THE NEW TRANSSEXUALS

Ginger Coyote

Punk Publisher

Photo: James Stark

George Petros: GINGER, TELL US ABOUT YOUR MUSIC AND THE BANDS YOU’VE BEEN IN, AND SO ON —

Ginger Coyote: The main band that I’ve been in is The White Trash Debutantes. I’ve done some things with other people. I did a band called Four On The Floor with Jayne County and Cherry Vanilla and Holly Woodlawn. Then I also did something with Josie Cotton called The Maneaters.

AND WHO’S JOSIE COTTON?

Ginger Coyote: She sang “Johnny Are You Queer?” [sings] Johnny are you Queer, boy?/Is your love for real, boy?/When you asked for a date/I thought that you were Straight —

THAT WAS QUITE A TUNE. SO, TELL US ABOUT THE WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. I just wanted to start something that was kind of like anti-all-that-debutante-stuff and I said, “What would be a better name than The White Trash Debutantes, rather than just The Debutantes?” So we formed, and I had different people in the band that have gone on and done other things, like Billy Gould, the bass player from Faith No More — and then I had Lynn Perko from Sister Double Happiness and The Dicks, and she’s also in Imperial Teen with Roddy Bottom from Faith No More.

YOU HAVE A FAITH NO MORE CONNECTION —

Ginger Coyote: Oh yeah, that’s the reason why they asked us to open up for them last April at The Warfield Theater.

SO, IF SOMEONE FROM ANOTHER PLANET WERE TO ASK YOU WHAT YOUR MUSIC SOUNDS LIKE, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL THEM?

Ginger Coyote: Probably a dash of The B-52’s, add in New York Dolls and a lot of Ramones and then The Tubes — kind of a mixture of The Tubes, Ramones, New York Dolls and maybe even Motorhead. Some of the stuff is pretty fast.

THE TUBES WERE A PRETTY INTERESTING BAND, EH?

Ginger Coyote: Uh-huh. They were from San Francisco, where I used to live.

AND THEN YOU FOUND YOURSELF IN L.A..

Ginger Coyote: We had gone down to Los Angeles and performed quite a lot when I was living in San Francisco, and I’d always see these signs saying: Move in now and pay later; get one month rent free! And I decided, Oh, it may be interesting to go down there and live there at some point — but then I just assumed that I’d be in San Francisco ’cuz I was somewhat content with living there. Then all of a sudden in ’98, our building went up for sale and they were asking like five-hundred-thousand dollars for it — and it was something that was probably worth about one-hundred-and-eighty, maybe two-hundred tops, because it had moss and was lopsided and everything. Not really that much land — so we didn’t think it was going to sell. It went on sale December 1st and by December 15th we’d already gotten notice there was a new owner and that they were going to be asking us to move out. And that was during the dot-com era, during which you’d go out and look for places and there were lines of people a block and a half, two blocks long — just for a room in a flat. It’s like you go there looking to move into a flat and then all of a sudden there’s like twenty guys with business suits on, pulling out hundred-dollar bills — thousand-dollar bills — saying, “I’ll give you this if I can move in now. I’m desperate!”

WHEN YOU WERE UP ON STAGE, IN THE EARLY DAYS OF WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES, WHAT WERE YOU DOING AND WHAT KIND OF SHOW WERE YOU PUTTING ON?

Ginger Coyote: Definitely anti-Republican. It’s definitely a party. It’s an attitude, a lot like The Tubes were. A big combination of theater, being wild, dressed up, a lot of crazy colors and stuff — and then also we were trying to present a message, and the message was that we can all be on stage together and that was a good thing ’cuz there were all different types of people in the band. There were different races. There were different sexes. There were even some Metal guys in it at one point —but we all got along.

WERE THERE OTHER TRANSGENDERED FOLKS IN THE BAND?

Ginger Coyote: Not really, no. At one point there was a guitar player who played with us but she had abuse problems and that didn’t last for long.

I SEE. AND YOU PUT OUT THE MAGAZINE PUNK GLOBE.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. Punk Globe was originally in printed format. It came out in ’77, and in ’78 it went onto newsprint. It was xeroxed for about a year, and it came out monthly, and there were probably about a hundred of them printed — and then in ’78, I went down to Chinatown to look for printers that would print it and that would do it for nothing. So, I ended up going down to Grant Publishing, and the woman who ran the place was head of the Chinatown Business Association. Her name was Florence Fang.

