Sound of Our Revolution | March 2023: Trans Rights are Human Rights

Contributed by Jonny Collins

Ugh. I’m torn on this playlist. On the one hand, I absolutely adore an excuse to go on a deep dive researching, recommending and listening to great transgender artists – both from the underground and the mainstream.
On the other hand, by this series’ nature, the fact that I’m talking about this can only mean that things are getting worse.

I first tackled this theme in Spring of 2021, and things were not good for us then. But since then, both alt-right Neo-Nazis and legacy feminists alike have doubled done on anti-trans rhetoric, ranging from bullying, to spreading disinformation, and even inciting real violence towards us.

In the wake of the recent release of that wizard game being used as a way to signal disdain for trans people, to the tragic murder of Brianna Ghey, to legislation advancing trans rights getting blocked in Scotland, and legislation being passed in Tennessee which effectively outlaws not only transgender people, but all gender non conformists and drag artists… It’s hard, as a trans person, to feel like there is any future for us.

These anti trans activists won’t stop until they’ve killed us all, or we’ve all killed ourselves. While in some ways, trans acceptance has made huge strides in recent years, those opposed to our right to exist as ourselves have only gotten louder, more aggressive, and more powerful. YouTube is perfectly happy to advertise Matt Walsh’s “What is a Woman” documentary, yet will demonetize trans creators left right and centre for responding to or criticizing the transphobic rhetoric he spews – or even just suppress trans creators who acknowledge who they are.

It feels like more and more organizations are willing to pay lip service to trans rights until they actually have to make decisions that might affect their relationship with significant financial stakeholders. Trans rights have both gotten popular, in the sense that support for us can be commodified into positive PR and clout – but also have significant backlash that prevents the majority of so called allies from actually putting their money where their mouth is.

I’m just so fucking depressed and tired all of the time, when people I thought I could trust continue to buy into this moral panic against us. While I know in my heart of hearts that this is how moral panics always go, and it’s a sign of the death rattle of transphobia as a mainstream acceptable viewpoint – it really fucking sucks for all of us living through it now, and terrifying that it’s highly likely a large number of us won’t make it through to see things get better.

So I needed to write this. I needed to bring together a collection of songs to give us some catharsis and motivation to carry on, and demonstrate the solidarity of the wider LGBTQIA+ community, the majority of whom DO stand for the T, whether or not it applies to them directly – and will fight alongside us, lobbying for and protecting our rights, and letting the bigots know that we won’t be stamped out, and history will not forgive their actions.

This playlist features trans and non-binary artists, as well as very vocal allies who don’t just make a show of support, but demonstrate it on a daily basis, even when we’re so broken down we can’t fight for ourselves anymore.
While the last playlist I did was more introspective and philosophical about trans people, this time I’ve focused much more heavily on our rage, anguish and plight.

So Content Warning for both pained voices of an incredibly marginalized community – and incredibly honest and powerful reactions to those who oppress us.

You can listen to the playlist on the following platforms:

And if you want to read more about each of my picks, keep scrolling down.

1: Transgender Dysphoria Blues – Against Me!

Transgender Dysphoria Blues – 2014 – Punk

“You want them to notice
The ragged ends of your summer dress
You want them to see you
Like they see every other girl”

This feels hack at this point, but it’s such a quintessential anthem for trans women. Is there really another song I could’ve opened with?

Full of internalized rage and despair at the way people perceive you over a driving drum beat and powerful pop-punk melodies, this tune is such a personal track from Laura Jane Grace. I don’t know a single trans woman who it doesn’t touch. It’s hard to imagine a time before this song existed, even though I remember it coming out. Fuck it’s nearly 10 years old now, shut the fuck up, I’m not old.

2: Rotten Dichotomy – The Best of the Worst

Better Medicine – 2021 – Skacore

https://thebestoftheworst.bandcamp.com/album/better-medicine

“It’s time to let the bigots be taken down by the misfits
We will not agree to secede, this is our fucking time
As your generation crumbles, ours will begin to rise”

From soaring pop-punk to brutal ska-core. The Best of the Worst have made an angry fiery anthem to gender rebellion here. The brass riffs almost clashing with the brutal riffs and breakdowns of the main verses in a way that strangely fits. A slight respite from the onslaught of noise without losing the pace and drive of the message. A song all about how reductive the gender binary is and how it’s only a matter of time before the generations that hold any store in it die out.

