“Here we are in my dreams,” sings a figure in glowing, purple light. Her voice, lilting over a chorus of low electronic tones, is filtered through vocal effects that tune her voice to an uber-high octave, like an angelic bionic woman. She’s dressed in all white, wearing a leather corset, lace-up platform boots, a petticoat, and a visor face shield with metal points. Androgynous dancers wearing medical masks and precious little else revolve around her. “Here we are in my dreams. Nothing ever as it seems. I can be who I want here.”
This is the creative world of p1nkstar in her live music video, “Girls Like Us.” It’s a vision of boundary-pushing pop that centers trans women, non-binary folks, and trans artists of color. p1nkstar, a fixture of queer nightlife in Austin, is known for events where she invites audiences to join an otherworldly party and bask in a queer utopia. “Girls Like Us,” her latest release, was livestreamed in January as an hour-long concert with a high production quality but a low budget. The video featured her music, and that of six other young trans artists from across Texas.
Since moving to Austin from Mexico in 2014, p1nkstar has become an LGBTQ+ icon in town. Her music proposes a science fiction-inspired future in which trans people live freely and joyfully. In addition to making music, p1nkstar, along with her main collaborator and life partner, Y2K, advocates for queer and trans artists of color and inclusive spaces within Austin’s predominantly white and straight music scene. By producing her own events, pushing promoters for better pay for performers, and bolstering more bookings for trans and POC artists in Austin’s venues, p1nkstar has pioneered a sort of advocacy work that’s as scrappy and DIY as her productions. Sometimes, when she hosts an event, she pays musicians out of her own pocket, she says.
