Life of Agony's Mina Caputo on Her Struggles, Triumphs Being Transgender in Heavy Metal
Posted on Jun 12th 2012 3:30PM by Carlos Ramirez
http://www.noisecreep.com/2012/06/12/keith-caputo-transgender/In July of 2011, Life of Agony vocalist Keith Caputo shocked the music world by announcing plans to transition from male to female. Now known as Mina Caputo, the musician dealt with a huge backlash from the heavy metal community across message boards and news forums after word got out about her plans. "I got a lot of grief for it, but it was nothing compared to the years of pain I went through not being open about the way I felt inside," Caputo, 38, told Noisecreep during a recent phone chat from her home in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The singer says although it's been less than a year since her huge announcement, she's been preparing for her transformation most of her life. "I remember being really young and already having this other side of my life where I lived as a girl," Caputo says. "This happened before I even hit puberty. In my teen years, the feelings I was having got stronger, and I kept it hidden to the outside world. It was painful. I never felt like I truly fit in with my family or the guys in my neighborhood, and I couldn't quite put my finger on why that was. I grew up in the '80s, and information about being transgender and the way I feeling just wasn't out there. Or at least, it wasn't that easy to find. I knew I didn't feel like a boy, and that made me extremely uncomfortable."
