By Gretchen Feil
Part of our mission at The Cloud Dancers Foundation is to use our platform to share the stories of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly those of adult and senior transgender individuals. Members of the adult and senior trans community comprise an often neglected population in our society. This neglect is a result of many factors, whether it be the purposeful erasure of trans experiences by the media and other social institutions, or the inability of aging trans populations to live and express themselves freely due to discriminatory practices that impact everyday life. Trans individuals may also experience multiple layers of oppression, such as ableism, racism, classism, and ageism, among others, that make it even more difficult for them to live their lives in ways that affirm who they are and who they want to be. In our attempt to curb this narrative of invisibility and neglect that trans communities can experience, we make an effort to help lift these unheard and misheard voices.
Last week, we met with Vinodini Dasi who works as a voice coach and peer mentor. Vinodini Dasi primarily works with trans individuals who are looking to feminize or masculinize their voices, and she also serves as an instructor for general singing lessons. There are not many vocal coaches who are transgender, so Vinodini Dasi’s lived experiences as a gender nonconforming, trans feminine person help inform her teaching and relationships with trans students.
When asked how she got into this type of work, Vinodini Dasi went back to her beginnings, saying “it started off when I was a little kid. . .I had a personality that was different from my container.” Throughout our conversation, Vinodini Dasi referred to bodies, our physical, biological existences, as “containers” that simply hold the soul, mind, and personality. Vinodini Dasi expressed that “if the fixation is on my container, with what it can or cannot do, or with what it looks or does not look like, then you’re wasting time that could be spent at doing something more constructive.” Something more constructive being a focus on the personal, spiritual, and connective aspects of human beings, in addition to our relationships with each other, and especially with God, Vinodini Dasi says.
Vinodini Dasi recounted her experience as a child, not fitting in with kids who shared the same type of “container,” as her, or the male biology. She was “very sensitive, very gentle,” and knew “very quickly” that these more feminine personality traits were “not going to get [her] friends.” So, at a young age, Vinodini Dasi began to experiment with changing her voice, first to sound more like her male peers.
Growing up with her aunt and uncle, Vinodini Dasi began singing lessons. Initially, she tried to sing low, because it would “sound more like I was supposed to,” she recounted. However, her teacher encouraged her to sing in higher registers so that she wouldn’t lose access to the higher pitches in her voice as she got older. Being in theater programs as a child also helped Vinodini Dasi learn many kinds of voices, scales, and vowel shapings. Vinodini Dasi said that after 12 years of being in private singing classes and 4 summers in a theater school, she gained dexterity in her throat muscles, observed how classes can be structured, and learned how instructors can teach expression as well as its various modes.
As Vinodini Dasi got older, she began to transition. However, her aunt and uncle were not supportive of this at the time, and Vinodini Dasi was forced to drop out of college while “house hopping for about three years.” Her financial aid fell through because she was unable to get to classes, and teachers were not helpful – many of those teachers did not make material accessible to Vinodini Dasi, who has autism and impaired vision.
While experiencing various unhealthy, even abusive living situations, Vinodini Dasi began teaching as a voice coach so that she could earn money to eventually move into a better living situation. Eventually, she ended up in a place with a roommate who loves her, with whom she lives today. Vinodini Dasi said that with this roommate, “I could be myself for the first time without fear.”
Today, Vinodini Dasi has more than 5 years of experience as a voice coach, working mainly with other trans individuals. She has worked with many age groups, from children to older adults in their 60s. Vinodini Dasi said that “I teach [my students] what I needed to hear at the darkest point in my life, which is ‘Your voice is beautiful. Your soul is different from your body, but there’s nothing wrong with you. So, we’re going to work on helping you get used to your voice as a safe place for you. . .And when your voice is your safe place, what happens after that is, you’ll begin to feel safe changing the voice.’”
However, Vinodini Dasi clarifies that when she teaches students, she tells them “we’re not changing the voice so that you can feel like you needed to be changed. We’re helping you change your voice so that you can go to the store without getting beaten up. We’re helping you change your voice because our society isn’t at the right place yet – for you to be able to make a connection with somebody on something other than what you look like. . .We’re just helping you be interacted with properly until our society gets changed the way that it needs to, for you to be included, regardless of what is perceived as not feminine enough, or not masculine enough.” In this way, Vinodini Dasi says she gives her students “tools” to reduce the harm that they experience in a society that is not accepting of transgender people.
For many LGBTQ+ individuals, religion can be a source of harm. Vinodini Dasi explained to us both the detrimental and healing aspects that her religious experiences have created. She felt forced to leave the Christian church after growing up in a religious community that was particularly prejudiced against LGBTQ+ individuals. Vinodini Dasi’s religious community emphasized the sex that she was was born with, and stressed their disapproval of a percieved discrepancy between her “container” and her personality and soul. The discrimination Vinodini Dasi experienced made her feel like her love for God was unwanted.
After having to separate herself from God and religion for a period of time, Vinodini Dasi eventually found an accepting community in the Hare Krishna movement. Vinodini Dasi admits that homophobia and transphobia can be found in Vaishnavism as in Christianity, but she claims that “It’s not the movement that’s the problem, it’s bigotry, because you can hide your bigotry in your religion. . .But it doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with the religious system. . .There’s something wrong with using God as a weapon to limit a person to their container, and that inclination to limit a person happens when there’s a lack of education on gender diversity.”
Vinodini Dasi believes that “when you find a community that loves God without judging you or analyzing you, or being afraid of you. . .it helps your relationship with God improve.” While not yet fully initiated into the Hare Krishna movement, a mentor gave Vinodini Dasi her spiritual name to help her strengthen and develop her love of Krishna. Vinodini Dasi wishes that this spiritual aspect of life could be more accessible to the LGBTQ+ community, who frequently experience a weaponized God. Vinodini Dasi told us: “I want to be somebody that can help our community know they are made of love, they are born from love, and they will return to love. God is love.”
We also spoke with Vinodini Dasi about the ways that society can be improved to reduce the harm that people with disabilities experience on a daily basis due to discrimination and a lack of accessibility. Vinodini Dasi says that society should not make people with disabilities feel like they are a spectacle, or like they are being reduced to their disability. Instead, society should help people “have a full, accessible life, without feeling like they are a burden, or that they are getting something special for getting help.” Instead of blaming individuals with disabilities for experiencing life in a different way, society should structurally change and mold itself into a more accessible version that allows all people to participate and contribute in their own ways.
Vinodini Dasi said that on an individual level, when you see somebody “with a disability, and they look like they need help, chances are they probably do.” She continued to describe such a situation, saying a passerby can “go over there and say specifically what you would like to do to help them.” Vinodini Dasi says, ask: “Do you need help with this thing specifically?” The person “might say yes or no, but if they say no, and they have a need for another kind of help, they might ask for it in that moment, knowing that you’re a safe person to ask.”
One day, kids and trans adults alike may not feel the need to “integrate,” as Vinodini Dasi says, into the heteronormative, cisnormative society in which we live today. “We need a society that makes kids know that it’s okay to be as they are. . .We need to create a community where all people are told that” Vinodini Dasi continued, acting out a deep voice, “if they talk like this, and they look like me, they are perfect as they are, because that’s the way that they are.”
Vinodini Dasi is currently accepting new students who are seeking out a vocal coach. She can be reached by email at vinodinidasi108@gmail.com.