Guinevere Tully
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Five days after the election that put convicted felon Donald Trump back in the White House, D.C. folk punk artist Guinevere Tully (stage name Rosslyn Station) released “When the Estradiol Flows.” The track is adapted from Joe Hill’s 1912 pro-union song, “Where the Fraser River Flows,” but Tully’s version, written with the help of an anonymous friend and community organizer, is an anthem for trans health care and solidarity: “We’re gonna win the day, girls/ When the estradiol flows!” go the lyrics, referring to a hormone used in gender-affirming care. Tully previously employed the same method on “The Popular Tr*nny” from her debut album, 19 Proclamations of Love and Adoration, recruiting a friend to help her transform a century-old tune (T–Bone Slim’s “The Popular Wobbly”) into an all-too-urgent rallying cry.
“My intention is to make these individual songs part of a greater project where a lot of folk songs get re-written to be more trans-focused,” says Tully. “Part of the idea is to sing them and feel something. Sing them to yourself and feel safe, or like you’re gonna get through it… I think it behooves me to make some of these sorts of songs for myself, sure, but also so that all my trans siblings have something to listen to.”
Tully’s work speaks to D.C.’s vibrant trans punk community, as demonstrated on “The Popular Tr*nny,” which was recorded live with a room full of friends shouting along. The scene drew national attention last year after the trans-fronted post-hardcore band Ekko Astral released their debut album, Pink Balloons, an ambitious and forward-thinking project that landed them on Pitchfork, NPR, and Paste magazine’s Best of the Year lists. (Tully was a member of the band at the time, before leaving on good terms over the summer.) The record responded in real time to a surge of anti-trans legislation. Its relevance only grows as Republican politicians threaten to use their control of the White House and Congress to strip the civil rights of the trans people who live, work, and create culture in the District (and the rest of the country).
In addition to fronting Ekko Astral, Jael Holzman works as a journalist, usually on the climate and energy beat. After the election, she reported for Rolling Stone on the Democrats’ ongoing failure to stand up for trans rights, specifically when it comes to protecting gender-affirming health care. In the past two months, Republicans in the executive and legislative branches have pushed to ban the use of federal funds for such care. Holzman’s reporting describes the consequences of a ban as “lost medical care, forced menopause for some who lose hormones, and in the bleakest scenarios, waves of suicides.” In the White House, Trump has signed an executive order rescinding the federal government’s recognition of trans people. And Democratic lawmakers have shown no united opposition, as demonstrated by last week’s address by the president to a joint session of Congress. Trump used his time at the podium to attack trans people. The response, delivered by Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, failed to even mention the community by name.
“Understand that asymmetrical warfare is being waged on your right to exist—to live happily, have food and clothing and a roof over your head,” Holzman says. “I’ve never been more sure in my life that the worst-case scenarios that I played out in that [Rolling Stone] story are going to happen. I see no indication that the mass galvanization that we need to actively stop legislation like that is going to come to pass.”
In the early months under the current administration, Ekko Astral have done what they always do and used their shows to provide safe gathering spaces for the local trans community. In February, they held a trans punk takeover of Comet Ping Pong, headlining an all-trans bill supported by Um, Jennifer? and Skyler Foley, which sold out in just one day.
Corporate Pride seemingly hasn’t caught up with the band’s constituency, though: D.C.’s upcoming WorldPride Music Festival features few trans or local artists.
To fill that gap in WorldPride’s lineups, Holzman is organizing a music festival of her own in May. The event will function as a two-day fundraiser for the Gender Liberation Movement, the grassroots organization that, in December, held a sit-in at the U.S. Capitol to protest discriminatory bathroom policies implemented by House Speaker Mike Johnson. Specific date, venue, and lineup information will be officially announced later this month. Holzman invites anyone interested in sponsoring the event to reach out to her at [email protected], but says there are plenty of other ways to support the cause of trans rights beyond just calling senators.
“It’s in everyone’s power to very easily defeat authoritarian Christian nationalist fascism,” Holzman says. “The ways to do it have nothing to do with politicians.” Instead, she recommends engaging with more immediate community leaders: doctors, teachers, and mayors at the maximum. “When you get into the realm of federal politics, people have so many disparate incentives and so many cultural pressures that you alone cannot fix it. But you can fix it in your community, and then if your community and another community and another community get together, that’s when you get a populace, and that’s how change is made.”
Shortly after the election, local organizer Rusty Knives founded the DMV Trans Punk Alliance to help support and galvanize the music scene. As a devoted member of the Arts Herndon DIY community in Northern Virginia, he saw firsthand the value of trans-friendly social gatherings, but also the limits of Arts Herndon’s monthly shows. He started planning regular meetings at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, bringing trans people from the scene together and connecting them to resources and volunteer opportunities.
