Black History Month - Black Trans Women - February 4th

For today, I want to highlight a Black trans woman whose trailblazing work in music was decades ahead of its time: Jackie Shane. Jackie Shane was a Black transgender soul and R&B singer who rose to prominence in the early 1960s, long before there was language or safety for openly trans people, especially Black trans women. Born in 1940 in Nashville, she later moved to Toronto, where she became a major figure in the city’s music scene. Shane performed openly as herself at a time when doing so meant risking arrest, violence, and career destruction. Her voice, style, and confidence challenged rigid ideas about gender and respectability, even if the world did not yet have words to celebrate what she was doing. What makes Jackie Shane a true trailblazer is how unapologetic her presence was. She did not frame her identity as a novelty or explanation. She simply existed, performed, and demanded to be taken seriously as an artist. Her 1962 recording “Any Other Way” stands as one of the earliest known songs by a trans performer to directly address loving and living authentically. Though she eventually stepped away from public life, Shane’s legacy lives on as proof that Black trans women have always been shaping culture, even when history tried to erase them. Her life reminds us that visibility did not begin in recent years, and that courage has always existed, often without applause or protection.