Gavin Russom an American singer and
member of the famous group LCD
Soundsystem has come out as transgender.
In a recent interview with Grindr, 47-year-
old Russom said she has been attempting
to come out for years. She said:
“This is my fifth decade being alive,
and in each of those decades, there’s
been a time where I’ve tried to say,
‘Hey, I think I’m transgender, this was
even before that word existed.”
In early twenties, I was on my way to
coming out into transitioning. I
would dress gender nonconforming
and quite often explicitly feminine,
and I would talk to people that I felt a
closeness to about what I was going
through. I experienced a lot of
violence and harassment. That was
part of my daily experience.
Sometimes, if they happened to be
walking behind me at enough
distance where they would read me
as feminine, they would catcall me.
Getting closer to me, they would see
me as masculine and then become
very angry. I was assaulted on a
number of occasions.
I do think the world has changed, to
some degree. I have to say that
makes me hopeful. Things are
different than they were in 1997,
despite our current overarching
political system. That’s not to say
there isn’t a very long way to go. But I
think those experiences and then
having gone through a period where
I was less open about my gender
identity meant I had sort of worked
through some of those things. It also
gave me so much compassion and
admiration for people who did live
publicly as trans women.
Up until this point, I felt comfortable
working with my own gender fluidity,
my own identification within the
feminine end of the spectrum, and
the politics that arise from those
things through my music.
Retroactively, this is a thread that
goes through my entire body of
work. It’s an interesting way to listen
to it if you weren’t already getting
that.
I feel very blessed because the world
that I operate in is relatively open-
minded. I mean, the electronic music
world can be extremely bro-y and
also close-minded and sometimes
even worse than maybe a more
traditional office job. However, at
least where I’ve found myself, the
people who are around me have
been very supportive. I still had fears
that I might experience
consequences, mostly because I
know so many trans women who
have lost their jobs when they’ve
come out. It’s a very unfortunate
reality. There was a fear and
awareness that my ability to do this
really is a privilege—and it shouldn’t
be, but it is.
Russom who was born a man, said her
bandmates have been “really supportive”
about gender norms.
“I’m carrying so many of these things
around with me. That’s been
challenging to work through having
those preconditioned societal ideas
of what transgender women can do,”
Russom said.
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