Living in the In-Between: Gender, Identity, and the Art of Not Fitting the Box

Samantha Fox: From day one, we are told who we should be, how to live, and what's acceptable. Before we even have a chance to discover ourselves, our society has already drawn those lines for us. But what happens when those lines are keeping us from knowing and embracing who we truly are? Welcome to Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox, a podcast about unpacking and unlearning everything that's kept you from living as your true self. Through honest conversations about your internal emotional landscape, sexuality, coming out later in life, relationships, and the journey to self-acceptance, we break free from the boxes we never chose. Today I have a guest on named Jess McAvoy. Jess is a performing artist, a musician, and I would just say an artist in every sense of the word. So prolific. So prolific. And they have such a story. I found Jess on Instagram a few months ago, and their energy spoke to me in such a way where I was like, I have got to know. This person. And I ended up inviting them to come onto the podcast after watching a few of their reels and realizing, wow, this person has quite a story. And I can't really piece it together just by their reels. So I'm gonna invite them on and just ask them to share their story. Jess identifies as non-binary or gender nonconforming and arrived there after a lifetime of struggling to find places where they felt like they actually belonged and fit in. There was no place where that happened. And through their journey, they have created so much art, so many ways to understand what was happening internally for them and why things were happening the way that they were. And has created so much work. I mean, so deeply prolific in their art, and also has created an event called the Sing Easy, which is held in New York City, which is where Jess lives today. I ended up going to one of the Sing Easy events last week before we recorded, because I just wanted to get a feel for Jess in person and also what they offer in the Sing Easy. And today we talk about the theme. That just presented that day, which was the space in between. The space in between, which honestly is something that is so important that we don't think about enough because we think about arriving. We want to arrive somewhere. We want to get there. What's the next thing? What are we shooting for? What are we aiming for? And what's gonna happen when we get there? What are we gonna feel? Right. And this sing easy and the the music that Jess put along with the sing easy was based on this theme, the space in between. And as I sat with it over the course of the week, knowing that our recording was coming up, I started to really think about the space in between gender and just the space in between everything. I mean, the truth is that we are always in the space in between. Our entire lives are the space in between birth and coming here this time around and death. Everything is the space in between, and everything has nuance. Yet we live in a world where we are constantly trying to find certainty and know what the next thing is and arrive there and achieve certain feelings of belonging and acceptance. And we spend our lives just chasing all of these things when the truth is, is that as soon as we arrive there, we've already arrived there and we're gonna start looking for what's next. And so we have a very deep conversation today. Jess shares their story, and we have a deep conversation about what happens when you're searching for that place. Where you find belonging and you finally arrive, but you just can't find that space and how that feels and what that's like. And I hope for some of you that feel very exclusionary about whatever identity you are holding for yourself, whether that be, you know, a binary female-male identity, or whether that be A straight gay binary, that there is a huge space in between all of it, and it's really worth spending some time thinking about that and thinking about why we need the boxes. I hope you enjoy this episode. I really enjoyed recording it for you. Hello and welcome to Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox. Jeff, so happy to have you here with me today. Welcome.

Jesse (they/them): Glad to meet you. Thanks for having me.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, so I made it to your sing easy event last week, so enjoyable. I really loved the community feel and also I learned new things. and it was it was really fun and I left just very embodied and relaxed.

Jesse (they/them): Good, I was glad to have you there. It was yeah, that one was really fun. That was a really nice one.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, so you brought up this theme and I'm guessing that you do that each time. Maybe the theme is related to what you call your spells, right? And yeah, I guess maybe for people who don't know what the Sing Easy event is, share a little bit first about that and then we'll go into your theme.

Jesse (they/them): Sure, would love to. Yeah. So the Sing Easy is an accessible group singing experience that it's as much a a like a choir kind of experience as it is an integration technology. So the way that it's structured is kind of as you would expect a yoga class to be, that we move through different exercises to create a sense of ease in the body so that we can ultimately end up in harmony with one another. using what I call spells, which are essentially just short, like choruses of songs, that just create repetitions so that we don't have to think about it too hard and that it can just give an opportunity to really open into the voice and settle into singing together. And it's I I created it aimed mostly at beginners because I just think that everybody should have an opportunity to sing together. And yeah, so it operates regularly throughout New York City and in various capacities, including for ceremonies and for corporate team building as well. So it's a yeah, it's a get together and sing for folks that may not do it ordinarily and hopefully reap the benefits of all of that.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, so fun. the only real group singing I've done before is ki do you know what Kirtan is?

Jesse (they/them): yes, I've yeah.

