Punk Rock, Jayne County, and Transgender Political Expression in 1970s New York

• In Event: Drag Infrastructures: Networks of Gender Expansive Resistance

Abstract

Before becoming key players in New York’s proto-punk scene, artists including Patti Smith, David Johansen, and Jayne County were integral personas in Ridiculous Theater productions. The ethics of this earlier mode resonated within the proto-punk scene they constructed, then not yet identified as “punk” by critics, but interchangeably as “glitter/glam,” “drag,” or “trash” rock. Patti Smith and others used music and performance to amplify the protests of gay and transgender activists such as Sylvia Rivera and Masha P. Johnson and linked to sites of activism across the country. In the immediate aftermath of Stonewall, the politics of queer liberation reverberated in New York’s punk rock scene. Ultimately, the genderqueer rock scene was silenced by the end of the decade due to the noise of “urban crisis” commentary in news media, and the transformation of the scene itself, which became more conservative and heteronormative with the arrival of new bands.

Focusing on the music career of Jayne County as a representation of drag performance in New York’s underground rock scene during the early 1970s, this presentation argues that what became known as punk rock functioned as a platform for transgender political expression and solidarity. In 1970s New York, some punk shows were political rallies that employed radical drag aesthetics. They built solidarity among white gay and genderqueer youth, and encouraged self-assertive queer visibility that paralleled political activism on the streets. I interpret County’s work as a vehicle through which artists and audiences explored expressions of gender variance and transcended binary gender identity constructs. I read County’s forgotten advice column, “Dear Wayne” [sic], which was printed in national music journals such as Hit Parader and Rock Scene, as raising awareness and creating a forum that spoke to transgender experiences.

Author

• Ryan D. Purcell, Sarah Lawrence College