The aim of this proposed pilot project was to examine how collaborative ethnographic songwriting (CES), a participatory arts-based research method, can be utilized to support the creative expression and well-being of young people who identify as transgender or gender diverse (TGD).
The purpose of this project was three-fold: 1.) to examine how CES might provide opportunities for TGD young people to co-compose and record songs about their lived experience related to gender identity and embodiment; 2.) to promote creative expression, musical agency, and well-being in TGD young people through storytelling, songwriting, and recording; and 3.) to create possibilities for students to learn about the experiences of TGD young people through the songs they compose and accompanying curriculum co-developed with research participants.
The research question that guided this study is: How do transgender and gender diverse young people use collaborative ethnographic songwriting to express themselves, build well-being and self-confidence, and educate others about their lived experiences?
Three participants took part in this study: one participant lives in Ontario, Canada and two participants live in Victoria, Australia. The study began with a one-on-one, semi-structured qualitative interview with each participant and then several songwriting sessions with each participant. All songs were recorded at The Rooster Recording Studio in Toronto, ON, Canada with producer, musician, and composer, Don Kerr.
This study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
We are Deities (2025)
Myles: lead vocals
Kael Reid and a friend of Myles: harmonies and background vocals
Doug Friesen: bass
Mike O’Brien: piano
Don Kerr: cello, drums
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Don Kerr
We are Deities
We are Deities Lyrics
I was born in a disguise
I had to rip it off
Everyone else gets a clear
Look in the mirror
My reflection’s wrong
Me, I had to dig so far
To finally like what I see
And I had to lose it all
To finally feel like me
I know my name is a right
My body should be free
I was confined by these norms
And who they said that I should be
Pre-chorus
You just don’t get it how I get it
And I don’t think that you ever will
When I realized that I didn’t fit in
I lost half my life standing still
Chorus
Don’t you know that I’m deity
I hold the balance in society
Exposing truth in this reality
But you’re tryna hide the magic that’s inside of me
Forget my diary
Don’t gotta justify what set me free
I’m gonna change your world entirely, I said
Forget my diary
Don’t gotta justify what set me free
I’m gonna change your world entirely
Verse 2
You know we live on borrowed time
So I threw off my disguise
My body is where I live, it’s mine
So, I get to be the king
Fuck the haters and their spite
Because I know love’s a right
We were here yesterday
We’ll be here tomorrow and next day
Pre-chorus
My brain and my body are on different sides
You read my whole story as one line
My desires and my needs were a crime
I was frozen in time
Chorus
Don’t you know that I’m deity
I hold the balance in society
Exposing truth in this reality
But you’re tryna hide the magic that’s inside of me
Forget my diary
Don’t gotta justify what set me free
I’m gonna change your world entirely, I said
Forget my diary
Don’t gotta justify what set me free
I’m gonna change your world entirely
Verse 3
Life ain’t stuck in one way, it’s fluid
You say that we must obey
You say, stay the same, but I won’t do it
I’m doing better living to the fullest
Chorus
Don’t you know that I’m deity
I am the one that holds the balance in society
Exposing truth in this reality
But you’re tryna hide the magic that’s inside of me
Don’t you know that we are deities
We are the ones that hold the balance in society
You’re tryna hide the magic that’s inside of us
We’re gonna change your world so entirely
Don’t you know that we are deities
We are the ones that hold the balance in society
You’re tryna hide the magic that’s inside of us
We’re gonna change your world so entirely
The F Word (2025)
Shanti Steventon: lead vocals, acoustic guitar
Kael Reid: harmonies and background vocals
Doug Friesen: bass
Mike O’Brien: electric guitar
Don Kerr: drums, intro and outro vocal overdub
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Don Kerr
Stay tuned –
recording coming soon.
The F Word Lyrics
Spoken Intro
There is a medical obsession with any small transgression from the ‘normal bodies’ made by old white men. Let’s fuck those stories up and start over again.
Verse 1
I entered the world like this
Unafraid of in-between-ness
You searched me for signs of life
Then you searched me for a penis
When you looked between my legs
You called me a girl instead
Like livestock to be bred
I was branded with an F
Pre-chorus
I didn’t know then but now I do
That F stands for “fuck you!”
