Lynette Reini-Grandell - Wild Things

2023, English, Lynette Reini-Grandell, Venus de Mars,

Full title: "Wild Things: A Trans-Glam-Punk-Rock Love Story" by Lynette Reini-Grandell.

"A cisgender woman and her trans spouse learn, change, and grow together, navigating the transition, the communities they found, and the hostility they faced."

"The person I married, who I am still married to and remain very much in love with, is now legally named Venus de Mars, and she uses she and her pronouns. But to get to that point was a journey of decades. At the time we didn't know where it would lead - we had no real role models and made it up as we went. Most of this story took place at a time when the kind of knowledge and terminology we now have about being trans didn't exist." - from the Author's Note

"In the 1970s, Lynette Reini fell in love with a fascinating, talented man named Steve Grandell. They married in 1983; five years later, Steve came out to her as transgender. Through the following decades, as her spouse developed a public persona as Venus de Mars and fronted the band All the Pretty Horses, the couple struggled to stay together. They navigated an often hostile, anti-trans environment; fractures grew between them as Venus pushed the band toward success. Against the backdrop of the art, literary, and indie rock worlds of Minneapolis and New York in the 1990s and early 2000s, through hard work and love, they invented a way of being who they truly are."

In 2014, I interviewed Venus and asked her whether the transition changed her artistic perception of the world: "I transitioned, or began my journey untangling everything trans-wise a bit over twenty years ago... that puts it into the early to mid nineties. As you can imagine it was such a different world back then for trans-people. Frankly, I was scared to death, but as any trans-person knows, you really don't have a choice once you come out. Finally admitting to one's self who you are is so important. I had become very suicidal, and had already been married for about five years, and that was falling apart because of my depression. So when I finally came out to my wife (and myself,) I was both relieved but kind of stunned. (...quickly on my relationship... my wife and I are still together and doing well. We really beat the odds, and survived everything. I'm very proud of her and our relationship.)

My perception of the world: Yeah, it changed it... I had to face the oppression I'd only observed up to that point. I became the target. It was hard. The depression I'd had because I was too afraid to come out, had now transformed into a depression over having to deal with all the oppression and hatred. I worked hard at staying steady and strong in my new trans-identity, but I'd get knocked down daily with some sort of confrontation or another. It was exhausting, and I never knew where it was going to come from next. Every day I had to (metaphorically) put on my "emotional armor" and head out into the world."

Available via Amazon

and The Heroines of My Life

The Photo via The Heroines of My Life