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tigr recommends…
CN Lester is an amazing alternative singer-songwriter, classical mezzo-soprano, AND an out trans artist/activist/blogger, and their very first album comes out on February 9th. Wonderful music. Great person. Check ‘em out. :)
Re recommends…
Montefusco said she’d faced opposition from the moment she graduated the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Arizona, where she was laughed at for applying for a job at Harley-Davidson because she was a female. Even when she landed a job the company, Montefusco said she didn’t get a workbench to use.
“I worked on the floor, on my hands and knees, for the first four months,” Montefusco, 30, said. “A lot of the guys didn’t even talk to me.” She left the company after she was told she’d never make it as a mechanic, and started her own business, Black Widow Bike Works, in Toms River. After three years of working long days in a rickety building trying to convince people that she could do top-notch work, Montefusco decided to give up her dream and pack it north. But then her girlfriend pushed her to give it one more shot.”
Check out more of this story here.
Alison recommends…
I was hesitant at first, when starting to learn about it, but the more I read the more I became convinced: this is an Awesome Idea.
Apply for the program, and they’ll match you up with a queer, transvariant, bifluid, anything-out-of-the-GBLTQRSTX-hypercube-spectrum PERSON, from a prison from across Canada and the US. It’s your choice how often to write and your chance to make a difference and give some connections in a person’s life that is hell enough in prison without being ‘different.’
Nate Wilde recommends…
Ney Matogrosso is a gay Brazilian singer who first became popular in the ’70s. At the time, being gay was considered taboo in Brazil, so he never officially came out. Nevertheless, he didn’t let the conservative values of the country hold him back. He had a stage personality more flamboyant than Elton John and Liberace combined, and it came complete with outlandish costumes and hip shaking only a Brazilian can pull off.
Most impressive of all is that at 79, he is still just as fabulous today as he was all those years ago. As a Brazilian, I could not be prouder to have a musician such as him representing my country.
Dazza recommends…
Hmm, how to describe Ed…
I guess I could start with: “she is a comically eccentric teenage girl around 13 years in age” who refers to herself in third person, dresses androgynously, and chose the name Edward because she thought it was fun. How cool is that?
** Edward is a character on the fabulous anime Cowboy Bebop, where she works as a hacker, fools around, and plays with her dog. When I first started the show I thought Ed was a boy, and when I found out she wasn’t- I loved the character even more.
A reader recommends…
Nicole Reynolds is a folk singer/songwriter from Pennsylvania. A poet, singer, and farmer, she’s released a handful of albums and tours frequently on the East Coast of the US, performing particularly at queer venues and events.
I love her unique brand of androgyny; she looks and sounds quite a bit like a twelve-year-old boy, but she plays guitar like a young Bob Dylan (check out live performances of her antiwar song ‘June’ on YouTube) and takes great pride in her own femininity. Her music’s clever, funny, and has a timeless quality to it that’s definitely worth a listen. Take a look!
Adelai recommends…
Already well known in GLBTQ circles for writing The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Richard O’Brien has admitted to feeling like he’s trans or third-gendered. “There is a continuum between male and female. Some are hard-wired one way or another, I’m in between. Or a third sex, I could see myself as quite easily.”
A reader recommends…
Antony Hegarty is the transgendered singer and musician in band Antony and the Johnsons. They’ve made a few marvelous albums. He has a divinely mournful voice. And i simply love the way this article describes him… “voluptuous not tough” … “Today i am a boy” … “I am a bird now” … there’s this very refreshingly gentle, poetic, unassuming way of talking about gender/and or/identity.
To quote said article:
“Antony Hegarty is an embodied paradox. Imagine a looming rugger thug who defines his physique as voluptuous, not tough, and behaves like a shy adolescent of indeterminate sex. Is he a futuristic being whose home is not on this earth or a throwback from some other time? Lou Reed, one of his earliest supporters, said: “When I heard him, I knew that I was in the presence of an angel…” And how, if we respect the binary logic of human biology, do we classify the idiosyncratic Antony? Even his own designation, transgender, hardly does justice to his mutability.”
GO ANTONY!
A reader recommends…
Lashings of Ginger Beer Time describe themselves as a Radical Queer Feminist Collective, who present songs, comedy, sketches and satire in the form of a classic Burlesque act. They’ve recently performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with a 4 star review from the Scotsman calling them the best Burlesque act there, and another 4 star from Scotsgay.