Samantha Fox: I do tons of that it's just so fun. I love it. So

Jesse (they/them): Nice. Yeah, Using the voice is so, so good for the body and s and and many, many things. It's really it's an important technology.

Samantha Fox: Yeah. Okay. So last week you brought up this theme, which was, as I understood, the space in between. Kind of like the liminal space.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah.

Samantha Fox: and you were talking about it, in a more global way. So kind of, you know, as a society, maybe as a country. as as a people, we're in this kind of in between space right now.

Jesse (they/them): Right, yeah, energetically and yeah, it's very much it feels like we are sort of toward at the end of an ending and at the beginning of a beginning and sort of in all and nothing of of kind of the chaos of of what that brings up. yeah, I think globally but also in our individual lives for sure as well.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, so I was sitting with that after last week's event and just thinking more and more about it. You know, definitely personally for me, I have that. I mean, I think we all have that all the time. Like we're always kind of in an in-between space of a lot of things. Even if you feel like you've arrived somewhere, it's like How long are you gonna be in that space that you arrived?

Jesse (they/them): Right.

Samantha Fox: you arrived, but that doesn't mean you're gonna stay there, right? cause the only thing that's constant is change. So you're going to end up somewhere else. so all the uncertainty, I mean, it just really got me thinking. And then I was thinking about it also in terms of gender and the space in between. genders. and you know, I was wondering how you relate to that.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, well it's I mean where to start? How to how to unbox this particular angle. So I you know, I around So in late twenty nineteen I started to get a sense that you know, with all the conversation that was starting to become more public around gender and the things that I was looking into around like gender as a performance and you know, what gender means to me and to society and confronting certain things around that. Like I s I discovered that I that nonbinary or gender nonconforming is a much more accurate term for sort of how I f feel when I'm moving through the world authentically. And so it's been even before that, for most of my life I've been exploring this un idea of what lives in between because it's always been a felt sense for me that I sit somewhere in the middle of stuff and so, you know, As I gained more clarity around my gender, the in-between has become a really central focus to my work as an artist and my work as a facilitator. And I think that it's, you know, it's a fascinating thing to explore, like the way that the way that gender affects society and how the categorization of people or anything, how much it kind of like messes with everything. like getting rid of nuance is just is the way that things are being corroded, in my opinion. and so yeah, I mean, yeah, I think about it a lot. I think about it a lot and all the time. I yeah,

Samantha Fox: Yeah, yeah. You're like living it. I mean you're

Jesse (they/them): I am, and especially since like, you know, present the way that we present in the world like affects the way that people treat us all the time. And so it's like it's it's I'd love for it to be less of a focus and more of a a lived experience that I don't really have to think about. But it's it's it is a constant experiment in like in in you know what gender means and what and what what the in-between sort of does to people and how they can how they can figure out who you are and and what you are to them. You know, it's really it's fascinating and annoying, but fascinating. Like

Samantha Fox: Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): really traumatizing sometimes and and and wildly dysphoric, but you know, it's really fascinating.

Samantha Fox: I mean I'm curious. I mean, you're obviously from Australia.

Jesse (they/them): How what makes that a so obvious? How how did you know? Yeah.

Samantha Fox: And I've had clients that I've worked with who in fact just yesterday I was on a call with somebody who is now moving back to Australia that's British. I have a couple of clients from Australia. And, you know, my understanding in working with these people is that Australia is extremely conservative.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, it's funny. It's funny Australia's like so heavily on everybody's bucket list, right? And this and like, you know Because we're so far away from everybody else, it's been, I f in my opinion, it's been really easy for us to be this like really idealized place. And in a lot of ways, like Australia is beautiful. It's a really, really stunning place. but yeah, like growing up in Australia was like there there's a lot of contrast between that place and a lot of other places that I've lived. And my exploration around gender was accelerated mostly by not living there. Like it it was really you know, to be perfectly honest, like the the way that my music career transpired and the way that I had to in had to for my own sanity and safety, like exit Australia was because I lost most of my musical opportunities because they found out I was gay. So like it's it's been yeah, that's been a reckoning too. But yeah, Australia, to answer your question, Australia is a very conservative place in a lot of ways. Like really

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): progressive in a lot of social ways. Like But I mean it was allowed to be a like really homogenous, very politically isolated place for a really long time and left unchecked for a long time. So very misogynistic, like super homophobic, like it's getting better 'cause of the kids, like it is everywhere, but you know.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean you don't know until you know, right? So until I had these calls over the last many years I've been doing this work with these women that were there, I was like kind of shocked. Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): It was rough, man. It was rough.

Samantha Fox: So where in Australia did you grow?

