‘Yr Beast’: Gender Parrhesia and Punk Trans Womanhoods

Abstract

While the subject of women’s activity in historical and contemporary punk scenes has attracted significant attention, the presence of trans women in punk has received comparatively little research, in spite of their increasing visibility and long history in punk. This article examines the conditions for trans women’s entrance in punk and the challenges and opportunities that it offers for their self-assertion. By linking Michel Foucault’s notion of parrhesia with the way trans women in punk do their gender, an attempt is made at showing how the embodied experience of a trans woman making herself heard from the punk stage can serve as a site of ‘gender pluralism’.

Sonic Cyberfeminisms: Introduction

“…Whilst the term sonic cyberfeminism may understandably invoke the technoaesthetics of avant-garde or dance-oriented electronic music, the themes of this issue incorporate other musics and media. In ‘“Yr beast”: gender parrhesia and punk trans womanhoods’ (2021, this issue), Jay Szpilka examines the oft-overlooked presence of trans women in punk. Using Michel Foucault’s (2010 [1982–1983], 2011 [1983–1984]) notion of parrhesia or ‘courage of truth’, trans womanhoods and other forms of ‘dissident womanhoods’ in punk are analysed, revealing the corresponding double standards in the scene’s dominant historisation.…”