Tuesday Top Ten: Songs About Gender Identity

As you may know, I'm currently reading Lou Reed's biography.  I knew that he had experimented with bisexuality in the '70s -- or perhaps I should say I thought he experimented with bisexuality in the '70s.  In reality, he was doing a whole lot more than experimenting, and going back to his days in The Velvet Underground and as a part of Andy Warhol's sphere, transvestites were a fixture in his life.  For much of the mid-'70s, Reed was in a serious relationship with a trans woman named Rachel, who occasionally went by her birth name, Richard.

Reed's 1972 album Transformer is not only considered one of the best rock albums of all-time, but it is also considered a gay and trans watershed point.  Reed was singing about things that no one had really sung about before, and he brought to the forefront topics and themes that had largely been, for lack of a better phrase, in the closet before then.  I've always said that Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" is the second-best song about transvestites, and I still think that's true ("Lola" will always be #1).

So, with my current reading and the fact that it is Pride Month, it seems like there's no time like the present to have a Tuesday Top Ten about gender identity, androgyny, and/or gender bending.  As a straight man, I certainly can't begin to comprehend what it must be like to be trans, but that doesn't mean I can't empathize.  Jesus Christ, I'm not a Republican.  I'm a male, I've always felt like a male, and I happened to have been born with a dong, but I realize not everyone is born in the body (and with the body parts) they want.  And there are plenty of great rock songs that address the issue of gender identity that hopefully have helped trans kids and adults over the years feel that they're not alone in the world.  

With that, here are my top ten songs about trans men and/or women, androgyny, or gender bending.  Not all are necessarily explicitly about that, but some are on the list for obvious reasons.  I'm only including one song per artist (otherwise there would likely be more Bowie, Reed, and VU), and I'm just going to go in alphabetical order by artist.  Given that many of these songs came out in the '70s, this list proves the age-old truth that art is generally ahead of societal norms.  Be who you are, love who you love, and don't judge anyone else for doing the same.  And listen to rock and roll. 

1.  "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" by Aerosmith (1987)
This is one of the songs that helped bring Aerosmith back into the rock and roll limelight, and it's about, well, a dude who looks like a lady.  For all the machismo that you might think Aerosmith or a typical Aerosmith fan might exude, this is actually a pretty forward-thinking song.  The narrator seems to be okay with the fact that one of his groupies had "the body of a Venus" but "whipped out a gun."  A "gun" is a penis in this context, just so we're clear.


2.  "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" by Against Me! (2014)
It would be hard to have a list about trans songs without including one by Against Me!, whose lead singer, Laura Jane Grace (born Thomas James Gabel), came out as a woman in 2012 and is in the process of transitioning to a female.  She is one of the first punk artists to come out as trans, and this song -- the title track off of the band's 2014 album -- is about gender dysphoria, as you may have surmised.


3.  "Get Back" by The Beatles (1970)
While this may not seem like an obvious choice, let's talk about Loretta, sweet sweet Loretta.  She thought she was a woman, but she was "another man."


4.  "Girls & Boys" by Blur (1994)
Britpop rockers Blur released this catchy little number in 1994, and it became their first Top 5 hit in their native UK.  The chorus is an earworm:  "Girls who are boys / Who like boys to be girls / Who do boys like they're girls / Who do girls like they're boys / Always should be someone you really love."


5.  "Sweet Transvestite" by Tim Curry (1975)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a trans milestone, and this song is the introduction to Curry's campy and vampy Dr. Frank N. Furter, who looks like a terrifying version of that Italian great aunt who always wears too much makeup -- from the neck up anyway.  The song is a glam rock send up, and in case it wasn't clear from his corset, lipstick, and stockings, he explains, "I'm just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania."


6.  "Queen Bitch" by David Bowie (1971)
I could have put any of a handful of Bowie songs on this list, but "Queen Bitch" is one of my top five favorite Bowie songs.  It's a fantastic rock song about a queen, who also happens to be a bitch.  The riff was inspired by The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" (see below), and the subject matter is all about crossdressing "cruisers."


7.  "The Crying Game" by Boy George (1992)
This is kind of a double whammy.  While the song itself does not have any transgender themes, it's sung by the most famous man who dressed in women's clothing from the '80s -- and, of course, it was used as the theme song for the 1992 film of the same name, where a character thought to be a woman is revealed to be a man during a rather intimate moment.  As a result, this song is forever linked with transgender reveals, which I presume is not something that happens with the same fervor as baby gender reveals.


8.  "Lola" by The Kinks (1970)
I can't improve on my description of the song in my post about two and a half years ago about my ten favorite Kinks songs.  Quite simply, this is the best rock and roll song ever about a transvestite.


9.  "Royal Orleans" by Led Zeppelin (1976)
This song's about a time when Zeppeling bassist John Paul Jones took home what he thought was a woman, but turned out to be a man -- a man who then set fire to Jones's hotel room (at the Royal Orleans in New Orleans).  It's also one of the few Zeppelin songs where all four members have songwriting credit.  Any why wouldn't they all want songwriting credit with lines like this:  "New Orleans queens / Sure know how to schmooze it / Maybe for some that seems alright / When I step out, strut down with my sugar / She'd best not talk like Barry White."


10.  "Walk On The Wild Side" by Lou Reed (1972)
As I mentioned above, this is off of Reed's 1972 album Transformer, and it's all about the underbelly of New York and the world that Reed was very much a part of.  Hookers, drugs, cross dressers giving BJs.  All the characters were based on people he knew (from his days hanging around with Andy Warhol), even Sugar Plum Fairy.


11.  "Androgynous" by The Replacements (1984)
"Androgynous" is off of my favorite Replacements' album, 1984's Let It Be.  It's a loungy song with only piano and Paul Westerberg's vocals, but the message is that love knows no gender, predicting the swing in societal acceptance of transgender people that wouldn't start to come for another 20+ years.


12.  "Sweet Jane" by The Velvet Underground (1970)
This is one of my favorite VU songs, though I could have included various other songs by the band ("Candy Says," for example).  "Sweet Jane" is about a nice couple, Jack and Jane, who like to wear corsets and vests, respectively.  Do what you like.  In that context, I think the final line before the bridge -- "And anyone who ever played a part / They wouldn't turn around and hate it" -- takes on some additional significance for anyone who may have been hiding their sexuality or gender identity (and thus, "playing a part").