[And The Next Thing You Know Theme music]

Suzie Sherman (00:00:13):

This is And The Next Thing You Know. It’s a podcast about how our lives go exactly not as we planned them. Relentlessly so. I’m Suzie Sherman.

 

(00:00:25):

Not gonna lie, it’s been a real long time since we’ve talked…or since I’ve talked to you, one-way conversation that this is, from the podcasting studio, which is a different podcasting studio since the last time I talked to you, because I moved again. Those of you keeping track might remember that, since starting the podcast in 2019, I moved from Oakland to Berkeley, then back to Oakland, then moved all the way up to Portland, Oregon, and now I’m living in still another place in Portland. And to be frank, I’ll be moving yet again before the next time we talk or the next time I talk to you, because dear listeners, shout it so the folks in the back can hear it:

 

(00:01:13):

(singing) Our lives go exactly not as we planned them!

 

(00:01:17):

I’ll introduce today’s guest in a sec, but did you know there’s a Patreon for the show? When I don’t post episodes for months on end, I won’t charge your account, but you can support me at patreon.com/nextthingpod, each month I release an episode. And don’t worry, I’ll keep track of all that. You could just set it and forget it. It takes a lot of time to produce every episode of the podcast. I’m totally independent here. I do all the research, interviews, editing, editing, editing, editing, editing, copywriting, keeping the audience engaged, promoting the show, all the things. Your support keeps me going. $10 patrons get a shout out at the end of every episode, and there are some fun goodies you get when you become a patron, even at the $5 level. Click over to the Patreon page at patreon.com/nextthingpod and sign up.

 

(00:02:15):

My guest today is the wonderful Shawna Virago. Shawna’s done so many cool things in the world, and our conversation just covers a tiny sliver. Shawna is a singer, songwriter, and performer who blends old school country and punk in the most timeless way. Shawna’s also the artistic director of the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival, and operations manager at Fresh Meat Productions, home of a vast array of trans and gender nonconforming arts and performances. In this conversation, we talk mainly about Shawna’s work and influences coming up as a musician, Shawna’s move to San Francisco from LA, grassroots political work, and a bit of Shawna’s love story meeting longtime partner and fellow creative and political conspirator, the choreographer and Fresh Meat artistic director Shawn Dorsey. Shawna is just straight up cool. And it was so fun to talk and learn from Shawna’s deep cultural knowledge about music and trans and queer history. As a special bonus for this episode, I’m really excited about this, I put together a Spotify playlist of artists Shawna and I referred to in the episode, along with two of Shawna’s original songs. You can find the link in the show notes in your podcast app, or go to the website at nextthingpodcast.com and click on the episode link. Without further ado, and thanks for tuning back in with me. This is my conversation with Shawna Virago.

 

(00:03:47):

I was wrong about my assessment of the story that we’re going to tell.

 

(00:03:50):

Shawna Virago Okay!

 

(00:03:51):

I think your wonderful love with Sean is going to definitely be a big part of this story. <laugh>,

 

Shawna Virago (00:03:55):

Okay

 

Suzie Sherman (00:03:55):

I was like, I don’t know.

 

Shawna Virago (00:03:57):

Great.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:03:57):

You know, it’s all what whatever comes through, comes through.

 

Shawna Virago (00:04:00):

Fantastic. Well, it is true that meeting Sean Dorsey was something I had not anticipated happening. And um, just the sort of deep gratitude I have for meeting him and our relationship, I didn’t really think I’d I’d ever be in a long-term relationship with somebody and, uh, especially somebody as great and smart and compassionate and playful and all cool and really good person. So, um, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t see that coming. So

 

Suzie Sherman (00:04:39):

It’s amazing. And it took, it took a long time to get to that moment where you met and were able to receive each other.

 

Shawna Virago (00:04:46):

Absolutely, absolutely. For me, one of the things I’ve, I’ve mentioned before is this idea of expectations that maybe people had 20, 30 years ago, 25, 30 years ago, of what you were worth having, whether it was a job or sane friends or, you know, or dating partners.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:05:13):

Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:05:13):

So I feel very lucky and also lucky because one of the things, I was a domestic, a queer domestic violence counselor for a long time, and so I just kept seeing people’s, I don’t know, sadness and what they were going through and how we’re not taught how to do healthy relationships, whether you’re a cis straight person or queers, you know, it’s something healthy relationships, healthy emotions, how to balance your checking and your savings account. Just the basics. Like we don’t get those

 

Suzie Sherman (00:05:52):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:05:52):

And so I felt like doing the domestic violence work also allowed me to question what’s a healthy relationship? What would that look like? So that set, that kind of set the ground, I think

 

Suzie Sherman (00:06:06):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:06:06):

to be, to know what, what a healthy relationship did not look like. I saw like, almost every day at the time on my job. So that was also became a blessing to kind of educate me on what one would look like, so

 

Suzie Sherman (00:06:23):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:06:24):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:06:24):

And yeah. And what situation did, did you and everyone, does everyone truly deserve, and what exactly this does not look like helps to inform

 

Shawna Virago (00:06:35):

Absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:06:36):

Your sense, your sense of what you deserved. Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:06:39):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:06:40):

When were you working at the domestic violence clinic?

 

Shawna Virago (00:06:43):

So, I worked at a agency called Community United Against Violence.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:06:47):

CUAV. Yeah,

 

Shawna Virago (00:06:48):

CUAV. I got hired in, uh, the very beginning of 1997. And I left in, um, two thou– the beginning of 2010. And I was the first trans spectrum woman they hired at the time. So yeah, I felt like I had got hired at a Fortune 500 company cause I had a regular paycheck and I had healthcare. So

 

Suzie Sherman (00:07:13):

<laugh>,

 

Shawna Virago (00:07:13):

it was pretty amazing.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:07:14):

It was a big score.

 

Shawna Virago (00:07:15):

Huge.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:07:16):

Had they started, like in the eighties or so? Or do I have the timeline on that right?

 

Shawna Virago (00:07:20):

They, well, they technically started in the, uh, seventies, um, after the White Night riots

 

Suzie Sherman (00:07:27):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:07:27):

and then ended up doing domestic violence work and hate violence work, uh, in the eighties, I think.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:07:34):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

 

Shawna Virago (00:07:35):

I think they organized a lot of street patrols prior to that.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:07:39):

Yep, Yep, yep.

 

Shawna Virago (00:07:40):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:07:40):

Wow, and so in the, in the very late nineties, top of 1997, you were the first trans woman that they hired.

 

Shawna Virago (00:07:46):

Yeah. There was such a bifurcation, of course, in the whole queer community. We talked about this a little bit, with folks who were LGB nominally embracing trans folks, but not actually.

 

(00:07:58):

Absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:07:59):

And so that’s part of that whole, even even grassroots progressive organizations not having it together to be inclusive until the late nineties. This is a really fertile moment that we’re talking about, about the late nineties and the early two thousands.

 

Shawna Virago (00:08:11):

Absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:08:12):

Transformational in your personal world as well.

 

Shawna Virago (00:08:14):

It’s funny, I I have some friends through the nineties who tried to start some sort of web project about how great all of us were in the nineties. And, um, I mean, it is, there’s a lot of, uh, of really wonderful things happening, but I, I think we also, some of the organizers maybe overlooked, there were people even before us who were doing amazing things.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:08:41):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:08:41):

So the people now who to me are young and doing great stuff, there’s gonna be 20 years from now people thinking they, the stuff they’re doing so amazing. And it’s like, wait, look back 20 years before, you know, and keep going. So.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:08:59):

Right.

 

(00:09:00):

 It is a weird one with the trans piece, and how I think a lot of people in the LGB world really wanted nothing to do with trans people. Like trans people had were, had mental illnesses or, um, weren’t really part of their struggles. And, uh, it’s curious how all of us, but I would say these folks in the LBG world really didn’t embrace trans people who I think, um, as we know, owe so much to especially trans women of color in the sixties and seventies sort of changing, I think the trajectory in a big way.

 

(00:09:42):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:09:43):

And just no awareness of that.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:09:45):

Right. It’s really only, it’s, it’s really only just started that there’s much increased awareness about Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera and

 

Shawna Virago (00:09:57):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:09:57):

And, and they identified themselves in a really different way because it was a really different time as well. Um, but acknowledging, I don’t even think people much younger than me. I’m pushing 50. I, I don’t know that even people much younger than me, like ever read Leslie Feinberg, for example. Um, right. Like, so you’re right. Like 20 years from now, the whole new culture really of acknowledging trans spectrum, gender fluidity

 

Shawna Virago (00:10:30):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Suzie Sherman (00:10:30):

non-binary identities. This is a whole, like, new vanguard, but all of the work that you’ve done and all of the work folks previously did, I mean, we’re, as they say, we stand on the shoulders of giants, um, in every generation.

 

Shawna Virago (00:10:45):

Absolutely. Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:10:47):

So tell me about, uh, we’re gonna go back, back in history a little bit more.

 

Shawna Virago (00:10:51):

Okay.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:10:51):

Tell me about your life as a musician when you were young, and what was going on for you when you started, when you started rockin.’