It also ends with a breakdown that would’ve made 15-year-old Jonny shit themselves with joy, and god only knows how much better a person I would’ve been if I’d had this at 15 rather than Asking Alexandria’s Not the American Average.

3: No Mercy for Transphobe Scum – Olivia Neutered John

No Mercy For Transphobe Scum – 2022 – Grindcore

https://olivianeuteredjohn.bandcamp.com/album/no-mercy-for-transphobe-scum

“At this stage I won’t even pretend
I don’t want apologies, I want revenge”

Despite rejecting gender binary, it seems there’s only 2 real categories of transgender artists. Either ukelele based whimsey, or the worst fucking noise you’ve ever heard in your life.

This track proudly falls into the latter, fast and steady grindcore riffs with violent guttural vocals – Olivia Neutered John is not fucking about (if you couldn’t tell by the name).

Over the last couple of years having to see trans people beg to be recognized and respected as people, it’s incredibly refreshing to hear this pure onslaught of unapologetic violent rage against our oppressors. Our acceptance should not be based on being quiet and agreeable.

We exist, and if you don’t like that, honestly just fucking die about it, ‘cause we’re not going anywhere.

4: TERF Obliteration – Hush

Body – 2021 – Death Metal

https://hushband.bandcamp.com/album/body

I can’t find the lyrics to this song anywhere, and the lyrics are distorted and incoherent, but the track is called TERF Obliteration – I feel like that speaks for itself.

(I promise some of these songs are actually pleasant to listen to, bear with us.)

5: Queer as in Fuck You – Dog Park Dissidents

Sexual and Violent – 2018 – Punk

https://dogparkdissidents.bandcamp.com/album/sexual-and-violent-ep

“You want to celebrate a gay man on your cable TV
While trans lesbians of colour dig in garbage just to eat
You’ve paved the road for CEOs to suck on some dick
While all the kids on the street are getting pelted with bricks.”

An old favourite here, Dog Park Dissidents have really captured the modern queer liberation movement with this modern punk classic. Accessible punk rock without losing its edge, and inspired lyrics rejecting the cis-heteronormative idea of gay rights, assuming that the war ended when David Cameron legalized gay marriage last decade, when in actual fact, getting to be gay in a strictly defined and close to heterosexual way is barely a right. All it means is that we’re allowed to be who we are as long as we toe the line in every other conceivable way.

The rights of middle class white gay men is not the end all of queer lib. Great for them. But the constant backlash if a tv show dares to show queer romance and the continued denial of trans people and our rights shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have got a long way to go.

“Queer as in Fuck You” is a perfect mission statement for our current condition. We’re not going to politely beg and bargain for our rights. Fuck you.

6: Boys Will Be Girls – Bones UK

Boys Will Be Girls – 2021 – Alternative Rock

“If you fucking touch her, I will fucking kill ya
It’s not wise to come into the zoo
‘Cause if you mess with a lioness, we will mess with you”

Boys Will be Girls is a lyric used so much that it’s a cliché now, but honestly save for the aforementioned “Queer as in Fuck You” it’s possibly the most satisfying line to piss off transphobes today. They expect us to say Trans Women are Women and all that jazz (which they are). But there’s something about disregarding their own logic and understanding of humanity by saying “Boys will be Girls” that is so delightfully enraging to them.

Also Bones UK are one of the sexiest sounding bands going today – seriously, listen to that groove and industrial beat on top of those profane slutty lyrics and tell me you’re not at least a little bit aroused (assuming you are someone who experiences sexual arousal). This song is pure sex – and we love celebrating trans and GNC sexuality here. We’re not just fetishes – but equally we’re allowed to have a sexuality without that being solely used for the fetish people.

7: Anthem – Arrowhead

Anthem – 2020 – Punk

https://whoisarrowhead.bandcamp.com/track/anthem

“You’ve beaten us down for the last time
Take our fury as a sign
Of the end of the road for your bigotry and hate
We’re gonna burn down the world you helped create”

This is a new song I was introduced to by a regular of the show who knows at least one of the people in the band. There’s always a slight worry when you ask for music recommendations and someone tells you to check out their mate’s band. On the one hand I fucking adore listening to new music, the more niche the better. On the other hand once there’s a personal connection it can be really awkward if you’re not actually that into the band.

