THE NEW TRANSSEXUALS

Jayne County

Rock Star

Photo courtesy of Jayne County

PART ONE: FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH JAYNE COUNTY FOR SECONDS MAGAZINE, 1993

George Petros: WHAT WAS WARHOL’S INFLUENCE ON YOU, AND VICE VERSA?

Jayne County: Well, the major influence of Warhol with me was freedom of expression. When I was a little teenager in Georgia, I’d get magazines and read about Andy Warhol. I wanted to go to New York and meet him, and people’d say to me, “You don’t wanna meet those horrible people, they’re like vampires” — but I wanted to meet those people. I did a play in New York called World: The Birth of a Nation. It was about interchanging sexual roles. It had characters like John Wayne, and he gave birth to a three-headed baby out of his asshole; that gives you the run of the play — it was totally outrageous. This was early Seventies. Warhol came to see that, and flipped out. At one point I saw him standing up — he was screaming so much because some of the scenes were so over-the-top. That convinced him to do his play, Andy Warhol’s Pork, and to use me to play Vulva Lips, based on Viva.

WHAT IMPACT DID HE HAVE ON THE MUSIC SCENE?

Jayne County: Well, of course, The Velvet Underground was one of the most influential bands. New York bands looked up to them.

HOW MUCH OF THAT WAS HIS DOING?

Jayne County: Actually, he didn’t really contribute to the music. It was the whole atmosphere that surrounded him, the whole decadence thing, the whole New York subculture trip — vampires and witches —

WHAT KIND OF PERSON WAS HE?

Jayne County: To me, he was just — I mean this in a good way — a troublemaker. He loved to cause trouble; he loved to stir it. He never missed an opportunity to stir up trouble.

HE LIKED TO SIT BACK AND WATCH?

Jayne County: Oooh, he loved it. He loved to just mix it up good. He’d just laugh. He loved seeing people getting mad and upset — he found that very amusing. It was entertainment to him.

WHY DID YOU STOP WORKING WITH WARHOL?

Jayne County: I was more into the real music scene. When The New York Dolls came along, I was floored. I loved Alice Cooper; he was the art part of it. I went to The Factory every once in a while, for an opening or something, but I didn’t hang out there all the time. I wanted to make music and play clubs; I wasn’t a party-type of person. Plus, I didn’t want to get tagged with the Warhol thing. I didn’t wanna be tagged as a Warhol superstar freak that’s here today, gone tomorrow. I wanted to establish myself more. A lot of the Warhol people were known for a little while by doing a few little things, and then it was over.

IT WAS LIKE A MIXED BLESSING.

Jayne County: Yeah, if you got tagged, you couldn’t do anything else. I didn’t want that, so I cut myself off from that. My friend Leee Childers went to dinner with Warhol, all this kind of stuff. Andy would ask him why I never came up to The Factory. Now, I’m glad I didn’t. Pork was my heaviest involvement with him. I did a few more little things, and then I wanted to start concentrating on my music. I got really involved with The New York Dolls thing, that Glitter-Punk scene —

DISCUSS THE TRANSITION BETWEEN THE WARHOL SCENE AND THE PUNK SCENE.

Jayne County: I didn’t get heavily involved with the Warhol thing. I did the play, I did parties, I knew Candy Darling. People think Patti Smith was the first person to play CBGB, but it’s not true. I played CBGB while it was still having folk acts like Joan Baez imitators.

DIDN’T YOU DJ AT THAT TIME?

Jayne County: I did Max’s Kansas City for a long time. The Dolls came up with their acetate and handed it to me. I was the first person to ever play the Dolls. I was the first person in America to play “Anarchy In The U.K.” by The Sex Pistols. I got the first copy of that and played it. I was the first to play The Damned. In fact, when I played The Damned, Dee Dee Ramone ran over to the booth and was outraged. He said, “Who is this? They’re copying us!” I said they were The Damned from England. He said, “Those fucking English bands are copying us!” He said, “Don’t play them. Play us. Play New York people. Don’t play those stupid English bands.” Dee Dee did not like those English bands copping their sound.

WHAT CHARACTERIZED THE BANDS THAT WERE AROUND THEN?

Jayne County: A lot of the bands were very amateurish, but they had something special about them. They weren’t really professional — some of them were like seeing a bad high school band. It was like flashing back to the days of teen garage bands that couldn’t play that well.

YOU WERE A NOTED FAN OF THE DAVE CLARK FIVE.

Jayne County: I used to introduce some of my songs on stage as dedicated to The Dave Clark Five. I’ve always covered a song by The Barbarians called “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?” That was a minor hit in the Sixties. The Barbarians were a California band, and the drummer played with a hook. I tie that song into what happened to me when I was growing my hair long in Georgia and people screamed at me, “Are you a boy or girl?”

WHAT DID YOU ANSWER?

Jayne County: We didn’t have time because we were too busy running away! We didn’t know if they were gonna pull a gun on us. We got shot at one day, walking along the street. These rednecks came along on a truck and started shooting at us. The bullets were whizzing past my ears.

HOW WAS SEXUALITY AND TRANSVESTITISM RECEIVED BY THE AUDIENCE IN THOSE DAYS? I’M SURE YOU DIDN’T DO THAT IN GEORGIA —

Jayne County: I did very early shows down there — like in ’65-’66, I did some shows in bars. Believe or not, I used to do a Dusty Springfield imitation, a Janis Joplin imitation, and a Cher imitation. The Dusty was very good.

SO YOU WERE ONE OF THE FIRST WHO DID WHAT MIGHT BE CALLED SEX ROCK?

Jayne County: Not really, I was more or less taking a piss; laughing at sex, because sex upsets people so much, and I found that so laughable. I used to try to upset people. I like to upset people. I used to really love to shock people. I’ll go out of my way to shock people. A lot of times, I got into really bad trouble.

WHAT KIND OF TROUBLE?

