Donna Lee Parsons isn’t particularly well-known in hardcore/punk circles, but she should be. She played a pivotal role in rock history.
Before she transitioned, she founded Rat Cage Records, a record label that released the Beastie Boys’ first two EPs; she signed them at their very first show. Twenty years later, after Parsons came out as trans and the band’s meteoric rise to fame, the artists quietly paid for Parson’s gender affirmation surgery.
According to member Adam Horovitz, since the men knew she wouldn’t accept the money if she saw it as a charitable act, they claimed they owed her royalties from their EP Polly Wog Stew.
Parsons died from colon cancer a year after the surgery but spent the last year of her life proudly living as the woman she wanted to be…
Some of their earlier lyrics were a bit homophobic or misogynistic but they really were solid, stand up guys. They all came out later to apologize in different venues for their words, to try to make amends for any harm they’d done and show their fans (mostly young, male) that it was cool to be cool and accept everyone for who they are.