Thankfully, Arrowhead have absolutely knocked this out of the park. It’s called “Anthem” and that’s exactly what it is.

It is an optimistic call for solidarity, acknowledging losses but inspiring hope in the downtrodden in a way that has not yet failed to pull me out of a depressive slump. Lyrically it’s inspired, and the guitar tones and riffs have this constant building drive behind it that really buries into your subconscious and batters your brain into releasing serotonin despite everything.

What the recording might lack in polish when compared to big label bands, it more than makes up for in authentic expression of queer fear and determination. This truly is an anthem for queer folks the world over. I hope this band releases more soon, as I am a HUGE fan now.

8: Yr Beast – Kermes

We Choose Pretty Names – 2018 – Alternative Rock

https://kermes.bandcamp.com/album/we-choose-pretty-names-2

“And I wasn’t raised,
I was dragged out the quagmire.
I was the beast of Yr cisgender pain.
and I am not sorry for the state of my body.
I’ll never be sorry for that.”

I don’t know if I’m weird for enjoying this song. The singing is objectively bad, and most people I’ve shown it to find it a bit grating – but that’s kind of one of the things I like about it.

It really captures the early 2000s days of emo where music is being used as a vehicle to express angst and strong anguished emotions regardless of singing talent, and there’s a raw realness to that which actually might have been lost with more technically perfect singing.

This song lyrically has a superbly on the nose chorus that cuts like a knife in all the right ways. Being defiantly unapologetic about their body and how it clashes with gender stereotypes. The song is clearly full of pain, but it’s also a triumphant shout of self-discovery and overcoming internalised dysphoria.

I would go as far as to say that this song is a masterpiece and alongside some of these other tracks has captured the transgender experience of this generation to a T. Or to an E depending on your hormones of choice.

If you’re nostalgic for the early days of My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy, but want something more overtly queer, this band is well worth checking out.

9: Binary – The Spook School

Try to be Hopeful – 2015 – Indie Rock

https://thespookschool.bandcamp.com/album/try-to-be-hopeful

“You are not a computer
You are complex and undefined
So why let yourself be limited to binary desires?”

This is another new discovery for me – a jangly indie rock jam with a simple premise. They’re hardly the first band to reference computers when rejecting gender binary – but it’s such a solid throughline for uplifting genderqueer songs that I’d be amiss to not include one or ten. (That was a binary joke, are you happy?)

This track is just lovely and happy, and a nice way to reassure anyone who experiences gender fuckery TM that they’re valid and cool. Humanity is so much more complex than most give it credit for – and binary ideas of sex and gender are just the ways that we’ve culturally decided to decode a certain handful of observed traits and notions.

“Sex is real” is a strawman dog whistle from GCs and TERFs – given that no one is arguing that it’s not real, it’s just a) more complicated than XX = Female or XY = Male and b) fucking irrelevant. But the fact is, sex is kind of only real because we decided it was a worthwhile distinguishing feature to record and enforce and few people question it. Sure, cis women and trans women are quantifiably different in many ways – but so are cis women to other cis women.

That’s the great thing about humanity – we have so many variations and quirks that make us unique. Invalidating someone’s sense of identity because they don’t conform to your own limited understanding of the world honestly sounds like your problem, not ours.

10: Freak – ZAND

Ugly Pop – 2020 – Indie Pop

“Remember what you said, bitch
Now get down and fucking beg
There’s no need to be scared
All the freaks are taking over and the binary’s dead”

I don’t even know how to begin describing ZAND. They’re so different from anything else I’ve heard before, that comparing them to anyone feels like a huge disservice. (Not because other artists aren’t also brilliant, but because what ZAND is doing is so fresh and original that any comparisons to similar artists feel kind of forced and redundant.)

“Freak” premise-wise is fairly solid and well-trodden – reclaiming something they’ve likely been called due to their gender presentation and expression. But they’ve leant so far into the premise on both a sonic and visual level that you really feel the devilish glee they’re taking in being a genderfuck of a person.

The EP is called “Ugly Pop” and that’s probably the best way of describing it. It doesn’t sound unpleasant to me really (although given the first few entries on this playlist, you may dispute whether my opinion on how songs sound is at all valid). It’s definitely got a grotesqueness under the surface – but a grotesqueness that’s owned and celebrated, not self-deprecating.

