ABSTRACT

Mina Caputo, vocalist of the long-running alternative metal band Life of Agony from New York, enters the stage at the Alcatraz Metal Festival in Kortrijk, Belgium, on 8 August 2014. She walks to the front of the stage, claps her hands above her head a couple of times and pauses, staring straight at the audience, before grasping her breast for a second or two in a pose that communicates pride and audacity. The openly transgender musicians, by contrast, force the public to confront the gender trouble for real: to experience real, serious trans presence, the 'actual threat' of the collapse of the binary gender system and personal insecurity about the gender of the performer and the gender order in general. Women can be allowed to be masculine, feminine or non-feminine and to mix masculinity and femininity in whatever ways they wish, and they should be allowed to enjoy whatever music in whatever way they wish.