By Sydney Bauer Oct 16, 2025, 1:00 PM GMT+1 Link
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Ekko Astral is not a trans band. They may have a trans frontwoman in Jael Holzman. Much of their material may deal with being trans. Plus, they may have grown their fan base from word of mouth online in spaces such as trans Twitter. But at the end of the day, they are not a trans band.
This three-piece punk band is going to remind you of the bullshit that consumes everyday life, but give you “power anthems” to live by and help you overcome. The songs are short, brash, and aggressive — their debut full-length album, pink balloons, clocks in at less than 36 minutes, existing in what the band dubs the genre of “mascara mosh pit.”
As a band, Ekko Astral wants to fight to make the world a better place. And that means speaking out on a variety of topics, including trans rights, Holzman says. Because harnessing the energy that people bring online into the physical world and bringing together people who are fighting for that through mutual aid — no matter how large the crowd size — is where magic happens. They’re a political project as much as a band, and it goes far beyond the identity of their lead singer.
Ekko Astral is also on the front lines of making sure that while the internet becomes less safe for queer people every day, there is a group of artists and musicians fighting to re-create those safe spaces in person. “People are increasingly isolated. People are increasingly just siloed onto their screens and their phones, so you need to actually try to develop campaigns to disrupt,” Holzman says.
Having worked as a congressional and climate journalist in Washington, DC, since 2017, Holzman knows the power of media narratives and how they shape the world around us. Seeing how major artists have spoken out about important political issues, she decided that it was time to leverage her connections in the music industry to kick-start this kind of energy for trans rights.
This past May, that energy became Liberation Weekend, the largest trans-led music festival in DC. Over two days, 30-plus acts performed — such as Speedy Ortiz, Ted Leo, Bartees Strange, The Ophelias, and Ekko Astral themselves — in the nation’s capital to help raise over $30,000 for the Gender Liberation Movement, a nonprofit which works to “build a people’s movement for bodily autonomy, self-determination, collectivism, and fulfillment.” But the impact wasn’t just monetary.
When Republican lawmakers sought to use a congressional budget bill to bar Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care, Holzman and other artists leveraged the connections made from the festival to organize social media pressure campaigns aimed at bringing awareness to the cuts. She says that these moves helped push lawmakers to use the procedural measures available to them to fight, instead of conceding to Republican efforts.
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