The Nikki Glaser Podcast - #242 Class President Moment w/ Aria Thomé

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Nikki invited her vocal instructor/sound healer Aria Thomé  (cast of E!'s Welcome Home Nikki Glaser?) to join the pod. She shares her background and answers all the questions Nikki and Andrew have about being a trans woman and her journey to finding peace within. To learn more about Aria's sound healing services and vocal coaching, please visit her website: ariasound108.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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her but I want to meet her. Is it, wait, T-H-h-o-m-e yeah with a little asterisk oh how you do an accent yeah do you really use do you is it always been there did you throw that in i threw that in there when i changed my name oh my god yes because why not so now it's legal oh so before how did you pronounce it um tome tome tome okay so straight up out of the gate Aria is transgendered Wait what? So surprised Oh no You didn't tell me he was transphobic

Oh god I didn't know until now Get out Andrew So Aria is trans And changed her name Both of her names that's so I didn't know you

were able to amend the second one why did you do that? well I did some research well you know I'm a musician I'm a choir director yes

so I did some research about genealogy and I found out that I'm related to a French composer Francis Francis Thome and he has a town

that he's from the town Thome T-H-O-M-E with the what do you call it? a Th and he has a town that he's from the town town a t-h-o-m-e with the what do you call it a town he has a town yes so he has a town yeah he has a town in france and he owns the town the composer he's dead okay but he was from a town he was from a town okay yeah and uh he was a famous composer and so then i learned that my last name is not German, which is what I grew up believing. And it's actually French.

So I thought French is much cooler than German. It is. No offense to anyone. Yeah. So I started. French is more feminine. Oh, God. I was dying to be German.

It feels very masculine. Everything you sound like in Germany, just. Oh, God. I'm offending so many Germans. I'm sorry. It's okay. They can take it. Right.

They're hard people. I had a history teacher who said, everything you say in French sounds like you're asking for sex, but everything you say in German sounds like I'm going to kill you. It sounds like you're asking for, you know,

sex with poop. It's weird to yell at your wife while asking a fucker. Don't say that to me. You actually know French. I do. I was trying to think of like, where is the bathroom?

If that sounds like, do you want to have sex with me? How do you say, where is it? Quand est le bagnole? I don't know. Bagnole. I'll meet you there.

Bagnole. Wait a second. So I also added an accent, a goo, and an extra E to my middle name renee my parents named me renee r-e-n-e but they they named me after their friend renny but they thought that no one that would be too weird of a pronunciation for that name so they made it renee even though they spelled it the way and they named me after rennie who was like this cool girl they knew so they robbed me of a cool pronunciation then they

gave me the renee but then they renee renee it's that's the that's the male french version which is fine but they didn't know that they thought they were doing but the female if you're renee with and you are femme the feminine version is r-e-N-E, accent de go with an extra E. So I changed it in high school to that to make it more French. Legally, you went down to the court? No, no. I'm not going to do all the paperwork. Yeah, I can't imagine going to the court.

No. I just did it for fun on my school papers and stuff. Right. I did mine illegally first. I want to do um i want to go by renny but um uh i had a friend in high school also uh lauren hufford and she made her name a y for instead of an e on lauren just out of nowhere she did like lauren hill and we were just like what is this what are you doing she's back to the i'm sure she's back but but you just

are like trying to find something that makes you a little bit like unique in high school. But you changed your name officially and legally. You just got your license, right? Like you just changed your name. My name has been legally changed since about October of two years ago. But there's so much red tape you have to jump through in Missouri to get your license. And if your name is changed, I mean, just forget it. I mean, they make you so many gender hoops you have to jump through.

But I couldn't do it. I just froze with anxiety. Yeah. I freeze with anxiety when I have to get my license renewed. I'm going to have the wrong papers. They're going to think that I'm illegal. I'm going to go to get like my license renewed like i'm gonna have the wrong papers they're gonna think that i'm illegal i'm gonna go to jail forever all these anxieties you have about doing anything with even the going the post office getting your passport renewed i always feel like i'm doing something wrong and they're gonna know about a parking ticket i have seven years

ago that i didn't pay right and they won't send you a license until you have three more documents yes and then add to that i I mean, talk about red tape, like in terms of just filling out forms and having the right forms and everything. You do when you're changing, when you're trans and you're going through these, changing your name

and getting your gender changed on your license and all these things, you're still dealing with people who have to look at your paper and then look at you and kind of go, oh, that's what she's doing.

You know, like there's judgment along the way in interpersonal relationships. Oh, there absolutely is. In that process. So my Arizona, when I lived in Arizona, I had a license. And then when I came here, my license was stolen. So that's why I had to get a Missouri license.

But when I was just at the DMV recently, I had to bring my court papers that said that my name was changed and my gender was changed. And you could just tell, by the way, that she looked at her paper, looked up at me, looked at her paper,

looked up at me, and just these eyes of judging just like shot daggers down your soul. You're not 5'4". I know. I tried to convince her. Yeah. Get out of here.

Okay. Oh, it's so much. Take the heels off. Right, exactly. It's's just we were talking about this yesterday i had a voice lesson that turned it was just two hours of us like hanging you know right like 20 minutes of voice a little bit of singing yeah a little bit singing but it was mostly hanging and just like i don't know if i were trans that i could go through all of the stuff you have to go through to i i might just like feel defeated and just go okay i'm just gonna live a lie my entire life because

it's too much of an inconvenience to people people are gonna think this way about me they're gonna think i'm trying to get attention they're gonna think that i'm lying about like they're people's opinions about me would feel so overwhelming and also add in all the paperwork on top of it, but all the, like, you know, political nonsense. Oh, God, the political nonsense. Since trans has been so tied up with politics lately, like when I came out to my parents, my dad was like,

you're just making a political statement. Can you imagine? How long ago was this? It finally came out to them probably about four years ago when did you know that like because they're trans was not like a thing you know we knew about you're 39 i'm 38 right andrew's 41 42 42 so we are all around the same age when we were in high school i didn't know what trans was i thought there's men that like to dress as women and those are crossdressers which is and then there's drag queens and like i had them all lumped together but i didn't know there was someone who identified like felt they were born in the wrong body until

i don't know when but once it was a thing that i heard about i got it immediately i don't know why it takes so long for everyone to fucking get it but it does and it still does and people still think people are doing it political statement statement, to get attention. Right. To just be anti-establishment. Right. When did you hear about trans and be like, you know, transgender people and be like, oh my God, that's me. Did you have that moment? No, that's really interesting.

