Reader, no one ever takes my advice. But Desi did when we chatted earlier this year about the possibility of his gender-affirming top surgery. My sweet North Carolina friend, whom I socialize with every year at Dragon Con in Atlanta, posted on Instagram about trying to be brave in the face of reckoning that it just wouldn’t be in the cards for him.

“I definitely have a provider who could give me the letters and documentation for a referral, but i havent got much/anything in the way of savings, very little PTO,” he replied to me privately. “My insurance is unlikely to cover anything, which keeps me from even seeking a consult.”

Medical care like this is still considered elective in most states, by most insurance companies, despite the fact that doctor-supported transition is recommended by all accredited medical institutions as the most effective treatment for gender dysphoria. And gender dysphoria is one of the main factors contributing to mental illness and death among trans folks.

Having successfully helped friends crowdfund for similar care, I’d urged Desi to go ahead and book the consultation. “Why not get a number put on that, and then see how far you can get toward it?” I advised. “It can be scary to get one's hopes up when the outcome seems so far-fetched, but also... why not?” I also pointed out that if people saw how sincerely he was pursuing this, they’d be inclined to help.

That last part felt true. But is it? Desi’s surgery will cost nine thousand dollars, out of pocket, with another thousand tacked on to cover aftercare and missed work.

Everyone knows that GoFundMe is functionally America’s backup healthcare provider at this point. I don’t have numbers on how many trans surgeries have been made possible through crowdfunding, but it’s certainly a lot.

Still, my own experience suggests that many (if not most) onlookers have absorbed the influence of the corrupt US healthcare industry and political arena, pausing over cases they consider “elective,” hesitant to extend aid to a “healthy” individual over a sick or injured one whose case seems less “urgent.”

Some may be put off by the wry humor that’s often attached to such campaigns, which was a mild concern I had about Desi’s after he launched it:

But I’m also very familiar with the self-effacing aspects of queer life, which is just one way of showing up (often embarrassingly) as oneself in plain sight of everyone else. Make the joke first. Put people at ease. Endear them with a smile. I strike my own version of this deal least once nearly every day.

Even so, cases like Desi’s will appear side by side on people’s screens with some of the most dire catastrophes one could imagine. It’s understandable to give priority to those who can’t function today without life-saving help.

One friend messaged me privately in response to my posts about Desi’s needs:

Wish I could give but I recently gave a huge chunk to a friend on Medicaid whose diagnostic MRI was refused despite her doctor’s best efforts -- she basically can’t walk due to an early onset back condition that usually doesn’t show up until after age 65 (which is why the dipshits at the Medicaid office won’t approve the scan). Best of luck to your friend. This country sucks.

I know these last remarks weren’t flippant. He will need that luck. And this country does suck.

So far I’ve held up my end of the bargain I made with Desi, hustling through my networks to put his request under as many sympathetic noses as possible. It’s become a daily pastime. I’ve told friends: this is like playing the worst video game in the world.

While this isn’t my responsibility, I’m still something of a community resource. I’m older, I know more people. My people know people. Some of those people have money. We broke it down: how many $100 or $50 donations would it take to get him close to the goal? The number seemed small to me, but to a trans North Carolinan with access to way fewer people, it still must seem like building a staircase to the moon.

Elective. I think about that term a lot. Who would choose all this? That kind of thinking has infected every sector of healthcare. Last year a dentist informed me that I had a cavity on one tooth, but I’d have to pay $150 to get it filled because it hadn’t yet shown sign of decay. “Your insurance describes this as a ‘cosmetic filling,” the dentist told me.

“So I should just come back when it’s worse, or causing me pain?” I asked. She didn’t pick up on my disbelief or my sarcasm, and instead answered brightly: “Yes, or we can fill it today for $150.” So far I’ve been able to live with it.

Six weeks from now, Desi will either wake up from surgery in a form that causes him drastically less psychological anguish… or he won’t, because we were unsuccessful in our crusade.

Or do I have that wrong? Many trans people aren’t just running away from dysphoria, they’re running toward a glorious vision of something they once believed impossible. But it’s harder to raise money for hope and joy, isn’t it? Somehow suffering is easier to sympathize with, to compare and to quantify.

Anyhow, it’s moot: at our current rate, he won’t make it.

Just last year, North Carolina lawmakers overrode their Governor’s veto of H.B. 805, a bill which imposes harsh restrictions on the lives of transgender people and their families. Similar laws have proliferated throughout the country, creating a chilling effect not just on healthcare providers willingness to provide gender-affirming care (which they may now face undue punishments for), but on trans folks themselves.

It’s often repeated that “the cruelty is the point.” I’m more interested in the effects of the cruelty: silence. Hopelessness. Absence. Indifference. In other words, spreading the acceptance of cruelty is the point. It creeps into our own hearts, telling us to lower our expectations.

Personally I find it far easier to campaign for someone else’s needs than my own. There are hopes inside my own heart which have slowly chilled to a point of cryogenic stasis, dreams which I’ve stopped bothering to nourish, withering like neglected houseplants.

So I’m grateful to have been shocked back into motion, even here on JUDGEMENT. Doing for others, even when it seems pointless, is good practice for recognizing what needs to be done for oneself. And I know on some level, if Desi’s campaign is successful, something bright and young will come back to life in me.

I encourage him, sometimes out of worry. The inextinguishable nature of his spark then encourages me. I’m sharing here in hopes that it will do something for you.

xoxo

TB

In innumerable ways, 2023 was a year marked by profound disappointments. We needed all the good stuff to be even better, to make up for how much everything else sucked! Sometimes this worked out okay, but overall we just learned to make do.

From ES:

Best Music of 2023:

9. NewJeans - “NewJeans 2nd EP ‘Get Up’”

8. LSDXOXO - “Delusions of Grandeur (D.O.G.)”

7. City Girls - RAW

6. Byrell The Great - “The Triggers”

5. Ice Spice - “Like..? (Deluxe)”

4. Sexyy Red - “Hood Hottest Princess”

3. Club Eat - Start

2. Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

1. Eartheater - Powders

Best Anime of 2023

6. Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 2)

5. Magical Destroyers

4. Hell’s Paradise (Season 1)

3. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba — Swordsmith Village Arc

2. Jujutsu Kaisen (Season 2)

1. The Boy and the Heron

Best Horror Movies of 2023

8. Saw X

7. M3GAN

6. Talk to Me

5. When Evil Lurks

4. Skinamarink

3. Godzilla Minus One

2. Infinity Pool

1. Beau Is Afraid

From TB:

Favorite Films of 2023

Not ranked, and with the disclaimer that there were many fab releases which I still haven’t gotten around to:

• May December

• Saltburn

• Barbie

• Talk To Me

• The Color Purple

• They Cloned Tyrone

• Nyad

Couldn’t Stop Watching…

• Fargo Season 5 (Hulu)

  …Because they’re adapting and re-imagining the home invasion/kidnapping plot from the actual Fargo movie, with campy (but rock-solid) performances from Juno Temple and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

• Escaping Twin Flames (Max)

  …Because so far this real-life cult is still completely operational and has faced no federal charges, but this heartbreaking docuseries is stuffed with interviews from survivors which may actually turn the tide.

