I wanted to write a trans anthem, where a young person going through the same thing could hear it and be like, This is made for me. I think so often trans portrayals in the media are required to be either overly heroic or so deeply tragic with little representation for a more nuanced human experience, which is often made up of small moments of both. I really, really struggled to come out, it was a huge reconciling with a lot of repressed trauma. I wrote the song for my former partner, when I hadn't even nearly accepted it in myself yet, which makes some lines in it even eerier. But while all of this is solely my experience — and I don't pretend to speak for all trans experiences — I did want to just share more trans views with the world. Still, I tried to keep it fairly lyrically universal in that it’s less about becoming a certain gender and more about the fiery, somewhat painful forging of an authentic identity, whatever that ends up being.
Ben added immeasurably to the song — the guitar solo is all him. He is a much better guitarist and capable of really transforming a song from one place to a whole other. He put music to the moment after the lyrics are done and the only thing left is action. He gave it that quality of something that is now fully engulfed in flames and in its destruction evolving into something else that’s much more powerful.
For the video, I carried around a camcorder for year. It’s funny now to see it all edited, because it makes it seem like I was having a lot more fun of a year than I really did. But in editing it, I wanted to portray a character growing and changing and realizing they are more a part of the world than outside of it. They start to see themselves in everything, in everyone. That it isn't me and them — it's more like the Genesis P-Orridge quote, “I become you and you become me.”
— Genesis Edenfield
(Photo Credit: Craig Scheihing)
