‘Any Other Way’: the early Pride anthem of Jackie Shane
If the wonder that is Jackie Shane proves one thing, it’s this: You should never, ever let anyone tell you that gay people, trans people, neurodivergent people, hell, any other kind of person that fascists try to erase from society “just weren’t around” in their day. We have always been around, and we always will be around. We’re just at a point where our voices carry that little bit further than before. While that means our voices reach a whole lot of people who want us dead, it also means that they reach the people who really need us.
Our existence, our pride, our unwillingness to stay silent is not merely us taking up space, though that space is something we are owed, it is also a responsibility we have. A responsibility not only to our future, but to our pasts. Since the risks we take today by being out and proud have absolutely nothing on the risks that Jackie Shane took being out back in her time. A Black transgender woman born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, is a person born under the cosh at any time. Shane, though, was also born in 1940; yet, she thrived.
By her own admission, part of the reason she did so was because her community was, quite astonishingly enough, pretty accepting of her otherness. She began presenting as feminine at the age of five by wearing her mother’s clothes, and at the age of 13, she was identifying as a girl. Her family welcomed this and, other than a few bullies, so did her school. Genuinely shocking that, if her testimony is accurate, a Tennessee school in the 1950s seems to be a more accepting place of gender fluidity than most schools today.
By the time Shane was in her teenage years, all bets were off. She was going to be a singer, and she had all the tools at her disposal to become an icon. She had the look, the pipes, the stage presence; all that she needed was the song, which she found was actually a pretty well-known R&B standard of the day. In her hands, though, it became something much, much more important.
What song nearly made Jackie Shane a superstar?
In 1963, Shane recorded a version of William Bell’s ‘Any Other Way’. As written, the song is about getting over a broken heart and your friends asking how you’re doing. However, this was a transgender woman in 1963 singing, “She wants to know how I feel / Tell her that I’m happy / Tell her that I’m gay / tell her I wouldn’t have it / Any other way”. I’m typing those words, and I’m getting chills.
Due to the rising racial tensions and lack of oppurtunities for queer people like her, Shane had to relocate from Nashville to Toronto. Thus, when the song was released in her new home of Canada, it was a national hit, reaching number two on the Canadian singles chart. Her home nation was calling, though. According to her, she had an offer on the table to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show and a record deal with Motown on the table. Stardom surely waited.
There was just one problem. Both of them were predicated on Jackie Shane presenting as a man, stepping back into the closet and staying there. However, she wasn’t having any of this. In a phenomenal interview she gave to Associated Press, she said, “His scout came and said: ‘You’re going to have to do this without makeup. I said: ‘Please stuff it.’ Ed Sullivan looks like something Dr Frankenstein had a hand in. He’s going to tell me what to do?”
It’s somewhat fitting that Shane would be immediately presented with a devil’s bargain upon releasing such a heavenly pop record. To this day, ‘Any Other Way’ is a work of slinky, sensual soul magic, with the smile in Shane’s voice a pure joy on the level of any Marvin Gaye or Aretha Franklin record. It’s no wonder that the record could have made her a superstar. Anyone with functioning ears and even a fair few without would know that.
However, anyone who actually listened to the record would have known her answer given the choice of being a famous singer and being herself. In her hands, ‘Any Other Way’ is a song of self-actualisation, of the long, hard road one takes to being and knowing oneself. That’s a journey not unique to the trans community, to be clear, but it is one that we are made more aware of than most. A journey we have made, are making, and will always continue to make, no matter what.