Jayne County: Like getting shot at because of the way we dressed — totally over-the-top. Getting shot at or having fights — many times we had to run down the street and hide. People would get out of their cars and start chasing us.

WHEN YOU DID CONSOLIDATE SEX AND TRANSVESTITISM INTO YOUR ACT LATER ON, WHAT WAS YOUR BIG INFLUENCE?

Jayne County: A lot of everything, and I loved Lenny Bruce. I even have a song I never recorded: “There’s No Such Thing as a Dirty Word.” To me, how can language be bad? That you can’t sing obscenities or say them on record is so stupid. People can stand off-stage and say “fuck” but you if say “fuck” onstage, you can be arrested or banned. It’s amazing the attitude in America now towards what I call Transgender. There are so many forms of Transgender —like Transvestism, cross-dressing, Drag Queens, Transsexuals —

TRANSVESTITISM OCCURRED BEFORE SEX REASSIGNMENT WAS POPULAR.

Jayne County: The Dolls would come out in old thrift-shop women’s dresses. Later on, they toned it down. A lot of people were upset they toned it down. They used to come out wearing women’s shoes, but when they got signed, they start dressing really Glam-y, with lamé pants. I liked them better when they came out in little second-hand women’s clothes.

DID THEY TAKE ANY CUES FROM THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION? ON WE’RE ONLY IT FOR THE MONEY, THEY WORE DRESSES —

Jayne County: I understand. Also, the back cover of Alice Cooper’s Easy Action, where they’ve got their backs turned — I remember people used to get upset about that. All it was, was the backs of their heads and their hair hanging out. How could anyone get upset over that?

AT WHAT POINT DID ANDROGYNY BECOME THE SCENE?

Jayne County: I never thought of that. I just tied it all together. To me, it was blurring the sexes. I think people like Bowie and Marc Bolan commercialized it. Androgyny was a commercialization of the scene.

WHO WOULD YOU CREDIT AS THE FIRST GLAM ROCKER?

Jayne County: I know David Johansen was very much influenced by The Theater of the Ridiculous. Iggy went to see them and everyone in the whole play was covered with glitter. He went back that night and did a big show at the Electric Circus, and came out totally covered in glitter. He was directly influenced that night by the Theater of the Ridiculous. They’d have people in the play, playing different characters — loads of what became gender-bending was going on in the underground theater at that time. That influenced me. The Dolls beat me by two weeks on debuting in the New York scene.

WERE THE DOLLS YOUR PEERS OR YOUR COMPETITION?

Jayne County: A little of both.

DID YOU HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM?

Jayne County: A very good relationship with them. They loved me. They’d come and see our shows, and we’d go and see all theirs. I even played with the Dolls at the Mercer Arts Center.

HOW WAS THE DRUG SCENE BACK IN THOSE DAYS?

Jayne County: When I went to London in ‘77 and did the first 100 Days At The Roxy, everyone was doing Speed and that awful English Sulfate. That’s one reason the music was so fast — everyone was doing Speed. That stuff would make your nose fall off. In the Sixties, it was all love children doing psychedelic drugs: LSD, Mescaline, THC. I was never into the heavy Junk scene. I never did any of that; I hated it. I did do lots of Acid. The early Seventies scene was just down into Seconals and Valium.

HOW DID YOU START WORKING WITH DAVID BOWIE?

Jayne County: When we were doing Pork, Leee Childers was stage-managing, and we got moved to The Roundhouse in London. We’d read about Bowie in a magazine, and we said we should go see him. We thought we were the only ones at the time doing anything like that. So me and Sherry and Tony Zinetta, who went on to become vice-president of MainMan — we all went to check out Bowie. We were enjoying what he was doing, but we were a little disappointed, because what he was doing at that point was so Folk-y and laid back. He had long hair like Lauren Bacall, and baggy trousers, and he was doing that stuff from Changes and Hunky Dory. I expected it to be more outrageous, but it was really subtle.

HE WOUND UP SIGNING YOU TO MAINMAN.

Jayne County: Tony DeFries, his manager, did. As I found out later, that was only to keep me from doing anything. After one of his shows, me and Bowie were chatting. I’d just signed to MainMan and had all these great ideas kicking around, and I told David I had the best idea in the world. I told him I wanted to do a whole album of all British Invasion hits. Six months later he comes out with Pin-Ups. I was flabbergasted! When I’d say anything to anyone, they’d just laugh and say I was paranoid. I said, “Something’s up here.” They took me into the studio to record. I recorded “Wonder Woman,” “Mexican City,” “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?,” “Queen Age Baby” — all these incredible lyrics I’d come up with. So, I sent him all of my tapes and not long after that, Sherry is sitting at the house in Connecticut. Bowie called her up and said he wrote this great song called “Rebel Rebel,” and plays her this demo. She listened to it and said, “This sounds like one of Wayne’s songs.” Basically, “Queen Age Baby” is the mother of “Rebel Rebel.” If he’d never heard “Queen Age Baby,” he would’ve never written “Rebel Rebel.”

DID YOU EVER SAY ANYTHING TO HIM ABOUT IT?

Jayne County: I never said anything to him about it, but when it happened, my heart sank — and it began to dawn on me that I was just being used.

YOU WEREN’T THE ONLY ONE, RIGHT?

Jayne County: Oh God, no. I’ll tell you another heavy story. I did this big show. The band was on one side of the stage; we had all these huge props and theatrics for every song. He comes out with the Diamond Dogs tour, and it’s nothing but my show with his songs! He took my whole show. I got no credit for anything.

YOU NEVER CONFRONTED HIM?

