Searching for What's True with Eli Conley

Eli Conley is an indie folk singer-songwriter, teaching artist, and activist based on Miwok and Nisenan land (Sacramento, California). He makes music for queer and trans folks, justice seekers, and anyone who doesn’t fit easily in a box. Eli's voice is tender and heartfelt, with melodies and that can leave you teary-eyed yet hopeful. As a queer transgender man from the South, his songs tell stories that aren’t always reflected in roots music.  

Eli founded Queer Country West Coast, a regular series featuring LGBTQ+ blues, folk, and country artists in California. He has opened for Carsie Blanton, Heather Mae, and Grammy-winner Kimya Dawson, and been featured in the Huffington Post and the Advocate.  

Eli's third album Searching for What's True is coming in July 2023. Themes of uncertainty, ache, and loss come up again and again on this record. The songs are drawn from the concrete and immediate details of daily life: a stuffed animal clutched in a child's arms, a colorful sunset after a forest fire, a confederate statue toppling to the ground.  

Searching for What's True is Eli's first release since being diagnosed with a serious repetitive stress injury that forced him to stop playing music for many months. After wrist surgery and careful rehab, he came back to songwriting with a renewed sense of purpose. On the album's first single "Making Something New" he describes the work of an artist as "finding beauty in the wreckage / making meaning of the grief / when we tell our stories true we find release." His deep belief in the transformative power of creativity stems not only from his own experiences, but his many years leading singing and songwriting classes for queer and transgender people and allies. 

https://www.eliconley.com/

Transcript

Musical Intro: 0:35

There's a whole lot of things I want to tell you about. Adventures dangerous and queer. Some you cna gues adn some I"ve only hinted at, so please lend me your ear.

Narrator: 1:00

Everyone has a relationship with gender. What's your story? Hello and welcome to Gender stories with your host, Dr. Alex Iantaffi.

Alex Iantaffi: 1:10

Hello and welcome to another episode of gender stories as ever, I'm delighted I'm excited. I know I say that every time but I truly am every time to be here with Eli Conley today. Eli is an indie folk singer songwriter, teaching artist, and activist based on Miwok and Nisenan land currently known as Sacramento, California. It makes music for queer and trans folks, Justice seekers, and anyone who doesn't fit easily in a box. Eli's voice is tender and heartfelt, with melodies that can leave you teary eyed yet hopeful as a queer transgender man from the south is songs tell stories that aren't always reflected in roots music. Eli founded Queer Country West Coast, a regular series feed featuring LGBTQ plus blues, folk and country artists in California. He has open for Carsey Blanton, Heather May and Grammy winner Kimya Dawson, and been featured in the Huffington Post and the advocate. Eli's third album "Searching for What's True" is coming in July 2023. And it has themes of uncertainty, ache and loss that come up again and again. The songs are drawn from the concrete and immediate details of daily life, a stuffed animal clutched in a child's arms, a colorful sunset after a forest fire, a Confederate statue toppling to the ground Searching for What's True is Eli's first released since being diagnosed with a serious repetitive stress injury that forced him to stop playing music for many months. After the surgery and careful rehab, he came back to Songwriting with a renewed sense of purpose on the albums for single making something new, it describes the work of an artist as finding beauty in the wreckage, making meaning of the grief, when we tell our stories true, we find release. His deep belief in the transformative power creativity stems not only from his own experiences but his many years leading singing and songwriting classes for queer and transgender people and allies. And in fact, Eli and I met at the Trans Voices Festival back in Minneapolis, where you are both performing and teaching and lovely workshop. And then I took most of one of your classes, and then I like life got too much. And my health got a little bit too much. So I had to drop off that has been so wonderful to see you perform and also see you teach you truly have such a love of nurturing creativity in others. I think that is really infectious. And so yeah, I'm really excited that you're here on gender stories. Thank you.

Eli Conley: 3:49

Yeah, Alex, thank you so much. It's really good to be here with you and get to connect with you in this way. I really loved having you as a student and now getting to be on the interviewee side with you.

Alex Iantaffi: 4:02

Absolutely. I want to really start from that sentence actually finding beauty in the wreckage that is in one of your songs. And at the moment, there's a lot of wreckage, I think for trans folks. And so what does that kind of? Where does that line come from? And how do you find that beauty in the wreckage of the moment in your life?