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:01):

Right. <laugh>. Well, I started playing the guitar in the seventies when I was about 14 years old. And, um, our kitty just came in,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:11:12):

Kitty knows how to open the door. I heard it.

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:14):

Oh, yeah. Hi. Are you okay? Sean is in, um, the next room with his dancers

 

Suzie Sherman (00:11:23):

uhhuh.

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:23):

And they’re doing, they’re doing like a, a dance warmup.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:11:27):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> <laugh>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:28):

So usually he would like to hang out with Sean right now.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:11:32):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:33):

He has to hang out with me.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:11:35):

He needs some comfort. Is there a way, Shawna, that you can close that door? Cause I am hearing Sean

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:40):

Sure, sure.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:11:41):

In the background.

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:42):

One second. Let’s go this way, buddy. I’m so sorry. There we go. That is not a sound effect.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:11:53):

<laugh>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:53):

That’s a real one.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:11:54):

totally, totally.

 

Shawna Virago (00:11:55):

So, um, I mean, I always wanted to, from a really early age, play guitar and write songs, and I also felt trans from a very early age and thought I’d have to deal with that, and whatever that looked like. I didn’t know, fortunately, when I was, I mean like eight or nine years old, I saw Christine Jorgensen on, uh, like a Dinah Shore show or something.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:12:22):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:12:23):

suddenly I had a roadmap or I had, um, something to think about as possible

 

Suzie Sherman (00:12:30):

Sort of a, a seed that was planted in a way

 

Shawna Virago (00:12:33):

Absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:12:34):

On a, on something that was forming already in you.

 

Shawna Virago (00:12:38):

Absolutely. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And the music, I always feel like those two things were both happening and important music and trans. So when I started playing the guitar, I, I always loved, um, what you might call old rock and roll music. So that would be like Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry or these types of things. And that tied in also with the other music I liked at the time, David Bowie with the Spiders From Mars, T. Rex and the New York Dolls.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:13:12):

For sure. For sure.

 

Shawna Virago (00:13:13):

So it all created this aesthetic that, um, I think a lot of people in United States seventies punk rock also had kind of a similar background or aesthetic of music. Um, I mean, not entirely, but I think there’s a lot of us that did.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:13:33):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:13:33):

You kind of see the rockabilly thing in American punk rock, but I mean, some people, I always thought, and I still think like the whole arena rock of the seventies was still a very, like, straight thing, very straight guy.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:13:48):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:13:48):

my brother, he had, uh, Led Zeppelin in the house, <laugh>, and so

 

Suzie Sherman (00:13:53):

Of course.

 

Shawna Virago (00:13:53):

yeah. So that wasn’t my kind of music

 

Suzie Sherman (00:13:56):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:13:56):

And so punk rock happened just, uh, about a year after I started playing guitar. And, um, that was just astounding to me. My friend that I hang out with on Zoom on most Saturdays, they, they’re not buying that it was culturally important. They think it’s just the romanticism of youth elevating it. And I’m like, it’s possible. But I, I try to point out that that also shaped a lot of cinema and graphic design. There’s a lot going on, I think.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:14:28):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:14:29):

And there was a lot of queers in punk rock. One of the people I saw at that time in the, probably about 1980, was a fellow named Tom Robinson.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:14:38):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:14:38):

who was out gay man doing punk rock music. So, you know, of course, I, I took myself to see him alone. I couldn’t let anyone know I was gonna go see Tom Robinson.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:14:48):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so around 1980 you said?

 

Shawna Virago (00:14:50):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:14:51):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:14:51):

Yeah. So, um, but one thing I do think is true in a lot of the music I’m describing, there was a way that, for example, um, in the seventies there were rock magazines, like Cream was one of them, and Circus, and these were very snarky magazines, but what was good is they focused a lot on kind of the alternative music of the time. And so through them I learned about Amanda Lear, a trans woman who was a muse of Salvador Dali, and she’s on, um, one of the Roxy Music album covers.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:15:29):

Right.Yep.

 

Shawna Virago (00:15:30):

You know, and then Bowie reporting from Berlin hung out with a trans woman named Romy Haag, who he dated. Lou Reed…

 

Suzie Sherman (00:15:38):

Lou Reed, of course, problematic as

 

Shawna Virago (00:15:40):

Yeah.

 

(00:15:41):

as some of those relationships were, it seems. Yeah.

 

(00:15:44):

It’s just too bad.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:15:45):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:15:46):

it, we would just worship him probably

 

Suzie Sherman (00:15:48):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

 

Shawna Virago (00:15:49):

but he was just a really abusive person. I think so. But yeah. So there was this kind of, um, parallel world kind of happening. Candy Darling

 

Suzie Sherman (00:16:00):

Warhol. Right, right.

 

Shawna Virago (00:16:01):

Warhol, the whole thing.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:16:02):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:16:02):

so

 

Suzie Sherman (00:16:03):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:16:04):

I, that was very important to me. It’s funny, my, Sean was talking today about how, um, to some people how important Carol Burnett was to him as a kid, and he had to explain who she was

 

Suzie Sherman (00:16:17):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:16:18):

and of course that happens to all of us where, um, people just have new, like, sets of references.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:16:25):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:16:26):

And I don’t even know, I’m really, believe me, I’m, I’m not really up to date with all the things that are happening now. I live in kind of a, a bubble, you know, it’s still, the music I love the most is this kind of music.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:16:41):

I think a lot of people experience exactly that where the music that was most impactful was really what we started listening to as teenagers and into our twenties. And it makes an imprint.

 

Shawna Virago (00:16:53):

It really does. I mean, I think probably a neurological kind of superhighway of some kind.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:17:01):

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So you happen to be coming of age at a really potent time for this amalgam of roots rock and punk that was going on.

 

Shawna Virago (00:17:12):

Very lucky. And also, um, this was on the West Coast, and so there was a club called the, um, Palomino Club in North Hollywood that I could go see people like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins play at. So I also made a point of seeing all of these people, cuz I love that music so much, and there was a way to see them like Bo Diddley or, um, Chuck Berry or John Lee Hooker

 

Suzie Sherman (00:17:40):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:17:41):

Jerry, Jerry Lee Lewis or Johnny Cash. So I think, you know, one of the things that I think is true about a lot of, for let’s say 20 years, people have been concerned about reading with young people, but I feel like there’s actually a lot of reading and writing that does go on, even if it’s texting. I feel that what I went through and being able to go see these artists, you know, that wasn’t, that was not part of the any school curriculum.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:18:11):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:18:11):

Right? And I feel like as long as young people are interested in something, their curiosity will keep, they’ll keep finding cool things and they’re, they’ll be fine. It might not be they, you know, does, does every generation have to read Moby-Dick?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:18:27):

<laugh>

 

[Musical interlude] (00:18:37):

(A clip from Shawna Virago’s song “Eternity Street.”)

 

Suzie Sherman (00:18:59):

So you are, you are coming of age and formulating your transness at the same time that you’re becoming a musician. You’re, you, you start to play out in the late eighties it sounds like.

 

Shawna Virago (00:19:12):

I actually started to play out like house parties in the, um, late seventies.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:19:19):

Oh, wow. Okay. I didn’t realize. So you’re, you were really young when you start to actually play for people.

 

Shawna Virago (00:19:25):

Yeah I was really young.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:19:26):

Okay.

 

Shawna Virago (00:19:26):

Yeah.

 

(00:19:28):

And then, um, and then started to play clubs in the early eighties and sometimes dances, or even frat parties,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:19:37):

<laugh> Oy yoy yoy!

 

Shawna Virago (00:19:39):

yeah.

 

(00:19:39):

That was, they paid the best, but it was actually getting out of those parties on a couple of occasions. Definitely. Um, they just wanted to kick my ass only because I was visibly in their minds “a faggot”

 

Suzie Sherman (00:19:58):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:19:58):

So that was also bizarre.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:20:01):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:20:02):

So I was trying to make it as a, a surviving musician from like 18 or 19. Uh, yeah. So I’m a product of my time. So that also meant I feel very lucky that my vocabulary of being a musician also, uh, being forced to learn a lot of different types of music. And I think a lot of people don’t go through just playing house parties and, um, dances and things like that. So that was, um, that was also good education.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:20:36):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:20:37):

getting into the actual clubs in Hollywood and other places

 

Suzie Sherman (00:20:40):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (00:20:41):

Was great.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:20:42):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (00:20:44):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:20:44):

Um, developing your chops starting to play in, um, original music kind of from the get-go? Or were you doing covers at first at those house parties or,

 

Shawna Virago (00:20:53):

Um, both

 

Suzie Sherman (00:20:54):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:20:55):

both. And, um, for some reason, and I, I know, I think I mentioned this before, but in, this was in Los Angeles, and so…you had Hollywood that was kind of the mecca for a lot of stuff, obviously in punk rock music. But then all throughout Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, there was a really vibrant sort of like house party scene for young people. And for some reason people wanted to hear a lot of early rock and roll at that time. There were some things that were cool, like Bowie to play some Bowie songs was great, but also to break out anything by the Supremes or Johnny Cash, or Eddie Cochrane was actually very much a part of what was also kind of going on.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:21:46):

Interesting.

