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Laith Ashley, Peppermint & Skylar Kergil

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Here are 10 trans musicians that you need to know.
Transgender musicians are making their voices heard. From punk rock to hip-hop to folk, trans musicians are showcasing their talents across countless genres and making statements while doing so. In 2016, Against Me! singer Laura Jane Grace burned her birth certificate on stage to protest transgender discrimination in North Carolina. Others, such as Shea Diamond , declare their identities while seen proudly dancing around New York. Here are 10 trans musicians that you need to know.
For more stories about the LGBTQ community and our fiercest allies, follow Billboard Pride on Facebook .
Shea Diamond, both an activist and a singer-songwriter, belts out the bold anthem “I Am Her” with soul and strength. “There’s an outcast in everybody’s life / And I am her,” she sings. According to Diamond , the song began as a statement to a world which said she shouldn’t exist and now stands as an anthem “for all those that felt shunned for simply being who they were.”
Anohni is not afraid of tackling topics often considered controversial. In “Drone Bomb Me,” Anohni sings of a nine-year-old Afghan girl whose family has been killed by a drone bomb. Her latest album, Hopelessness , covers issues from climate change to Guantanamo Bay. “I wanted to do something that was gonna go down fighting,” Anohni told Pitchfork.
Skylar Kergil, an American activist, singer-songwriter and YouTube personality, has a folk sound that sends a statement. “ Strangers stare and they want to be the first to/ Ask for my life in one word/ But it’s not that simple,” Kergil sings in “Tell Me A Story.”
Star Amerasu, a self-professed “poptronic princess,” chronicles her complicated encounters with anti-anxiety medicines known as benzodiazepines (or benzos) in the song “Klonopin.” The light lullaby peeks into the taboo topic of prescription pill use and abuse. “I got problems, you got problems, they got problems, we all got problems / Why don’t we just run away, come again another day,” Amerasu sings.
When Laith Ashley made headlines as one of the first transgender male models to appear in a national campaign, it was only the start. His first single, “Can’t Wait,” has a catchy pop tune. “Come on over girl / Baby, let me love you,” Ashley croons in the chorus.
In “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! tells the tale of gender dysphoria. “You want them to see you / Like they see every other girl,” Grace sings. “They just see a faggot / They’ll hold their breath not to catch the sick.”
The punk rock track seeps the pain and frustration that many transgender people feel. Since coming out publicly in 2012, Grace has talked often and openly of her identity. Recently, Grace told SF Weekly that she feels free — a sensation she never had in the first part of the band’s life.
“Stay/And show them what you’re made of,” Shawnee sings in “Warrior Heart.” As a two-spirit person, the Canadian Mohawk songstress is a vocal advocate for indigenous youth. Shawnee is using purchase proceeds from “Warrior Heart” to support the We Matter Campaign in an effort to end aboriginal youth suicide and empower indigenous youth.
Ryan Cassata’s “We’re the Cool Kids” is the tune to listen to when all else feels hopeless. Cassata said that the song is about coming together, battling ignorance “and hopefully beating it.” In the song, Cassata sings, “We’re changing things and we’re leading this movement/ We’re gonna prove it/ That we’re the cool kids.”
The season 9 runner-up of RuPaul’s Drag Race tells her truth as a trans woman in “Civil War.” “I’m an army of one, marching alone/ Fighting for my life,” she sings, stirring up emotions.
Lucas Silveria, known as the front man of The Cliks , was one of the first transgender men to be signed to a major label recording contract. The Cliks released Snakehouse with Warner Music Canada in 2006. After transitioning, Silveria admitted that he needed to take on a new sound. The Motown swing of “Savanna” is something to be swayed by.
“When I was 17 or 18, I wanted to be the next Lil’ Kim , ” Chicago-based rapper KC Ortiz told Billboard in an conversation with LCD Soundsystem’s Gavin Rayna Russom about President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender military members. The former Air Force personnel released her second album Church Tapes this July.
For more stories about the LGBTQ community and our fiercest allies, follow Billboard Pride on Facebook .