No, I grew up in a very conservative Catholic bubble. So I went to, you know, Catholic grade school, Catholic high school. Yeah. Years and years of therapy, honey. Just so like, I didn't have the language after puberty, like I didn't have the language to understand what's going on. I was like, I just feel different. I don't know how to describe it. But did you want to hang out with girls when you were younger? Like, did you were you did you gravitate more towards more feminine things? Like, what did you want to hang out with girls when you were younger like did you were you did you gravitate more towards more feminine things like what what did i did i i you know my brother was really into monster trucks i was like fuck no um one nothing to do with that like christmas did you get toys that you're just like oh god i guess i have to have like what am i gonna do with this

like if i was a little girl and was getting boy toys, I would have been a little bit, I would have longed for the dolls my sister was getting. If that was just, you can't have those, there's something, that's why I don't understand when people can't understand how trans people, they don't understand, how can you feel a different way inside? Well, when you were a kid, what did you want to play?

What did you gravitate towards? What if you were barred from playing with those things exactly i just wanted to sing and you just wanted to sing and do music yeah um i remember one time oh there's a really defining moment uh halloween when i was in fourth grade i i cross-dressed so i dressed up as a woman for yeah for halloween one night oh God. I've never seen my dad so livid and say, as long as you're living under this roof, you know,

one of those speeches. I was like, I was 10 years old. So that probably stopped you from exploring it for a while. That stopped me from exploring it for a long time. and how like confident you were

and like all the things, like he's probably saw you kind of like pop to life and like, and he saw maybe like, like oh you know he he at the time wants to do this he's gonna want to do this more and i gotta squash that's like so sad now that you put in those terms yes i i did pop to life like my hair was curled i'd clip on earrings had a dress my my sisters put like lipstick and yeah can you imagine being a little girl to

everyone out there who's a cis girl? Like never being allowed to wear a dress or like some girls are just tomboys and maybe that doesn't resonate with you. But I would have felt very sad to not be allowed to have Barbies, to like play little pretty, pretty princess. Or if I played it, it was like a joke

that I was playing it because I'm a boy. Like to not be able to like, like the things you like, because that's not for you is just. And the one person giving you unconditional love is very conditioned, like the most conditional. So the one person you feel like you can lean on. Right. Isn't there.

And so you go through that experience and then now you're going through high school and you're going through puberty and you're feeling these changes so confused yeah did you tell and afraid probably right like I was absolutely very afraid yeah who I was I was like I don't know what this is so there was enough language like for me to be like okay maybe I'm a gay man yes okay there so that was the first thing that I came out as i came out as a gay man because you were attracted to men or that you felt um feminine no because i felt feminine okay so i thought i had like one or two choices i could um be heterosexual or gay that those were

the two choices i mean i would have assumed so too. Because obviously we didn't have any LGBT friends growing up or any of that. Kind of before the internet, too. Yeah, before the internet, before constant news, before news cycles. Really before trans rights really started taking off and these horrible anti-trans legislations started coming through like we just I again I was in a bubble I had no idea any of this existed um so but but I was still like too afraid to come out as gay so um what did it feel like there was something maybe off about that um label for you even like did you feel like okay good i i'm not weird like i found my people

like i found a group that once i'm out of this house i can go be a gay man or was it like this doesn't quite fit either it was it was both i i started working at a gay bar i started playing piano and singing at a gay bar on tuesday and sunday nights and this is high school or post high school this was college okay i was like oh these are more of my people like where was this this was um it's not there anymore it used to be called the heights off of jefferson oh but here in st louis yeah here in st louis um and then um so i started working there so you grew up i'm sorry but did you grow up here in st louis yeah i grew up in st louis so you grew up in a state that is very conservative.

We didn't have any gay people in high school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I was just wondering. We didn't have any. They just didn't, we got, you know, it's just random. So it's even scarier in a state too that is like, yeah, okay. And I remember one time, I'll remember this also from my father. And I have a decent relationship with him now.

That's another story. But I remember sitting with him now. That's another story. But like, I remember like sitting with him like at the breakfast table and he was reading the news like he always does. And he was reading an article about a taxi driver who refused to give an inebriated gay man a ride based on principle because he was gay. And I remember my dad being like, well, good for the taxi driver.

I wouldn't have ever, you know. And then he told me a story about how, you And I remember my dad being like, well, good for the taxi driver. I wouldn't have ever, you know, and then he told me a story about how, you know, cause my dad's a plumber, um, totally respect his profession, but he,

he had a, a gay man who was also at the same plumbing company and he absolutely refused to be on the same shift as him or to drive in the same van, you know, cause they went two by two. Your dad sounds gay. So I had... No offense taken.

Because obviously there's no offense to be had if you're gay, but that sounds like someone who's very gay. So like... You know what I mean? Plumbers, they love the smell of shit. People that are so scared of gay people, you're a little gay, man.

If you care that much. But also, do you think that your dad telling you that, choosing to read that story to you, was him noticing that you were a little bit more effeminate than he would have liked? A little bit more effeminate, yes. And being like, I need you to know that this is not okay. I'm just going to share this anecdotal.