Jesse (they/them): So I lived in yeah, I lived in Perth. the the other thing too I will say, like it's it's important to note, I'm 46. And so when I was growing up in Australia and bit it's and you know, when I was coming out and figuring out stuff in it was in the late 90s, and so you know, things have shifted a lot since the internet for sure. But at the time, you know, when I was living in Melbourne, so I moved to Melbourne when I was nineteen. and so in those early years of my twenties, I was going to gay bars and such. And there was one place in particular called the Glass House in Collingwood in Melbourne. And I don't think it's there anymore. But that was a really specific lesbian bar that you'd go to and they had the pool table in the front room, like it was the, you know, sp that that kind of a place. And I I got denied entry like more than once because I had long hair and I wasn't wearing the right shoes. Like that that's what it like kind of boiled down to but and I was with my girlfriend at one point too and like they just point blank denied entry and I was like okay well fuck this I'm just gonna go be a musician 'cause like at least there I can be whatever the heck I am because as long as I can play with all the other people I get to belong. but yeah I

Samantha Fox: So was it like we so like were you not like butch enough or like what what was okay. Okay.

Jesse (they/them): But yeah, at the time, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You you I mean, you know, pre internet you qualified by looking like an a lesbian. Like, yeah. So like, you know, and I did for a while. Like I really I really went that way until it became clear that like I wasn't gonna survive the music industry if I was openly butch. And so then I I did a ho a lot of work actually to figure out and to figure out how to perform my gender in a way that was convincingly straight. like I worked with my friend who was a dance teacher. I worked with like a lot of people around clothes and all kinds of stuff to to totally dress up what was going on for me. It's interesting, you know, because I think in this in-between period that we're in cosmically right now, you

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): know, I've been doing and I you know, the clients that I work with in my voice work, it's such a wonderful thing to interface with so many different people to get a temperature on sort of what's happening in society. But like Just the digging through old stuff or letting go of old stuff. And I'm actually right in the guts of kind of doing some old work around my ties to being a musician and the ways that I felt betrayed and kind of like abandoned by, you know, the community there through, you know, not fitting in a box. You

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): know, and and vehemently not fitting in a box and and and being as vocal as possible about that as a, you know. just the way that I'm built, you know, it's like I it's I've got to tell people so other people can tell people and and no one else did. So it kind of yeah. It's interesting that we're talking about this today. As it happens, you know.

Samantha Fox: Perfect timing. Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like you came into yourself, and then also felt rejected in some way by the by the lesbian community and went the musician route and then felt like you had to fit into a box there and, be more straight presenting or femme presenting so it was kind of like everywhere you went, you weren't enough of whatever the box was.

Jesse (they/them): yeah, totally. I mean it was and it was it was clear as day to me. And I think, you know, that's sort of it's it's kinda how we're built, right? As a as a form of survival is this kind of you know, we've got a all the categorizations of all the all the acronyms and everything of of who we are and h how we fit and sort of these specificities of of of who we are, like are these sorts of ways that we I I understand the necessity for categorization so that people can find a safe place to hang, but for me it never felt like there was a place that I could hang where I could be myself until I found the music industry. Because like and only now when I go into queer spaces and it's a space with like all kinds of folks and we all get to just be humans together. Like

Samantha Fox: Mm-hmm.

Jesse (they/them): and and I think growing up in Australia especially because it's such a at least and especially then the reinforcement of heteronormative patriarchal values of like of like you if you talk to a dude at a bar then you're going home with him. And if you don't go home with him then you're a cocktease. And if he buys you a drink, then you that you he he has sealed the deal at that point. Like these these rules were so blatantly prescribed. And I also lived in Holland when I was a kid. So I had five years of living in the Netherlands and getting that contrast of culture. And then coming back to Australia and discovering that men were like over on this side of the room and women were on this side of the room. And you're both talking about shit that I wasn't interested in. And and the same thing when I was move when I first started getting into queer culture, I was like, this is ridiculous. Like why where are the rooms where the people are? And I found that in art and in and in places that were centered around authentic self-expression. so yeah, I bet the the queer, the lesbian community was I tried it for maybe a year and a half when I was young enough to to still have a tolerance to it. And then yeah, and then I just started to find spaces and then refine spaces and build spaces because it just didn't none of it made sense to me. And and a lot of it hurt. A lot of it hurt.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. so especially because I mean, and this is something I talk about a lot, how because we're human and the way that we're born and the way our emotional systems work is that belonging is essential for survival in our early years. Like we need that. We need to belong. We need to feel accepted and approved of in our early years. Like that is part of how we survive. So to not be able to find that feeling is traumatizing.

