American singer Jackie Shane was BOTD in 1940. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, she was assigned male at birth. She began dressing and identifying as female from early childhood, largely accepted by her family and community, and identified variously as gay and “a woman trapped in a man’s body”. As an adult, she began her career as a drummer, evolving into a soul and rhythm-and-blues singer, befriending Little Richard and performing alongside Etta James, Jackie Wilson and The Impressions. Determined to escape the racially segregated and homophobic Jim Crow South, she relocated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1959, where she joined a travelling carnival. After a tour of Ontario in Canada, she settled in Montreal, moving to Toronto to become lead vocalist for Frank Motley and his Motley Crew. She became a popular nightclub performer, presenting as a gay man in shiny pantsuits and make-up. In 1963, her cover of William Bell’s Any Other Way reached No 2 on the Canadian singles charts. She turned down recording offers from Motown and Atlantic Records, citing her preference for live performance and irritation at record producers insisting that she present as male. She retired from performing in 1971 and moved to Los Angeles to care for her elderly aunt, living quietly for the next 40 years. Interest in her life and career was revived in 2015, when her album Jackie Shane Live was reissued and shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize’s 1960-1970 Heritage Award. An anthology of her work, Any Other Way, was released in 2017, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album. Shane embraced her new-found celebrity status with ease, giving a number of interviews and appearing in the 2018 documentary I Got Mine. She died in 2019, aged 78. The documentary Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, co-produced by Elliot Page, was released in 2024.