One of the pioneers of proto-punk, Jayne County was a founding mother of New York City’s punk scene in the 1970s. Her story is one of dualities — of poverty and celebrity, fame and infamy, of a Southern belle with a “f*ck you” attitude — of trash and glamor in the crowded bars and underground venues of New York City.
Born in 1947 in a rural town 40 miles from Atlanta, Jayne started to dress in drag and sneak out of the house when she was only 16 years old. At 21, she was shot at on the street in Atlanta and moved to New York City with $25 to her name.
The first thing she did? Go hang out at the Stonewall Inn.
During the Summer Of Love in 1969, Jayne spent much of her time at the Stonewall. Alongside the punks and art freaks that she ran with, Jayne loved “wrecking” normal people, deliberately violating gender norms and showing “the flaming side of gay” for the sole purpose of confusing and upsetting straight folks in a time where LGBT identities largely flew under the radar.
When police ordered the Stonewall Inn cleared, Jayne took to the streets alongside transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson — or “Miss Marsha,” as Jayne and others called her — and kicked up her heels with other drag queens in the infamous chorus line that mocked the police. For three days of the Stonewall under siege, Jayne joined forces with the queer activists, refusing to be displaced by police brutality.
The whirlwind of New York’s underground art and theater scene swept County and Childers into an crowded apartment with avant garde playwright Jackie Curtis and aspiring Warhol actress Candy Darling. Even while struggling to make ends meet, County blossomed in the heady, creative environment, surrounded by people who played with gender presentation. County was cast in her first play, Femme Fatale, as a psychotic Southern lesbian prisoner. She co-starred with Patti Smith.
The play’s success, as well as her constant presence at Max’s Kansas City (the unofficial headquarters of the New York underground) catapulted her into the underground theater scene. After starring in several more plays, she wrote World- Birth of a Nation, attracting the attention of Andy Warhol. He then cast her in his first stage show, Pork, a self-referential commercial success that delighted, disgusted, and enraged audiences first in New York and then in London in 1971.
A recurring theme throughout County’s life was the way in which other people used her as a token freak. New York’s elite often invited her and her friends to their parties to establish their credibility as curators of the urban subculture, expecting them less as guests and more as the evening’s entertainment. This pattern was echoed by County’s relationship with David Bowie, whose manager added County’s first band, Queen Elizabeth, to Bowie’s label as part of a marketing effort to make Bowie seem more “out there.”
To this day, County maintains that Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” was inspired by — or maybe ripped off from — her song “Queenage Baby.” Listen to both and make your own decision.
In 1976, the same year Jayne started hormones, “Handsome” Dick Manitoba of The Dictators heckled County as she performed with her band The Electric Chairs at CBGB. Not one to take sh*t from a man, Jayne immediately got off the stage and started throwing punches, quickly breaking his jaw.
She went “undercover,” dressing as a man and donning a fake beard, but was eventually apprehended by the police. After her charges were dropped, ’77 dawned, and the punk scene began to reach its height, County decided to fly with her band to London to go on tour.
London accepted County and her raucous band with open arms, beginning with a successful show at the Roxy on March 4th, 1977. Finally, she was able to release an album, called Electric Chairs 1977, with Illegal records, as well as a single, “f*ck Off,” on Safari. Audiences and critics alike were fascinated by her seeming ability to change gender, with her onstage presentation ranging from hypermasculine and fully made-up to a punk blonde bombshell look.
Jayne’s iconic song Man Enough To Be A Woman,which later became the title of her memoir, featured some of the most daring lyrics about sex, gender, and sexuality. Watch her perform it at Max’s Kansas City in 1979 here.
I got a transexual feeling
It’s hard to be true to the one that’s really you
I got a scandalous feeling
It’s hard to be true when they point and stare at you
Conditioned to portraying the mask of masculinity
Another blend of different shading
I am what I am
I don’t give a damnI wanna know, I wanna know
I wanna know, I wanna know…
I wanna know, I wanna know
Are you man enough to be a…woman?
County’s life is defined by, for lack of any better term, f*cking sh*t up. Her obvious lack of patience for gender boundaries and norms, combined with the unapologetic outspokenness that makes her music so explosive, came to a head in 2014 when Facebook censored her reclamations of the words “tranny” and “shemale.”
“ Tranny is not a slur word and I resent anyone trying to make it one. It’s the intent behind the word, rather than the word itself, that can be sometimes offensive. It may be a silly word, but it’s certainly not worthy enough to be banned. That is censorship, pure and simple and no better than right-wing Christian extremists or any other tyrants, who want to force their narrow-minded, conservative opinions on others. I do not want to live in Aftrannastan, and my religion is not The TrannaBan.” — Jayne in her 2014 op-ed in Queerty
After presenting for decades as neither man nor woman, County fought back with fiery interviews deriding censorship and, most of all, defending her right to do whatever the hell she wanted.
Six decades after her birth, County continues to embody what punk had always aspired to — a total rejection of the dominant culture’s norms, in favor of pure expression. Despite never being a household name, County’s life and career had untold impact on punk, glam, art, and culture, revealing the many ways in which her transgressions from the norm cleared the way for those who would follow her.
Read more about Jayne County’s life in her iconic memoir, Man Enough To Be A Woman.