Jesse (they/them): For sure. And I don't think I've ever really found it. I think I'm I think I'm, you know, where I'm at in my life right now, I feel so grateful that I'm starting to get that experience. I'm starting to starting to tap into that and and and because I I don't think my I think because of the way that I was set up, you know, I just I don't think my body had ever experienced any kind of inkling of that flavor. So I didn't even know what I was looking for. And I think that that's, you know, especially when you are looking for that sense of belonging in places where there is lots of substance use and where there is a lot of like a lot of a lot of people like really trying to figure out who they are in one place, you know, with all of the trauma that they bring to that space, which I found was really evident in the queer spaces that I was in in the late nineties and early two thousands. you know, and the music space isn't immune to that either, but like definitely queer spaces that was I just remember like when I was in those lesbian spaces and everyone was sleeping with each other's friends and and others' girlfriends and all of the mess of that and and then all the drugs and the alcohol and all that business, I was like, this is this I nah. Mm-mm.

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): No, no, there were way too many things. And then when when in the I remember when I was I played at Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Mid-2000s, I think it was. And that was even then they weren't letting bisexual people in the march. I just like all these examples where I'm just like, what the fuck is everybody doing? Like, how are we excluding people from these exclusive spaces where which are supposed to be inclusive? Just crazy, crazy.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, you know, I work specifically with women who are coming out a little bit later and

Jesse (they/them): Mm-hmm.

Samantha Fox: a lot of them find that the lesbian community is not very welcoming to them either.

Jesse (they/them): No. Yeah, but the and the thing is though, it's like everybody's entitled to have these really exclusive spaces if they want. But let's not tell let's not let's let's just let them be what they are. You know, I think that like we can't that there's a reason why certain folks like I don't know, I just like I don't wanna be I don't wanna be in dynamic with those kinds of spaces, but I understand why they exist.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, yeah.

Jesse (they/them): You know, like and I think that like there was a time, especially especially when the internet wasn't around and especially like I I got it. I understood why I wasn't allowed in that s in that lesbian bar. Like I and you know, I think that and and because those those spaces they really needed to to have an exclusivity to them so that people could be safe. So but I just yeah, yeah. There has to and this is why I think I think we are in this period now where folks are trying to figure out how to build spaces where you can find community and where you know, where other things connect us than like just who we choose to get into bed with.

Samantha Fox: Yes. Yeah. So tell me, take me back to, growing up and you know coming into yourself and your family. Like how did that go with your family? Were they loving and embracing and accepting? Did they struggle?

Jesse (they/them): Well So my mum knew before I did and made it very clear that she knew. we so w you know, we're all a bit neurospicy, my family, and and and Dutch in Australia and kind of we're an unusual little cluster. but

Samantha Fox: Are both your parents Dutch originally or?

Jesse (they/them): My mother's so my mother's lineage is Dutch. She's I can't even remember what first and second generation is, but her parents emigrated in the fifties and then we my mum still her was pretty involved with her family lineage too and my parents both went to Holland for their honeymoon, etcetera. So that part of our culture was kind of continued a lot. My my father is a a mutt like white Australian. colonizer mutt and so yeah when we were growing up my mum's brother is gay and so she witnessed a lot of his trauma and turmoil and the way that he was ostracized and so was a fierce advocate for queers and for frankly anyone that was on the margin and well within reason I mean this was Australia and the whatever there's there's nuance to everything. So she So when when she started to realize that I was queer, she definitely like r let that sort of shape until she felt that she could start sort of prodding me and going, Hey, I think that maybe you want to look in this direction, which I, you know, so as much as it was i it was around in the family, like enough to know that I had some room there. and when I did finally kind of get the inkling when I was maybe fifteen or sixteen. my brother bought me a t shirt that said Dyke, just do it, like a Nike kind of swoosh rip off thing. He thought it was the funniest he was so impressed with himself. He he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever found.

Samantha Fox: had you come out or this was Okay. Okay.

Jesse (they/them): I this was just when I was starting to admit it. So no, I was a little later. This is when I was like maybe eighteen or nineteen. So yeah, he thought it was really funny. So th so all of that was yeah, that was definitely around. There was still rhetoric where Mum was like, I wish you you wouldn't choose this. It's kind of like a a really hard road sort of thing. And

Samantha Fox: Yes.

Jesse (they/them): you know, and but there was never any kind of like you need to change this kind of situation. There was enough where I f I got a lot of information around what I was gonna be missing out on and like and how difficult my life was gonna be and stuff. So it

Samantha Fox: Yes, yes, yes.