Eli Conley: 4:24

Hmm. You know, that line is in the title song of the album, The album's called searching for what's true. And the song is called Making something new. And it comes from the bridge that was not in the song originally. But I was kind of writing the song playing with the idea of the connections between the way that artists are grappling with creativity in lots of different ways. And the way that queer and trans folks are also like, I think inherently creative. Because when you have realized who you are in a world that tells you you're one thing and then you're like, wait a minute, actually, the truth about my gender and sexuality is something else. I think it can open us up to realizing that like so many things are up for grabs, and we can like create ourselves and create a lot of beautiful things. So just come back to your question. I think one way that I grapple with the work that is my work as a artist, both a teaching artist and our performing artist right now is that actually when times are really rough is one of the times that we need beauty and we need art the most we need things that are going to lift us up and help remind us that we are human and that we are more than just you know what the right wing and the media is saying we are as queer and trans folks are as marginalized folks broadly, because we know we're not the only ones under attack. And so for me, certainly my creative practice is part of how I actually create that space within my life, do deep self care for myself and through exploring, like, Okay, what is something that is really exciting or beautiful or compelling for me right now. And I also see that in my community, like reminding myself when I kind of get the tunnel vision of, you know, scrolling on the screen, or looking at the news, which I tried to, you know, do and measured about actually being like, who is in my life, what is the care and love and like beautiful queerness and joy that is around me all the time, if I just kind of opened my eyes up to the people who are close to me, even when we're struggling, that's a lot of the place that like, I personally find a lot of a lot of joy.

Alex Iantaffi: 6:46

That's beautiful. I love that. And I think we do need Joy more than ever, even though in the album, which I had the privilege to kind of get a little preview of, and I'm so excited. There are a lot of themes of loss and pain. And, and I do wonder how much of that has come out of you know, we've, we've been in a pandemic for three years, there's also been kind of an epidemic and an uprising. And for a moment it looked like maybe even a shift towards abolition, you know, and then kind of that kind of died down. And then you also dealt individually with chronic health issues. And so how much kind of all those things kind of informed the album as well.

Eli Conley: 7:27

Yeah, so I really started writing this record in 2018 kind of pre pandemic, but post Trump just to place it in time. We're not we're definitely dealing with fascism, we were not yet dealing with COVID-19. Because my last record was in 2017. And, and this is really a culmination of what I think are the best songs that I've written in the past number of years. But through that time, in 2019, I got this repetitive stress injury in both my wrists actually from being on tour, and just playing gigs that were, you know, two hours long to make money. Sometimes I'll play background music gigs. And I came home and I was in a lot of pain that I'd been ignoring. But I finally went to the doctor and was diagnosed with this. It's called decware veins syndrome, similar to carpal tunnel, but like on the other side of the wrist. And basically, at that time, I had to completely stop playing guitar. And I teach voice, my kind of day job is I'm a voice teacher. I also teach songwriting. And I also had to take some time off from playing piano and teaching voice. And so I kind of had this vacuum suddenly, that a lot of people had in 2021, like their livelihood, particularly those of us who were not essential workers was taken away, or really shifted. But for me in 2019, suddenly, I was in this big question of who am I if I'm not making music, who am I if I'm not able to play instruments, and I was really a singer first before I ever came to being an instrumentalist, but you know, I've had some journeys with my voice as a trans person. And in that moment, one of the ways that I started writing music is I actually came back to voice only songs. I wrote some songs inspired by the uprising in 2020. My friend Talia Cooper, and I wrote a song called it's going to come to me. Nope, it's gone. I'll think of it later, we wrote a song, we wrote a song, specifically calling out to fellow white folks around taking action for the movement for black lives. That was like a call and response song. And coming back to kind of writing voice only songs is a really powerful way to realize like, I'm always going to be a musician, I'm always going to be a songwriter. You know, I've learned a lot from disability justice movement and friends with disabilities that like, we are not, you know, our productivity, right are like our bodies and the way we use our bodies and the ways that we need care is going to shift for all of us over our lifetime. But that was a quick moment of change for me. And so I think the songs that I wrote post having to take time off from making music physically with an instrument like they did kind of have this different urgency or like wheat to them. There's a song on the record called I don't want to hurt that I wrote down the Oakland Hills just I almost kind of Scream singing, I don't want to hurt anymore. And eventually, when I was able to come back to guitar with help from wrist surgery and hand therapy, and, you know, very careful playing, I'm still very careful these days. I was able to add guitar underneath them. But yeah, I will also say, even prior to 2018, I've been a kind of serious, sad songwriter. But maybe the times caught up with my art. I don't really know. There's also a song about queer astronauts. So you know, you never know.

Alex Iantaffi: 11:10

I know, I kinda love that I was listening. And I was like, is this song about queer astronauts? And I was like, yes. Astronauts, yeah. Okay. Great. But it was kind of Yes, usually have so much more kind of everyday moments, right? Yeah, they took me a minute. I was like, we're in space. It just seemed to diverge a little from your canon And

Eli Conley: 11:39

it's very unexpected. Your average folk song is not about astronauts. But you know, sometimes those things come true. I tried really hard to make it a metaphor for something. And the astronauts in the song, were just like, Nope, we're just gay astronauts in space. No, it's like, Alright, I'm gonna let you be who you are.

Alex Iantaffi: 11:57

Like, I love that, because actually, just recently, I've had so many conversations about how so many trans folks love science fiction and fantasy. You know, and I've just been to right, I've just been at Wiscon, which is the feminist Science Fiction Convention, that has been happening for like, 46 years. Yeah, this was Wiscon 46. And I think there's something about space and the possibilities of space that have inspired a lot of trans queer folks. And so it was actually delightful than there's a song about queer astronauts in your album. I thought it was great.