THAT’S A COOL NAME.

Ginger Coyote: That’s very Punk Rock. She didn’t bat an eyelash over anything that we were doing. That was fun, and so I’d get it in to her a couple of days before it was supposed to come out and she would usually have it on time. On occasion, the printers would print things upside down because they didn’t read English — but that didn’t happen a lot.

THAT JUST ADDED TO THE PUNK ROCK FLAVOR, DIDN’T IT?

Ginger Coyote: I guess. She would do things — if it was really bad, she would just re-run the whole thing. What was even more funny was, I stopped doing Punk Globe in ’88 and then I started doing it in ’98 again, but I was doing it online. I was up in San Francisco, in Chinatown, not long ago. I was in a store in the vicinity of where I got the magazine printed, and they had glasses and stuff wrapped with paper — and the paper they wrapped the stuff in was old copies of Punk Globe.

NOW THAT’S GOING FULL CIRCLE —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, you know, like souvenirs and glasses from Chinatown, or mirrors — and they would wrap them in the old Globe newsprint.

INTERESTING. BACK TO THE WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES. THAT’S STILL ONGOING —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, we still play. Not as much as we used to. We toured the United States three times. We toured Canada three times. Also, in Mexico we toured, and we toured in Japan.

HOW’D THEY LIKE YOU IN MEXICO?

Ginger Coyote: It was fun. A couple of times we went with Union 13 and The Kung Fu Monkeys. We played down there with them, and then we went with Tijuana No! another time — and they were like really big. So we got a really big crowd. And of course, I’d be the only blonde in the place and there would be all these Mexican guys going, “fuck gringos, gringos doing this, gringos doing that —” I looked at them and said thanks a lot. You’re putting a target on my back. They go, “Oh, we didn’t mean that —” Oh yeah, I’m sure you didn’t mean it. There were all these Mexicans and I’d look at them and say, “I’m Sally Struthers and I’m here to feed you.”

THEY MUST HAVE LIKED THAT.

Ginger Coyote: Oh, they did. One time we were sitting at a tequila place and they were selling shots of tequila. I told them I was Sally Struthers and we got really drunk for free.

WASN’T SHE IN ALL IN THE FAMILY?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. She’s the one that had that commercial about how she’d feed the homeless and the starving kids and all that stuff.

THAT’S A NICE INTENTION, IF YOU CAN GET IT DONE.

Ginger Coyote: Well, it got her on TV.

YEAH. NOW, IN THE BAND — YOU’RE THE SINGER, RIGHT?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, one of the singers. Currently there’s a girl named Chelsea Rose and then there’s Chaos or Carla McCloud. On occasion, Lula Perla sings with us. You know, different people come in and sing.

IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU MUST HIRE FOLKS FOR THEIR NAME BECAUSE YOU HAVE SOME OF THE MOST MAGICAL NAMES IN THAT BAND.

Ginger Coyote: I would say, the band in itself attracts those kind of people.

AND THEN YOU DID THE THING WITH HOLLY WOODLAWN AND JAYNE COUNTY AND CHERRY VANILLA, AND THAT’S CALLED FOUR ON THE FLOOR —

Ginger Coyote: Four On The Floor. Yeah.

WHAT WAS THAT MUSIC LIKE?

Ginger Coyote: Well, Jayne had written lyrics for a song about sexist, racist people in Rock & Roll who supported the Republican Party. And she had the words, but I had a song called “Punk Rock RepubliKKKan” that I had written. It wasn’t naming people. It was more like, you wear all the right clothes. You say all the right words — but now the truth can be told: You’re a hustler, take all you can hold, ’cuz your a Punk Rock RepubliKKKan.