The synths and electronics are dirty, the vocals are menacing, the overall package is… well it’s freaky, and I love it. If Glinner hadn’t ruined the good parts of The IT Crowd I’d include a gif of Moss saying “Every value I’ve ever held is being questioned, and I’m loving it” – but given how Glinner reacts to having his values questioned, it’s hard to take that line as anything other than cruel mockery.

Way to ruin a lifetime body of work, Glinner, nobody will miss you when you’re dead, may all your work be 50p in CEX’s bargain shelves for all eternity.

11: There are Dozens of us – Animal Byproducts

Attempts at Understanding – 2021 – Punk

https://animalbyproducts.bandcamp.com/album/attempts-at-understanding

“Do I undermine your solid gender roles?
Or are we all just assortments of holes?”

Coming back from my best of 2021 playlist, I don’t know, 15, 20 years ago now? Time means nothing.
This track is annoyingly not on any music streaming service that isn’t Spotify, but I highly recommend buying the album so you can listen to it. It’s an up beat pop-punk track all about the joys of rebelling against cisnormativity just by you and your queer friends existing.

If nothing else, that chorus “Are we all just assortments of holes” is a real way to ground you when you start second guessing your own identity and whether you’re allowed to call yourself what you are. Society will literally segregate people based on the position and shape of the holes they own instead of going to therapy. Fucking wild, couldn’t be me.

12: God Save This Queen – Bimini

God Save This Queen – 2021 – Pop

“Fragile masculinity won’t get you very far
Throughout all of history
It’s left too many scars
Give the freedom to the people
To be who they really are”

I have mixed feelings on drag as an art form. On the one hand I find it tiresome that queerness is often only acceptable to people when either invisible to the naked eye – or curated for the entertainment of straight women.

On the other hand, a lot of drag artists use the form as a way to discover, explore and express their gender, and absolutely kudos to those who’ve managed to monetize it. Drag artistry is not the same as being trans – but to those who want to eradicate trans people, we are functionally one and the same to them.

And it’s not as if those Venn circles never overlap. More and more, I’ve picked up on mainstream drag artists coming out as trans/non-binary – or even artists already out getting the opportunity to succeed in a field which has historically on TV at least been dominated by cis gay men.

Bimini was one of the first non-binary drag artists I really got into – and this song is a fucking bop.

Bimini mixes punk aesthetics with… I don’t even know how to describe this music. It’s pop, but very obnoxious (and I mean that in the best way). The tones and sounds are very accessible, but the way it’s arranged and utilised make the track stand out in a way that doesn’t really sound like anything else. Kind of like ZAND – but rather than creepy and menacing, it’s cheeky and whimsical (the two genders).

It’s an absolute tune is what it is regardless, and probably one of the most popular songs exploring non-binary identities so publicly. Not dressed up in metaphor, but on the surface criticizing toxic masculinity and patriarchy in a way that celebrates gender diversity and Bimini’s own identity.

13: Your Feminism is not my Feminism – Mykki Blanco ft. Ah-Mer-Ah-Su

Stay Close To Music – 2022 – Alternative Hip-Hop

https://mykkiblanco.bandcamp.com/album/stay-close-to-music

“Without no menstrual, you not real
Too Black, too brown, and all you feel
Is the fear they perpetuate
Not first but second rate
Why we gotta to educate?”

Shifting tone a little bit now to the melancholic, Mykki Blanco’s “Your Feminism is not my Feminism” is I think one of the most powerful transgender pieces of art to come out of 2022.

Once again it’s not that the premise is particularly ground-breaking – criticising trans exclusionary feminism by distancing it from your own feminism has been around for as long as TERFs have been. But something about the soulful and minimalist instrumentation sounds so distanced from the main vocal lines, almost crying and wailing through the expert arrangement of the melodies, just burrows into you and makes you feel something not too dissimilar from a spiritual presence.

And that chorus. Ah-Mer-Ah-Su will appear on this playlist again due to a deliberate loophole I put into these playlists where only the primary artist on a song isn’t allowed to repeat. A feature artist is allowed to appear again either as another feature or their own song, because fuck you I make the rules and I love her.

This song is short on lyrical variety, but it doesn’t need it. It uses the few words it has to make its point. The repletion of the title, and particularly “I just want to celebrate you girl, I just want to celebrate you” sung as a mournful dirge, communicating that trans women celebrate womanhood and femininity. It was never meant to mock or undermine. Trans women only ever want to lift other women up, differences and all.

