Well, hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Trans
Narrative Podcast. I'm Caroline, and today I'm
joined with Kevin. Hello, Kevin, also known as Sky
Spectrum. Welcome.
Hello wonderful people out there.
It's good to have you. Thank you for being here and
joining us all the way back from Season 2.
It's Fox. Can't welcome back.
Hi, thank you. It's really nice to be here.
Thank you for being here. And today joining us, our very
special guest, it's Vega, also known as gender fluid, a cap
solid on TikTok. Hello and welcome.
Thank you for being here. Hi, thank you.
So before we get started, I'm going to a little bit about
Vega. So Vega, also known as gender
fluid, a cap solid on TikTok, is a trans family, non binary,
gender fluid, digital artist, gamer and film enthusiast.
Their channel features a blend of comedy sketches, personal
vlogs and sharp transcendered media analysis.
Whether they're deep diving Hawk classic or joyfully unpacking
queer representation, Vega always brings curiosity lit in a
vibrance vibrant lens of lived experience.
Most recently, they've been exploring a trans character in
the world of Severance to a fanfic miniseries that blends
identity, world building, and storytelling with heart.
Vega, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me. Welcome to the trans narrative
podcast. I am Fox can't Co hosting today
with Carolyn Penny and Kevin Warner.
We're interviewing Vega, who is a trans creator on TikTok and
we're talking about their background and their fanfic mini
series about trans identity in the world of severance.
So I'm just going to kick it off with going right back to the
beginning. Where did you grow up and what
was your early life like? Vega.
Yeah, I grew up in Phoenix, AZ and I'm a 90s kid, so early life
was very 90s in that way. Wasn't fully like into my queer
identity during that time period.
It's a rough time in a way to be queer in the 90s and young, but
I was pretty creative kid, fairly extroverted.
I was always the class clown, I think.
And I feel like that energy has been rediscovered through my
like TikTok videos. I've really enjoyed that aspect
of TikTok and getting to sort of like rediscover that slice of my
identity outside of having to mask or be in a closet during
the 6th grade, for example. Yeah.
In your early childhood, like from teachers that were like,
you know. Oh, I.
Was in Arizona like, you know, did they encourage you or they
were like. I mean, I was deeply, deeply in
the closet. I did not know there was an
eggshell for so much of my life. But when I like for some people,
you know, they've always known they were trans.
I didn't specifically know that I was queer.
I just knew that like, oh, I liked girls, so I must be
straight and I'm not a girl, I think, so I must be a boy.
And that's basically like the template that I kind of fit in
my teachers. We're all pretty great in
fostering creativity and I was lucky that I never experience
sort of a toxicity that might have kept me in the closet.
And well, that's not true. I mean, you know, the F word was
big in the 90s to be used at all times and calling everything gay
that was bad was in in style. So that was mostly my experience
in like grade school and stuff and and even throughout high
school didn't feel fully comfortable to begin exploring
my queerness till, you know, college and well after.
That that's a familiar feeling also, I think.
Are we all 90s kids here? Yeah.
I think so. I mean, I was, you know, I was
born in the 80s, but I, I was still a 90s kid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was, I was 85, right.
So like I was starting elementary school in 1990 and
that, that whole experience that, that even like I'm, I grew
up in Vancouver, Canada, but listening to people talk about
their experience in the 90s in the US is so similar.
Yeah, I'm 88, so yeah. Yeah.
We're all so Caroline's a little younger.
So at what point did you start to have the storytelling and
media analysis become part of your life?
Was that something that happened early?
Gosh, it wasn't really until I had kind of a wake up call about
who I was as a person around like 20/12/2013 and began to do
a lot of unpacking and unpacking that toxicity that I was sort of
steeped in, like not fully embracing my masculinity in any
like way that I felt was my own. And so it was only when I began
to sort of look inward that I found a lot of joy in media
critique in that way. And I think that that kind of
naturally like there were directly correlative in that way
that like the more I looked inward, the more I found, you
know, examining media, movies, games, etcetera, with like a
finer and finer lens and finding ways that like my identity maps
to that. And I don't think it's a
coincidence then, you know, I eventually came out after
allowing myself to to appreciate art in new ways.
Was that I guess? Was that after college then?
Yes, yes. So what did you study out of
curiosity? So I went in to be a biomedical
engineer at a like, like an engineering school in Cleveland.
And that didn't last long because it's very hard.
And I was convinced by my peers to enter Compsci.
So I'm a computer scientist, Typical trans femme experience,
I know. And yeah, so I got my degree in
computer science. I'm not great at it, but I do
love the sort of programming and and math aspect of it.
I've always liked math. And then following that, I got
another degree in game art and animation and pursued a career
in the game industry as a digital artist.
What? What was that path like in terms
of the gaming industry? It's rough.
The school I went to was a private for profit school.
I don't want to blast it on here as predatory, but like there are
a lot of schools like that and it's difficult to kind of
promise entry into such a like cut throat industry.
But I was lucky and that I already was fairly artistic,
drew all the time as a child, tons of drawings and paintings.
And so I already had a sort of a natural knack.
And then, you know, having a degree in computer science
before that kind of equipped me well to sort of enter the indie
gaming sphere where I've developed a a couple things.
Or like what specifically help shape your early understanding
of queerness? Or like identity in general?
I would have to. So if you chart sort of my
journey being in the indie sphere put me in contact with
and with a lot of queer developers.
And, you know, I created my Twitter account thinking like,
OK, this is going to bolster my career.
I'm going to like make so many connections and, and really
break into that industry. And the connections I was making
were a lot of queer devs. And so having that exposure
really started to open my mind seeing non binary folks for the
first time on Twitter and being like, what does that even mean?
How can someone even be, you know, non binary and like truly
feeling completely like new to this concept, not not knowing
that I would understand that to, you know, be how I identify.
So really it was it was inadvertently finding the early
start of my community. I have to answer your question.
So you didn't really have a ton of relationship to queerness
kind of before that, getting involved online and and meeting
an overt queer community. Correct.
At the time I was married and my wife was, you know, like like
many men, my only like access to friends and social circles.
