Lindsey Deaton, Host of the ‘TransVagina Dialogues,’ Talks New Podcast

A creator, artistic director, public servant, and fierce LGBTQ advocate Lindsey Deaton can now add host to her impressive list of achievements.

Recently, she put out a six-episode podcast series called the TransVagina Dialogues, with the objective for people within the trans, nonbinary, and intersex communities to take back control of their bodies. Up until this point, these stories haven’t been widely shared, and some individuals consider these topics too taboo to discuss. Deaton hopes everyone will exercise their right and privilege to talk openly about their bodies, and through honest and forthright discussions, they will recognize and honor the humanity within us all.

In each episode, Deaton and her guest explores a deep, personal account of mental, physical, and spiritual transitional experiences including gender dysphoria, decisions to choose medical treatments or not, health concerns and needs of transmasculine vaginas, post-gender-affirmation surgery phantoms, surprising bathroom experiences, and much more.

OFM caught up with Deaton to talk more about the podcast, what she hopes to accomplish with her platform, and how she is also is one of the world’s leading experts on the transgender singing voice. She is widely recognized as a leader in building the global trans choral movement and has spoken and written extensively on how to create a safer choral space for trans and gender-nonconforming singers.

Can you begin by telling us what inspired you to start the TransVagina Dialogues?

I had an experience of phantom penis, and nobody ever told me about that. I couldn’t even find any information on the internet. I had my gender affirmation surgery on September 26, 2018; I’m back home; I’m in the shower, and suddenly while I’m washing myself; I feel something, but it’s not there. This kept happening for a while. Almost four years later, I don’t feel the phantom penis anymore, but I definitely still feel phantom balls—itchy balls, that kind of thing.

So, I started asking around, and nobody could really talk to me about it. There was also the sense of, “We shouldn’t talk about it.” I have agency over my body, and I still wanted to know, did anybody else experience this? I started fishing around, and a friend of mine who is a journalist for The L.A. Times suggested I reach out to Katherine Spiers. So, this has been a long time coming. We worked out what we thought would be an amazing opening season of six people, and it’s very diverse.

Who are the guests that are featured, and what were some of the conversations you had?

We kicked off with Blossom Brown, the Black, trans woman who was at the CNN LGBTQ town hall during the election cycle. She’s from Jackson, Mississippi, and she introduced audiences to the whole notion that a lot of trans people go into sex work to survive and cover their health expenses. Blossom is not alone by a mile. Then we have Brody Fitzpatrick, a retired NYC firefighter who went through one of the first phalloplasty procedures at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Brody is amazing, and before transitioning, he was in the first class of female firefighters in New York and worked in Queens forever.

Our third guest was Celia Daniels, who is South Indian from Chennai, but she doesn’t identify as Hijra, which is part of the caste system in Hindu relegating trans folks to deities and to the lowest of the low, simultaneously. Whenever there is a wedding, a birth, a new house, Indians will watch us bring in trans women to bless them. At the same time, those very trans women were thrown out of their families and onto the street. There’s a network of survival for trans families in India. Celia talks about the Hindu experience; she is not pre-op or post-op; she’s non-op trans.

We have Lucia Lucas, a baritone opera singer who sang at the Metropolitan Opera. She’s from Sacramento, California, but she has been living and performing in Germany for several years. She’s married, a post-op trans woman, and we talk about her experiences, access to healthcare in Europe, what the differences are, and what her experience is like being a trans woman going to work wearing men’s clothing. How that reverse cross dressing works for her, and she says it’s like putting on a uniform and going to work.

There’s Luckie Alexander, a Black, trans man from Compton, California who talks about colorism in his community and the experience of birthing and raising children in Compton, and then we close out with Drian Juarez, the current vice president of training & culture at FOLX Health. Drian had surgery six months past me, and it was fascinating to find out that not all hospitals do the same kind of protocols. My hospital had me up and walking the next day, while hers didn’t let her out of bed for five days. They didn’t tell her that, nor did they tell her she wasn’t going to be able to poo for five days. (Laughs.)

There’s a lot to digest with these conversations, and a lot of things have changed. Part of the idea is to not only talk and share experiences, but also learn.

Would you like to see the podcast have more seasons in the future?

I would love to continue and do a second and third season because there’s just so much more to talk about.

How have the TransVagina Dialogues been received by listeners?

I’m not really sure because it is brand new, but I would hope that listeners are being open to it!

Did it receive any pushback?

There definitely was. Some people just don’t want to have these conversations. They’re like, “I’m not going to talk about my body. It’s nobody’s business.” I totally get that and own that, but there are people like me who went through experiences, were surprised, and needed more information.