 

Shawna Virago (00:21:47):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:21:48):

I wonder if that house party scene that you’re talking about in LA was some of what gave rise to that seventies revival of the fifties in the popular consciousness, i.e. American Graffiti and Happy Days. And I wonder if there was a relationship there between what was going on, sort of at a grassroots level,

 

Shawna Virago (00:22:05):

Yeah

 

Suzie Sherman (00:22:05):

and then what came into the consciousness of

 

Shawna Virago (00:22:08):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:22:08):

You know, like George Lucas who, who made American Graffiti, right.

 

Shawna Virago (00:22:12):

Yeah. I mean, it’s quite possible (cuts out)

 

Suzie Sherman (00:22:14):

You know, it, it, it, you know, it was a product of his, his coming up and, and being identified with that music when he was young. I’m, I’m assuming so it’s kind of part of that.

 

Shawna Virago (00:22:23):

Well, I mean, so like my grandmother, my great-grandmother, they were, they were Oakies, right?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:22:30):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:22:31):

So I had, I grew up, part of my childhood was living with them, and so I, I knew of Bakersfield music.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:22:38):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:22:39):

And I think Mike Ness of Social Distortion, who’s also about the same age as me, and also very similar experiences. Um, there was a club called The Starwood in Hollywood, and that’s where a lot of punk rock shows were happening in the late seventies. I saw the Buzzcocks there

 

Suzie Sherman (00:22:57):

Awesome. mm-hmm.<affirmative>,

 

Shawna Virago (00:22:59):

in 1979, and that was the first time I ever saw slam dancing. There was no slam dancing at first. It was, you would just kind of hop and jump up and down in place

 

Suzie Sherman (00:23:09):

Like Pogo more. Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:23:11):

That’s what we do.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:23:12):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:23:13):

But, um, I do think there’s a way that, well, I’m jumping around a little bit, but then a few years later, I, I was, I had a truck driving job for a warehouse, and I would go all over like a hundred mile radius from Los Angeles, and I would go into these hubs, these warehouses, and there’d be these guys in there that were old rockabilly guys, you know, and so they were probably like 50, right?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:23:41):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:23:42):

and I’m like 23, and I think they were out there doing their thing still. And I think there’s a way that country music and some of this fifties rock and roll never died for some people. And I think, like, I had a, I have an uncle who was a rock and roll guy, and so I just, I grew up with that.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:24:02):

Yep.

 

Shawna Virago (00:24:03):

I grew up with kind of almost like a, a hierarchy of what’s good and what’s not good.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:24:08):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:24:09):

kind of in the classic record nerd way, which my uncle was. So he would let me know things like, you know, there’s other things going on in the sixties besides the Beatles

 

Suzie Sherman (00:24:19):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:24:19):

I’m like, really? It’s like, yes, the Seeds or the Count Five or Question Mark and the Mysterians

 

Suzie Sherman (00:24:27):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

 

Shawna Virago (00:24:27):

that’s the sixties, and, or the Velvet Underground. So yeah, I do think that on the West Coast, there was a way that, that this thing never went away. Probably a lot of us grew up with the, this certain kind of appreciation. Like I will say this, like I’ve noticed with New York, East Coast people of a certain age, they have much more of an awareness and appreciation for things like what they called girl groups, like the Chiffons

 

Suzie Sherman (00:24:55):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

(00:24:55):

or, um,

 

(00:24:57):

Martha and the, the Vandellas?

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:00):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:00):

Is that right?

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:00):

Yeah.

 

(00:25:01):

And also, um, um, Doo-wop music

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:04):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:05):

And so that I think really was East Coast thing.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:09):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:10):

And I think that is why the New York Dolls sound the…they, that to me is what they’re really listening to.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:16):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:17):

they were listening to that kind of music out in West Coast. I mean, only X could not have happened in New York.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:23):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:23):

there’s no way.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:25):

Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:25):

Or the Ramones.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:26):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:27):

There were all these girl groups that they loved.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:29):

Totally. So Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There’s that real, yeah, that real sort of, I mean, the Ramones certainly have that rockabilly stuff going on as well, right? Like

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:41):

absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:42):

Like those quick, uh, almost jangly, you know,

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:45):

<laughs>

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:45):

progressions and stuff. Good work. Um, but yeah, absolutely. Like sixties, sixties group. I actually like just flashed onto Sha Na Na for a moment as well, which is really funny. Um,

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:54):

yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:25:55):

That dates us <laugh>, but Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:25:58):

With their weekly TV show, right.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:00):

Yeah. <laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:02):

You know, it’s funny, I’m gonna have to go check them out after this.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:05):

Uhhuh <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:06):

what’s their story?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:07):

I think I, I think when you said Doo-wop influence, I was like, okay. Yeah. Like Sha Na Na was doing that, and they became sort of a parody of, of music

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:16):

Yeah

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:16):

 in a sense, because they were so broadly popular because they were on tv, but they also played the house band in, in Grease,

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:24):

Ah!

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:24):

you know, at at the dance. Right.

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:26):

Okay.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:27):

um, so they were, and they were very much immersed in that very self-aware, we are bringing the fifties and sixties back into this moment in the late seventies. Right?

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:36):

Absolutely. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:38):

Yeah. So y when did you move to San Francisco, Shawna?

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:41):

Um, I moved to San Francisco, um, I guess 1991.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:46):

Okay. Okay.

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:48):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:48):

So you’re making, you’re gigging out from, from when you’re very young. You’re in house parties and clubs in LA um,

 

Shawna Virago (00:26:55):

yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:26:56):

And your formulation for yourself, for your gender identity is happening in this co-evolving process with

 

Shawna Virago (00:27:05):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Suzie Sherman (00:27:05):

with developing your music, music aesthetic and playing out. And you are not, I think when I said where you, you started playing publicly in the eighties. I was, or the late eighties. I was mistaken there. It’s the late eighties that you’re really coming out

 

Shawna Virago (00:27:20):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:27:20):

As trans and making that transition from like, being perceived by frat boys as a feminine man in their eyes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:27:28):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:27:28):

And making the transition by the late eighties of actually

 

Shawna Virago (00:27:31):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Suzie Sherman (00:27:32):

living as trans.

 

Shawna Virago (00:27:32):

Yeah.

 

(00:27:33):

It’s interesting because I would say at that time, most of us felt so alone. It wasn’t, uh, an easily accessible roadmap, um, to find other people like you or to get hormones, things like this.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:27:50):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:27:50):

And so I did, I met a couple people. I had, uh, another person I knew, we both worked at the same warehouse who was coming out at the same time I was, who passed away of AIDS really not long after that, I would say. And, um, that was just unheard of to have two of us end up there as trans-identified people.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:28:18):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:28:18):

like my boss was, um, at work, a closeted gay guy, sort of, um, military fetishist <laughs>guy.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:28:27):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:28:28):

So I knew him before I got hired. And, um, he hired people, he perceived as sort of like, I always joke, like fake “rough trade.”

 

Suzie Sherman (00:28:37):

Mm.

 

Shawna Virago (00:28:38):

Sort of looked a little punky or maybe with comed back hair and leather jackets and stuff. Very, um, almost like Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising sort of boys. And we were his truck drivers, and he was the boss of the warehouse.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:28:55):

Mm-hmm.

 

Shawna Virago (00:28:55):

So if we had both been gay identified when we met, that would’ve made a lot of sense.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:29:02):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:29:02):

we had tried to make, make life make sense in gay environments. That was one of the places that you would end up at parties and bars and things. Um,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:29:14):

Right. That’s a really good way to put it.

 

Shawna Virago (00:29:17):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:29:17):

Appreciate thinking about it in that frame. Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:29:20):

There was, I mean, there wasn’t really a lot of places to go. You know, there was a, there was a bar in Los Angeles called the Queen Mary, and that anybody kind of breaking gender rules maybe could end up there. That was the only thing people had in common. So like years ago here in San Francisco, there’s a, well, there’s used to be an organization called TGSF, Transgender San Francisco. When I moved here, they were called ETVC, Emergency Transvestite Channel.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:29:56):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:29:56):

And, um, somebody said, oh, you should, that I met you should go to their meeting, their monthly meeting. So I went to this bar called Eichelberger’s Bar that, um, is where a previous generation of drag queens went. Many of them, um, passed on because of AIDS.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:30:16):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:30:16):

that’s where I saw Justin Vivian Bond perform. I think the second show they did of their, um, Kiki and Herb thing.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:30:26):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:30:27):

Right. So, um, but I used to see them in bars too

 

Suzie Sherman (00:30:31):

Early nineties.

 

Shawna Virago (00:30:32):

Yeah. This would’ve been, um, early and mid nineties.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:30:36):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:30:36):

and I went to this meeting and they were all very done up, maybe even one or two Dallas Cowboy cheerleader inspired outfits,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:30:46):

<laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (00:30:46):

And I just showed up in a t-shirt and jeans and I, I think I had steel toed boots on and stuff. So, and I was probably the only one really living as they would say, 24-7 as a trans person

 

Suzie Sherman (00:30:59):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:30:59):

And it was definitely a culture clash. You know, they couldn’t believe I <laugh> I went through the world dressed this way.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:08):

Mmm.

