A Conversation with Jasmine.4.t

By Livia Blackburn

Jasmine.4.t played at ACL Live during the 2025 South by Southwest festival. Before the show, Austin Underground spoke with Jasmine about her queer and trans activism, her newly released album, and finding community in her band. As mentioned in the interview, please consider donating to Trans Mutual Aid Manchester, contributing to the solidarity fund for Jasmine’s daughter, Yulia, and signing the Free the Filton 18 Petition as mentioned in the interview.

Solidarity Fund for Jasmine’s daughter, Yulia Here

Free the Filton 18 Petition Here

Trans Mutual Aid Manchester, @TNAManchester on PayPal 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Austin Underground: Hi, this is Livia with Austin Underground. I'm here today with Jasmine from Jasmine 4.t, Thank you for talking with us!

Jasmine.4.t: Thank you for having me. 

Austin Underground: So I wanna talk about, first of all, your album that just came out last month–You are the morning. Congratulations on that. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, thank you so much. 

Austin Underground: We really like the album. It's so good. I feel like the entire album is really about queer and trans love, solidarity, and friendship, so I wanted to ask about your writing process, since it's clearly a love letter to the community, but also seems pretty observational from your own life.

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, I was just talking to Phoenix– who plays in my band– about how my writing is just like a stream of consciousness basically, and then I edit if needed. But yeah, it was when I was couch surfing, having just come to Manchester after my life fell apart when I was living in Bristol. After coming out as trans, I was going through homelessness, and I was escaping a really horrible situation. It was a really dark time in a lot of ways, but I found community and I fell in love with trans people for the first time. I think it kind of turned out to be such a hopeful record as you say, it's like very much about love and friendship and community, but I didn't mean it to be like that– I was just writing– but it turned out that way, and paired with what’s happened to me since then, it has just become an album that's a symbol of hope, for a lot of trans women. Off the back of writing it, I got signed by Phoebe Bridgers– which is nuts– and then flew out to L.A. with a whole band of trans women and made this record with Phoebe [Bridgers] and Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker in Sound City Studios. And I’m able to be here now, touring the world just as some random trans girl from Manchester!

Austin Underground: That’s so awesome. It's really cool how your kind of stream-of-consciousness, self-documentation was able to lead into this message that you weren't necessarily meaning to imbue into it. Self documentation is so important and powerful. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, exactly. And then, being able to be that visible trans woman role model for other dolls out there, I really feel so carried by my community. I have so many people behind me, like my band mates, but also my friends back home, and also just dolls DMing me from around the world, like I have like a lot older trans women in my dms being like, “I wish I'd had trans women like you when I was transitioning to look up to,” which especially means the world to me. What an honor to be a face that's part of this movement for trans visibility and trans rights! But, I feel worried that a lot of people think that just the visibility is enough, cause it's definitely not. Like coming here– this is our first time in the U.S. performing– but coming back through immigration in Texas right now is fucking terrifying. We actually talked through all the worst case scenarios– like I don't think many people realize this, but by boarding a flight to the U.S. you are consenting to a forced strip search when you land if they want to do that, and they use it as a humiliation tactic on trans women. They have been doing that increasingly recently, so we talked about what happens if that happens? Like how do we process that? What do we put in place to make sure that if we need to, we can take care of each other after that happens? What happens if one of us gets detained? 

Austin Underground: Wow, I did not know that.

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, it’s fucking nuts, especially because the law is changing so quickly right now, like that it could be the case that, because there's all these anti-drag laws that also cover trans women performing, we wouldn't be able to perform in a lot of states. Like in Texas, we're not allowed to perform in front of minors, which is wild, and in North Carolina– where we’re changing planes– we're not allowed to use the toilet. 

Austin Underground: Oh, wow. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, we're not allowed to use the toilet in the airport, so we just have to hold it while we're changing flights for three hours. 

Austin Underground: That’s awful. I saw you talking about how visibility without action is dangerous.

Jasmine.4.t: Exactly. Fully. And you know, we have the protection we need in that Jen, my manager, is on top of everything. Like we felt so reassured coming through security and coming through immigration because she had all the documents ready and she went through behind us and was watching us all go through with phone numbers for legal teams and shit like that. But it's so crazy, I don't think protecting trans women is part of the conversation around trans people, do you know what I mean? 

Austin Underground: Yeah, definitely. 

Jasmine.4.t: Especially in the wider public. But I definitely agree with what you said about solidarity, because I think when I was writing these songs, they were kind of about very small-scale acts of love and care, and people putting me up on their sofas and showing me how to exist as a trans person out in the world. But I think I've realized since then that it's more than that– I think You Are The Morning has come to mean for me solidarity across the boundary of your community and across the borders of countries, and that's something that we really take to heart in our group. Like I don’t know if you already know this, but my daughter, my chosen daughter Yulia, is currently being held as a political prisoner.