I depended on her in that way. And when I started to sort of
carve out my own sort of social circle, which was on Twitter, it
was it surprisingly was filled with trans people.
Google knows before you do. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, OK. That's.
Super annoying. Yeah, that's, that's really
interesting. I, I, I, my story's a little
different because I spent a lot of time running away from that
identity a little bit. It's like I grew up in, I grew
up in Vancouver and like even my high school had like a group of
kind of in the alternative Mayo, there was a group of like openly
queer people. One of them asked me out in high
school and that was like horrifying.
Not that I was like, not not horrifying in the sense that I'm
homophobic, but horrifying in the sense that this is in the
middle of school. There are people everywhere.
If I, you know, I've been bullied about bullied over this
for like my whole life. So if I say yes to this, then,
you know, like my life might be over.
Oh my goodness. Being put on the spot in such a
public way was really challenging anyways, But I also
really can relate to being in a, in an apparently sis, that
relationship where you start to try to explore those things and
suddenly you're like, oh, that's what this is that that's a hard
place to come from. So I really like feel for you
because it can I guess that relationship has ended now and
you kinda. Yeah, yeah, she's my ex-wife
now, but we're still besties. Like we talk all the time.
She's been my like biggest cheerleader from the start.
It was her wardrobe that I was able to to try on at her
encouragement. She was like excited about all
that. It just eventually we discovered
that we were kind of incompatible.
She she had expressed it like she felt so much.
There was a lot. It was a lot of pain and hurt.
Of course, ending a 16 year relationship at that point I can
imagine. It would be tough, yeah.
Yeah, and we had, we had known each other longer than we hadn't
at that point, you know. But at the time, she expressed
like, feeling like, I feel like I'm being transphobic by not
like, finding you attractive anymore.
And I'm like, actually it's very affirming and a tragic way.
Like, you don't see me as a man anymore.
And this was before I'd even be on hormones.
It's just like she it got, she got it.
It clicked to her and you know, we had to kind of resolve
things, move forward in a new direction.
That's one of the things that I think gets, you know, you
mentioned her being like, I don't want to be transphobic.
I think that's one of the things that gets really, like lost a
bit in these transition narratives where it makes
everybody around you reassess their relationship to queerness
when somebody comes out. Because it might be like, I had
this conversation with my cousin about a year after I'd started
transitioning and she was like, I used to be the only girl in
the family and now I'm not. And that, you know, I'm really
happy to have you and it's not an issue, but it's changed how
my circle of relations works. And you know, if it's, you know,
in the case that you're dating, dating a straight woman and
they're like, I'm not attracted to you because you're also a
woman and I'm straight. And that's, you know, like that
that person's had to go through the similar kind of, I like
reframing of their identity and questioning of their identity.
She almost felt like she was coming out as straight to me.
That's funny. Like I have something to confess
that you know. Exactly.
I came out as bi before coming out as trans, and I think that
like going back to you know what, who or what maybe kind of
inspired my early journey. That would definitely be Oscar
Isaac in Star Wars. That was the moment I was like,
I'm not straight. I I'm feeling things for this
man. He's so handsome back in 2015.
And it was welcome, obviously. I mean, she was thrilled.
Like, oh, my husband is bi. I like, I've levelled up.
And eventually, you know, like, as all things, as all queer
journeys do that. That was kind of a central part
in me discovering my transness as well.
It's my relationship to gender, right?
Like as soon as you begin unpacking your outward like
relationship to it, you start to look inward eventually.
Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I that I think I'm going
to jump off the Oscar Isaac thing because yeah, I don't
blame you. He's a very pretty man.
Have you seen, did you see him in the Robin Hood movie from
like the early to It's one of his early roles.
He plays Prince John and he's such like, he's terrible, but
also very pretty. I'll look it up for that, the
plot. I'll watch it for the plot.
And and yes, the plot. And also, sorry I'm getting way
off where I wanted to go with this but oh women in armor.
Good movie. So to, to go off of that, that
like how we come through these realizations through media.
Were there stories or characters that you kind of felt yourself
drawn to even even at a young age, before you had the language
to describe your sexuality or gender, where you it made you
feel things and you didn't know why?
Yeah. Big surprise, I was a super fan
of The Matrix for the cool action parts and nothing else.
Truly to the point where I for like a year in high school, I
was watching The Matrix on Monday, Reloaded on Wednesdays,
and Revolutions on Fridays. Like just like after school put
it on. It's my comfort movie.
Yeah, and I, I suppose looking back at, you know, I've related
to the sort of the thing that everybody relates to when they
do love the Matrix. It's just a it's a movie about
finding yourself. You know, the Oracle points to
the sign above her entryway that says know thyself.
My my yearbook quote was Morpheus line.
There's a difference between knowing the path and walking it.
So like I was clawing at the inside of that egg fell.
I just didn't know like at the time, of course.
And it's been such like, it's so gratifying and thrilling to to
look back on all those things that maybe you didn't know
where, where bread crumbs, but being like, Oh yeah, the signs
were there. Like the the Matrix sort of been
the the biggest influence I suppose, even though I didn't
know it at the time. Yeah, that seems pretty common.
I definitely, I was looking at photos of myself from like 2000
and four, 2005 and showing them to my one of my girlfriends and
like you, you look like you're an extra from the Matrix.
And I'm like, yeah, weird that that is the case.
I definitely remember to because rumors about the Wachowski's
we're around even then and I remember being like 2005, 2006,
2007 and going, oh, good for them, you know, like happy for
them. Did it really reframe my
perception of the movie? No, what what what I eventually
went and watched Bound. And if you haven't seen, Bound.
Bound is amazing. I have not and I've it's been on
my to watch list for so long I I'm ready to.
I tied up one of my girlfriends and made her watch it for her
birthday. It's.
Just a themed viewing. Yeah, exactly.
And I mean, I was like 10 minutes in and I was like, there
was no way this movie was made by two CIS men.
Not a chance. So like, if you were paying
enough attention, but yeah, that's, that's OK.
Cool. That's a good starting point.