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37 Alternative 'Trans Anthems' by Trans Musicians
Looking for a 'trans anthem' for your playlist? Listen to 37 sensational songs written and performed by some seriously talented trans and gender-variant musicians.
It should come as no suprise: There is a wealth of trans artists writing songs based on, and beyond, their experiences as trans people. Those tracks can be found in genres as diverse as blues, pop, punk, hip-hop, rock, indie, gospel, and folk.
So when cisgender (nontrans) musician and founding B52's member Kate Pierson released her debut single, "Mister Sister," a song she dubbed a "trans anthem," many trans listeners and musicians responded with skepticism and outrage .
"A trans anthem, right now, is for a trans person to create," trans writer Jamie Cooper Holland states in an open letter to Pierson. "[It] isn't some nebulous rule of political correctness. It's that you don't have the experience to do it in an accurate way that doesn't contribute to stereotypes and pain."
On the following pages, we've compiled 37 songs that fit that description, written by trans artists. But it's important to note: We wouldn't exactly call them "trans anthems." After all, there's not a universal "trans" experience shared by all trans folks, and there are so many identities across the gender galaxy. All of the trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, two-spirit, and gender-nonconforming musicians listed here write about so much more than gender and adversity within their bodies of work.
Below you can find many sweet and powerful explorations of daily experiences or emotions that trans folks simply share with the rest of humanity. Then again, you can find songs here definitely written to rouse a crowd against transphobia and homophobia.
You can also listen to songs written directly about an artist's gender transition, ones about living out gender complexities more broadly, ones that are more experimental, poetic, or abstract, and many others that use humor to talk about the pleasures and pressures of existing in resistance to the status quo.
There are far too many fantastic artists in the world for us to mention on this list — so take the songs below as a beginning of a conversation, rather than a "best of" or "final word." Happy listening!
Factoid: Rapper, singer, and cosmetologist Kandace Jones brings her signature sense of humor, relationship advice, and catchphrase "Grab your pearls!" to her YouTube channel, LilYakieTV .
Artist: JOE STEVENS ( with Coyote Grace )
Factoid: A prolific California-based singer-songwriter, 32-year-old Joe Stevens has written more tham 1,000 songs as the former front man for Americana trio Coyote Grace and as a solo artist. "Daughterson" and "Ghost Boy" are two of his other well-known songs that address trans themes.
Album: The Brighter Side of Me (2004)
Factoid: Folk-rock songwriter-performer Namoli Brennet has been featured on NPR and PBS, is a four-time OutMusic Award nominee, and was recently named to the Trans 100 . She tours the U.S. constantly and has always been outspoken about being trans in both her music and in interviews.
Album: All the Live Long Day EP (2011)
Factoid: A clasically trained singer-songwriter whose voice ranges three octaves, Eli Conley released an EP, All the Live Long Day, in 2011 with trio Eli Conley & the Hip Squares, and has since been able to fund his 2013 solo album, At the Seams, solely through fan support.
Artist: HEIDI BARTON STINK ( featured in Kaoz track )
Factoid: An artist in the HomoHop movement, Minneapolis-based Heidi Barton Stink says she "sh[ies] away from the sexualized lyrics and party songs" that have long dominated the genre, instead focusing on, among other topics, the lack of inclusion and visiblity of trans and gender-variant people in mainstream culture.
Factoid: Releasing videos regularly on Skylarkeleven , one of the most popular YouTube channels ever produced by a trans man, Skylar Kergil has also released a book from his ongoing photo project Re-humanizing the Transmasculine Community (2013).
Album: When Two Worlds Collide (2010)
Factoid: A multitalented musican, community advocate, photographer, and entrepreneur, Ross launched start-up TransTech in September 2014 to train trans applicants in Web development and graphic design and "set [them] on the path to independence."
Arist: LUCAS SILVEIRA ( w/ the Cliks )
Factoid: Founding popular Canadian alt-rock band the Cliks in 2004, Lucas Silveira is well-known for his fiery and sultry vocals, being the first out trans man voted "Sexiest Man in Canada" in a popular magazine, and his advocacy for LGBT people.
