped it into the tub. But they were so excited and they were just like shaking the entire time. And I had to look at them and be like, hey, you know, I totally wanna do this. stop shaking.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

But it was great. It was a wonderful experience. But those kind of things happen all the time, you know? And the company just never saw value in understanding that I was actually building a connection with our tenants.

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

They trusted me and I trusted them. It went far beyond just fixing a fucking window. It went into their hearts and it made them feel safer, right? And I by name, about 300 of them, and I only been there for about nine months. I loved my tenants. I loved them. Um, I watched out for them. If I saw that there was one of their kids was outside locked out, I would let the kid in if they had a, um, uh, if their car was not jumping on, I would jump their car. If I saw someone have a flat tire, I would always make sure that I helped them with their flat tire. I've helped people plow themselves out when they were stuck in the snow. I did all that stuff. I walked people to their cars with my umbrella almost daily when we were having rain storms here. I cared about these people and I wanted them to see me more than just someone who showed up once in a while when something was broken. I wanted them to see me connect with them outside of that. So I made sure I drove around in a golf cart every single day and I picked up trash. every single day and I never had any headphones on and I talked to every single person who walked up because building a connection with people was really important to me and that should be number one. Number one thing you do as a technician if you're on a property management company is the community is first and that's what you're doing. You're building a community. It's not about fixing drywall. It's about making sure people feel safe in their homes. and you do that by showing your face and showing that you're willing to do the job. People would call me up specifically. They would call up the office and ask for me to show up. And I was really proud of that. But the big problem was the company never had my back. So there was one night I was an emergency technician and someone had come over and shot up an apartment with 22 bullets.

[Supdaily]:

Whoa.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And bullets went through the apartment and almost killed the woman who was living there and she had two kids and it was her ex-boyfriend who did it. So I showed up and I started patching everything at five o'clock six o'clock in the morning. I stayed with her for hours after the police left and everything too. And in the morning my boss calls me and talks to me and he says, hey, good job, I'm happy that you're patching. I was like, okay, good. He's like, hey, let's make it their home again is what he told me. And I said, yeah, I wanna make it their home again. So we'll do that, we'll make that happen. We'll make it as safe as possible. We're gonna change the locks and everything. About three, four hours ago, go by, he then gives me another call and he says, we're actually gonna go in a different direction. We're not gonna renew her lease in two weeks. And I was like, why? And he said, well, she's endangering the other tenants at this point. And I was like, yeah, but she didn't, I don't understand that. Well, he was living there without permission from us. So she violated her lease by having him live there. So therefore she broke her lease so we can break ours. And I was like, people live with each other all the time. I mean, that's not, that doesn't seem right. And then they had their regional manager call me up and say basically the same thing. And then say to me, basically you do this or you're gone. And remember, I had about 500,000 followers at this point. I

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

was like, I was ready to go. I was like, the ticking time bomb was going in my head. So I said, you know, okay, yeah, sure. Okay, I just, I'll walk out, I guess. You know, so they, you know, they ended up evicting her. I stayed there for another three months, another two months rather, and then somebody one day, while I was picking up trash in the courtyard, someone came running out with only a bra on and with sweatpants on and started screaming for help. And she asked me for my cell phone. She used my cell phone, the then call, the police. And if... Turns out that someone had tried to stab her and kill her. It was a boyfriend she was seeing. And she needed help. So I'm staying with her until the cops come. Then all of a sudden this man comes out and threatens to unalive her right in front of me several times and then threatens to unalive me. So we get in the golf cart, we run up to the office, he chases us the whole way. And then we get in there, he's like, He calls me the teesler and

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

he said, I know where you live.

[Supdaily]:

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

And it's true, most of the tenants didn't know where I live because I didn't live that far away from them. And he said, you better watch out. So I went in the office and I waited about seven or eight hours with the police and getting her back home and all this stuff. And then about maybe a week goes by and my boss asks me why things weren't done. Like, why are we falling behind? And I said, I don't know, it's been kind of hard. And I was the only technician on the property at this point. They had gotten rid of the other guy a month prior. And I said, I know, I'm struggling. It's been really hard to be around the property right now. And he's like, why? And I'm like, because of last week? And he was like, what happened last week? He never read the email I sent him.