That's absolutely true. The newspaper article was from like three years ago. He's like, oh, look at this. Whoa, breaking news. He's reading the sports pages. Man refuses gay ride. Weird. That's from 1948.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he was well aware that I was mama's boy. Yeah. Yes. And mama's boy tends to be gay a lot. Did you get bullied for being effeminate? I did. Did people call you gay?

Was it like a thing that... Yeah, I got called gay more in grade school. Yeah. In high school, I just beat everybody to the punch and like ran for class president and got that right away. Oh my God. That's... So I was like, you guys aren't going to touch me.

I'm going to like... That's what a guy in my high school did. The first female president, they had no idea. Right, exactly. The first trans president. We did it. Perf the glass ceiling. Yes. Right.

In a disguise. Yeah. That's so interesting that, yeah, you threw yourself into like, look over here. Like if I'm just doing all of this, you... And did did you make it's not like you made fun of yourself necessarily you were just no but i was small i was underdeveloped and you know the girls in high school like oh cute he you know he at the time so he wants to be class president that's cute we'll vote for him yeah that's really cute but did you have girlfriends boyfriend like i did i didn't have any boyfriends? I did. I didn't have any boyfriends because two words, boyfriends. Just because

I didn't, I hated sports. I could not get into like, I didn't, you know, Wait, you didn't have any guy friends? I didn't have any guy friends. You were mostly friends with girls? Yes. Gotcha. Because

Did you have any romantic partners in high school i did i had we will get back to that and get all the details right after this break andrew john stewart is back in the host chair at Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. The Daily Show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports, and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines. Listen to The Daily Show, Ears Edition,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. Andrew just squirted his Gatorade in his mouth you're loving that bottle i have to stop doing that because it sounds like it sounds like someone's pissing when i'm editing the show back it does sound like someone's pissing it's not good remember we're audio too oh god like he's in the corner. Oh, man. Let me get in your cab.

It does sound like it's like piss on a carpet. Why does your tongue have a high word? It's already wet to begin. I think I'm going wet on wet. Yeah. Because my mouth is very wet. Yes. And I'm throwing water in the water.

Just suck on it. Can we hear what it sounds like if you suck on it? I don't think it's made to suck on. Yes, it is. I'll do it. Are we on the air? Oh, yeah. That's better. Yes, we're on the air. This on, but I'll do it. Are we on the air? Oh, yeah, that's better.

Yes, we're on the air. This is entertainment. Or he's like, do people listen to this shit? All right, transgender, transgender. Oh, you look like a baby sucking a nipple. That is not a, I don't like that. That's actually kind of cute. No, I have too much skin.

There's so much skin in here. I have this a lot. You have too much skin. i don't think you have too much skin why do you always say that i don't know i just have a big from nose to lip a lot of meat there yeah so much meat and it just keeps getting more and more the older i get it just keeps falling i swear i look at old photos of me and i'm like i didn't have that much meat something happened either my nose got higher or my lip do that again lift your nose up that's such a funny look for you is it better wait just do the tip like like you i like almost yeah so now now hey what's up you want to go to calabasas

you look like a the whoville i'd say yes to that face yeah hell yeah thanks all right wait a second aria i'm dying to know so you had romantic relations in high school. I'm just interested because I did not. And I'm like, what did you do? I did. Well, again, because you're not gay when you go to Catholic grade school or high school. You can't be. You're not allowed to be.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, you just can't be. So I dated girls that I was friends with. So, I mean, the dating was hella awkward. Were you ever the one to push it for it or were they the one who were pushing for it?

And it was really awkward. Were you into women or into girls? No. Okay, so you're... No. So, like, things wouldn't work. Yes. You know what I mean?

Yes We know what you mean Yeah And when you're in high school I have that and I love women Oh That's a different episode, right? So did you feel like Did you feel like you were failing?

I felt like I was failing on the sexual front Like completely But were you like masturbating to men like what did you know how to make it work i knew how it works i did have crushes on boys i feel like we're very similar like i surrounded myself with women i none of them came after me because i presented as a woman right so i never had to like do anything but i feel like i also felt this like nervousness around guys and like i wanted them so bad but I couldn't even talk to them because I was scared of how much I wanted them to like and like I would disappoint them or like. Right.

Not in a similar way because it's not at all the same, but there's something similar about that of like you couldn't you weren't friends with guys. No. And you weren't obviously romantic with guys. No. And so you were just living this lie that you thought wasn't even a lie, really. Did you feel like it was a lie? The whole thing felt like a lie. The whole thing felt like something.

It was just the feeling that I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't know that later it would manifest itself as being in the wrong body. It was just a place like, I'm in the wrong room. And I don't know how to describe it to anyone. I don't like the lights are out and I don't know which way to go. I don't know which way is up. I don't know which way is down. It was just this feeling of disorientation.

Did you write about it? Did you, how did you deal with that? Like, did you hurt yourself? Did you? No, I poured myself in school. So like I was number three, a Torian. How did you deal with that? Like, did you hurt yourself? Did you? No, I poured myself in school. Okay. So, like, I was number three-atorian. Like, I was valedictorian, but I was number three.