Jayne County: No. I haven’t spoken to him in years, and if I did, I don’t know if I’d lose it. I don’t want to bother, because it’s been so long. What can I say? What can I do? I should’ve known better. And they promised me the moon the whole time. They set me up in an apartment, gave me a weekly check, bought me clothes. I was on drugs — not heavy drugs, but enough to keep me down all the time. A lot of my ideas pop up in other albums, too. I was beginning to think that I’m not paranoid at all; I’m getting totally ripped off. And then I heard they were getting ready to shelve me. He made me sign this life-long contract, and it had a suspension clause in it so they could keep me tied up for life. It had a clause in it that said if at any time I offended public morality, I could be suspended. I, like a fool, signed it because they told me it was just him being funny. Kiss’s management wanted to sign me. I sent them my tapes and they loved it. When they found out I was under contract to MainMan, they didn’t want to know me. I don’t wanna go on and on about this — I don’t wanna sound bitter.

DID YOU HAVE ANY RELATIONSHIP BESIDES A PROFESSIONAL ONE?

Jayne County: No, there was no relationship. There were little incidents, but he’d do that with a lot of people.

WAS HE LIKE A TEASE?

Jayne County: Yeah. Sometimes the teasing got a little out of hand — but for my tastes, I found him physically repulsive. Once, I went to see him, and he came into the room coked out of his mind and did a mock-rape on me. He threw me on the floor, pinned me down, dry-humped me, tried to put a hickey on my neck — I didn’t like that. I’d just say, “Get the fuck off of me.” Another time at a hotel, I went to the refrigerator for a Diet Pepsi and he came in and unzipped his trousers and started showing me his pubic hairs, because he shaved his hairs in a heart shape. He waited for me to do something and I didn’t. I just went, “That’s very nice, David,” and walked away.

DID HE GET HIS WAY WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE?

Jayne County: He got his way with anyone he wanted to. I just found him absolutely repulsive with skinny, knobby knees with veins in them. And that skinny body — ooh. I found him totally unattractive.

NOT TO ASK YOU TO KISS AND TELL, BUT IS THERE ANYBODY OF NOTE WITH WHOM YOU HAD A SEXUAL LIAISON?

Jayne County: Once at Max’s, I was doing my makeup in the bathroom, and Dee Dee Ramone came in. He started peeing, and he took his cock out, and he said, “Oh, look at my cock. Look at all the scars on it where my girlfriend tried to stab me. Blah blah blah.” Just little things like that. The others I can’t tell; I’ll get in trouble.

TOO BAD.

Jayne County: Y’know who Chris Spedding is? I can’t really tell —

OH, GO AHEAD.

Jayne County: I went into this Transvestite bar one night, and this guy came over, and really started doing the chat-up on me. He said, “Come back to my place; we’ll play records; I’ve got all this Coke; we’ll do all these things, blah blah blah”. I didn’t have anything else to do and I said, “Okay, I’ll come over.” I didn’t realize who it was — It was Chris Spedding. He got me coked out of my mind, wound up throwing me on the bed, and begging me to do the most disgusting things that I won’t even mention to you, they were so disgusting. Finally, I left. Then, I had to go to the fucking doctor. He gave me something — nothing too heavy. I was so disappointed in Chris Spedding, I never looked at him in the same way. It wasn’t a sexual disease; it was one of those things you get — you know what I mean?

I SEE.

Jayne County: I don’t think he’d had a bath. I was totally turned off; I just wanted to get out of there. He was so coked up — his head kept jerking, his eyes would go off in a weird way. He was totally out of his mind. He was totally fucked up on drugs — I mean totally fucked up. It scared me. He didn’t know I was Jayne County. About a year later, he came to one of my shows with his band and they were heckling me. They were being disruptive, and so I said, “This next song is called, ‘You’re Looking Cool Daddy, But You’re Bad In Bed.’ And it’s dedicated to —” and I pointed right at him, “Chris Spedding.” They were quiet after that.

WHY DID YOU LEAVE NEW YORK AND GO TO LONDON?

Jayne County: Leee Childers was in London managing the Heartbreakers. They were on the Anarchy Tour. The Sex Pistols dropped off, and The Damned continued. He rang up my manager and said, We’ve gotta get Wayne here, because England’s Punk scene is incredible; it’s a lot more theatrical, and Wayne would fit in well here.” The punk scene in England was more theatrical; it was more visual. The reaction to me was so incredible that I decided, “I’m just gonna stay here.”

AT WHAT POINT DURING YOUR TRANSFORMATION FROM MALE TO FEMALE DID WAYNE COUNTY BECOME JAYNE COUNTY?

Jayne County: It was the way I was beginning to look with my new figure. I was looking better than ever, more and more like the female gender. Coming out as Wayne just wasn’t on anymore. Patti Palladin told me there’s no way I could come onstage anymore looking the way I did and calling myself a man. If I was gonna have that image, I needed a name to fit.

TELL US ABOUT SEX REASSIGNMENT.

Jayne County: There are different degrees of Transsexualism. Because you’re a Transsexual, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a full sex change. A lot of Transsexuals are quite well adapted to just remain in the middle. In fact, it would do a lot of Transsexuals harm to do a full sex change. It doesn’t have to be black or white; it doesn’t have to be a full sex change. If you get to a certain point with your body — from the hormone treatments and all — if you’re comfortable there, you should just stay there. There’s no point in going all the way if you feel uncomfortable. I was on the verge — I was like an inch close to doing it — then I thought, “I feel comfortable now; I don’t think I’m gonna have to do it.” If I had a full sex change, then regretted it, it’d be too late to go back over the bridge — and I might commit suicide.

ARE YOU A HERMAPHRODITE?

Jayne County: Yes. To classify myself is hard, because it’s psychological. I’d classify myself, at the moment, as that, because it takes in all forms of Transsexuality, Transvestism, Drag Queen, cross-dressing, whatever — I’d say I’m Transgender.

HOW DID YOUR FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES REACT?

Jayne County: One person who acted strange was Patti Smith. I ran into her, and I was just beginning my hormones, and my little titties were just beginning to peek out of my T-shirt. We were talking, and her eyes were fixed down there, and she started getting really nervous. I read where Patti had said things like, she was comfortable around Gay men who still acted like men, but not comfortable around people who were considered men who don’t really act like men. She was very uncomfortable because she had it in her mind that I was Wayne and I was a guy doing this little transition. I don’t know where that comes from with her. Some people got very strange and others thought it was just fabulous. Some people in the business got really weird with me.