[Supdaily]:

Oh my god.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah, so HR knew, but he didn't know, and HR didn't do anything. So like, no one had my back. Like, I felt so alone, you know? And two days later, my spouse was set to have their top surgery. I, me and my spouse have been married for four years now. We've been married together for almost eight. And ZZ was getting her top surgery. And we were super excited, but we needed the insurance.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So, you know, here I am, not knowing what to do. I called my insurance up and was like, hey, you know, if I quit my job, will I still have insurance? And they're like, yeah, until the end of the month. And I went, okay. So,

[Supdaily]:

Off to the races!

[Mercury Stardust]:

I quit my job a day after they had their surgery, just

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

to make sure. So they had their surgery on a Thursday, I quit on a Friday. and my resignation letter was eight pages. It was,

[Supdaily]:

eight pages.

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah, I listed every single incident that I saw happen that I felt like was verging unethical, and I listed every single employee who did it. And after I left, I found out about maybe six months later that most of the people I listed were fired almost immediately.

[Supdaily]:

Wow.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I was never notified or spoken to by the company. but the company didn't take action. So I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened, but I know that most of the people that were committing these things were let go. It doesn't mean the culture changed. It doesn't mean any, there's not really a win, you know? It's more like a somber, yay, you know what I mean?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

But the day I left, I made a video, and that video has set me on this path.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

You know, I made a video saying, you know, Today's the saddest day of my life. I just put in, you know, my resignation letter and effective at being Lee I'm no longer a maintenance technician and That was really hard. Yeah, I I still think about that all the time August 16th 2021 was a day. I left my job

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

and I miss my job every single day. I Loved being a full-time maintenance technician. I love my job. Now, don't get me wrong But there's something extremely freeing about just doing the work and not having to worry about filming it.

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I miss just fixing something and not knowing what the outcome is going to be. And too often now, I know what the outcome is going to be because I'm filming it. It has to be

[Supdaily]:

Right.

[Mercury Stardust]:

a certain way. Right? Back then, if I was working on a drain, Or if I was working on a sink, I didn't always know if it was going to go my way. And there is something about that that is so freeing and vulnerable. And I loved it. I really repair, maintenance is, is my passion more than anything. Helping people is definitely up there, but maintenance itself, fixing something that people don't think can be fixed. That's, that's, it's just a thrill to that. That's really hard to explain, you know?

[Supdaily]:

Is there a way for you to somehow incorporate that? Like in what you do? Cause

[Mercury Stardust]:

Well...

[Supdaily]:

you do social media full time. So you're about to tell me something.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah, this is a great segue. Thank you for queuing

[Supdaily]:

I planned

[Mercury Stardust]:

me up.

[Supdaily]:

it.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So

[Supdaily]:

Yeah, yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah, you planned it. So

[Supdaily]:

I knew,

[Mercury Stardust]:

this

[Supdaily]:

I

[Mercury Stardust]:

is

[Supdaily]:

know

[Mercury Stardust]:

my

[Supdaily]:

exactly

[Mercury Stardust]:

book

[Supdaily]:

what

[Mercury Stardust]:

called,

[Supdaily]:

you're about to say.

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah, this is my book, Safe and Sound, A Renters Friendly Guide to Home Repair. Right now we are building an apartment in my studio. So we're building an efficiency in this studio. We have a 3000 square foot studio. I have five employees, a sound designer, a camera editor, production assistant, Maggie has a production assistant who's my business partner and we all work together, but we're turning this space into like a little mini makeshift apartment so we can make sure that all the how-to's that are in this book for renters can also be something we show over and over and over again for the end of time and getting to demolish some of this fucking space.

[Supdaily]:

So fun.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh my god, one day

[Supdaily]:

Oh.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I came to work really sad and my production goblin, Basil, looked at me and said, do you wanna just break stuff today? And I said, fuck yeah.

