Gender Heroes: Justin Bond
Hey Everyone! I’m excited to present you with Gender Heroes — a new series produced by our fabulous volunteer, Erica, whom you know from her compelling photo curation work. She’ll be sharing photos and brief overviews of her heroes in the gender variance spotlight, kicking it off with the inimitable Justin Bond. Enjoy! ~Sarah Dopp, founder of Genderfork
IMG_7845, originally uploaded by russturk2002.
Radical Faerie in Suits and High Heels
by Erica Stratton
Queer performer Justin Bond was born in Hagerstown, MD — proof that not all gender heroes start off in the big city. In the 1990s, he teamed up with piano player Kenny Mellman to create the duo Kiki & Herb, where Bond played a has-been chanteuse who always had faux diamond tears in her eyes. Kiki’s vocal prowess allowed her to sing both extremely well and extremely badly, sometimes during the course of the same song.
Justin Bond uses male pronouns, but he’s been photographed as a man, a woman, an androgyne, a forest nymph, and jamming with Rufus Wainwright and Yoko Ono. He and Tilda Swinton are BFFs.
In 2008, Bond killed off Kiki. But even when you’ve taken the alcoholic chanteuse out of the performer, you can’t take the queer activism out of his performance. Bond has written a scathing reaction to legislation banning gay marriage, played the Mistress of the Sex Not Bombs Room in the movie Shortbus, and a letter to his 16-year-old queer self.
Bond blogs at Justin Bond Is Living and tweets at mxjustinVbond.
Edit: At the time this bio was written, Bond was using male pronouns, but is now using the pronoun ‘v’.
Category: Gender Heroes 7 comments »
May 8th, 2010 at 6:55 am |
What a fantastic idea, I love this. Can’t wait to see more heroes!
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May 8th, 2010 at 7:00 am |
YAY! I ddouble hheart Justin Bond and am thrilled that he was the first Gender Hero for Genderfork! :D
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May 8th, 2010 at 9:30 am |
Great idea! Loved hearing (reading? urg…) about Justin Bond.
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May 8th, 2010 at 10:53 am |
I am looking forward to the “Gender Heroes” series. I think it is a wonderful idea.
And Justin Bond is lovely.
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May 9th, 2010 at 6:19 am |
I recognized him as soon as i saw the picture (and found the name vaguely familiar) – i love the movie Shortbus!
Glad to see what else he’s done, and I, too, really enjoy this series :]
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May 9th, 2010 at 7:49 pm |
SHORTBUS!
It is amazing. And I love Justin Bond/ Kiki & Herb!
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May 24th, 2010 at 9:34 pm |
I’ve fallen so in love with Justin!
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