WHY DID WAYNE COUNTY BECOME JAYNE COUNTY?

Jayne County: It helped me to deal with myself and basic reality — of what’s happening around me. It was harder for me to deal with life in general when I was just Wayne, the little boy who had a big nose and wore too much mascara. People still considered me with an attitude like I’m a real guy. I was thinking I wasn’t a guy at all, I was one of the girls.

YOU WERE PROUD OF WHAT YOU WERE, AND STOOD UP FOR THAT.

Jayne County: I’m very proud of being a pioneer in that way, and also being one of the first Transgender people to go into Straight Rock places and do what I do. A Transgender person is a culmination of both sexes. It’s one who transposes certain aspects of one’s sex and mixes it in with aspects of the other sex. I like that. To me, that’s very appealing. I find it totally fascinating. I find it totally political without marching down the street with a sign.

WHAT DO YOU THINK BOWIE’S REACTION TO ALL THIS WOULD’VE BEEN? WOULD HE HAVE RUN OUT AND GOTTEN A SEX CHANGE IF YOU’D GOTTEN ONE BACK IN THE SEVENTIES?

Jayne County: No. Maybe he should have. I think he was more of a put-on. There were completely Straight people coming into Max’s Kansas City, and they’d say they were Bisexual. Bowie was the king of that. It’s very psychological; it goes back to every aspect of your being — what you are and how you got there. It’s heavy, to cop a Sixties expression.

IT WOULD TAKE A LOT OF NERVE — ANY MEDICAL PROCEDURE IS INHERENTLY DANGEROUS —

Jayne County: Someone gave me a book that showed the whole medical procedure. They went into detail, what they had to do — it horrified me. I read about what occurred — you have to have this big round thing up yourself for six months. I don’t think I could’ve psychologically handled it. I think I would’ve totally freaked out. As someone who’s done a lot of LSD in the Sixties, I think that might be one of the reasons I couldn’t go on with the whole thing.

IF YOU WERE JUST COMING ON THE SCENE NOW, WOULD YOU DO THIS ALL OVER AGAIN?

Jayne County: The idea is old. I went to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and I was looking at this statue. It was a statue of a woman, and they had it positioned so that you could only see the back; you couldn’t really see the front. The front part was positioned more towards the wall. You could barely see it — and it was a Hermaphrodite. I could peek around just enough to see it was a statue of a Hermaphrodite laying on a couch. It had breasts, but it also had a cock. Hermaphrodites were considered to be the utmost in holiness. What’s turned people against those who have aspects of both sexes is this religion that teaches you either got to be this or that. But that’s where the problem comes in. They’re trying to make us be something that we’re not. I object to religions doing that. That messes up people’s minds more than anything. That messes people up; they should not be forced to be this or that. There’s no such thing as anyone who’s just this or just that.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?

Jayne County: What’s happened is, basically, physically I can be classified as a Hermaphrodite. I have beautiful, fabulous female breasts, a woman’s shape, my face is real feminine and everything — but I’m still what people would classify biologically as male down below.

ALRIGHT!

Jayne County: Basically, I’m a Hermaphrodite.

I GOTCHA.

Jayne County: I knew a Hermaphrodite in England — and some Hermaphrodites do have both sex organs. Others have maybe like a penis that’s small, or actually they have a vagina, but they actually have balls that are up in them, or whatever. Medically, I’d be considered a pre-operative Transsexual. A post-operative, that’s who’s got a full sex change. A pre-operative Transsexual is a Transsexual who has the female shape, the breasts and everything, but they haven’t had the operation. In general, I just consider myself Transgender.

AND ARE YOU HAPPY?

Jayne County: Yes.

WELL, THAT’S THE IMPORTANT THING. WHAT KIND OF CRITICISM ABOUT YOUR WORK BOTHERS YOU THE MOST?

Jayne County: Well, I wouldn’t wanna hear that I was uninteresting. I hate for my music to be called uninteresting. I’d hate to be called boring. I really don’t want to bore people. I hate when people miss the point.

WHAT’S THE HIGHEST COMPLIMENT YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

Jayne County: When 16 Magazine called me the Lenny Bruce of Rock & Roll.

WHAT’S THE BEST MUSIC TO HAVE SEX TO?

Jayne County: The best music to have sex to — I’d have to think about that because I haven’t had sex in over a year. I have no libido. To me, sex is very boring. It’s just too much trouble. I’d rather have wet dreams; it’s easier. Does the sex have to be good?

NO.

Jayne County: I’d say probably if you put on The Velvet Underground, the sex could probably turn out to be, shall we say, interesting. But if you put on something really laid back like — can you imagine having sex with The Mamas and The Papas on?

Photo: John Aes-Nihil

PART TWO: FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH JAYNE COUNTY, 04/07/2011

George Petros: AND HERE IS JAYNE COUNTY. WELL, JAYNE, THIS’LL BE A SUPPLEMENT TO OUR PREVIOUS INTERVIEW OF MANY MOONS AGO. I’M WRITING THIS BOOK WHICH IS KIND OF AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE TRANSGENDER AND TRANSSEXUAL SCENE, SO YOU’LL HAVE TO FORGIVE ME IF I BELABOR THAT POINT —

Jayne County: Okay.

IT’S NOT SOMETHING I WOULD ASK YOU ABOUT IF I SAW YOU ON THE STREET, BUT IT’S THE SUBJECT AT HAND.

Jayne County: Sure.

ALRIGHT. SO, YOU’RE THE GRAND DAME, THE BIG CHEESE, OF TRANSGENDER ROCK.

Jayne County: Wow!

WHEN I LAST INTERVIEWED YOU, THIS WAS A MUCH SMALLER DEMOGRAPHIC — AND NOW IT HAS BECOME VERY BIG. COULD YOU TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?

