Transfemme Pickle Club: New Identity Group Comes With a Delicious Twist
On Fridays in the Aspen kitchen from 3:30-6:30pm, members of the newly-founded Transfemme Pickle Club can be found jarring vegetables encapsulated in a flavorful acidic brine in a process known across the world as pickling.
The members of Transfemme Pickle Club follow recipes from Japanese Pickled Vegetables: 129 Homestyle Recipes for Traditional Brined, Vinegared and Fermented Pickles by Machiko Tateno, a book that club founder Malori Graves ‘24 lists as her club’s “metaphorical bible.” Graves, who has led the club in pickling both ginger and pearl onions, was introduced to the book by a friend, who inspired her to found the club.
The club is more than a place for culinary enthusiasts, however. As the name suggests, Transfemme Pickle Club exists to create a “safe, supportive, and encouraging space on campus” for trans people. Graves and her friend both “felt that there wasn't really a space or community for trans people on campus, and starting this club was a step towards building that.”
This feeling has been reciprocated by other club members, such as Callie Reimann ‘24, who “only realized after joining that this was the first time [she’d] seen an explicitly trans-focused club in [her] time here at Reed.” She continued, saying, “I joined up for the chance to eat pickles and learn some new recipes since I enjoy cooking,” she says, “but I'm staying for the sense of community I didn't know I was missing.”
The connection between pickles and the transfemme experience comes from a longstanding meme – that is, that trans women crave pickles. This meme is based on “very real symptoms of feminizing HRT (hormone replacement therapy),” says Graves, who explains that “[t]he drug spironolactone (spiro), which people who choose to medically transition take, causes the body to absorb less sodium, and therefore has the side effect of making people crave sodium. There is also the idea that the hormonal shift contributes to this craving. Pickles have become sort of a trans symbol as a result.”
This cultural symbolism has spread across the trans community, only just now making its way to Reed. According to PinkNews, writer and transgender activist Jennifer Finney Boylan was approached after an event she had spoken at in Portland, and was given a large jar of pickles, and told, somberly, “I made you these pickles in solidarity.” She later wrote “As a trans activist and writer, I get a lot of pickles these days from readers [...] I am grateful for every single crunchy, salty, peppery, briny, buttery gift. [...] But if given a choice between a pickle and, say, justice, I’d have to go with the latter.”
“It's not just symbolism for Transfemme Pickle Club,” says Graves, who works to structure meetings as engaging pickling workshops, where members can prepare pickles for aging and fermenting, readying them for a later meeting in which they can be consumed in all their salty, flavorful goodness. “I feel that having an engaging activity to structure the club is important,” says Graves, who embraces the double identity of the club as both an identity club and a culinary club. Planning for future pickling endeavors and updates pertaining to club meetings takes place in the club’s Discord.