Holden Madagame, Tenor and Trans Activist

In this episode, I talk with tenor and trans activist Holden Madagame about his story, from when he played Cherubino in college, to his vocal experience taking testosterone, to his ongoing definition of trans activism.

You can follow Holden's career, read his blog, and join his YouTube/Patreon community over at holdenmadagame.com !

Follow us @thisembodiedvoice to hear about new episodes and tell us who you want to hear next on the podcast.

Music:
-
"Would you gain the tender creature" from Acis and Galatea by Handel, performed by Holden Madagame, tenor, and Le Maschere Galanti.
-
"Breathe" aria from Good Country, a chamber opera composed by Keith Allegretti, libretto by Cecelia Raker Ehrenfeld. Performed by Holden Madagame, tenor. Conducted by Keith Allegretti. Musicians: Christabel Lin (1st Violin), Phil Davidson (2nd Violin), Meagan Peaco (Viola), Julia Dixon (Cello). 
-
Just Smile by LiQWYD https://soundcloud.com/liqwyd
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/-just-smile
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/lMGw8bTCBww

Transcript

Suzanne Lis  0:45  

Welcome to This Embodied Voice, the podcast where we talk about the voice, the body and everything in between. My name is Suzanne Lis, and in this episode I speak with tenor and trans activist Holden Madagame. That's him singing an aria from Acis and Galatea by Handel, performed in early 2020 with the ensemble, Le Maschere Galanti. We spoke about how he vocally navigated his transition and his experience taking testosterone, how he found his niche in the opera world, and what trans activism means for him at this moment in time. So welcome to the podcast, Holden.

Holden Madagame  1:22  

Thank you.

Suzanne Lis  1:23  

So I've been starting the interviews with just these two simple questions. How are you feeling? And how is your body feeling today?

Holden Madagame  1:31  

That's a great question. How am I feeling? I'm - to be honest, I'm not feeling particularly good. Been sort of dealing with some depression and just dealing with the pandemic, and stress and whatever. (Sorry about that. I think that's probably the wind at my door.) So I'm not feeling particularly good, but I'm getting on and everything's totally fine. And I'm safe, and I have an apartment and everything's good. So and how is my body feeling? My body is feeling tired - not that it's done anything - but it's feeling tired for sure. But healthy and otherwise, otherwise happy.

Suzanne Lis  2:26  

So I thought for the people listening who are unfamiliar with your story, you could just take us through your experiences as a singer, as a person.

Holden Madagame  2:35  

Sure, um, well, I guess I'll sort of start I guess, like in high school is when I sort of got interested in singing. I grew up in like a very small town, like a very rural town in Michigan. And I got very lucky that we got a new choir teacher, and she was very enthusiastic. And so she was like, you know, you can go to college for this. And I was like, What do I do with a degree in singing? And but then I, you know, I applied to colleges, and I was doing like state and Allstate choir stuff. And it's

Suzanne Lis  3:15  

Very big in the Midwest.

Holden Madagame  3:16  

Yeah. That's, that's what I realized after I went to college, I was like, this is this is very big thing in the Midwest. Yeah. And so then I got into University of Michigan, and I went to the University of Michigan for vocal performance. And I did my bachelor's there. And as a mezzo-soprano, basically sort of high mezzo-soprano, coloratura mezzo-soprano. And, yeah, I was super happy. And I loved the school that I went to, and I really like mezzo-soprano repertoire. And then, I guess I'll just skip forward, sort of, after I graduated from my bachelor's, I sort of took like a year and a half or whatever, just to sort of like figure out where I wanted to go because I didn't necessarily want to stay in Ann Arbor forever. And then I moved to Berlin, with a plan to do opera because it was always kind of in the back of my head. I mean, I already sort of identified as genderqueer and definitely identified as queer at the time, and so I was like Berlin's great, Berlin's queer. And, yeah, just moved. And so then, like, about a year of sort of, like networking and figuring out Berlin, I got like massively depressed and dysphoric and just sort of stopped singing altogether and sort of just came to a point where I was like, Okay, well, I'm not singing, I'm not really doing anything. I can't get to sing. So what am I doing? What is life? What is my existence? If I'm not singing, am I really a person? And then I decided to transition because I'd been thinking about hormones, been thinking about taking testosterone, definitely thinking about top surgery. And so since there wasn't really any information about taking testosterone and being a classical singer, I was, I was sort of like, Okay, well, I guess I'll just do it, because I'm not really singing anyway, then sort of fast forward a couple of years, maybe I would say, like a good three years, then I had like a functioning tenor voice. And I'm now a working singer, I guess, I mean, apart from the pandemic. But apart from that.