Yes. But, like, I was in NHS. I was in, you know, I was class president for four years. Yeah, so you just had an identity, one that you could control. So I, yeah. And you poured yourself into that. I poured myself into that. I poured myself into academics and music and it's like well i'll never find like romantic happiness that's just something that's going to evade me for the rest of my life and i'm just going to have to deal with

that um so and then like i had this really distorted view of like masturbation as well growing up oh yeah catholic because you're masturbating to the right the gender that you uh should in huge catholic quotes right in huge catholic quotes that's already that's wrong too so um the talk quote unquote the talk that i was given was when i was like a sophomore in high school i came home from high school one day and mom's like oh I got a book for you on my bed and I was like okay and I went went into a bedroom and on her bed was the book like God's sex and you or something like that so it was like a catholic perspective on like sexuality um so I would love to get my hands on that book it was just yeah I got off to that

yeah just all the repression of not being able to do things right something that is erotic about being like you are bad you can't do this and being like I want to and they're like you can't I mean that's like all I get off to so even though by the time I was a sophomore

I was more independent thinking and I had fallen in love with the band queen at that time so i was very much for like gay liberation like but even you knew so you were like i'm gay and i'm gonna get really into these gay things yes so i knew it but like i was still shamed god for music too i know thank god and like a band and and a flamboyant band leader. I know. Like, thank God for Queen. If Freddie Mercury was here today, like, you know, they always tell you, like, if you have

like one person from the, you could bring back from the dead, like me. It's always Freddie Mercury for me. Yeah. Did you enjoy his, that biopic? Oh, I did. Yeah. I haven't seen it yet. Okay.

And I've read a lot of his biographies. Yes. But I found so much solace in his music and Elton John's music just because they were who they were and they didn't say sorry about it. But even though I was a sophomore and I was starting to think for myself and form my own opinions, there was still that, like, I'm living under this roof where fake news stories are read to me. And where you're given books of shame for thinking how you think. But when you masturbated, you were thinking about dudes and did you feel like so much shame afterwards?

I did. Oh my God. Loads of shame. Just like self-loathing. Loads is an operative term. I was put on antidepressants so early as a kid. Oh really? So they noticed that something was wrong?

They noticed that something was wrong. That's not, I got to give a little credit to whoever put you on those because someone's paying attention. Right. And it was mom. It wasn't dad.

Because mom or dad really didn't believe in like, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, you know. Punch a horse. Right.

Like, insert every cliche you've ever heard about manning up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and mom was like, you know, you're probably depressed. So, you know, they tried to put me to a couple Christian counselors and I just like saw right through bullshit right away.

And those like were like one appointments and done. So, yeah, all the shame. And then so I was dating. So interesting fact, I don't think i've ever told you this um i so i was dating this girl in um in high school and the reason we're dating is because we had no good reason to break up like every relationship i know i was like it sounds um no there so were you guys having sex? Probably not because it's Catholic. No.

Okay, so you're just doing, but there was no problems because you guys were friends probably. Right, we were friends. So like there wasn't like, it didn't matter that it didn't work. It was like. It didn't need to work because you weren't supposed to be using it anyway. Right. We were both like good Catholics. Yeah.

Like afraid to say the word contraception. And I gotta say like girls don't know how things are supposed to work for boys when you're hooking up in high school especially if you're like haven't had any experience i would never be like you can't you get your dick up like that's a that's not even something i'd say now you know but like at least i would know there's something dysfunctional about it right then i would just go i guess it doesn't get hard like i wouldn't know yeah especially we, I think maybe high schoolers now with the internet know how a penis should work. But I don't think back then I would have been like, my boyfriend can't get it up. Like, I wouldn't have known.

I would have been like, thank God. As a teenager, you can't blame it on whiskey. You gotta be like, I got Yoo-Hoo, dick. I'm too much of the Yoo-Hoo. Sunny D, dick. Is that what the D stands for? Yeah. So, like, how explicit is this show? it pretty very very yeah okay so it was like dry humping to the point of okay oh that hurts let's stop yes

but that's also high school that's everyone's high school right that's my college experience yeah you just wouldn't have a wet spot in your pants afterwards right or maybe what like would you could you close your eyes and think of a dude yes okay so there you go yeah and sometimes that worked yeah yeah of course yeah you're watching she's all that you're focusing on the freddie prince jr parts exactly in the background you guys are doing her mom's basement and then afterwards we're like cuddling and holding each other like i'm staring off at the wall like into this like deep abyss it's just like this is not right yeah something about all this with what you've experienced like because nowadays kids like so much is out there about this kids are starting

hormone therapy very young and then you're saying like you because of probably how closed off you were you didn't had no idea what the hell right what's going on now with parents that are extremely supportive and like giving therapy or hormone therapy to like kids that are 11 12 how what are your thoughts on that as a yeah when did you know person like how early should you start i mean i guess it's different for every kid how old if you would have been in an environment where you were totally supported for who you were what what age would you have been like yeah i know and let's do this i think sometime in seventh or eighth grade yeah it's when i knew yeah i gotta say like that's when you that's when things click

for people like that's when people start getting depressed like if you talk to people that are like that's when girls get eating disorders that's when i got my eating disorder when i went through puberty which was late like 17 but like it always lines up like you the shift of knowing who you are and not being able to like and an eating disorder is in response to like i know who i am and i don't like this and i have to do something about it it's like those are the puberty is when that shit sets in it really does and i'm all for like you know i do believe that people know like a lot earlier like i think people know when they're eight or nine like i totally believe that and i totally am supportive of parents like do you think you would have known earlier had you been more your parents had been more like you know i think here

choose what toy you want choose what color you want to wear absolutely gravitate absolutely have halloween be every day if my parents knew that that people could be transgender I think if my parents knew that um and that was I don't want to say presented to me as an option your dad would have lost a lot more shifts right people no I but if I knew that transgender was a thing when I was growing up like I think my parents would have saw like like me dressing up when I was in fourth grade as a woman. Like, okay, well, he might be a little different. Let's let him explore that instead of just jumping down my throat and making me afraid to come 50 yards within a dress. Yes. But it made you class president.

It did. Without that, you never would have ran. God, that's true. Yeah, yeah. You never would have been as strong as you are. Do you remember the first time you heard about trans or that was a thing and go like, was it like an epiphany?

