Australian heavy metal band guitarist and singer Mark of Cain has come out as a trans woman, writing that seeing young trans people living freely “helped shine a light on the possibility that I could finally be myself in my autumn years.”
Monday night, wrote Josie Scott An announcement to fans on the band’s social mediadeclared that her family knew her as Josie or Jo and that “given where I identify on the gender spectrum, I fit the mold of being a trans woman.”
The 63-year-old wrote, “As I get older and the death toll draws ever closer, I decide to embrace who I am rather than endure.”
Josie and her brother Kim have been in Mark of Cain since the band formed Adelaide In 1984. Their debut album Battlesick was released in 1989 to critical acclaim and was later released in the US by Black Flag and Rollins Band frontman Henry Rollins.
The band was inducted into the South Australian Music Hall of Fame in 2022, joining the likes of Master’s Apprentices, Angels and Cold Chisel.
Scott writes that he has struggled with gender dysphoria since childhood. “I always imagined that I would live my life, complain a lot and die, leaving some clues in my songs and journals for family to read and think, ‘Ohhhh what a weird (albeit talented) guy,'” she wrote.
Her gender dysmorphia led to the band’s music, with their 1995 album Ill At Ease, produced by Rollins, touching on this struggle “although I try not to be too obvious”.
“TMOC was interpreted as a very masculine, testosterone-driven band, which in many ways acted as a ‘beard’ for me. Much of what was described as masculinity often stemmed from my own dissatisfaction with myself and my inner anger at the paralysis of not being able to live as myself,” she wrote.
In 2022, while recovering from a prolonged bout of covid, she began to wonder if “when the time comes to leave the earth, will I be able to do so without regrets?”
“My answer is a big, ‘No, you are never authentic,'” she wrote. “I know I’ll always regret not having the courage of my convictions to live my life. So many young people now are able to embrace themselves, and to see them living as confidently without the same bullshit as I did when I was younger has given me a chance to finally be myself in my autumn years.
“It is liberating to finally live as I am, although challenging at the same time, but I have the joy of overcoming all the obstacles I have faced so far,” she wrote.
“I think the true fans of the team, who discovered us through their own feelings of alienation or otherness, understand the difficulty I faced, feeling different and being outside, and are okay with my statement.”
She says her gender doesn’t affect the band. “We will continue to write, record and perform hard heavy music and I may look a little more androgynous but everything else will remain the same.”
Hundreds of Mark of Cain fans responded with messages of support. “It helped me a lot when I was a teenager when I got sick so easily on the way back,” wrote one. “The most rock ‘n’ roll thing you can do is really be yourself,” wrote another.
“An absolute fucking legend,” wrote the punk band Frenzal Ramb. “Josie you rule.”
