By Eric George Tauber
CINCINNATI, Ohio — I discovered the music of Ryan Cassata via YouTube. Ryan is a singer-songwriter and activist. Ryan sings about his life as a transgender man, mental health recovery, suicide and hate crimes. He began socially transitioning (living as a young man) at the age of fourteen and his activism for the trans community got him on Larry King Live at fifteen. Now 28, Ryan is also a grad student at the Pacific School of Religion working on a Master’s in Divinity and Social Transformation. I spoke with Ryan recently via Zoom. [Our conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity. Plus, some in-house terms are explained in parentheses ( ) in the text.]
EGT: How do you identify and what are your pronouns?
RC: I identify as Trans, as Queer. I use he/him pronouns and he/him pronouns only…. I’ve been out as trans since I’m pretty young, so it’s been fifteen years that I’ve been Out now. And I don’t really subscribe to gender as much as I did when I first came out. It doesn’t matter to me as much to me anymore. I’m comfortable with who I am. I’m just Ryan….
EGT: In your work, I hear you sampling from a few different genres, mostly acoustic rock, folk, country, plus a bit of R&B and gospel. How do you classify your music?
RC: Well, I don’t really classify the genre anymore. So, it’s impossible to put me into one box. I am a singer-songwriter. I write all of my own music and I consider all of my songs protest songs because I’m writing from the context that I’m trans and living here in the United States. So, all of my songs are protest songs. Queer love songs are protest songs as well.
EGT: I know that gender transitioning is rarely a smooth process, but I’m looking as an outsider. What were some of the bumps in the road?
RC: Well, for me, coming out so young and getting my parents on board was probably the hardest aspect of my transition. Like, I knew that the changes I wanted to make were necessary and they needed to happen soon.
EGT: Why?
RC: I experienced a lot of gender dysphoria when I was younger. So, I was really like just not doing well mentally at all. And my top surgery (removing of breasts) relieved the gender dysphoria and a lot of the mental discomfort that I was in. So, getting top surgery was lifesaving for me.
EGT: Help a cis (non-trans) person out here. Paint the picture of gender dysphoria. What is that like?
RC: Yeah, for me, like going to high school, before I had top surgery, I would try on a bunch of different outfits and none of them would feel like they fit me correctly. They made me look too feminine or feel too feminine, and that would cause a lot of tension in my mind. I wanted to be perceived as male, one for safety, but that’s who I truly feel that I am as well. So, looking in the mirror and seeing a different image from what I feel I am in my head is painful. That’s what it was like growing up. So, I wore a chest binder and those are very uncomfortable and dangerous too. There’s a lot of health risks with them.
EGT: Like what?
RC: I’ve known a few people who have broken their ribs from wearing a chest binder too long or too tightly. But these are things that we do in order to feel comfortable, in order to survive. It’s really all survival mechanisms. In high school, getting through each day was really a challenge, but I did it.
EGT: You said that you were fourteen and you had a hard time getting your parents on board. I can understand an older person saying, ‘You’re fourteen. You’re a kid. You’re too young to really know what you want.’ How do you respond to that?
RC: I think young people know themselves a lot more than adults give them credit for. Even before transitioning, I knew I wanted to be a professional musician. I just knew that about myself. And a lot of people know what they want to do when they’re younger and what will make them happy. I think we have to trust young people that they know what they want.
EGT: How long have you had your top surgery? When did that happen?
RC: Ten years ago, almost 11 now.
[Note: In a recent video posted since this interview, Ryan asserts that his only regret about top surgery is not having it sooner.]
EGT: So, how has your concept of yourself changed since this procedure?
RC: Yeah, it gave me a lot more confidence. I’m able to look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Yeah. That’s me.’ It just made me feel more Me.
EGT: I notice you really like to appear shirtless in your videos and I’ve got to tell you, you display a lot more confidence in that than I do because I’m a middle-aged guy with hairy moobs.
RC: (chuckling) Thank you.
EGT: “Daughter” is the first song of yours that I heard and that’s the one that put you on the map. It’s about your relationship with your father. Tell us a little bit about how this relationship has developed.
RC: Sure. Well, yeah, it was rough in the beginning of my transition with my father. He comes from a very old-school Italian background. He’s first-generation American. He didn’t understand it at first and it took him a long time to come around and accept that I’m the same person. It’s about ‘Hey, you didn’t lose your child. I’m the same person and I’m right here. I’m just happier now that I’m myself.’ Eventually, my dad did understand that and now my dad is one of my biggest allies. Both of my parents are very big supporters and allies. They’re very proud and it’s just great.
EGT: In that song, you kind of contradict yourself. You say, “I didn’t change who I am. I’ve always been a man,” but then in the very next breath you say, “But Dad, I’ll always stay your little girl.” How do you reconcile those two statements?
RC: For me, I don’t think that ‘daughter’ and ‘son’ are really gendered. There’s parts of me that are still my parents’ daughter and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean that I’m a girl. It doesn’t go against who I am. It’s just acknowledging that you can have aspects of male and female. They don’t have to be gendered. I mean, sex isn’t gender. This can be very confusing, I guess.
EGT: For most people, those two words are synonyms. Make the distinction. What is the difference between sex and gender in your view?
RC: Well, gender is what you feel you are in your mind and your body. Sex is what you were assigned at birth based on your genitalia.
