Everyone has a spectrum of masculinity and femininity inside them. In every individual, a war of misogyny is raging. Every man is repressing and oppressing the femininity within themselves, raising up male values as governing values. Because that's what we've been taught to do, just as every woman has. Misogyny isn't just something that affects women. It affects men.

I was about 17 or 18 when I first started performing in public. I had a teacher when I was a freshman in college and she came up to me afterwards and said she had been crying while I had been singing, and it really shocked me.

There are so many more productive things to do than sit around feeling shame and guilt. Beyond touching on shame and guilt in a perfunctory manner, I wouldn't bother with that at all.

My creative process isn't a long one, so I could have started a song 10 years ago and then finish it 10 years later. It's all just about pushing around words and melodies, for me. The material is kind of shape-shifting.

I feel very grateful that for some reason I was raised to believe that I had permission to explore the creative world. I'm very aware of what a privilege that is, because most people don't grant themselves that permission, and I really think that's the only thing that separates people that call themselves artists from the rest of the world. It's suspending self-judgment for long enough to do something expressive.

Every year I used to write a musical inspired by John Waters, and I would get all my friends together and put on this perverse, emotional, tragic musical.

I am transgender, so 'he' is not appropriate and 'she' is problematic. I haven't been one to wage war with society to force people to address me a certain way. I let people make that decision for themselves. I don't identify as a man, so 'he' is silly in a way. Being called 'she' as a trans person, trans in the sense that I'm trans, is to be honoured in an aspect of yourself.