By Craig Phillips and Independent Lens Staff
Real Boy is the portrait of Bennett, who is undergoing gender reassignment surgery, and his mom’s struggle to process the change. But it’s also the portrait of Bennett as a young musician mentored by the more experienced folk singer Joe Stevens, who is also trans and has been through a lot of ups and downs himself. In other words, it’s a coming-of-age film, and a coming out film, but also a story of music. Bennett and Joe are complex people who find common ground, not just in being trans but in their love of songs and performing.
It’s no surprise, then, to find trans artists making a fascinating, diverse variety of music across a wide cross-section of genres and styles. Here is just a sampling of some of our favorite such musicians, from fresh new voices to critically acclaimed virtuosos.
Note (June 2022): We’ve added an update below for a bunch more great musicians, all crowd-sourced recommendations from the LGBTQ+ community and musicophile allies. Scroll down for more great music.
Artist: Anohni (F.K.A. Antony, and J. Ralph)
Song: “Manta Ray”
Born in England as Antony Hegarty, and once the lead singer of Antony and the Johnsons, Anohni has a remarkably unique and transplendent voice. Her song with J. Ralph, “Manta Ray,” for the documentary film Racing Extinction, was nominated for an Oscar. She considered herself the first transgender performer ever to have been nominated for an Academy Award. But she decided not to attend the ceremony after discovering the show’s producers (for various reasons) had no intention of letting her perform it on stage.
But the story of Anohni’s amazing voice rises above all else.
Artist: She King
She King is the stage name of Shawnee Talbot, an aboriginal “Two Spirit” Canadian (Mohawk First Nation) pop singer and songwriter.
Song: “Mirror Me”
She “writes stellar pop songs with big hooks, polished production and plenty of vocal power. It came as no surprise to learn that She King’s recent accomplishments include being invited to tour with Roxette and Glass Tiger and asked to record a song for a show that’ll soon air on The Disney Channel,” says AutoStraddle, a GLAAD Award-winning Canadian site.
Artist: Ezra Furman
Song: “Restless Year”
Singer-songwriter Ezra Furman, whose work has elements of Jonathan Richman and Weezer, considers himself gender-fluid, not transgender, and, after his Catholic-raised mother converted to Judaism and he followed suit, “an observant Jew.” In this first-person piece for the Guardian, Furman writes about a seminal influence on his work, and on coming to terms with who he is.
“Looking back, I realise how primed I was to fall in love with Lou Reed and the Velvets. I was a suburban kid who fancied myself somehow intellectual. I was into punk rock but I couldn’t get into the subcultural signifiers of dyed hair, safety pins and torn denim. Being a punk seemed like a new set of rules that I wasn’t interested in having to follow.”
Read more:
“Talking with Ezra Furman: Champion of Sincere Body Positive Dance Jams“
Artist: Audrey Zee Whitesides/Little Waist
Song: “(I Wanna Be A) Dyke Wife”
Whitesides fronts emotional punk/singer-songwriter trio Little Waist and folk solo project Audrey Otherway, and has been or currently is in several other queer bands, including Mal Blum, April Mei, and Worriers. “She’s a poet, a big nerd, and a fan of crying.”
“Fronted by Audrey Zee Whitesides, Brooklyn-based queercore-transcore trio Little Waist strikes a revolutionary chord with this raw, blistering track about queer domestic bliss.” —The Advocate
Artist: Laura Jane Grace and Against Me!