And yet a small but vocal collection of cis women will continue to pain them as threats whilst supporting legislation that contributes to countless deaths every day.

Celebrate each other, understand that we understand that the experiences of cis women differentiate from trans women. But many of them do overlap, and trans women have only ever wanted and offered solidarity against patriarchy. Not to enforce it or to use it for their own gains… unlike a certain rich cis woman I could name. All I’ll say is Robert Galbraith is a fucking weird name for a cis woman who’s so trans-sceptical.

14: TERROR PACKETS – Backxwash ft. Censored Dialogue

I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES – 2021 – Horrorcore

https://backxwash.bandcamp.com/album/i-lie-here-buried-with-my-rings-and-my-dresses

“Dad can you help me afford transition?
Disowned through a cell phone
The look in his face, soul displaced
He don’t know me no more”

Continuing the sad bitch hours theme, Backxwash’s Terror Packets is an outpouring of rage, despair and depression from one of the best rappers of the last few years.

Terror Packets is 5 minutes of impending doom as Backxwash narrates her life experiences of having to drug deal to pay for her hormones and transition, while all around her family and others in her life disown, invalidate and physically abuse her. The pre chorus angrily declaring that she’s just seen as dick – before that anguish-fuelled chorus breaks in and blows your fucking mind.

First time I heard this song I had to have a moment of silence after the fact. I’ve listened to a lot of trans people pour their soul out in their music, but this time fully broke me.

Powerful doesn’t cut it. This is a transformative piece of art. I’d almost go so far as to say that it’s “This is America” levels of essential listening for white and cis people. Even if it’s not your kind of music, you need to give it a listen and just let it sit with you for a bit. It moves you in a way that few others manage. You owe it to yourself, as well as us, to listen to it.

15: Civil War – Peppermint

Civil War – 2017 – Pop

“I can’t fight anymore
For who I used to be
I’m letting go all the fear that controlled me
And set myself free”

Moving onto something a little bit more uplifting now, we have another drag superstar Peppermint with “Civil War”. It captures the lost, scared feeling of being transgender in a world that heavily pressures you to conform to a narrow gender definition, contrasting with a slow building bridge to the break of the chorus full of determination in the face of adversity.

This song doesn’t try to downplay the difficulties you face as a trans person, but builds you up and motivates you, reminding you that getting to be you in a world that’s trying so hard to disallow it makes you a pretty damn cool motherfucker and you should be proud of yourself.

Long story short, I absolutely love it and this song is a perfect counterbalance to the hopeless despair of Terror Packets. Both very authentic expressions, but this one with just a touch more hope, and we’ll take what we can fucking get when it comes to that to be honest.

16: Perfect – Ah-Mer-Ah-Su

STAR – 2018 – Electronic Pop

https://starmusic.bandcamp.com/album/star

“How many days have I spent feeling shame?
Where I said I was to blame for my circumstance?
What would you do?
If you couldn’t be you?
To yourself in a room and your whole life’s a play?”

Sticking with the melancholy of the last few tracks, we’re back with Ah-Mer-Ah-Su and the song that made me fall in love with her. The trippy/trancey electronic sounds over a 4×4 house beat really make you feel like you’re floating through an in between world of non-existence, which is all too familiar with anyone who’s ever battled with their gender identity.

The instrumental is complimented with the soulful melodies of Ah-Mer-Ah-Su, lamenting introspectively her own identity and the clash between self-image and outward perception. This creates a vibe that is unforgettable and leaves the masterful lyrics to circulate and loop in your head for hours after you’ve stopped listening.

“The World Isn’t Perfect, and Neither are You” is a line that really gets me. It’s both a harrowing epiphany, but weirdly comforting that not being perfect is not only okay, it’s the only option. It kind of sucks, but there’s a beauty in your imperfections as well.

I still can’t work out if this is a happy or sad song. On the surface it’s very depressing, but the way it’s arranged and delivered has the same uplifting feeling of something like Civil War. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but this is a staple of my sad bitch hours playlist, allowing me to work through any negative emotions and cleansing me into a hard emotional reset allowing me to feel almost empowered in my neutrality.

Not many songs have that effect on me, and that’s why it’s a favourite.