Do you remember? It honestly wasn't until late college. Yeah. But by that time, by late college, well, let me back up a little bit before that. So I dated this girl and we had no reason to break up because we were good Catholics, and we didn't get in arguments. She was Valley-

You just dry-humped. Yeah, and she was Valley Victorian. Oh, wow. True above you. Right. So in this friendly little competition, so we never got in an argument. So we were actually engaged to be married. Whoa. Yeah. You proposed? actually engaged to be married. Whoa.

Yeah. You proposed? I did. Oh, my God. It was the most awkward thing in the world. Oh, my God. Were you his best friends, though? We were.

Did you love her in a fun way? And I still love her and I still talk to her to this day. Oh, that's good. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah. But it was one of those situations where it's like, we have no reason to break up, so we just keep going. Anyway, finally, because I was working at the gay bar concentrically with this at the where it's like we have no reason to break up so we just keep going um anyway finally like you know

because i was working at the gay bar concentrically with this at the same time um how did you explain that away oh oh oh eventually i told her i was like well i'm bisexual and even though i'm attracted to men and women i'm gonna be faithful to you so that's how i explained that away um and the priest who was going to marry us at the time away um and the priest who was going to marry us at the time this is interesting the priest who was going to the catholic priest who was going to marry us was like okay and then you know she went off to college i went to college and then finally he brought me into his office like how do you really feel about this and i totally broke down and said like i don't think i'm straight yeah um and he's like i don't think you are, I don't think I'm straight.

Yeah. And he's like, I don't think you are either. I don't think you should get married. I think you should move away from St. Louis. Whoa. The last one was a little much. Yeah. Oh, move, like, not in a mean way.

I heard that. Get out of town. That's how I heard it. He wasn't like, get the hell out. He was like. Oh, I heard it like, don't look back here, you see. He was like, you need to go somewhere away from where you grew up. All right. Where they'll accept you.

Right. And find yourself. Yes. Where you can be free to. So you headed towards Portland. I wish. No, it was Arizona. Okay.

Oh, my God. Where guns were plentiful. See, what's Arizona? That's where Noah is. That's right. Yeah. Where in Arizona did you go? I lived first in Mesa then in chandler um but

but anyway at the gay bar so like i decided that like i was bi and then it wasn't until he called me into his office when i was like no i'm not bi i'm actually gay so was he cool he was very cool was he gay i think so yeah i think so. He's like, run. Don't end up. He's like, I know exactly how you're feeling. That's sweet. Yeah. Him becoming class president was putting him on a priest outfit.

Right? Yes. I mean, that really. We all have our class president moments. Yeah, we do. That's why I have a basketball. Right. That's your thing.

Oh, man. I'm a big man. And so how my dad handled this, which was interesting. And again, just, you know, because he's this imposing figure. He's six foot four. He's huge. Like, just, you know, I'm five seven. He's just an imposing figure. Man's man kind of, you know, never misses seven he's just an imposing figure man's man kind of you know never misses the

hunting season kind of a guy um an already lifetime member um when when i was moving to arizona and when i broke off the engagement he was like this isn't that gay thing is it wait i don't had you brought it up before never Tim? Never. This isn't that gay thing. But that was his words, that gay thing. Oh, like you didn't catch that gay thing, did you? As if it was like a virus that was going around. Yes, yes, that gay thing. Yeah, and more and more people were getting it.

Oh, you're stupid, Dad. And stupid in a loving way, like of just like how dumb, how ignorant. Yeah, exactly. And what's interesting was my sister had come out before me oh wow yeah and oh that was a bombshell like dad called all of us and said regarding certain events that have happened in our family like we are not going to discuss and all of us were like bullshit we're just we're proud of mary we're gonna tell everybody we possibly can yeah um that she's like, come to herself.

Were you like, yes, I have an in. I was. Now Mary led the way. Yes. I was so excited. But then when dad phrased that question,

like, this isn't a gay thing. Is it like, I just didn't have the inner fortitude at that moment to be like, yes, it is. To be like, yes,

it was. Now they got cool guns in Arizona, dad. Right. I want to go. Yeah. I want to go where the AR-15s run like water or something. Hunt the javelina.

Right. So I packed up my Geo, my manly Geo, and I got out of there. So you said no. It's not the gay thing. I said no, it's not the gay thing. I just need to go and find myself and find out what I want to do with my undergrad career and go on from there. And so I decided to drive to Arizona.

And when I was drove to Arizona, I lived with my sister friend, my sister's friend, who was also a gay man, a gay teacher. And so I was going to explore my sexuality. I was going to explore who I was as a person. And.

Have you ever been with a man no at this point no i take that back no take it back i took it back because i just remembered um in my senior year of college because i was you know playing the gay bar regularly right um i had hooked up with two different men at two different periods um i'm like shit this is it like now it's working like it works and i don't have to like think about something different yes um like uh i woke up next to you and like it doesn't feel weird yeah yeah um but i still felt that i needed to leave somewhere and like even though i was accepted in the gay community I um didn't feel

like I'd come out in that community because I was so close to family where family was yes yeah so you got to Arizona and then you you explored it I did I started dating and but what was um at the same time bad was like I jumped into being a choir director and doing music right away. So living as a gay man but also doing music and having my professional career as a choir director, I let my career kind of take over and didn't date as much as I should have as someone who was exploring themselves. Because you also were not technically a gay man. No, I wasn't. So it's still not the right fit so so

what for you is was the moment what to you is the because i think people get held up of like what's the difference how do you know that what how do you know you're trans and not a gay man how does that all feel um oh someone described to me it'll come back to me um it's just knowing that these aren't my people knowing that this is not my tribe this is not my i i can't put work to it but not like you share as much this is not this isn't it yes um it also makes a lot of sense to me that like you you seem to throw yourself in the work but because you're trans, you're like, well, why are you not taking the time to explore your sexuality? It's like, no, a lot of people just focus on work and not think within themselves. But I can see how even throwing yourself, it still is avoiding this thing that's too scary.