[Supdaily]:

Oh my God. I did one of those rage rooms once

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

and it was one of the best feelings ever. Just taking a sledgehammer to like a coffee maker. So I can imagine on the scale you were doing it it had been so satisfying.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Oh, I tore down a wall by myself. Oh boy. That was,

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

that was pretty bad ass.

[Supdaily]:

It's primal.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And the best part is we didn't film it. We didn't film

[Supdaily]:

Yes!

[Mercury Stardust]:

it. And there was something, we have a rule where there's one part of the building we don't film in. And I hang out there because that means I can't film there. And that makes the world a different psychologically. It makes the boundaries really important to me. You know, now we're also trying to expand the company into an apparel company.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

Um, and we're still very, in a very early stages of that, but there's going to be a part of the company that is, you know, I'm the author, right? I'm, I'm,

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

we've already sold, uh, 20,000 copies of this book and it's

[Supdaily]:

Wow.

[Mercury Stardust]:

only in pre-order and it's only been out for about a month. So. coming out August 22nd and the book is Already the best-selling author like it's going to be probably on the New York's best-selling list if we keep going and it's already the number One how-to book in the country That's great It opens up an opportunity for me to do more the things that I actually love Right and it frees me up to actually be able to do the things that I like to do When you don't have a team around you you can't do that. You can't do that if you don't have a team around you One of the biggest things I see that content creators do is try to do everything themselves and they cash in on really small victories.

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

When a content creator is like, oh my God, I got $1,000 from this company. I'm like, why did you only take $1,000?

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I don't take anything under 10. So how are you doing that? And they're like, why are you getting that much? Because I'm selective. I only take one out of every 40 deals I'm offered, you know, but the one I take is like eight, nine months. I take a long-term deal, right? And a lot of people have a short-sightedness of their content. I gotta cash in now. I gotta do this now. And there's a risk by what I'm doing, but every time there was a success, I made sure we put in a puzzle piece. Like, Maggie was the very first puzzle piece. She's my business partner. She's the brains of the operation. She,

[Supdaily]:

Love, Maggie.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I put out, yeah, Meggie's amazing. I put out an ad on TikTok saying, okay, you know, there's a guy who I know who's a businessman, who's going to pay for my first employee for three months, okay? His name is Dave Heidi. He runs a restaurant here in Tropical Madison, Wisconsin. I'm named

[Supdaily]:

I'm gonna go

[Mercury Stardust]:

Ollie's.

[Supdaily]:

to bed.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And he was a really good friend of mine and he has a trans son. His son is named Ollie. He named his restaurant after his son, Ollie. So Dave was like, I believe in what you do. I think you're burning yourself out. So if I pay for an employee, you're an assistant for you for three months, only 15 bucks an hour, but you can pay them a percentage of any kind you want. So I did this interviews and I met Maggie. I fell in love with Maggie. We gave Maggie the job right away. And then she was like, what do you want the percentage to be like 10%? And I was like, no, 50. And Maggie was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, that's insane. And I was like, You're not doing this job if I don't give you 50% of whatever I make. And that's always been my rule. Everyone gets paid equal here, everybody does.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So, Meggie got paid 50% of whatever I did and then by the time that we were done, right within that first three months, we had made more money than we ever did for the first year of operating. And the reason why was because it freed me up to make content. It

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

freed me up to do the things I wanted to do. And Maggie dealt with all the speeches, dealt with all the sponsorships, dealt with all the things, you know? And then I offered Maggie, he was like, Hey, you know what? I think we have a company. Like, I think this is not just a solo act. I think we can make this a company. Do you want to be my business partner? And Maggie was like shocked. It's only been three months. And then Maggie was like, I'll have to talk to my husband. But yeah. And keep in mind, Maggie was a fan. May Maggie was a fan of mine. She had turned down a six figure job to work with me. Right? And she was like, I don't know. I don't know if this is really the right route, but I like what you're doing and I believe in you. So let's do that. And that's always been my key. Finding people who believe in the same type of nonsense that I believe in. And if they can buy into the same type of nonsense, then maybe we got something here. and everybody who works with us believes in the mission that we're doing. And sometimes it's a little bizarre and off the kilter, but I have a vision and I'm going to start trusting myself because it's worked out so far, you know? Um, and it's hard. That's a really hard thing to do and not everyone gets a Maggie. Not everyone gets a Dave, you know, I'm very fortunate and privileged to have those opportunities, but you might also get those opportunities in different ways and you got to capitalize on them. You gotta