Mine was probably the secret world of Alex Mack which is like
an early Nick show about this girl who can like they use the
the CGI from Terminator two or the T1000 turns into the silver
goo thing and then reconstitutes so she could like melt herself
into this goo puddle and then like reform herself and like.
She'd always like slip under doors, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's this whole like shape
shifting kind of tomboy thing was like, could I be that?
Yeah. How about you, Kevin?
Did you have anything like that? Yeah.
I mean, I think I'm a little different in terms because I
just look like musicals. And so mine was Peter Pan, the
like the original, like Mary Martin version and just like
seeing like clearly a woman but play a boy role.
And everyone like just like accepted it.
And I thought that like, I didn't understand it at the
time. I didn't like, you know,
understand the concept of like how it would relate to me going
forward. Like looking at it again and I'm
like, yeah, that was totally probably the, the, you know, the
origin, I would say. OK, Vega, So what drew you to
TikTok? What was the thing that got you
on the platform and what was the process of finding your voice
there? I was quite vehemently opposed
to having a TikTok for the longest time at the time my wife
had one. And so I was like, I'm going to
enjoy to talk through her. She'll be like whatever she
likes, she can show me. But I know that it's going to
like wreck my life, like it's going to suck time for me.
And it it kind of does. But it wasn't until right after
our our separation is when I got an account in that way.
And it was it was lovely to build my own for you page then
and sort of let like when I got on there, I'm like, OK,
algorithm witness me, you know, like I'm like freshly out.
Let's see what you make of this. And it was kind of empowering in
a way. It's sort of like, you know, an
algorithm is witnessing you. And I was curious about how like
my interests and identity had been shaped in just that short
amount of time because I had come out in 2021 and we
separated in 22. So I'd only really been out of
here in that time. I'd only gotten my ears pierced
as like a way of of our gender presentation.
And I was trying to close and it wasn't long before, not that I
was letting take talk, make decisions for me, but it wasn't
long before I was like, OK, I want to get on HRT.
Like I'm seeing too many happy faces and like this is exciting.
I like I, you know why I resonate with that in the sense
that I just had that yearning and one day I was just thinking,
I really think I need to take HRT.
And I called Planned Parenthood and they were like, well, we
have an opening at 1:00 PM. You want to come in?
And I was like, oh, OK. And then I came in and they were
like, OK, here's your estrogen. And I was like, oh, wow.
That all happened. Like I was not wow.
And so there I was. And that's how it.
Just was like, you just, you know, you just feel it.
When it's time, it's time. Yeah, that was the same for me.
It was like, I'm like, you know what, I need a PCP anyway, I
should get on that. And then I did.
And then the day that like I met my PCP, I was like, I want to
start HRT. And it was basically the same
day signed some, you know, form saying like, I know what I'm
doing, I know what I feel. And I was thrilled.
It was. It was the best.
Yeah, I had a pretty similar fairly easy path as well.
Went, went to gender clinic here in Vancouver and then they were
like, well, you can see a doctor through US.
It'll be 6 months, but we can call like a local primary care
and see if we can get you in sooner.
And then that was a Thursday and I had an appointment on Monday.
And the other doctor was like, yeah, here you go.
I didn't, I think I started, I started blockers and I started
estrogen like a six weeks later. But I was like, I'm going to
start on Halloween. So I have a really great, great
day day. I can call my, my HRT
anniversary, which has worked out.
It's a really good one. So you how long have you been
creating on TikTok? I think since like late 2022, my
early stuff is very like floundering, though I don't
quite yet have like what I want to talk about how I want to
direct my channel. It's a little cringe, but I
wouldn't I would say that like I've really come into my own in
the last year in terms of like this is this is the direction I
want to go. I want to spark positivity and I
don't really want to engage in discourse and drama because
there's bigger accounts that do that much better than I do.
And I want like, I want to in seeing my for you page sort of
really like lock down and become very curated.
I was like, OK, this is something I want to see.
I want to see like media analysis come from a like a
queer lens. And I hope that I can supply
that. Like, you know, there's trans
affirmation TikTok and, you know, make up TikTok.
And like, there's all these different slices of of queer
TikTok that are great and wonderful, but that was really
sort of inspiring. The most I think was this is
like realizing, oh, this is what I can contribute to this space
and really make it my own. Yeah, I think that's something
that I mean two parts to this next bit, but I think that's
something that I found as well as a a queer creator is
especially a trans creator and you're like this before you
start. There's not that many trans
people out there. I have to cover everything all
the time. And also I'm transitioning in
the public eye, which is something that like I did too.
And if you go back to my YouTube channel, there's like 5 or 6
years of like videos where you can just kind of watch that
happen. And and while you're trying to
discover yourself as an artist and not just that, but
navigating social media platform that's, you know, a new Tik
Tok's a pretty new form of filmmaking.
So yeah, it's takes time and sounds like you had kind of that
same journey of being like, what do, What's my focus?
Right when I was watching TikTok through my wife at the time, the
app was like the dancing app, the like lip syncing app.
And in that time, I've seen a lot of creators sort of come
into the like into the spotlight offering a lot more than that.
And that was also inspiring. Like I had had sort of, I have
like a Google doc of YouTube scripts that I would, you know,
I'm thinking like, oh, I'd love to have a YouTube channel and
these are the things I talk about.
And it's also daunting in a way because there's almost a certain
like production value you have to be if you want to reach a
wide enough audience on YouTube. And in the case of TikTok, I was
like, I was floored at how accessible the app was.
It's just like, oh, the editing is in there.
The like the green screen effect is in there, the audio and all
that is, is like out the box. And that was really exciting
because that coupled with the sort of like, like there's a,
like a, a notion that like, oh, it's a TikTok.
It doesn't have to be high budget in a way, like I can get
away with kind of some fun low budget editing or whatever.
And that makes it a lot easier for me to take the scripts I've
written and put them to, to film in a way that in a it's just a
lot, a lot less of a barrier, which has been exciting.
So you kind of talked about how media analysis was where you
found your focus. Is that what kind of
specifically what kind of content feels most meaningful or
fun for you to make? Well, those are two very
different things. Yeah, I mean, so I've started to
really dig into like film analysis through a queer lens,
which is something I'd already been doing, you know, in my life
for a year or two. And I I love watching films with
friends who haven't seen it already because it gives me the
chance to experience it for the first time all over again.
