I’ve decided that HRT, and all other drugs and techniques which can be used to express one’s right to freedom of form, should not only be available over-the-counter, but government-subsidised to ensure equal access for all.
I will not be elaborating at this time.
Alright, hear me out: Radiohead’s “Creep” is about gender dysphoria.
This is a crackpot theory, of course — none of the members of the band have ever even suggested that
they might be transgendered, and if they did Jonny might have something to say about it.
But it just makes sliiightly too much sense.
The chorus is about ostracisation from society, and the feeling that one doesn’t belong in spaces of one’s gender (take the whole bathroom debacle). There are more thematic hints in the first two stanzas — “You’re just like an angel / Your skin makes me cry” — but the real smoking gun is the third verse:
I don’t care if it hurts
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
Do I even need to spell it out? “Creep” is the trans anthem of the 1990s and noöne will ever convince me otherwise.
I saw an awful transphobic sticker on my daily constitutional the other day. I shan’t bother repeating the exact contents, because the sad sack who made it really doesn’t need more exposure, but it was just the usual “biological wombyn won’t wheesht!!!” crap. Yi kna the type.
At first it got me down, as it probably would any sane person. But then i thought — Whoever made that sticker, their bigoted views are now so unpopular, so marginalised, that they’ve had to resort to plastering stickers everywhere: the last resort of covid-conspiracy cranks, climate ostriches, football hooligans, and a number of others whose views are utterly unacceptable in polite company.
We might not be there yet as far as the law is concerned — lord knows people still have to jump through an ungodly number of hoops just to change a letter on their passport — but socially, it’s a good sign that the Inexorable March of Progress™ is continuing as planned.
Anyway. That’s how a nasty bigot made my day.