IS THAT “REPUBLIKKKAN” WITH THREE K’S?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. So she decided she liked the music but she wanted to change it to where we talked about certain musicians. So we did a cover of “Rock & Roll RepubliKKKan” because Punk Rock would be too exclusive and really only one of the Punk Rockers that we were talking about, which was Johnny Ramone, would be considered a Punk Rocker. It was about Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons. Jayne was thinking about Kid Rock, but she didn’t think he was big enough to even merit a waste of breath. In Punk Globe she’s written about the Rock & Roll Hall of Shame and the ten people she considers to be sell-outs — you know, stone cold Republicans. She talked about Ted Nugent, Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, Johnny Ramone — but her number-one person was Cherie Currie from The Runaways. I heard that she was posting on Facebook about how she was unhappy because Mexicans were taking her jobs and stuff like that. And about Obama being a Muslim — and then Bebe Buell told me that she looked on her boyfriend’s page and her boyfriend had a picture of Obama and a picture of Hitler and said, “We’ve got our Hitler now.”

NOTHING LIKE A LITTLE HYPERBOLE IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE —

Ginger Coyote: Well, Jayne hit it best when she said, From cherry bomb to clammy mom —

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT JAYNE COUNTY AND YOUR ASSOCIATION WITH HER.

Ginger Coyote: Well, Jayne’s a mentor. She was around doing it when I was young. I mean, she was out in people’s faces, playing Max’s Kansas City, and was an inspiration. I met her when she came to San Francisco in the early Eighties. She pretty much already established herself with the Punk Rock movie and all that stuff and had been in England, and we met and we got along and we’ve always been friends. She admires what I do and I admire what she does.

SHE TOLD ME HOW TOUGH SHE HAD TO BE DOWN IN GEORGIA GROWING UP — SHE HAD TO BE TOUGHER THAN THE GUYS WHO WERE GIVING HER A HARD TIME.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, it’s like Little Richard, running around in the Fifties wearing those pompadours and lipstick and stuff and being Black —

AND EVERYBODY KNOWING HE’S MAKING A LOT OF MONEY. SO HE’S A DOUBLE TARGET. WELL, HOW ’BOUT YOU? WHAT WAS IT LIKE FOR YOU COMING UP?

Ginger Coyote: I grew up in the Midwest. It was very conservative and I knew that I had to get out of there. So, I took off to San Francisco at a very early age, you know? I stayed in high school long enough to get an early diploma and a driver’s license and I left for San Francisco. I left home, you know? Fly robin fly, at a very early age — seventeen years old.

WHERE IN THE MIDWEST?

Ginger Coyote: Iowa.

WERE YOUR PARENTS OUTRAGED BY YOUR —

Ginger Coyote: My dad died when I was very young. We didn’t know each other.

I’M SORRY TO HEAR THAT.

Ginger Coyote: And my mom, you know — it just wasn’t talked about. There were things that happened but it wasn’t an issue. I knew that I was different. My mom knew I was different. My family knew I was different. I have an older brother who was more hip who had moved to Minneapolis. He suggested I go to San Francisco and make it there because I’d probably be happier.

I SEE. WHEN DID YOU BECAME TRANSGENDERED?

Ginger Coyote: Early, when I moved to San Francisco, getting hormones and stuff —

THAT MUST HAVE FELT GREAT.

Ginger Coyote: No, it was scary, in fact, because it was something new. I was young, but I knew I couldn’t stay in the Midwest because I was just very unhappy there.

WOULD YOU HAVE DONE THE HORMONE REGIMEN HAD YOU STAYED IN THE MIDWEST?

Ginger Coyote: I don’t think so. I don’t think that it would have happened.

PUNK ROCK AND TRANSGENDERISM GO TOGETHER SO WELL —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. A lot of them, though, don’t like Punk Rock. That’s a sad thing.

WHEN YOU TAKE HORMONES, YOU’RE GOING THROUGH A PHYSIOLOGICAL TRANSITION; YOUR MOODS CHANGE AND YOU FEEL VERY DIFFERENT —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, you get very emotional and there’s a lot of ups and downs. There’s a lot of bouts that you go through where you feel the crying sort of thing, and you go through different feelings —

AM I CORRECT IN SAYING THAT YOUR LEVEL OF AGGRESSION MIGHT GO DOWN AND YOUR LEVEL OF EMPATHY MIGHT GO UP?

Ginger Coyote: I think that basically when you’re Transgender, you’re born in the wrong body and there’s a lot more female hormones in you already.