We all avoid it. It makes sense to be like, yeah, I was just focusing on my career. Maybe I'll start focusing on who I am or whatever I am. We all do that with a lot of things. Another reason that- But we expect, you're trans. You have to figure it out. Why are you not figuring it out?

How come you haven't figured it out? Yeah, maybe I'll figure it out next. I'm lazy. You have to figure it out. Why are you not figuring it out? How come you haven't come to figure it out? Yeah, yeah. Maybe I'll figure it out next. Right. I'm lazy. In three years. But also, it could be something that you're just putting off. Of course.

Because you just don't want to. Which one it was. You don't want to take the chance. You don't take the risk. You don't want to, yeah. You don't want to do something that you feel is inherently wrong because of how you were raised. Right.

And part of what complicated it was, so I grew up in the Catholic Church. I was a choir director in a Catholic Church. So, like, if I came out as trans, I'd be fired instantly. Yeah. Just, that's the environment it is. I lost a job here in St. Louis

for being trans when I was outed. You were outed? We'll hear that story. Right. Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the daily show ears edition podcast. The daily show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture.

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How were you outed? Okay, so when I first, let me back up a little bit in Arizona. So I was directing a 50 voice female choir, like kind of barbershop-ish, kind of show tunes. And so we had this small little group that would get together for an afterglow so we just had wine drank all night and you know had dinner yeah little little dinner parties and went down on each other right right and um you know one of the women was like well what if you're trans and then because you were just like kind of talking about yeah we were

talking about like sexuality like identity growing growing up, just, you know, things all that had related. And this was a Catholic program? No, no, no, no. This was totally secular. Yeah. And I was like, I don't know. What if I am trans?

So we kind of kicked that around a little bit. And she was like, well, I'll tell you what. I'm friends with this doctor and I want you to, I want you to go see her. And why don't you guys just talk and have a conversation and just see where it goes. And so I went and saw this woman who I found out later was like the trans therapist that all trans people go to.

Oh really? Yeah. She just happened to be friends with one of the choir members. Oh wow. Yeah. Like total serendipity. to oh really yeah she just happened to be friends with one of the choir members oh wow yeah like total serendipity um and she started asking me all these questions about growing up about like cross-dressing and like you know my the number i was in the like the order of like you know

i was second youngest and just asking a whole bunch of probing questions about how i grew up in my family life how many kids are in your family five i'm the second youngest do you know that that's like there's something about like more i know that gay men tend to be like further down further down the line yes why is because the woman's body like is drained of s or is drained of testosterone i don't know i used to know kind of thing there's something later born children are more likely to be gay men or i guess trans right and there are things there are medicines i know that um studies that have been linked to the medication that a mother takes um when she's pregnant that can that also have been known to lead to whatever happens in the brain to inform you that you're female. Yes.

You know. And so I've never had that conversation with mom yet about like what her diet was while she was pregnant, what drugs she took while she was pregnant, how much stress was she under when she was pregnant. It doesn't really matter either. Right. At this point, it doesn't matter.

No one needs to be blamed because there's nothing wrong with what you are. Exactly. When people need to figure out the source of explain why it happened, suddenly it's looking to place blame somewhere when really blame is just a way of uh making something seem like it's wrong right so no one yet or or i mean i guess it could be like well let's figure out a way to make more trans kids by taking those but i don't think that's what we are looking for when we research that no it seems like we're looking to squash that from happening which is not a thing that

should be done no that should be done we should be like preventing trans children yeah but that is interesting you can't even have that conversation with your mom no and that's a conversation that i've like just accepted that it's laid to rest that won't ever happen so in arizona so i i was a i left directing high school at churches and then i went and taught choral music at a catholic high school and then everything went well they gave me a ten thousand dollar raise at the end of the year and then I went and taught choral music at a Catholic high school and then everything went well they gave me a ten thousand dollar raise at the end of the year and then they called me to the office about oh I would say a couple weeks after school were you still presenting as a man I was still presenting as a gay man yeah um and they said um we found some articles online where you identified as a gay man and we're

really sorry but that goes against Catholic doctrine we can no longer have you hired here we have to let you go and so I was fired as a gay man and so that led to a mental spiral for a that lasted a good year and a half to the point where I really don't want to get your show all dark. No, that's where we usually go. Okay. Don't worry, we'll lighten it up. This is the lightest show that we've had.

And you can lighten this up because I've already been to plenty of therapy to get through this. So I did try to kill myself because I felt that identity. Yeah, you just lost your job. Who you are is wrong. You're bad. So I did try to kill myself when, because I felt that identity and- Yeah, you just lost your job. You just like, who you are is wrong.

You're bad. Yeah, who I am is bad. How dare you be this thing that you are? This great Arizona experiment was now coming to an end. I don't know what to do. So my family was like- How'd you try to kill yourself? Hmm?

How'd you try to kill yourself? I took, I don't know how many sleeping pills I took. And then oxytocinin is that the pain oxy cotton cotton i i always get confused between yeah the feel good is the hormone i think it's yeah in your brain the painkillers i took so many painkillers and just tried to cut my veins uh you can probably still see scars this is all from that one time? Yeah. You just went...

Yeah. And just started slashing myself. Oh, my God. And finally, I took so many sleeping pills that I fell asleep. And just fell asleep doing it. And then how did you not die? Then, well, I fell asleep. Did you write a letter?