EGT: You are studying theology. How do you identify spiritually and what role does faith play in your life?
RC: I identify more as a spiritual person than a religious person.
EGT: What’s the distinction for you?
RC: For me, religion is a bit more confining. You have to do this, this and this for whatever denomination you’re in. You have to believe this and that. There’s less of a freedom to it. With spirituality, it’s like, these are the beliefs that I resonate with and they can be from any religion. I do attend a church… but there’s a lot from all different religions that I take from and believe in as well. I don’t get my spirituality boxed up in a religion because there’s value in all of them and learning from all of them. Spirituality includes self-care and meditation and community building. That all goes into my spirituality as well.
EGT: One of your songs is spiritual, but also sardonic. I’m thinking of I met Jesus at the Gay Pride Parade. Talk about that. How did you meet him at a gay pride parade?
RC: That was one of the first songs that I wrote when I started my journey in seminary. I wrote it a few days after the Insurrection at the Capital. The last verse is about that, but it’s really about seeing the humanity in all people and not demonizing people based on who they are and what circumstances they’re in. What I’ve learned about Jesus so far, I think he would be friends with us and not hate us because we’re queer. That’s where that song comes from. It’s not sinful to be LGBTQ. It’s not something that needs to be condemned. It’s a very left-wing song. It’s against the Alt-right and against bigotry.
EGT: I really enjoy the spirit of adolescent rebellion in your Gender Binary, F* You! song. And it seems that Trans folks are Enemy #1 in the Culture Wars. What do you think is the most effective way for young people to fight and win this conflict?
RC: I think education is the most important way, sharing our stories and our experiences and have cis/straight people listen to them. I think from very early on, I realized that the only way I was going to reach people was to be non-violent and to use education as my way of being an activist. I’ve been doing that since I was thirteen years old. I’ve changed a lot of minds and opened up a lot of people’s viewpoints doing it that way. I stand by that and it might be a slower way of changing things, but I think it’s the best way.
EGT: You say that you’ve changed people’s minds. Other than your parents, do you have a story of someone whose mind you changed?
RC: I’ve done speeches at high schools, colleges and conferences all over the country. One that stands out to me was at a college. … After my speech, a student came to me and said, ‘I came here thinking I would hate this and you. After your speech, I realize that God just wants me to love everyone.’ That really stuck with me. All the time, I get messages online from parents who heard my music, or my speech and it helped them to accept their transgender child. It’s something that I’ve been doing for a long time and something that I feel called to do as well.
EGT: Some people have credited your music as the reason they are still alive. Would you like to talk about suicidal ideation among trans people and what do the rest of us need to do to coax them back from the brink?
RC: I would say that the suicide rate is very high in the trans community and it’s gotten worse recently. It’s important to know that because trans people are struggling and suffering. We need society’s support. We don’t have access to the same things that other people have access to and that makes you feel like giving up. Or your family doesn’t support you and that makes you feel like giving up. School isn’t a safe place. Your job isn’t a safe place. Your home isn’t a safe place. That’s true for many, many trans people. So, having access to more opportunities and resources is one way. Folks becoming better allies, being willing to listen and provide those resources and meet those needs.
EGT: You said, ‘access to better opportunities.’ Like what?
RC: Housing, jobs, a safe place to live, a safe place to work. It’s everything that the trans community is struggling with. We are a minority group, and we are one of the most impoverished minority groups. So, it’s access to literally everything: food, clothing, transportation… everything.
EGT: This last one isn’t really a question. It’s more planting a seed. Numerous states are debating legislation banning books and even discussion of LGBTQ issues. There is backlash and there have been protests, but there’s no anthem. I feel that we need an anthem like We Shall Overcome or Helen Reddy’s I Am Woman. And I really feel that We March is that anthem. We should sing this at Pride parades and protests.
RC: Thank you. That means so much to me.
EGT: What I would love to see is a Pride march where the religious bigots have set up on one side with their ‘Go to Hell’ protest signs and bullhorns and you with as many people as you can muster set up across from them and just sing.
RC: We need that. Music is power.
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A Jewish Perspective
So that was my conversation with singer-songwriter and trans-rights activist Ryan Cassata. Trans-gendered people are now Enemy #1 in the Culture Wars. Many conservatives are seeking to ban books and discussions surrounding gender identity. They attribute the growing number of young people identifying as trans to its being “trendy,” equating multiple invasive surgeries with wearing torn up jeans.
The discussion around Gender Dysphoria may be new to our ears, but it is not new. Our Sages had this discussion two thousand years ago in the Talmud. Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar said, “In the hour when the Holy One created the first human, He created him as an androgynos (one having both male and female sexual characteristics), as it is said, ‘male and female He created them.’” (Genesis 1:27) Our Sages would classify Ryan as Aylonit adam, female at birth, but later developing male characteristics through human intervention. (Scheinerman, Rachel: The Eight Genders in the Talmud, myjewishlearning.com)
Which side of the Culture War should we be on? As we get older, it’s natural to lean conservative, clinging to the world we know. However, if we are going to stay true to our Jewish values of justice, fairness and compassion, then we should add our voices to Ryan’s, singing We March. Like many social movements of the past, we can rally our forces in song and sing our way to a better tomorrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4GmUzuzWl4
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Eric George Tauber, formerly of San Diego, is a Cincinnati-based freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts.