Interview with Mina Caputo

Mina Caputo is an American singer, songwriter, and musician best known as the lead vocalist and founding member of the alternative metal band Life of Agony. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Mina’s life has been a journey of transformation, both artistically and personally. She first gained prominence in the early 1990s with Life of Agony, whose raw and emotional music resonated deeply with fans. Over the years, she has also pursued a solo career, crafting introspective and poetic works that showcase her unique perspective and vulnerability. Throughout her life, Mina has been candid about her struggles with gender identity and personal hardships. In 2011, she publicly came out as transgender and began her transition, embracing her identity with openness and resilience.

Interview with Amber Taylor

Amber Taylor is not just a musician, she is a force of nature. With a guitar in hand and poetry in her heart, she has carved out a space for herself in the world of alternative rock as the lead singer, guitarist, and creative engine behind The Sexual Side Effects, an Atlanta-based band known for its haunting psychedelia and bold, emotionally charged performances. A gifted songwriter, Amber’s music carries listeners through the lush terrain of heartbreak, yearning, and self-discovery, often layered with her signature blend of melancholy and majesty. Amber is also a proud transgender woman whose journey of authenticity has deeply influenced her art and presence on stage. Her transition didn’t just change her life, it redefined her music. She once quipped that she is the sexual side effect in her band’s name, a witty nod to her gender identity and a testament to her fierce ownership of self.

 

Underneath the bravado and post-punk edge lies a romantic soul, an “erotographomaniac” obsessed with love letters and lyrical beauty, whose songs dive into the darker, more complex waters of love’s many shades. From her deeply introspective writing sessions in Atlanta to the electric energy of her live shows, Amber creates art that resonates with honesty, vulnerability, and power. She dreams of touring Europe and continuing to touch hearts with her music, a mission she sees not just as artistic, but transformative. Through her visibility and voice, Amber also advocates for transgender understanding, not with slogans, but with sincerity, storytelling, and the timeless language of song. As you read this interview, prepare to meet a woman who is equal parts rebel and romantic, a warrior of words and sound, and a beautiful reminder that sometimes the truest revolution is simply to be yourself, loudly, lovingly, and without apology.

Interview with Shawna Virago

Some women are born to sing their stories. Others carve them into the world with every step they take, every lyric they write, every truth they dare to speak aloud. Shawna Virago does all three, fearlessly, fiercely, and with the kind of grace that doesn’t ask for permission. She is not just a musician or a writer. She is a living melody, a rebel-hearted bard whose voice has echoed through decades of resistance, tenderness, and unyielding authenticity. Emerging in the early 1990s as one of the first openly transgender women to tour across the United States, Shawna brought her guitar and her truth to stages where few like her had stood before. Her presence was revolutionary, not because she sought to be a symbol, but because she insisted on being herself, in high heels and leather, with punk riffs and velvet lyrics, against a backdrop that rarely welcomed difference. She transformed every stage into a sanctuary of survival and defiance. Her song Objectified became an anthem, her album Heaven Sent Delinquent a testimony, and her very life a ballad of resistance and resilience.

 

As the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival, Shawna curates stories that breathe, scream, seduce, and heal. Under her vision, the festival has become more than a screening, it is a gathering of souls who dare to imagine and create beyond the binary, beyond erasure. She uplifts voices not only with care, but with a deep knowing born of her own path: a road often walked alone, in high-heeled boots, beneath a sky both dangerous and full of stars. Shawna’s music speaks of outlaws and femmes, of heartbreak and revolution, weaving Americana with an outlaw spirit. Hers is a sound that carries the dust of protest, the perfume of desire, the scratch of vinyl, and the hush of midnight reflection. She sings for the girls who survived, for the ones who are still learning how, and for those who don’t yet know the power they hold inside their names. In her presence, the past is never forgotten, it becomes poetry. And the future? It hums quietly in the background of her songs, waiting to be rewritten. It is my deepest honour and pleasure to speak with Shawna Virago, songstress, storyteller, cultural warrior, and woman of incandescent grace, about her life, her art, her love, and the many ways she continues to dance defiantly through the noise of the world.