No. I just was like, I'm done. Most people don't. No, I couldn't. I couldn't. I've written dear mom and dad letters since then. Right. And then have since never, obviously I never sent them and have always convinced myself

to come out of them. Trans people kill themselves more than any people. Trans women, it's estimated that about 50% of trans women will try to kill themselves at some point in their life. Jesus Christ. 50%. Yeesh. Okay, so how did you not die so so the sleeping pills knocked me out i ended up like dropping the razor blade and i woke up the next morning with scars all over my body oh you woke up yeah

i woke up the next morning oh my god just covered in blood is there a thought of that you were like am i still am i dead like did you remember what you'd done and were you kind of like i didn't remember all right now i gotta clean this shit up but then as it slowly came back i'm gonna lose my deposit on my apartment because there's fucking blood everywhere but i'm like weirdly well rested how's that yeah i like slept like a while you're like i took 10 milligrams of melatonin exactly aria i don't think that really was it was it um did you you were you mad that you were alive some people when i was yeah but i was like i'm alive for a reason yeah i'm not gonna try it again let me just accept that this happened and see what i can do about

keep putting one foot in front of the other and see where that goes was this the first time you like it all hit a wall or because until then were you depressed in high school where you thought suicidal thoughts because no i had never yeah a lot of kids that actually commit to it or like go yeah attempted that are transgender correct like yeah that is absolutely so you didn't have these kind of thoughts until until adulthood and did you do this on the heels of getting fired like that night or was it like did you try to talk to friends about it did you try to go back to that doc like did you

was there anywhere you could go before you reached for that there wasn't it was like immediate that you went home and like boom I was like I was fired I have no place to go I don't want to go back to my family I'm again this great Arizona experiment of like living as a gay man obviously didn't work you're just like i gotta not be here because i'm everything

about me is wrong and the thing that i want to be is wrong right why can't how can i do this and i errantly had the idea that um that the only thing i was capable of doing was working as a choir director in the Catholic Church. So I was like, as soon as I come out as trans, like, I'm done. Like, there's nothing else I can do. Yes. Like, what am I... The one place that will...

Because I got my doctorate in sacred music. That, like, qualifies you to work in churches. Yeah, you're kind of stuck doing a certain type of thing. Final thought, so we got to close this up. But I want to just say that that that makes sense to me is that you you've you put yourself in this position where the only thing you can do like if suddenly i got suicidal when stand-up was taken away from with the with covid or if you know i i tend to go to those thoughts of like i I can't be here anymore when I feel like I, who I am inherently, I keep fucking up.

I'm causing everyone else pain. Everyone's embarrassed of me. I can't stop who I am and I need to go. And that especially if the one thing I do is taken from me and I have no, I mean, it does put you in that position of like okay well then I just I'm done here I guess my whole identity is worthless so what do you do what do you do do you just uh well I had that mental breakdown I tried to kill myself and I

went through an outpatient therapy program and finally my family that's good family convinced me to move back to St. Louis and I was like okay I'm gonna move To St. Louis To be a plumber Right No dad has told me He There's a new opening At our firm There's a gay guy

That just got Your dad just gives you A plunger And you're like It's time But this time He owns his own business Did he know

That that gay thing Was a real thing At this point When you moved back At this point he did Okay Because they had come back And visited

And your sister As they marry right had she had been married okay of course they didn't come to the wedding and well it's long this it's far yeah all the way in chesterfield that's a very st louis joke that i would have been able to make a year ago um and so i came back to st louis i was like i'm gonna come to st louis get my mental health in order and then i'm gonna leave the country or not to leave the country but that would have been nice And so I came back to St. Louis. I was like, I'm going to come to St. Louis, get my mental health in order, and then I'm going to leave the country. Or not leave the country, but that would have been nice.

Leave Missouri and then transition somewhere else. But as it turns out, I ended up transitioning here. But before I was finishing transitioning, like, hormonally and living, like, in society as a woman, I was still working for a Catholicolic church i don't know why i will explore that with my new therapist tonight um well it's all you know yeah it's all i knew and then you can go back into it you see an opening where they don't know you're gay or maybe they're cool with the gay thing then you go back right it's part of you being like look i'm

i'm just a human being just like you. You want to be. There's something I think really positive about even if Catholicism is negative towards what. But like showing them like, hey, I'm a human. Here I am. Well, look at what that priest did for her. There's one thing for you to hide. Yeah, like you could hide and go find a certain.

But here you are going into. In close quarters, you can kind of take kids aside and be like, listen, I get what you're going through. Here's how I'm going through. Well, there's something beautiful about going to a place where you're not invited and being yourself. But my therapist says this great thing, and I shared it with Ari yesterday. My therapist says that in our romantic relationships, and I think even in the jobs we choose, the people we surround ourselves with, we're trying to mend the thing we did the thing we thought about ourselves from childhood whether your mom didn't give you enough attention your dad

didn't give you enough attention whatever story you have about yourself in your childhood that your parents gave you intentionally unintentionally they're good people bad people it doesn't matter we we as adults we try to recreate that exact same scenario where we're not getting what we got as child in childhood and we're trying to actually convince that person we are good so like if you didn't get attention from your mom as a child as a child or they didn't like you know whatever you didn't get as a child you're trying to recreate that same exact scenario and then you're trying to prove it wrong and so wrap it up and so you're constantly throwing yourself back into the similar situation as your childhood as um being in a place where they don't accept who you are fundamentally and you'll really never

you're always trying to mend that so you got to be aware of the choices that you make and and it makes sense that you would keep going back right to the catholic church i wanted to by this time i was enough of a like socialist and like just as far left as possible that i was like you know i want to be trans in a catholic church i want to just like say like fuck you enough of a socialist and just as far left as possible that I was like, I want to be trans in a Catholic church. I want to just say, fuck you. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So I was close enough to the choir that I... So you are doing this for a political statement.

Yes, absolutely. You're just doing it to challenge status quo. Yes. Just throw down institutionalism. Honestly, we don't have one straight guy that wants this job yeah yeah right so i was out to enough of the choir members finally one of the choir members i assume it was one of the choir members um outed me to the priest and then the priest called you got fired again and i was fired from the catholic directing job and it was finally that time i said, fuck you, Catholic Church.