• Phrogging: Hider In My House (Hulu, via Lifetime)

  …Because the first episode scared me out of my wits, so I needed to watch ALL of them in order to become an expert on the subject. Now I’m sure to recognize the signs of someone secretly living in the attic space that connects all the apartments in our building.

• Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God (Max)

  …Because unlike the Twin Flames doc, the interviews here were mostly true believers who regret very little about mummifying their leader in a sleeping bag wrapped in Christmas lights.

• The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)

  …Because Flanagan has a plan again, and we cannot help but stan again. Extremely gothic family melodrama with lots of gruesomely unpleasant surprises — many involving Carla Gugino.

• Mayfair Witches (Roku, AMC+)

  …Because despite being kind of ass, it was still more entertaining all-around than Interview With the Vampire or American Horror Story.

Best Music Releases of 2023

I wrote about many of these at some point throughout the year!

• Powders - Eartheater

• New Blue Sun - André 3000

• GUTS - Olivia Rodrigo

• The Age of Pleasure - Janelle Monáe

• Consciousness As A State Of Matter - Terr

• My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross - ANOHNI

Top JUDGEMENT Posts of 2023

For paid subscribers only! Please enjoy this peek at all the cultural debris we’re currently rummaging through.

From TB:

• As far as I’m concerned, Cole Escola’s draggy new special Our Home Out West is the only required holiday viewing this season. Imagined as the pilot of a fictionalized TV series from yesteryear, the 30-minute program feels like a worthy …

Read more

For paid subscribers only! Please enjoy this peek at all the cultural debris we’re currently rummaging through.

From ES:

• Haven’t downloaded it yet, but I’m already obsessed with this Polish-made 1-bit retro video game, titled World of Horror. Inspired in equal parts by H.P. Lovecraft and Junji Ito, the hyper-minimalist interactive narrative tells the stor…

Read more

By T. Bloom

For the reader’s comfort, what follows probably should’ve been veiled in fiction. However, this letter from Shirley (my paternal grandmother) to my parents upon the death of Mina (my maternal grandmother) seems worthy of being presented in its raw entirety, with as little commentary as possible.

In fact, if you’d like to read it without knowing any more than this, go ahead and scroll down now. And then you can skip the rest, if you’d like.

The bare bones of the story is that Mina passed away suddenly in 1983 following an aneurysm. I remember that day, and sometimes still dream about it; she happened to be babysitting my cousin and me when it occurred.

Shirley and my grandfather, Clarence, were ranchers living in Montana; they’d been friendly with Mina and my other grandfather, Tom, ever since my parents’ wedding in Arizona.

So my mom and dad were young when this death occurred. I’ve tried to imagine each of them — in their early twenties, already parents of two kids, a third on the way, suddenly bereft — reading this letter, absorbing its series of barely-pulled punches. Shirley’s prose is jarring, breathless but economical. She seems torn between two objectives: to offer as much comfort as possible, and to help everyone stare the grim facts of reality straight in the face.

(Members of our family tend to lead with the latter, perhaps believing it to be a more useful and durable form of consolation in the darkest times, though I have myself rarely found it to be so.)

You should probably know that in addition to running the family business, Shirley was a master equestrian, a prolific quilter, and had raised five kids of her own. She’d always been an avid reader and writer, and was a columnist for her local newspaper. Relatively confined to a postage-stamp farm island in an ocean of prairie, she was an eager and steady correspondent; I received many of my own typewritten letters over the years, and still have some stashed away.

But this one, not addressed to me, is the one I return to most often, striking me as most revealing of its author, whose mask appears to have slipped due the urgency of the occasion, the potency and complexity of her own feelings.

Here, read it for yourself.

Aug. 10

Dear Gary & Julie:

There isn’t anything to say that can help you now, but as time kind of dulls the agony, maybe we can all look back and realize that we only have good memories, and our dear Mina never had to get old and ugly and crippled and miserable. If I have my druthers, and who does?, I hope I tip off of a good horse chasing a fat cow on a clear spring day. If there’s a hell on earth, I think it’s for those who spend years in a place like the rest home, and the people who love them go thru physical, mental, and financial torture. Gary, I don’t know if you knew Lloyd Knudsen’s brother Ike — married to Mary Ann Shores and lived in Glasgow. He finally died, after the family taking turns holding him while he screamed for the last couple of months with cancer of everything. Death is a blow for the survivors, but for the one who goes there can be worse things. I feel so bad for the little kids too, who haven’t had the chance to grow up knowing their wonderful grandma. Tommy and Tara will never forget her, but there was so much more in store too, and the others will be cheated of a precious relationship. As I approach the big six 0 birthday, I can only hope I never wind up like grandma. She probably isn’t alert enough to know much about it, but truthfully the last years like that are a waste of everybody’s time and resources, and there’s no joy of living for anyone. I guess Bill Armington did a terrible thing, but on the other hand the old boy had guts. When Birdie Boyce died, it devastated the whole family, but Birdie had a real horror of getting old, and she went out without having to face it, and the family can only remember her as the life of the party, doing anything she pleased with flags flying. At this point, we who are left can’t really get past our grief to justify the waste of a lovely person, who should have had so many good years ahead, but of the choices that were, it ain’t all bad!

Our hearts are with you kids, and Tom, and Walt and Jo and all of you, and there is no way of softening the blow for you. Hang in there, one day at a time, and if there is anything on earth that we could do to help, pick up the phone, even if it would just help to talk. Clarence tried to call this morning, and I’m guessing you are all in Globe. Maybe we’ll call there tonight — Clarence in a way wanted to talk to Tom, and in a way couldn’t face it, they’ll wind up crying to each other, but maybe that’s comfort too. Oh, hell, this hasn’t made any sense, but I don’t know what to say either, except we love you all.

Mom

There is so little that feels appropriate to add, except for the fact that this letter contained its own dark prophecy. Shirley did not die on horseback in the glorious autumn of her life; she lived to be quite old, long outlasting her ability to ride horses of any quality whatsoever — that was a tremendous sadness for her to bear, and it proved to be only the beginning of a whole parade of such losses, including her ability to read and write, which were dreadfully affected by macular degeneration.

I regret to inform you that Shirley’s final years were, in fact, spent in a nursing facility, until she finally passed in 2019. That is partly why I keep returning to these particular words of hers: after having spoken so plainly and powerfully about everything she did not wish for herself, that still ended up being her path.

