Transgender musicians have popularized songs that more specifically address their community's concerns as well as their own personal, political, social, and religious interests.
According to an Internet article concerning these performers, their music bears a message, and they want to "entertain but also inform": "transgenders have their own culture and voice, and this is what many trans artists aim to share".[1]
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Minnesota's All the Pretty Horses is one of the few rock bands in the upper midwest that includes transgender members.[2] Founded by in the mid 1990s by transgender vocalist and lead guitarist Venus DeMars, who was the subject of Venus of Mars, a 2002 documentary by director Emily Goldberg,[3] the band's punk-glam flavor is more influenced by Bowie and T. Rex than Metal glam.[4] Venus was inspired to become a musician after seeing David Bowie on The Midnight Special.
Michaele Alyras de Cygne, commonly known as Alyras,[5] (pronounced "ah-LEE-rah"), is one of only an handful of openly transgender, Black entertainers and regarded by many as San Francisco's most dynamic, transsexual singer/songwriter. A musician since age 2, Alyras is a consummate solo artist, writing, composing, arranging, performing, engineering and producing all of her music. Creating works in multiple genres, including Pop, Ethnic Electronica, Jazz and Chant, she operates as both an artist and an independent label; an Artist/Label, known as Art of Pop. Art of Pop distributes her music and other creative works under different names, or profiles for each genre in which she creates, i.e. Alyras (Pop), Iluvamil (Ethnic Electronica, sung entirely in Quenya, High Language of Elves), de Cygne (Jazz) and DarkMother.com (Chant). Alyras is also well known for having translated the Mayan Sacred Calendar, the Tzolkin, into sound and light, presenting Tzolkin-based cognitive and consciousness enhancement software through Elvea Systems, a division of DarkMother.com.
A gifted vocalist, with a 4.5 octave range, (and an ordained minister), Alyras served as both Soprano Section Leader and Assistant Conductor for the Transcendence Gospel Choir (TGC),[6] performing on the Choir's award winning album, "Whosoever Believes" and featured in "The Believers",[7] a documentary about the Choir (which also includes music from Dana Baitz, below). Alyras was also featured in the film "Why We Sing",[8] which documented the GALA Choruses' (Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses) seventh International Choral Festival in Montreal during 2004; the first LGBT event ever presented in Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica. During that Festival, she led GALA's first all transgender chorus, consisting of TGC along with many other transgender members from other GALA choruses in a high point of the event, singing Donald Lawrence's "Bless Me (Prayer of Jabez)", bringing many in the audience to tears. During the same year, supported by Bishop Yvette Flunder, Alyras joined several other members of TGC to address the General Synod of the United Church of Christ (UCC) in Minneapolis, MN, presenting their arguments for UCC's formal recognition of its transgender members. Consequently, UCC not only elected to formally recognize its transgender members, it also elected to directly fund and assist in the development, establishment and progression of transgender ministries. Later that year, Alyras performed as bassist for the live recording of "Oh, Happy Day!", a concert of sacred music pairing TGC and the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.
During 2008-2010, as Alyras was establishing Art of Pop, she was producing 4 albums, one for each of her primary profiles. In October 2010, she lost the production data from all of the albums, but rebounded in 2011 with "The Unfinished Album"; an eclectic set of Pop songs compiled from mixes she'd completed prior to the data loss. Currently, Alyras is exclusively focused on producing and performing sacred music relative to all of Art of Pop's profiles.
[Alyras has also enlisted other Bay Area transgender artists to collaborate on some of her music, including Katastrophe, Scarletto (Jaycub Perez) and Ashley Moore.]
Angela Morley was a composer and conductor, known mainly for her work on The Goon Show and the early albums of Scott Walker.
The musical drag duo, Buck Shot (trans man Anderson Toone) and partner Bebe Gunn (Shana Scudder), are considered the Sonny and Cher of Americana country music.[9] Their music is inspired and influenced by Gospel as well as rockabilly, punk and country music.[9]
Engaging and humorous, these performers deliberately play up the campy aspects of transsexual and transgender life. They were called the best of transgender performers in the East Bay Express: "...best of all, the honky-tonk husband-and-wife drag duo Buck Shot and Bebe Gunn, who play most of their songs in only one chord and deal with one theme exclusively – they even cover Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man", changing the hook to "Stand by your trans/Give him all the T [testosterone] you can." While singing the line, Bebe mimes poking a gigantic needle into Bucky's ass.[9]
Anderson Toone was known pre-transition as Annie Toone actor, singer, musician and drag king pioneer. As well as being a founding member of New York no-wave cult band The Bloods in the 80s, he penned the songs and co-starred in the first original drag king rock musical Hillbillies On the Moon with Elvis Herselvis in the 90s, was featured in the drag king book and is considered the grand daddy of drag kings. Before creating Bucky & Bebe he fronted the all drag king band Frankie Tenderloin & the Rent Boy$ in San Francisco.
Dana International is an Israeli transsexual pop singer of Yemenite origin who won the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest for her song "Diva." She was the first Israeli artist to be interviewed on MTV. To date, she has released eight albums and three compilation albums.
Harisu is the stage name of Lee Kyung-eun, born on February 17, 1975. A singer, actress and model from South Korea, she has become particularly well known in some Asian countries after being the first Korean entertainer to come out as being transsexual.
Jayne County was born Vernoy Wayne Rogers on July 13, 1946 and adopted the name "Jayne County" as her stage name when she played in Femme Fatale. County names Jackie Curtis as her biggest influence. She first performed at Atlanta, Georgia's Looking Glass Club. The first band in which she played was Queen Elizabeth, which debuted in 1972 at New York University. County has released the following albums: The Electric Chairs, Blatantly Offensive, Storm the Gates of Heaven, Man Enough To Be a Woman, Things Your Mother Never Told You, Rock 'n Roll Resurrection, The Best of Jayne and the Electric Chairs, Amerikan Cleopatra, Betty Grable's Legs, Goodness of Wet Dreams, Rock 'n Roll Cleopatra, Deviation, Let Your Backbone Slip, So New York, and numerous compilations.