Jayne County: It’s nice to see that my children are carrying on my legacy. It’s nice to see that. All I’ve done was walk on stage, do my songs, and try to be the best I could, and hope that it will affect people in a good way - or if it was in a bad way, maybe it needed to affect them in a bad way. You know what I mean?

I DO.

Jayne County: So, I like that. I like what you just said about being a grand dame. I love it. I’m eating it up.

WELL, GOOD. YOU WEAR IT WELL. AND SO MANY OF THESE FOLKS I TALK TO MENTION YOU —

Jayne County: Really? Wow. That makes me feel good because I do have a lot of down periods in my life where I go thinking, like, “Well, what’s the use? What have I done? Nobody cares. Nobody knows who I am anymore.” I do that and then I have you say this — really, I have to tell you, George, you really brought me up.

WELL, THANKS.

Jayne County: It’s hard for me to recognize it ’cause I step back and I look at pictures, and some of the things I’ve done — and do you know I don’t even remember some of the stuff? Like the thing on YouTube with me and Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis, and they ask us what we think of Andy Warhol, and I said I didn’t trust him because he had power. You know, I don’t remember doing that — I have no recollection at all of doing that.

HOW ABOUT THAT.

Jayne County: And it looks to me like I’m this other person. Sometimes it’s hard for me to look at my work and realize that that is me — does that sound strange to you?

NO. NOT AT ALL. BUT I WANT TO THROW THIS INTO THE MIX: THE REASON YOU ARE NOW HIGHLY-REGARDED IS NOT BECAUSE OF THE TRANSGENDER THING BUT BECAUSE YOUR MUSIC HAS KINDA BEEN VERY IMPORTANT —

Jayne County: In general, Transsexuals or Transgendered people — particularly Transsexuals more on what you’d call the serious side about their gender — don’t usually like the kind of music that I like or the kind of music I produce. They’re not real Rock or Punk fans. And that’s why I think at the very beginning it made me stand out so much. It’s like, there’s this Tranny and she’s doing Rock. Rock Music — something that was kind of considered a male-dominated thing, you know? And a Tranny doing Rock & Roll music — and I’d like to think that my music is good. I listen to it sometimes and I say, “Okay, I did a good job on that. I like that. I could have done this better or that better, but I’m pretty satisfied.”

THAT DEMOGRAPHIC LIKES HOUSE AND DANCE AND POP MUSIC —

Jayne County: That’s right. You’ve got Dana International — she’s a Transsexual and she won The Euro Song Contest.

YES.

Jayne County: But it’s like Dance music, which is kinda like what most people would think Trannies would do. I don’t do that kind of music. I’ve tried to do that kind of music — I’ve tasted the waters and I always stepped back and thought, “My god, it’s fucking awful. Why did I do that?” I just stick to what I know and love the best: Rock & Roll, or whatever you want to call it. To me, it’s just good old Rock & Roll.

AND WHAT IS THE HALLMARK OF GOOD OLD ROCK & ROLL? WHAT IS THE ONE THING THAT ALL GOOD ROCK SONGS HAVE IN COMMON?

Jayne County: Well, they have an incredible rhythm section. I mean, if your rhythm section ain’t working, the whole song falls apart. It keeps everything standing up. You can play the best guitar and have great vocals and everything, but without a rhythm section, it changes into Folk music or something else. The rhythm keeps it rocking and moving and keeps it in the groove. The bass and the drums keeps the beat. That’s what makes Rock & Roll. Punk’s got the drums and everything. We didn’t call it Punk, of course, until Punk magazine came along. Even The Ramones didn’t call themselves Punk. In the beginning they would consider themselves a Rock & Roll band, and that’s why I think the thing that makes a good Rock Band is the rhythm section — if you want to talk about it in a strictly musical fashion. But there are other things that make good Rock & Roll — like the attitudes. To me, snotty attitude makes good music. Not that there hasn’t been pretty Rock & Roll — I mean, Buddy Holly we could rock out to. He had good drum and bass players. So did Elvis Presley. Well, look at The Beatles’ rhythm section — my God! “Eight Days A Week,” “I Call Your Name,” or “You Can’t Do That” — “You Can’t Do That” is an incredible Rock & Roll song. I loved the Beatles in their early days. Their rhythm section was so good — they were great. They had a great rhythm section when they had Pete Best on the drums. It was amazing. You listen to the early Beatles stuff and it sounds like — it sounds like Pop Music.

TELL US SOME NOTABLE BASS PLAYERS AND DRUMMERS WITH WHOM YOU’VE PLAYED —

Jayne County: One of the best rhythm sections — ever, I think — people would always comment on how great the rhythm section of The Electric Chairs was.

UH-HUH.

Jayne County: I mean, Val Haller on bass and J.J. Johnson on drums are an incredible rhythm section, people used to remark.

THEN WE MIGHT WANT TO THROW IN THAT GREG VAN COOK PLAYED GUITAR.

Jayne County: He played guitar. He played rhythm and lead. When he took his lead, though — it’s important to have a great rhythm section so the bottom wouldn’t fall out. J.J. kept the rhythm section steady, and didn’t drop out. I had many different rhythm sections, with my early band The Backstreet Boys and with the band Queen Elizabeth, too. One time Jerry Nolan, the drummer from The New York Dolls — Jerry Nolan was my drummer for a time with Queen Elizabeth. He one of the best drummers. Great drummer — and one time I had on bass Kitty Erikson. She played in a lot of big bands. And then at one time, Tommy Ramone played either drums or bass. I’m telling you, my memory’s gone. But anyway, Tommy Ramone was in my rhythm section, way way back between Queen Elizabeth and The Backstreet Boys. But I’ve always tried to be sure — no matter what band — that I had a good rhythm section. If I didn’t have a good rhythm section, I didn’t really feel confident — because you gotta rock out when you’re up there.

OH YEAH, AND THAT YOU DO.

Jayne County: That’s the framework to do my insanity. That’s the backdrop for my insanity — but the music’s gotta be good, too.

