This week’s guest is costume designer, Saawan Tiwari (they/them). They share with us their experience navigating gender and sexuality, as a queer Indian kid born into a body of male sex within a community that was predominantly white and conservative. They share about their little kid self identifying with the label of “tomgirl,” which began their journey of understanding and finding ways to express their true identity. They go on to share about the evolution of making sense of their queerness as they progressed through adolescence, their process coming out, and then navigating queer culture as a non-binary transfem person and the subsequent toxic fetishization directed at them which led to a future need to unlearn an internalized belief of not deserving love. They were so generous with their story and are inviting us all into it.

About the guest:
Saawan Tiwari (they/them) identifies as a non-binary transfem queer Indian American. They are an up and coming costume designer born and raised in California, and currently based in New York City. They obtained their BFA from the University of Michigan in 2020, and have gone on to design for theatres around the country as well as teach for Roundabout Theatre Company among others. Follow Saawan on Instagram @saawantiwari .

For more, visit www.secondadolescencepod.com or @secondadolescencepod.

Download episode transcript here.