Jesse (they/them): certainly wasn't like a b a big parade. but as far as those things go and and you know, growing up in the eighties go, I think I had a pretty good run in that respect. but then yeah, I mean it's just the second you hit high school, It's just yeah, we there was a lot of a lot of bullying, a lot of and like the thing is too, is that I wasn't just queer and I didn't know it. People told me but like I I was I was weird. I was you know, definitely definitely on the autistic kind of side of things and like and and just weird.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, different. I mean different, weird, like all

Jesse (they/them): Yeah.

Samantha Fox: of those words, yeah.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, you know, and like and very introspective and artistic and all these sorts of things. But like, you know, what's really cool, so I like I was saying earlier, I discovered my non binary kind of identity you know, five, six years ago. And when I came out I did the silly thing and like put it up on the Facebooks and was like, all right, this is much faster to tell everyone what's going on because it's such an awkward thing to do to ex to to get people to change their pronoun

Samantha Fox: Yes.

Jesse (they/them): literacy. And so, you know, it's an ongoing difficult thing to navigate. But so I put it up on Facebook and I got some messages from folks that had known me since I was like 1920. An old boyfriend actually who is also a musician. Who we got very, very close. And he sent me an an email and he said, I always knew there was something special about you. And so I feel pretty confident in looking back and also seeing a lot of footage of myself when I was a kid because I've been working through this documentary project that I've got footage from from forever that I've been working through these last couple of years. but it was I was always I was always a bit more queer than I had words for. which is very validating, but all and especially to have people having recognized that about me before any of us had any language for it was really sweet. So when there's mo whenever I have moments of like, gee, I'm making life hard for myself and everyone around me, I think about those moments where there was recognition in places that I never expected. So I think, you know, my conviction to live authentically, despite the ways that the music industry very clearly because the music the music industry has been the barometer of my life for 30 years. And so I seeing the way that musicians and especially female musicians, there was a couple people that stuck their neck out in the early nineties that got shelved and got their deals like put away and and just the language in the day to day life, the way that people talk to each other, the homophobic slurs that are just the way that people socialise and stuff. It just like I this was then, this was like in the this was like definitely in the nineties and the two thousands

Samantha Fox: This is still today, you're talking about d okay, this was then in the nineties. Mm-hmm.

Jesse (they/them): and like all the time that my career was starting to get to a place. So when I like twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, then for folks to find out that I was a lesbian and then to lose like record deals and stuff, like it none of it was a surprise. It was it

Samantha Fox: Okay.

Jesse (they/them): it sucked, but none of it was a surprise.

Samantha Fox: And this was all still in Australia? Okay.

Jesse (they/them): This is all in Australia. So yeah, when I l moved to Toronto, like that was the first time that I got a lot of contrast around what it is to be in a culture that actually has some literacy around queerness. and that was when I was thirty one to thirty th three. That was

Samantha Fox: For like for music.

Jesse (they/them): No. No,

Samantha Fox: Poor relationship.

Jesse (they/them): actually no. No. Ultimately to get sober from alcohol.

Samantha Fox: Okay.

Jesse (they/them): but like as an in between. From

Samantha Fox: Yes.

Jesse (they/them): being in Australia, knowing I wanted to move to New York, knowing that bars in New York were way too fun. And also, you know, I needed to make contacts in America so that I could move down here and get a visa. So the the visa route from Australia to Canada because of the Commonwealth was much easier. So

Samantha Fox: Okay.

Jesse (they/them): I was up there making contacts in New York for three years before I moved down here. Yeah.

Samantha Fox: Okay. And New York was just like a destination that

Jesse (they/them): Yeah. I mean Yeah, it's really funny thinking about it from my perspective now, from how I feel about music and everything. We're talking about belonging before and how music, like, music just like was my North Star for so long. Like, this is the thing that's gonna prove belonging. Right?

Samantha Fox: Mm-hmm.

Jesse (they/them): This is the place that I'm gonna show how special I am and therefore worthy of love.

Samantha Fox: Mm-hmm.

Jesse (they/them): And that that's dissipated. And so it's so funny to like to be I mean it's it's it's changed. but yeah, so New York, when I came here when I was twenty five and I played like five shows in like a week and a half that I was here for the first time I played CBGB's, I played Arlene's Grocery, I played like The Bitter End for the first time, which I play all the time now. So and also the other thing I noticed when I was here was when we were kids, we didn't listen to a lot of music in the house, but we listened to Billy Joel for some reason. and I caught wind of Nina Simone pretty early on. And I remember like hearing it when I was a kid, just going, There's something else in this music, and I don't quite know what it is. And when I was here when I was twenty five, I remember I was walking down up by Central Park, and it was one of those blistering hot summer days, the sweltering like humidity. And I was walking along and I was listening to music. I was listening to it was either Jeff Buckley's Grace or Rufus Wainwright want one or want two and the sky opened up all of a sudden and a thunderstorm just like fell down on the floor. And all of the s the vendors became umbrella salespeople like immediately.