Suzanne Lis  5:45  

So to go back a little bit, would you be comfortable talking about your experience playing Cherubino when you were a mezzo-soprano in Marriage of Figaro?

Holden Madagame  5:53  

Yeah, absolutely. Cherubino was like, I mean, as with most mezzo-sopranos was the first aria that I ever learned when I was like in high school, and was really one of the first things that grabbed my attention about opera, I was like, Oh, my God, there's like narrative! Because I don't know what I thought opera was, was up to that point. But narrative wasn't one of the things that I thought of. And so yeah, so when I finally got to do Cherubino, it was, it was really like, my first like, big role or whatever, is it? Yeah, it was my first like, it was my first full pants role. On stage, like fully staged, and being able to embody that character fully. In this production, and to embody this character that I love, fully, was, was quite magical, to be honest, because at the time, I definitely sort of identified as genderqueer for myself, and maybe a couple of friends, but and it had lots of feelings about my gender. But I don't know, I had never really related them to opera or like me playing as these male characters. And I also see Cherubino as very queer, the whole, the whole thing just feels very queer. But so I, I really, really did have this character and a lot of ways and felt very much invested in how the characters portrayed how I was portraying the character, how I felt being the character, which isn't necessarily always the case for all characters that we play in our careers. You know, I mean, sometimes we just sort of, we do the character, we do it, well, we sort of get on with it. We relate to it as much as we can, you know, we sort of scrape into the character to figure out how to how to relate to it. But with Cherubino, I was just so into Cherubino, I WAS Cherubino, you know. And I think it was really a large...it gave me sort of a large catalyst to sort of figuring out my gender and sort of figuring out how I felt about taking hormones or whatever. And I didn't end up taking hormones until whatever, at least a year and a half, two years later, but I feel that very much was a catalyst. Or did you see that lightning? Did you get lightning too? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's there's a storm brewing.

Suzanne Lis  8:44  

Very atmospheric. The turbulence of identity! 

When you made the decision to start taking testosterone, can you talk about your vocal considerations and how your voice changed?

Holden Madagame  9:02  

Yes. So when I was first considering taking testosterone, I already knew that testosterone has irreversible effects on the voice, basically. But there really at the time was nearly no research. There was one study that was done on amateur singers that I could find, anyway. And basically, it said, they can't sing professionally, but also it's like, Okay, well, they were amateur singers anyway, so they weren't singing professionally. So what about me? But I, you know, when I read that, I was like, Okay, well, I guess I just can't do it. Like I can either be trans and or, you know, not being trans but I can either take testosterone and sort of live the way that I want to live or sing opera. So that was kind of like the a sort of dichotomy that was in my mind which then led to dysphoria and depression and not thinking for a while so then I emailed some former professors and I sort of emailed friends just trying to get different people's experiences, trying to find other trans singers very unsuccessfully. I found some trans women, which I was very thankful for because at least there's some other trans people, but they were they were all like, Okay well we have a totally different experience so we also don't know. And so then I remember emailing one former professor and and she was really the only one that was like, you know, go for it, maybe you'll be a tenor and you know if it doesn't work out then that's okay, basically, which was very much the permission that I needed, I think to just sort of go for it because pretty much everybody else was saying like, no, don't don't ruin your mezzo-soprano voice you have a great mezzo-soprano voice whatever you'll ruin your career and I was like okay well yeah I guess I'll be ruining my career then yeah so then I just decided to...(*thunder booms*, laughter)

Suzanne Lis  11:34  

That was so cool because I heard it- I dunno, I heard one of them first, and then -  Maybe I can sync them in the podcast. 