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:08):

Seemed like a, like a waste, a waste to not femme out and to, uh,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:13):

Yeah. Can I hold that with you for a second? You’re, yeah. Did someone literally say it was a waste to you?

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:19):

It was implied. Like,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:21):

that’s the vibe

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:22):

Wondering how come I, I dress like that

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:24):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:25):

and, uh, you know, a little more eyeliner and I could be in the club, things like this.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:31):

Yeah. Yeah. So living, living as a trans woman and not having the aesthetic that’s very high femme

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:37):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:37):

In the way that drag performers are doing

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:41):

Right.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:41):

As part of their performance.

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:43):

Absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:43):

Right. Not understanding that, oh, this is, this is another way to be.

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:48):

Right.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:49):

Like, why would you waste your femininity?

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:51):

Exactly.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:31:51):

Is that kind of what you’re saying? Yeah. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:31:53):

and I was, I was younger than them, you know, I was also younger than them, and I think my universe was different than their, theirs was

 

Suzie Sherman (00:32:04):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:32:05):

So I think a lot of them probably got up and went to work as like, people who are perceived as cis males.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:32:14):

Yes. Yeah. Most of them.

 

Shawna Virago (00:32:16):

And because of the jobs I had, I’m lifting boxes or, um, doing semi physical job still, so, you know, anyway, and I’m a punk

 

Suzie Sherman (00:32:27):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:32:27):

you know

 

Suzie Sherman (00:32:27):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:32:28):

So it’s funny, that’s been another thing, you know, with certain trans women over the years asking me why I dress this way. And, uh, you know, I’m like, I don’t know. I have like a, my worker’s shirt on

 

Suzie Sherman (00:32:42):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:32:43):

and, uh, I’m a worker, so fuck it.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:32:46):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:32:47):

(cuts out) How we, we police ourselves, so

 

Suzie Sherman (00:32:49):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:32:49):

I don’t know. I mean, it feels each of us has our own history and our trials that we’ve survived. And it’s true for everybody. I think the nineties was a really particular era of queerness. Looking back, I think we might have thought, oh wow, we’re really doing something new. Possibly. But it’s kind of like when you look at the fifties and you see everyone and they’re thinking, yeah, this is amazing.

 

(00:33:19):

We’re really, we’re making a, a new path for humanity. And it’s like, well, you– you’re gonna have to get better hair products first

 

Suzie Sherman (00:33:28):

<laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (00:33:29):

Like, your hair products suck and you just look, you don’t look so good. And I think of us in the nineties that way, a little bit like we

 

Suzie Sherman (00:33:39):

<laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (00:33:39):

we were still pretty, we were rough in the corners. That was a thing, um, in the early nineties was this idea of this disparagement of the word transvestite.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:33:50):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:33:51):

you know, it was whoa to anyone who identified that way. Like, you couldn’t even, you probably couldn’t leave your apartment

 

Suzie Sherman (00:34:00):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:34:00):

Cause you would just be object of ridicule. Cause you, you were, but a transvestite and not a transsexual.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:34:08):

Mm.

 

Shawna Virago (00:34:09):

And then years later, uh, one of those 101 trainings I was doing and saying, “what are the words, who goes under the umbrella of transgender this spectrum? Who are the communities?” And people threw names at me, and I said, what about transsexual? And it’s like, oh, no, no one uses that word anymore. So,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:34:29):

And there’s this then cultural new cultural stigma about it.

 

Shawna Virago (00:34:33):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:34:33):

Not acknowledging that there’s still people who refer to themselves as transsexual.

 

Shawna Virago (00:34:37):

Yeah. There are.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:34:38):

And then there’s often these, um, these divides in consciousness around, well, transsexual necessarily means that someone has had gender affirming surgery.

 

Shawna Virago (00:34:49):

Right.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:34:50):

And those, those kinds of distinctions are sort of like backcronyms in a way. It’s like you’re actually, like, you’re trying to explain a phenomenon like after the f after the phenomenon happened, right?

 

Shawna Virago (00:35:02):

Yeah. Right.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:35:02):

Um,

 

Shawna Virago (00:35:03):

yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:35:04):

Yeah. Like, why isn’t there more, th this is always something that really strikes me. Like, we’ve all hopefully been working for sexual liberation, and it means that people get to be self-determined in the way they identify. Why are you going to fuck with someone who’s using a word that you don’t use? Let’s let people be self-determined about how they identify.

 

Shawna Virago (00:35:27):

I agree with you. 110 percent.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:35:29):

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it’s definitely a generational thing in a way. I think younger folks really don’t get that <laugh>. There’s this whole world of experience and as you said, really individual experience that people bring

 

Shawna Virago (00:35:44):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:35:44):

To their lives and the culture that’s valid and hap and happened before them.

 

Shawna Virago (00:35:48):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:35:49):

So this is kind of one pivotal moment of time where things are changing. We’re talking, you know, early, early to mid nineties. You’re already out. You’ve made a transition from LA to San Francisco. What, what brought you to the City?

 

Shawna Virago (00:36:03):

I had, um, already been to San Francisco just to check things out in the eighties, you know, come up here and spend a weekend, things like that. And I thought it just felt where I could, um, I could build a life easier.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:36:20):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:36:20):

you know, it had the reputation as, uh, a place for queers to come, and you would be treated better than most places. And Los Angeles is so big and spread out. You had to get anywhere driving in a car. And I just thought, you know, I just wanna live somewhere where I can take public transportation. And, uh, I already knew some places here that were trans centric places, like the Motherlode bar.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:36:49):

Where was Motherlode?

 

Shawna Virago (00:36:50):

Motherlode was on, um, Polk.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:36:53):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:36:54):

Polk. And Post somewhere like that. It was the people who owned Diva’s Bar, which was just up the street, owned the Motherlode first.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:37:05):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:37:05):

Yeah. So that, that had been around for a few years. At that point. It was very small. It was a place to just go and be. And there’s a lot of sex work kind of happened, I think, out of that bar. And there’s also a store called, um, Foxy Lady on Mission Street, and that, that closed a few years ago. And that was a place that didn’t necessarily cater to trans people. It catered to, uh, it catered to maybe drag and trans, but also it was a place where all the clothes had sequins on them.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:37:42):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:37:43):

whoever liked clothes was sequins.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:37:45):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:37:45):

That was your store. Anyways, I just was over Los Angeles and ready for a change. And, um, and I still like living here. We have our little flat and, um, rent control, thank god.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:37:59):

Hallelujah. Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:38:01):

The studio that I’m been working at, Different Fur, people walk by, they don’t even know it’s there. It was right next door to the Lexington Bar. And most people have no idea. It’s like, it started in the late 1960s. Stevie Wonder recorded there.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:38:16):

No kidding.

 

Shawna Virago (00:38:17):

Herbie Hancock recorded there. It’s very cool. The studio board, it’s not from the sixties, but it’s from the eighties. So when I leave there, I usually leave around 6:00 PM and I walk through that part of the mission, and it’s just still gets so angry and sad. There’s just mostly cis white people, and they’re all there and they’re, it’s like happy hour. They’re not wearing their fucking masks.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:38:46):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:38:46):

I don’t know, maybe if you make enough money in the tech industry, you, there’s some kind of immunity you get. It’s so, despite being filled with so much anger about the displacement that’s happened, um, I still like living here.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:39:01):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:39:01):

So there’s still enough of us here.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:39:04):

San Francisco definitely still has its very particular weirdnesses and queerness is that are, that are stable.

 

Shawna Virago (00:39:11):

I think so. And those of us who remain basically, I think have older landlords.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:39:18):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:39:20):

That’s kind of why we’re still here, probably so.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:39:23):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (00:39:24):

Yeah. Right.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:39:25):

Getting toward the late nineties, I know that you’re making your home here and there’s a lot more trans and queer community here that you’re finding, thankfully.

 

Shawna Virago (00:39:35):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:39:35):

And also as a trans woman out on the street and as a trans performer, there’s a lot of struggle that’s still happening. There’s more trans community, there’s certainly more queer community at this point, but you’re still experiencing harassment at clubs. You’re still, you got bashed during this time.

 

Shawna Virago (00:39:59):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:39:59):

Um, what’s going on in your life at this time?

 

Shawna Virago (00:40:03):

Well, I mean, I, I think one of the common sound bites that I think a lot of, I will say a lot of, um, trans women of a certain coming out era, what’s interesting about being trans is somebody could be 55 and they’re just coming out now

 

Suzie Sherman (00:40:22):

mm-hmm.<affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:40:22):

right.

