Music Monday: More Janelle

I don’t know a lot, but I know the world could use more Janelle Monae. The out pansexual musical powerhouse has also now come out as non-binary. And, in a world where good news is too often hard to find, that’s some good news. The more high-profile public figures come out across the LGBTQ+ spectrum, the more people express their true gender identities, the better.

We’re living through a sadly precedented attack on queer rights once again. Oh, right, you think we’re sick! Oh, right, you think we’re pedophiles! Oh, right, you think we’re destroying girls’ sports (from people who have never once thought about professional women’s sporting event). Blah-blah-hatefulbigotsity-blah.

This is a well-worn playbook I thought, just maybe, we’d all gotten beyond. But our successes with marriage equality and just generally becoming accepted parts of public life, have really chapped the right wing’s ass. And now they’ve coming for ours.

Sadly, it appears, you can never keep a good/bad election year wedge issue down. So here we are, with trans youth in the crosshairs and entire states banning them out of existence. I mean, fuck, Florida is even trying to police the clothes trans kids wear and the ways they cut their hair. Ah, yes, can you smell the freedom? Supreme Leader DeSantis says NO GAY RIGHTS.

So, as I was saying, the more Janelle Monae, the better. During this unfathomably cruel open season on perhaps one of the most vulnerable of LGBTQ+ communities, may her openness serve as a needed reminder that the bullies aren’t right. You have every right to be yourself. You are loved, you are important. You belong. And you can be fly as hell.

Also, you gotta love that she wrote a whole song about pussy without actually saying pussy. So you know, WAP but for similes. Happy Monday, kittens.