Song: “Black Me Out”
Leader of the Florida punk rock group Against Me!, Grace publicly came out as transgender in 2012. “Her deeply personal songs about gender identity on 2014’s Transgender Dysphoria Blues provided for the band’s most impassioned effort to date. And this perceptiveness stretches through the band’s entire discography. Against Me! is one of the premier punk groups of the past ten years and only shows signs of improving.” —What Culture
Artist: Shea Diamond
Song: “I’d Love to Change the World”
New to the music world, Shea Diamond‘s story is a powerful one reflected in the strength and urgent inspiration in her soulful single “I Am Her” and in her gorgeously evocative cover of the song “I’d Love to Change the World,” which was used for ABC’s LGBTQ rights miniseries When I Rise:
“A New Yorker via Flint, MI, the new musician says she was born into a gender role that she did not accept, so Diamond ran away from home as a teen, ultimately ending up incarcerated for ten years—where she discovered others of trans experience who helped her find her voice.” —Time magazine
Artist: Mina Caputo (band: Life of Agony)
Song: “Got Monsters”
“Becoming one of the first openly trans women in heavy metal when she came out in 2011, Mina Caputo is the founder and lead singer of legendary band Life of Agony. Despite some initial backlash from some in the metal community, she has since been widely embraced, with Life of Agony reuniting in 2014 to sold-out shows, and Caputo joining Laura Jane Grace on an acoustic tour.” —Advocate
Here’s her solo song, the powerful “Got Monsters (I No Longer Exist),” in which she sings “Was born a monster/Do you hide your monsters, too?”
Read more:
The Advocate: “Agony and Ecstasy” (Heavy Metal Rocker Comes Out as Transgender)
Artist: Black Cracker
Song: “The Sun Is in My Face”
Black Cracker is an influential American MC, producer, and a poet now living in Berlin, who describes himself as: “Not one to stay put or be pigeon-holed in a time which revels in classifying artists, Black Cracker’s work has resisted and presented a problem to those who insist on stretching the chaotic web of creation into a straight evolutionary line.”
Hear more:
Radio New Zealand feature on Black Cracker
Artist: The Native Cats
Songs: “Cavalier” and “Soft Chambers”
The duo of Chloe Alison Escott and Julian Teakle form the noise-pop band from Tasmania, Australia, The Native Cats. One of their songs, “Soft Chambers,” was released as a pay-what-you-want download on their Bandcamp page, with all money going to support the San Francisco-based Trans Lifeline.
“Soft Chambers” was written in early 2015 before Chloe started transitioning and she says it’s the most complex song the band has tackled: “We wrote the bare bones (Julian’s bass, my lyrics) in my last months of denial before I came out and started transitioning. This year I came back to it with my new lease on life and made it what it is now. Appropriately it’s a song about healing from trauma and physically revisiting moments from your past.” —Vice
Artist: Cash Askew and Them Are Us Too
Song: “Eudaemonia”
Bay Area transgender artist Cash Askew of the gothic dream-pop band Them Are Us Too, was a rare talent. Only 22, she tragically lost her life in the Oakland “Ghost Ship” warehouse fire in 2016.
Askew’s stepfather Sunny Haire and mother Leisa Baird Askew said: “She was very special, an enigma, and I can say without hesitation she truly affected and made an impression upon everyone she met…”
“With her passing, the world lost a tender, luminous spirit who was just beginning to imprint an indelible mark on the world through her art and through her humanity.” —Remembrance on KQED
In an interview published posthumously on Medium, Cash talked with Beth Winegarner about influences:
“As a young teenager, I was definitely attracted to goth and new wave in part because of the androgyny, and that aesthetic gave me a way to explore my gender expression before I could even come to terms with being transgender. But that was just a personal relationship with images in my head, ‘cause I wasn’t a part of any scene, I was just walking around on my own looking like a freak.”
Artist: Angel Haze
Song: “Planes Fly”
The MTV, BBC, BET, and GLAAD Award-nominated hip-hop artist broke through in a big way and has performed with Sia and covered Macklemore in her diverse arsenal of deft, dynamic rap tracks.
