Agony and Ecstasy
A heavy metal rocker comes out as transgender.
By Diane Anderson-Minshall
http://www.advocate.com/Print_Issue/Advance/Heavy_Metal_Rocker_Comes_Out_as_Transgender/There may be other transgender heavy metal musicians — Cretin singer Marissa Martinez in the U.S., From Metal to Maternal stage star Jade Starr in Australia — but none as high profile as Mina Caputo. Once known as Keith Caputo, the front-person for the popular rock band Life of Agony, Mina Caputo shocked heavy metal fans when bloggers and magazines around the globe picked up on her transition this summer. Many (with the exception of Kerrang!) got the facts wrong and they were, says Caputo, a little late.
"I came out technically three years ago. I kind of thought it was funny," she says of the flood of attention she got this summer, especially "in the metal world, which I came from when I was like 19. I was in a very hard-edged, male pseudo angry kind of punk rock metal kind of band. We were very different at the time. Most people know me from that I guess, but I've also been doing solo albums for 10 years."