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

make best of what you got when you got it. And we were lucky enough to make that happen. And yeah, here we are. So a year later, we have now five employees and we raised$2.3 million of TransHealthcare as a company for Point of Pride. Because again, I couldn't have done that without their help. I did the fundraiser last year by myself. I did $100,000 in 24 hours, which we thought was amazing. My goal was 24,000 and we

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

hit 100,000. And this year I brought on a friend of mine named Jory, who's alluring skulls on the internet. And we went for a million and we got 2.3. So bringing people on and working with people is how you succeed and how you actually make it all happen.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah, you allow yourself the time to do the things that you are truly excellent at. Have you ever read that book? Um. big leap.

[Mercury Stardust]:

No.

[Supdaily]:

So the big leap talks about the four different states of competency, I guess. So there's, I forget what the one is like, you're not very good at it. Other people are great at it. The next one is like, you're competent at it. Other people are better at it. Then there's that zone of excellence, which is something like you're great at, but other people are great at. And then the big leap is leaping from doing the things that you're good at to the doing the things that you are uniquely. great at genius and so you hiring someone else allows you to stay in that zone so you can focus on what makes you successful.

[Mercury Stardust]:

You know what else that is though? The confidence and the humbleness to know that you're not able to do it by yourself. I think there is sometimes in this industry, a little bit of that cockiness of like, well, why would I hire someone to do this when I could just do all the work and I can make more money that actually isn't how this works. I make more money now because I brought on a team. Right. And I think that like building it out is a really big deal. The big leap is 100% true. You know, you gotta be willing to take that big leap. There's a huge risk there. But you also gotta be willing to tell what are the things I'm bad at and who can fill those positions, you know? I'm very loyal to my people. Like Matt has been in my life for 17 years or 16 years. And now Matt does all the sound for us, including my podcast, The Hanging Mame Hotline.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And Basil was... has been in my life for like the last five years and now is my personal assistant, Dash Production Goblin. And the reason why I believe so strongly in that is because I know what they do and I know what they're capable of and I know they're better at some things that I am. You know, I'm really only good at doing the talky talk and doing the fixy fix. I'm not really good at most other things. And

[Supdaily]:

But what about people

[Mercury Stardust]:

I got

[Supdaily]:

who

[Mercury Stardust]:

to

[Supdaily]:

don't

[Mercury Stardust]:

bring

[Supdaily]:

have

[Mercury Stardust]:

people

[Supdaily]:

the

[Mercury Stardust]:

around

[Supdaily]:

money?

[Mercury Stardust]:

me to be able to

[Supdaily]:

What if they don't have the money to hire these

[Mercury Stardust]:

Well,

[Supdaily]:

people?

[Mercury Stardust]:

no, 100%. But here's the thing though, neither did I. Neither did I. What I had was a mission that was strong enough to make people believe in me.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

If your mission is just to be famous, you're not gonna get anywhere doing what I did. You're not, you're not gonna

[Supdaily]:

No.

[Mercury Stardust]:

work. Your mission has to be larger than you. It has to be to make a real difference. If people believe in that mission, they're going to help you. but you gotta do something worth believing in. And for me, the trans handyman is, yeah, it's me, right? But the trans handyman is kind of also a symbol for the queer community at this point, where it almost like goes past me. And I believe that we're making a difference every single day. And I also do raise money on a regular basis for the trans community. So like those things people can get behind. actual tangible differences for people to do. If you can use your platform and leverage the voice that you have to affect people's life and impact their life, it doesn't matter how many views you get. It doesn't matter how many interactions or engagements you get. All that matters is the impact. And the impact for us always been a huge crater. It's always been huge. So it's just a matter of... Making people convince that and that's why I asked my audience. They were already there My audience is already there and all I needed was their help and that's what happened

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm. I have a question from one of my Patreon supporters, if you're down to answer. Comfortable

[Mercury Stardust]:

Absolutely.

