Heavy metal transsexual

I’m a western suburbs bitch. I was raised in the Victorian suburb of Yarrabah. And ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to be a female.

In my early days my father caught me many times dressing up in girls clothing and that was subsequently beaten out of me. It was a pretty average male life, pushed into playing AFL from the age of six. Dad wanted me to stay away from anything female but mum let it slide.

By the time I reached high school my mother had died of cancer. I had a feeling she knew about me wanting to be a female when she died.

Dad was under a lot of stress and the divide between us grew. I didn’t want to play sport and got into acting and music. I was performing in the Rocky Horror musical at school, and dad wasn’t happy at all.

We had quite a few punch-ups; he didn’t want me to go down that path. It was about then I started getting into heavy metal music.

When I was 15 I joined a band called At Random and we did Metallica covers. Lots of people thought I was gay but at that time I hadn’t slept with any male. I never wanted to be with a man, I just wanted to be a female. My sexuality never crept up because I was attracted to women, which is hard in the metal scene because there aren’t many good-looking women.

I finished school in 1990 and joined another band called Despise. I started work at Clark Rubber and my father was the manager of the store and being in a dope-smoking band didn’t help our relationship.

The last straw was when he caught me dressing up in my mother’s clothing after she died. It’s quite spooky but it was my coping mechanism with the lost. Sounds like the dude from Psycho, but I didn’t wear my mother’s skin.

It wasn’t until I got on the internet that I found out about transsexuals. The internet opened my eyes -“ I had thought I was a freak.

I had girlfriends and came clean to them about my cross-dressing. Some of them left, some of them dealt with it and some of them got into it. Most were horrified about what people would think about it if they found out.

In 1995, I joined a new band called Filth. Through our lyrics we tried to offend as many minorities as possible. We wrote songs about having sex with seagulls, dead animals, murdering transsexuals and having intercourse with the corpses. But in context there was no seriousness. We were taking the ultra-death core that people wrote at the time and putting ridiculous slants on it.

In 1996, I decided to move to Sydney to transition into a female. I packed up all my stuff and rolled into town with two hundred dollars.

The usual stuff happened. I met a girl, got into a band and worked in Kings Cross as a chef. I was also busking in the Central Station tunnel.

An old girlfriend told me a bullshit story that all trannies in Sydney lived in community housing like Melrose Place. I was so lost and didn’t know what to think.

I moved back to Melbourne to start again and the same routine happened again. I even got engaged with the girl. After five years together, she walked out on me.

After the break-up, I went to see a psychiatrist for a year to prove that I wasn’t a nut case and started dressing fulltime as a female. When I transitioned, I stopped all music.

I started to take hormones. Everything changed, I started crying heaps, having emotional flips, my skin got smoother and boobs started to grow.

Surgery is a barbaric thing. They take your penis, cut it up, turn it inside out and how long you are is how deep you are. It’s big trauma and costs a lot of money.

In 2003, I moved back to Sydney and in a couple of days met my current boyfriend. It’s hard for transsexuals to find guys. A majority of guys lose interest when girls get the surgery.

I started to work as an HIV counsellor and did a social worker course at TAFE. Now I’m an accountant at a television production firm.

I’ve got back into music and put my songs on MySpace. My music has exploded on the scene and has really taken over. The past year I travelled to Adelaide for Feast and the Midsumma festival in Melbourne. I was the first transsexual singer to perform at the Mind, Body and Soul festival. My last major gig was with Diana Anaid at Lismore University.

I’m working on a new album and it should be released in June before I travel to America and hit the festival circuit again.

Interview by Sunny Burns

Jade Starr will be performing at Bar Me, 154 Brougham St, Kings Cross, on 4 May. Her band’s website is www.myspace.com/dreadcircus.