17: EAT ME – Demi Lovato ft. Royal & The Serpent

HOLY FVCK – 2022 – Alternative Rock

“Is this what you’d all prefer?
Would you like me better if I was still her?”

Holy Fvck indeed, why did no one tell me the new Demi Lovato album kicks this much fucking ass?

I’d never really had an opinion on Demi before – I remember hearing them come out and thinking “Good for them” but beyond that never really had an interest in checking out their work.

But this album might honestly be one of the heaviest to hit the mainstream charts in a long fucking time.

I’m definitely detecting ZAND influences here, with the eerie grotesque electronic rock backing mixed with an effortless cool confidence that eviscerates your enemies and empowers your allies. Kudos Demi, this fucking slaps.

Also mildly depressing that in a song all about being more than just a woman, half the top YouTube comments are still insisting on using she/her and feminine coded language to describe them.

Yes, she uses she/they pronouns – and both are valid – but I feel like considering the context of the song you’re raving about, maybe you could make more of an effort to not just use she/her for them – just a thought.

18: Black Tie – Grace Petrie

Queer as Folk – 2018 – Folk

https://gracepetrie.bandcamp.com/album/queer-as-folk

“And it’s a bloody nightmare
Tryna fight the spread of bigotry and fear
That’s uniting Piers Morgan and Germaine Greer
And all our progress
Yeah, I wonder who it’s for
When I dared to utter that trans lives matter, yeah
And all I got was a TERF war”

Grace Petrie is the best ally we’ve ever had Only she can make such a personal song about her own identity as a butch lesbian yet effortlessly include trans-inclusive lyrics and explicitly decry anti-trans bigots when the song would’ve been perfectly valid and brilliant even if it solely focused on her own journey of self-discovery and celebration.

But this is the thing isn’t it – anti-trans legislation, far from protecting the rights of women and cis gay people, actually just contributes to the continued oppression of both.

No anti-trans legislation ever passed doesn’t also impact queer women, particularly those who lean towards the masculine, presentation-wise. And most anti-trans legislation contributes towards a narrative of disempowering women and femininity back to a passive role under patriarchy.

It shouldn’t be such a big deal for someone like Grace to come along and recognize this and actively fight for our rights. But sadly, it still is.

This song is beautiful, and I’m so happy it exists. Thank you, Grace Petrie.

19: They / Them / Theirs – Worriers

Imaginary Life – 2015 – Punk

https://worriers.bandcamp.com/album/imaginary-life-2

“Which side are you on?
What if I don’t want something that applies to me?
What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything, anything?”

I’ve liked this song for a while, and I’ve just realized the track and album was produced by Laura Jane Grace, huh. I mean it makes sense – structurally it hits a lot of the same tropes, although possibly a tad leaning towards the grunge sonically.

This track is about the singer’s own disconnect with the very idea of gender holding much stock in who they are. They prefer They / Them / Theirs pronouns, but more out of a “No thanks, I’m alright, not interested” rather than a rigidly defined gender in their own right. Which I feel many queer people can relate to.

I’ll always defend the increasing number and complexity of labels for people to define their sexuality – as having a term that fits you and gives you a clear community of people you have something in common with is a great tool for many through their gender discovery. But saying that it’s also completely valid to say “don’t know, don’t care, suck my dick” whenever anyone enquires about your gender, and I respect that.

20: Tell me a Story – Skylar Kergil

Tell Me a Story – 2015 – Folk

https://skylarkergil.bandcamp.com/album/tell-me-a-story

“But you don’t care about my answers
Your questions ignore me”

And here we go to the other end of the trans music spectrum, whimsical ukelele music. Skylar Kergil’s “Tell me a Story” just grows on me more with each listen.

On the first listen, I thought it was a lovely heartfelt expression of being transmasc with pretty melodies and singing. But the closer you pay attention to the lyrics, the more the genius presents itself. I particularly like the verse structure of all the questions he gets asked, ranging from cis naivety to plain invasive – before that brilliant chorus “You don’t care about my answers, your questions ignore me”.

The fact is that while cis people often feel compelled to ask these things, they generally don’t care about the honest answers, they’re just wanting to catch us out and invalidate us by probing in ways that would get you weird looks if asked of cis people. You don’t care about the answers, we don’t care about answering them, let’s just skip that part, and use my correct name and pronouns pls, thx xoxox.