Eli Conley: 12:33

Thank you. Yeah, you know, my very first record, I had a song about a mythological Greek siren like leaving her perch on the rocks to be a rock star. I think just for whatever reason, I like have little bits of speculative stuff kind of come in here and there. And actually, there's this book that I love. I mean, look up the title of it on my bookshelf. Oh, yeah, I don't know if you've read it's called "Meanwhile, Elsewhere", but it's specifically all know short stories, speculative fiction by trans and non binary authors highly recommend it and while elsewhere, write it down, it's so good. And my favorite author is actually Ursula Le Guin. And I've read almost everything by her. But

Alex Iantaffi: 13:14

she's the best. you know, I think as a queer and trans person who like makes country and folk music, sometimes people think there's like a big clash between those two things. So they can't coexist. And in a way, it almost feels similar of like, who says, You can't write a folk song about queer astronauts, you know, there's queer people in the future. There's queer people in the past, like, all of these things can coexist at the same time. Yeah, and I think that's one of the beautiful things actually about being a songwriter. It's a little bit like being a poet, where each piece you're making is actually pretty short. And then you gather them together into this bigger thing. But it's very different from writing, say, a novel, or, I don't know, a movie, like I can kind of when I'm crafting a set, and I'm playing live, think about like, Okay, I'll have the tearjerkers, but like, Let me have a moment of lightness, or a moment of levity in the middle and kind of, I think sometimes people are like, not sure if they're allowed to laugh at my shows, like, intentionally funny, you are allowed to be sad. Yeah. Like,

Eli Conley: 14:19

I take it as a compliment when people cry at my music, but also, there will be moments of like, hopefully, joy and laughter, too.

Alex Iantaffi: 14:29

I love that. And you mentioned a little bit as well, that you you know, you had your own journeys as a trans artist and singer, especially with your voice. And I know that actually, that is something that a lot of trans folks who are singers or really enjoy their voice, especially if they're going from an estrogen dominant body to a testosterone dominant body. They worry right about that impact on singing voice. Or, you know, if they're younger folks who are testosterone dominant, wanting to move to an estrogen dominant body. You know, puberty suppression is so important to preserve that kind of higher pitched voice, right, that otherwise kind of testosterone is going to change. And so in either direction, I think that there's concerns around voice. Yeah. Do you if you want to, could you share a little bit about your journey and what helped you kind of with journeying through the changes in your voice? Yeah.

Eli Conley: 15:29

So I transitioned almost 17 years ago, which is kind of wild. Oh, But in 2006, I was 20. And at the time, pretty much all the information out there said you take testosterone and can't sing anymore, just like period. Yeah, I remember all the stuff I could find both anecdotally and you know, just on whatever it was Live Journal at the time. This was even pre YouTube days, not that I'm that old.

Alex Iantaffi: 15:55

That's when I started transitioning, I was like, Yeah, I think you're little younger.

Eli Conley: 16:04

mean, same transition, or, you know, trans generation. Yeah, I know. It's weird. The generations like, when did you come out? How old are you?

Alex Iantaffi: 16:11

I think we're the same trans age. But

Eli Conley: 16:13

yeah, I'm 37. But yeah, so I transitioned in college. And my journey in a nutshell was, I kind of was realizing that I was not a girl in high school, and initially sort of came out as genderqueer, or what we might call non binary today. And then it was really important to me, when I decided to start hormones and eventually have top surgery to kind of make those decisions independent of identity in a way. And like, eventually, I did start identifying as male, but I didn't, it was really politically and personally important to me that it wasn't just like, Well, I'm a dude. So I'm going to take T and have top surgery, I was like, you know, each of these things is an independent decision that is related. But I put off hormones for maybe a year because of fear around my voice changing because I was very identified as a singer grew up, singing my whole life. I was taking, I was not a voice major, but I was taking voice lessons at the school where I went. And knew I wanted to be a performer in a serious way. And I'm very thankful that as I transitioned, I had a couple other students who were like opera majors at the school where I went, you know, Ohio, who worked with me, and they've never worked with trans folks. But they were just like, well, I can be an outside ear and like, help listen and track your range as it changes. And for whatever reason, I think, maybe a combination of being young, and also that I was exercising my voice really all through that change, like it was challenging, took a couple years to fully settled, but I was able to go from like high soprano to eventually high tenor, and keep singing. And that's a big reason that I became a voice teacher after college is because we needed so many more resources around singing and testosterone and specifically, but also singing in gender and trans and non binary folks more broadly. And I wanted to be a resource around that. And now it's 17 years later. And I've worked with probably hundreds of trans and non binary singers through transition. And you know, plenty of folks who are not transitioning, like that looks very different for everybody. But the working with folks who are on testosterone or thinking about it is a big piece of my work as a teacher. And honestly, I've had some vocal challenges in the last four or five years. And I don't know if they're related to long term testosterone or not, we don't have research on long term effects of hormones on professional singers. If you are listening, and you want to do that research, please do we need it. But say that in the past few years, I learned a new teaching technique that involves changing a little bit and doing a little more what's called belting, which is using your kind of speaking range up higher. I tried to do some of that on my own, and I kind of tied myself in some knots. But thankfully, I've been working with the teacher who created this technique to like, get through that on the other side. So all that is to say my voice today is like not as easy and effortless as it was when I was 15 or even when I was 25 post T but it feels a lot better than it did five years ago. And I think also like aging changes our voice, right? It's another way that like, I feel like I try to learn from my friends and comrades with disabilities and just be like, You know what, I can't count on my body being the same day and day to day and like how do I love my body and be with it as it is and like, make art in the moment with what I have rather than kind of wishing for some sort of ideal voice or something. But I think it's honestly made me a better teacher. Because singing is not as effortless as it used to be. I do have to like work and warm up and, you know, be more thoughtful about how I use my voice these days.