And kind of workshopping the thoughts I have about a film and
bouncing them off of of people who, you know, for The Who, for
them, it's their first time. And since obviously coming out,
my queer circle with friends has exploded, and now I have the
opportunity to share my favorite things with them and see how
they feel about them. And so sorry.
I'm sorry, what was the question?
I got a little. Yeah, the the question was what
kind of content feels most meaningful.
Oh yes. Or fun for you to make.
Right. And so I think that that my
media critiques, my film critiques something that I'm
really starting to to draw a lot of fulfillment out of.
I also get a lot of fulfillment, fulfillment out of sort of the
like role play script delivery of like character A talking to
character B. And it's sort of like not quite
short film, but not quite, I don't know, content, you know,
like threading that needle between content and arts on the
app, which is always so difficult.
But things like my, you know, my sort of fanfic about a character
within the world of Severance is allowing me to explore like sort
of a little short film making, kind of scratching that little
like, itch. So that project is happening on
TikTok. You're kind of doing dialogue
between the the indie and the Audi.
Is that how it's framed? So I'm like still filming
episode 3. I've written out to like episode
8. Filming is difficult because I
play like every character in the in the the short.
But currently it's like every odd episode is from the innies
point of view and every even episode is from the Audi's point
of view bouncing back and sort of like rehashing what happens
outside versus what happens inside the office.
And the way that those two characters, because they cannot
communicate, just like they can't communicate in the show,
they can't send each other messages or or anything finding
that like they are actually communicating because their
identities are being explored. Like the the character Val
Valerie in the first episode of of my like sort of miniseries,
she hurt her any understands that she's not who they've
assigned her as. Like it's her first day on the
job and she's like, no, something's wrong because she
kind of has the freedom to be a little bit more.
She, she doesn't have the lived life of 30 something years
attached to this, this box that she's been put in.
This is all new to her. And immediately she's like,
what's with the suit and tie? I don't get it.
I, I'm vibing more with my, you know, female Co worker.
What's that about? And so the message that she ends
up sending to her Audi is simply the realization of who she is.
Like that internal like epiphany is what manages to reach her
Audi. And then exploring like the
Audi, her Audi has actually felt that way as well, but just
hasn't had the the courage or the like support network or or,
you know, the framework and language to express that.
But when removed from all those like societal impositions, her
Annie is able to so freely, right?
So it's not so much of a conflict between the two as the
the internal experience helping the external experience kind of
find themself. Yeah, absolutely.
Late throughout the series, they I'm I'm sort of treating them
almost as sisters to each other feeling that they have sort of a
like they're they are indeed different people, but they you
know, they they share this body and being kind to that body
because it is shared knowing like later in the series I have
written that you know, something happens to Audi Val that kind of
sends her back into the closet a bit and the Annie can feel that
and doesn't know why that is And you know the the 2 are are both
locked away from each other, but also communicating sort of
almost ethereally in that way and helping each other grow into
their identities. I don't know how I'm going to
end it, I'll admit, because I can't have them just walked to
the workplace. If you've seen severance innies
don't leave the office and I. That that elevator, that magic
elevator just, yeah, exactly separates everything, yeah.
And I, I don't, I've, I've committed to not like I do not
want to explore things the show hasn't in terms of its lore or
go story directions that the show like answer questions the
show hasn't. That's not what this is about.
It's strictly about like, like I'm not going to talk about Cold
Harbor. So it's strictly.
In the inverse of severance, you know, so it's it's I cannot
name. It yeah, I kind of wanted to to
make this feel like, you know, the world of Severance is much
bigger than the show that you're watching.
There's other people employed at this job and those people could
be trans. They're not trying to save the
world in in a way necessarily. They're just trying to save
themselves. Yeah.
And I, I was thinking obviously watch the watch through the
first season and the bit of the second season in preparation for
this, because I'm a professional.
And some of the things that it kind of brought up for me when
thinking about the relationship of transness and severance is
how a lot of trans people have to go through almost a similar
process to survive in a professional world where you
have a work Sona your your work personality that is completely
divided from your queer personality out of necessity and
the transition between the two and how you're navigating how
you navigate that. So it's interesting to kind of
like, and whether or not those two sides are in conflict with
one another. So it's interesting to hear how
you're kind of going down the road of like they're both, they
both are harboring these same feelings and one is doing it
without the kind of like memory of the gendered framework that
they've been raised in. And that when you remove that
that history, that memory that it changes, it opens up the
possibility for that that transformation.
I should also say that like, if you haven't seen the show,
really just the first two episodes of the first season is
all you you basically need. I don't like I said, I don't
build off of like spoilers necessarily.
It's just the the premise of innies and outies and like a
split experience. Yeah, OK, so can we do light
spoilers? Yeah, with the with the Here
comes spoilers tag. Yeah, I hear you.
So so like light spoilers for later in the season when they
discover in the first season when they discover that there is
a technology that lets the innies experience the outer
world and, you know, that kind of takes the show in a different
direction. They discover who they are, who
the Audis are more and have a glimpse of that life.
Is that something that you would you're considering bringing in
or are you just kind of trying to stick with the basic premise
and. I've considered that, and since
we're on the subject of spoilers like some the last Oh no, wait,
you're not there yet. OK, never mind, you haven't.
No, I haven't finished. Season 2 OK well shoot alright
I've. Seen all of season 2 and part of
three so. There's a three.
Wait, no, nevermind. No, 3's not out yet.
Nevermind, sorry, I don't know what.
That is spoilers. There's a three, No?
Yeah. No, there's and there probably
will be like I but. I hope so.
Another another series. Sorry but no I have seen all of
season 1 definitely. And so there's, so in Season 1
there is the sort of technology procedure that's that's
discussed at like what do they call it reintegration or
something where they're kind of combining.
There's reintegration, but there's also the overtime
contingency right thing. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, it's. Been renewed for a third season,
OK. Good.