I SEE. NOW YOU WERE SAYING HOW FOLKS IN THE TRANSGENDER WORLD LEAN TOWARDS THE DANCE AND POP STUFF, BUT THERE ARE A FEW WHO ARE NOT UNLIKE YOURSELF. ONE PERSON WHO COMES TO MIND IS GINGER COYOTE —

Jayne County: Coyote’s a really very good friend of mine. She’s another good example of a Tranny who plays in a good Rock & Roll band. She’s unique in her way. Ginger’s fantastic on stage. She’s one of my best friends. She always has good bands. Ginger’s one of those to take note of, you know? Now, I can’t think of a whole lot of ’em. I’m sure there are others. I’m sure my memory could be refreshed. At the moment, that’s what comes to mind: Ginger.

WELL, BETWEEN YOU AND GINGER — THAT COVERS A LOT OF TERRITORY.

Jayne County: It does.

AS YOU’VE TOLD ME BEFORE, YOU CAME FROM A PRETTY ROUGH TIME WHEN YOUR THING WASN’T REALLY EMBRACED BY PEOPLE IN GENERAL, AND YOU HAD TO KINDA FIGHT YOUR WAY THROUGH IT, DIDN’T YOU?

Jayne County: I did. I had to fight my way through. We had some bad reactions — more good reactions than bad — but we had some close calls. Like the close call in New Jersey where we had to be escorted over the state line back into New York by the New Jersey police because these angry Italians wanted to beat us all up. They wanted to beat the band up. They didn’t want to beat me up, for some reason. They were real macho. They didn’t want to beat the front Drag Queen up, I guess. They wanted to beat the boys up.

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT WAS?

Jayne County: I don’t know. Something to do with macho. Something to do with, maybe they wouldn’t be seen as being as big of men if they beat up the one with the wig and the dress on. They’re strange — want to beat up the guys. Very odd.

YOU TOLD ME THAT IN GEORGIA YOU’D HAVE TO FIGHT PEOPLE WHO WERE GIVING YOU SHIT —

Jayne County: Oh yeah. The police, too. They would arrest people, take them to a police station and shave their head. It was bad. They have a law, I think the law’s still in the books — if you’re considered a man and your hair touched the tip of your ears, you could be arrested for female impersonation which was illegal and probably still is in the State of Georgia. But yeah, that was bad, and that was when I was growing up. Down in Atlanta, it was hard. That was awful. We’d have to hide from the police. We’d hide behind trees, and as the police car’s search lamp would shine on the tree as the car would move by, we’d move accordingly behind the tree to avoid the lamp. It was pretty bad times for Trannies or anyone who barely cross-dressed or even showed any signs — anything that was considered unmanly, you could be killed. You can be shot at for it. Times have changed a lot, amazingly. Times have changed because of the music and different ways of looking at things, and movies and TV.

THERE MUST HAVE BEEN PEOPLE DOWN IN GEORGIA WHO WERE OPEN-MINDED AND EMBRACING OF YOU. IT MUST NOT HAVE BEEN ALL ABOUT REDNECKS AND COPS —

Jayne County: You could do Drag-y things but people really didn’t do Rock & Roll. There was a Drag Queen called Diamond Lil who did Rock & Roll. She’d come out and do Janis Joplin — people like that — but it was really considered very odd, the Drag Queens that came out. The Gender Benders came out and did The Supremes, Barbara Streisand — nothing Rock-y. The Gay crowd that would come wouldn’t understand it. They just wouldn’t understand it. If you were a Transgender person and you were on stage you did The Supremes or Barbara Streisand, something like that. You didn’t do Rock. If you did Rock, you were considered a real freak. You were considered a stranger-intersexual-male thing, you know? People were booing and would throw things at you.

I UNDERSTAND.

Jayne County: They think you’re insulting them or something — or trying to threaten them.

DO YOU LIKE DANCE MUSIC?

Jayne County: I like some of it. When it comes to music, I’m not narrow-minded. I like a bit of everything — but a lot of Dance stuff just sounds the same, and if people like that and want to dance to that, great — but it’s just not really my cup of tea. I just like the Rock & Roll rhythm more — the backbeat of the snare drum and stuff like that. A real person playing that — it’s almost old-fashioned. I consider myself a Rock & Roller. Always have.

I AGREE. NOW, DIFFERENT TYPES OF MUSIC HAVE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DRUG SCENES THAT THAT GO ALONG WITH THEM -

Jayne County: Oh yeah.

FOR THE DANCE MUSIC CROWD, IT WOULD BE THESE CLUB DRUGS —

Jayne County: Ecstasy and stuff like that. Yeah. Special K.

HAVE YOU TRIED THAT STUFF?

Jayne County: I tried Ecstasy once. I didn’t like it. It was like mild LSD, and all I did was throw up. I didn’t really like that, and I only did it once. Of course I did a lot of Acid, lots of LSD — lots of stuff, a lot of drugs. I did lots of things in the Sixties like PCP or THC, FFD, FFP, I don’t know, whatever. It’s a hog tranquilizer — yippee.

UH-HUH —

Jayne County: I’ve experimented with drugs. I’ve dabbled a lot, but I’ve never been a hardcore junkie or anything.

DID YOU TRY HEROIN?

Jayne County: I’ve tried Heroin, yeah, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. I tried it.

HOW ABOUT COKE?

Jayne County: I got hung up on Coke one time in New York. I had to go end up in N.A. I got to where I couldn’t even go out to a club unless I had Coke. I just felt like I needed to do Coke all the time — and I just got to doing it too much. I didn’t have a huge huge habit like other people have, but I was doing way too much. I didn’t like the fact that when I went out, I had to do Coke. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the fact, and so I went to N.A. and got off it.

WELL THAT’S GOOD.