Austin Underground: I did see that. 

Jasmine.4.t: She's being held at a prison called Bronzefield which is near Heathrow, and there's loads of actionists and people who are accused of taking part in political actions for a whole range of movements, but it is part of this enormous crackdown on protest rights in the U.K. and they're using anti-terror laws against protestors, and so she's being held for two years without trial, and she's really, really struggling. Like when I met her, her mental health was extremely poor, and we really supported each other to get ourselves to more stable places where we could fight for ourselves and the rights of others, and now seeing her back to square one is just so heartbreaking, like they've really broken her, the light has gone from her eyes. And we've applied for bail for like the third time and, she called me just before we took off from Heathrow on the way here, and she feels like if the bail is denied again, then she's not gonna survive much longer in there, and we really are afraid of her dying in prison because it's a very real possibility. So yeah, that's incredibly heartbreaking and it's taking up like a huge amount of my brain space. She usually comes on tour with us, like she was supposed to be here, so doing this without her is just unbearable really.

Austin Underground: I'm so sorry. We also saw your solidarity fund. We'll for sure put that in. [Yulia's solidarity fund here].  

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah thank you, please do. If you can encourage people– there's also a petition to stop the government in the UK using anti terror laws against protesters. It's Free the Filton 18 [Filton 18 Petition Here]. Yulia is one of the Filton 18. Filton is where there is the headquarters of the largest Israeli weapons company and it's in the southwest of England and that's where she's alleged to have taken part in action. 

Austin Underground. Yeah, we'll definitely share that of course. I'm so sorry about all of that. It's terrible.

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, it's heavy. But I think, honestly, what Yulia is alleged to have done is such a good example of queer people acting in solidarity across borders and across the boundaries of community, and I think that's something that we're really good at. Because we're oppressed and a lot of us aren't just oppressed in one dimension we just are aware of what it's like to go through shit, and I think that the wider public out there in general aren't. They’re happy to scapegoat us and stomp us down, or maybe even kind of ignore it and think it's not their problem, because they don't know what it's like. So I want the record to act as a call to action because trans people need support right now, especially like here in Texas– trans women in rural Texas and trans women in Texas prisons really, really need help and support, and I've seen so many organizations here doing so much to help. So I’m just really trying to encourage people to reach out to the trans community everywhere. 

Austin Underground: Yeah, even just you guys– even though you had to go through all that to get here– performing here is so great to see for queer people coming to South By Southwest, like for queer people who live here and trans people who live here. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, it's amazing just being here on this stage. Austin City Limits Moody Theater is such an iconic venue, and just being able to come here and perform here is just such an honor. And to be so supported by Rolling Stone magazine and South by Southwest also–we're definitely getting our flowers.

Austin Underground: Yeah it's great to see you doing this through support too with your band, and I also saw you also were recording with the trans chorus of L.A. and working with the Trans Mutual Aid Manchester, It's great to see the solidarity throughout your whole project.

Jasmine.4.t: Thank you. Yeah, I think it's kind of something that everyone should be working into their work, you know? Because I think we're spending so much time in our livelihoods not thinking about mutual aid and that's quite damaging, so just trying to make sure that everything that we are doing is kind of centering mutual aid is quite important to us. 

Austin Underground: Yeah! When you signed with Saddest Factory and went from being independent to being on Phoebe Bridgers’ label, did that change the visibility aspect?

Jasmine.4.t: Massively. I think the biggest thing was getting grid posted by Boy Genius, and them being like, “Oh, we, we produced this.” I got like 12,000 followers that day. So yeah, just having their support has obviously been incredible for us and I'm so excited to have them involved as such. We just have such a good time together. I haven't actually told anyone this, so you guys are gonna get an exclusive. 

Austin Underground: Ooooooo

Jasmine.4.t: But JB [Julien Baker] is joining us at the NPR stage on Friday. 

Austin Underground: Oh wow! 

Jasmine.4.t: I think it's gonna be recorded, but yeah, we're gonna do a cover of System of a Down’s, “Toxicity” together. 

Austin Underground: Oh, cool!