Yeah, I've I've really thought about playing with either of
those two concepts. It's, it's difficult because I
don't, I don't want to, I don't want to go into the direction of
a loss of life, which is what would happen if one or the
other, you know, identity decides that they're going to
take control from here on out. And so I'm, I'm, I'm struggling
to come up with an ending, but I, I'm confident that like I'll
be able to thread that needle again.
Like the show hasn't answered the question of like the these
questions itself. So like again, I don't really
want to answer questions the show hasn't answered, but also
at the same time like. Right.
Like how did this all start? Like there's no origin so far
that I can. Yeah, See.
Yeah. And, and like the the examples
in the show that we have of reintegration or whatever they
call it, you know, leads to a kind of a horrible, horrible
position. And, and even if it doesn't,
does that mean the, the, and this is what's so interesting,
but I have a, a couple of my partners are plural systems and
trans. And they have a lot to say about
the show for this reason totally.
Because like, at what point do you at at what point are these
totally separate individuals who share a body at, at what would
integration, you know, result in a third person who's distinct
from either of them but shares their memories?
Is that destroying 2 lives is leaving them split, but one of
them never leaving them severed, but one of them never getting to
experience consciousness again? Is that is that actually death?
Is that person dying? And I think that there's so many
different ways to both interpret that and also like play with
that artistically. Absolutely.
I guess to sort of spoil my own Series A little bit, I am
leaning toward reintegration as the sort of like direction that
we go because it's too easy to map that even on to the talk of,
of gender affirmative care. And you know, like, oh, what's
the regret rate on, on something like that?
Or Are you sure you're ready to take that kind of plunge and
coming out of the other side of that kind of scary procedure
like a different person? So yes, it's we're never the
same people that we are from day-to-day.
But certainly like, you know, any Val's Innie versus Audi and
who Val ends up at the end of this are all different people
because we, you know, we're always moving forward.
Our identity is always like fluidly changing.
Oh, that's I was gonna. I was sorry.
Go. Ahead Well, no, I just, you
know, so like, you know, if you're any like this is
interesting because I've never watched severance.
All of these concepts are new to me, but they're really
fascinating because you know, these concepts, they, they, they
relate to like, you know, like transness is like a severed self
waking up. Absolutely.
It was too easy to apply that. Like I was like, I have to do
this before someone else does it.
Yeah. So like, if your ini is the
version of of you untouched by like gender expectations, what
truth did they carry that your Audi struggled to accept or
speak aloud? And I'm asking you personally.
I'm sorry, can you repeat that you started to cut a?
Little sorry, yeah, no. So like, you know, if the, if
your ini is like the version of you untouched by gender
expectations, what what truth did they carry that your Audi
struggled to accept or speak aloud for you personally?
So I want to because I want to kind of relate it back to your
personal transition, like your personal story and how this
story like reflects you specifically.
So I feel like, I mean, there's a lot of me in those characters.
Of course, that's naturally. And in a way, I think that
Valerie is the character that I would have been in a different
life. I was very fortunate that, yes,
I came out late in life, sort of relatively 202133.
And I was very fortunate that my wife was so supportive that the
day that I came out was we were on a beach in San Diego with
friends, and I was cold. And my wife had just picked up
like this, this crop top sweater from this from a nearby shop
with like, a pink, like, Insignia on it.
Not that femme at all, truly. But I was like, I'm so cold.
Give me it. And I put it on.
And I was like, why do I feel so good?
I don't know why I feel this good, but boy, do I feel good.
Can I keep wearing this for the rest of the day?
And she was like, yeah, of course.
And we have some friends who had visited us or who had joined us
there. And they were like you, you're
really like electric right now. What's that about?
I'm like, I don't know. And so my experience to coming
out was quite immediate. Like the moment we got back
home, I was like, I think I'm trans, but I, I don't know, my
relationship to my gender is just completely been like blown
open from this one moment. After about 10 years of of
introspection of cleaning my attic of of all the other
things. The trans box was at the end at
the bottom of that pile and was like, oh, what's this?
And so for me, for the sort of the severance sort of fanfic.
This is a character then, who is kind of both experiences of me,
like the any being somebody who has not necessarily the support
network, but just the the freedom because of the lack of
of like societal what positions to just be like, wait a minute,
I think I'm I'm not this like I'm not what I've what my Audi
came in here as, and that kind of relates to my experience of
coming out just being like, you know, wait a minute, I I don't
vibe with this anymore. I suddenly feel free to just
just express this and Val's Audi being sort of the 32 years
before that of me of possibly having these buried ideas or
concepts that just aren't ever, you know, I'm not able to
explore. Yeah, that that sounds familiar.
And I think like a lot of a lot of, I don't know how much of it
is part of the discourse now, but the idea of gender is
performance. And I always felt that I had a
really integrated personality at the beginning of transition.
And in a lot of ways, I'm the same person, but there's a lot
of ways that I'm not. And I think that is something
that ties in well to the idea of this like this severed
experience where you have like the the first year.
Oh, geez, yeah. The first year or so after I
came out and started to socially transition, I was working jobs
where I couldn't do that really. So I would come into work, I'd
leave, leave home to go to work in like boy mode and then come
home and switch back. And that's one of those things
that like, you know, watching the show and you're like, OK,
well, you become a different person to do your job.
And then you take that mask off. And the show is kind of the
opposite because of the nature of what it is, the the severed
selves becoming kind of like a creation after the fact.
But yeah, I found I found that really striking.
And it seems like that seems to be a shared experience a little
bit with that, yeah. Yeah, like wearing of masks and
the places that we we take them on or put them off.
You know, me having come out in 21, that was at the tail end of
COVID. So like before the the vaccine
has come out, that's why we're at the beach because we're like
it's vaccine summer. And so that was a year basically
of, you know, I'm indoors. I, I can wear whatever I want to
work any like I don't have to go to work.
I'm working from home now. A lot of people wear COVID,
COVID trans people and I'm I'm one of them.
Yeah, that was really common. Yeah, yeah.
It's time to explore at home, and now I'm figuring this out.
Yeah. So do you believe?
Do you believe these selves are like ever truly separate or held
apart by circumstance, language, and fear?