Chorus
We disrupt this cis-tem
With a message from your gut
My body is an invitation
For you to fuck your gender up
Verse 2
When I first became aware
It was cuz of your mother’s stare
Prepubescent at the pool
I can’t play if my chest is bare
What a funny little magic trick
The male gaze saw my tits
Before they even existed
Don’t you think that’s pretty twisted?
Pre-chorus
I didn’t know then but now I do
That F stands for “fuck you!”
Chorus
We disrupt this cis-tem
With a message from your gut
My body is an invitation
For you to fuck your gender up
Bridge
Checked my undies every day
No bloody femininity
I thought I’d be one of the girls
But my body was betraying me
Then when I turned 16
I became a blood red woman
Everyone had a script but me
Is it too late to change my mind?
Verse 3
This body is my home
I can do what I want with it
I resist this home invasion
You won’t break and enter me
Trans power is limitless
Our futures are infinite, too
A world of possibility
Within me and you
Pre-chorus
I didn’t know then but now I do
That F stands for “fuck you!”
Chorus (2x)
We disrupt this cis-tem
With a message from your gut
My body is an invitation
For you to fuck your gender up
Spoken Outro
Bloody well done. You fucked my gender right up!
The Noise of Sh!t (2025)
Kael Reid: harmonies and background vocals
Doug Friesen: bass
Annelise Noronha: electric guitar
Mike O’Brien: electric guitar
Don Kerr: drums, piano, synth
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Don Kerr
Stay tuned –
recording coming soon.
The Noise of Sh!t Lyrics
Verse 1
With my very first breath, they called me a girl
Their words and the world weighed down on me
They labeled me and put me in a box
They buried me alive, buried my identity
I grew up severed from my truth
Existing in a straitjacket, in a scripted narrative
I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize
The image looking back at me
An internal war, a conflict in my brain
Relentless voices tormenting me
And these physical symptoms I can’t explain
Part of me is truth and part is in denial
Lying bareboned in a pile of ashes
Suffocating in my despair and shame
Pieces of my old self rooted in my soul
I don’t have to lie to myself anymore
Chorus
They tried to burn me alive
But what they failed to realise
Is that I weaponised their fire
I became the flames
Anger fuelled me like gasoline
A rebellion exploded in my mind
I purged their poison from my veins
I’ve had enough of these games
Verse 2
I leaned into the thing that terrified me
And, suddenly my world went silent
All that was left was me standing there
I don’t have to live this way
Shedding the skin of my past
Slashing those she/her pronouns
The weight of long hair removed
My former name fades in the rearview mirror
In public restrooms, I am an alien confined
Why do they force me into one or the other?
Toilet training never prepared me for this
Peeing has become warfare
I’m a boy imprisoned in a foreign body
They’re submerging me, pushing me down
I can’t see, I can’t breathe
In the deep abyss, this is plaguing my reality
Chorus
They tried to burn me alive
But what they failed to realise
Is that I weaponised their fire
I became the flames
Anger fuelled me like gasoline
A rebellion exploded in my mind
I purged their poison from my veins
I’ve had enough of these games
Verse 3
Now, I resist this self-hate
I feel the fear and do it anyway
I refuse to be locked in these chains of normativity
This is my prison break rebellion
My mind is in overdrive, I’m disintegrating
I need testosterone now
So many questions plague my mind
Do I choose hormones or the heartbeat of a child?
How would I know, I’d never even dated
Fucking hell, the pressure to decide
Feels like two walls caving in on me
Conform to society or reclaim my autonomy?
The more I denied it, my body’s wisdom amplified
A visceral knowing deep in these bones
I conceded and got my first injection
I haven’t looked back since then
Chorus
They tried to burn me alive
But what they failed to realise
Is that I weaponised their fire
I became the flames
Anger fuelled me like gasoline
A rebellion exploded in my mind
I purged their poison from my veins
I’ve had enough of these games
Outro
This is my fiery blaze of victory
My voice, my body, my story
The power is in my hands again
This the only the beginning
This study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