Holden Madagame  11:49  

Yeah. Oh man, the sky's creepy. It's brighter now. Yeah, that's wonderful. 

Yeah, so I yeah so then I went through the process of  - um there's a long process of being able to get hormones. You basically have to get various experts to tell you that you're trans after you talk to them for a little bit. Luckily in Berlin it's a little bit easier than in other places I think because there's sort of like a network of people that you can sort of ask like, okay what doctors give it easier than others or whatever. So I found a Hausarzt - I found a GP, who he doesn't like specialize in trans stuff but he's just like very trans friendly and so I went to him and yeah and I got testosterone and at first he was like, yeah cause I told him that I was a singer and everything, he was like, well you can start more slowly, you can take like half a shot, half a dosage of a normal shot, or you could do a gel, but with gels, it's a little bit complicated because you can't touch anybody for several hours after you take a gel and you have to do it every day and I was like I don't want to do anything every day. So I opted for a shot and I was going to take half a shot but then I was like, whatever I'll just take the full dose and it's worked out for me. Not to say that everyone should necessarily do that but it worked out for me and that's what I needed at the time and I was also paying out of out of my own pocket because I was on private health insurance at the time and so it was less expensive as well, yeah. So then after a couple of months, I started to notice a difference in my voice. I don't know how many people would not notice a difference if they weren't classically trained singers but I noticed a difference in my voice and definitely my singing voice. My chest voice was stronger and my head voice for a while was kind of the same but then started to shift into this weird like, not head voice but not falsetto, which was very interesting to experience because I just never knew what falsetto felt like, and head voice as a mezzo-soprano is connected to your chest and it's just a completely different feeling entirely because you have this sort of full body experience when you're in head voice as a mezzo soprano, even if you're singing up higher, there's that connection  - if you're doing it correctly anyway - and same thing with chest voice. Like with chest voice, there's - I mean, it was just a totally different experience because it was like as a mezzo soprano, it's like, okay there's a mix or there's just like I was just like chest. So then when my chest voice was getting stronger, there was like less of a mix and more of like, okay well, this is like the core of my sound now. This chest voice is now the sound, which was a very weird experience. That and also to have my head voice then be taken away from me was actually quite horrible, because I didn't have any problems with my mezzo-soprano voice actually. That's not the reason I wanted to take testosterone. I liked my mezzo-soprano voice and I would have preferred to probably keep it, but um, it was yeah it was really quite jarring and it's quite hard to describe it in another way besides dysphoric in like a weird sort of upside down way because that that part of my identity was totally fine, so I was sort of in this weird no man's land of not being able to sing anything properly except maybe some like Italian art songs, like THE Italian art songs but then after that, but then after a few more months, I just like couldn't even sing those. I just like had like an octave range to work with and my voice would get really tired even just from talking. I mean, you can still hear like, I have air in my speaking voice and I have air in my singing voice as well and I'm still working to get it out and that wasn't there before and that's hormones.

And my voice still gets tired when I speak, my voice still gets tired when I sing. But it gets more tired when I speak than when I sing but I think that's just I think a lot of people are the same way so then there was like several months where I was like well I can't really sing anything so I was just doing like whatever just like very reduced practice sessions maybe doing bits of art songs but kind of getting demotivated because like I can't really sing anything so I just sort of like doing bronze or whatever just keep my voice alive and then after about a year I could sort of sing I had more of a range anyway and I could sing some simple tenor things and it was yeah my voice sort of sounded like a tenor voice but you can never really tell it at that point now we know you can't really tell it at that point your voice can still change with more years on testosterone but that's kind of where my voice ended up anyway and I had also had my top surgery around the same time about the one year mark and that was also really great for my singing because I didn't have to bind my chest anymore because it's really really terrible you can't sing correctly if you're busting your chest because you can't use these muscles to to breathe and support properly you can't do it so that was a big relief but it also I just was constantly relearning how to sing basically and then over the next couple of years after that there were there were more there were more changes but it was more like it was more like changes towards stability and changes to increase range gradually there weren't any dramatic changes after after one one and a half years but it was just yeah stabilizing at that point and also through practice of course

Suzanne Lis  19:07  

And were you working with a teacher?