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): And I just remember the sound in my ears, I all of a sudden understood what it was that I was hearing in those Billy Joel records when I was a kid. There was something in the air in New York that I recognized all of a sudden, and I was like, okay, this. And so then I said about, yeah, moving to Toronto to get the traction and get the contacts so that I could get a visa and come down here and I've been here for twelve years. So

Samantha Fox: Okay. And and the North Star being the music and that you know, and finding that belonging and being worthy and valuable and love

Jesse (they/them): Yeah.

Samantha Fox: and all of that, you said that that now has shifted.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, it's shifted substantially.

Samantha Fox: What do you think that that's because of? Like what happened

Jesse (they/them): Well, I mean it's been yers of work. Years and years and years and years of like dribbling water on a mountain and waiting for

Samantha Fox: I feel you.

Jesse (they/them): it to bore a waterfall, you know, like it's been my life's work. Like I mean I feel really grateful that a lot of the work that I've done is reflected in like archival stuff and in like all of the you know, music that I've written and the the play that I made. I wrote this one person rock musical a couple of years ago that I've put on a couple of times in New York and at Festival in Australia and And stuff and you know, it's roughly based on my life and it involves like four different characters. It sort of sits in the it the IFS sort of framework. So when I started doing IFS stuff like this this kind of narrative structure, this kind of cyclical like evolution sort of structure popped into my head and I wrote this this work. So that th and that that did a lot to transform and sort of integrate my my sort of fragmented selves and and stuff

Samantha Fox: Your Your parts.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, my parts. My parts got a bit of an integrative framework to to wash itself through. but you know I think it's I think Something that happens like when you release music or at least when you're constantly packaging yourself as a package and working and reworking, you know, what your emotional output is to the world and like how that you know, you can I can see that the last record that I did, I struggled with it so hard on so many different levels around how much I just wanted it to be the thing that would finally show you that I figured out how to do the thing, you know, and it's like seeing that tension and As a voice coach and as someone who helps people sort of like release these expectations of themselves, like what I mean, what a blessing teaching is to keep you in practice of this kind of like forever letting go process. because it keeps me aware of the places in which I'm clenching. And so I've just I've I've like sought out so many different modalities to kind of approach it from all these different angles to figure out how to stop. Clenching so hard, and what's been really beautiful, it's been the last couple months where this has really fallen into a different place, is that I've been able to really see like how much of a restrictive story that I've built around what the music career that I wanted was supposed to mean. I picked that idea when I was six years old, and it's been such a I you know, you get in the rhythm of something. And you integrate it into your identity, and then you keep practicing that thing. And sometimes, if you don't stop to question it, it just keeps being the thing. And then for me, I think it got so twisted up with all the ways in which I was deeply hurt and rejected by an industry that was crumbling under my feet as I was expecting it to lift me up high. And it, you know, and like and my timing, like of course I was ahead of my time. Like no one was coming out. It took them another five, six years, and then they all became the the the the patriarchs and matriarchs and sages of the music industry the queer music industry like after I'd been you know rung out on along the coals you know and so of course that was what I was gonna do because this is what I do. so and then you know to to understand that I could channel that I still get to do the thing that I love doing. Which is curating a space and helping folks experience something transcendent through something that I've created and leading a room in in a unifying experience. And not only that, that I get to like grow it and turn it into something that everybody gets to do. Like I'm doing the same thing. And this is something that I can that's definitely something that like it and it's so beautiful to not be selling myself and not be selling like I'm just the artist. It's like, yeah, I am, I'm Jess, and I'm an artist and I'm a bloody good one, you know. But also like I that doesn't that doesn't need to be the thing that quantifies that for me anymore. And that's the thing that's shifted, is that I'm not gonna stop making music because it's really fun and it's you know, and I get to do it with other people. so fortunate you know

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): and so it just feels everything is feeling more and more like a gift rather than something that's supposed to prove that I'm valuable and that's it's such a cool feeling it's such a great space to be living from it's yeah I I cannot I can't express how grateful I am to be here now it's bloody cool because I wasn't

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): it was hard it's been hard Life's been really shitty.

Samantha Fox: Yeah. I mean I can I can relate a lot to to to that in in different very different ways. But

Jesse (they/them): Mm-hmm.

Samantha Fox: yeah, I feel you on that and I mean, going from essentially like the storyline and you know, we get so caught up in the story and what the story is and saying the story over and over and over and believing what this story is, that it's happening to us, that we're the victim and You know, what did we do to deserve this? And right, and it just can keep going for years. And

Jesse (they/them): Yeah.