Photo: James Stark

SO YOU’RE KIND OF ALONG THE WAY A BIT ALREADY —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, I mean, there are certain things like the bigger hips and stuff, the voice that never really got real, real deep and stuff —

WELL, YOU LIVE IN AN AGE WHERE YOU COULD TAKE CORRECTIVE MEASURES, LET’S SAY.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, it’s probably a little better than when Christine Jorgensen did it but then again, I lived in an age that Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue were just beginning. Oprah Winfrey, The View, Rosie O’Donnell, 20/20, Barbara Walters — people who were doing shows about Transgenders and telling about families that are allowing their young kids to dress in the sex that they feel that they want to be. That just didn’t happen.

YOU MEAN THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN FOR YOU?

Ginger Coyote: No, it didn’t. I mean, it was cruel. It was inhuman. People were nasty and rude. They thought I was crazy. There was no enlightenment, no education. Nobody was saying, “Oh, isn’t it cool, you’re Transgender!” It was like, “You’re a dirty, sick fag” — and that’s it, you know? We paved the way for these younger kids that are able to go to grade school dressed as little girls or little boys. Whatever their so-called persuasion is yearning them to be. Or having parents who are enlightened towards it and not just wanting to kill them or put them in a psychiatric ward.

THE VIEW OF TRANSGENDERISM HAS CERTAINLY CHANGED IN THE PAST COUPLE OF DECADES.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, it’s a lot more enlightened. And thanks to Oprah, who had several shows on it—

THANKS TO YOU, TOO.

Ginger Coyote: Some people have gone out and proved that you can do more than just do this and do that. It’s like Margaret Cho — she says when she was young, role models were hard for her because it was just being an extra on M.A.S.H. or saying “fuckee suckee ten dolla.” Of course, Christine Jorgensen, April Ashley and people like that — and then Jayne came around. And also a lot of the ones who were more into Cabaret and Disco and doing Drag acts and stuff. Jayne wasn’t into that. I wasn’t into it. I didn’t want to do that stuff. That to me is boring.

WERE YOU IN A HIGH SCHOOL BAND?

Ginger Coyote: No. I learned how to play music — clarinet and piano and stuff — but the music I liked growing up was Mott The Hoople, David Bowie, that kind of stuff. I wasn’t into the whole Disco stuff. That didn’t interest me. Now I like The Village People and stuff like that.

YOU WERE SAYING THAT THERE WERE EMOTIONAL UPS AND DOWNS FOR YOU — WERE THERE MOMENTS WHEN YOU WANTED TO GO BACK AND UNDO THE REGIMEN THAT YOU’D BEGUN?

Ginger Coyote: No. There was not, ever. Sometimes life got a little tough — more prejudice, more people that meet you and then find out stuff and then they freak out — but then you just kind of have to get hip to the fact that not everybody’s into it, you know? There’s going to be certain people who are going to be cool and hip with it and not give you a rough time, and those are the sort of people I try to surround myself with. You know, they weren’t that hard to find after awhile.

AND AS TIME WENT ON, THE PREJUDICES SUBSIDED AS THE WORLD CHANGED —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. I mean, it’s just like — things change, the attitude of the people changes. People change their attitude. The whole thing gets more loose and a lot more open-minded to the Transsexuality thing. Like we were talking about earlier, they understand it. 20/20 does specials about it. Even in little towns like Fresno, the homecoming queen’s Transgender.

IT’S DEFINITELY BIG THESE DAYS.

Ginger Coyote: The only thing that was happening back in the days, the early Eighties, was Amanda Lear and Jayne County and April Ashley — those kind of people for role models. Before then, you know, Christine Jorgensen —

SOME TRANSGENDERED FOLKS GET GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERIES —

Ginger Coyote: Well, there’s a real momentum of getting surgeries in general. And when I say that, it’s like people that get plastic surgery, cheek implants, collagen — they have their ribs crushed to be perfect —

IT’S PRETTY PAINFUL TO BECOME PERFECT, I GUESS.

Ginger Coyote: They go through that whole thing. They spend so much money going through that process of going through the whole ordeal of trying to make yourself look a certain way and to be feminine. And most women have got a lot of masculine traits — that’s the weird thing.

YES, YES. THERE’S THAT JUNGIAN OVERLAP OF GENDER CHARACTERISTICS. DID YOU EVER CONSIDER TAKING IT FURTHER WITH YOURSELF?