And she was right: although she was lucky to have loved ones who stuck it out by her side, those years were laborious, painful, and expensive for everyone nearest to her. But she was a massively beloved figure, and I hope that compensated her in some meaningful, peace-giving way that she never could have predicted back in 1983; as a woman in her sixties with an eye for practical matters, all she could see was the suffering, everything that would be taken away.

We barely spoke in those final years, which I regret. Factors like hearing loss and vision loss made our long-distance connection extremely tenuous. I’ve had to forgive myself for not knowing how to compensate for that at the time. It helps having this letter, knowing Shirley would have been very happy to be remembered at her best.

And now I’m middle-aged myself. Younger than Mina when she died, but only by one year. If I was taken just as suddenly, it’s easy to imagine my loved ones echoing many of the same things that Shirley expressed to my grieving parents.

And they would be right — especially since I have no descendants and can count on none of the other assurances necessary for the conditions Shirley herself, forty years ago, had already deemed “hell on earth.”

Perhaps enjoying long-distance bike rides across major cities is my version of hoping to tip off a good horse in pursuit of a fat cow. Or perhaps I’ll enjoy the kind of perversely long life that eventually requires the intervention of friends, loved ones, and many strangers. In either case I’ll have Shirley’s courageous example to draw from. That’s a consolation prize of sorts: in aging, we constantly discover brand new forms of closeness between us and our predecessors, however long ago they may have departed.

In the meantime, you’d better believe I’m stealing her trick of concluding a difficult letter with Oh, hell, this hasn’t made any sense, and then just sending the damn thing anyway.

For paid subscribers only! Please enjoy this peek at all the cultural debris we’re currently rummaging through.

From TB:

• It’s that time of year when I remind people that this little Poe audiobook project exists — originally recorded to accompany a perfume launch. It holds up well, I’m still very proud of it! Anyway, you have been reminded.

Read more

By Eric Shorey

Bushwig, the annual drag festival helmed by a pantheon of legendary figures in Brooklyn nightlife, has once again come and gone. The festivities this year took on a slightly more somber tone following the unexpected passing of Babes Trust, a Bushwig founder and local icon, whose spiritual presence could be felt throughout the joyful (and sometimes tearful) celebrations. But despite or because of the lachrymose mood, Bushwig remained a hub for exuberant transgression, proud displays of gender non-conformity, explosions of color and body parts, and — as corny as it may be to say this — radical queer joy.

Maybe the most surprising feature of this year’s Bushwig was the standout performances from the Philadelphia drag scene, who seem to have captured the hearts of Brooklynites across nightlife generations. Seemingly out of nowhere, these Philly queens have stumbled upon a unique style of deconstructed drag that’s taking on a bizarre life of its own.

Perhaps we could have seen this coming since last year, when a bizarre rant from Philly-based Little Piece went ultra-viral on gay Twitter, eventually spawning an ear-wormy bitch track:

Whether or not Piece can be considered patient zero for this surreal style of drag is not something I can determine without more research, but nevertheless, her success marked when I started seeing Philly queens appearing in Brooklyn clubs and bars, often at STR8 TO DVD. And their performances were certainly memorable, representing a new ethos of drag that’s quite frankly hard to describe.

Little Piece and Pi, for example, often take pretty conventional drag tracks, songs from Natalie Imbruglia or Rihanna, and cut them up, rearranging the vocals or looping certain words, then mixing in instrumentals from the same song at random intervals, creating a kind of semi-schizophrenic jumble out of otherwise predictable numbers. At Bushwig, Pi “lip synced” to the repeated lyric “Just gunna stand there” from Rihanna’s segment of “Love The Way You Lie” — while doing exactly that, just standing there. The rest of the song was just instrumentals.

Moon Baby, with her haunting Klaus Nomi-esque operatic singing voice, has appeared at Bushwig before, rendering me speechless with a rendition of her original track “Yours Truly”:

This year, Moon Baby was back with something a little spicier, the electroclash-adjacent song “50 Things I Can’t Live Without” — and audiences ate her up.

I don’t mean to sound arrogant by insisting these performers were inspired by some of the stars of my very own Mx. Nobody Pageant, but I can’t help observing the similarities. In a casual conversation with Pi, she did gleefully profess that Philly queens were clearly inspired by Brooklyn’s unconventional drag, and now have come back with their own style (reminding me of the ways that Baltimore club music inspired Jersey club music, but the two aren’t really the same thing, despite similarities).

Indeed, the sort of genre-bending, post-gender, totally irreverent, goofily meta-modern take on drag a la Mx. Nobody winners Pinwheel Pinwheel, Brenda, and Cuntyham — and Mx. Nobody all stars like Isaac Miss Isaac, Sherry Poppins, Lindsay Blowhan, and Emi Grate (who once performed a drag version of John Cage’s “4’33” in which she sat in a chair and fanned herself for the entirety of the silent track) — is a veritable Brooklyn staple.

And we’ve now come full circle: the night before Bushwig, at Mx Nobody VI Round 3, Diva Baby, the daughter of the aforementioned Moon Baby, didn’t quite secure a victory with a deconstructed interpretation of “It’s All Coming Back To Me” by Celine Dion, but she did snag her spot in the finale as a wild card pick.

When I asked Pi if any of the Philly girlies planned on eventually migrating to Brooklyn more permanently, her answer was an emphatic “Fuck no.” The reason being: Why would she ever give up her cheap Philly rent?! Hey, fair enough! That being said, Little Piece and the Brooklyn-based queen Venus now have a weekly show at C’mon Everybody, billed as an endless drag roulette — so, we’ll see!

Now, as Philly queen Avery Goodname goes viral for her absurdist interpretation of drag on the YouTube series Camp Wannakiki, it seems likely that the Brooklyn-to-Philly drag pipeline is set to explode in the near future.

Anyway, here’s some shots of my fav looks I saw at Bushwig:

By the way: has anyone ever figured out if the Bushwig dark room is real? Inquiring minds need to know.

For paid subscribers only! Please enjoy this peek at all the cultural debris we’re currently rummaging through.

From ES:

• Video games ain’t what they used to be… except for when they are deliberately attempting to be what they used to be: Sea of Stars, a new indie JRPG, is basically a Chrono Trigger remix that reinvigorates old-school, turn-based mechanics…

Read more

For paid subscribers only! Please enjoy this peek at all the cultural debris we’re currently rummaging through.