 

(00:40:24):

So they might be the same age as me, but their experience is gonna be very different as far as this idea of trying to go out only at night as much as you can. So going out at night was definitely, uh, I think a very common way of, of existing in the world.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:40:46):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:40:46):

for, I mean, for a long time, you know, like, I don’t know if I’d still like this book, but I did like Last Exit to Brooklyn.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:40:53):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:40:54):

Hubert Selby Jr. So I think like that book Jean Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers, you know, also trying to find some lineage just now. Those were part of it. And I think, like, so Hubert Selby Jr. writing about trans, let’s say, spectrum, women also who had, were junkies in New York in the fifties, and I think, but their world was very nocturnal also

 

Suzie Sherman (00:41:22):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:41:22):

And I think that was still very true for me and for people I know. You know? And so I think things did start, I mean, I was really interesting when I started to meet these younger trans people, really in the late nineties. And a lot of them had just come, they just graduated college and they had taken women’s studies classes. They definitely seemed to have a better education, <laugh> of a lot of trans or gender things than I did for sure. You know, like they probably had even read Moby-Dick. Right.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:41:56):

<laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (00:41:57):

and also knew, um,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:41:59):

But also probably Kate Bornstein and stuff.

 

Shawna Virago (00:42:01):

Kate Bornstein

 

Suzie Sherman (00:42:02):

stuff by that, by that time. Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:42:04):

Yeah. And, um, what’s her name? Judith Butler.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:42:07):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:42:08):

Right. Things like that. So you were really kind of, um, out in the open. Something also has started then has kept building. There is this new community that’s really didn’t exist before. Then it really got going in the, like they call it the Aughts where people who are assigned, regardless of what you were assigned at birth, there’s this like, community we kind of know as the queer community now. And I think that is pretty still new.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:42:41):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:42:42):

So, you know, you still had your dyke communities and you had your gay communities, and then you had these, uh, these trans weirdos that really intersected with people, but it wasn’t, you weren’t really, I would say valued

 

Suzie Sherman (00:42:58):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:42:58):

Not to mention just being like, so playing in bands and then not knowing what’s gonna happen in the bar I’m playing, or after the show, am I gonna get hassled, what it’ll be like going to the van.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:43:14):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:43:15):

all these kinds of things. So being concerned for my safety, which I still am, I’m sure most of us are.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:43:22):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:43:22):

Whenever we leave our places, you know, like when we go to Trader Joe’s, it’s like, okay, <laugh>, just, it’s always there, I think still, you know?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:43:33):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:43:34):

And now we have the crazy alt-right going after us, and they just won’t go away. I just, um, I’m all over the place with this answer, but

 

Suzie Sherman (00:43:45):

It’s okay, Shawna.

 

Shawna Virago (00:43:46):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:43:47):

It, I was gonna say also, not just the alt-right, not just the extreme, right. But we’ve got cis separatist feminists still who are trans exclusive. And it’s like, why when we so clearly should be allies, are you fucking doing this? You know,

 

Shawna Virago (00:44:03):

It’s, I’m like, we need, we need our numbers.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:44:07):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:44:08):

we need our, we need each other.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:44:10):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:44:11):

I don’t understand it. I don’t get it. It’s very, yeah. It’s weird. It’s very weird. Um, but I think, I don’t know, I think in the early Aughts things really shifted.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:44:23):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:44:24):

That’s what I think

 

Suzie Sherman (00:44:25):

There’s a really big moment in your life, in queer trans San Francisco, and in your life in 2001.

 

Shawna Virago (00:44:33):

Yes.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:44:34):

At this point, you were pretty beleaguered by getting a lot of harassment and hassle.

 

Shawna Virago (00:44:42):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:44:42):

And, and vi and violence directed at you by the late nineties and, and, and 2000, and you were barely even going out at this point, it sounded like. Yeah,

 

Shawna Virago (00:44:52):

That’s, that’s true.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:44:53):

Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:44:54):

I definitely, um, it just got, where’s safety? Who are the safe people? I had a little group of cis gay friends that didn’t live too far from me. And probably if I hung out socially, that’s where I went. Cuz it was just easier to be around them. There wasn’t any strangeness around, um, I wasn’t gonna get hurt by them. And there wasn’t any of the weird, I don’t know, potential for violence, but also if people, if once people knew I was trans, that is when problems started, that would be, um, what’s the reaction gonna be?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:45:41):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:45:41):

sometimes they’d apologize. <laugh>, you know, like they didn’t know I was trans and like, whatever, you know, or like, uh, I would get dragged out to like dyke clubs. There was a big club here in the nineties called Club Q. And I would just, my friends would take me there and I’d just hang out at the bar.

 

(00:46:02):

And then if a woman would come up to me and say something like, “I love your hair,” you know, or “what a wonderful shirt you have on,” if I said anything like, “thank you,” it would just be like, ah, you know, oh my god, who am I talking to?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:46:20):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:46:20):

So it, like that got old not to mention, uh, public transportation harassment from people. And so you have, there’s transphobic harassment and violence that happened. And then it’s also true that, and, and we know this, but there’s like this weird mis there’s like weird misogyny all attached to it all.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:46:47):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:46:48):

And, um, it’s very bizarre. I think, again, back to this critical mass, now that we have this extended community, we can talk about this, but there was a long time when you just couldn’t talk about it.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:47:01):

Absolutely. And I can own of this time of myself as a cis queer person

 

Shawna Virago (00:47:06):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:47:07):

Meeting, meeting trans folks and, and internally not understanding trans experience at this time in the, like, certainly early mid nineties where I would come across someone in my community not having, not known that they were trans. And if they, um, came out to me, I had, I had those reactions. Right. I can own that. There was no framework in our discourse about it in the, in the early nineties. It was such a revelation and I was so wrapped up in my own, wow, I’m queer and this is amazing and stuff, but it was such a cis normative experience and culture that I was in. Right?

 

Shawna Virago (00:47:47):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Suzie Sherman (00:47:48):

So it took me meeting and, and becoming close with trans folks to understand trans experience in a more, this is an everyday reality thing. Right?

 

Shawna Virago (00:47:57):

Yeah. And what’s interesting about, I think humans, we have a tendency, well, can’t believe I’m, I’m gonna use the name Foucault here.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:48:11):

<laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (00:48:11):

Are we in 1992? Like, uh…

 

Suzie Sherman (00:48:14):

I mean we have a panopticon right now on our computer screens watching our every move. So

 

Shawna Virago (00:48:20):

True. It’s so true.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:48:22):

Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (00:48:23):

But that book, The Order of Things

 

Suzie Sherman (00:48:25):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:48:26):

and, and showing this kind of need to classify every, everything in Western culture. He, I think starts in the 1600s or something, I’m not sure, 1500s.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:48:40):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:48:40):

like it’s always, I think Western culture is, it has to, it has to find a place for everything. And I think we don’t realize so often if we’ve internalized this, how hard it is if we can’t find a place for something and learning just to let things be, you know

 

Suzie Sherman (00:48:58):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:48:58):

And that can look like different things. Like there’s a fellow in our neighborhood, he must be in his mid-60s, and all he wears are heavy metal T-shirts, you know?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:49:09):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:49:10):

and I think what <laugh>, what’s his story?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:49:14):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:49:15):

Like, who is this person? I’ve seen him for years, you know, and he just walks around, has his like Iron Maiden shirt

 

Suzie Sherman (00:49:23):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:49:23):

or Motorhead or whoever, and I’m trying to place him and

 

Suzie Sherman (00:49:29):

You’re trying to put him in a box in which you can understand.

 

Shawna Virago (00:49:32):

Yeah. Why can’t you just

 

Suzie Sherman (00:49:34):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:49:35):

maybe he hates heavy metal, but he bought, like, they can’t give these shirts away now. So he just bought a few,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:49:42):

Right. He bought, he went to a thrift store and bought a gross of heavy metal shirts and actually has no connection to heavy metal.

 

Shawna Virago (00:49:49):

Right. Buy 50 shirts.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:49:51):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> (laughs)

 

Shawna Virago (00:49:51):

So, but I do think gender and sexual orientation still, right. I mean, it’s okay, we’re all gonna have biases. It’s what we do with them.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:50:01):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (00:50:02):

And it’s perplexing to me. In America, I think one of the things we don’t talk about is this sort of weird, radical, militant Christianity that came here and

 

Suzie Sherman (00:50:17):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:50:17):

I think immediately just pulled out the muskets and shot people. The first people they saw. I think that happened a lot. I think they just, just killed people right away and took their land. And I think we still have this, it’s just been passed on.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:50:35):

That’s right. It’s in our cultural DNA

 

Shawna Virago (00:50:37):

And it just won’t go away

 

[Musical interlude] (00:50:48):

[A clip from Shawna Virago’s song “Eternity Street.”]

 

Suzie Sherman (00:51:00):

Okay. Can we, can I wrangle us back, Shawna, to 2001?

 

Shawna Virago (00:51:03):

Yes, please do.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:51:04):

I’m gonna wrangle us back to the Trans Art show that happened. Your friend Jordy?

 

Shawna Virago (00:51:11):

Jordy Jones

 

Suzie Sherman (00:51:12):

Organized a Trans Art show in San Francisco in 2001, and it was, it hit you at this moment in your life where you were, you were staying in, um, you weren’t even having your nocturnal life. You were, you were staying in, um, and Jordy calls you

 

Shawna Virago (00:51:29):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:51:30):

And wants you to perform at this show and you resisted.