Ginger Coyote: Well, you feel under pressure because there’s always the cattiness and that whole stigma thing where you don’t know whether or not — you know, femininity and all that stuff. There’s always that pressure. Everybody wants to be perfect. They want to be the Playboy-centerfold types. You know, you just gotta really be prepared. It’s expensive. If you’re going to do all that stuff, it’s gonna run money — and looking that way is not going to buy you happiness.

AND I WOULD IMAGINE THERE’S ALSO A LOT OF MAINTENANCE INVOLVED —

Ginger Coyote: I would think. Like, anybody who does plastic surgery, it’s good for like ten years and all of a sudden you have to go in and get new stuff done. You have to get lifted. To me, it’s weird that somebody would want to go and get all this surgery and at an early age go through all this pain. They crush your face, put collagen in your face — and the other thing that was scary about that whole situation is the quack doctors who are performing that stuff — the street doctors. Right now, even people like Priscilla Presley and Lionel Ritchie’s wife got that oil pumped into their faces.

SPEAKING OF DOCTORS — DO YOU KNOW OF A CASE OF A DR. BROWN?

Ginger Coyote: Yes, I know him. He’s from San Francisco.

COULD YOU GIVE US A LITTLE BIO ON HIM, IN A NUTSHELL?

Ginger Coyote: I think that probably at one point he liked Transsexuals and that he was probably supportive of them, but that he also was hungry for money and he rented really cheap offices in San Francisco and had people that were paying him off for the work that he’d done on them. Like, they’d have surgeries performed, like implants and all that stuff, and then they’d start working for him because they had to pay him off.

I SEE. WELL, HE’S IN JAIL NOW, I UNDERSTAND.

Ginger Coyote: Oh, he was in jail. He was down in Mexico for a long time, and it got really bad. He was doing really botched jobs. I think at one point he really did love people and he wanted to help them. Probably early in his career he was doing some service and certain people did get — I don’t know if you would call it really good work, but let’s say adequate work from him. I think that the more he was doing it, the more problems he was having. He lost his license in California and then he went over to Lake Tahoe and he opened something there. People who were going to Dr. Brown were also the types of people that would go and see people in the back of a van and get things done in the back of a van. Like have silicone hit up in their face and their tits and all that stuff. One of the people I know that had implants done by Dr. Brown was just a botched job. Really, it was not good.

THIS SPEAKS TO THE UNDERGROUND NATURE OF THE WHOLE SCENE AND THE BACK-ALLEY ASPECT —

Ginger Coyote: And also the economy, and the kind of mentality I’m sure that insurance companies put into these things, you know? Everything is done in Trinidad [Colorado] now. The prices are getting more and more expensive for the operations. So, back in the early days, it was still more of a novelty and you could get certain things done and get them where the work was fairly good and cheap. But now, if they’re good doctors, you have to pay up the ying-yang, and a lot of the medical insurance just doesn’t cover all this stuff that people would like to get.

THE TRANSSEXUAL UNDERGROUND, HUH?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. And it’s sad — but it often goes with the Republicans and abortions and all that stuff. too. It could be because of the naive-ness at the time — doctors just didn’t go into that sort of field. A lot of people that you had to go to were just people who were sympathetic and wanted to help. I don’t think sexual reassignment, in the Seventies, was a big thing that doctors were thinking about getting into. There was no specialty thing that was going on.

LET’S GET BACK TO THE WHITE TRASH DEBUTANTES, IF I MAY.

Ginger Coyote: Okay.

TELL US ABOUT THE DEBAUCHERY AND THE PARTYING AND SO ON —

Ginger Coyote: I think the show was more onstage. Sometimes we had parties after the shows and we’d go back to hotels. There would be times when people would party and stuff. I remember once we were down in Los Angeles and we played The Viper Room and all these people got onstage with us and one of the guys who was really part of the whole ordeal, wanting to be with us and hanging out with us, was Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains. So he came back to the hotel with us but he was just constantly doing so much Blow that he got old and we didn’t want to be around him. We had this older woman that was in the band that was like seventy-some years old. I think he was making out with her.