Alex Iantaffi: 20:12

That makes a lot of sense to me. I have friends who are singers like professional singers and we're older. You know, I mean my 50s I have a friend who was in her 60s and she talked about how her voice is changing and it's it is more effortful to perform also to do concerts, you know, still a beautiful voice but like just the the care. Yep, that we need to put into our body as we get older, always. And then if they're, you know, if we're disabled, I think it's a little bit extra effort. But I love how your journey really speaks to just that creativity or trans folks that you were talking about at the beginning, right? You're like, yeah, this makes me nervous, you know, you waited, but then you're like, Okay, we're doing this, and you recruited people who could support you. And then you took all those things that you've learned, and really put them into supporting people? Because yeah, I remember, you know, in the early to mid 2000s, there was just nothing in terms of resources, you know, and both for myself, but I also had clients as a therapist who were like, what about my voice? And I was like, Oh, you can go to a speech and language therapist, but I don't really know what's going to happen to your singing voice, right? If there was a love of singing, and, and I really think it speaks to our creativity, that there are actually so many trans singers and artists who have navigated those changes totally, in every direction, you know? Yeah, you know, and I think there are so many people in so many different genres, too. You know, I think about Venus de Mars here in Minnesota was much more like, I don't know if she would say, punk rock. I'm not very good with genres. Sometimes, you know, but all the way to, like, you know, more thoughtful can country and I just love that we really have so many trans and non binary singers now, compared to like, 20 years ago. I don't remember having trans singers having this much visibility, do you when you first came out?

Eli Conley: 22:15

When I was first coming out 20 years ago. In Yeah. those early years, there was Josh clip, who's like a kind of crooner jazz singer in San Francisco. And there's Joe Stevens, who I now am friends with, he lives in Sacramento. And he was in a band called Coyote Grace, who are more sort of my genre like Americana country folk, Miguel Flores, who's also a kind of Americana songwriter in San Francisco. Yeah. But you know, I moved to the Bay, and that's where all those people were. And so I met them, because it's a small world.

Alex Iantaffi: 22:49

Absolutely, yeah. I'm looking at a Coyote Grace poster.

Eli Conley: 22:53

Oh, they're so good.

Alex Iantaffi: 22:54

I was like, I literally have a poster of Coyote Grace.

Eli Conley: 22:56

Yeah. Well, that was so beautiful, right. Like, I think for folks who maybe weren't out or are younger, might not know, like, at the time, finding an out trans singer and specific, especially somebody who was like, on testosterone, and like singing professionally was like huge, and coyote grace. You know, people would travel for hours to go see their shows, yes, in the early 2000s. Because it was like, Oh my gosh, this couple like queer cis femme and like trans guy who are like, making music about this experience. And like being open about that. I really feel like they paved the way or made the path is maybe a better word for folks like me who came a little bit after. And I think like, in the generations of like queer and trans artists, right, like each of us by stepping into our power and sharing our art is making space for who comes after us. And so much gratitude to them. And it's not like they're gone. They're still making music to this day. Ingrid Elizabeth from that band is now in a band called Mouths of Babes. That's really awesome. Joe Stevens is writing musicals. So but yeah, just the like, we can count them on one hand, probably the people who are like in the public eye at that time. And now I feel like every day, I'm finding out about more queer and trans singers. And that's just like, really beautiful to me. Like, it's still I still have students who come to me and are like, I don't even know what a trans singer could sound like, like, what could my voice be? But, you know, you can go Spotify and find like, a bunch of playlists of trans singers, which is like, Yes, always, we need more. And we need more folks kind of reaching the mainstream, because you have to dig a little deeper, but I'm really thankful, as somebody who has been doing this work for a minute. Yeah, but I don't feel as alone anymore, either, as a voice teacher specializing in trans voice. And also as a performer, like both of those things, I find I have a lot more community these days in that work. And it also makes me feel maybe counter intuitively, like I don't always have to center transness and everything I do, because there's like, enough people doing this work that I get to be a more nuanced human a little bit, which is like, also nice, honestly, you know?

