Art by Chakkree Chantakad from Pixabay.
Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This may surprise you, but trans people are human beings! I know, I know, but it’s true. And that means art made by humans, even cis ones, can speak to the trans experience in wonderful ways. It’s time for TRANS ALLEGORIES IN POPULAR MUSIC, part 1!
Unless you’re brand new to Trans Tuesdays (and if you are, OMG hi! I’m so glad you’re here!), you’re familiar with my myriad deep dives on trans allegories in film and television, which includes my book Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix.
It’s kind of what I’ve become best known for. And in the course of talking about the ways human-made art can speak to all humans, there’s a thing I’ve said multiple times, which also serves as this essay’s subheading:
TRANS STORIES ARE HUMAN STORIES.
You’ll see that phrase pop up a lot in the discussion of films or television that I believe to possibly be unintentional trans allegories… things like season one of SILO, THE TWILIGHT ZONE’S “NERVOUS MAN IN A FOUR DOLLAR ROOM,” KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, and (maybe) LISA FRANKENSTEIN.
But what does that really mean?
I’m delighted to get to be the one who tells you this, but trans people are human beings, actually! I know, I know, society and Republicans would have you believe otherwise.
But because trans people are human beings, art made by human beings (fuck LLMs!) can speak to and even about us, even if made entirely by cisgender people.
It’s the same way you can read a book, or watch a movie, with a lead character who does not share your specific identity, and yet in a lot of ways you identify with them and whatever it is they’re going through in the story.
This is one of the things that makes allegory so powerful, because if cis people find themselves identifying with a seemingly cis character, like Neo in The Matrix, or Barbie in BARBIE, and then later they learn how much that character intentionally (or even unintentionally) speaks to trans people, you can suddenly understand us a bit better.
And another way you can see this in action is in the popular music of our culture, and songs that speak to trans people, and connect with us on a deep level, even if they’re seemingly not about being a trans person.
I’ve mentioned in several essays how I’ve got a giant list of songs that I’ve been adding to over the years (literally since Trans Tuesdays started way back in July of 2020!), and now it’s time to talk about them!
It is important to note that there is no evidence any of these songs were intended to speak to or about trans people. There’s not necessarily any evidence that trans people were involved in any part of the production of these songs, from performing to writing to producing.
However.
There could have been trans people who are not out publicly, or who are closeted, who worked on these. There could even be eggs (trans people who don’t know they’re trans yet) who worked on these, and have not yet discovered their truth.
It’s actually quite possible for trans people who are eggs to be examining their gender feelings through the art they make without consciously realizing it. That doesn’t make the ways that art speaks to trans people unintentional, however.
In my own writing pre-transition, I was exploring my complicated gender feelings for years before I realized and accepted my transness. I couldn’t have told you that’s what I was doing at the time, but I was absolutely intentionally exploring a facet of myself that I did not yet understand.
One of the best examples of this in action is writer and director Jane Shoenbrun’s film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. It is very clearly an intentional examination of gender dysphoria through allegory (albeit not as clearly as their film I SAW THE TV GLOW is), and Jane themselves has confirmed this. But they didn’t realize that was what it was about until making the movie, when the process of making it cracked their egg and they realized they were trans.
Schoenbrun realized they had written We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a movie about someone willing to mutate herself if it might make her feel whole, as a way of acknowledging their own transness. Schoenbrun had long felt a dysphoria they couldn’t classify, an otherness that sent them searching for corollaries in Judith Butler texts. Turns out the answer was right there in the script. Upon wrapping World’s Fair in early 2020, Schoenbrun “disappeared for two years, and came out a girl.”
So who’s to say if somewhere along the way, in the creation of some of these songs, people who were trans and didn’t yet know it were examining those same kinds of things? We just don’t know.
And I hear some of you thinking (yes I can hear your thoughts, sorry this is the way you found out), “C’mon Tilly, songs that aren’t about trans people can’t actually speak to transness,” and my friend, it is to laugh.
I’ve struggled with how to present all these songs, as they vary wildly by type of music, the year they were released, and more. What I’ve settled on is presenting them in a least-to-most sort of order, so at the start, the songs I mention may merely glance across the bow of transness, but by the time we get to the end you’re going to see some direct hits that may explode your heart. So I’ve ranked them all from one to ten, in terms of how transy they read to me, and we’ll start on the low end and work our way up.
Though I’ve just explained the order I’ll be mentioning these in, I’m going to first break my own framework (because no one’s the boss of me, not even me!) and give you one of the mid-range songs on my list… because it’s been on the list for a long time and because it’s sung by the lead character in LISA FRANKENSTEIN, quite possibly to intentionally make the scene more about her realizing and accepting her transness! If you want more explanation on that, just read the essays on it if you haven’t yet.