 

Shawna Virago (00:51:33):

Yeah. I thought, oh, I don’t, I just don’t, what will I do? What will I wear? Who will like me? I better not do it. Jordy Jones was in some ways at this time, a very kind of, um, important cultural activist in San Francisco. We both came out about the same time and were friends. And, um, he was kind of a bridge between a lot of communities, especially the sort of, I would say the fine arts community. People who would show their paintings or some kind of performance art, like whether queer or not people who would say the art, the art world, the art scene when they were still, like, even if they were cis and straight, they were still kind of like weirdos.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:52:15):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:52:15):

you know, like the early Burning Man people.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:52:17):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:52:18):

And I had, I still have some friends like that, that, have survived here.

 

(00:52:22):

So, um, he just took an upon himself with no funding really. He got, it was at the library, was the performance venue.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:52:31):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:52:31):

the downtown library. And then he had a couple panels. He had one on trans spirituality, I think was one of the panels. Yeah. It was a little, there was, um, kind of a meet and greet at what’s still called the GLBT Historical Society.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:52:46):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

 

Shawna Virago (00:52:47):

I think I met Charlie Anders there.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:52:49):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:52:50):

So he put this thing together and he put a performance event together. Trans Art 2001 is May of 2001. And he had, um, he had a drag queen fashion show. It was part of it. And then I played music and, uh, Sean was in the audience and, um, liked me. And then, uh, we met afterwards. There was a small after party at Cafe Du Nord

 

Suzie Sherman (00:53:17):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:53:18):

and Sean showed up there. Yeah. That’s where we met. So that was very cool.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:53:23):

And Sean for the listeners, is Sean Dorsey Shawna’s partner of the last 20 years.

 

Shawna Virago (00:53:31):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:53:31):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So in this moment, you were resisting even going to this trans art show because shit was so negative at clubs and so

 

Shawna Virago (00:53:43):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:53:44):

So fraught for you being out and trans and performing, but this moment was really, was really significant. There’s all kinds of big cultural shifts going on in the San Francisco trans community at this time. Right. Fresh Meat?

 

Shawna Virago (00:54:01):

Fresh Meat happened, um, I think the first Fresh Meat, I think was June, 2002.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:54:08):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. So it’s just after this, the Trans Film Festival happened, was happening from the late nineties,

 

Shawna Virago (00:54:15):

Started in 1997.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:54:16):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:54:17):

it, I think the…97, 98, and then I think it became, uh, every other year after 99. It became every other year. Yes. Because that was another place where Sean and I, that was part of our hooking up too, because Sean had, he left, he left San Francisco for a couple months after that. So we didn’t know we’d hook up again until later in the year, which we did. So there was a, a, an event that happened here called Merkin Fest. You know,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:54:52):

<laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (00:54:52):

it’s a weird thing. So a lot of people never even went to Merkin Fest or heard about it, right?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:54:57):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I never heard about it.

 

Shawna Virago (00:54:59):

It’s one of the worst names of all time.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:55:01):

It’s hilarious.

 

Shawna Virago (00:55:02):

You know? So it was, uh, it was at Slims, the club.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:55:06):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:55:07):

And it was basically drag performers, and they got up and they lip synced, but it wasn’t necessarily very queer. It was almost like the last vestiges of a certain kind of drag culture.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:55:21):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:55:21):

that was di–has died out. And that was in the early nineties.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:55:25):

Early nineties. Okay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:55:27):

Jordy then was one of the first trans people to try to be the organizer. And then that made it, who it was catered to were people on trans spectrums or gender nonconforming spectrums. Right. So that was pretty, that was pretty new still for that to happen. So

 

Suzie Sherman (00:55:46):

To act Yeah. To have actual gender diversity happening in a drag

 

Shawna Virago (00:55:51):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:55:52):

Space.

 

Shawna Virago (00:55:52):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:55:52):

Um, right. Because it was so traditionally just cis gay male

 

Shawna Virago (00:55:57):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:55:57):

Space.

 

Shawna Virago (00:55:58):

Yeah. So I think Trans Art, I don’t know. I just was worried. And yeah, it went down, well, I played two or three songs. I had a little combo and, um, thank god I did a good job. And, um, Sean, uh, liked my outfit.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:56:15):

Mm-hmm! <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:56:16):

so thank god I, I wore, I actually wore a dress that day.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:56:20):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:56:20):

versus, uh, not giving a fuck, basically.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:56:23):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:56:23):

But, uh, yeah. So there was this like, young vision of just like cuteness that showed up, <laugh> at

 

Suzie Sherman (00:56:33):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:56:33):

the after party. I think he had his like, hoodie wrapped around his waist. He had just come from like a dance class or something.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:56:42):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:56:42):

he’s a dancer and a choreographer. Yeah. And then after we started to connect first, uh, on the phone, we had a lot of landline chats and then we had a lot of email exchanges. And this went on for probably, you know, I think five or six weeks before we actually met and had our first real date. And I always feel really grateful that’s, that’s what we did first, just to kind of get to know each other that way versus hooking up first and then getting to know each other after the fact.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:57:17):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:57:17):

which is a story of humanity, I think really most of humanity. So

 

Suzie Sherman (00:57:24):

You could be more intentional in getting to know each other.

 

Shawna Virago (00:57:27):

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:57:28):

During that time

 

Shawna Virago (00:57:30):

We were intentional and there was also kind of a, a way to have playfulness versus in our email exchanges, it was also fun. So, um,

 

Suzie Sherman (00:57:39):

Talking on the phone, you mean?

 

Shawna Virago (00:57:40):

Yeah. Just

 

Suzie Sherman (00:57:41):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:57:41):

So I feel like that was, um, cuz one of the things was nice. Sean was interested in doing a very consciously done relationship, and that kind of was tied in to what I was thinking as well. I think a lot of us, a lot of people, we think our partners are psychic. Right. They can guess what we need, what we want.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:58:01):

We have a fantasy that they know exactly what we need without communicating about it.

 

Shawna Virago (00:58:06):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:58:06):

Expressing our needs is much scarier than just hoping that they know.

 

Shawna Virago (00:58:10):

Yeah.So I think also, um, I think we’ve both done enough of our own work at also when we met, so it was just a lot of

 

Suzie Sherman (00:58:18):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:58:18):

things lined up.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:58:19):

Tell me, Shawna, if you’re comfortable, tell me a little bit about what, what dating and hooking up, finding lovers, finding partners was like for you

 

Shawna Virago (00:58:29):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Suzie Sherman (00:58:30):

before you met Sean.

 

Shawna Virago (00:58:32):

Well, and again, I, I think it’s my, these are my impressions of trans communities at the time, and that largely meant a lot of trans women in dating for trans women. For me, and I think for other trans women, like the idea of anyone really wanting to be involved with you as a, as a legitimate partner just seemed like completely far-fetched. Now people would want to have sex with you, cis guys, right?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:59:08):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:59:08):

but that was basically the extent of it for the most part.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:59:12):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:59:12):

So, um, I don’t think we even, we didn’t even feel entitled to have real partners. This was just hookups with people.

 

Suzie Sherman (00:59:24):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:59:24):

um, they wanted sex. There’s also about a lot of validation you felt if a straight guy, cis straight guy wanted to hook up with you. It must, um, signify that Yes, indeed, your experience–he experiences you as a woman, right?

 

Suzie Sherman (00:59:40):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (00:59:41):

So that was, um, I think that was very important. It’s the same thing with, I mean, a lot of cis gay guys, if they can hook up with what they could perceive as a straight guy, it’s like a coup. It’s like the best thing of all I got

 

Suzie Sherman (00:59:59):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (00:59:59):

still put them up here

 

Suzie Sherman (01:00:01):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (01:00:01):

As the, the ideal, the ideal man for a lot of people.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:00:06):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (01:00:08):

And, um, I knew a couple trans women who had cisgender boyfriends, but they weren’t out about it, the men.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:00:18):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:00:18):

the guys weren’t out about it. So like, they never went anywhere. It wasn’t like they really ever had dinner or went to the movies or anything, you know, it was just horrible. I always thought

 

Suzie Sherman (01:00:32):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s like some trans women could have relationships, but the catch is that they’re on house arrest Basically.

 

Shawna Virago (01:00:37):

Absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:00:38):

Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (01:00:39):

That was very, very normal.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:00:42):

Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (01:00:42):

And I think that a lot of ways that’s changed now, but I still know people that I’ve known for a long time that they’re still holding out for that ideal cisgender husband, you know?

 

Suzie Sherman (01:00:57):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:00:57):

a lot of fantasy thinking going on. And, um, and then I’ve said this before, but then there would be certain, um, cisgender dyke people who would maybe be interested and want, not a relationship, but just hooking up and, you know, having some sex and parties and stuff. But, um, that was usually also the nicer version of what the cis guys really, it was just like they needed their needs met, whatever that was. They weren’t really

 

Suzie Sherman (01:01:30):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:01:31):

they weren’t really, they hadn’t done their work. I’m like, I’m all for, again, especially cis heterosexual guys who like trans women, like just get out there. Some of them have, now, some of them are part of the struggle just come out

 

Suzie Sherman (01:01:46):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:01:47):

you know.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:01:48):

Right. Own it, be it, live it.