Samantha Fox: then there's this point at which it's like, well, that's the story, but there's also like the truth. What's the truth?

Jesse (they/them): Yeah. Yeah.

Samantha Fox: And move out of the story and move into the truth. And I've been thinking about that a lot lately too. And you know, and once you can just be in your truth. and let go of that story. There's so much gratitude for just being where you are. And yeah.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, and it's not like you're not sour about not getting there sooner. Like that it's it's crazy. It's crazy. And it's like that it's but and but even just even just being able to differentiate between the story and the truth, like that piece in itself, like we say just, but holy shit

Samantha Fox: It's

Jesse (they/them): did that take years to figure out what the difference was.

Samantha Fox: just in August I I had this experience where I did a past life regression and then I did a life between life regression. Yeah,

Jesse (they/them): Mm.

Samantha Fox: which I had never done either. And it was in my life between life regression where I got the message from my council of spiritual guides about the story and the truth. And they just told me. They were like, stop focusing on the story. it was it was so emotional while I was getting all of these downloads I I was hypnotized, right? and since then it just was like I snapped out of it, you know, and I was I just

Jesse (they/them): Easy.

Samantha Fox: see the truth. And like since then it's just been flow. Like all flow.

Jesse (they/them): Please.

Samantha Fox: Like stuff is just happening, you know? with so much less resistance, so I I can relate.

Jesse (they/them): So that's a but I it's like that that to me like is one of the more difficult things to reconcile. That like that also, yes, it takes forever sometimes to figure out the thing, right? Because we build and we build and we build towards. But the moment that it shifts, it is so easeful and so obvious. That it's laughable. It just makes me think about like, you know, I had a Chinese doctor once who like he had to like he I had a frozen shoulder for years and he did this like ninja move that like basically just like was so big and so so scary and so massive and hurt like buggery but clearly was a good idea. He laughed the whole time. And I just like I think about him and this idea of the happy Buddha, like the this idea of like like when you know when you know the truth Like there's a there's a levity to it that like

Samantha Fox: Yes.

Jesse (they/them): that you just you can't predict that because it's like trying to think of a whole color that you haven't seen yet. It's like it's like this when it shifts, it's like, and this I mean and the same goes for voice work too. It's like it's for anything, anything when your body gets into flow and when everything's kind of in alignment, it's like, yeah. And you're like, okay. All right.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, I think yeah, I think it's it's I mean, at least for me and I don't know about for other people, but it's like the information has been coming, but I have this way of like I get the download and then I'm like, yeah, but this, this, this, and this. You know, so the download comes, it's really clear, and then I spend the next two weeks being like, Yeah, but this, this, this, and this. And

Jesse (they/them): Right.

Samantha Fox: so it it passes.

Jesse (they/them): Mm-hmm.

Samantha Fox: And now I am not doing that. Like when the download comes, I'm just like, I gotcha, you know? And there's the ease. And that's when it all starts to flow. So

Jesse (they/them): Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Yep. Totally. And I I I you know I I see that mirrored in the people that I'm in dynamic with as well. Like I do feel, you know, with all of the patterns and things of other people that talk about and everything, it does feel like a measurable difference in how folks are navigating the world right now. And like I'm noticing a more of an openness for conversations with strangers, like all these things that sort of like went away during the pandemic, right? And went away when we all got addicted to screens. I think we're finally sick of it all in a way that is really starting to come through in day to day. And I'm like, I'm stoked. It's I think we're in we're in such a a noticeable like it's let's go. Let's start, let's start imagining a future that like is unimaginable. Like let's fucking just do it. Let's do it. I'm ready.

Samantha Fox: I love that. I love that for you. So yeah. So it sounds like you, you've really, I mean, ever like everything's been a shift, you know? I mean, the whole life has been a shift.

Jesse (they/them): yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Samantha Fox: and also letting go of that, like you were saying, like with that one song that was like, let this be the song, the let this one be the one, which is kind of that energy of trying to create the certainty and the box in

Jesse (they/them): Well

Samantha Fox: a way. You know, it's like like I wanna know that this one is gonna be the one and it's gonna look like this. And it's it's like, let me just know this. and and then just being in the space of like this is what is now.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, and I think and honestly, I what I think the actual the actual big shift is in actual answer to your earlier question is that like I think I'm I think what's happened is I'm starting to really understand what practice is and what living in this understanding of everything changes is. Like there's the knowing, right? And then there's the knowing. And I think in in really reframing everything and really starting to understand that like It's all so temporary. And getting it. And just letting it's like, well, this moment, all the things that I've done. I think that's also the grace of getting older too, right? Is that you look back on all the stuff that you thought was the thing. And then you look at it and you go, No, no, you're a thing. And that's an indicator of where what was happening in that moment in time. And now it's like, cool, you just that's a thing. And so we just keep rolling. And I think that's been the real shift. is is is settling into an understanding that like this too shall pass. And

Samantha Fox: Yes, yeah.

