( hunter schafer , she/her , twenty five ) hey , is that VIOLET SCHWARTZ walking around town with some pep in their step ? last i heard , they joined a band called static avenue as their DRUMMER — which totally tracks . they've always been known for being + COMPASSIONATE , - RECKLESS & for listening to LETTERBOMB by GREEN DAY on repeat . it's a bit annoying , really . maybe you'll think about them the next time you picture CUTOUTS FROM NEWSPAPERS AND GLITTER GLUE RESIDUE EVERY YOU LOOK AFTER A NIGHT OF ZINE MAKING; BURSTING OUT LAUGHING IN AN OTHERWISE SILENT ROOM; WAVING UP AT THE NIGHT SKY JUST IN CASE SOMEONE’S LOOKING DOWN; WIPING A NOSEBLEED AWAY ON A CRISP WHITE SHIRT; YET ANOTHER PAIR OF BROKEN DRUMSTICKS, SORRY! or when you hear someone yell UNSTOPPABLE FORCE .
read more below, freaks + geeks ↓
the basics.
name: violet jennifer schwartz
pronouns: she/her
gender: trans woman
sexuality: lesbian
occupation: praying for death behind the counter of a 7/11 and drummer for static avenue
family: mother ( louisa schwartz nee. williamsberg ), father ( christopher schwartz ), older brother ( christopher schwartz jr. or just 'chris' )
residence: currently living in the basement of her older brother & his boyfriend's house.
style: bright colors, 90's grunge, maximalist, spaghetti straps, tube socks that never match, riot grrrl shirts, glittery statement pieces, pins & badges, chunky shoes.
about.
likes: making men angry, pressing flowers, strawberry flavored candy, zine making, the thrill she gets from running to the bus stop, the simpsons, converting girls to feminism, shoplifting (mainly from her own work)
dislikes: desaturated colors, action movies (snoozeville!), people who underestimate her, cold pizza, the smell of smoke, the taste of toothpaste, crowded buses & trains, the texture of velvet, narcs!
music taste: listen here
bio.
violet, really, was born on her eleventh birthday. nothing before that really matters. that was the day she sat in a pillow fort with her cousins and decided that she was supposed to be a girl. the name - violet jennifer - didn't come with the realization she was a girl though. violet spent a good few years sticking it out with her deadname while she tried to work the whole thing out. she thought she was alone. she had no fucking clue what a transgender person was. all she knew is that she was a girl. that the doctor and her parents had gotten something really wrong. she got along with her cousins who were girls. she never related to her dad or her older brother. the only thing she had in common with them was that she knew she liked girls too.
one thing about violet? she never took 'no' for an answer. so, sure, she coudn't tell her parents she was trans. not yet. it wasn't safe. but she had been savvy enough to sit in the back of the public library and do as much research as she could. then she was about to get a bus into chicago, to meet other trans people. because, to her shock, there were others? other people who felt like she did, who were living their lives and had jobs and friends and families? people who had cis friends who were smart, worked in medicine, and were able to violet's hands on puberty blockers. violet didn't ask how legal that all was, and she didn't care to find out. and violet met riot grrrls. girls, lesbians most of them, who started fights with men and didn't dress to please anyone, and make magazines about feminism and lgbt rights and anti-racism. it changed her life. it made her feel seen and heard. and then violet was introduced to hole. and when she was sixteen, violet's name was uncovered. violet jennifer. after two hole songs. it was perfect.
the schwartz's weren't over the moon about finding out they had a daughter. violet ripped the bandaid off and came out to all of her family during christmas when she was sixteen. sure, her cousins already knew, and she was pretty sure her big brother, chris, had clocked on to it as well - but all the adults in violet's life were shocked. which confused violet considering she's been dressing in girl-mode for a good two years now. when everyone had been sent home, violet sat through a screaming match with her parents as they tried to work out what they had done to fail their child like this. violet just shrugged. she didn't know why she was the way she was. she just...was. she knew her parents had been kinda cool when they were her age - they had been in a band together - but age had molded them into total loser narcs! but eventually they conceded, reluctantly called violet by her name, started introducing her to people as their daughter (although it was through a grimace). and that was good enough for violet. she'd tell them she was a lesbian another time.
throughout high school, violet learned how to fight back. people didn't bully violet, despite her being a pretty big target, because they knew they'd come to school next morning to find a wasps nest in their locker, or maxipads covered in hot sauce stuck to the hood of their car. violet was happy to keep to herself, listen to her bikini kill and jack off jill and make her zines in the school library. she had her friends in the city she could email now thanks to the new library computer. she had her riots and gigs and things to keep her busy.
and then she graduated. although she had to rush the stage and scream into the mic to stop her teacher from reading out her old name. violet didn't really have any plans for her future. she had hobbies, sure. not a lot of career-driven paths. she couldn't make zines for a living. chris had moved out a few years prior, studying something fucking boring as hell at community college and working at a blockbuster video. he was able to get violet a job. which she got fired from. same with the job at pizza hut. and every other job in town. eventually, she found herself crashing at chris' place to get away from her parents and found herself staying. chris and his roommate (who, suspiciously, happened to be chris' old T.A from college who had one dangly earing, three cats and loved elton john...violet didn't push) cleaned out the basement and bought a cheap bed frame from a garage sale. it wasn't such, but it was home.
now with a job at 7/11, that she has yet to be fired from - score!, violet found herself stuck. she didn't know where she was supposed to go from here. she didn't have any true calling in life, not that she could see. then, while riding her bike home from work one night, violet crashed into a telephone pole. she was fine, just a little scraped and banged up. but when she stood up, she saw a sign from god. a literal sign. a piece of paper taped to the pole advertising a band that needed a new drummer. tryouts tomorrow. violet had never played the drums before, but her dad had and she'd stolen a pair of his drumsticks to carry around in case she wanted to poke at something. and she knew the drum sections in every bikini kill song off by heart. so, she quickly practiced them on a series of vhs tapes the next morning before she went to audition. and god smiled on her that day, because - despite all odds - she got in.
drumming came second nature to violet. she could hear the rhythm in everything and was able to translate it to the drums. plus, band practice gave her a whole knew crowd to sell her zines too! she always brought her zine about lesbianism - panty raiders - to rehearsals. violet was finding her footing. she could see it all now: world-wide music domination! oh, yeah, she could sense good things coming for static avenue.