 

Shawna Virago (01:01:50):

You know, we need you too.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:01:52):

Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (01:01:52):

So

 

Suzie Sherman (01:01:52):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:01:53):

But, uh, the, in the, you know, dykes would be almost embarrassed I’d say, like

 

Suzie Sherman (01:02:00):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:02:00):

they’d, they’d have let me know like, oh, I,” I never kissed a tranny before.” Things like this.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:02:07):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you’re speaking to like what you’ve gone through and trans women before you have gone through with coming into a full life, being able to find loving, accepting partners rather than these just hookups and closeted partners.

 

Shawna Virago (01:02:28):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:02:28):

Um,

 

Shawna Virago (01:02:29):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:02:29):

And having come through this life experience in a way that younger folks in trans non-binary community, I think certainly there are, there are folks who still have that struggle. Absolutely. Cuz there’s always gonna be sex–cis sexism, there’s always gonna be a cis-normative culture beating down.

 

Shawna Virago (01:02:51):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:02:51):

But these ways to live life fully are certainly much more possible now for, for younger folks than they were just even five or 10 years ago.

 

Shawna Virago (01:03:02):

I think so and

 

Suzie Sherman (01:03:04):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:03:04):

not into, it’s okay to say that knowing that that doesn’t mean it’s still as easy as it should be.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:03:12):

Right. That’s right.

 

Shawna Virago (01:03:13):

We have a long way to go. For example, I was surprised when I started meeting people who came out, maybe that they came out when they were 45 or something, or 50, and maybe they held onto a corporate job that they had

 

Suzie Sherman (01:03:31):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:03:31):

and also never experienced any police violence. I just assumed that was like par for the course. Not in a coming out sense, just like it’s just part of being trans, being perceived.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:03:45):

 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:03:45):

trans woman, um, by police officers, by cops was like, I think also part of, I would say, continues to be part of our history for some people. A lot of young trans women of color

 

Suzie Sherman (01:04:00):

Yes. Especially. Right.

 

Shawna Virago (01:04:00):

A lot of police abuse. And I think most trans people, people who maybe were experienced as butches, right. Like Leslie Feinberg in that Stone Butch Blues, that great book.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:04:13):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (01:04:13):

Um, and anyone who was perceived to be like breaking these rules around gender expression, I would say that the police were just there.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:04:28):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:04:29):

they were just part of our experience. And

 

Suzie Sherman (01:04:32):

That’s right.

 

Shawna Virago (01:04:32):

I think it is true that there are a lot of people now, maybe they’re white and have a certain class privilege.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:04:41):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (01:04:41):

They’re not going through that. And so sometimes I feel like people I will be out and I think I, I was thinking like, you know what? I think I’m a nice person, but I’m not always friendly.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:04:54):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:04:54):

and I don’t mean to be unfriendly, but there’s gonna be things that I think you just, you get wary, I think. And so, um, I just think that’s maybe–my, what’s the result of some of these things have made me just like a little wary or

 

Suzie Sherman (01:05:18):

Having to have your guard up

 

Shawna Virago (01:05:20):

And just different humor, guard up.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:05:22):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:05:23):

and people who know what I’m talking about, there’s fewer and fewer of them.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:05:27):

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (01:05:28):

Um, there was a musician who died recently and we got along sometimes, but she came out before me. Her name was Bambi Lake.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:05:37):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:05:37):

And she, uh, a lot of drug addiction and then some, you know, a lot of unstable housing and, you know, she was playing out as a trans musician probably in the late seventies.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:05:53):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:05:53):

you know, and, um, I think just had a really hard time with the way things changed and the rules changed. She was almost like a living example of, you know, almost like what you would see in a Hubert Selby novel. Like here is one of the living embodiments of, of, of what it meant to be trans. And like, you know, it’s just interesting how that person now not being here, even if we didn’t always get along, would be at least knowing like, okay, we, we know this universe still, you know, or like, I have a friend who’s 75, and when I met her in the nineties, she wanted, her lesson to me was, how good are your street fighting skills?

 

Suzie Sherman (01:06:47):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:06:47):

that’s what she wanted. She wanted to make sure I had them, you know, that was like her mentorship and

 

Suzie Sherman (01:06:53):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:06:53):

It’s also, there’s still a lot of jokes and levity and it wasn’t like there was a rain cloud every day, everywhere.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:07:02):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:07:02):

I went, or, um, you know, I always thought being trans was cool, and I thought, yeah, I’m glad I’m, I mean, I’m glad I’m trans. When I was younger I was like, oh my god, what’s happening? What’s gonna happen? Why me? Why am I trans? Right. But, um, yeah,

 

Suzie Sherman (01:07:21):

There’s, there’s things that you found in the culture that you started to identify with and groove, and groove with became

 

Shawna Virago (01:07:28):

absolute– (cuts out)

 

Suzie Sherman (01:07:28):

a gift to you and a way that it shaped you in your consciousness.

 

Shawna Virago (01:07:33):

And I have a lot of, I had a lot of respect for these older, um, trans like ladies, you know, that I would learn about or, um, and I feel very attached to this kind of tradition of them, sort of, I thought they were very special. I still try to keep up with this German trans woman who Bowie hung out with Romy Haag or Amanda Lear I’ll check in on them sometimes.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:08:01):

Did Did you ever connect with Jayne County?

 

Shawna Virago (01:08:10):

I’ve seen, I saw Jayne County perform in, um, New York 2002, but yes, Jayne County, um, lot of mad respect for Jayne County. Um,

 

Suzie Sherman (01:08:23):

She was really in that punk milieu that you came up with.

 

Shawna Virago (01:08:28):

Absolutely. Derek Jarman made a film called Jubilee.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:08:33):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:08:34):

and Adam Ant’s in it. And some of those seventies punk figures, that movie would screen by like 1980. There was a, uh, another mo documentary of kind of some punk rock performers, and there was like Jayne County. I remember seeing them and um, just going, oh, wow, this is amazing. This this person, they’re so any of these people, I would notice them. And yeah, I was always curious about them. In the early eighties, Andy Warhol would do this tongue in cheek, yet offensive thing. “Girl of the Year,” nominate somebody. So he nominated a trans woman named Terry Toy, who I think she’s kind of disappeared, maybe moved on with her life, but she was, uh, at some in the early eighties, I would hear about her as part of that world, you know, and I just always thought, um, these people, so yeah, Bambi Lake, may she rest in peace. Jayne County now, thank god they’re still around. Um, people like Terry Toy or like Romy Haag Amanda Lear, these were huge. Now, Bambi, I didn’t know until I moved here, but yeah, I, I, uh, definitely think what I like about most of these people is I like their toughness. I like that. Like I like their edge.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:10:05):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:10:05):

I like the, their spine and like, they just kept going. They just, they didn’t give up, you know? And, um, I, I definitely think that these people are so important for a certain like branch of, of transness

 

Suzie Sherman (01:10:26):

That people’s real lived experience is something we need to, we need to be tracking better,

 

Shawna Virago (01:10:32):

I think so

 

Suzie Sherman (01:10:33):

Like an eth an ethnography of, of people’s real day-to-day lived experience.

 

Shawna Virago (01:10:40):

You know?

 

Suzie Sherman (01:10:40):

there’s so much, um, it’s really good that that trans lives are making it into mainstream media and people are, cis people are coming to understand transness in a, in a new way. But certainly it’s been easier and sort of more seductive for mainstream media to focus on the Caitlyn Jenners and the Laverne Coxes. And, um, so it’s sort of like there’s glamorous,

 

Shawna Virago (01:11:10):

Right.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:11:10):

Rich celebrity

 

Shawna Virago (01:11:12):

Sure.

 

(01:11:13):

trans folks. Um, that’s, that’s transness in the pub in the public eye. Not really like the kinds of lives that you were talking about, your life as a scrappy, edgy musician and and person who works in in skin and bones nonprofit sector.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:11:31):

Sure.

 

Shawna Virago (01:11:31):

Um, you have a very different life.

 

(01:11:34):

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it is interesting as we are witnessing these things you’re describing, and I guess in some ways, what does responsibility mean to make sure that there’s other stories being told? So like, yeah, I have to make sure I’m letting people know about these other people too. Like, I have to not just have a big mouth, which I do, but

 

Suzie Sherman (01:11:58):

<laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (01:11:58):

also put out there like, Hey, here’s some people to be aware of that been doing our thing. Like Marsha P. Johnson, just

 

Suzie Sherman (01:12:07):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:12:07):

you know, just sort of like now and just the last few years really, is there mad respect for her.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:12:14):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (01:12:15):

And that is a shame, really.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:12:19):

Right. Like when I was in a queer politics class in the early nineties in Santa Cruz, you know, um, the gay liberation movement that we learned about at that time was of course like the really old, you know, the fifties and sixties Mattachine Society. Right. And Daughters of Bilitis. And that was the history we were getting even into the nineties. And this was, we we’re, we’re still talking about the fifties, um, but we’re talking about the white men, the white cis men in the fifties, and the white cis women in the fifties. We’re not talking about what’s thankfully later being uncovered as a, as a really important part of our history.