From ES:

• SUMMER OF SEXYY RED! While everyone in NYC is rightly rocking to Ice Spice’s newest single, “Deli,” I’ve become increasingly obsessed with her filthier foil, SEXYY RED, whose latest EP garnered an impressive 8.0 from Pitchfork. Her late…

Read more

By Eric Shorey

The lights dim and a spotlight appears on a stage and a very tall man says patiently into a mic “It is happening again…” as the ominous noise of an ethereal wind grows louder and louder until suddenly six women are standing in front of a green screen holding apples and smiling, arrogantly, menacingly…

Yes, it’s an entirely rebooted Real Housewives of New York! Season 14 of the notoriously shallow reality show is back and more … uh … something than ever!

Bravo retooled the franchise with an entirely new cast after a beyond contentious Season 13, in which the first Black New York Housewife, Eboni K. Williams, faced a deluge of racist comments and seemingly psychotic behavior from her cast-mates. The nauseatingly stupid conversations about race and social justice, during which the show’s white women routinely said some truly bonkers shit, caused ratings to plummet, and Bravo summarily fired the whole group before even bothering to film a reunion. (Although, of course, the occasionally overtly bigoted group of gals are now being cast in a plethora of underwhelming spinoffs, but I digress…)

The wicked never rest and Andy Cohen has since found an entirely new group of vapid (yet charming!) ladies to argue over cheeseboards: this time with a focus on diversity and entrepreneurship or whatever. We’re only two episodes deep into this nightmare peek into asinine affluence but there’s a clear power hierarchy a-brewing already.

So, let’s just get to it: which Housewife will reign supreme in Season 14?! From least to most powerful:

6. Jessel Taank

Tagline: “I always bring the flavor; it’s not my fault you don’t have taste.”

This lady sucks. Jessel describes herself as a “fashion publicist” but who knows if that’s, like, a real thing. It probably is. She’s obviously extremely rich and owns lots of Alexander Wang. But she also has a bad fucking attitude about everything and is mean to her husband? When gifted a set of sexy lingerie by one of fashion’s most iconic lesbians (more on that later) she complained for a full three minutes about how hers was the least sexy of all the lingerie. Ok. I mean, grow up. Make a joke about it or something at the very least. Put on a wig and sing a dumb song. And be nice to your husband!

5. Sai De Silva

Tagline: “In New York, there’s a lot of bad apples. But I’m the baddest of the bunch.

Sai is an influencer. We know this because she brings it up constantly. She is a content creator for whom “organic content” is important because marketing reasons that definitely make sense for sure and are not an elaborate excuse for self-centered, totally addicted behavior. She takes lots of pictures of food and drinks and herself and her outfits. Who exactly does she make content for? Unclear. Until we learn anything else about her, I’m going to assume she’s a grifter and/or totally delusional about her own fame and importance. Which actually is why she isn’t on the total bottom right now. We love delusion. But since we don’t know anything else (she has kids I guess? — who cares!) she ranks pretty low. For now. She seems like she’s about to start a few fights tho, so I’m willing to revise my opinion later.

4. Erin Dana Lichy

Tagline: “I’m a true New Yorker. The only bull I take — is by the horns.”

What a normal lady. She’s a real estate agent. She wears normal clothes. She gets anxious about the food she’s serving her guests. Being exceedingly normal on The Real Housewives is sometimes the strongest power play a girl could make. Having an actual observing ego and a grasp on reality itself makes one more adaptable and likable in certain situations. She gets angry and then forgets about her anger after an apology. How normal. Good for her.

3. Ubah Hassan

Tagline: “The secret ingredient? Darling, it’s me.”

Ubah is a raging sociopath with no regard for social niceties, which makes her instantly lovable. She eats 7 bananas a day, she must sit at a dinner table facing north, and she walks into the kitchens of fancy ass restaurants looking for bites of whatever the chef is cooking. Is she performing or is it real? I don’t care. Did she actually intend on stealing a can of coconut milk or was she just kidding around? I don’t care. Will her psychopathic behavior probably cause me to hate her eventually? 1000%. But for now, I simply must stan.

2. Brynn Whitfield

Tagline: “I love to laugh! But make me mad — and I’ll date your dad.”

Wow. Ok. Yes. This lady is like an Upper East Side Tank Girl. She’s got pugnacious one-liners for days. She’s extremely rude and snobby but in, like, a fun way? People seem to get really mad at her because she’s terribly obnoxious, but then she flirts with them, and then they forgive her? Don’t we all wish we had that kind of power?

It seems like she’s already the seasons beloved heel, with fans saying she’s obviously, totally fake. Her career seems fake, her pandering to gays with quippy catchphrases is fake, her bravado seems fake. Barbie is fake, but everyone seems to love her, so I don’t know what anyone wants here!

1. Jenna Lyons

Jenna is obviously the main character of Season 14. She’s got a sort of Jeff Goldblum vibe: wise, always a bit bemused, mysterious, and potentially from another planet. She tolerates the other women playing around in her closet but sternly cautions them to be careful because they’re fucking around with her Valentino. Now that’s power.

Lyons is also clearly the most legitimate businesswoman of the show: she was literally the President of J. Crew for seven years! And while her fashion sense is decidedly un-campy (she warns Jessel not to wear more than one label at once, which, LAME) she’s clearly the most knowledgeable of the bunch when it comes to actual taste.

Jenna’s already gotten the most storyline so far: we’ve learned about her autistic mother, her genetic condition, and her still-secret lesbian relationship (she’s so powerful she asserts her right to privacy with a producer of the show in a daringly 4th wall-breaking scene). Her social awkwardness makes her quite adorable, but the real power move will be her quitting after one season because she can’t stand these dumbass women: which is exactly what I think is going to happen.

By T. Bloom

I adore both reggae and disco, and consider it a great tragedy of white heteronormative existence that so many people only seem to enjoy these genres ironically, and are so incurious about them. Fix yourselves! (Everyone else, you’re doing fine.)

And there’s no time like the present: this summer has seen temperature records shattering and critical ocean currents on the verge of collapse, so “Summer Playlist” is seeming more and more like a year-round vibe.

Here, I can make this super easy for you. The label Soul Jazz has put forth at least two interesting compilation albums full of disco hits reimagined as reggae anthems: Hustle! and Disco Reggae Rockers (those are Spotify links, you can also find them on Apple and YouTube). Some of the tracks are better than others! I’m starting you off with five of the very bestest, embedded below.

You will impress people with these, because it’s always fun to recognize a famous song midway through a cover. (I’ve also included them in this entertaining playlist of Nu-disco and variously disco-flavored jams, which you’re welcome to bop to while trying to stay alive in wet bulb conditions.)

These crossover gems are representative of the innovation that was such a staple of music in the ‘70s. Genres have always been extremely fluid, with many artists working across every theoretical border of race, nationality, gender, and tradition in order to exchange their gifts and spread the love they felt for others’ work.

You know what else is extremely fluid right now? Antarctic sea ice. Stay cool, kids!