The song is REO Speedwagon’s I Can’t Fight this Feeling. On the surface, it’s a song about a guy in love with a woman and choosing to not resist it. In the trans reading of the song, and in Lisa Frankenstein, it’s about a person choosing to no longer resist their truth and embrace the trans masc they are inside.
It’s important to know that things that are seemingly a “romance” between a man and a woman can be used in allegory to show two versions of a person on opposite sides of transition, learning to love themselves enough to transition to their true self in spite of everything society throws at us to stop that from happening. That’s what the entire romance between Neo and Trinity in The Matrix is about, allegorically. Just read my book!
Okay, so, the song at hand (the video’s kinda hilarious, but it was the 80s, which explains a lot).
Let’s dive into those lyrics. Imagine them as that trans masc on the inside, talking to the false costume of a woman he was forced to pretend to be for his entire life, who is finally ready to break out of the shell. On my 1-10 scale, I’d probably put this one around a six.
I can’t fight this feeling any longer
And yet I’m still afraid to let it float
What started out as friendship
Has grown stronger
I only wish I had the strength to let it show
My life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you
I’ve been running ’round in circles in my mind
And it always seems that I’m followin’ you, girl
‘Cause you take me to the places
That alone I’d never find
And even as I wander
I’m keeping you in sight
You’re a candle in the window
On a cold dark winter’s night
I’m getting closer
Than I ever thought I might
And I can’t fight this feeling anymore
I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for
And if, to bring this ship into the shore
Come crashing through your door
I can’t fight this feeling anymore
Eh? Do you see? Do you feel the yearning of a trans person to be free, hidden inside this old kinda schmaltzy love song?
Okay, now we’ll start with the songs that hit transness a little askew, and move to the ones that are so incredibly pointed at the end.
Do note this is not an exhaustive list. I mean, it’s very long with a lot of songs! But it’s not every song that speaks to transness in allegorical ways. There are so many more!
I’m also specifically not including songs from musicals, because there are so many, even within just animated Disney films… Mulan’s Reflection, Tarzan’s Son of Man, THE LITTLE MERMAID’S PART OF YOUR WORLD. And with Broadway shows, like, look out. Wicked’s Defying Gravity is like a whole-ass trans anthem!
Let me also quickly mention Dua Lipa’s Dance the Night, which if you look at it on its own, might not necessarily speak of transness at all to you, even if you’re trans. But in the context of the Barbie movie, which it was written for, it takes on an extremely trans meaning that is low-key intentional. See my deep-dive on THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF BARBIE for more.
Okay, first up–
THE ONES:
Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s Won’t Back Down. This is one of the songs on this list that is most easily applicable to basically everyone in existence, but you can definitely also read it as a trans person refusing to give up being who they are, even in spite of all society does to make life so hard for us.
Well, I won’t back down
No, I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of Hell
But I won’t back down
No, I’ll stand my ground
Won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground
And I won’t back down
Well, I know what’s right
I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground
And I won’t back down
There ain’t no easy way out
I will stand my ground
And I won’t back down
Selena Gomez’s Lose You to Love Me. It at least partially reads, to me, like a trans person realizing they had to not just let go of, but blame their past selves for keeping them locked up for so long, because they needed the fire of that anger to push them to transition.
You promised the world and I fell for it
I put you first and you adored it
Set fires to my forest
And you let it burn
Sang off-key in my chorus
‘Cause it wasn’t yours
I saw the signs and I ignored it
Rose-colored glasses all distorted
Set fire to my purpose
And I let it burn
You got off on the hurting
When it wasn’t yours
We’d always go into it blindly
I needed to lose you to find me
This dancing was killing me softly
I needed to hate you to love me
To love, love
I needed to lose you to love me
THE TWOS:
Actually only one song in this section! Mike and the Mechanics’ All I Need is a Miracle. Reads like a trans person who rejected their truth, pretended it wasn’t real, is starting to regret it, and hopes they can maybe find a way back to who they really are someday.
I said go if you wanna go
Stay if you wanna stay
I didn’t care if you hung around me
I didn’t care if you went away
And I know you were never right
I’ll admit I was never wrong
I could never make up my mind
I made it up as I went along
I never had any time
And I never had any call
But I went out of my way just to hurt you
The one I shouldn’t hurt at all
I thought I was being cool
Yeah, I thought I was being strong
But it’s always the same old story
You never know what you got ’til it’s gone
If I ever catch up with you
I’m gonna love you for the rest of your life
All I need is a miracle, all I need is you
THE THREES:
Queen’s Somebody to Love. When you remember that transition is the greatest act of self-love a person can ever have, the “somebody” in the song becomes about a trans person who isn’t sure they can love themselves enough to do what they have to do to actually become their true self, especially given how SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING tries to make us all doubt we know our own truth.