Jesse (they/them): and and how do you sit in the the beauty of it as much as you can?

Samantha Fox: I love that. Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): as it as it keeps moving, because that's all we've got, right? Like

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): it really truly is all we've got. and that's been a

Samantha Fox: Yeah, it's this moment.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, yeah. And again, there's knowing and then there's no 'cause I've said that shit for years. For years, right?

Samantha Fox: Yeah. Yeah. It's like knowing and then actually embodying that. And like living that.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, and that and that takes practice. It takes practice. It all takes practice. And that's the main thing that like has been such a huge shift for me is like understanding that practice, treating everything like practice.

Samantha Fox: Yeah, I love that. And I think it's a great message also for the listeners here, just because, you know, most of the people listening to this podcast are people that are in between,

Jesse (they/them): Mm.

Samantha Fox: living a heteronormative life for a long time and then realizing that that doesn't fit them anymore. And you know, there is so much, you know. There's there's so much letting go and there's so much grief. And then there's like this joy and excitement at the same time. And there's so much fear, you know, about the uncertainty. And and it's like if I mean it's hard to do, right? It's hard to let go in that space where everything is kind of blowing up and just be in present. Like in each moment that you are going through this transformation,

Jesse (they/them): Yeah, and I think like the the thing is like and I think why it's hard to even start that process sometimes for folks is that, you know, like to to all of a sudden just go, okay, be okay with the fact that this feels deeply, deeply, deeply uncomfortable, like that is a huge amount to ask. And so what I think what gives me great fortune as a creative is that I've learnt to create that practice through process oriented things where I've been able to take a feeling or something. So for instance, when I started to discover, you know, that I wanted to move towards getting top surgery and and to go through a medical transition, I I did I like I I took a full year to actually really process what I was going to do with myself. And so in that time I made a lot of different like creative projects to see to try to process my decision. One of which was I did this monologue project where I was essentially in conversation. I built a a video of of something that I was making by with clay. I built a body with clay. And then I was in conversation with myself. I was doing a lot of voiceovers at the time, so I I just had it all set up and ready to go. And so I did this conversation with myself where I was talking to my body and asking my body for permission and asking my body of its opinion of what I was going to do to a perfectly healthy body. And it was through that conversation and building a body out of clay and then removing parts of it and putting it back together and editing this project to have this conversation in the world, I was able to release the guilt and shame around altering a perfectly capable, fully healthy body

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): in the when I was okay with having my body like this, but I wasn't, I didn't feel like myself. and so when we talk about practice, it's it has been something that I've gotten to do because I have an artistic practice. I have a practice that is centered around how I process things. And so and my work with working with other people is around helping them be in practice as well. And so these these things like we don't it is it's difficult to find our voice and our process on our own sometimes and to find folks who can help us. process these things and and to develop practices that involve other people, I think, are some really essential things to point out when it comes to, you know, like making massive life shifts. especially around identity and

Samantha Fox: Yes.

Jesse (they/them): and around like and making and altering like really big things about your life that impact a lot of different stuff.

Samantha Fox: Yes.

Jesse (they/them): You know, art's good. Singing's good.

Samantha Fox: Yeah.

Jesse (they/them): Making stuff is really good and doing with other people's super helpful. And voice work, voice work is like has been a huge part of my of my journey as well. Like just like the way that the voice and the vibrations that we move through the system like help to bring up, to bring through and to process the energetic parts and the, you know, the stuck emotions in the body. hugely cathartic, terrifying, but awesome. Yeah, and then to like put words and intentions into that energy and to have them, you know, as ways, as conduits to the future that you want to make too. Like making stuff is great.

Samantha Fox: So powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Jesse (they/them): Yeah.

Samantha Fox: Well, I deeply appreciate your sharing and coming on and the work that you're doing to help other people find themselves

Jesse (they/them): Thank you. Thanks for taking the time to to have such a rich conversation.

Samantha Fox: Absolutely.

Jesse (they/them): Thank you so much, Sam.

Samantha Fox: Thank you for spending this time with me on Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review. It helps more folks find these conversations. If you're ready to unbox from something that's keeping you stuck, I would love to support you. You can find the application to the show at unboxyoursexuality.com. Let's stay connected. Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at lesbiancuriositycoach. Give me a follow and join the conversation. Remember, we only have this one time through. Why not unbox yourself and let your true self shine in all its beautiful glory?