Alex Iantaffi: 25:16

Oh, absolutely. I relate to that so much, because I remember even you know, as a family therapist, not a lot about trans family therapists 20 years ago, you know, at one point, I think I was the only out trans clinical supervisor that I knew. Yeah, family therapy, right. And now there are so many people Well, I was like, I don't even have to talk about gender anymore when I'll just talk about disability or something else. Yeah. Because there's more people, right? Whereas before, it's like, oh, it's like, Can you do it, you know, trans 101 if you have some time. And it does get a little tiring. And so it's so wonderful that there are so many more people. Exactly. And you don't have to kind of center that so much. I do think that you do sell really value sharing stories now just by yourself, but about trans folks, you know, and one of the songs in your new album is, hey, that's me. Right? And that could speak, I think, to so many different aspects of the trans experience. Thank you. Yeah. Do you want to share a little bit more about that song? But also, what does it mean for you to be a trans an out trans artist with many people in your audience, your listeners who are also trans, although not exclusively? Of course, yeah.

Eli Conley: 26:32

That would be kind of wild. If only trans people listen to me. You can only see me like that. What is the filter on OkCupid? Like, I don't want to be seen by straight people. Probably did. That's where I met my husband, I was not swiping apps. was about hey, that's me. So yeah, this is a song that I wrote. Thinking about actually a young, non binary trans musician who I know who is first kind of coming out for starting testosterone. And I was just thinking about, like, you know, I have been out for almost 20 years at that point. Now, it has been 20 years. And like, what did I want to say to somebody who is in that position in a similar age as I was in college, when they were like coming out. And so the first verse is kind of addressing, it says, like, there may come a time when your body don't feel easy. And in order to be free, it has to change, there may come a time when your gender, it just fractures, and you have to take some action rearrange. And I really wanted to speak to that just like this may happen to you at some point. And, and it can be something that is really surprising. But like, if you are in that moment, it's also a chance to share with the world with and with yourself, like who you really are, who you're finding out yourself to be. And so in that first chorus, hey, that's me is kind of like, hey, that's who I always hoped that I would be, like, finally getting to show that to the world, figuring it out for myself, I think a lot of those of us whether it's social transition, medical transition, like transition can look so different. And also, not all trans people do transition, right, but, but when you step into that moment of kind of saying, I am going to shift how I present myself, maybe what pronouns I use, it can be this beautiful moment of recognition, they're sort of the like, iconic image of a trans person looking themselves in the mirror, right? But like, it's iconic, because it's also true that when you start to actually outwardly express who you are more, so there's like a joy in that recognition. And then the second verse talks specifically about voice and, and what happens if you do find your voice kind of unrecognizable, or like the difficulty of singing songs that maybe were really familiar to you, this person I was writing to as a songwriter. And speaking from my personal experience, both as someone who had gone through vocal change, and then at the time I was writing, the song was kind of grappling newly with, whether it's aging, or how it was using my voice, things not coming as easily. And so in that one, hey, that's me as kind of being like, Hey, this is what I've tried to do, you know, like, tried to keep singing and find my way to loving my voice, even through all the changes. And then the last verse is about kind of, eventually, as we get older, I use this metaphor of like, holding out your umbrella for the young. And not that I'm that old, you know, I'm not quite middle aged yet. But at the same time, it does sometimes feel like trans generations are like five years long, you know, it was like, we were the Live Journal. And then there was the Tumblr and Youtube generation and like, that's probably the TikTok generation. But the, the way that as you do become, you know, old been out for longer, it is an opportunity to like create space and care for folks who are coming behind you. And kind of speaking to this person and being like, you're gonna be in my shoes someday. 20 years from now, you will have been out for 20 years and you can like care for young folks. And so that's also for myself thinking as I become older, like that's how I hope that I continue to be. So yeah, through writing that song, I got to grapple a lot with thinking about queer generations and aging and what it means to both be not not that old, but not that young anymore, either, you know, I am coming into middle age at a particular time when also transness is under the microscope in a way that it really wasn't when I was first coming out.

Alex Iantaffi: 30:50

Yeah, absolutely. You know, in a way, that kind of trans tipping point, you know, if we go with that iconic Cox cover cover of Laverne Cox, exactly. Yes, more visibility, but also kind of visibility sometimes makes you a target. And in a way feels like people know a lot more. And in some ways, there is a lot more ease. And in other ways. There's also a lot more. Yeah, a lot more fear, a lot more stress, I think for a lot of us, but it is wild to think that woah when I came out as trans it was 20 years ago, or 20 plus years ago, where did the time go? Absolutely. Yeah, it's it goes so fast and so slow, all at the same time. And also this idea of trans time. Like, I'm 52, you're younger, but at the same time, we're kind of very similar trans generation because of when we can, right? I even though I was like, over 10 years older,

Eli Conley: 31:50

it's real. Yes. Yeah. My husband Kenny. I don't know, maybe eight years ago now and just being like, oh, yeah, how you were accessing support groups and everything. You didn't have to call a phone number to like, get the address of where you weren't gonna go? Which was so scary. Like, shout out to compass in Boston, Massachusetts, calling and be like, can I come to your meeting? Where is it? I guess I have to call someone and tell them that I'm trans.