If you’re looking for a group that will mercilessly deconstruct the gender binary, discuss feminism’s modern role in gender equality, have a comedy act dedicated to discussing being trans, love a bit of kink, and accept everyone from straight, kinky, vanilla, asexual, queer, poly, or well…everyone, then these are the group for you!
Alissia Rose-Pait recommends…
Lifeworks is a mentoring program for LGBTIQ youth, 12 – 24 in the Los Angeles area. Applicant youth are matched with trained (by the program) mentors.
They are in DESPERATE NEED for transgendered and transsexual mentors. While a trained male gay may get a mentee, or be on a waiting list for a long time, and lesbians are placed fairly quickly, transgendered mentors are so lacking that they have multiple kids waiting for each mentor. This is a minimum one year commitment.
Please help out our transgendered children and show them that they can succeed, that there is hope, and that there are people who understand and have or are walking the same path as them.
A reader recommends…
I’m surprised to have waited this long to mention the luminous Prince Poppycock. I’ve been amused, enamored and confused by this marvelous creature long before I ever started to have an interest in genderfuck beauty.
Part randy dandy, part rock star, part drunken courtesan, Poppycock instantly owns the audience with but a glance and a wiggle of bedazzled pantaloons, and that’s just the beginning. His operatic prowess, glamorous costumes and ostentatious prose leave not a heart unstirred. A masterpiece of self-transformation, the Prince is also recording artist John Quale, but I’m secretly hoping Poppycock will take over completely one day, to reign supreme in a glittery victory of feathers and gold spandex.
A reader recommends…
The Rice Rockettes are an all-Asian drag troupe that I think is super awesome, since we often associate gender play with whiteness. This boing boing article has some thoughtful coverage of one of the members: The Birthing of Estee Longah
Kitsune recommends…
Genesis P-Orrridge talks about their transformation into a pandrogyne, and the death of their “other half” — lady jay.
Genesis and Lady Jay had many surgeries done to make themselves look like each other; in this way they (together) created a third being.
A reader recommends…
In 2003 he won the Turner prize. He collected said prize decked out in a silky lilac babydoll dress, and has been dressing in women’s clothes from his early teens. Now age 50, he lives and works in London with his wife and daughter.
He has described his transvestite style, manifested in “Claire,” as being like “the crack cocaine of femininity,” all ribbons and frills and bows.
I found this video of him talking about the importance of being different and stuff… it’s really sweet. and funny. moving, even. Very quotable.
kypri recommends…
This is a stop-motion video of Edward Vigiletti, a beautiful young man, putting on his makeup and transforming into a beautiful young woman. He has been referred to as the male Lady Gaga, and I can see why. He’s beautiful and androgynous without the makeup, too.
Sx recommends…
This artist is confronting identity in a really interesting way. Meeting somewhere between male and female, between beauty and ugliness, and at once dangerous and vulnerable, the character created embraces both the inner goddess and the outer chaos of the universe. Through use of elaborate embellishment and decoration, what is arrived at is somehow a place of stripped-down need; a place of attraction and repulsion within all of us, the place that we need to hide most from others and also that we need most to be embraced.
A reader recommends…
Red is one of the few people I follow on youtube, mostly because she is hilarious and keeps it real. Recently she went on tour with the Tranny Roadshow, and some kind person put this up on youtube. Red talks about life as a transwoman, offers the audience a metaphor they might want to use in their lives (but only if they find it useful!), and is just generally all kinds of awesome.
giulia recommends…
The CocoRosie sisters are not only talented avant-garde musicians, they are also inspiring genderbenders, who mix male and female in an unique way. Click to see a video made to promote their new album, Grey Oceans. Dressed as men, the sisters dance and pose. They never looked so hot.
A reader recommends…
Liu Zhu is a contestant in China’s ‘Super Boy’ singing contest who caused some controversy by entering a male-only talent show while dressing as a woman. From interviews it seems that he is happy calling himself a boy and presenting as a beautiful woman, and while he’s been strongly criticized (and harshly questioned by a guest judge on the show) there are plenty of supportive voices out there too. Best of luck to him in the contest, I say!
Momo recommends…
I’ve simply fallen in love with Bill Kaulitz – not necessarily because of his music, but because of his utter disregard for gender norms and for his androgyny. He’s a beautiful boy who simply enjoys expressing himself, regardless of the tabloids questioning his sexuality over his eyeliner, long hair, and tight pants.
To see a celebrity—a well-known celebrity—pushing the envelope on gender is refreshing and exciting, especially when he’s doing it on MTV or strutting the runway during Milan fashion week in heels and studded leather.
