Bathroom wars? Some New York City musicians would rather sing out.
Stephanie Ryan Johnstone (who goes by Ryan) and Jill Buckley have released an inspiring music video about being "all of who you are" which features their anthem, "No Shame."
Recently the artists agreed to talk about the song.
[Note: Some genderqueer people prefer to use neutral pronouns such as the singular "they", "their" and "them" rather than the specific pronouns "she", "her", "he", "his" or "him".]
Stroud: What was the creative process behind the piece?
Johnstone: "No Shame" is the song I wish had existed for a young friend of mine before they attempted suicide right after coming out as queer. The first verse spilled out of me as I remembered the pain in their voice and the way they said, "I know the world is catching up, but I don't know if it will catch up soon enough for me."
Those words and their pain ignited a fire under me to demand, with love and urgency, that the world catch up faster. It was, and long has been, time to shout in solidarity in the streets -- to write to politicians, to elevate voices of the long-marginalized. I wrote the rest of the song thinking of them and others, too: queer, kinky, trans, non-binary, asexual -- anyone who has felt marginalized based on their gender or sexuality.
There is a whole choir of singers on this song, amplifying the ideas and also serving as an invitation for everyone to sing with us.
Stephanie Ryan Johnstone (who goes by Ryan)
Stroud: One of the lyrics, "I hear your fear / I've been there too, my love" really moved me. How have your experiences prepared you for this effort?
Johnstone: My family of origin is wonderfully compassionate in many ways, but their fundamentalist Christian worldview instilled in me messages including: sex is shameful outside of marriage, gender roles are ordained by God, anything deviating from that means something is deeply wrong, and homosexuality is an addiction to be overcome.
While I am so grateful for the values of care, community, and compassion that they instilled in me at a young age, I had a lot of trauma and internalized shame around my body and sexuality due to those other messages. It wasn't until my early twenties that I began to live openly, find queer community, and discover that I wasn't alone. We are not broken, or maybe everyone is broken and the cracks are where the light comes in.
While my family of origin and I may not see eye to eye, there is and has always been great love between us. We just keep reaching for authentic ways of loving each other, given our differing worldviews.
Many people who are dear to me have not been so fortunate. My heart breaks when I think of how over 40% of homeless teens are LGBT, and how the rates of abuse and murders of trans-people keep skyrocketing.
Stroud: Tell us about making the video. How did you find the cast, particularly the young lead, Neo Cihi?
Johnstone: Jillian and I put together a dream team headed by director Rachel Chavkin and cinematographer Andrew Schneider. The rest of the cast, who I consider a collection of gorgeous queer superheroes, are people we knew from artist/activist circles.
Neo Cihi is the extraordinary young person at the center of the "No Shame" video. I connected with them through colleagues from NYU. When we first spoke, Neo and I were both moved to tears -- they said they had dreamed of a celebratory music video through which to come out more widely. Their luminous spirit and comfort in themselves made them the perfect match for what we were seeking, too.
Jill Buckley
Stroud: You both wrote this haunting, yet uplifting single. How did you meet?
Buckley: We met and worked together in the early days of Occupy Wall Street, but [the album] Love Songs for the Rest of Us is our first creative endeavor together.
We developed the album throughout the fall of 2013 as we drove across the country, speaking and singing with people in their homes about their values and conceptions of love, sex, gender and family. We talked with people who spend a lot of time thinking about these things, as well as people who have never had a conversation about sex, birth or what love means in their own lives.
We started with seeds of some songs, but the conversations sparked in those house concerts informed how the songs evolved. The new songs we wrote were shaped by the stories and perspectives we encountered along the way from humans as beautifully diverse as my friends from high school, to freegans on an encampment in New Orleans, to seniors at a center in Missoula, to multigenerational neighbors in St. Clair Shores, to teenage girls in Flat Rock, to evangelical Christian lesbians in Jackson.
So the album was collaborative, in a sense, not only with each other and with our wonderful producer Jeremy Mage, but also with the people we encountered.
Stroud: What's your next creative project?
Johnstone: I'm a founder and participant of a new alternative divinity school for soulful community builders. I am always passionate about creating new episodes of my queer-politics-focused podcast: Sex For Smart People* (*that means you).
Buckley: I'm teaching and writing and publishing poems every once in a while, most recently in the wonderful journals, Atlas Review and The Barn Owl Review.
Johnstone: We're releasing a second music video from the album later this fall. Jillian was the lead writer on that song. Readers who want to know about the release can connect with us at lovesongsfortherestofus.com.
We are also currently reaching out to progressive churches and youth organizations, asking them to share the "No Shame" video with their members between now and the end of 2016. Please let us know if you show it at your church or organization.