Jayne County: And I’m glad I did. But in New York, at one time, it don’t matter where you were — you go into a restaurant, you hear people in the stalls going [snorting sound]. Everywhere. I mean, we used to joke about it. Me and this other person, we used to go, “Oh, there’s a snowstorm in here tonight.” There was a Coke dealer in there named Snowstorm, and then you go, “Is there gonna be a snowstorm tonight?” and you go, “Si, there’s gonna be a snowstorm,” and they go “Here’s Snowstorm!” There’s gonna be a snowstorm tonight —and it would be ninety-nine degrees outside.

AND THIS WAS AT THE WORLD, RIGHT?

Jayne County: It was at The World. Yeah, but every place in New York — particularly in the Seventies, was coked out. But, big with the Punkers was — particularly when I was in England playing the Rock scene and all — the drug was Sulphate. A really wild, nasty form of Speed. It was close to like Mr. Clean-Up toilet-bowl cleaner. You’d snort it, and like your nose would come off. It was unbelievable. All the Punks were on Sulphate and they’d do it right before they’d go onstage. They be playing and we’d be like, “Oh boy, they’re sulphated out —”

THOSE WERE THE DAYS, HUH?

Jayne County: Absolutely. Boy were those the days. I’m glad I partaked. I’m glad I can say I hung out at The Roxy and did that. You know, George, I wouldn’t trade my memories for anything. If I never did anything else in my life, I have the greatest memories.

THERE’S TRANSSEXUAL AND THERE’S TRANSGENDERED PEOPLE. MAYBE YOU CAN HELP US GET THE DIFFERENTIATION RIGHT —

Jayne County: Well, when you use the word “Transgender,” it takes in Transsexuals and Transvestites, cross-dressers, people just as weekenders, whatever. You know, the gender-benders — it takes all that in. You get into details: like, “Transsexual” usually denotes someone who takes hormones and absolutely identifies as female or male-to-female, and you can have post-operative and pre-operative Transsexuals. And then you’ve got Transvestites. They dress up like women. They can be Straight or Gay, but “Transsexual” denotes that they actually identify as women. I’m talking about male-to-female Transsexuals. That’s the main thing on that I would say.

THEY’VE HAD GENDER-REASSIGNMENT SURGERY, RIGHT?

Jayne County: Not all of them. Not all Transsexuals. The more modern ones today — I was just reading about it in some magazines — a lot of Transsexuals today, they take hormones and they live as women but they don’t have the surgery. Some Transsexuals choose to do that, and some don’t. They’re still Transsexuals; they’re just pre-operative Transsexuals. They live and identify as women but they choose not to have the surgery. Even Transsexuals who don’t take hormones — they just live as women. It’s so diverse and so varied that it’s impossible to say what’s what anymore. Like if you take a Transvestite and a Transsexual, then you’ve got many different forms and versions of that. It can be very confusing in a way, even for Transsexuals themselves. It’s just very diverse. Gender’s very diverse. Gender’s a lot more diverse than I think we could ever have thought it could be.

WAS THAT A SURPRISE FOR YOU TO LEARN THAT?

Jayne County: I wasn’t real, real surprised. I kinda figured that that was the way it was. Today it’s called gender-variant. You can say someone’s gender-variant, which means they’re either both or not or a little bit of this or a little bit of that. It just means they’re gender-variant. It means they don’t have one select chosen gender they identify with. They’re not male or female, or they’re not men or women — they’re gender-variant. I guess that’s really confusing but that’s the modern way of looking at it.

I SEE.

Jayne County: They don’t really fit into the mold of being a man or the mold of being a woman or the mold of being a Transsexual or the mold of being a Drag Queen. They’re just gender-variant.

A PERSON COULD BE A HERMAPHRODITE —

Jayne County: Yes. It could be a Hermaphrodite, too. Yes.

HAVE YOU EVER ENCOUNTERED ANY HERMAPHRODITES?

Jayne County: I knew a Hermaphrodite for a short time when I was living in London. It was a person who I just thought was a pretty little boy. It turned out it was really a girl, but she really was a boy. It turned out she was a Hermaphrodite. She had both sexual organs of a male and female, and you could look at her and look and look at her and you could never ever make up your mind if they was male or female — or it could be either one. She was totally nondescript — neither male nor female.

THE SIMPLER THINGS ARE, THE MORE COMPLICATED THEY SEEM.

Jayne County: Yeah, yeah —

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A LOVER? WHAT TURNS YOU ON?

Jayne County: I tell you, I like the fact that I’ve turned into an old-maid act. I love that. I don’t really look anymore. I don’t really have relationships because they make me crazy and it’s like a load off of my back. It’s like a load’s been taken away from me. I don’t have to worry anymore about anyone or anybody because relationships make me crazy. They make me nuts — and I just avoid them now. My last one was about ten years ago and I’d made up my mind already that I wasn’t going to have any more relationships but I went ahead with that one. It just made me crazy for forty years. It’s usually Straight boys. They always are. Usually I like girls who are attracted to Transsexuals, too. They didn’t know to begin with or whatever. They usually end up being Bisexual — or they just had a fling. The type of guy that goes with Transsexuals — there’s a type of guy that specifically likes Transgender people, and I don’t know exactly where that’s coming from. It comes from a lot of different places.

INTERESTING —

Jayne County: That’s another thing that’s very confusing to me — The type of guy that’s attracted to Transgender people. It’s like, what’s that saying about them? Sometimes they’re attracted to them because they just like the person — who the person is. They’re not really attracted to them because they’re Transgender. There are others who are specifically attracted to people who are Transsexual. That’s just what they like.

THE GUYS THAT YOU DATED — WHAT DID THEY ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

Jayne County: I don’t know if there was a common denominator. I don’t know what the common denominator was — to make me as crazy as possible, I think. I always ended up with people who were younger than me. They wanted to know more about this or that or whatever, you know? I think maybe I had too many boyfriends who were looking more for like teachers or school marms. They were like the unruly child or something. The relationships didn’t really end up that great. I’m really over-possessive — and that would affect me too much, and I would become obsessed. I really avoid relationships, man. I’m very happy. I just get totally obsessed in a relationship to the point where I don’t like myself anymore. I like to be just totally free. I like to do what I want at anytime. To have someone that’s there all the time or coming around all the time — after awhile it starts to make me nuts. Or it’s the other way: I don’t want them to leave the house. I want to tie them up and leave them in the basement. Not for real — you know what I’m saying? I get awful, really possessive.

