The
prolific performer, artist, writer and musician has been making art her
entire life, in terms of punk rock, queer, trans, art, agitator,
dominatrix and impresario.
Davis was born intersex in South Central Los Angeles. As she tells it,
her mother was a black Creole “femme lesbian separatist” who slept with
her father, a Mexican-American Jewish man, just once at a Ray Charles
concert in the 1960s. Davis’s mother refused to conform to doctors’
wishes to pick between sexes. While “male” was listed on Davis’s birth certificate, her daughterhood
was always supported and upheld by her mother and four sisters.
By the 1970s, Davis was brought into the Los Angeles punk scene by her cousin, Karla DuPlantier, then the drummer of foundational LA punk band The Controllers. It was a time when Los Angeles punk originated with, and was then dominated by, women and queer folks. When Davis first started doing “artsy-fartsy creative things” with friend Greg Hernandez, messing around with tape recorders and talking over records, she went by the moniker Pussy Washington, but later changed it to Vaginal Davis, as an homage to her love for activist Angela Davis. As Vaginal Davis, she became the drag frontwoman of several art-punk bands, the first of which was the Afro Sisters, who became known for mixing drag with 1970s visuals and punk influences. The band released their first seven-inch EP Indigo, Sassafras & Molasses, produced by Geza X with Amoeba Records in 1978.
By the 1970s, Davis was brought into the Los Angeles punk scene by her cousin, Karla DuPlantier, then the drummer of foundational LA punk band The Controllers. It was a time when Los Angeles punk originated with, and was then dominated by, women and queer folks. When Davis first started doing “artsy-fartsy creative things” with friend Greg Hernandez, messing around with tape recorders and talking over records, she went by the moniker Pussy Washington, but later changed it to Vaginal Davis, as an homage to her love for activist Angela Davis. As Vaginal Davis, she became the drag frontwoman of several art-punk bands, the first of which was the Afro Sisters, who became known for mixing drag with 1970s visuals and punk influences. The band released their first seven-inch EP Indigo, Sassafras & Molasses, produced by Geza X with Amoeba Records in 1978.
Davis would add renowned Chicanx punk Alice Bag of The Bags to the Afro Sisters lineup - Bag would add actual music where songs were previously all sung a cappella, 1960s girl group-style - and later collaborate with her in their band ¡Cholita!, the Female Menudo, a sassy pop band.
In
1989, Davis formed the band Pedro, Muriel, and Esther (PME) with Glen
Meadmor. Davis had previously sung backup vocals for Meadmore, with
RuPaul. PME disbanded after releasing a four-song EP on Amoeba records
but the band reunited for a performance at the Queercore '95 festival in Chicago.
Davis formed the band Black Fag in 1992 with Bibbe Hansen. Black Fag's album Passover Satyr was released by Dischord Records that same year and was produced by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon. The band's 1995 album 11 Harrow House was produced by Hansen's son Beck.
Davis never considered herself a singer, she found the punk scenes were the only places where she’d be able to perform onstage: usually, she said, black queens only performed lip-syncing as black divas, and their looks were far more traditional than her own signature genderqueer punk aesthetic. “I was always too gay for the punks and too punk for the gays,” she said in 2015.