Jasmine.4.t: So, yeah, that's really fun. But yeah, I've been such a fan of all of their careers individually. I think Lucy was the first person who I came across just when “I don't want to be funny anymore” came out as the first single and came on my Spotify playlists and stuff. So I was honored to be asked to support. I opened for Lucy on that tour in Bristol as a local support, but then we got on really well and Lucy invited me for the Historian tour around Europe, and it was around then that I started listening to Phoebe. Phoebe was touring Stranger in the Alps then, and she came to Bristol and played, and me and Lucy went to see it. Lucy went on stage and sang “Me and my Dog” with Phoebe, and that was the first time I'd heard that song– it was before it came out. And then Lucy introduced me to Julien at the End of the Road Festival, and we also shared a stage together. We did a cover of Alex G's “Bobby,” but we didn't really hang out so much until I opened for them when they came to tour the record in the UK. But I remember seeing Julien’s set at the end of the road, and it was such a pivotal moment for me seeing Julian play guitar and perform their incredible gender fuckery and queerness. I remember just being like, “I wanna do that,” you know? Also I’m a huge, huge fan of Julien's guitar playing, so having Julien’s solos on my record is just nuts for me. 

Austin Underground: Yeah, there's lore that Julien Baker played at our college radio station once, like years ago, and everyone always now is like, “Oh you should join because…!” and that's the draw to get people to us.

Jasmine.4.t: Oh my God. That's so funny. That's so cool. Like, honestly, just being a Julien Baker fan is a token for queerness internationally, and an “in” to conversation in any place in the world. It's just so funny. 

Austin Underground: It’s like flagging. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, no exactly. 

Austin Underground: How did you meet the rest of your band? You wrote the record before they started playing with you, right? 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, I kind of wrote the record very early transition, so the songs were quite old by the time we recorded them. But yeah, I met Phoenix at an Alex G concert, and we were the only two trans women there and we just got chatting and she turned out to be the most incredible person to know. Phoenix Rousiamanis– she is an incredible classical musician. She is a composer in her own right and has written this opera called Songs of Descent, which is the story of Persephone descending into the underworld but through a trans lens. 

Austin Underground: Oh wow! 

Jasmine.4.t: it's so fucking cool. There's a record recording of it on YouTube, it's literally incredible. I went to see the premiere of it in Manchester, in this incredible theater, and that's where I met my girlfriend! 

Austin Underground: Oh cool! At the show?

Jasmine.4.t: Phoenix is in a band called Knowing the Oak Tree, which is also incredible– definitely check them out. It's a collaboration between Manchester and Zurich musicians, and the Manchester half, Grace, lives with Tash, who is my girlfriend over in Zurich, so yeah, that's how I became an international lesbian. 

Austin Underground: [laughter]

Jasmine.4.t: Then, I knew Eden, in that we had just seen each other out, and I remember seeing her playing Tig in the club and being like, “She seems cool!” Then, we properly met at this jam session, a trans girl meet up in Manchester called Just Do the Thing. She was playing this electric drum kit, and just shredding so hard, and she was like, “Oh yeah, I haven't actually been in a band since I was like 13 or something.” But I was like, “Do you wanna come to LA and record with Boy Genius?” And she was like, “Okay!” I don't think she even knew who Boy Genius was. 

Austin Underground: That's so funny. 

Jasmine.4.t: It was just fucking nuts. And then a few months later, after we'd recorded, Emily– who's touring with us– joined the band. She plays bass and we met through the same meetup. We just all got on super, super well. I have so much fun. Like I feel like we just have our own trans girl brain rot language backstage and it's really funny thinking that we just have these curtain things and we are right next to the production office, and we're talking about the most grotesque topics and no one can understand what we're saying. It's so funny. 

Austin Underground: That is funny. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, it’s such a really nice band to be in. Sadly we're losing Eden because she's got a full-time job and we're doing too many shows now for her to keep up, so she's tagging out with another trans girl called Mave who is awesome. She's also my ex, which is like…

Austin Underground: Of course!

Jasmine.4.t: Exactly [laughter]. Yeah, she's just the most incredible drummer. She plays in hardcore bands and she's incredible. She has the sauce as they say. So yeah, really looking forward to touring with her as well. 

Austin Underground: You guys met in so many different ways. I'm glad you all found each other! I also wanted to ask about– you've been making music for a really long time– I saw that you recorded an album of Daniel Johnston covers as a teenager, is that right? 

Jasmine.4.t: That’s so cool! Yes, I did. I think it was on Bandcamp and with a CD. I did it when I was like, I wanna say 17, and I was really depressed. I actually tried to come out the year before. I came out to a close family member and it went really, really badly, so I went back in the closet for 13 years, and the next year I'd just been writing loads of emo songs. I also got really into Jeffrey Lewis and I remember doing Jeffrey Lewis covers. But yeah, I did an album of Daniel Johnston covers. I remember doing Walking the Cow, and that was the only song that I did as a full band arrangement, and I recorded the drums with like one microphone in my parents' basement and it was just so sloppy… but it kind of slapped.