[Supdaily]:

with that? Okay,

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

so if you ever want to ask questions to my guests, patreon.com slash unfiltered friends. Anika asks, sometimes you'll do a video response addressing a hate comment, and you always do it with so much kindness and grace. Why would you say it is important for you to respond that way, and do you? How do you find the energy for that?

[Mercury Stardust]:

If I respond in any other way that isn't grace, they win. They win. They lose when people see my humanity. They

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

want to make me lesser than and make me other than human. But if I respond with grace and compassion and kindness, I undercut their words of cruelty, right? And that's why I don't do it to teach them a lesson. I do it so other people who are on the fence can see it. My videos are not just seen by that one person I'm responding to. It's seen by potentially millions of people. Right. So the people who are watching in silent and aren't commenting are the people I want to see it the most. Right.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

They are the ones that matter. The people who are would describe themselves as center or describe themselves as libertarians.

[Supdaily]:

Hahaha!

[Mercury Stardust]:

They're the ones that mattered to me because like,

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

like, like, oh, I know, I know I'm, I'm going, I know I'm also sometimes talking to into an echo chamber, right? But not always. And it's important even to people who are in my own chamber to be in the same page and get it. That's good. And also, to be honest, it's also liberating for me. Because I'm not suffering in silence. I'm not just reading that comment and then letting it fester in my mind. I'm actually using it to A, elevate my voice and B, to heal myself. You know, sometimes these things that I read do hurt me. They, I mean,

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

it's, you know, like I'm not going to lie about it. I mean, yeah. Of course it fucking hurts me. I'm a human being. When someone says they want me to take cyanide, or when someone says they wish we had another gay holocaust, when someone says those things to me, it hurts,

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

right? But if I call attention to it and I use it to educate people in my humanity, you know what? That's healing, that's me walking through those emotions in real time in front of a camera. And I quite often, I don't rehearse those. When I

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

respond, I respond. And if I see myself trying to hit the same points over and over and over again, I will erase the whole video and not do it for another two weeks. I always make them as authentic as possible. So if you see one of those videos, I'm doing it one take at a time. I never do multiple takes in those videos for that reason.

[Supdaily]:

And you had one video that me, especially as a creator, really like stuck out to me. And it was real raw, real vulnerable, real emotional talking about how people are saying that you're not doing enough.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Mmm.

[Supdaily]:

And I, when you said the phrase, you don't see all of the app mentions and video replies and DMs that really hit home for me because I feel. uh, expectation heaped upon me just because I have a large following. And like, while I believe in using my platform to elevate others, um, one, I don't have to, and two, it's not possible for me to do it for every single community.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

So can you talk a little bit about like that vulnerable moment for you and why it was important for you to share?

[Mercury Stardust]:

What was interesting about that was I was already like, I had a 12 hour day, right? And I was really tired and I just posted a video that I spent like three hours on with my production assistant and Basil and I were so excited about that. And I was like, we were asking our audience for help. We're asking our audience to like submit questions and. asked me DIY stuff and let's focus on the good stuff. Let's focus on the stuff that makes us happy because right now my tags are really sad, you know?

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And then not just one but several people made videos in response to me saying that I was being selfish, that I wasn't using my platform for enough good. And this

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

was about a week or maybe two weeks after I raised $2.3 million of trans healthcare and it broke me. I like, I went, what? Why are they saying this? And then I read the comments and saw people that were echoing their opinion. And I was like, do they not understand what I just did? Oh no, they do. They do understand what I just did, but they think I should be doing that every day.

