Sunday, March 19, 2017

TOW #23 Worriers – They/Them/Theirs





                The Worriers are an American pop-punk musical group from Brooklyn, New York. Due to their punk nature most of their songs relate to activism and social issues. In 2015 they came out with an album titled ‘Imaginary Life’. This album was produced by Laura Jane Grace, a popular punk-world figure from the band Against Me! In her band Against Me!, Laura made it her mission to tell the tale of her gender dysphoria in order to help people understand trans identities and her production work with the Worriers is no different.
                One song on the album, is titled ‘They/Them/Theirs’ and tells the story of someone explaining their gender identity. The song begins by defining the gender binary that everyone is familiar with and then in the same verse the singer reveals that they identify with neither end of the spectrum. Then the song continues by going a little bit more in depth with the singer’s gender dysphoria and new sense of identity as gender non-binary.
                The audience that Grace was going for is anyone who is ignorant to the fact that there are more than two genders. Then based off this audience it becomes evident that Grace’s purpose is to inform people of the other gender, with this song specifically tackling the topic of non-binary/agender. Then Grace’s second purpose is to provide an explanation for people who don’t feel like they belong in either gender category on the binary scale. As someone who has recently been struggling with a lot of gender dysphoria, I can safely say that this song put in perspective for me the idea that someone can identify as neither male nor female. The song also helped me realize that other people feel the same way that I do about gender which is pretty reassuring when oftentimes I felt like it was just me.

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