Holden Madagame  19:10  

Yes, I was working with Stephanie Weiss I was working with her whenever she was in Berlin and also just like in contact with her she's just a wonderful teacher and has always just treated me with respect and never really  - like, we talked about trans things obviously. She's just a superb pedagogue and so she always treated me as a voice, you know like not as anything else, which is very much my opinion when it comes to trans voices. There's definitely things that are specific to trans voices as far as like how like how trans voices transition but basically they're voices and you deal with the voice that's given to you when you're a teacher and you work with that voice and she always dealt with me in that way. And then occasionally she'd be like, "Whoa that's really weird, I've never seen that before in a voice and I'd be like, oh!

Suzanne Lis  20:08  

You said that you liked that she treated you just as a voice, and I'm wondering what the, I guess the opposite of that would have been. How would you NOT have wanted to be treated?

Holden Madagame  20:18  

That's a good question. I would say the opposite of that would be sort of fetishizing my voice as a trans voice that should be treated in a extra weird or special way. And yeah, trans voices are sometimes different or they act differently, especially when they're you know newly on hormones especially, but basically they're voices and they're, you know, we are bodies with voices, that's all it is. So yeah. And I have had lessons before with some people who - not not for longer than one lesson - but like, with people who were like, oh well this must be because you're trans! Your voice is doing this because it's trans! I'm like, no, it's just because I don't know what I'm doing as a tenor. It just feels - it feels so much more natural and completely avoids fetishizing trans voices when you just treat it as a voice that is undergoing changes.

Suzanne Lis  21:41  

Something that I learned in preparation for this interview was the ongoing problem of the medicalization of trans bodies and it does seem like teaching trans voices can also fall into this trap sometimes. There's a fetishization of the trans body and thus the trans voice.

Holden Madagame  22:01  

Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree, because if you're using - yeah, if you're using sort of these very like, clinical terms to talk about this body in front of you, it's hard to describe, but - in the direction of the medicalization of trans bodies, using these terms, whether it's like consuming lessons or or wherever just makes you feel like like just a body you know like not a person anymore you just a body that's also really unpleasant

Suzanne Lis  22:42  

Yeah. Well, I'm so glad that you and Stephanie had a productive working relationship because now you're a character tenor and it seems like that's the direction your voice is going in and also the way that you market yourself.

Holden Madagame  22:58  

Exactly. Yeah, I don't know who put that idea into my head. I'm very very thankful for whoever put that into my head but someone basically was just like, very practical and I'm always won over by by practicality when it's put in front of me. So they were like, okay well, you're the perfect physique for being a character tenor, you're short, your you're sort of lithe or whatever, you are a good actor, you're expressive, and your voice projects, very importantly, so you should just be a character tenor because that's very useful. And to be a good character tenor is very much a worthwhile endeavor and something that is appreciated in Germany so I was like yeah okay that's I mean apart from sort of how short I am which is like sort of their main point which is completely completely understandable I know that there's lots of short tenors but I am extremely short even for a tenor and so I was like yeah that totally makes sense to me and I can still sing opera which is the point. and I now really love the characters that I do they're very eccentric in one way or another and they if you you know if you miss your entrance or something it's gone like your whole role is gone so you really have to kind of be on it to do it that you can't you can't miss a beat otherwise you completely messed up your entire world yeah and you can no one could say that the opera could go on without it it definitely has before insurance but you know they're part of the opera and they they add a world to the opera they add characters to the opera

Suzanne Lis  24:59  

So you perform character tenor roles from the standard operatic repertoire but you've also done some new works where you have a chance to portray trans characters and I want to ask you about one of them in particular: Good Country which is an opera premiered back in 2019, and it's based on the historical account of Charlie Parkhurst who was a famous trans man during the California Gold Rush. Could you talk about that experience?