Factoid: Already a roots-rock veteran prior to publicly coming out as trans in 2014, Mya Byrne has since dedicated her music and life to advocacy. One of the few openly trans women in Americana and folk, she strives to speak honestly about her experiences. This song is about her transition, from her recently released solo debut album .
Full disclosure: Byrne coauthored this piece with The Advocate 's trans issues correspondent.
Factoid: Also known as She King, aboriginal artist Shawnee Talbot of the Mohawk First Nation is one of contemporary Canadian music's only out two-spirit performers. Two-spirit — an indigenous identity that is often equated with "gay" or "trans" in Western culture, but is not exactly reducible to either — is a sense of self that Talbot describes as "possess[ing] wisdom from the male and female sides of the gender spectrum."
Factoid: New to the pop and R&B scene, Amasha Greyson is already developing a following for her warm presence and catchy covers, including an impressive rendition of " For Good" from the musical Wicked.
Factoid: Jazz and pop musician Joshua Klipp 's track about domestic violence, " Little Girl ," was featured on both The Tyra Show and The L Word in 2010.
Artist: LAURA JANE GRACE ( with Against Me! )
Album : Transgender Dysphoria Blues (2013)
Factoid: Laura Jane Grace made a stir in the music world when she came out as a trans woman to Rolling Stone in 2012. Since then, she and Against Me! , the popular punk band she's fronted since age 17, have released Transgender Dysphoria Blues — an album The Advocate called "brutally honest ... in addressing trans themes" — and Grace has released a documentary series for AOL Originals titled True Trans With Laura Jane Grace.
Author's Note: The song below is full of images that many trans women will recognize. While some may criticize its presence here due to the themes of clothing and makeup, we feel that, coming from a trans artist, these images have a much different intent and power than when a nontrans artist appropriates them as media tropes about our lives.
Factoid: Often mistaken for a group act, Athens Boys Choir is the solo project of comedic musician Harvey Katz. "OK, so the name ... can be a bit misleading," he writes on his website , "but you can't blame a Jewish Transsexual, who came into manhood in the Deep South, for having a sense of humor about the whole ordeal."
Factoid: ICEISRain is the female spirit of aboriginal two-spirit businessman Massey Whiteknife of the Mikisew Cree First Nation. A female- and male-identified artist, Rain/Whiteknife gained notoriety as both a featured performer in the documentary Oil Sands Karaoke and for building up several oil sands-based businesses very quickly into a multimillion-dollar operation.
Factoid: Ellison Renee Glenn, better known as underground rapper Black Cracker , is a producer, emcee, and poet who has been widely featured in media including CNN, Vice, Original Plumbing, and The New York Times.
Factoid: Boston-based Evan Greer describes herself as a "radical genderqueer folk-punk-mama kicking catchy singsongs for liberation." A pioneer of the riot-folk movement, she dedicates her life to bettering humanity through song and direct action. Greer's music was compared to that of Phil Ochs by the late Howard Zinn, and she recently helped organize the "Internet Slowdown" to support net neutrality.
Album: The Whale That Ate Jonah (2013)
Factoid: Though now disbanded, in its early 2010s heyday Schmekel was the only out all-trans Jewish folk punk-queercore band. The group had a cameo in a scene of the final book in celebrated out author Armistead Maupin 's Tales of the City series, The Days of Anna Madrigal.
Factoid: Antony Hegarty was born in the U.K. but spent most of her adult life in the U.S. She has talked extensively about her transgender identity and named her band for Stonewall veteran Marsha P. Johnson . Hegarty's breakthrough album, I Am a Bird Now, was awarded the Mercury Prize. This beautifully meditative track was featured on the soundtrack of V for Vendetta.
Factoid: Nonbinary Canadian artists Elisha Lim and Rae Spoon penned "Stand by Your Trans" in response to a 2011 firestorm in Canadian LGBT media over the use of gender-neutral pronouns (including "they," "ze," and "hir"). Both have also published books, including Lim's 100 Crushe
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