 

Shawna Virago (01:12:57):

Yeah. Yeah. I think we just lost an elder here. Felicia Flames, I don’t know. She came on the sixties or seventies and she was very feisty. Knowing her a little bit. I do think, like sometimes it was hard realizing that history or the struggle that maybe she went through and just, it’s not really, um, people aren’t curious about it or they don’t, they’re kind of have bypassed that. We’re okay with myth making: Stonewall, Comptons. It’s like there were real people there. Yes. And some of them, like it wasn’t easy for them ever and there was no

 

Suzie Sherman (01:13:43):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:13:44):

appreciation

 

Suzie Sherman (01:13:44):

Most of them. Yeah.

 

Shawna Virago (01:13:45):

And it’s not like we, you know, if you were at Comptons or Stonewall and you’re still alive, well hello. We should have a GoFundMe for these people to make sure like they’re in comfort, they’re whatever that means. Stable housing, healthcare, dental, insurance, whatever they need. Right. We should make sure that happens

 

Suzie Sherman (01:14:08):

And we’re taking care of our elders.

 

Shawna Virago (01:14:10):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I just, I feel very lucky to, um, cuz I don’t, the whole thing around celebrity for me is so uninteresting, even though I can appreciate the impact that it’s having on our wider culture now, I’m guess Caitlyn Jenner maybe is a positive thing. I don’t really think so.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:14:31):

<laugh> No.

 

Shawna Virago (01:14:33):

I don’t think they’re important. They’re important for all the wrong reasons as like trans people can be assholes too. And as we’ve been saying, we’re just like everybody else.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:14:44):

Yes.

 

Shawna Virago (01:14:45):

I think one of the blessings I feel is to be able to say that I’m glad I came out when I did. I’m glad I got this, like, burst of these amazing trans women through basically like rock and roll in the seventies mostly as really as a young person and learning about them and not knowing a whole lot, but knowing they existed.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:15:13):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:15:13):

knowing Candy Darling existed, or Holly Woodlawn or Jackie Curtis, they were just like goddesses to me. Just, you know

 

Suzie Sherman (01:15:22):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:15:22):

And so I also maybe had an idea of being trans did mean

 

Suzie Sherman (01:15:26):

Glamor.

 

Shawna Virago (01:15:27):

Glamor and, and with a little bit of a edge to your glamor.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:15:31):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:15:32):

you know, like, um, Jayne County had a art show in New York in the last year or so and it was called “Fake Faggots.” And, uh, it was like, I think Bowie was one of the paintings, <laugh> and Lou Reed, I think there was one more, I don’t know who it was. I’m like, yes, thank you.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:15:53):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:15:54):

like, fuck them for like writing, who cares? Like, yay, they dated some people and they wrote some songs like, we don’t need you anymore. You know, like, fuck. Especially Lou Reed. God, I’m, I’m telling you right now, if there’s, there’s one person, I, I kind of almost wish, even though I love some of his songs, I just wish I could have gone up to him and, and honestly just punched him in the face. <laugh>, I know that this is a, a family show and I know you don’t,

 

Suzie Sherman (01:16:29):

<laugh>

 

Shawna Virago (01:16:29):

I know you don’t condone violence, so I acknowledge that. Punching him in the face, of course I meant metaphorically and in no, in no way…

 

Suzie Sherman (01:16:40):

<laughs> I don’t think you have to qualify. It’s okay to have a fantasy about punching someone in the face. It’s okay to fantasize about that, especially since the guy’s already dead. Um,

 

Shawna Virago (01:16:49):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:16:50):

Don’t n– don’t worry about no qualification necessary. <laugh>, Shawna, it’s a such a pleasure to talk to you. And let me ask you, is there anything else you wanna, you wanna touch on?

 

Shawna Virago (01:17:00):

I think, no, I think this was good. I think, uh, it’s true. Like I didn’t encounter, I didn’t, didn’t anticipate encountering Sean Dorsey. That was just an unbelievable gift from fate.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:17:16):

mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (01:17:18):

And still, I just very lucky to, um, have a life with this person and definitely did not think that would ever be possible. You know, like I was not going out of my way and he so much just freedom and respect we allow each other is nice. So

 

Suzie Sherman (01:17:41):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s really, it’s such a potent moment in, in your life in 2001 when the Trans Art show happened and you met Sean as a result of that. And then there’s this whole cultural opening up of grassroots trans organizations that you both became a part of and generated

 

Shawna Virago (01:18:00):

Yeah.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:18:01):

That allowed for you a per…a very personal and intimate opening up. But also there’s a real cultural shift and cultural momentum around trans culture that’s opening up at that same moment. And it, and it’s action and organizing and pushing in the culture that’s going on before this,

 

Shawna Virago (01:18:22):

Yeah

 

Suzie Sherman (01:18:22):

but it’s really in the early 2000s that I think, um, you know, real grassroots trans culture is becoming really potent and visible in, in, in queer communities.

 

Shawna Virago (01:18:33):

Absolutely.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:18:34):

And you both were a big part of that in San Francisco.

 

Shawna Virago (01:18:37):

Yeah. I think very fortunately, just lucky you know, that yes. We, we were an are and, um, one thing I will say that was part of this mix was police accountability work also was happening

 

Suzie Sherman (01:18:53):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:18:53):

at that time in a new way and really, um, exposing the idea of, um, the police causing a lot of hate violence against trans people.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:19:04):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:19:05):

and documenting it. That also was part of the late 90s and the early Aughts in a new way that hadn’t happened before. So I think there was this, this like opening up of art and still like, okay, finally we’re exposing this issue of police abuse

 

Suzie Sherman (01:19:24):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

 

Shawna Virago (01:19:25):

And, um, I will say being part of that work, in San Francisco we have these democratic clubs

 

Suzie Sherman (01:19:31):

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:19:31):

and that the people the gay and lesbian, bisexual at that time, they weren’t really interested. They didn’t, they didn’t want to dig deep. They thought, no, we have gay cops now we have lesbian cops now. Like,

 

Suzie Sherman (01:19:45):

Right.

 

Shawna Virago (01:19:45):

…that’s not what we’re talking about.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:19:47):

Like, that’s the end all, be all of what we’re working for,

 

Shawna Virago (01:19:49):

We’ve achieved something.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:19:51):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>

 

Shawna Virago (01:19:51):

I had to do it do a training with the trans guy and I think in like 1997 for the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, before they would add the “T” to the, their name Harvey Milk, LGB Democratic Club, they had to get a training, they had to hear from us why it’s important to add the T.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:20:12):

Wow.

 

Shawna Virago (01:20:12):

They couldn’t just do it, you know, so I think

 

Suzie Sherman (01:20:16):

It’s shockingly late in history

 

Shawna Virago (01:20:18):

<scoff>

 

Suzie Sherman (01:20:19):

for that moment to have occurred in the late 90s.

 

Shawna Virago (01:20:23):

And so I think, yes, you’re right, that there was the, there was this opening up that was going on that we finally got to, um, start, I don’t know, telling our stories, telling our, our needs, advocating for our rights in a, in a way that was new.

 

Suzie Sherman (01:20:43):

What a joy and an honor to talk to Shawna about Shawna’s life and about this specific slice of queer history and rock and roll history. Find Shawna online at shawnavirago.com and buy Shawna’s music at shawnavirago.bandcamp.com. I’ve also posted an extensive reference section for this episode in the show notes where you can find more about Shawna and about all the cultural touchstones we talked about in our conversation. That’s also where you’re gonna find that link to the Spotify playlist for the episode. Just head over to nextthingpodcast.com.

 

(01:21:21):

You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/nextthingpod. I wanna thank all my patrons for all the support you give me at any level. You’re doing it, you help make this show happen, and I appreciate you so much and as always, a particular shout out goes out to my Failure and Redemption level patrons: Amy, Barry, Bonnie, Eidell, Heather, Jeannie, Jen, Kristina, Kurt, Lisa, Marck, and Noah, and to my Serendipity level patrons, Brittany, Cyndi and Steve, Dorian, Jodi, Kristi, and Micharelle. Thank you extra special much!

 

(01:22:03):

 Again, the place to sign up to support the show with actual cash money is patreon.com/nextthingpod. That’s patreon.com/nextthingpod.

 

(01:22:16):

We are And The Next Thing You Know. Subscribe in your podcast app and visit us at nextthingpodcast.com, where you’ll find the complete transcripts, all the social media links, and really nerdy show notes for every episode. Check it out at nextthingpodcast.com.

 

(01:22:35):

Shout out your favorite episode on social media with the hashtag nextthingpod hashtag #NextThingPod. There’s two Ts in there. NextThingPod! Word of mouth is the best way to increase the visibility of the show. You can also rate or review us at iTunes; that really helps. Email your And The Next Thing You Know story at nextthingpod at gmail dot com. That’s nextthingpod at gmail dot com. We might feature it in a future episode.

 

(01:23:04):

The musical interludes for this episode were of course by Shawna Virago from Shawna’s song “Eternity Street.” The banana peel is by Max Ronnersjö. Music is by Jon Schwartz. Thanks everybody. We’ll talk soon. Or you know, soonish.