Yeah, I think that like the show kind of the the show Severance
itself kind of presents these characters as being quite
separated. I don't think we have a lot of
examples of much crossover except with maybe Irving for
another for other examples. But and so in my series, I'm
trying to explore that like there is something about
realizing that you're trans that kind of transcends even the
magic elevator that like once vowels.
Annie just uses a sharpie on her eyes to kind of express
femininity that that awakens something that even elevator
can't touch. And it's in, it's in that second
episode, that of nesting dolls, what it's called get it like a
doll that's in another doll. In the second episode I explored
that like Oval feels that change as they leave work that day that
they're like, wait a minute, what the heck?
Like she had to scrub the the makeup off of her eyes because
you can't transfer messages through the elevator.
But that didn't matter. The message was sort of sent
intrinsically. I think that the show textually
does that with queerness. Not to give out too many
spoilers for season 1, but like the the fact that that queerness
transcends the the severance procedure is not just subtext.
It's a major text in the first season of the show.
So I think, you know, this is this is I think kind of why this
leads into this question really nicely.
Why do you think fan fiction can be such a powerful space for
creator, for trans creators specifically?
And just to like lead a little bit more into that?
Like, that is clearly not something that the people who
made the show were thinking about when they made it.
Yes. So queer representation as like
on the whole is lacking in general, but especially trans
representation. And the reason why I feel fan
fiction is so powerful is that there are all already these
narratives that we connect to in whatever ways that were
intentional or not from the writers.
And it takes so little to kind of nudge those narratives into
it, like queer representation or trans representation because the
pieces are there. We're just sort of like putting
them together and viewing media through queer lenses in that way
is it's empowering because it's giving us access to queer rebbe
media despite they're not being if they're like outwardly, like
it's like we can claim these things.
We can claim these narratives and stories and characters, and
we can do so through fan fiction in ways that like that help us,
that that teach us. And we're like, go ahead.
So, and then in terms of like from there, other people can
look at that and say, wow, I've, I've finally, I feel seen.
Yes. Absolutely.
The the nature of fan fiction is, is a shared like experience
already, right? Yeah.
It's like you're saying. And I'm just curious, like what
kind of conversations or emotions do you hope to spark
from the projects? Like you watch Severance, like
someone looking at your content, How do you think that continues
on for other people? Yeah.
I mean, I, I hope to. Yeah, I hope to that people see
it and find something of themselves in it that even if
it's simply just that like, Oh my gosh, I totally see like saw
a trans story in Severance and how this person's doing it.
Like it's validating even to not be the person who wrote it, but
to be the person who finds that they're not alone, right.
I mean, that's always the The thing is finding yourself in
others. And so when I'm by presenting
like a a framing of what may be a very exciting show to somebody
in a way that they can relate to even deeper, then yeah, it's
it's all part of that sort of like oral sharing and and like
cultivating that really like binds the queer community
together. How do you approach media?
I think the example in our questions is like Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon with trans analysis in mind.
And I think that I don't know if this is something you've done
and that's what the question is leading from, or like stories
that aren't obviously queer or trans.
What do you do with that? So Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
is my all time favorite film and I have given a PowerPoint on how
trans it is 3 Times Now, most recently last week to 4 * 3
times. That was the the third time I
meant today. Oh yeah.
Oh, well, you're not going to get the whole but I.
Yeah, I want the PowerPoint now. I would love to yes, go ahead
and give us the PowerPoint. Oh my gosh, I can't do that now.
I'll quick Cliff notes. So crashing Tiger hood and
Dragon is first of all, A at its core, it's a film about gender
roles. So boom, there it is.
Any, any narrative about gender roles is going to inherently ask
the question about identity and transness.
It's right there. But in addition to that, you
have, and what I talked about in my PowerPoint is like what is
often central to queer narratives, because we don't
have like the, the wealth of representation we would like to
have is the concept of yearning. Any time there's yearning in a
in a narrative, even if those characters are not textually
queer, it's queer because there is some force, whether it's be
societal or some barrier that is keeping them from being
together. And the IT just because it maps
so much to queer experience, at least today, who knows about 300
years from now. But because there is the barrier
to our identities, to loving the way we want to both outwardly
and inwardly, it's ripe for a queer analysis of it.
And in the case of Crashing Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you have
every single character representing a slice of of
identity and like sexuality. Li Mubai, the one of the the
protagonists is sort of like a legendary monk.
And he at the beginning of the film, this isn't spoiling
anything. He arrives to hand off the sword
of Green destiny. He's basically like Neo more or
less in this world. He has superpowers.
He's a like like key powers like Qi and he can he can wield the
sword so effortlessly. He is the master of the sword,
which means he's a master of masculinity.
The sword being like the the symbol of masculinity itself.
And when he arrives on the scene to give it up, he has
transcended like the need for it.
He's like, I don't want to do this anymore.
I have mastered this and it, it means nothing to me.
Like I'm putting like I have transcended gender.
I'm putting this aside. Li Mubai is very much a gender.
He him, and it's very rewarding to watch the movie in such a way
that you examine weaponry and fighting styles as gender
presentations. There's a sequence in the movie
where Gen. Yu, our sort of main protagonist
is boy moding that she has struck out on her own for the
first time. She's stolen the green Destiny
sword and she's like, look at me, I have the ultimate symbol
of masculinity. I'm so good at this.
And she fights off like 30 plus people with all different kinds
of weapons, all different genders in that in that
sequence. And so no, there's just so many
lovely representations of both queer relationships and their
relationship to yearning. You have Li MU Bai and Shu LAN,
who's played by Michelle Yeoh. Oh my gosh, my hero.
They yearn for one another. They are trans to like in my in
my reading, they are both trans, but they are not free to love
one another. And so they're because of
societal impositions. And so that is a yearning.
And then you have Jen Yu as a character who is so
directionless, but she yearns for herself.
And the movie's disco is about her discovery of like, what it
means to yearn for your own, like for love for you.
I cry so hard at the end of that movie.
So hard every time. That, that brings up something
interesting for me because I went to film school for writing.
And so the, the, the hero's journey kind of is hammered.