“Ring My Bell” • Blood Sisters

The sexual innuendo of Anita Ward’s version is timeless, and in the hands of Blood Sisters it’s a far more languid and laid-back invitation. Fun fact, this song was originally written for an eleven-year-old to sing, envisioned as “a teenybopper song, about kids talking on the telephone.”

“I’m Every Woman” • Latisha

Chaka announced herself with this song in ‘78, and Whitney made it her own in ‘92. Latisha’s cover overflows with an untroubled self-possession — less of a declarative diva statement and more of a warm, confident assurance.

“Young Hearts Run Free” • Hortense Ellis

The 1976 Candi Staton version was further immortalized in 1996 thanks to Harold Perrineau’s flawless performance to Kym Mazelle’s version in Romeo + Juliet. Howzabout you let Jamaican singer Hortense Ellis cool it down a bit for you? Surely Mercutio would approve.

Move On Up • Devon Russell

You’re surely more familiar with Curtis Mayfield’s 1970 version, which spawned the disco track released by Destination in 1979.

“Caught You In A Lie” • Derrick Harriott

Not a disco track originally — a cover of Louisa Marks’ 1975 Lover’s Rock single of the same name. Nevertheless, honestly just too enjoyable to leave off this list!

•

If you’ve enjoyed reading this free post, why not subscribe for more JUDGEMENT? Sign up to have free content delivered straight to your inbox, or pay $5 for monthly subscriber-exclusive content! Thank you for enduring this sales pitch.

For paid subscribers only! Please enjoy this peek at all the cultural debris we’re currently rummaging through.

From ES:

• The hottest new Prada accessory? SLIME! At the brand’s Spring / Summer 2024 Menswear show, the models walked amidst cascading torrents of semi-viscous goo. It’s giving Double Dare. It’s giving Matthew Barney’s mucilaginous sludge. Anywa…

Read more

This is a JUDGEMENT author update: PS Publishing’s new book Bride of Frankenstein — a companion to the film, and part of their Midnight Movie Monographs series — is officially available to order.

Not just pre-order, but FOR REAL, RIGHT NOW order!

My essay about the life and career of Elsa Lanchester is included in the book. I received my copy this weekend, and can now confidently inform you that it’s a beautiful, high-quality little hardback, and I hope to be buried with a copy when I die.

There are multiple scenarios that might inspire others to buy this book. For example:

• You love me and want to support everything I do

Well that is so sweet, I accept! Although it’s not a requirement, since I have been advised it’s a waste of time begging your friends to buy your book.

But there are plenty of other reasons to buy it. For example:

• You are a stranger, who just sincerely wants to

I accept that as well! I’m sure you have your reasons. Possibly you love monster movies, or iconic actresses, or short compilations of non-fiction. Maybe you intend to buy it as a gift for someone who loves either (or all) of those things.

Perhaps you’ve just got a thing for underdogs, and love supporting emerging authors, indie publishers, small businesses etc. — and I have good news in that case, because this project counts for all three! Especially since I engineered a co-release of three haunting fragrances meant to accompany the book, hand-blended by the mad scientists at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.

At heart I’m a realist, and can accept that you probably don’t want to buy this book. It’s fine, I promise.

But hey, it’s possible you are my gateway to someone who sincerely does. So if you don’t mind, put us in touch? I’d rather try selling to that person. I’ll be posting a bunch about the Bride book on my personal Instagram and also on the Lab’s, so by all means forward or share those posts with your Frankenstein people.

(If there’s one thing I’ve learned from these past years, it’s that we all have Frankenstein people.)

Joking aside, it has been an honor to work on this project, and I’m very proud of it. At the end of the day that’s what matters most — particularly since I don’t get any money from the sales.

You’re welcome to just send me some directly if you feel that’s important too! Like if you don’t want the book, but do want to give me $20, I accept.

Hugs and high-voltage kisses ⚡⚡⚡

— T. Bloom

By Eric Shorey

Matthew Barney debuted his latest project, titled “Secondary,” on June 12th, 2023. Exhibited at the artist’s studio space in Long Island City, about a ten minute walk from the MoMA PS1, the installation uses a surreal athletic dreamscape inspired by real life events to explore the inherent sadism of American athletic life.

The installation itself consists of a multi-channel video performance displayed on 8 screens, all hung from the ceiling. The three screens in the center of the space are attached to a sort of miniature Jumbotron, hanging above a multicolor astroturf field on which Matthew Barney’s signature symbol, The Field Emblem, is emblazoned. To the left of the rainbow fake grass is a 6 foot deep, mud-filled hole in the ground, through which a small trickle of water was being piped. (The heavily tattooed gallerist outside glibly warned us before entering, “Don’t fall in the pit, please,” followed by a stern “No, really.”)

Above the pit is a sort of inaccessible dugout in which sports memorabilia (pictures of who I assumed were famous football coaches and players, jerseys, an American flag) were being displayed. And on the right wall is a painting with the same design as the grass, but smeared with… mud?

The hour-long video itself depicted a sort of abstracted football practice, culminating in an actual re-imagination of a football game — performed, obscurely, as a kind of slowed-down breakdance. The dancers, dressed in Raiders jerseys, lifted weighted, tossed ropes, and ran laps around the space in which the audience sat — but also seemed, in between exercise, to be making sculptures of cast iron barbells and covering themselves in mysterious, viscous substances. Referees stood on the outskirts of the practice session, looking over the Manhattan skyline, speaking to each other in barely-audible gasps and exhales. Meanwhile, Raiders fans, dressed in heavy-metal regalia and brutalist corpse paint, screamed incoherently, like preverbal banshees.

As the video shifted from abstracted practice to abstracted game, a beautiful, large woman in a gold lamé dress sang a pseudo-operatic version of the national anthem. Only a minute into the bizarre “game,” one of the athletes is downed and unable to get up. He twitches rhythmically on the floor, while the other participants in this strange ritual looked onward in silence.

Barney has since stated that the installation is an artistic recreation of an infamous football game from 1978, during which professional athlete Darryl Stingley suffered an unexpected spinal cord injury and was permanently paralyzed. (at first I’d assumed the piece was a comment on the frighteningly similar Damar Hamlin incident that occurred earlier this year. I guess these things are destined to keep happening.)

My use of the word “ritual” was intentional here, and one gets the feeling that “Secondary” itself, as with all of Barney’s work (but most especially Drawing Restraint 9, River of Fundament, and The Cremaster Cycle) is a kind of ceremony with specific rules, actions, and meanings in which the characters participate in a semi-conscious daze, only dimly aware of the roles they are playing or the purpose which they serve. In this particular occult cosmology, “Secondary” requires a sacrifice to be completed, that of Darryl Stingley’s body.