Holden Madagame  25:27  

Yes, so the opera was called Good Country and it was for the Cohen New Works Festival and the composer was Keith Allegretti and the librettist was Cecilia Raker. it was I mean, I guess we don't know for sure, but it was one of the first times that a trans performer has collaborated to play a trans character for like a new work basically. It was really a wonderful experience to have something written for my voice and also to have input into what was happening musically, what was happening dramaturgically because I mean I am a trans person, this is a trans character so of course I have opinions but it was really wonderful to be able to express my opinions and to be able to sort of affect the dramaturgy in that way and I feel very grateful to the team for that and being able to yeah just being able to play another trans person who isn't myself in some way or without sort of inserting my trans self into like a character role for example is is not necessarily what I consciously do but you know like when I'm trying to get into a character I am trans and I am playing this character and so the character is often inherently quite queer in some way and sort of has an interesting gender in some way but this was really the first time where I was like okay this character is trans like I don't need to do any any like extra work or to sort of mold myself into this character it's like this character isn't me it's different trans person but I am also trans it's it's it's hard to describe how how having a different having that different relationship to that character makes such a big difference it's it's also like how I imagine playing explicitly queer person would feel like or I don't know being a person of color and explicit and playing a person of color yeah it's it's quite quite different than molding yourself into whatever's on the other end

Suzanne Lis  28:33  

Do you feel better supported as a trans person in Germany rather than the US?

Holden Madagame  28:39  

Yes. Yes, basically because the medical care that I've received here is just already in the system. It's still difficult. You still need to have lots of appointments and you need to talk to lots of people about your experiences being a trans person and do all of these surveys or whatever with hundreds of questions about whatever is in your psyche and all of that. But you know, there's a system for it and I know I always knew it's like, okay if I do all of these things, I WILL get testosterone, I WILL get some sort of medical care. Also the good thing sort of socially about being in Germany is that which you know, sometimes is a double-edged sword, but it's that people don't really ask questions. People don't really pry into your personal life in general in Germany and so sometimes people don't realize I'm trans because they don't really ask any sort of personal questions or anything and so they don't know that or they DO know that and they never bring it up so I don't even really know if they know so but it pretty much never has been a problem here. The other side of that is that it is sometimes hard to find community or I find it hard to talk about being trans without making other people uncomfortable because they see it as something very personal that maybe I shouldn't be talking about, which does make me uncomfortable as I want to talk about it. And I feel like it's important to talk about and it is part of my identity. And if they don't want me to talk about that they are actively sort of repressing that part of my identity. So in that way, the US is a lot easier to talk about these things socially, even though the system is a mess. So yeah, but basically, I'm happy here. And I'm really glad that I could do my transition here.

Suzanne Lis  30:42  

It seems in general, that you made a really concerted effort to have a very public coming out as trans and also a very public transition. And I was wondering why you chose to do that? Because you definitely don't have to.

Holden Madagame  30:56  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That was, that was very much a conscious choice. I prefer if people know that I'm trans for one thing. So that helps me in a direct way. But more so I have the ability to, you know, express myself articulately about my feelings and the physical things that are happening to me, I have the ability to articulate those things, I have the safety to articulate those things, I'm in a safe community, I'm in Berlin, my family back in the States supports me, and my friends support me and and that gives me a lot of privilege. And sort of, with those powers combined, so to speak, I kind of feel like I need to do this for other people, especially because when I was first starting testosterone, there was really nobody, like I couldn't find anybody. Now there's lots of people, I mean, comparatively, lots of people. And, and I think that's wonderful. And I wanted to give that to other people: to be at least one person, you know, at least, like one person that someone could go to YouTube, and look through the videos and be like, oh, there's one trans person who took testosterone and is a classical singer. And even if there weren't any more than that, it will give one person hope to be able to sing classically, and take testosterone. And they wouldn't have to have this whole, you know, however much time I spent being depressed thinking that I couldn't do both of those things. That saves them, at least a little bit of time and a little bit of emotional energy by me doing that. And I already know it's helped people, like I get emails every so often from people who are, you know, are just like, wow, like, I found your YouTube channel. And I'm really thankful. And now I feel like I can take testosterone you know, and that's exactly what I wanted.