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I was like, oh my God. And here's the thing people don't know. Last year I did it by myself, right? I raised $100,000 by myself. My spouse, and my friends came over to my house about two days later and they had a private conversation with me and said, if you ever do that alone, we won't be here anymore. I was so unhealthy. I almost crashed my car on the way home because I was up for 48 straight hours and I was not in a good place and I was putting the weight of the world on myself. And my friends were like, you are doing too much. Like you're not. taking care of yourself. All you're doing is making video. I was doing five videos a day at the time, right? I was really, I was trying to help people as much as I could every day. And my friends were like, enough is enough, right? So here we are, a year later, I'm actually taking some backseat. I'm trying to diversify how we do things. I'm focusing on Instagram. I'm doing all the things. And I'm actually finding some happiness in my life. while doing this really weird job that we have, right? And to see that broke me and it made me feel like, what is the right way? How am I supposed to do this? You know, like even me, like I'm constantly checking myself. Every employee gets paid the same. I'm not taking a larger cut even though I could, right? I'm... I'm doing all the things, the nonprofit got 100% of everything that we raised for trans people. You know what I mean? Like we did all these things in the most ethical way to do it. And I was still told it wasn't enough.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I think the biggest hard part is that sometimes there's a disconnect. They want to believe the worst in people. And someone said, one of the comments said that why aren't you doing real mutual aid? instead of going through an organization. Point of Pride is a 50C3 nonprofit. Organization has been around for 10 years. Is a recognizable name in the trans community. And we raised six times more money than they've ever raised all the years combined they've been around. That's how much we've helped them, right? The trans community never really supported them prior to us. So like, We've changed the whole dynamic of that company and the whole dynamic of the nonprofit and changed like 12,000 trans people's lives from binders, HRTs, surgeries, all of that. Right. And the way we did it was Point of Pride is vetting everybody. Everyone who applies gets vetted by them. If I just went to every GoFundMe I saw, or I'm still doing the same thing Point of Pride is doing, but on smaller scales. I can't look at 12,000 individuals by myself and just randomly select people. What I'm doing is mutual aid. It's direct mutual aid, right? But it's something that's different. And I think I've frustrated a lot of people because people, you know what, they're desperate. This is a scary time for trans people.

[Supdaily]:

It is.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Do you know what I mean? Like 480 anti-trans laws at the time. I think it's more at this point. But 480 at the time. And so many people were trying to get out of Florida. So many people were trying to get out of Missouri. So many people were trying to get out of Kansas or Oklahoma, you know, Tennessee. So I understand the frustration. I get it. I understand the frustration and how scary and isolated it is. And often the trans experience is one of isolation. But here's the thing, I'm doing the best I can and asking for our own community. to doing more than they are capable of doing is defamental to the community itself, right? And if we can stick together and we can support each other, just understand that I am doing the best I can. And I know I'm doing the best I can, but I also know they're doing the best they can too. And sometimes it can be hard and sometimes you just gotta lash out. It's unfortunate that it's at someone else's expense, but I also understand it, you know?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah,

[Mercury Stardust]:

So,

[Supdaily]:

it's hard

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah.

[Supdaily]:

to be it's hard to be hurt and understanding at the same time sometimes. So I commend you on that. I'm really I like I don't know if it's weird hearing this from a stranger, but like I've been really proud watching what you're doing. I think it's like such a beautiful thing. I've been kind of like a silent watcher because especially as, you know, a sis hetero, I don't know. I don't even know if that's OK to say at this point.

[Mercury Stardust]:

It is. You're doing great. You're doing great.

[Supdaily]:

Like that's the hard part is like you try so hard to say things and then the rules change so quickly. And I was someone who is deeply entrenched in that stuff for a long time, but you're kind of demonstrating the purpose. You're helping me fulfill my purpose in this moment, which is to humanize the people that are on your screen. See them as human beings instead of just pixels and someone

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

who's there to serve you. Like you need to understand that these are humans that have real life experiences and like while you can have your opinions, please do not forget that fact.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah. And also TikTok more than any is a space where like, we don't make a lot of money on TikTok. I make

[Supdaily]:

No.

[Mercury Stardust]:

a lot of money on my speaking gigs, my sponsorships and Patreon, right? I don't make a lot of money anywhere else, right?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I don't even do merch drops. So like, you know, not yet anyways. So like, I think the most money I've ever made on TikTok to be fully transparent is $500. Um was the most I ever made on TikTok in one month in

[Supdaily]:

in a

[Mercury Stardust]:

one

[Supdaily]:

month.

