Hi folks, welcome back to Sunday Sundries! Thanks for your patience while I did covid recovery. Ugh. It wasn’t a bad bout, thankfully, but it’s still exhausting and my lungs were a mess for a bit, so rest was needed.
Anyway! This week, I’m talking about songs that trigger dysphoria. So content warning for that—stay safe, I’d rather you quit reading right here than cause yourself issues.
I decided, at some point over the last couple of weeks (much of it is a bit hazy—see above re: covid) to listen to some Shania Twain whilst gaming. I put music on a lot when playing stuff, and I can just stick some earbuds into my Xbox controller, balance the game/music, and lose myself a bit. It’s thing I’ve done for many years.
Shania is awesome. Her voice is amazing, she’s a very talented songwriter and performer, and she is a big time queer ally.
She did say a thing that was not very well thought out a few years back about Trump, and was horrified when she realised what he really stood for, and how much he hurt us. I read an interview here in PrideSource from earlier this year where she goes against her manager, who tries to prevent a question on the subject, being very glad of the opportunity to answer, apologise, and reaffirm her support:
…realizing after how hurtful it was to even say that, I really regretted it. I thought, “Wow. I would never wanna support a policy that would ever do that.” I would never personally do that. I think it's also good to… let's just not judge each other, you know? Let's be open like we're doing, and honest. And understand each other.
So in the greater understanding of it, anyone that criticizes the importance of the LGBTQ+ community does not belong anywhere in my support system. So no. We need more love. We need less criticism, less judgment. And that means for everything, everyone. And everyone has a right to their own opinion. I regret that anyone felt that I would ever have felt that it was OK to exclude LGBTQ+ [people].
So with that out of the way, let’s move on! While listening, of course Man, I Feel Like A Woman came on.
First, just take a sec to check out the terrible rhythm of the background dancers…totally out of sync, such a shame.
Anyway. I had a love/hate relationship with this song. It was released in 1999, when I was 16. I already knew I was a lesbian, and the empowerment of the lyrics, and the whole track, was great. Buuuuuut it also always made me uncomfortable, and my trans egg, which would take another 14yrs to crack, used to curl up tightly and yell NO every time it came on, and double anytime I tried to sing along. I’d usually find myself trailing off at the chorus.
No shade to Shania or the song—as I said above, I think she’s great and I’m a fan, and this remains a huge empowering song for women, as well it should! But oof. It took me hearing it again, and feeling that same discomfort I always had, for it to finally fucking click what the issue was.
Folks, sometimes, I am very, very slow. 24yrs slow on this one. But I got there eventually!
The thing is, I really wanted to go for the female empowerment songs, and I tend to love the artists that make them. For example:
Cyndi Lauper has also always been a queer icon and ally. Again, I love her music, and I think she’s pretty great as well. I would have given so much to be able to see her version of Kinky Boots…
But here’s this. Girls do wanna have fun, and I tried to identify with that. I really did. Buuuuut…once again there was my little trans egg going NO. Not as bad with this one, because there’s a little more distance in the lyrics—it’s 3rd person, not 1st person, which helped. But still, when I tried to apply it to myself, I just couldn’t.
OK, I’m not gonna sit here all day and list the songs that I realised after my egg hatched that once gave me what I now know was dysphoria. I just wanted to share this, and I didn’t want to single out Shania, because that’s entirely unfair. My dysphoria—past, present, and future—is in no way the fault of anyone else.
Sometimes it’s just helpful to get it off your chest. I hope acknowledging it and all will help the thump of dysphoria I still get, but if not at least now I know what it is.
On that note, I’ll close out for today. If you have any dysphoric songs, feel free to share (content warning for the comments if so!).
Euphoric songs are also welcome, as a nice counterpoint!
Til next time, please subscribe and share!