Trans woman Jessica Xavier is an activist for transsexual causes. As such, she is dedicated to organizing and politicizing transsexuals on a nationwide basis. She is also active in monitoring the media to expose transphobia.[10] She is also interested in improving transgender people's self-esteem, seeing their "shame and fear issues" as being "of paramount and continuing concern" [3]. These feelings, she says, explain, in part, why the transgender community lacks an interest in social issues and has little political power.
However, she also blames the lack of the transsexual community's politicization on the nature of transgender people themselves: "Transgendered people are inwardly focused on our self-identities, producing a different group dynamic, one which has not helped to build a sense of cohesiveness within our new community. We transgendered are indeed very individualistic persons, with strong opinions and an inherent distrust of any authority and all rules, two key components of politics".[11]
Finally, she suggests that transgender people "shy away" from political issues because they fear that the demonstration of an interest in such concerns may imply that an individual has "too much male energy” and “smacks of patriarchal mindsets and male egos that are anathema to feminism".[11]
Her solution to these problems is to have transgender organizations "loosen up" and "unlearn male behaviors by teaching a new way of relating to one another in our groups." She argues that transgender people need to "drop. . . titles", and she urges them to "ditch the hierarchal thinking, lose the Robert's Rulebook, loosen up that iron fist of control, stop obsessing about credentials, and start thinking about the future. Our future."
Jessica is also a transgender musician who, with her band, Femme Messiah, released her first CD, Changeling, in 1999. In 2005, the band released Orchids in the Arctic.[12]
She is the winner of a Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA) Distinguished Achievement Award.[10]
Trans man Katastrophe (Rocco Kayiatos), who was a featured youth slam performer in the documentary Poetic License), was named "producer of the year" by Out Music Awards.
His struggle as a trans man provides the basis for his music's presentations of the "larger issues of community, space, privilege, sex and self-worth", he says.[13]
His 2005 CD, fault, lies, and faultlines, "features collaborations with. . . queer-positive lyricists, including spots by quaketrap's shaggy manatee, scream club, juba kalamka and jb raps of deep dickollective, aggrycyst, and romanteek's ruby valentine."
Katastrophe is featured in the feature-length documentary Pick Up the Mic: The (R)evolution of Queer Hip Hop, which premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.
Schmekel is an all-transgender, all-Jewish punk comedy band from Brooklyn, influenced by queercore and klezmer.[14] Their most popular songs include "The Mohel Song," "Tranny Chaser," and "Surgical Drains." They consist of guitarist/singer Lucian Kahn, keyboardist Ricky Riot, bassist Nogga Schwartz, and genderqueer drummer Simcha Halpert-Hanson. According to Jewcy, “The originality…drips from this band. [Schmekel's] Polka Punk sound in and of itself is incomparable, but coupled with their trans-aesthetic and queer-themed, humorous lyrics, they’re like a cross between Weird Al, Pansy Division and The World Inferno…Schmekel lays the humor on thick, while at the same time visiting some rarely touched upon issues, particularly in the Jewish community.”[15]
According to Brett Milano, author of "The Peecocks and Space Pussy lead the local gay-band scene", Space Pussy hails "from a rock tradition that would include Little Richard, the New York Dolls, and the Cramps in their glitter phase."[16]
Space Pussy consists of "front man" Ryan Landry, Goldberg, and Rikki Bates (drummer), "whose impending sex-change operation really freaked out his last band, the Incredible Casuals." Their songs include "Cherry Bomb" and "The Whole World's Turning Dyke, Thank God."
Tucson's classic rock and blues band Too Much Information was founded in 2004 by transgender musicians C. Michael Woodward (lead vocals), Jennifer R. Lopez (rhythm guitar and vocals), and Sandra Starling (bass). The band has included other members from the LGBT and allied community over the years and, while they strive to reach a more mainstream audience, the band remains true to its roots by continuing to perform at community events such as Pride and AIDSWALK. TMI has traveled as far as Atlanta and Los Angeles, and was twice finalist for Tucson's "Best Cover Band" award. Their focus lies in covering 70s and 80s classic rock from Atlanta Rhythm Section to ZZ Top, and they also have a few originals, including the transition-inspired "Full Disclosure" (by Jennifer R. Lopez) and "The Heart of You" (by Jennifer R. Lopez; additional lyrics by Jerry Diaz), which they plan to release as a single in 2012. The band's current line-up as of December 2011 includes Woodward, Lopez, and Starling, along with the astonishingly talented David Perez on lead guitar, keyboard, and vocals; Bill Piacenza on percussion; and back-up vocals by Traci Payer.
Wendy Carlos is the famed composer of many motion picture soundtracks, including A Clockwork Orange (as Walter Carlos), The Shining and Tron.
Two internet stations regularly feature transgender musicians: Q1.FM [17] and TransFM.[18] Additionally, the Rebecca Juro Show, heard Thursday nights 7PM - 9PM ET on http://www.q1.fm and by podcast at http://beckyjuro.podomatic.com/ is an LGBT talk show featuring transgender topics and a special interest in music made by the community.
Marlene Bomer hosts TransTalk, a weekly show on WFAL,[19] moving from Thursdays to Mondays from 4-5pm ET. The show has the features TransHistory, TransTunes, TransNews, and TransCommentary.
Although TransOwl Radio [20] and Outlet Radio [21] do not play transgender music exclusively, both regularly feature transgender news, commentaries, interviews, and guests and occasionally play music by transgender bands.