X-ing up (To X-up)
X-ing up, also written Xing up or X’ing up, means drawing X marks on the backs of one’s hands. In hardcore punk, it is the best-known visual symbol of straight edge, a drug- and alcohol-free identity. The association developed after Washington, DC band The Teen Idles encountered X-marked hands as an age-control measure at San Francisco’s Mabuhay Gardens in 1980, brought the idea home for all-ages shows, and placed the image on their Minor Disturbance EP.
What Does It Mean to X Up?
To X up is to mark the back of each hand with a large X, usually in black marker. At a concert venue, staff may apply the marks to identify someone who is below the legal drinking age and must not be served alcohol. Within hardcore punk, people also X up voluntarily to identify themselves as straight edge, whether or not they are old enough to drink.
The X has spread far beyond hands. It appears on record covers, flyers, shirts, patches, tattoos, and band logos, while related forms include sXe and XXX. Context still matters: an X applied by a venue does not automatically mean that its wearer is straight edge, and not every straight edge person Xs up.
X-ing Up at a Glance
- Action: Drawing an X on the back of one or both hands.
- Original function: Identifying underage patrons so a venue could admit them without serving them alcohol.
- Punk association: The Teen Idles, all-ages shows in Washington, DC, and the 1980 Minor Disturbance EP.
- Later meaning: A voluntary sign of straight edge identity and abstinence from alcohol, tobacco or nicotine, and recreational drugs.
- Common variants: X, paired hand Xs, sXe, and XXX.
How Did X-ing Up Begin?
The X was not originally invented as a straight edge symbol. Bars and concert venues used visible hand marks to distinguish underage patrons from customers who could legally buy alcohol. The specific path from that practical measure to hardcore culture can be traced to The Teen Idles and their brief California trip in the summer of 1980.
According to Dischord Records’ history of The Teen Idles, the teenage band and their road crew traveled by Greyhound bus from Washington, DC, to play two California shows. At the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, they encountered the practice of placing large X marks on the hands of underage concertgoers. This allowed young people into the club while telling the bar staff not to serve them alcohol.
When the band returned to Washington, they proposed the same system as a way to challenge age restrictions that kept young punks out of local venues. The Teen Idles negotiated with Dody DiSanto, an owner of the original 9:30 Club, before the band’s farewell show there on November 6, 1980. Underage attendees could enter with marked hands, helping establish a practical model for the all-ages punk shows that became central to the early DC scene.
From an Age Mark to a Straight Edge Symbol
After The Teen Idles broke up, the members used the band’s $600 in savings to document their music. Their eight-song Minor Disturbance EP was released in December 1980 as the first record on Dischord. Its cover showed two crossed, X-marked hands, turning a temporary venue mark into an image that could circulate through records, mail order, zines, and punk scenes far beyond Washington.
The sleeve appeared before straight edge had a settled name. Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson soon formed Minor Threat, whose 1981 debut EP included the song “Straight Edge.” The phrase gave a name to a drug- and alcohol-free outlook already present among some young DC punks. Minor Threat’s second EP, In My Eyes, followed later that year with “Out of Step (With the World),” strengthening the connection between the music, the outlook, and the X.
The Teen Idles had already recorded “I Drink Milk,” a short and deliberately funny rejection of pressure to drink. It can be heard as a precursor to “Straight Edge,” but calling it a straight edge anthem is necessarily retrospective because the term had not yet been established.
MacKaye has repeatedly emphasized that “Straight Edge” described a personal choice rather than a membership code or set of orders. Minor Threat made that distinction especially clear when they re-recorded “Out of Step” for the band’s 1983 EP of the same name. Straight edge later developed into an international subculture with many local interpretations, but it has no central authority or universal rulebook.
What Do sXe and XXX Mean?
sXe is a written abbreviation for straight edge, with the X inserted between the initial letters. Capitalization varies, and forms such as SxE, sxe, or simply edge are also used. In band names and online handles, Xs may frame a word or name to signal a straight edge connection.
XXX is another common form of the symbol. It became closely associated with Washington, DC, through artwork that replaced the three stars on the District’s flag with three Xs. Jeff Nelson used this design on a 1982 sleeve for Dischord’s landmark Flex Your Head compilation, which documented The Teen Idles, Minor Threat, State of Alert, Government Issue, Void, and other early DC hardcore bands.
A later explanation claims that the three Xs represent three lines from Minor Threat’s “Out of Step”: no drinking, no smoking, and no sex. The lyric helped shape debates around straight edge, but there is no evidence that this three-part reading created the XXX emblem. It is better understood as a retrospective interpretation of a symbol already established through the altered DC flag.
The Strip-Club Story and Other X-ing Up Myths
Like many pieces of punk folklore, the X has accumulated alternative origin stories. A memorable version appeared in the satirical straight edge blog The Straight Edge Handbook in 2012:
The tradition of X-ing up at shows began with the DC band Teen Idles, who desiring to play a show in their local strip club between acts, despite the fact that they were underage worked out a deal to have themselves marked so as to be clearly visible. Originally, they were going to mark their foreheads with a large ‘U’, but after arguing, they settled on Xes, since they were playing in an XXX place. Thus the symbol of the Xed hand as well as the traditional moniker ‘XXX’ for edgers came into existence.
—“Xing Up: A Short Guide,” The Straight Edge Handbook (2012)
The passage is a joke, not a historical account. The documented incident took place at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, not at a local strip club, and the Teen Idles encountered an existing underage-admission practice rather than choosing an X because of an adult venue. The story works as scene humor precisely because it turns familiar straight edge mythology into an absurdly neat origin tale.
What Does the Straight Edge X Represent Today?
The shared baseline of straight edge remains abstinence from alcohol, tobacco or nicotine, and recreational drugs. Some participants also connect it with veganism, animal liberation, political activism, avoiding caffeine, or particular ideas about sex and relationships, while others do not. X-ing up signals identification with straight edge, not automatic agreement with every belief ever attached to it.
The mark also carries the history of all-ages access. Before it became a personal declaration, the X was a workaround that helped young people enter spaces organized around alcohol sales. Its lasting power comes from both meanings: a simple claim to sobriety and a reminder that punk scenes can alter the rules of a venue to make room for younger participants.
The X has also attracted parody and resistance within punk. Early opponents called themselves bent edge or curved edge, and later scenes invented their own counter-symbols. Those reactions underline the X’s unusual reach: two marker strokes became one of hardcore punk’s most recognizable and contested images.