Each mornin’ I get up I die a little
Can barely stand on my feet
Take a look in the mirror and cry
Lord, what you do to me?
I’ve spent all my years in believin’ you
But I just can’t get no relief
I work hard everyday
I try and I try and I try
But everybody wants to put me down
They say I’m goin’ crazy
They say I got a lot of water in my brain
I got no common sense
I got nobody left to believe
Got no feel, I got no rhythm
I just keep losin’ my beat
I’m okay, I’m alright
I ain’t gonna face no defeat
I just gotta get out of this prison cell
Someday I’m gonna be free
Can anybody find me
Somebody to love?
Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone. A trans woman who hated the fake man she used to be, and is so glad to have kicked him and his lies out of her life. I’ve come to forgive and understand and have sympathy for who I was, because he was doing the best he could at the time, and held on long enough for me to get here. But early on, yeah, I was definitely pissed at him for keeping me trapped inside for so long.
Here’s the thing, we started out friends
It was cool, but it was all pretend
You’re dedicated, you took the time
Wasn’t long ’til I called you mine
And all you’d ever hear me say
Is how I picture me with you
That’s all you’d ever hear me say
How can I put it? You put me on
I even fell for that stupid love song
How come I’d never hear you say,
“I just wanna be with you”?
Guess you never felt that way
You had your chance, you blew it
Out of sight, out of mind
Shut your mouth, I just can’t take it
Again and again and again and again
Since you been gone
I can breathe for the first time
I’m so movin’ on
Thanks to you
Now I get, I get what I want
You should know
That I get, I get what I want
Train’s Meet Virginia. A trans woman, pre-transition, thinking about the kind of woman she might be if she transitioned, and the ways that doesn’t fit into the stereotype of what a woman should be, and worrying that doesn’t make her a “real” woman at all.
She doesn’t own a dress
Her hair is always a mess
If you catch her stealin’ she won’t confess
She’s beautiful
Smokes a pack a day
Wait, that’s me, but anyway
She doesn’t care a thing about that, hey
She thinks I’m beautiful
She never compromises
Loves babies and surprises
Wears high heels when she exercises
Ain’t that beautiful?
She only drinks coffee at midnight
When the moment is not right
Her timing is quite
Unusual
You see, her confidence is tragic
But her intuition magic
And the shape of her body?
Unusual
Well, meet Virginia, I can’t wait to
Meet Virginia
Well, she wants to be the queen
Then she thinks about her scene
Well, she wants to live her life
Then she thinks about her life
Pulls her hair back as she screams
I don’t really wanna be the queen
Taylor Swift’s I Think He Knows. A trans man realizing they can be the man they’ve always dreamed of being, and realizing they just might be able to actually make it happen.
I think he knows
His footprints on the sidewalk
Lead to where I can’t stop
Go there every night
I think he knows
His hands around a cold glass
Make me wanna know that
Body like it’s mine
I think he knows
When we get all alone
I’ll make myself at home
And he’ll want me to stay
I think he knows
He’d better lock it down
Or I won’t stick around
‘Cause good ones never wait
He’s got that boyish look that I like in a man
I am an architect, I’m drawing up the plans
He’s so obsessed with me and, boy, I understannd
He’s got my heartbeat
Skipping down 16th Avenue
Got that, ah, I mean
Wanna see what’s under that attitude like
I want you, bless my soul
And I ain’t gotta tell him, I think he knows
I think he knows
Wilson Phillips’ Hold On. Oh yes, believe it! A miserable, closeted trans person who’s intentionally denied and hid their truth because society told them to, being encouraged by an out trans person to literally hold on until they have the strength to finally stand up for themselves, and make the choice to come out and transition.
I know this pain
Why do you lock yourself up in these chains?
No one can change your life except for you
Don’t ever let anyone step all over you
Just open your heart and your mind
Is it really fair to feel this way inside?
You could sustain
Or are you comfortable with the pain?
You’ve got no one to blame for your unhappiness
You got yourself into your own mess
Lettin’ your worries pass you by
Don’t you think it’s worth your time
To change your mind?
I know that there is pain, but you
Hold on for one more day, and you
Break free from the chains
Some day somebody’s gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye
Until then, baby, are you going to let ’em hold you down and make you cry?
Don’t you know, things can change
Things’ll go your way
If you hold on for one more day
Hold on for one more day
Okay, we’re going to wrap it there for this week. I know, I know, these don’t seem too transy yet, but we’re only through the threes!
Next week we pick up with the fours head up through the sevens, and the transiness meter takes off like a rocket.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
PS – I made a YouTube playlist of these songs, which I’ll add to as Parts 2 and 3 are released!
PPS – My friend Duna made an Apple Music playlist for this, if that’s more your speed.