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| “Punks from my time weren’t supposed to want to be famous, or care about recognition or even having enough money to support themselves. “ |
It’s difficult to sum up the accomplishments of trans performer Anderson (nee Annie) Toone in a few paragraphs. Ever since the late ‘70s, when a teenaged, harmonica playing Toone backed legendary San Francisco blues musicians and beat poets, he’s been a “genre fluid” musician, drag king and performer who changes personas as often as some guys switch partners.
“It’s always been my nature to mix, mutate, experiment with and collage together [musical] styles, instruments and cultures.”
A founding member of the New York no-wave girl group The Bloods—who he calls “a butch amalgam” of rap, jazz and punk—Toone toured Northeastern U.S. and Western Europe for two years, opening for bands like The Clash, REM and The Go-Gos, while their single, “Button Up” became a dance hall favorite.
“Part of what we were doing was just being an alternative—whether to apartheid, Reagan, Thatcher or the [lesbian-feminists] who told us we couldn’t wear leather, watch porn or do consensual kink because they said so.”
When The Bloods broke up, Toone stayed in Europe for a decade, founding first the jazz ensemble Idiotsavant and then country/punk band The Well Oiled Sisters (which headlined the 1990 country music women doc, Stand On Your Man). By 1992, Toone was back in San Francisco creating new “dykeabilly” sounds with the Bucktooth Varmints.
When Toone (andersontoone.com) switched genders on stage back in 1980, at New York City’s first W.O.W. Festival, he became one of drag kinging’s founding fathers. He’s thrilled with how things have changed since those early days. “In 1980 there were literally three kings…and now we’re in virtually every major city. The explosion is fantastic.”
He’s disappointed that drag kings haven’t gained the respect or mainstream exposure garnered by drag queens, but he’s still holding out hope for validation. “John Waters’ famously said kings would be the flavor of this new century—we’ll see if our 15 minutes is actually imminent.”
As a king, Toone has held a dozen drag names, putting his “transgender twist” on a range of masculine archetypes and exploring “what it means to ‘be a man’. It’s the activist strategy of…writing us erased trans-masculine folks back into the picture.”
The multi-talented artist has also taken his drag personas into full-scale reviews, like 2004’s Bucky & Bebe’s Holiday Hooteneanny, and the 1996, one-of-a-kind, drag king musical, Hillbillies On the Moon.
As the work’s composer, Toone says, “I’d love for Hillbillies On the Moon to be revived now that there are enough actual, established drag kings to play all the roles with the conviction they deserve.”
Calling himself a “Renaissance cat,” the FTM-identified Toone says his constant need to change is driven by “the magical and potent act” of naming and reclaiming things. But, he also admits, “Punks from my time weren’t supposed to want to be famous, or care about recognition or even having enough money to support themselves. I’ve…used alter egos and bands as defenses against my own personal success and as proof that I didn’t need or want it—[except] in the name of the cause. I now think that’s a bunch of downwardly mobile crap and I deserve to do well and be recognized for my contributions.”
The former drag king began living full time as a man four years ago. Now that gender is no longer as pre-occupying a personal issue, the multi-tasking Toone is juggling a duet—co-starring Toone and a fellow veteran of the punk days (“an infamously sexy female singer”), crafting original tunes, reviving his drag king history presentation (andersontoone.com/timeline/dktimeline.html) for this year’s Southern Comfort conference and preparing for the tenth annual drag king conference (2008’s IDKE X, in Columbus, OH).
In closing, he says, “Until we as trans folks are not being silenced in our own communities…and killed in record numbers by our own or someone else’s hate-filled hands, I’m compelled to [sing].”
Trans writer, Jacob Anderson-Minshall, co-authored Blind Curves, the first in the Blind Eye Mystery series, available now. Contact jake@trans-nation.org or visit Anderson-minshall.com for more information.