I'm not going to work for you ever again. And now I work for a very open, firming Gethsemane Lutheran Church off of Hampton. What is it called? Gethsemane Lutheran Church. Gethsemane? Gethsemane, like the Garden of Gethsemane in the Bible. Oh, I thought it was like Geth, and then Semany was like Semen. Gethsemane in me.

That's the kind of church I could be a part of. Get Seminy. 3,600 to get the drone. I'm sure they don't appreciate that joke, but okay. They won't appreciate that joke. My pastor is an absolute fan of yours. She'll listen to this podcast and laugh that we're making fun of our namesake. Well, that's great that you ended up in a church though.

So totally open and affirming. I've had a naming ceremony. That's right. Yeah, which was really beautiful. And I had my sisters who had come around to support me, like, be my sponsors, so to speak, and be there around me when I was ceremoniously choosing the name Aria. Yes. And ceremoniously be giving the name Aria and ceremoniously giving the name Aria. So there was some wonderful

liturgical ceremonial closure. Yeah, you got reborn. Yeah, there's a sense of being reborn. Or being baptized in a way. When we first met, I had no clue that you were trans. I just thought you were

a born woman, cis first met i had no clue that you were trans i just thought you were a born woman cis woman like had no clue that um that you were trans and i felt a little bit nervous telling you once i found out you were trans like um i want i don't know if it's because to me being like oh my god i would never know you were trans makes it implies that there's something wrong with being trans or like oh you're getting away with no one knowing so like good for you but it was also I learned that and this isn't for everyone who's trans but you you appreciated hearing like I really did your passing like it's not because I think what people think so we were talking about this yesterday so many trans people feel like you know people think they're trying to get attention and they're just trying to like be different and you know make a political statement when really trans people just

don't want any attention they just want to like be normal they don't want to live life yeah they don't want you to have to know they're trans they don't want everywhere they go for you to whisper and be like that's oh my god they're like they just they want to just fly under the radar they're not they're looking to be treated equal not to be treated like better than or like special treatment so true and i think so often that we we think that they want something more than just equal rights but to get those they have to be a little bit loud and obnoxious sometimes because that's the only way change happens. So don't misunderstand people fighting for trans rights of them wanting more than

just what everyone else gets normally. That's all they're asking for. Right. It's never been a more than. Yes. It's just equal to. Well, this has been, we have to wrap this up, but this has been, I feel like we tied it up pretty well. I think so too. Yeah, we got to a place where you are who you are now. I want to wrap this up, but this has been, I feel like we tied it up pretty well. I think so too. Yeah. We got to a place where you are who you are now.

I want to direct people to, if they're in the St. Louis area, your sound healing and voice lessons. My mom takes voice lessons from Aria. She is just, if you're someone who just wanted to explore your voice and you also give, do you do piano lessons? Like what, tell us what you do. Well, I do two main things I do. Sound healing is your main.

Sound healing is the main thing I do two main things I do. Sound healing is your main. Sound healing is the main thing I do. And sound healing is like using therapeutic instruments that, you know, obviously that produce sound, but use them in a way that works with people's energy, whether that be like physical energy, emotional energy, spiritual energy,

and kind of helps realign them and kind of helps repattern stress and anxiety and depression. You would never know that lying on a table and having someone make noises around you would be so spiritually that's what Noah does she lays down and listens to Slipknot

and just gets calm there's like these gongs and these little chimes that you just go how is this vibrating through my whole body scientifically proven to like. Yeah, I kind of rolled my eyes at it in the past, but I thought I felt very healed by it. There's a vibration from my cat when he purrs that I feel that. Yeah.

It's like it gets inside of me. Yeah, absolutely. It's pretty wild. And so if you go to ARIA, so A-R-I-A, Sound 108, Aria Sound 108. You can investigate it. Dot com. Yeah, dot com. I have everything about sound healing on there. And you can message me about voice lessons or sound healing.

Yeah. But sound healing, something that I always do is balance the chakras, get your energies flowing right. I always clean and cleanse your aura to see if there's any negativity in there, any repatterning that needs to happen. And always, you know that fight or flight within you, cortisol. Yes, adrenaline. Yeah, that parasympathetic, sympathetic system,

always balance that and kind of work with whatever is going on. Yeah, it's kind of scary to go do a any kind of lesson or like a sound healing at someone's house because that's what happens but she's got an amazing setup she's so kind and understand like you don't it's not awkward at all it's just like try something new so if you're in the st louis area check out or if you need a plumber ariasound108.com or you need a plumber i also do that on the side we can promote your dad's business

right and i also give rides to gay men yes any car and what was the second thing's uh voice lessons voice lessons so i give voice lessons to nicky which we end up talking most of the time but i do give voice lessons to nikki um i i give just normal voice lessons i also work with the trans population and helping with to do vocal feminization so working with their voice to kind of place it higher in their voice so they don't sound a lot of a lot of trans women are afraid that like once they open their mouths and speak that they'll be quote unquote given away. Yes.

And they want their voices to sound different. So I've worked with trans women to kind of work with their voice, their speaking voice and their singing voice. Could you work with trans men too to lower their voice? Well, the testosterone automatically lowers their voice. Oh, okay. But no, I haven't yet worked with trans men, but I certainly would not be opposed to it.

Well, and you could do that over Zoom, right? Absolutely. Yeah, if you like what you heard here and any of it resonates with you, hit up Aria, ariasound108.com, and you're going to be here tomorrow for our episode where we go through fan tracks. So look forward to that.

We will see you tomorrow on the show. Don't be cuh and. And Jack's in Mississippi. Jon Stewart is back at The Daily Show, and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with The Daily Show Ears Edition Podcast. Dive into Jon's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports, and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondents and contributors. And with

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