ALRIGHT. DID YOU GET HIGH?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, to a point. Why not? I also was well aware that I had to be — there was a time that I gave up on all that stuff and I found a new hobby called Geritol, because your body isn’t fit for it anymore. But yeah, Rock & Roll. Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll. There’s a lot of groupie guys who want to hang out with girls in bands. Then you meet other musicians who like ya, who want to party and stuff —

I SEE. WHAT ARE THE GROUPIES LIKE? YOU MUST BE SURROUNDED BY AN ENTOURAGE —

Ginger Coyote: There’s all kinds of guys. They’re the people who do the roadie work. They’re the people who like the music. Some of them are wilder and some of them are real straight. Just like anything. There’s all kinds of people. There’s actors that like Rock & Roll. There’s actors who like T-girls. There’s musicians who like them. There’s all kinds of people, you know? People who are willing to try things, experiment — they have no problems with things. So, we met all kinds of people. It’s just not hustlers and stuff like that, you know? You meet all kinds of different people who are part of the whole niche, who want to be around, who are groupies. It’s not only the drug dealers and the street hustlers. There’re actors that are nice to you — and big actors, you know, famous ones, that are very friendly and make sure that they’re available if you’re interested in them.

I KNOW BETTER THAN TO ASK YOU TO GIVE US A FEW NAMES —

Ginger Coyote: Let’s just say that I was on an airplane the other day from New York, and I was on the plane with James Franco, and he was very flirty — very, very nice. He hosted the Oscars and he’s pretty out there. I mean he’s really nice. He’s just a really good person.

IS THERE ANY OF THIS ATTENTION THAT YOU RESENT OR THAT YOU DON’T LIKE?

Ginger Coyote: Well, I think like anything, certain people are nice to you and the majority of the people who come and see you are usually very supportive. I don’t like it when they come right after you get off stage and want to take pictures. That to me is like, you know — it’s bad enough having them taking pictures onstage. I much more prefer the pictures to be taken from above. I get a little tired when people want to take pictures or when they seem to grab you and say, “Oh, can I take a picture with you?” You’re just getting off stage and you’re pouring sweat. But some of them are cool and nice about it then you feel, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s get it done. It depends. Back to me, it’s not so much sexual. It’s just more of a preference when you don’t like to get hassled with pictures.

EARLIER YOU MENTIONED OPRAH AND 20/20 COVERING THIS STUFF — DO THEY COME TO YOU?

Ginger Coyote: No. They don’t.

WHY NOT?

Ginger Coyote: I don’t wear a banner and go out there and advocate Transsexual rights. I’m just for human rights, and I’m also a musician that is a little more of a liability for them than they would want.

I SEE — YOU MIGHT SAY THE WRONG THING.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, I mean, I think with age you get more mellow, and they see that you’re educated and stuff — and when I was younger I didn’t really go into Transsexual rights. I was more into just being a human being, a woman. I didn’t wave the flag of Transsexuality. In my early years I was more into Feminism. When I was in the band and I was hanging around with the Punk Rock scene, I was more into the Feminist aspect of it and more into being treated as a female, not as an oddity or a Transsexual.

YOU WERE TALKING EARLIER ABOUT THE RECEPTION YOU GOT FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD —

Ginger Coyote: Well, I’m not on a lot of lists of famous Transsexuals because I don’t go out and tell people that’s what I am.

YOU ARE ON THE WIKIPEDIA LIST —

Ginger Coyote: That’s nice that I’m in that, but a lot of other things I’m not in because I’ve always chosen for that not to be the first thing. It was more like I’m a woman in Rock. I’m a musician and I’m a human being. Wild, and right up there with all the rest of them — Jayne included, and also Debbie and Bebe Buell and Wendy O. and Cyndi Lauper.

THAT’S QUITE A CREW —

Ginger Coyote: Yeah. I was with Cyndi Lauper the night John Lennon died. Cyndi was in a band called Blue Angel, and they played at the old Waldorf with Rick Derringer. I had gone to see Rick Derringer, and Cyndi still hadn’t really hit it big and so she rode with us and we were all going to a party afterwards. I just remember we were going to this party and Cyndi was in the car and we were all laughing and then the news came on saying John Lennon had just been killed.

YOU COULDN’T BELIEVE YOUR EARS, RIGHT?

Ginger Coyote: Yeah — it was like, you didn’t know for sure. Everybody was silent. That didn’t stop anybody from partying, but it was sad and people were talking about it. But we didn’t stop partying.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN THREATENED OR FELT THREATENED?

