It Must Change — ANOHNI and the Johnsons
#365Songs: June 14th
Marsha P. Johnson’s body was pulled from the Hudson River a week after the 1990 Pride Parade. She was a lifelong Gay Rights activist, a drag queen, and one of the most vital voices during the 1969 Stonewall uprising. The police ruled her death a suicide, but her friends knew better. We know better, too, because this happens all too often these days. Still.
It must change
It must change
It must change
It must change
ANOHNI ’s first band was Antony and the Johnsons, named in honor of Marsha. Her 2023 album, My Back Was a Bridge For You to Cross, prominently featured Marsha’s portrait. In a recent Instagram, ANOHNI wrote, “When I first arrived in NYC in 1990, elders in the Village told me about Marsha. I lived by the West Side high way, and I sometimes saw Marsha on Christopher Street. I admired her, and fate decreed that on the sunny day before her passing, at the gay pride parade, I thanked her, and told her I loved her, and kissed her hand. She smiled sweetly and just said “Oh I love you too, doll” A week later, her precious body was drawn from the Hudson. I organized some friends to walk from Sheridan Square to that spot by the water’s edge where her body had lain. I was wearing a wedding dress. A few souls spoke at this memorial. Then I spray painted her name across the piers and covered the village with posters of Marsha wearing a tiara, and the word “S.T.A.R.” The whole thing set a fire inside me that I didn’t understand. In the last 6 years Marsha has finally been recognized by multiple sources as the Rosa Parks of the trans and gay Civil rights movements, along with her sister, Sylvia Rivera.”
It must change
It must change
It must change
It must change
I follow many queer Instagram accounts, and it seems almost daily there’s a post about yet another Transgender soul bullied, murdered, or pushed to a self-led exit from life. The bullying, the minimizing, the dehumanizing has always been problematic, but where’s the progress? And it’s not just on the Right, not just Christian zealots and fetishistic politics. It’s prominent on the Left, too: from Bill Maher and Dave Chappelle to JK Rowling, self-registered “anti-Woke’ers” who tee up the masses. Fueled by anti-Trans messages, the worst amongst us have been taught that it’s perfectly acceptable to target the most vulnerable populations.
The way you talk to me, it must change
The things you do to me
The way you leave me
The seeds you give to me, it must change
It must change
The death inside you
That you pass into me
The truth is that I always
Thought you were beautiful
In your own way
ANOHNI wrote, “The trans condition is a beautiful mystery; it’s one of nature’s best ideas. What an incredible impulse, that compels a five-year-old child to tell its parents it isn’t what they think it is. Given just a tiny bit of oxygen, those children can flourish and be such a gift. They give other people licence to explore themselves more deeply, allowing the colours in their own psyche to flourish.”
‘Fear of the Other’ isn’t new in this country, or anywhere else, but it’s quite clear there’s a rise in hatred these days. Laws are regressing, queer spaces are being targeted, bathrooms monitored, books banned, and in Florida it’s even illegal to use the word “gay.” In several Red States, it’s illegal for medical professors to provide care to Trans bodies. So much for “All Lives Matter,” “Pro-Life,” and the Hippocratic Oath.
From an ANOHNI interview in Frieze Magazine: “‘We are disruptors,’ she said, speaking of the spectrum of queer, trans, nonbinary people whose very existence opposes that destruction. Her eyes became distant, as if she were re-experiencing everyone she had lost, at once. ‘We are born to pose difficult questions. To forge humility in those who occupy extreme positions in the binary, [so they] understand that they all come from a primary humanity and it’s that humanity that the queer body naturally, biologically inhabits.’ It’s a threat so intolerable to those in power that it must be quickly snuffed out. Yet, the fight against erasure continues.”
You know how they always said that light was the opposite of darkness?
It’s just fire
That’s why this is so sad
That’s why this is so sad
I’m creating life
That’s why this is so sad
That’s why this is so sad
So those opposites, they don’t exist
So sad
It’s just an idea that someone told you
So sad
And that’s why this is so sad
It must change, but it can’t change until we make the invisible visible. It must change, but it can’t change until those most maligned by the masses are more prominently seen, heard, supported, and accepted. Pride is great and all, but the parades have all been commandeered by posturing, virtue-signaling brands that are quick to change position the moment the Right throws a tantrum. (I’m talking to you, Target.) And just because you post a Rainbow flag once a year doesn’t make you an ally. Where is your daily rage every time a Trans person goes missing? Florida might have Disney, Miami, and some nice beaches, but it also has Ron DeSantis, some of the most bigoted laws in the country, and a lot of Florida Men. So next time you post a Pride flag, ask yourself where and to what cause your money goes. So next time you hear someone perpetuating this atmosphere, speak the fuck up. So next time you see another Trans soul murdered, beaten, or bullied, rage louder. It can’t change until we fucking change.
That’s why this is so sad
That’s why this is so sad
I’m creating life
That’s why this is so sad
That’s why this is so sad
So those opposites, they don’t exist
So sad
It’s just an idea that someone told you
So sad
And that’s why this is so sad
It must change
Must change
It must change
It must change
The city in your head
Collapsing walls and lead, it must change
The fire is cleaning
The oil from the stones
Your God is failing you, things must change
Giving you hell
The truth is that our love
Will ricochet through eternity
We’re not getting out of here
That’s why this is so sad
No one’s getting out of here
That’s why this is so sad
This is our world
That’s why this is so sad
That’s why this is so sad
It’s so sad
So sad
We’re just gonna be alone in a place for us
So sad
This is the place
So sad
So sad
~
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