Suzanne Lis  33:08  

And when you hear from trans babies, as you call them, do you see in several of their cases that there's one thing that's missing? Is it institutional support or familial support? Or is it sort of a thing where they, they haven't gotten the permission themselves to do it?

Holden Madagame  33:34  

That's an interesting question. Often, what I see is partially the institutional support that that you mentioned, either they're looking at colleges, or they're already in college, or in a conservatory, or like, whatever. And, and they want to take hormones, and they don't, they don't have the support. You know, they don't ever, I mean, everybody is telling them that they shouldn't do it, or nobody has the answers for them, or nobody is willing to help them if they do decide to take hormones. And so I see that quite a lot. And I also see, basically, that they need they need somebody, that's okay, you know that it will be okay. Pretty much. I would say pretty much everybody who's emailed me is just  - apart from the people who are just like, thank you, now I can take testosterone! Apart from them, everybody else who has questions basically is just looking for affirmation that their decision is valid and that they're - that the direction that they want to take by taking hormones is valid and that it will be okay. I always categorically tell them it will be okay. Any decisions that you take regarding this will be okay. There will be lots of variables, which I can't predict and that they can't predict, but that it will be okay. And probably better. Just for taking a decision, whatever that decision is  - not to say that taking hormones is always the right decision at that time, but just sort of getting the information that they need, and then taking the decision and then feeling good about that decision. They will be okay.

Suzanne Lis  35:35  

Is it hard to balance the activism side of your life, like, responding to emails from trans babies or doing interviews like this one, where you necessarily end up having to talk about some, like, really hard times - is it hard to balance that with the rest of your life of just, you know, trying to lead a full contented life, like we're all trying to lead?

Holden Madagame  36:03  

Sometimes. Sometimes, I would say, when I was actively sort of doing a lot of videos, and I had my Patreon and things like that, I found it, I found it difficult to balance, unfortunately. And I always feel like I want to do more, or that I should do more. And so I kind of struggle with that personally, just knowing that I want to do more activism. And that it's, it's not always really clear what that even means, you know, like, what is doing activism look like? Sometimes it looks like doing an interview, sometimes it looks like answering someone's question on Facebook, you know, or sometimes it's just answering an email from a trans baby. Or sometimes it's just sticking up for yourself. Sometimes it's as simple as that. And, as my partner likes to say, sometimes just existing as a trans person, is activism, you know, existing in a world that people don't necessarily want you to exist in, is its own sort of activism. Existing in an industry that isn't familiar with you and that you need to sort of constantly have discussions about it is in itself activism. And something that Lucia Lucas and I talk about sometimes is sort of how just doing your job well, as an opera singer and being trans is, you know, sometimes, most of what we should be doing, or most of what we can do, just doing the job. Which I try to remind myself when I'm sort of like, I need to do more activism or whatever. I'm like, No, I just need to do my job really well. And be trans.

Suzanne Lis  38:01  

So something I know, I've been thinking a lot about, and I think a lot of people have been because of the pandemic is: what makes me an artist? And also WHEN am I an artist? Is it when I'm making money? Or is it when I'm spending a lot of time making art? And I'm asking this because you've recently been working as a programmer. And I was wondering how you feel about that work, especially identity-wise, because it seems like you had such a strong tie between your singer identity and your personal identity. And I wondering how this relatively new kind of phase of work as a programmer has affected that.

Holden Madagame  38:50  

Yeah, it's interesting because I, I mean, not being able to do singing work definitely does sort of gives me complicated feelings about my identity as a human being, as a person. Like, if I'm not singing am I myself? Am I a person? And if I'm not making art, am I a singer or a person? But programming has been really quite wonderful for me, I think because as a kid, I wanted to be a video game designer. Like ever since I was like seven or something, I was like, I'm gonna be a video game designer, and my parents were totally cool with that. They were like, We don't really know what video games are. We bought him a Super Nintendo and now he's obsessed. That's great. Like, do what you want. And, and, you know, that's what I said pretty much up until like, junior year of high school. I was like, I'm going to be a video game designer. And then I sort of like realized like, Okay, I'm better at singing. I don't really know how, how building a career as a singer really works. But I'm clearly like, better at this and want to do this. 

