NEED TO KNOW
The vocalist and guitarist for the popular Australian alternative rock band Mark of Cain has come out as a trans woman.
Josie Scott, who founded the band with her brother Kim in 1984, shared the news in a straightforward Facebook post on Monday, Feb. 2. “As I’ve aged, and mortality is ever closer, I’ve decided to embrace, rather than endure, who I am,” she wrote.
The musician shared that she has struggled with gender dysphoria since she was 8 years old.
“As a result of my internal conflict I found myself drawn towards the literature of the outsider, and the existentialist writers and philosophy of ‘yeah it’s all s— but let’s try push through anyway, be stoic, be a man,’ sort of philosophy,” she continued.
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Josie’s experience led her to write about “being an outsider, about feeling a little different and the idea of trying to push through no matter how dire you felt things were, to embrace the crap and try make it through life.”
Those themes, she said, are noticable in the band’s 1995 Ill at Ease album.
Josie wrote that her situation changed when she got sick during the COVID pandemic and it “caused me to reevaluate how I felt about growing old, navigating sickness, and whether when the time came to leave earth, I could do so, with no regrets.”
“I knew I would always regret not having the courage of my convictions to live my life,” the musician said, noting that seeing “so many young people now able to embrace who they are and live authentically” also inspired her to “finally be me in my autumn years.”
The band, Josie admitted, “was often interpreted as a very masculine, testosterone driven band, which greatly acted as a way of being as a ‘beard’ for me in many ways.”
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“It’s been liberating to finally live as myself albeit challenging at the same time, but the happiness I feel outweighs any obstacles I’ve faced so far,” she wrote. “My family and close friends know me as Josie, Jo for short, and given where I identify on the gender spectrum, I fit within the paradigm of being a trans woman.”
Josie expressed that she feels that “real fans of the band” will be accepting of her announcement, and confirmed that “absolutely nothing” will change when it comes to their music. “We’ll continue to write, record and perform hard heavy music and I may look a little more androgynous but everything else remains the same,” she wrote.
The musician received an abundance of support in the comments, with one fan writing, “Listening to Ill at Ease on repeat helped me so much on my coming out journey when I was a teenager. Thank you so much for sharing this and wishing you all the best on your own journey.”
“The most rock n roll thing you can do is truly be yourself,” wrote another.
The Mark of Cain has released five studio albums, including their debut Battlesick in 1989. Their latest, Songs of the Third and Fifth, was released in 2012. The band was inducted into the South Australian Music Hall of Fame in 2022.
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Australian rock band Regurgitator made a supportive post on Facebook following Josie’s announcement.
Sharing a poster of a tour that they co-headlined in 1995, the band wrote, “In solidarity. Admire the guts. Know the strength. Respect!”
The Mark of Cain responded: “With thanks. Maybe we do it again?”