By taking the ball out of football and replacing the ultra-violence of the game with slo-mo dances borrowing gestures from breaking, whacking, crunking, and breakdancing culture, Barney calls attention to the ways that athletic games are themselves a kind of psychotic, primitive ceremony that hides cruelty, violence, and sadism — in which the bodies of (mostly non-white!) players are fed into a kind of cosmically indifferent, devouring maw beyond rational comprehension.

I’ll be real here and admit that although I’m an ardent follower of Barney, I almost never understand what the fuck his art is “about.” I mostly take it in as pure surrealism: the stunningly beautiful imagery of dreams. But, truly, the man is practically suffocating in art jargon and is totally incoherent in interviews. One could say this piece begs the question: what’s the difference between art and sport? Is there one? But here, more specifically, I think Barney is narrowing his obtuse scope to focus on a specific moral conundrum that remains to be solved: are sports worth the sacrifice? Does the amount of joy produced by this violence outweigh the costs? Is it moral to demand human beings obliterate their own bodies for the sake of our barbaric entertainment?

These are questions with which the artist must have grappled, considering he, at one point, was a college football player for Yale University.

Barney is digging in a familiar trough of imagery to make this point: his recycling of the aforementioned Field Emblem from his previous projects and his obsession with mucilaginous and gelatinous substances (thankfully, unlike in River of Fundament, there’s no diarrhea!) take on a more legible meaning in this particular symbolic system, whereas who fucking knows what they “meant” in his other works — if they “meant” anything at all. “Secondary,” then, functions as a sort of advancement and continuation of the bizarre sacraments he created in his previous projects.

As with sports, I do wonder: where does all the money for this stuff come from? To rent this space, to create these videos, to hire the gallerists — who is funding all this shit? Barney’s pockets are obviously deep. The dude has multiple, big-budget, non-narrative art films over 5 hours long at this point. He must have some serious coin. How does fine art — or athletics for that matter! — amass so much money? Is the appetite for this stuff really that big? Who are the investors making this happen and what are they really after here? Thus, the feeling of being controlled from afar, involved in some clandestine process which even the viewer and creator don’t fully understand, is completed, I guess.

Anyway, upon leaving the installation I wondered: why not do this as a live performance? But upon further consideration, there was something ghostly about watching the dancers on screens, occupying the same space I was occupying but at a different time — or, whimsically, in another dimension. And of course, this is how we mostly experience sports, as a spectacle on a screen. To be watched over and over.

“Secondary” is on view at 4-40 44th Drive in Long Island City, New York through June 25th. Entry is free and the film starts on the hour, every hour. More info over here.

FINAL JUDGEMENT: A+

By T. Bloom

A biker babe once flashed her boobs at me from the back of a passing Harley when I was around 12 years old. It didn’t really make much of a lasting impression either way, and was nothing I hadn’t already seen in movies. Somehow, I managed to persist in my gayness.

That momentary glimpse of flesh has been on my mind over the past week, during the uproar that’s followed trans activist Rose Montoya’s brief baring at the Biden administration’s Pride celebration — which no one would even know about, if it hadn’t been for a tiny clip included in Montoya’s own TikTok recap of the event, in which she posed alongside a couple of trans men who were proudly showing off their bare chests.

In the right-wing firestorm that resulted, those men were cropped out of the frame as well as the conversation. As many have pointed out, the selective outrage has only seemed to affirm the genders of those involved: trans women are women, and thus their bodies and choices are subject to increased scrutiny; trans men are men, and thus can largely do/show as they please. Even though Montoya has been aggressively misgendered throughout this coverage, her “biological male” chest must still remain covered at all times, while the bare nipples of her cohorts elicit virtually no commentary.

Those making the most noise appear to see no contradiction here.

Breitbart and others even added a censor bar over Montoya's chest, despite the fact that her nipples remained completely covered by her hands in the video, per TikTok’s terms of service; anyway, there are swimsuits that show this much skin.

For their part, the White House did what we can always count on venerable institutions to do: erring on the side of decorum and protocol, they issued a statement condemning the ultimately silly and harmless action and banning the offending parties from future events.

All this could’ve been just a tiny blip of news during an already spicy Pride season. But instead, due to the incessant right-wing coverage, I’d wager more young people have ended up seen 87% of Montoya’s breasts than they ever would have otherwise. By insisting so loudly that this sight is too sick to be shown, Ron DeSantis et all have guaranteed its instant status as a historic photograph.

Attributing anyone’s momentary, partial, non-sexual nudity on a warm summer day to an "ideology" is beyond stupid, even if it happens in front of a famous government building. But sadly, a lot of the backlash Montoya's been getting is from fellow LGBTQ+ people, lamenting that she’s recklessly endangered their shared cause. Her posts about the incident online (which have since been deleted) were swarmed with comments from hundreds of gay and trans folks condemning her behavior, in most instances blaming her for the additional danger and hatred they imagine will result from it.

It’s confusing to see these responses coming the kind of nice, liberal LGBT parents who have probably taught their own children “These are your body parts and nothing to be ashamed of.”

So here’s some remedial Pride 101 for them, and for you.

It’s quite understandable if you wouldn't personally do this at a high-visibility event. I probably wouldn't either! Just like I personally don't attend Pride marches in my underpants (though I do consider fishnets and heels professional attire). But other people do, and it's completely fine. It’s called minding your own business, more people should try it!

The mere fact of the trans flag being flown at the White House was already generating hatred and headlines before this particular story broke. Joining conservatives in heaping outrage and judgment on these individuals has been more damaging to our our community than flashing a little skin in public, full stop.

L’s, G’s, B’s, T’s, Q’s have been arguing about this stuff since the very beginning of Pride, back when it seemed to some like respectability and visibility ought to proceed hand in hand: it was presumed that parades of gay men in suits and ties looking decent and professional would swing public opinion in our favor. But then who gets to be included in that “our?”

Because of pervasive racism and misogyny, trans women/POC will always run afoul of respectability politics, and be most heavily impacted and penalized by them. That’s exactly what occurred during the ‘90s and early 2000s as the missions of every powerful LGBT advocacy organization were increasingly overseen by white, cisgender gay people, particularly men. Trans rights in particular were given short shrift, inspiring many of these activists to branch off and form their own more inclusive organizations — and evidence of their success can be seen in the steady gains won by trans folks over the past decade, and the broader trend toward intersectionality in our community.

These victories have been responsible for the more recent push to keep queerness, transness, and people of color at the forefront of the Pride movement, and to remain inclusive of other factors intersecting with our community, such as rights for sex workers and the disabled. We’re a scruffy, wide-ranging bloc made up of edge-cases and voices from the margins. No one activist can effectively speak for all these groups… and that also means no one activist can sink their cause.

But infighting will always easier than facing our common enemy. This is the perpetual appeal of “punching down,” especially in moments of anxiety about one’s own safety or status. So far there doesn’t seem to be any real momentum behind the “LGB without the QT” movement, which seeks to fully divorce sexual orientation from gender in social issues, but I can see how it might be tempting for more conservative gays who feel relatively safe in public and can’t relate to the “pronoun people.”

Status is almost always at the root of these anxieties. Why should anyone risk what they’ve already gained by associating themselves with those being demonized?

Fortunately or otherwise, 2023 has been rife with examples showing that no amount of modesty or assimilation will save the so-called model minority. Even the most innocuous gay-friendly content has been yanked from libraries. Obergefell v Hodges, the case which legalized gay marriage nationwide, could still be overturned by the conservative-stacked SCOTUS. There is no safe harbor for model minorities in this country. As Little Edie Beale sagely observed in Grey Gardens: “Honestly, they can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday." They can get you for anything.

They'll come after boring, state-sanctioned gay marriages and rainbow families just as eagerly as they've cracked down on online sex work or carefree expressions of trans joy. They might say they don't care what anyone does in the privacy of their own home, but later on your modesty will be used as proof that you had something to hide all along.

Immediately following the event Montoya was a bit flippant about the backlash to her fleeting expression of trans joy, but now she’s issued a full video apology in the wake of inevitable aftershocks from that moment, which have let to the harassment of her family and friends, as well as journalists showing up uninvited at her home.

Her statement is worth listening to in full. I believe Montoya’s integrity as an activist was fully present in the moment when she posed for that quick video, even if she inadequately imagined the consequences she (and others) would face as a result. The fear and remorse evident in this carefully-scripted apology saddens me, but her integrity and commitment to her community remain consistent throughout.

Some critics may feel vindicated by having successfully bullied her into this retreat (“It's important to know the difference between a party and a professional setting if you want to be taken seriously,” one admonishes her in the comments) but there’s nothing for them to feel proud of here. Harmless moments of trans joy simply should not come at this high a price. Or cisgender joy for that matter, because the world has much bigger problems than the occasional boob-flash, and men show off theirs all the time.

One of the strengths of the Pride movement has always been that some of us are capable of taking risks others couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Some can afford to get arrested, or engage in direct action, or be whistleblowers. Some are relatively normal folks operating incognito, quietly shifting conversations around these issues wherever they end up. Some are raising uniquely visible families or running for elected office, while still others are defiantly and unapologetically sharing their sexual selves with the world. And some are capable of balancing many of these at once! There is no one path, no prescribed outcome.

Keep that in mind as various forms of activism continue to spur us lumpily onward: what we’re all fighting for is the right to be messy, complete people — or even buttoned-up, incomplete ones. Human rights don't come with a dress code.

•

If you’ve enjoyed reading this free post, why not subscribe for more JUDGEMENT? Sign up to have free content delivered straight to your inbox, or pay $5 for monthly subscriber-exclusive content! Thank you for enduring this sales pitch.

We don’t do tons of what you’d call “sponsored content,” but we wanna give a special Pride shout-out to our friends at DRKLGHT Clothing. You can follow them on Instagram here.

This month DRKLGHT is celebrating with 11 new items in this year's Pride Month collection, adding to their already large selection of LGBTQ+ items.

As a fully LGBTQ+ owned and operated small business, watching the progression of genocide against trans people and increase of hatred towards the entire LGBTQ+ community has resulted in this year's drop being more aggressive yet still playful, decrying rainbow capitalism but also highlighting the gay nature of the goth community.

DRKLGHT's year round advocacy and frequent donations to trans people and trans community orgs provide the real work that the LGBTQ+ community needs instead of the performative corporate betrayal we’re all continuing to abhor.

Please support this queer small business so they can grow to achieve the goals they have set to help continue supporting their community. 🏳️‍🌈 🖤 🏳️‍⚧️

— JGMT

For paid subscribers only! Please enjoy this peek at all the cultural debris we’re currently rummaging through.

From TB:

• I slept on Sort Of and truly regret it, so here I am trying to wake up others: watch this show! Two seasons of high-quality, slice-of-life dramedy starring Bilal Baig as a trans/non-binary Pakistani-Canadian twentysomething who’s still…

Read more

While there is no official JUDGEMENT podcast to date, we’ll be utilizing these features to share some other audio projects in the meantime. For example: this series of conversations between Tom Bloom and artist Kenya (Robinson) about tarot and divination, which will resume very soon!

Video version with captioning available here.

Kenya on Instagram

Bloom on Instagram

For paid subscribers only! Please enjoy this peek at all the cultural debris we’re currently rummaging through.

From TB:

• I finally watched How To Blow Up a Pipeline, which is now available to rent online. This is a suspenseful drama with an ensemble cast that explores how a group of individuals from various walks of life came together with the common goal…

Read more

By T. Bloom

There's a common joke among gays about the way men behave shortly after coming out, becoming super extra gay to overcompensate for all that time spent in the closet. (Joke’s on you, some of us stay that way forever, or turn out not to be men!) I'd say there’s a similar phenomenon for those who come out as non-binary, although it might be hard to for some to imagine what "super extra non-binary" looks like.

Well I'll tell you: one of the things it could look like is Janelle Monáe circa The Age of Pleasure. In fact, I’d hazard that this album — to be released on 6/9 (nice!) and poised to be this summer’s smash hit — is the kind that Monáe could have only made after embracing non-binary identity (the artist uses both she and they pronouns, which I employ fluidly here).

It’s bound to be a little confusing for observers looking in on this journey from the outside. Monáe, who rose to fame performing in deliberately androgynous attire (with a signature sprinkle of femme cuteness) came out as non-binary — or rather, “came in” — last April, three years after revealing their pansexuality in 2018.

It was no mistake that the earlier announcement coincided with the release of Dirty Computer, a decidedly queer half-step away from the artist’s epic chain of concept albums set in a Metropolis-themed dystopia: Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase), The ArchAndroid, The Electric Lady. The 2018 album was more starkly erotic in a way that conveyed everything Monáe had been holding back over the years… or so we thought, at that point.

2022’s gender announcement was also timed with a release, becoming part of the rollout for Monáe’s sci-fi short story collection, The Memory Librarian. It’s possible some might have seen a mercenary angle in the convenient timing of these announcements, but by now the artist was hardly starving for attention, having already become more widely known for film work such as 2016’s Hidden Figures. Teetering on the brink of becoming a household name, it was arguably important for Monáe to meet their new public in their purest form — inviting everyone to download and run the latest update, as it were.

Although, I honestly wouldn’t fault them if the timing was more calculating than that. Thus is the tradition of Black, queer artists needing to highlight every aspect of their uniqueness in order to reach the level of media visibility and wealth afforded to white, straight, cisgender (passing) artists. Overachieving, oversharing, sometimes even over-promising: that’s showbiz, for those approaching from the margins, and even that can become the basis for finding oneself unfairly critiqued and excluded.