But that's sort of always been something that I'm interested in. I mean, technology and programming. I mean, so actually, it's been really great to sort of exercise this part of my personality, and this part of my childhood desire, I guess. And putting that into practice, and being in a totally different environment with totally different people. It's really, it's really been an interesting experience. It is still complicated because I'm still very much a singer, and that's part of my identity. And so sometimes I feel like, what's the - my brain just mixed up a whole bunch of metaphors, I don't know what metaphor I was looking for. My brain was like, a koala in a horse pen or something like that. I was like, Brain, what are you doing? Yeah, that good ol' metaphor.

Suzanne Lis  40:50  

Australian, surely.

Holden Madagame  41:01  

Yeah. So sometimes I feel like I stick out and I'm like, Okay, well, that's fine. You know, it's good to interact with different people. It's good to express different parts of your personality in different places. But I do look forward to singing again, someday.

Suzanne Lis  41:19  

I had one kind of like, goofy question. 

Holden Madagame  41:21  

Yeah, please. 

Suzanne Lis  41:24  

I wanted to ask you about your tattoos, if that's okay.

Holden Madagame  41:26  

Oh, sure. Yeah.

Suzanne Lis  41:29  

So you have this one that's more recent. And if anyone's curious, you can find it on Holden's Instagram. But would you be willing to talk about the more recent one - well, and the older one, but start with the more recent one...

Holden Madagame  41:45  

By more recent one do you mean the potato baby?

Suzanne Lis  41:49  

Yes, I'm glad you said that, because I had here written "potato child" and I was like, Oh, no, Suzanne, what if you just wrote that down? You're gonna say that and offend him...

Holden Madagame  42:00  

No, I call it potato baby for myself. Did you read potato child anywhere? Did you that just come into your head?

Suzanne Lis  42:06  

I probably read potato baby and wrote down potato child.

Holden Madagame  42:10  

That's great. That's great. Yeah, my potato baby is actually a flash tattoo from an artist I really love, a friend of mine, and I don't know why but I just like I saw it on their Instagram and I just absolutely fell in love and like I have to, I have to have the potato baby on my skin and I don't really know why but I need it! And I just love that for tattoos. When you just like sort of fall in love with an artist and you're just like that, it speaks to my soul. Whatever that means. Yeah, I don't know. I can't be very articulate about the potato baby because it just gives me lots of feelings -

Suzanne Lis  42:53  

What kinds of feelings?

Holden Madagame  42:56  

It gives me some like, gender feelings. Like oh man, the potato baby is sort of this like beautiful little blob with little like, like feetsies with these beautiful eyelashes and these lips and like, I don't know, it's just like the gender is just like mwah! It's so good. It's just like so, I don't know. It speaks to my soul. Something about that gender is just like me. I don't know. It's just weird and cute. Like me. And then I think the other one is probably the merman you're talking about. Right?

Suzanne Lis  43:36  

I have two here. One potato child, one tattoo of a bear with...

Holden Madagame  44:40  

Yeah. Yes. So those are both the same artists. And they're in Berlin, @alkfaen. Yeah, the custom with the bear with a human mask. I really like it because it just kind of feels like a very trans experience. Like you're something and then you're sort of like putting on this human mask or whatever but you're actually like something else or whatever. Not to other trans people but you know, that's my experience, that's just like being this other thing behind this human mask and then sort of expressing whatever's behind that.

Suzanne Lis  44:21  

Yeah. And then is there a third one? A merman?

Holden Madagame  44:24  

Yeah, i actually have four tattoos. i have a merman, which - i just always wanted a merman. i don't have an explanation for that but it's a custom tattoo and i can also write you the artist for the show notes, but yeah, i don't know, i just wanted a merman. i think there's some sort of trans thing with merman, mermen, merpeople, too - 

Suzanne Lis  44:48  

Yeah, I wanted to talk about this ! Apparently there's like interpretations that The Little Mermaid - the original one, the Hans Christian Andersen one, is sort of a trans like parable of sorts

Holden Madagame  44:59  

Oh really? Oh how exciting.

