Assigned Sex

In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun talks with Chris, aka Conjure Boi, a root worker and teacher. They cover hoodoo's roots in ancestral practice and the wave of appropriation that followed films like Sinners. They also talk about how to choose which ancestors you honor. In the history segment, Shaun tells the story of Crystal LaBeija, a Harlem drag performer who competed on New Yor...

In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun sits down with Nandi Kayyy, a fellow tech veteran and creative collaborator, to talk about why they both left the tech industry and what it cost them to stay as long as they did. In the history segment, Shaun centers Wilmer "Little Axe" Broadnax, a gospel tenor who sang with the Fairfield Four and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, and who lived...

Sylvester James Jr. was born in Watts in 1947, pushed out of his Pentecostal church at thirteen, and ended up homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. He still managed to build the rooms where Black queer people could exist fully. In this Pride Month episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun tells the story of Sylvester. A boy who wore a prom dress in his graduation photo. A man who told Joan Rive...

In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun sits down with an anonymous guest who goes by Lady, a Black trans woman who came to escorting at twenty-nine, after years of religious shame and romantic disappointment. Lady breaks down what it takes to do this work safely: how she reads a text message to assess threat, why she has clients stand outside a building she can see from her window befo...

Shaun pulls up the case files and sits with two women separated by thirty-one years who made the exact same argument to the exact same government: you knew what would happen to me, and you put me there anyway. In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun traces the legal history behind Poe v. DOJ , the federal lawsuit filed on May 6, 2026 by a transgender woman incarcerated in a men's prison...

Shaun pulls up a chair with the ancestors, Sylvia Rivera, Bayard Rustin, Marsha P. Johnson, and Stormé DeLarverie, and asks the question that needs to be asked: whose names stay in rotation, and whose work gets acted like it never existed? In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun traces the pattern of how movement history gets sanitized , who gets put on the poster and who gets pushed to...

Shaun sits back down with Nandikayyy to talk about Black trans joy, what it looks and feels like, how it lives next to grief, and what they wish they could've seen when they were younger, framed by a lesson on Audre Lorde.  In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun and Nandikayyy get into Black trans joy. The kind that looks like finally feeling at home in your body, music that comes back...

In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun moves from the murder of Islan Nettles and the “real woman” trope to Lil Duval, Boosie Badazz, Dave Chappelle, and the Black church, breaking down how toxic masculinity and bioessentialism push Black trans folks to the edge while still expecting them to ride for “the culture.” Shaun also shares a history lesson on Monica Roberts , the Houston‑born...

In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun reunites with Jade, an original Assigned Sex documentary cast member, to talk about where she is now, the community and chosen family keeping her grounded, and the work of protecting your mind in a world determined to misread you. Shaun also shares a brief lesson on Marsha P. Johnson , the Jersey-born street queen and co‑founder of STAR whose life...

Shaun Dawson looks back on returning to Assigned Sex years after the 2019 short film, talking about what’s shifted since their first time directing and how their relationship to work, money, and being visible as a Black genderqueer storyteller has changed. They get into why the original film centered Black church, gender roles, and a preacher’s kid named Angel, and how watching Paris Is Burning fo...

Shaun sits down with agender, polyamorous producer and creative director Nandi K. to talk about eight years of choosing each other, from OKCupid to a Barcade stare down to building a life where friendship, creativity, and non monogamy actually work. They get into why “we gotta be friends first” is the foundation, what it feels like to be more yourself in a relationship instead of smaller, and how...

Shaun talks with Southern‑raised nonbinary barber and techie Chris about growing up “both boy and girl” in a Black church home, navigating pronouns in a “queer‑straight” barbershop, and figuring out how to live beyond a gender binary that keeps knocking people “between the washer and the dryer.” In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, they dig into how family, church, and a “queer‑straight” b...

In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun sits down with TomKola , a Black Nigerian intersex trans man, activist, and founder of Trans Nigerian Support , for an honest conversation about growing up in a deeply religious, gendered household where everything was “boys do this, girls do that,” and finding the language and community to name himself. Tomkola shares how dissociation became a su...

In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun sits down with Kyrie, an original cast member from the Assigned Sex documentary , for an honest conversation about Black masculinity, passability, and self-definition as a Black trans masc person. Kyrie opens up about the challenges of performing masculinity in cis-masc spaces—from the early days of transitioning and losing access to community thr...

On the first episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun is joined by TJ Chester , Nandikayyy , and an anonymous guest we’re calling “Lady” to unpack spirituality, religion, and faith through the eyes of Black trans and genderqueer folks who grew up in church. TJ and Lady are preacher’s kids, Nandi’s mom was the minister of music, and together they revisit long Sundays in the pews, the joy of choir...