“I realized there were gonna be a lot of changes and a lot of bad things happening to trans people,” Rusty Knives says. “But no matter how hard it is to fight, or how difficult times are, trans people are gonna need somewhere to go. Not just to be friendly, but to learn about how to get involved with community-level action. A lot of people think that if you’re gonna be involved in some sort of movement, you have to go big or go home; either you’re protesting at the White House, or in these huge marches, or you’re not doing anything. But community action is still action.”
The Alliance held its first meeting in December—the next will take place Saturday, March 15, and will feature a presentation on mutual aid by Mr. Knives himself. For inspiration, he points to active groups, such as Food Not Bombs, and historical movements like the People’s Free Food Program run by the Black Panther Party. Beyond meeting the day-to-day needs of marginalized populations, Knives stresses the importance of volunteering and resource-sharing as a way to build ground-level connections between people who can support one another regardless of which political party holds the highest offices.
“We were seeing when Biden was in office, in Florida and Ohio, trans people’s rights were getting taken away. Trans youth especially,” says Knives. “It’s important to be involved in community because the federal government in general is not going to have your back.”
In an attempt to screen out potential bad actors, Knives asks that cisgender people reach out to him for permission before attending DMV TPA meetings and events; they’re not unwelcome, but the group aims first and foremost to connect and support trans people. According to Miriam Tyler, drummer for Ekko Astral and bassist for Pretty Bitter, local activists have had to weigh “strength and safety in numbers” against “strategy in stealth.” Still, cis people who want to make a difference have options. Before a recent show at Pie Shop, Tyler and Pretty Bitter singer Mel Bleker met with City Paper to offer suggestions.
“The easiest way to support the people in your scene is to directly give as much money as you are physically able,” Bleker says. “The people who have even $100 every month that is not designated anywhere—OK, don’t get an UberEats order. Give it to someone’s top surgery fund.” Don’t have the financial means? No problem, they say—you can still put donation links in front of people who do.
“Sometimes shaming can be a very good tactic on rich people, to be like, ‘Hey, I know you have money. Have you seen this?’”
“The least you can do is talk about it,” Tyler adds. “Say you’re in the workplace and you hear somebody say something that makes you question what they mean, or their intentions. Call them out on it because these ideologies should not be able to prevail in the free market of ideas. I think especially for cis people, being able to speak up on behalf of trans people who are sometimes in physical danger if they try to challenge those ideas—put your body there instead.”
Because trans people exist across the globe and throughout all segments of society, issues of trans civil rights intersect with other ongoing political struggles. Pretty Bitter donate a portion of merch proceeds from their shows to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and Operation Olive Branch, a grassroots movement for Palestinian advocacy and mutual aid. The band also take every opportunity to perform at benefits for the DC Abortion Fund (Bleker, who originally hails from Texas, appreciates the fund’s inclusion of trans people in the fight for abortion access; even among progressive activist groups, not all action takes them into account). And it’s no coincidence that Rosslyn Station’s adapted folk songs descend from the labor movement as trans people continue to face roadblocks to safe and stable employment.
“Ultimately, the freedom of trans people relies on the freedom of all marginalized peoples around the world,” says Demeter Capsalis—volunteer organizer, co-founder of Arts Herndon DIY, and leader of Herndon band Druid Stone. She advocates revolution against the repression of trans people, but also in support of reparations to the Black community, the return of land to Native Americans, and anti-colonial struggles everywhere. To achieve that, Capsalis calls on the scene to “participate in political resistance tirelessly.”
D.C. music has a reputation for dissidence that goes back more than a half-century; this summer marks the 40th anniversary of both the Revolution Summer, when bands like Rites of Spring rallied against apartheid South Africa, and of Positive Force, the activist organization known for throwing benefit shows for progressive causes since the ’80s. To this day, bands like Pretty Bitter see the scene as organized around shared principles more than around shared sounds. Tyler points to the turnout for Mosh Madness, a benefit for the PCRF back in January, as a continuation of the tradition—evidence that the scene still stands for something more than music.
“It’s always been about, we can gather here in these spaces in opposition to all the political BS that’s going on in our town, that we are literally faced with when we go to work,” she says. “We’re still going strong. You can’t defeat the human spirit, and the power of art prevails.”
DMV Trans Punk Alliance will meet at 12:30 on. March 15 at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.
Rosslyn Station plays a benefit show for Food Not Bombs at 6:30 p.m. on March 15 at As You Are.
Pretty Bitter open for The Ophelias at 7 p.m. on April 6 at Jammin Java.
Ekko Astral open for Bartees Strange at 7 p.m. on April 25 at Ottobar.
This piece is part of our 2025 Spring Arts Guide: Art as an Act of Resistance; find the full package here.