{"id":78558,"date":"2019-02-13T14:25:39","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T19:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/trans-visibility-in-music-how-glaad-award-nominees-kim-petras-shea-diamond-sophie-are-changing-the-industry\/"},"modified":"2019-02-13T14:25:39","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T19:25:39","slug":"trans-visibility-in-music-how-glaad-award-nominees-kim-petras-shea-diamond-sophie-are-changing-the-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/trans-visibility-in-music-how-glaad-award-nominees-kim-petras-shea-diamond-sophie-are-changing-the-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Trans Visibility in Music: How GLAAD Award Nominees Kim Petras, Shea Diamond & SOPHIE are Changing the Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trans Visibility in Music: How GLAAD Award Nominees Kim Petras, Shea Diamond & SOPHIE are Changing the Industry<\/b><\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: Ryan Duffin; Annie Tritt; Charlotte Wales. <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This year\u2019s GLAAD Media Awards category for Outstanding Music Artist recognizes some of the most incredible talent in music today, including three transgender artists who are bringing trans<\/a> visibility and artistry to the forefront of the industry.<\/p>\n

25-year old German singer-songwriter Kim Petras has become one of the most exciting names in pop music since the release of her debut single, \u201cI Don\u2019t Want It at All\u201d, in August 2017. A few months later, Spotify included Petras in the launch of their program RISE, which is \u201cdesigned to identify and break the new wave of music superstars.\u201d Later that year, Petras was named by PAPER Magazine as one of the artists \u201cmost likely to dominate the pop charts\u201d in 2018. Her emergence in pop music has caught the eye of many established names, leading to recent collaborations with Charli XCX (\u201cUnlock It\u201d) and Cheat Codes (\u201cFeeling of Falling\u201d). Her most recent EP, titled Turn Off the Light, Vol 1, was ranked as one of the 20 best EPs, Mixtapes & Playlists of 2018 by Idolator. To date, Petras\u2019 music has been streamed more than 65 million times.<\/p>\n

Although Petras was one of the youngest people to undergo gender confirmation surgery at the age of 16, she has still found that people doubt her ability as an artist based on the fact that she is transgender. In an interview with PAPER Magazine in December 2017, Petras mentioned, \u201cA lot of people didn\u2019t believe that I could be a great songwriter, or be super talented, and be transgender. I feel like a lot of people felt like \u2018transgender\u2019 would set you up to not be able to do that. I just want to prove people wrong. I want to get a Number 1 on the [Billboard] Hot 100.\u201d However, Petras is also set on making a career for herself that is not defined by her transgender identity. In a May 2018 interview with HuffPost, Petras stated, \u201cI just hate the idea of using my identity as a tool. I\u2019ve never written a song specifically about being transgender. It made me the person I am and that\u2019s a big part of me, but I think music\u2026goes deeper than your gender or your sexuality. I really fell in love with music and I hope that people can see me for my music and all the things that I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Soul singer Shea Diamond has found a different road to success. Starting at the age of 20, Diamond spent 10 years in a men<\/a>\u2019s prison for robbing a store at gunpoint in order to pay for gender confirmation surgery. During her time in prison, Diamond channeled her lifelong passion for music to find her voice as a songwriter. Following her release in 2009, she moved to New York City to pursue her passion for music and trans<\/a> activism. It was a video<\/a> of Diamond singing her powerful anthem \u201cI Am Her\u201d at a Trans Lives Matter event that spearheaded her career in music, catching the attention of pop producer and hitmaker Justin Tranter. Soon after, Diamond signed onto Asylum Records and in June 2018, she released her debut EP, Seen It All, which was executively produced by Tranter. In an interview with Variety, Tranter praised Diamond for creating \u201csoul music with the most honest, progressive, underdog perspective that one can imagine. Her voice is sent down from heaven to help her tell the raw poetic truth about the hell she has overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she continues to emerge into the spotlight, Diamond seeks to challenge the status quo and acts as a powerful representation of maintaining authenticity and perseverance in the face of adversity. \u201cTo be a 40-year old woman<\/a>, a trans<\/a> woman<\/a>, to make it to that age it\u2019s not really heard of,\u201d Diamond told Variety in 2018. \u201cPeople don\u2019t want to see the struggle of what it takes for a trans<\/a> woman<\/a> to survive…The trans<\/a> experience is a person who isn\u2019t doing it for entertainment purposes. Everything this person does is for survival. What does survival look like? It looks like [me].\u201d Like Petras, Diamond hopes that that she can \u201cblur the lines of what gender is and sexuality is\u201d with her music. Diamond told Variety that she doesn\u2019t want to be looked at as, \u201c\u2019Oh, that\u2019s a trans<\/a> woman<\/a>\u2019 or \u2018that\u2019s a woman<\/a> of color\u2019\u201d but rather as \u201csomebody who is making some dope music, some music that has to be made.\u201d She continued by saying, \u201cI want to exact change \u2013 I believe we can do [that] through our music but we have to come together and stop demonizing each other. This isn\u2019t a competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After beginning her music career in a band called Motherland, Scottish singer-songwriter-producer SOPHIE started her solo career in 2013 with the release of her debut single, \u201cNothing More to Say\u201d. However, it was the 2014 release of breakout tracks \u201cLemonade\/Hard\u201d that caught music critics\u2019 attention, making the top ten of year-end lists published by Complex, The Washington Post and Pitchfork. By 2015, SOPHIE had begun writing and producing music for major artists, including Madonna (\u201cBitch I\u2019m Madonna\u201d) and Charli XCX (\u201cVroom Vroom EP\u201d). After achieving additional production and writing credits with artists such as Cashmere Cat and M\u00d8 over the next two years, SOPHIE began to release solo music again in 2017, while also publicly announcing her identity as a transgender woman<\/a>. The release of her 2018 album OIL OF EVERY PEARL\u2019S UN-INSIDES has continued to highlight that SOPHIE is a forced to be reckoned with, as it earned the electronic producer a Grammy nomination for Best Dance\/Electronic Album. With this nomination, SOPHIE has become the first openly trans<\/a> artist to ever be nominated in this category.<\/p>\n

Despite being accused of gender appropriation before announcing that she identified as a transgender woman<\/a>, SOPHIE has decided to take the high road by expressing herself through her music. \u201cIt\u2019s not my vibe to call<\/a> people out, because I speak through my music and that\u2019s all I need,\u201d SOPHIE told Teen Vogue in 2017. She continued by saying, \u201cLet people be who they want to be \u2013 viewed as artists, not under any other category.\u201d Similar to Petras and Diamond, SOPHIE\u2019s artistry seeks to blur the lines of gender and sexuality. In her interview with Teen Vogue, SOPHIE stated that \u201cPeople do think in binaries, and when you confuse what those are, they\u2019re like, this is wrong. But this is what I\u2019m here to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For a full list of the nominees for the 30th Annual GLAAD Media Awards, including Kim Petras, Shea Diamond and SOPHIE, please visit glaad.org\/mediaawards\/nominees<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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February 13, 2019<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Issues:\u00a0<\/div>\n