And I think fundamentally there's an aspect of of yearning
of becoming in that style of narrative where you Disney's
Hercules and they have the song about that specifically about
wanting to discover who you are. I think that maps so see my face
move on. OK.
Anyways, no, I love it. Yes.
And and just, but like how trans characters, visibly trans
characters are very rarely put in the position of a protagonist
who is undergoing that journey of a hero.
Yeah. I mean, it, I saw the TV glow
was a big example of a trans narrative in which the hero's
journey is kind of like intentionally rejected because
of our like all of us sharing that common relationship to
that's that internal conflict of like, you know, setting forth
finding yourself. And so I think that Crouching
Tiger, Good Dragon, because it's not a directly Western story, is
doing something with gender roles and gender expression
because it doesn't kind of map itself like immediately to a
hero's journey the way that a lot of maybe Western media does,
which kind of which kind of inherently like blocks out a lot
of trans stories because, and queer stories because there's so
much of our life, like I said, is, is is struggling to take up
that adventure, so to speak. So what can trans storytelling
do that mainstream media? Mainstream media often fails to
do jumping right off the. Bat excellent, perfect, perfect
lead in yes. Thank you.
I'm pretty good. No, it, it's that, it's, it's
that like we are able to through trans stories and, and then of
course, through trans fan fictions and trans readings of
not intentionally trans narratives, we are able to sort
of reclaim a lot of narratives that would otherwise not apply
to us. It's, it's what those media
analysis can do is open up a greater conversation with, with
yourself and your relationship to the, to the media you like to
consume. What I I watched Interview with
the Vampire for the first time in a long time.
After being becoming obsessed with crashing Tiger, hidden
dragon and what I love what I love about about media and film
is the way that you you start to like yarn together, like
thumbtack and yarn and tie these these narratives together as you
watch and bounce back and forth between them.
My first viewing of Interview with a Vampire was boy, this is
sure is a long dry story about a guy who is, you know,
directionless. And then watching Presbyterian
dragon becoming hyperfixated on on that queer narrative and
coming back to interview and being like, Oh my God, this is
so trans. This is also a very trans story.
I mean, like Claudia says, like I, I, my heart breaks when
Claudia is like, I don't want to eat her.
I want to be her because she's forever frozen as a child, right
when she witnesses like a, a bathing naked woman and being
able to sort of connect those two pieces because you start
building a trans or queer lens of things is so rewarding.
I, I feel like I'm going off track, off track a little bit,
but just. I think.
That's you're right. That really resonates, you know,
because I feel that, you know, because you bring up this idea
of like the western, like this year centric way of like looking
at gender, which is very much like, I, I feel that that trans
people are like, we're, we're a gateway drug to, to finding
yourself. And I think that it just
challenges, it challenges the mainstream patriarchy and it
kind of begins to dismantle some of these like these, these
supremacist ways of, of these systematic control and
oppression. Because the idea that like,
because you know, we've, we've, we've had guests on the show
where we've talked about gender without identity, You know, this
idea that like everyone has a gender and everyone should be
free to experience that. And it's, and it's trans people
that are the ones that step out and, and, and really speak truth
to, to who they are. And, and it feels as if, you
know, like cisgender people, they're like, you know, as if
they don't have a gender. And it, and it feels because of
this, this oppressive system that we're in, that it, that it
strangles all of us from thinking because we all should
be free to find ourselves. We should all be able to be
fluid in our expression that we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be,
you know, this confined to these ideas.
And, and I think that's why we see ourselves so ostracized in
the media is because we are a threat essentially to the
patriarchy and to to these systems of oppression.
Because you know, once people get the idea that like, Hey, I
don't have to be what that man tells me, you know, it, it
starts to break down a lot of things.
So let me ask you, you know, as we begin to wrap up, because
we're getting near our end here, you know, why is querying
fiction not not just fun, but why is it so unnecessary in this
time? And I feel like we've touched on
that so much in this episode. But you know, as we begin to
wrap up, can you really lay it down on why it is just so
necessary in in the work that that you're specifically in, in
Ox and so many others are doing? Yeah, I think that everyone
benefits from querying media, right.
It's a sort of rising tide lifting all boats kind of
situation where with I mean, there is there's man, woman in
the non binary spectrum all around and in between that is
infinite. And yet within man and woman,
there is also Infinity. And I think that like even
binary and CIS people stand to to really like benefit in terms
of introspection and and understanding their own gender.
You had you mentioned like it feels like for somebody CIS
people that it's just they've defaulted into their identity.
And I don't want that for them either.
I don't want everyone to be trans necessarily.
I want everyone to to examine their own gender and take
ownership of it. If you were born a man and
you're you're still a man, that's great.
I want to see what you do with it.
Acknowledge the Infinity within man because one representation
of man is not your representation of man and
etcetera. And yeah, so like queer queering
media is queering the idea of of gender itself and opening that
conversation up to anyone and everyone, whether or not they
emerge from that conversation as trans or with a better
understanding of who they are, which only leads to more
compassion and empathy to others, right?
I mean, that's what it's all about.
You know, I, I, I really resonate with that and I
resonate, you know, Fox here said something a moment ago
that, you know, it's, it's like being and water your whole life
and not knowing. And that really resonated in the
sense that, you know, in 2020, I had heard a story about a fish
and this, and this comes from a film that I had seen, but this
analogy, and you may have seen it was it's in a Pixar film.
But the story goes and says, you know, I, I heard the story about
a fish. And he and he and he swims up to
an older fish. And this fish says, he says, I'm
trying to find this thing they call the ocean.
The ocean says the older fish. Well, that's that's what you're
in right now with the younger fish.
She says, no, this is water. What I want is the ocean.
And it's like coming to realize, you know, within my own self
like that. That quote really began a years
long endeavor into finding myself.
And it was because of that realization that like I've
yearned to, to find the ocean and realizing that it's within
my grasp at this time now and that I and that I can just,
it's, I can just, I have the, it felt like I had that permission
to realize that like, wow, like I'm looking for what I'm in and
I have it. So it was so, you know.
You have the power all along. Yes, absolutely.
