TRANS EXCELLENCE: Xander Adams on Telling Her Own Story
30m | Oct 23, 2026How do you turn more than 45 hours of tape into a personal audio documentary?
In Undeniable, an episode of CBC’s Love Me, audio producer and sound mixer Xander Adams takes us inside her experience of facial feminization surgery. We’re there before and after the operation, and through the complicated aftermath. Intimate, funny, and often uncomfortable, it’s not a neat before-and-after reveal story.
On this episode, host Cory Choy, Festival Director of the New York City Podcast Awards, sits down with Xander, whose Undeniable won Trans Excellence in Audio Storytelling at the 2026 New York City Podcast Awards. They talk about:
- How Xander found her way back to making personal documentaries after a difficult period in her career
- How 45 hours of tape became a story through intense collaboration
- How the team got to a conversational voice-over
- How sound design and mixing helped shape the story
- How the team found the balance between discomfort, humor, intimacy, and carefully crafted sound
- How Xander knows when a personal experience is a story she wants to tell
- Where Xander is now after a second surgery
Listen to Undendiable from CBC’s Love me
Submissions for the 2027 New York City Podcast Awards are open until Nov 15. Find out more at podcastawards.nyc.
Additional links and resources from the conversation:
- Xander’s personal doc ”My Whitney” for CBC’s Love me episode “Take me Home”
Craft, Content & Creators is a production of the New York City Podcast Awards. This episode was produced by Vivien Schütz and mixed by Christian Cucinello, with support from Ivan Bronson, Lauren Molina, and Zach Treanor. Our theme music is by Santiago Aramburu.