Austin Underground: That's so cool that Austin music is reaching so far. I didn't know how far Daniel Johnson's music really had an impact until recently. 

Jasmine.4.t: Oh, massive. Massive! 

Austin Underground: Like I always knew of him as an Austin artist I was like, “Oh, he's huge!”

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah. Yeah. Huge. And I had loads of his comic books as well as a teenager. They’re in shops in the UK as well. Yeah, he's really famous. 

Austin Underground: That's so cool. 

Jasmine.4.t: I also took to felt tip album covers as well for a period. I have so many funny releases that are private on band camp– I remember, I think my first album was called “My First,” and it had a picture of a road bollard that was flaccid [laughter], and that was felt tip. I think that I remember bringing this up in an interview before– [that record] was the one that I'd put in the shop and they paid me in cupcakes. 

Austin Underground: Yeah, that was the one I read!

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, and I remember 'cause they were like courgette cupcakes– zucchini– and they fucking sucked. Yeah. So bad. This was like before vegan food was good. Yeah, I'm from Bristol, which has a similar hippie vibe to here. So I think we had one vegan cafe like way before anywhere else in the UK had a vegan cafe and we were really proud of it, but the food was not good. It’s actually really good now though! It's called Cafe Kino and it's a really cool area of Bristol, at least it was cool when I lived there. It's probably not very cool anymore, but yeah, the cupcake sucked. 

Austin Underground: Vegan food always has to have something wrong with it. Like something weird about it. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah. No, seriously, it is really hard to eat vegan actually here. Like it's so much harder than it is in the UK, like, well obviously Texas. My grandpa used to work in Texas, he was an accountant and he worked for Texas Instruments randomly, and my granny while she was here, asked if there were any vegetarian options and what they would recommend for a vegetarian and they told her to get out of Texas.

Austin Underground: Ohhhhhh no. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, I had a tabouli salad, which was just like leaves. I think I got like one calorie from that. So that's probably why I needed to eat the granola just now. 

Austin Underground: We've covered pretty much everything, the last thing was that I saw you on Instagram posting about self-dollfense. We thought that pun was funny. Is that for the show?

Jasmine.4.t: That's literally, that's literally 'cause we were scared of coming to America. 

Austin Underground: Ohh Okay. 

Jasmine.4.t: So we were like, let's do a self-defense class and like we talked about our various anxieties about coming here, and it was just a nice space. I hired my friend Zoe from Leeds, who runs self-defense classes for trans women and we just had a space in the gym and we chatted about our various fears. We're all scared about getting attacked in bathrooms, getting attacked in the street, just like standard trans women fears. But I think we are just kind of amplified by being over here now, and also we're not used to people having guns so that's kind of scary to us. Honestly, our main concerns are around like immigration and getting detained or even getting in trouble with the police because you know, the laws are so fucking weird right now, and you can get arrested for just walking down the street in a skirt or whatever and just ending up in a men's prison or something like that. So the stakes are really high, but that's obviously very, very unlikely. And that's kind of what they want us to think about, it’s a lot of theatrics, but obviously it does happen to some trans women, and there are trans women in men's prisons in Texas having horrible, horrible things done to them right now, and we can't stop thinking about it. So the self-defense class was kind of like a place to get all of those worries out and, also just like kick each other. 

Austin Underground: Yeah. It's great you guys did that. Phoenix did like, yeah, it does a dip at the end. I thought it was like performance art for your show. 

Jasmine.4.t: It fucking should be. Phoenix is such an incredible performer, it's so embarrassing being in a band with her. 'cause she's obviously a better front woman than I am. Yeah, she does Vogue, and is part of the ballroom community in Manchester. 

Austin Underground: That's super cool!

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah on top of being in a ridiculous amount of bands and classical ensembles. 

Austin Underground: That's awesome. 

Jasmine.4.t: Yeah, she's a busy woman. She's also playing in Lucy [Dacus]’s  band and me and her are doing a duet together when we're opening for Lucy's tour with Katie Gavin, also my label mate in April and May here. So that's the next time I'll be back in the US. We’re playing at the Moody Amphitheater. My tour dates are on my website, Jasmine.4.t.com, donate to Trans Mutual Aid Manchester, my community, @TNAManchester on PayPal and Trans Mutual Aid Manchester on Instagram. They're awesome. They do amazing, amazing things in my community and once again, please donate to my daughter's Solidarity Fund, which is in my Instagram bio, and sign the Free The Fulton 18 petition, which is @FreeTheFilton18 on Instagram. 

Austin Underground: Yes, please do! Thank you so much.

Jasmine.4.t: Thank you for having me!