Suzanne Lis  45:03  

Yeah, i mean don't quote me on this...

Holden Madagame  45:06  

I mean, my brain is gonna do it anyway whether it exists or not. I believe you though!

Suzanne Lis  45:13  

It's sort of like the idea of like the body - again, like the body and the voice as being these like separate entities, but they're also changeable but they're also sort of like fixed, and they have these conditions on them, that you can only like be acceptable in one form in one world and acceptable in another world in a different way like bridging those worlds through a body change and then also -  you know the the Disney version of Little Mermaid? Ursula is inspired by Divine like one of the very early draq queens.

Holden Madagame  45:51  

Really?! That's WONDERFUL. And believable.

Suzanne Lis  45:58  

Yeah, do some Googling. It's a really fun Internet black hole to go down...

Holden Madagame  46:02  

Yes, I'm gonna write that down immediately. I've always felt Ursula had a very interesting gender and Ursula has always felt super queer to me as well but I didn't really know why, I was like, Ursula is queer and she's mine! But I didn't know why.

Suzanne Lis  46:18  

So you said that mermen always sort of felt like a very trans or queer thing to you?

Holden Madagame  46:22  

Yeah, it's definitely not the reason i got it. Idefinitely was just like i want a merman, i don't know why and then almost immediately, like the day after i got it, one of my trans friends was like, oh typical, trans with a merman tattoo, and i'm like what??? I thought only i had lots of feelings about merpeople!

Suzanne Lis  46:50  

Sorry, if you're sick of tattoo questions, let me know.

Holden Madagame  46:52  

No, I love talking about tattoos.

Suzanne Lis  46:54  

Is there a fourth one?

Holden Madagame  46:54  

Yeah i have one more tattoo, which your viewers will not be able to see but you'll be able to see. It's an elk and it was my first tattoo which is massive for first tattoo but i i it was just like at a time in my life where a lot was changing for me and i had always wanted a tattoo but it was like that sort of typical thing of like, i don't know what to get, "i don't know what to commit to put on my body for the rest of my life" sort of thing - which completely breaks after you get your first tattoo - like i was like, what do i put on my body forever and then i just like made this doodle in my journal at the time. It was just like this ugly little doodle and then I was like really obsessed with this one tattoo artist. I'm like, can you make this beautiful and put it on my body and and he did and it's wonderful and i love it. Yeah i think originally I didn't really conceptualize it as having like a specific meaning or whatever but sort of the image of an elk is sort of like tied to my father. I don't know if we talked about this, but my father passed away when i was like 18 so i think that is sort of part of it. It's not really well articulated meaning, it's just sort of - 

Suzanne Lis  47:18  

Yeah, I think nor does it have to have meaning, it's kind of like acquiring meaning or the meaning can kind of like wane and wax in a way...

Holden Madagame  47:27  

Absolutely, that's that's definitely how i feel about a lot of my tattoos. There's only one that really has a specific meaning, that's the bear with a mask. Everything else is just like, that's nice, that gives me feelings

Suzanne Lis  47:42  

Thank you so so much, i really appreciate you taking the time

Holden Madagame  48:44  

Yeah absolutely. Thank you for asking me and thank you for thoughtful questions and a nice Unterhaltung.

Suzanne Lis  48:53  

Das freut mich sehr. Alrighty, have a good evening and take care.

Holden Madagame  48:53  

Thank you, you too. 

Suzanne Lis  49:00  

And if you're curious to see pictures of some of the tattoos we talked about with Holden you can find them on his instagram which is @holden.mad and if you want to follow his career, you should check out his website holdenmadagame.com. He also has a great blog and he links to his YouTube channel as well. all of which I highly recommend checking out. 

And thank you so much for listening to the second episode of This Embodied Voice. In case you're new here, this is the podcast where we talk about the voice, the body, and pretty much everything in between and if you enjoyed the episode, it really helps to rate, review, subscribe and tell your friend. You can also reach me, Suzanne on Instagram @thisembodiedvoice. Until next time, take care of your body, take care of your voice, and be well.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai