Róisín Murphy would very much like to be excluded from the narrative around her anti-trans statements
The "Overpowered" singer first courted controversy by speaking out against gender affirming care on Facebook
Irish singer-songwriter Róisín Murphy has finally addressed the controversy around her anti-trans sentiments, posted at an unspecified date from what appears to be a personal Facebook page. The “Overpowered” singer’s comments have been circulating since a viral screenshot was posted last week.
The original Facebook comment reads:
Please don’t call me a terf [trans-exclusionary radical feminist], please don’t keep using that word against women [praying emojis] I beg you! but puberty blockers ARE FUCKED, absolutely desolate, big Pharma laughing all the way to the bank. Little mixed up kids are vulnerable and need to be protected, that’s just true.
Yesterday, Murphy broke her silence on the issue in a long note posted to X, in which she seems to apologize more for the conversation stirred up around her negative views on gender-affirming care—something that multiple studies have shown positively affects mental health and decreases suicidal ideation among trans youth—than the actual statement itself.
“I have been thrown into a very public discourse in an area I’m uncomfortable in and deeply unsuitable for,” she wrote. “I cannot apologize enough for being the reason for this eruption of damaging and potentially dangerous social-media fire and brimstone. To witness the ramifications of my actions and the divisions it has caused is heartbreaking.”
“I’ve spent my whole life celebrating diversity and different views, but I never patronise or cynically aim my music directly at the pockets of any demographic,” she continued. “I understand fixed views are not helpful but I really hope people can understand my concern was out of love for all of us.”
“I will now completely bow out of this conversation within the public domain,” she wrote, by way of conclusion. “I’m not in the slightest bit interested in turning it into ANY kind of ‘campaign’, because campaigning is not what I do.”
Murphy has historically had a large queer fanbase. She has been a headline act at British LGBTQ+ festival Homobloc and even said that the 2015 track “Gone Fishing,” which she references at the end of her X statement, was inspired by feeling “deeply moved” by the “imagination and bravery” of the Black, gay dancers in ‘80s ballroom documentary Paris Is Burning. For many of these fans, Murphy’s statement was too little too late. In the words of one commenter: “How nice for Róisín to be able to ‘bow out’ of the fearmongering bigotry she stoked. Unfortunately trans people don’t have that option.”