One of the real issues that we are confronted with is, who are the delivers of care? Mostly cis people, except for Marci Bowers, who was the first trans woman to offer surgery to other trans people. Everyone else is mostly cis, and there’s a cognitive dissonance in delivery, sensitivities, and sensibilities because not all of us trans people are anywhere close to being the same. How our dysphoria impacts us is as unique as we are.

Ultimately, what do you hope audiences take away from the podcast?

That we’re all human. Starting from the human experience that we all breathe. We all have hearts that beat, but how we experience that can be very traumatic for some people, and there are a variety of ways if you identify off the binary to get some kind of comfort and resolution. I would hope that it would not just be trans people listening to this. I hope that there’s enough information and humanity shared that people are curious a little bit more, and that there’s a demand for more information because we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of who, what, and where.

What more do you hope to accomplish with your platform?

Safety, right off the bat. It’s still so unsafe for people like us. I get misgendered constantly, and I live in Southern California. It may be a progressive area, but we’re dealing with populations who have, they think, little to no experience with trans people. That’s because they didn’t come out to you. Everybody’s had a trans experience; they just might not be aware of it.

So, safety is one, and then knowledge that access to care is possible, as well as the agency to say, “No, thank you.” That was part of my problem. “They offered it to me; I might as well go ahead.” That’s not how it works. The way it works is, “What about you, Lindsey? What do you need to feel better?” There’s definitely scars of doing too much, and we don’t often talk about that as well.

Personally, I know folks that have transitioned medically and then de-transitioned. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about that on the podcast, but there are a multitude of reasons as to why that happens, and a lot of it’s based on transphobia. They see no path forward in the way they’re living their lives, so they de-transition. That’s a struggle, and I would like to explore that a bit more.

You and your family wrote a book called Top 10 Trans Questions Answered by an Actual Trans-Family. Can you talk more about that?

Yes! We answer all kinds of questions because we’re still on the front edge of the gender revolution, as it were. There’s still not a lot of credible information from people who are living the experience and what to expect. This was not written for trans people, it was written for grandmas (laughs). Like our dog trainer, for example. We came back from a trip, and he goes, “My grandchild just came out to us. They’re 12, and we didn’t know what to do. We read your book. Thank you.” I hope this same kind of reaction happens with the podcast.

In addition to being a LGBTQ advocate, you are one of the world’s leading experts on the transgender singing voice, widely recognized as a leader in building the global trans choral movement. Can you talk more about this and why it’s been so important to you to help create a safer choral space for trans and gender-nonconforming singers?

Of course. It starts in school when singers are immediately categorized by voice type and gender. For example, I’m a tenor. I will always be a tenor, and there are folks who have written operas about trans people that will project their idea of what a trans voice should be. I will never be a mezzo, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t trans women who aren’t or won’t become mezzo because that’s definitely the case. Especially folks that grew up having only one puberty, their correct puberty. That vocal change won’t happen to them if they want to keep that high voice.

So, giving people permission and fiercely empowering them to love their voices was the first priority. Having a space that was safe enough where people would be able to open their mouths and sing was the next. When I started, I had a youth chorus in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2014, and that was the only queer youth chorus in Ohio at the time. We had some trans kids, and some of them were experiencing vocal changes. So, what does that mean? How do you plan for that? How do you infer that as an artistic director? What are you looking at chronologically in time as it’s going to happen?

I was able to watch singers as they would move from an alto section to alto two, to tenor one and tenor two, and then to the baritone section. There are a lot more voice teachers and academicians now who are getting their PhDs in vocal studies of trans and nonbinary people. The subject area is growing, and there are a lot of good experts out there right now. One of the things that I’m doing is, I’m creating a space for professional trans and nonbinary singers to perform. I’ve got an opera that’s being produced right now by Beth Morrison Projects in New York City called The Trans Diaries.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to write roles and vocal parts for trans people to sing. The trans choruses across America have not grown like the gay men and women’s choruses have. There are some trans choruses across America, but they’re very few and far between. One of the things I think we might be moving towards in the choral movement is more of a queerdom. Queer choruses because that provides a little bit more space, but the real thing that we’re continuing to deal with right now is printed music, vocal parts, who sings them, what to wear, all that stuff.

Like I said, it starts in school, and we need to create safe spaces and figure out vocal parts that aren’t necessarily gendered. When composers write soprano, alto, tenor, bass, they’re not necessarily thinking gender as they’re thinking clefs. That works for me, but there are some folks that are in the trans community that don’t have anything to do with gender binary vocal parts. They’re looking for a completely different way to do it. So, who’s going to arrange that music? If you have music that’s already printed, it’s there. That’s the real struggle for us, getting music that’s singable for us.

Stay up-to-date and connect with Deaton by following her on Twitter and Instagram @blindseydeaton, or visit her official website, lindseydeaton.com. For more information on the TransVagina Dialogues, which are available on all digital streaming platforms, visit transdialogues.com. 

Photos courtesy of Lindsey Deaton