It's the Dragon Scroll. So Vega, where can our listeners
find you on TikTok? What is their handle in any
other places and things like that?
My handle is gender fluid, a cab solid.
I've had a lot of commenters be like what does ACAT mean?
Is it assigned cop at birth? And I'm like, it's quite the
opposite actually, I thought. It was cat is what I assumed.
No, I'm actually of the puppy girl variety.
But anyway. That's for another episode.
Oh, good, I'm coming back. Yeah, you can primarily find me
there. It's my only social but if
you've seen me on Instagram, someone has stolen my video but
please follow me there instead and TikTok instead.
I have for the most part sworn off meta for that reason or for
the reasons that you know, one shouldn't swear off meta and
TikTok is where I do all my posting.
So how can how can people uplift creators like you and and media
analysis in general? Oh gosh, you know, everyone's
got their sort of Lincoln bio kind of situation.
So find who you like, support them in any means you can via
like, I don't know, reposting or whatever.
But I think that like developing your own sort of literary muscle
and you know, exercising that is how you will organically support
creators who who do that and present that.
Because if you tell the algorithm that you like hearing
thirst trap film talk, which is my last video I posted about,
then you're going to be delivered more of this content.
And that's going to be the way that you you naturally fold
yourself into this world breakdown, analyze media.
You know the curtains are blue for a reason.
Don't be afraid to to sort of like find yourself in any
narrative that you think is is small or large.
It doesn't matter. Every interpretation is
important and is special. And when you start to to engage
with other creators that are doing the same, that will
naturally uplift us all. I.
Think I think for. Well, I was, I was just going to
say, you know, Speaking of exercising, you know, and, and,
and getting out there and into the fold of, of content
creation. If you would like to participate
in being a part of this program, please reach out and e-mail us
at transnarrativepodcast@gmail.com.
That's trans narrativepodcastgmail.com.
And that's how we continue to uplift and, and, and celebrate
gender diversity and, and create this space where we can
question, learn and grow together.
Fox, what were you going to say? I was going to say, if you are a
sys person and you are listening to this and you're wondering how
you can help uplift trans creators and media analysis,
seek out stories with different experiences.
Seek them out. Even if it's, you know, a TikTok
or a YouTube or or something. Go look for stories told by
people who have a different life experience than you.
Not just not just one that's a sys writer who's writing about a
different life experience, but something that's coming from
lived, experienced people. Give them your money if you have
that available please. Give money to all of us, the
handles in the in the description, by the way, for me,
if you'd like. No.
So as as we begin to wrap up today, Kevin, any final
thoughts, comments or anything you'd like to leave and ask
Megan before we go? Yeah, just what do you feel is
next? Like a next project.
Yeah, I so I'm terrified of AI and the very near future.
And so I've, I've been kind of kicking around an idea of sort
of a little like a film noir detective who, you know, teams
up with like an AI that they solve silly crimes that either
AI has done really stupidly or that kind of bring the idea of
that threat into the fore. And of course, there's going to
be a healthy heap of gender and trans exploration and such a
thing because you've got an AI. Well, that AI surely has to
develop understandings of itself.
Let's help the A5, let's help the AI recognize its own gender.
And you know what I've done? Can't even get into AII.
Am so sorry. That's OK, That was my fault.
I am. Summarizing our our chat.
So hi, sorry. It doesn't.
Thanks. Don't worry.
No, no. Not yet.
It's it's and it won't tell us.
But anyway, I'm not that's a different episode because I, you
know. Anyway, so Fox, any final
thoughts and comments? Anything you'd like to leave and
ask Vega, and anything you'd like to say before we go?
Yeah, I think this, this we, we work in similar fields, similar
may use. So like what does kratom
creative freedom look like for you as a trans artist in this
moment? And I guess we can kind of go
back and forth on this little bit.
Yeah. Do you mean in the like the
freedom to make anything at all that you want to make?
I mean, that's kind of like my immediate answers that kind of
what you're you're asking. Yeah, I think that's kind of how
the question is posed. I have my own thoughts on this
too because there's so many aspects that go into what
creative freedom really is. I mean I could get into an anti
capitalist critique and the need for third places and resources
that afford people a healthy relationship to the arts.
Let's go there. So what free, what creative
freedom looks like is the time and encouragement and resources
to engage with the arts in a way that you feel collaborative
because art is what makes us human.
I weep for the state of art today.
It it is breaking my heart. And so ultimate creative freedom
would be the ability for everyone to contribute every
story. There's billions and billions of
stories to be told. And I would like them all to be.
I mean, that goes back to the, the question of like, you know,
the importance of fan fiction and query narratives is that
like this is the power we do have as storytellers.
It's like, you're not going to green light my stuff, but I'm
going to post it on a O3 or I'm going to make it available
through TikTok or, or whatever. And I like to think I, I, I'd
like to think about my account being sort of the TikTok premium
that like, oh, I'm getting a little TV show.
Oh, the new episode drops. And this being the kind of like
content that you would not be able to see anywhere else but
here it is being delivered by other queer people.
Directly and I think that's the strength of social media
platforms. I know we're over time.
Sorry. That's fine.
That's my fault. No, I.
I, I really, I really have enjoyed this time tonight that
that. We've had and.
This has been this has really been nice and I really have
enjoyed it. And Fox, you know, I can't wait
to have you back on. Yeah.
I'm excited we have we have stuff to talk about.
Yeah, this has been. A really great conversation, I
love it. Absolutely so.
As, as we as we depart now and carry on into our week, Vega,
what is the message you'd like to leave our audience with just
to, to carry in our hearts into this week in these rough times
that we're in? Keep loving yourself, keep
exploring yourself, keep in this time.
Yes, it is so important to engage with and develop an
appreciation for the arts and finding yourself in media and
sharing your favorite films, shows, music, works of art that
tie you to those communities and and you know, help build that is
what's going to be so important moving forward.
Keeping these narratives alive, keeping these lenses as it's,
it's going to feel like we're doing underground work, you
know, talking about queer movies that aren't queer, you know,
intentionally sharing, sharing work, sharing arts that
continues to help people find themselves.
That's, that's the, that's your homework.
That's your assignment.