[Mercury Stardust]:

month I made um last year I made About four thousand dollars on tiktok all

[Supdaily]:

It's

[Mercury Stardust]:

year

[Supdaily]:

a, especially as someone who's been in the game, I've been doing this for 16 years. It's

[Mercury Stardust]:

Mm-hmm.

[Supdaily]:

been my full-time job for 13 of those years. I understand the numbers. And I had a day, I got 20 million views in

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yep.

[Supdaily]:

one day, and I made

[Mercury Stardust]:

Uh huh.

[Supdaily]:

$57 off of the 20 million. And I was like, if this was

[Mercury Stardust]:

I feel

[Supdaily]:

YouTube,

[Mercury Stardust]:

it.

[Supdaily]:

that would be like tens of thousands of dollars.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

What is the malfunction here?

[Mercury Stardust]:

I'm going to tell you something that's very brand new and I don't want to like jinx us, but

[Supdaily]:

Okay.

[Mercury Stardust]:

there's a new program called the Creativity Program Beta. Now, a few creators, me and a few others I don't want to give any names to yet, have been basically given this opportunity to try this new program where it only gives you money if you make a video longer than a minute.

[Supdaily]:

Over a minute. I'm in it now.

[Mercury Stardust]:

You're in it right now. So you know kind of what

[Supdaily]:

I

[Mercury Stardust]:

I'm

[Supdaily]:

just

[Mercury Stardust]:

talking about.

[Supdaily]:

got in. Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I will say this, I've been on it for about a week and a half. I have made more money in the week and a half

[Supdaily]:

Okay.

[Mercury Stardust]:

that I have been on it than I have ever made in a single month,

[Supdaily]:

Whoa.

[Mercury Stardust]:

right? Yeah, so like in a week and a half. And I don't wanna say exactly because I'm still like early. I wanna see it go out before I like say this is the one, but let's just say it's really close to a thousand, right? In

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

the first week. Now, if you do the math there, okay. Now, is that still what we want? I don't know,

[Supdaily]:

Now!

[Mercury Stardust]:

but you know what? My numbers have not been that great recently. I see that, okay. What happens when I have a viral video at 20 million and it has over a one minute video? Who knows,

[Supdaily]:

Boom.

[Mercury Stardust]:

you know? So I just wanna say, at least they're toying with it,

[Supdaily]:

They're

[Mercury Stardust]:

right?

[Supdaily]:

trying, yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I also think it's a really weird medium on how to get sponsorship and how to do it. It's not like YouTube. It's not, it's a whole different medium.

[Supdaily]:

No.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I, as someone who's trying to break into YouTube, right, I'm hiring an editor who's helping me do all this stuff. We're gonna do long form how-to videos on YouTube. We have some up already.

[Supdaily]:

which

[Mercury Stardust]:

But,

[Supdaily]:

always

[Mercury Stardust]:

all

[Supdaily]:

do well, always

[Mercury Stardust]:

the

[Supdaily]:

do

[Mercury Stardust]:

way,

[Supdaily]:

well.

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah, well, right, it's just, it's a really like, we're trying to learn how to do YouTube, but I'm very good at doing short form. Very good at doing short form. But it's a whole different medium. You know what I mean? So it's interesting. Again, is impact. That's how I make my money, is impact. Because people like what I do so they don't want to hear me speak. So then I get college gigs, and I get sponsorship to talk about being trans at like organizations, and I get sponsorship to talk to Fortune 500 companies. I'm actually speaking at Target's headquarters for Pride Month in

[Supdaily]:

Cool.

[Mercury Stardust]:

a month. Yeah, I'm doing all this really cool stuff, right? but all of that's happening because of the impact I'm having rather than the numbers I bring in. And that is the thing that I cannot stress enough to content creators, is that like, I get it. When we're first starting out, we don't always know what we're doing, but like look for the impact you can have. And if you can swing towards that impact, that's where the bread and butter is. That's where

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

not only are you helping people, which is always good, But you're also like carving out a niche that is not, you're not able to, I'm not able to be pulled out. I'm stuck now. Do you

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

know what I mean? Like, same with Jeffrey Marsh. There's no way to pull us out of the fabric of the internet now. The trans

[Supdaily]:

Right.