Alex Iantaffi: 32:16

Oh, my God, that's real. I mean, when I first came out as queer almost30 years ago, when I remember standing outside, you know, the gay pub in town in the UK, just wanting to go in but not knowing I was like, how do you do this? You know, and I stood outside that pubs so many times before I managed to like go inside. Because, you know, there just wasn't a lot else. Yeah, 30 years ago, when you first came out, it was like paper ads. And, you know, there was like one cafe in London. That was queer, which was wonderful. Unfortunately, it's closed down since. And, you know, and then the were, you know, gay and lesbian clubs. That's, that's kind of what we had and where you want to meet community and find people.

Eli Conley: 33:01

Yeah, I remember standing outside a little bookstore in Richmond, Virginia, where I'm from as like a teenager and just being like, I really want Stone Butch Blues. I feel like they probably have it there. But I never was able to go in my friend loaned me his copy. Later. But yeah, well, yeah. Could I didn't have to order from?

Alex Iantaffi: 33:22

No, there was no online ordering, or it was a lot harder. Yes, absolutely. Talking about you know, we're talking about cross generational in a way, connection and trans community, that in your album, there's also cross movement, solidarity, as well as kind of intergenerational stories that this cross movement solidarity, and one of the songs is, we keep each other safe. And I would love to hear from you a little bit more about what inspired inspired you to write that song? Why did it feel important to include the song in your album?

Eli Conley: 34:04

Yeah, so we keep each other safe, is a song that like, imagines a world without police, like what would safety look like in a world where we actually did have community based safety, and not this white supremacist, militarized force, right state funded for some violence. And it's not like I, on my own, obviously, I actually wrote it through very much inspired by the protests in 2020. And the politics that have pre existed that for a long time that have been led by black women around the abolition of policing and prisons more broadly, I was really radicalized around that in college from my professor at Oberlin, Pam Brooks, who taught a class called, I think it was, like the history of black folks and incarceration. And we read both Angela Davis's autobiography and her book, our prisons obsolete, and I just like, you know, completely had my mind exploded. And I was like, Yeah, this is what we need to we need to abolish the prison industrial complex and like, such a pillar of white supremacy that needs to fall in order for us to live in a world that works best for us. All right. And so in 2020, or maybe, yeah, I think it was summer 2020. The organization showing up for racial justice, which organizes white folks around working in solidarity with People of Color-led struggles for justice. put out a call to white artists to make work specifically inviting more white people into racial justice movements broadly, and specifically, the calls to defund and abolish the police that obviously was coming out of the Black Lives Matter movement. They put out a wonderful toolkit that you can still find online white artists for racial justice, and gathered a bunch of artists across disciplines and across the country. And in the music group, we read through all the prompts together and wrote song lyrics. And like gave each other feedback, which I think is so important, especially when we're doing political work to really like, you know, be sharing it in a community of like minded artists who we can bounce things off of and say, No, that doesn't sound quite right, or like, oh, yeah, this is great, keep going. And so ultimately, this song came out of that project. And I really intended it to be this like tone of joyful invitation to white folks like me to come in and say, you know, what, we can actually transform the structures that our ancestors created, we have that within our power to join black led movements for justice and like, what, how would our lives be better if we lived in a world where like, if somebody comes in and steal stuff in your house, they don't just get whisked away, and like, basically disappeared by the state into prison, right. But what would happen if there was a Community Safety team who actually showed up, and was like, Oh, you need money to help feed your kids, let's help you get the resources you need, so that your family has what they need, you can pay this person back for what you stole. But more importantly, like that's important, right? And also, like, you won't have to do this again, because you'll have what you need. And I think sometimes abolition can feel like this huge, sort of amorphous abstract concept. But when we actually really grounded in like, Okay, well, what is another possibility for what we would do in an instance of harm, that actually wouldn't just harm the person who created harm even more, but create a situation where like, we could actually have some kind of justice that was real and not just revenge. And that was a beautiful challenge, do that in a, you know, three and a half minute song. When we played in the studio, I think at first musicians were like trying to play very somber and I was like, no, like, I've written a lot of sad and angry songs about white supremacy. And like, there's a reason for that. But like, this song is actually intended to be like, we can build a better world, and like, white people, like, we can be a part of that we don't have to kind of either just stand on the sidelines watching or be actively racist, like we can actually participate in struggles against racism, because like, it allows us to access our humanity much more deeply when we remember that we're not just white. We're like humans, right. And we've been constructed as white. And we have privileged from that, but there's so much that we can gain from being a part of solidarity across movements. And I think especially queer and trans folks, like, we have that opportunity, of course, to see like we are marginalized in this culture. So we see the ways that the mainstream kind of constructs power and creates literal policies that are impacting our bodies that are harming us, and to actually open up to like, Oh, we're not the only people in this position, it might look a little different. But there are so many different people who are being harmed in this culture in the system. So like, how do we actually band together and also obviously acknowledge, there's lots of black and people who are indigenous and people of color, who are also queer and trans, who like, can lead us and tell them tell us, you know, from their position and what their knowledge is, but I come from a kind of community organizing background and my work as an artist. In the beginning, I always would kind of be like, well, how can I do this? How can I like not be doing all my time on organizing, like being an artist is selfish. But eventually I realized, like, artists are deeply a part of creating culture. And culture shift is like such a necessary part of the changes that we need. It's not either or it really is both the end and like, this is what lights me up. And I'm still absolutely a part of organizations like surge, but like, the work that I feel most deeply called to do is arts based.