Ginger Coyote: Oh definitely, I’ve felt threatened. There’s a lot of hostility that’s just part of life. There was somebody that was writing letters and they were saying that because I was in a National Enquirer article with Ed Asner and his son — one out of every thousand people who read the National Enquirer are killers. They’d write me letters and say “I know where you live” and stuff. I just kind of took it with a grain of salt and told people about it but never really reported anything.

WELL, THE ENQUIRER CAME TO YOU — THAT WAS ABOUT ED ASNER?

Ginger Coyote: Well, they did an article about how Matthew Asner’s band did a benefit for Punk Globe, and it talked about how I had met Ed Asner and that Ed Asner had told me about his son and had his son contact me about his band. The next thing I knew, they were up in Berkeley playing a benefit and Ed Asner and his wife Nancy were in the crowd. And we’d taken pictures of Ed Asner and with us — and it was in The National Enquirer.

WHAT WAS THE NAME OF ED ASNER’S SON’S BAND?

Ginger Coyote: Insect Idol. That was in the Eighties. But then The White Trash Debutantes got into The National Enquirer, too.

TELL US ABOUT THAT.

Ginger Coyote: Well, ’cuz we had the older lady, Punk Rock Patty, in the band — it was about the grandma in the Punk band and about how she urged people to smoke Marijuana and all that stuff. Brushed her teeth and used condoms and stuff like that.

OKAY — I LIKE WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS —

Ginger Coyote: Nowadays I’m more open to talking about Transsexuality, and more open and up front to talking about fighting for rights and all that stuff. I think when I was younger I just wanted to be accepted as female. That’s what I was fighting for. Now, it isn’t as big a deal — it’s still a struggle but you know, people don’t seem to be as uptight. It seemed like when you had a name tag on you for being a certain way, people treated you differently — and I didn’t want to be treated that way.

I SEE.

Ginger Coyote: Yeah, ’cuz we’re not all alike. It’s like anybody else. If somebody’s a Transsexual and fucks somebody else over, they aren’t going to say, “Oh, it’s because she’s a Transsexual —” Not all of us like Disco. Not all of us want to be a fashion model. Not all of us are this and that. Not all of us are drug addicts. Some of us try to live normal lives. Some of us try to live not normal lives but still within a parameter. I’m certainly not a Republican by any means, nor am I a conservative — but nor am I that far gone where I’m advocating pedophilia. I have limits. I’m not in a Michael Jackson brigade.

WHEN YOU SPEAK ABOUT THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS — REMIND US, WHO IS SUPPRESSING THESE RIGHTS? WHO DOESN’T WANT YOU TO BE YOURSELF?

Ginger Coyote: I would say, it used to be back in the day that there was a big stereotype that was ingrained in humans. That there was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve — and you don’t change what God made. But people have opened their minds and realized this was a gender disorder and that people needed to be treated. There’s been medications and things that people do to get it treated. Hopefully, it’ll bring some happiness into some people’s lives. If they also suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar and stuff, than it’s only an added situation. I don’t think that being Transgender is a danger to society. Not everybody who’s Transgender is bipolar or schizophrenic. People who were Transgender are just people who were born into the wrong body. It’s not like we’re dual personalities that can’t remember what the other person did —

WHO ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY?

Ginger Coyote: I just think people who are short-sighted and people that aren’t educated and aren’t aware of things. People that are kind of like hillbilly hicks, like from some little town that are like, “Oh, duh —” They don’t realize that some people were born with the mindset of another sex. It’s not something that you pick up. It’s not something that you can just get rid of. It’s something that’s in your mind and your genes.

AND THERE COMES A POINT IN YOUR LIFE WHERE YOU REALIZE —

Ginger Coyote: You can either sink or swim. It’s like when you’re young and you don’t want to be around guys, boys. You want to be around girls. You want to play with dolls. You want to do this. You want to do that. You get nervous around guys. You don’t know why you’re feeling the things that you’re feeling. You don’t want to take your clothes off in front of guys because you think that you’re different than they are.

DID YOU EVER POSE NUDE?

Ginger Coyote: No. I was more into Rock & Roll. I wasn’t into that glamour stuff. I was more into Rock music and being aggressive.

OKAY. WELL, THANK YOU. I THINK WE’VE GOT MORE THAN ENOUGH HERE.

Ginger Coyote: Thank you too. ~