[Mercury Stardust]:

handyman is here to stay because she's a symbol now. You know what I mean? Very hard to, even my numbers dip and I'm, I don't. I'm not as relevant, I will always be relevant because of the nature of my platform, if that

[Supdaily]:

Mm

[Mercury Stardust]:

makes sense.

[Supdaily]:

hmm. It does. I mean, I made a lot less money because I was covering LGBT back in the day on YouTube because advertisers like I made a video helping a trans kid love and accept himself. And I was demonetized before I was finished uploading. But they would sure fly the rainbow flag through the month of June and profit from the community. There's actually a lawsuit against Google right now with a bunch of LGBT creators that are. bringing up this fact. But with that being said, I would get messages from people saying that I helped save their life. And if I did that to one person, if there's one person who's still on earth because fuck a number,

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

fuck a dollar amount, that person's alive. Whoa, whoa.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah.

[Supdaily]:

And that's why I have a TED Talk called influencer is a verb. I'm trying to change the idea about what an influencer is.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I watched that. So yeah,

[Supdaily]:

Oh, you did.

[Mercury Stardust]:

I get it. Yeah, I did. I actually remember this. Like I think I watched it before we met today. Like,

[Supdaily]:

Oh.

[Mercury Stardust]:

yeah, this is the thing that I find interesting about the internet is how we've impacted each other without always knowing, right? Like, I think it's interesting to view the internet like a wave

[Supdaily]:

Hmm

[Mercury Stardust]:

because there's a ripple effect that happens. And you know, like you're saying about the lawsuit for the LGBTQ community. on YouTube, right, that will affect other platforms, but also affects how queer people on the internet are portrayed and how we communicate. And a fight for the queer community and a win for the queer community is often a win for other, just creators in general,

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

right? Like I think that being intersectional with how we approach all of this is really important. That's why intersectionality is such a big point of how I teach. for renters because if I help a renter, I'm also helping a homeowner. But if I only help a homeowner, I'm not helping a renter.

[Supdaily]:

Hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

So if I take it from the standpoint of I'm helping a renter, therefore I'm basically helping a homeowner, then that's great. Do you know what I mean?

[Supdaily]:

Yes.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And that's how I view all things. How can we help each other by helping the people who are the most vulnerable?

[Supdaily]:

Yeah. God, that's wonderful. I knew this was going to be a good conversation. If people are inspired by you and want to reach out to you, where's the best place for them to do that?

[Mercury Stardust]:

They can always reach out to my team at meggyatmercaristartist.com. They can also find me on Instagram, the YouTube, and also of course, the Tiki Talk.

[Supdaily]:

Tiki ta.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And I have a wonderful podcast called The Handy Ma'am Hotline.

[Supdaily]:

Mm-hmm.

[Mercury Stardust]:

And you can always text or call us on a hotline. And all the information is at mercurystartist.com. And it's a great podcast. We answer five questions every week. We got a few segments that are really fun on there. And I just love doing it and sometimes I call people. Sometimes when they call in, I love their questions so much, I call them. We got one woman who was literally on, she was like helping her kid with her homework and we called her right when she was helping her kid. So really fun stuff,

[Supdaily]:

Yeah.

[Mercury Stardust]:

great things, I love it.

[Supdaily]:

Awesome.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Yeah,

[Supdaily]:

Well, thank you

[Mercury Stardust]:

jazz

[Supdaily]:

for your

[Mercury Stardust]:

hands.

[Supdaily]:

time, Jazz Hands. And

[Mercury Stardust]:

Woo!

[Supdaily]:

yeah, thank you for being on Unfiltered Friends.

[Mercury Stardust]:

Thank you for having me. Yay,

[Supdaily]:

Of course,

[Mercury Stardust]:

we did it. Ha

[Supdaily]:

we did

[Mercury Stardust]:

ha

[Supdaily]:

it.

[Mercury Stardust]:

ha.