Alex Iantaffi: 40:02

And that transformative work is so important, because I think it is hard for a lot of people to imagine it, you know, post abolitionist, like a world you know, I remember even as a young person being you know, an abolitionist, not only a police but kind of political, more people are like you're young and idealistic, you'll change your mind I was that possible, right? And then luckily, I found that there was a whole movement for I believe, which was was really great to plug in as a teenager, but like, and now I'm in my 50s. And I can be like no, never outgrow. This wasn't just wild fantasy, you know that people around me were like, This is a wild fantasy, you know, and I was like, it's actually not a lot of Black scholars, I've thought about it. A lot of Indigenous scholars have thought about it. And it is possible, but it's gonna take a lot of, it's going to take a huge cultural shift, because it's going to be so much more based in community and relating and connecting, right, and we live in, you know, living under capitalism and white supremacist. It's all about disconnect. And, you know, and separation. And so I think it's so important to have songs and books and poetry and fiction that really in science fiction and speculative fiction, that invites us to imagine just a different way of existing and a different way of relating. Yeah, I have, I could talk about that for a while. That's why I was like, oh, I want to talk about that song, because you have a lot of themes. But I think that it's worth highlighting like that, that there is like cross movement solidarity. That's pretty central, like, oh, yeah,

Eli Conley: 41:50

totally, totally, totally.

Alex Iantaffi: 41:54

Yeah, I feel like we could have this conversation forever. And I want to be respectful of your time. So one of the last things I wanted to talk about was inspired by one of the songs on the new album as well, let them see. And I was really thinking about this piece around visibility, and how visibility can be so complicated, I think, for a lot of us who are minoritized, and especially for trans folks. And so yeah, I was I was curious about what's your relationship with visibility as a, as an our trans artist, and also, you know, you've been open about your journey with chronic health issues on social media, you know, you've been, you know, you're openly involved with dismantling white supremacy, you know, with including songs like we keep each other safe. So yeah, what's your relationship with visibility? And now has that changed maybe over the years?

Eli Conley: 42:49

Well, it's interesting that you bring that up in relation to that song, let them see me because it's actually I wrote it. There's one song on the album that I wrote, not by myself, I wrote it with my friend, Pamela macula. And we were kind of thinking about, as artists, like the kind of, I have a student who calls it the mortifying ordeal of being perceived. I know you're a therapist. So I was like, Yeah, I really want to be seen, and I hate being seen, right? Like, and we were kind of thinking of it in that place of like, we wrote it on Zoom during the pandemic. So when we weren't performing also, you know, being like, do we want to be seen again, like, what does it mean to be seen in all your vulnerability, and when you're like, not sure you're as, quote unquote, good as other people are, that what you're making is actually valuable. But to actually frame it in terms of like, trans visibility. It's really interesting, because that is something that I think about a lot is like, I'm very out as an artist. And as a teacher, I teach like music classes for queer and trans folks and allies. I really want queer and trans people to be able to find me in my work, both as a teacher and as an artist. And not every song I write is like a gay song. You know, like, I don't actually know that playing at like, a big city pride stage is like the best venue for my work. Like, I'm a kind of sensitive songwriter who makes you cry, you know, and like, you know, certainly shout out to the like country and folk queers who have a tear in their beer in the back of the Folk club or whatever, like, that's my people. But I think I do also want to be creating work that is like, resonant with people, through and beyond queer and trans communities. And I think I am like, people definitely be about my work not only relating to queer and trans themes, but about the like many themes that I cover. I think it's easy to be pigeonholed as an artist in a certain way. And yet at the same time, right now, it feels all the more important to me to like, be making art that is unapologetically queer and trans and be like, kind of creating those moments of reflection and beauty. And the word that's coming to my head is recreation, which is not exactly what I mean, but you know, like, joy for queer and trans folks, because this maybe speaks to the solidarity piece to like, I deeply, deeply believe that when queer and trans people are free, everybody is more free. Just like Fannie Lou Hamer civil rights organizer said, Write, nobody's free until everybody's free. And so I think my work only coming more free as a queer and trans man is actually something that creates possibility for everybody to be more free. And by making work that sometimes centers queer and trans experience, because that is my experience, it allows people to kind of, if they're not from our community, like see my experience from the inside in a different way, but by also making work that's about chronic pain, right, or about losing my grandmother, or about the imagining a world without police. Those are also ways like things that are relevant to queer and trans people, we're all going to deal with losing people, we're all going to deal with living in this world structured as it is. And so I actually don't see them as like, separate kind of the like, visibility as an artist period and visibility as a queer and trans person. Obviously, like you said, it can be a double edged sword where we can become a target when we are more visible in the world. But I also think the backlash from the fascists is like, because we actually are so powerful that they are afraid of us. That's why they're trying to get, you know, tucking underwear taken out of target. Right? It's because like, actually, that trans people having access to bodily autonomy is a like, radical, beautiful thing that's becoming more mainstream, right. And so I think that's the thing I try to remember is that when we feel that huge movement against us, it's a reaction to our power, it's not a sign that we need to back down, it's actually a sign that we need to, like, keep moving forward and being our like, beautiful, freaky, queer and trans selves in as many ways as we possibly can and like, lifting each other up. And I guess that's what I think about visibility right now. Yeah, no,