WELL, I THINK THAT’S SWEET.

Jayne County: Horrible. I get really awful. When I’m in love, I hate myself.

WELL, THAT’S INTERESTING —

Jayne County: Different people have different capacities to hold a relationship. I became a lot happier as a person when I realized I did not have a high capacity to have close relationships with people. I’m very selfish, too. I’m very selfish in the relationship. Therefore I don’t have them any more. It’s like a burden that’s gone. I have my kitty cats and I have my friends.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR CATS.

Jayne County: I live in a house and there’s woods behind it and some wild cats come up. I have about ten cats — I have specific ones that are inside the house. Four of my cats, they come from the same litter. Their mother, Runaround Sue, gave birth to them under my couch, and they’re named John, George, Paul and Ringo. They’re four little boy cats. But Runaround Sue was a runaway. She ran off and didn’t come back. I don’t know — something might have gotten her in those woods down there. She came back and gave me the kittens and nursed them until they were old enough — and then she ran off. My Runaround Sue became my runaway, my run-run-run-runaway. But I have some other cats, too. A cat had kittens; I ended up keeping them. One is called Squeaky Cassandra, one is Bam-Bam, and one is Orange Boy — and they more or less come and go. There’s two white-and-red ones called Abbott and Costello. Costello’s just really wild. He just comes and eats and runs off again. So I have my kitties. I’m happy with them — and sometimes I have them adopted. I’m always looking for homes for them, and I have them fixed so they can’t populate. Then I let them loose and they go wild and go out in the woods or whatever.

THAT’S WONDERFUL.

Jayne County: So I do that. I can’t take them to the pound because they’ll put ’em to sleep. So, there’s all these woods behind me, and I just capture the cats and I fix them and let them go.

I FOUND ONE OF MY CATS IN A TRAIN YARD WHEN HE WAS ABOUT A WEEK OLD, AND HE’S DOING REAL GOOD. HIS NAME IS PEACHES.

Jayne County: I love that. Peaches.

THAT’S A GOOD NAME FOR SOMEBODY FROM GEORGIA. I SHOULD HAVE LEFT THAT FOR ONE OF YOUR CATS —

Jayne County: Is she the color of peaches?

HE’S A HE, AND HIS NAME IS PEACHES BECAUSE HE’S KIND OF A STRAWBERRY COLOR. IT DEPENDS ON WHAT LIGHTING YOU SEE HIM IN. HE’S AN ORANGE CAT, BASICALLY.

Jayne County: I have a cat named Orange Boy and his stripes are really dark, like a rusted flat orange. Then I have a big yellow cat, Yellow Boy. So there’s Orange Boy and Yellow Boy. I named them because their color was so distracting.

CATS ARE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, AREN’T THEY?

Jayne County: They are. They are. I’m a real cat person.

NOW, LET’S SEE — COULD WE TALK ABOUT TRANSGENDERISM A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? WHAT DO YOU THINK IT’S GOING TO BE LIKE?

Jayne County: Well, I don’t know. I do think that people will look back on this time as a defining moment in Transgender history in America.

IN HUMAN HISTORY IN GENERAL. THIS IS ALL NEW — THE RESULT OF MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY, SCIENCE —

Jayne County: That’s right. The science and medical things have made it, in a lot of ways, new. Trans people can do things and go places they couldn’t in ancient times — because they didn’t have surgeons in ancient times. In certain cultures they castrated and stuff like that, but they couldn’t make vaginas.

RIGHT —

Jayne County: So, I don’t know. In the future maybe they’ll have something where you can bypass surgery and you can just — gosh, I don’t know. Maybe the surgery might become easier. Maybe we won’t have to have it — or maybe you can change your sex at home.

AND THEN YOU CAN CHANGE IT BACK.

Jayne County: Maybe we could go back and forth. I don’t know. That’s all that I can say. I think that’s a very likely way to go — back and forth. And maybe we’ll find out in the future that sexuality is a lot more fluid than we thought. Maybe people will want to go back and forth in their gender, or maybe it’ll be like, What gender are you today?” — well, who knows? It could be.

MAYBE THEY’LL BE A THIRD SEX — SOMETHING HERMAPHRODITIC.

Jayne County: Yeah, maybe they’ll be a total third sex — a culmination of both. There’s a lot of things that can happen. Whatever it is, I hope it’s going to be for the overall good. I hope it will be good — and better for everyone. Hopefully, things will get better and better for Trans people so that they can live their lives freely and try to be as happy as they can be — just like everybody else is entitled to be happy. Maybe people won’t be as afraid or terrified of Trans people. They’ll just be more accepting.

PEOPLE ARE AMAZED BY THEM, AREN’T THEY? THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK.

Jayne County: Yeah, they’re totally amazed. They don’t know what to think. Even people who might find it distasteful are really interested in it. One of the most topical subjects of today is Transsexualism and all that gender variance stuff —

OKAY. BACK TO OUR DISCUSSION OF MUSIC —

Jayne County: I like Transgender Rock & Roll. I have a song called “Transgender Rock & Roll” — it’s one of my best songs.

TELL US ABOUT SOME OTHER SONGS YOU DID REGARDING THE SUBJECT.

Jayne County: Of course there’s the cover I did of The Barbarians’ “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?” Rocked it out. And, of course, the song I wrote — “Are You Man Enough To Be A Woman?” There’s some good versions of that on YouTube.

IT’S A COOL SONG.

Jayne County: I’m glad I wrote that. I really am.

WELL, CONGRATULATIONS ON EVERYTHING, AND FOR DOING WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO.

Jayne County: Thank you, George. ~