After the braggadocious calling card that was New York, Haze released an EP online: the acclaimed Reservation is titled with her Native American heritage in mind, but also serves as a statement of arrival: “That was my way of introducing myself—I’ve made a reservation here already.” —The Guardian
UPDATE! (June 2022)
We crowdsourced from a wide swath of music fans to add an update to the original article, with more recommendations for other great trans musicians you should hear. See below for some of our favorite submissions from those in the know:
Artist: Cavetown
Song: “Home”
“In 2015, Robin Skinner of Cavetown released ‘This is Home’ prior to starting testosterone treatment. His 2019 release of ‘Home’ is a reworking of the original song, performed in a beautifully changed voice that sounds full of confidence and inspires their primarily queer teen audience.” —Jenni and Alli Frank
Artist: Breanna Sinclairé
Song: “Somewhere”
The enormously talented opera singer was recommended by writer/journalist Brooke Shelby Biggs.
Artist: Dua Saleh (they/ze)
Song: “fitt”
“Dua Saleh’s music is out-of-this-world; everything about them transcends categorization. You can also catch them on the Netflix’s Sex Education where they play the show’s first non-binary character.” —Claralyse Palmer
Artist: adult mom (they/them)
Song: “Sober”
“adult mom started as Stevie Knipe’s soft queer indie rock solo project in 2012 and has since expanded to a full rock outfit. The journey takes time and no one said it better than Stevie themself for National Coming Out Day 2019.” —Claralyse Palmer
Artist: Lipstick Conspiracy
Song: “Wishing Well”
“My first week in San Francisco, a friend took me to see Lipstick Conspiracy and they were awesome! One of the members was [my friend’s] professor at SF State University. A few years later the lead singer and I rode the same bus to work every day and I tried not to ask them about the band every time I saw them.” —Jannette Napoli
Artist: Gavilán Rayna Russom (she/her)
Song: “Night Sky”
“DJ, producer, musician, and former sound-wizard for LCD Soundsystem, Russom now owns and runs her own label, Voluminous Arts while continuing to play live shows.” —Claralyse Palmer
Artist: claud (they/them)
Song: “Soft Spot”
“Like so many gen-z queer musicians have and will continue to do, claud got started in their bedroom producing indie bedroom pop music. They’re now the first musician to have officially signed to Saddest Factory Records, Phoebe Bridgers’ label. They’ve opened for Bleachers and played Outside Lands.” —Claralyse Palmer
Artist: Kim Petras (she/her)
Song: “The Future Starts Now”
“Eat, sleep, breathe, dance, dance, dance, and repeat to Kim Petras. This German singer-songwriter continues to release bop after bop, the perfect soundtrack for Pride Month celebrations. At 16, Petras became labeled the ‘world’s youngest transgender person’ when she underwent gender-affirming surgery. Thirteen years later, she is a pop star and a true ‘It Girl.'” —Claralyse Palmer
Artist: SOPOR AETERNUS and the Ensemble of Shadows
Song: “The Goat”
“One of the few trans artists in the darkwave/neoclassical genre. She met the Ensemble of Shadows (spirits with whom she works) while at a Frankfurt Goth club. They help co-write her music.” —Michael Bare
Artist: Mykki Blanco
Song: “I’m in a Mood”
Mykki Blanco is an American rapper, performance artist, poet, and activist. She has collaborated musically with artists including Kanye West, Teyana Taylor, and Blood Orange. [contributor: Michael Bare]
Historical Flashback
Artist: Billy Tipton
Billy Tipton, a jazz pianist who began his career during the Great Depression, had a remarkable life story.
“He toured around the country with other jazzmen—and they almost invariably were men—playing swing music. In the ’50s he formed his own small group, the Billy Tipton Trio, and recorded two albums of standards. Then moved to Spokane, where he spent the next decades running a booking agency for musicians, while still performing weekly until arthritis made it too difficult. Tipton was married five times, or at least there were five women who at times called themselves Mrs. Tipton without the benefit of a legal wedding. With the last of his wives, he adopted three children and became involved in the PTA and camping trips with the Boy Scouts. One of Tipton’s sons was with him at home in 1989 when he fell seriously ill. Paramedics arrived and, attempting to revive Tipton, removed some of his clothing. The question they then asked took his son by surprise: ‘Did your father ever have a sex change?'”
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