He was born in Girona 29 years ago with another name and at 12, he chose to be called Jedet. She achieved fame among the general public by playing a young Cristina Ortiz, in Veneno, the celebrated Javis series. In 2016, under the name King Jedet, she began to be noticed for her LGBTI activism on social media. She wrote a book, My Last Gift, she began trying out musical collaborations and got her start on screen with Looser and Paquita Salas. Jedet raised her voice against the sexualization of trans women and she is right: the roles that her group obtains in movies or series are invariably of someone tormented, a prostitute or a vice. We don’t see transsexual women as lawyers, secretaries or bus drivers.
Now she is releasing the video clip Mob Wives with La Zowi, and talks to La Vanguardia about the difficulties that a trans artist faces to make her way in music.
A new clip, a preamble to your next work. Are you happy with how your career is going?
Well, it’s the career when you are an independent artist who finances all your projects and you are a trans woman… I assure you that it is much more difficult and more of a long-distance career. But it’s what I like and I will continue fighting. I would like to conquer much more, go further. I have fought for everything I have achieved by writing my lyrics, composing, putting in money and fighting. And making way for those who come after me. My dream is to be 60 years old and for there to be dozens of trans singers.
That is, doors are closed to you for being a trans woman.
A lot. Furthermore, the music industry is super sexist: if it is already complicated for a cisgender woman, imagine for a trans woman, we are the last in line. I have to prove 40 more times and even then, I am not given the same opportunities. I am sure that an artist with my popularity and with songs that I have, that could play on the radio perfectly, if a record company had seen them, they would have promoted them upwards. But because I’m trans, well no. I’ll give you an example: tell me four trans singers, no longer Spanish but worldwide. Well that.
I remember Dana International, who won Eurovision and… And that’s it.
Good. Once and she has not been heard from again. Today Villano Antillano is there and that’s it. And the same thing happens in the cinema.
Can you tell when someone doesn’t trust your talent because they focus on you being trans? Do you notice it in a look, in the way he treats you…?
Since you meet with people from the music industry, the audiovisual industry or other singers to get them to join your project, it is very complicated. Also due to ignorance: a trans is associated with the drag-queen world and since in this country neither one thing nor another is respected, many believe that we will act in that register. It dont have any relation to. Drag is a type of art and I am a woman who makes music, like La Zowi, Karol G or Aitana. Being trans is like having black or blonde hair but they take me less seriously.
What does it depend on if they take you more seriously?
From the men: as an actress, I already had talent before making Venom, but until two successful men [the Javis] bet on me, the rest did not recognize it. If tomorrow I did a song with Bizarrap, he wouldn’t give me the talent but he would give me the visibility.
Or a woman, let’s see if Shakira reads us and keeps an eye on you.
I’m not going there. If a woman supports you, she goes more hand in hand because women take it for granted that we support each other but she makes a man more visible to you. I’ll give you the example of Bizarrap’s collaboration with Villano Antillano: he is a straight man and makes urban music, which is super sexist, but he says ‘this trans girl is amazing’ and the kids who follow him start to respect the trans woman. . Like when Bad Bunny has spoken out about LGTBI issues, transphobia or machismo. And his audience, which is usually very young, had not considered these issues. We need them to be our allies. And I speak to you for myself: art reaches me more than four government campaigns a year.
Maybe Mob Wives, with La Zowi and whose video clip you just published, will give you the push you deserve. Is it pure provocation?
We don’t do things to provoke, we simply express ourselves and when two women express themselves freely in a sexual and open way, people are more scandalized but we have been seeing this all our lives with rock stars, men with women. You don’t do it for others but for yourself, to express yourself. The video clip tells a film noir story: two married women show themselves on the Internet as bait for married men, they believe that we are prostitutes but in reality we are murderers. And we killed them at the request of their wives. We were inspired a little by Tarantino…
This song is a preview of your next EP. What is The Doll about?
The title responds to the act of empowering you over what they want to offend you with. In English-speaking countries they call trans women ‘dolls’ to indicate that they are plastic, that they are not real, but trans women have adopted that term, calling ourselves that way and if there is a doll in Spain, I am I; The official doll of Spain is me at the moment. ‘Yes, I am made of plastic, with great honor and that is what it is.’ The EP talks about enjoying your sexuality, your friends, not asking for forgiveness or permission and enjoying yourself.
What do you think of the title of Shakira’s album, Women Don’t Cry? In order not to cry, he has dedicated five of her singles and the title of an album to her ex. She looks like a tantrum.
If a person is expressing their feelings, it is legal, they are letting off steam and it is not a tantrum: they have deceived you and you manage the trauma and pain by making music as you have been doing all your life. If it had been the other way around, perhaps Piqué would dedicate himself to training 40 thousand hours a week and kicking the ball harder. We do not know. Each person manages their emotions in a different way and in this case I believe that with her pain she has done a work that can help other women and that she herself will see everything that she has overcome over time. In things of the heart you do not rule. Just as a painter will pick up the brush with more anger or a writer will make more desperate poems.
Do you think that being a world-famous character could have influenced his reaction?
Of course. Having such a public dimension and that their relationship has been public also attracts a lot of focus. But lifelong singers have dedicated their songs to an ex, what happens is that many times you don’t know until the singer has died; I know of artists who have dedicated not one but four albums to the same person. Yes, perhaps she was more angry because of the part she did with Bizarrap, but the rest I think is an expression as a woman and as an artist that has helped her heal.
Chatting with Vicky Martín Berrocal you told what your transition process was like. What was the hardest part of that process?
Well, the hardest thing is that they continue to ask me about it four years later (laughs). Write it down, write it down.
What did you feel before entering the operating room for the first time? Did you have last minute fears or doubts?
That day I told myself ‘I’m going to do it and I hope they don’t ask me four years later’. I mean, the same. But don’t put that as a headline, eh!