Alex Iantaffi: 47:32

that's great. Well, and you know, and I really think that when we, you know, that's the thing about writing, in general, we can speak from our experience, but there is something that often touches people that have a different experience, right? That's like, I think that's the power of writing, whether it's writing a book, writing a song, writing a poem, or even like a painting, right, we can go from such a specific experience, but then there is something that touches other people. And I love what you said about our power, because in a way, we are powerful as being trans folks, in terms of body autonomy, right. And I think that fascists are very scared of body autonomy right? I remember being at my oldest kids school when she was laid on this tiny young person, you know, maybe six or seven year old was like, Are you a boy and I was like, No, are you a girl? And I was like, No, and they were like, you've got to be one and I was like, I actually don't you do know that you can decide who you are. And I was like, I'm a bit of a girl and a bit of a boy or for neither you know you depending on the day and they were just like, okay, when you see the little like gears you know going and I was like when you were talking about that I have that memory and I thought yes we are friends yeah. Because in a way that's like if we can have this body autonomy if we can have this freedom to be ourselves what else is gonna question right control and fascism is all about control. And so if we body autonomy is the opposite, I think of control in a way so yeah, and and I think that then when you add being an artist on top of being trans and queer, that's more of a threat. Because now you're not only a body autonomy, but you're inviting people into this world of creativity right which is also threat I don't know.

Eli Conley: 49:27

just love those thoughts and as somebody who's like, you know a thing or two about fascism I know

Alex Iantaffi: 49:35

Yeah, I mean, I was brought up with like stories and fascism. You know, my grandmother my school teacher was very alive that not wanting to go back there. Unfortunately, it seems that people in my country though so you will have the time to sing a song for you or press that'd be great. So yeah, given that we've been talking about your songs and let them see I would love if you had the capacity for it for you to sing.

Eli Conley: 50:19

Gotta put on a Full Face of makeup, gotta match my earrings to my belt. I gotta style my hair just right. It's time to scroll my phone while making breakfast Perfect pictures flashing by I choose a filter for my post. I pick the one that hides trying to look better than myself to let them see cause I that I would measure them see this being me is never why I sit down at the table with my notebook and my pen I write what's on my heart that people care about my shot better than my camera let them see when I don't that I would measure up can I let them see when B is never why What if I die? No. Song would I have been here at all? What if the cost of stay in hidden is greater than luring? Only the folks never fly never fall? Gonna let them see me if I measure them to let them see me it's actually me and me is actually

Alex Iantaffi: 53:19

what a beautiful way to end now you got me teary eyed. People are listening and not watching I"m like

Eli Conley: 53:28

I didn't hear you. But I think you said something about.

Alex Iantaffi: 53:32

Yeah. Like, as like for folks are not watching. Like I'm definitely teary eyed! You know if they're listening. Well, thank you. That is so beautiful. Like, I love your songs. And what a treat to have you share one of your songs with our listeners. Thank you. I know we're wrapping up. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you really wanted to share with people or not? And if not, that's okay.

Eli Conley: 54:00

I'll just say the record "Searching for what's true" comes out July 14, so on all the streaming platforms then. And if you're interested in checking out some songwriting or singing classes with me, just check out my website eliconley.com. And I teach classes online. So I work with folks all over and yeah, just big, big thank you to you, Alex. I am a fan of your podcast. I listened to it. And so it's such a treat to get to be on here, thank you for having me.

Alex Iantaffi: 54:33

Oh my god, you're so welcome. I'm such a fan of your music. So this is like, you know a very happy, very happy episode for me. I'm so glad that you were like, oh, let's do this. Yeah, so I will put your website on the episode description as well. But your listeners and our viewers as well, because the podcast is also on YouTube. You can go and follow Eli right now on the any streaming platform, right, Spotify or wherever people listen to their music. They can probably find your music as they get ready for your beautiful new album which will be released on July 14. So very shortly. Thank you so much again for being on the podcast and making the time.

Eli Conley: 55:18

You have a great rest of your day.