Shawn Mendes gave a wide-ranging interview to Entertainment Weekly in which he talked about his producer Teddy Geiger and the influence she had on his album. Geiger came out as transgender the night they were in the studio together recording “Stitches”.

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Mendes told the magazine that they’ve had “a really special connection ever since then.”

He added that it felt really special for her to feel comfortable enough to come out with him:

“I can’t express how happy that made me. And it’s something I really love to say: it’s a very new thing, right? People transitioning, there are still a lot of people who don’t understand it, and to refer to somebody as a pronoun that you haven’t been referring to them as their entire life, your entire life, is very difficult. But the thing that’s amazing is that I remember the day I said ‘she,’ and it wasn’t because I said it consciously, it was because I said it without thinking, basically just in conversation. I didn’t realize I did it, but she looked at me and she had the most incredible look in her eyes. If every person in the world had one of their best friends look at them that way, and express that much joy in what it meant for her to be referred to as the pronoun she is, there would no longer be an argument [over trans rights]. People would just understand. It’s so powerful to have somebody you’re so close to go through something like that. It’s just f–g beautiful, man. I really wish you could have seen it.”

Mendes said that because of working with Geiger he doesn’t use pronouns in most of his new music.

Read the full interview with Mendes HERE.