For the sixth and final entry in nprmusic's week-long series of letters by music writers in the LGBTQ+ community, Deborah Sprague writes about songs that reflect her experience as a trans woman.
During the early '80s, we explored Pride together. On the surface, I was an ally but in my mind, I was up on those floats and bar tables, shaking it with the trans women I saw as kindred spirits. While I got into the groove of the house tunes shaking walls and booties in those late nights, I found more solace and, well, more pride when I stumbled on an affirming song in my musical wheelhouse of the time:"college rock," as it was known.
To fast forward a bit: I began to edge out of the closet about a decade ago and began celebrating Pride in earnest, but in a different way. Pride was no longer a single event, a single parade, a single focal point. That made it easier for me to find a niche – one in which music was the defining element, not a background soundtrack, and the intent was to move the head and the heart in addition to the hips.
Getting out of that maze was tricky – I'd been working my way through it for years, after all – but when I did, I found I had more kindred spirits than I'd imagined I'd ever have. The most prominent and the most personally affecting? Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!, a band that had drawn me in with incendiary politics and raging songs years before.
This year, I won't be at any shows – sweaty or otherwise – and I won't be joining my neighbors for a celebration on the street. But I will blast"True Trans Soul Rebel" at home and pump my fist with Pride. Somewhere, I'm sure Bill will be joining in.Tom Robinson Band,"Glad to Be Gay"YouTubeThis is the sixth and final entry in a week-long series of letters by music writers in the LGBTQ+ community.
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