Monáe is so widely loved and so obviously talented, I haven’t seen those kinds of critiques. And the revelations were hardly a surprise, since their entire discography has been a window into their personal sense of otherness, and the community they’ve found (and forged) with fellow outsiders. But changes in their image over the past few years may have confounded the kind of onlookers who tend to conflate non-binary gender and androgyny, or non-binary gender and asexuality.

First, Dirty Computer ditched all of the artist’s former hesitations about openly lusting after women — only hinted at in past lyrics — and paved the way for an on-again/off-again (if it happened at all) celebrity romance with Tessa Thompson, who appeared in the “PYNK” music video.

But since Monáe had already existed for a decade in robotic androgyne drag — think circuits, suits and ties — there was certainly no hesitation in this area left to overcome. She’d already faced and addressed the confines of Blackness, of womanhood, and the particular identity of Black womanhood. And now, in her “Age of Pleasure,” she’s finally granting herself (and other non-binary femmes) permission to publicly enjoy the pleasures associated with Black womanhood, ones which perhaps had felt off-limits before.

Which is an austere way of saying: Janelle is finally in their Titties-Out Era, and we’re all better off for it.

What I described above is an evolutionary arc that plenty of trans/non-binary people seem to relate to — although many others may not. This is part of what makes coming out such a fraught, tedious process: it involves endlessly updating everyone on the specifics of who you really are, and what you need at this moment, in the midst of figuring these things out for yourself. And unfortunately this does often involve correcting people’s well-meaning assumptions, and navigating their reactions in instances when they’re likely to take those corrections personally.

If there’s a universal experience shared by members of this community, I think it’s just a deeper sense of affirmation that gradually helps one relax about how one is perceived by others. Sometimes the “transition” to non-binary doesn’t involve any exterior changes at all, it’s just a new way of explaining what people have been seeing all along. But it really can result in a radical shift in appearance and presentation — sometimes involving medical adjustments such as surgery and hormones, often just opening up new possibilities in terms of wardrobe, hairstyle, name, etc. (and this can be a subject of ongoing amusement and teasing even within the community itself).

And these shifts are not always one-way, or directed toward androgyny. What I see in Monáe’s transition is an exercise in reclamation, finally relaxing their rigid control over self-presentation — an artistic statement that was originally adopted as a survival instinct for someone seeking acceptance in an industry that so eagerly sexualizes and exploits young women. I remember being struck by lyrics Monáe sang in “Sincerely, Jane,” from her 2007 debut EP:

Teacher, teacher please reach those girls in them videos
The little girls just broken Queen, confusing bling for soul
Danger, there's danger when you take off your clothes, all your dreams go down the drain…

At the time, this struck me as both a heartfelt, trenchant warning and also a relatively conservative, sex-negative estimation of what was happening in hip-hop/R&B music. Different women were bound to draw different conclusions, and have different experiences. It’s easier in retrospect to see how Monáe’s polished, post-sexual image and methods of self-empowerment could have been expressions of a nascent, evolving relationship with her own gender complexity, in which the discomfort of being unduly sexualized carried additional fears of appearing to say or confirm something about herself that she never intended to — or perhaps something she didn’t yet fully understand, being only 21 at the time.

That’s what I heard and sympathized with during the Metropolis albums: an artist singing about liberation without fully experiencing it herself, perhaps only attaining through fiction what remained out of reach in real life. Working from behind a mask can be its own eventual form of liberation, especially for trans and queer musical artists (who are unfortunately often accused of “queerbaiting” or appropriating another gender as a result of the ways they’ve used art to explore their emerging shift in identity).

2018’s Dirty Computer changed all of that, but the cracks in that dam were already showing long before Monáe came out. In “Q.U.E.E.N.” from 2013’s The Electric Lady, they defiantly sang:

Is it weird to like the way she wear her tights?
And is it rude to wear my shades?
Am I a freak because I love watching Mary?

Hey sister am I good enough for your Heaven?
Say will your God accept me in my black and white?
Will he approve the way I'm made?
Or should I reprogram, deprogram and get down?

The song closes with the affirmation: “Even if it makes others uncomfortable / I will love who I am.” When the Metropolis project first began, it was presented as a doomed love story between a female android and a male human; by the time it ended, it was a coming out story.

Nothing makes people more uncomfortable than loving yourself. Anyone following Monáe’s online presence in the years following Dirty Computer has enjoyed closeup views of the artist cavorting at parties and festivals in long braids and skimpy swimsuits, mixed with moments of A-List celebrity appearances in revealing, haute couture red-carpet attire, leaving her signature androgyny even further behind, staking her claim to the SHE in “she/they” while also broadening the world’s concept of what THEY can look like, challenging onlookers to gradually see no contradiction there.

That brings us to The Age of Pleasure, an album which cheekily acknowledges this shift from the jump by opening with the rap lyrics: “No, I'm not the same… I think I done changed.” And last week’s debut of the track “Lipstick Lover” enjoyed a seismic response across the internet even though much of the reclamatory butts n’ boobs imagery had to be toned down to conform to social media standards.

The album’s cover is itself a glorious jailbreak from the artist’s Metropolis era, featuring Monáe, fully and joyously bare-breasted, swimming through the parted legs of pool party revelers in Esther Williams mermaid mode.

While the celebratory aspect of these images is impossible to miss, too few people are likely to see them as the form of non-binary gender affirmation they likely are, meticulously presented by someone who’s finally capable of relaxing and trusting they’ll be viewed through the appropriate context, now that their truth is widely known.

This might seem like quite a circuitous path for someone to walk in order to end up at the exact same destination — titties out in a music video — but it just goes to show that the individual’s terms really do matter, and how drastically they can shift the public’s appreciation of an artist, as well as their artwork.

While “Lipstick Lover” appears, in its sexual styling, to overtly appeal to a certain experience of Black womanhood (particularly Black queer womanhood), it's also the work of someone who is finally so unconstrained that they can paint freely from the full palette of sexual experiences — which includes simultaneously embodying and worshiping the feminine — without a need to counterbalance it elsewhere, with something else.

Monáe’s specific journey to personal freedom may not look anything like that experienced by certain other trans/non-binary people, including others who are prominent in the music industry. But this itself shows the significance of her making such a splash with this upcoming release, and welcoming curious onlookers into her Age of Pleasure. In the very futuristic-sounding year of 2023, the artist has not only ascended to the higher ground she once wrote/sang about with such longing — like the ArchAndroid she spent years styling herself as, she is showing others how to deprogram and attain it for themselves.

•

If you’ve enjoyed reading this free post, why not subscribe for more JUDGEMENT? Sign up to have free content delivered straight to your inbox, or pay $5 for monthly subscriber-exclusive content! Thank you for enduring this sales pitch.