21: Gender Is Boring – She/Her/Hers

Grrrl Angst – 2018 – Punk

https://sheherhers.bandcamp.com/album/grrrl-angst-2

“I think it’s time that our culture moves past
This toxic notion that the way we act
Is dictated at birth or that we have to choose
It’s an imposed binary, either way we lose
So do what you want
And dress how you feel
Don’t let anyone tell you that gender is real”

More pretty stringed instrumental sounds follow us through to the perfectly written “Gender is Boring” by She/Her/Hers.

This song is nothing less than an academic dissection of gender to the point of rendering it basically meaningless, over a nice twinkling guitar tune.

Gender is boring, gender is irrelevant, gender is a construct. Why cis people get so het up (heh, het up) about such an arbitrary social label is beyond me.

She/Her/Hers has some very interesting introspections on the difficulty of embracing gender without feeling like she’s reinforcing gender stereotypes, and the additional pressure to conform to a hyper femininity or else risk even more abuse and invalidation.

Gender is holding us back as a society, we don’t need it, let people be themselves and get on board now, or fuck off. Gender isn’t real – which isn’t to invalidate those who do have a strong sense of gender – more to reinforce the idea that it’s a thing to be played with and explored as primarily theoretical, and you don’t need to conform to any strict idea of masculinity, femininity or androgyny to be any particular gender. Which I think it a very good message to be delivered to anyone questioning their gender.

22: Morbid Obsessions – We Are The Union

Ordinary Life – 2021 – Ska Punk

https://wearetheunion.bandcamp.com/album/ordinary-life

“Let go of these morbid obsessions
every thought feels like a confession
she said, she said, she said:
“if I get one life, gonna do what I want”.”

We Are The Union’s “Ordinary Life” is the album trans millennials have been waiting for up until 2021. Fourth Wave Ska-Punk, aggressively supportive of the singer’s coming out as transgender, and working together to create banger after banger of trans affirming music.

I went with Morbid Obsessions as the lead single of the album, but really any track would fit here nicely. I particularly enjoy the title descriptor of the view of gender transphobes have. It is a fucking morbid obsession to constantly worry that someone else the same gender as you might have a slightly different shaped body. Let fucking go of it, we only get one life, people are going to be themselves and why waste your life combating that needlessly when it does not impact you in the slightest.

23: Fuck The Cistem – The Muslims

MAYO SUPREME – 2019 – Punk

https://themuslims.bandcamp.com/album/mayo-supreme

“So, fuck the system
Fuck these cisdudes
they are useless
It is proof that men are trash.
We’ll reproduce without your ass.”

It’s The Muslims. It’s a play on the word “System” and prefix “Cis”. It’s all about how bad Cis Men are (inb4 #notall). It’s raw and catchy punk rock. What more do you need to know?

24: We’re The Cool Kids – Ryan Cassata

Shine – 2016 – Folk

https://ryancassatamusic.bandcamp.com/album/shine

“Keep it up
We can dance all night
Don’t stop
We’ll be winning this fight
Rise up
Till the sun comes up and the sun comes up”

And closing this playlist we have what I think to be one of the best trans anthems and calls to action that has ever been written. Ryan Cassata’s “We’re The Cool Kids” has the feel good support of “Black Tie” with the rebellious determination of The Best of the Worst, bundled together in an upbeat indie pop-punk anthem that will have even the most ardent transphobe singing, dancing and fighting along for trans rights – it’s that infectious.

I especially love the music video showcasing trans people of all different shapes, sizes, generations, etc., lip syncing and dancing along, demonstrating the diversity within our community and solidarity we share in the face of oppressive adversity. We can dance all night. We’ll win this fight. We’ll rise up. We are the cool kids. Some of us are cool kids pushing 30, others are cool kids over 50, but all of us are the cool kids, and we’ll be winning this fight together so that future generations don’t have to fear of becoming yet another statistic.

Thank you Ryan, for producing this quintessential tune and for fighting the good fight year on year for our liberation.

And there we have it – 24 songs of proud, angry, sexy and united trans people and allies across many musical styles and lyrical themes. I hope you enjoy these tracks as much as I did, and you get something out of them.
And after you’ve listened to this – why not book tickets to our next live show on April 10th with Randolph Tempest, Eddie French, Leslie Ewing Burgesse & Ava Liversidge here?