OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the dude who wore dresses and envied the seahorse would have identified as enby, but kudos to some Mother Jones dork for retconning him as a toxic privileged incel

― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten)

OK. I'll say it. This is a _very controversial topic_ in transfem communities. A lot of people will tell you that saying that anybody else - Elagabalus, Lou Alcott, whoever - was trans violates the trans Prime Directive of self-determination. I don't believe that principle applies to people who (a) are dead and (b) never had a genuine _opportunity_ to self-determine. At the risk of bringing a whole dumptruck load of shit down on me: Kurt Cobain was a trans woman. Since this is the "worst music writing" thread, I can't think of a better place to post this piece I spent some time working on in August:

To put it in more straightforward terms, what other trans people see as violating self-determination, I see as challenging a form of queer erasure that is not just ongoing, but has significant historical precedent. Gender affirming treatment is the _only_ treatment shown to be effective for gender dysphoria. Kurt Cobain suffered under the same conditions I suffered under - enforced ignorance. He did not have access to the _knowledge_ we do today. He did not have an accurate understanding of gender dysphoria, its symptoms, and how they might have applied to him. Instead, he had access to a false narrative that explicitly told him that he was _not_ trans. In retrospect, Cobain's behavior is _clearly and unambiguously_ indicative of severe gender dysphoria. People who suffer from untreated gender dysphoria are profoundly miserable. Lacking any real option to alleviate their suffering, they often kill themselves.

Recognizing and acknowledging Kurt Cobain as a trans woman, posthumously, is _extremely_ important to me. Most people still have a lot of misunderstandings about transgender people, about who we are, how many of us there are, what it _looks_ like to transgender. Cobain isn't a _typical_ example of what it looked like to be trans in 1994 by any means. He was fucking brilliant. He was the biggest rock star in the world. He was, however, far from alone in two things. First, despite being intelligent, insightful, and deeply engaged with gender issues, he was unable to conceive of himself as being transgender. Second, his unrelieved gender dysphoria was almost certainly a major factor in his suicide.

I believe that people need to _know_ this. I believe that _everybody_ needs to know this. Read the piece, and if you find my argument convincing, tell people.

And if you're not convinced, well, you wouldn't be the first. I have friends who have stopped talking to me because of my insistence on saying that Kurt Cobain was a trans woman. My cis friends, they don't necessarily know why it should _matter_ that much, but it does. If my saying this means that people will pigeonhole me as one of those crazy people who thinks that _everybody_ was trans, well, so be it.

Kate, thank you. I came to this same conclusion independently a few years ago. It just seems so fucking obvious to me, as a non-binary trans woman, that Kurt was trans. I had no idea others thought the same too.

The only person I've ever talked to about this is my partner. I guess I've been afraid of transgressing the acceptable ways of talking about transness. On the one hand, I think it's somewhat disingenuous to retrospectively apply modern labels to people who lived in very different worlds and wouldn't identify that way (for example, labelling Radclyffe Hall a lesbian or trans man, when she would have understood herself as the now outmoded term of 'invert'). Then there's the danger of applying homogenising Western gender labels across the board (e.g. subsuming indigenous identities into inappropriate notions of 'queerness'). But on the other hand... Kurt was fucking trans. No argument.

Sometimes when I'm feeling dysphoric I listen to 'Dumb' and am grateful I have access to information, support, and gender-affirming healthcare. Not every trans woman makes it, as Kurt so sadly demonstrated. I'm so fucking grateful I did.

Yeah, no one can say for sure, but it really does seem incredibly probable. The whole of Cobain would have played out quite differently if we had a better understanding of the language around gender and mental health in the ‘90s

Kate, thank you for the link.

Kate, thank you. I came to this same conclusion independently a few years ago. It just seems so fucking obvious to me, as a non-binary trans woman, that Kurt was trans. I had no idea others thought the same too.

This, right here, is why I finally wound up speaking up, sharing the thing I wrote. I mean, isn't that just the absolute soul of the trans experience, right there? "I thought it was just me". Whatever else happens from here, your post has made me sure that what I said it was worth saying.

I resonate so, so much with the rest of what you wrote. I've had so many feelings like the ones you shared - I've tried to express them, in my own way, in the piece.

Just for the record, I've also definitely had thoughts about myself like the things unperson said about me. (Is saying Kurt Cobain was trans a grotesque offense like the Mormons baptizing Anne Frank was? Personally, I think it's closer to saying that Anne Frank was a lesbian. There's textual evidence for it, evidence that was omitted from the original publication of her diary. I honestly personally think it was a rightful omission, perhaps even a _necessary_ omission, but it's one more example of the special form of _erasure_ queer people suffer.)

I wish it didn't have to be that way. I wish I didn't _have_ to think these things, to anticipate all of the things people I basically respect would say about me, to have to decide something is important enough to lose friends over. But this, too, is what it's like to be trans, isn't it? It belongs to the trans tradition of Porpentine, of Isabel Fall, of so many other people I could name.

I do encourage people to read (and share!) the piece I wrote and linked to. It's a complicated subject and I've tried to do it justice.

Hold on I'm gonna need a new link for that post, gimme a bit

Thanks for sharing that link Kate - it very much absolutely does not belong in a 'worst piece of music writing ever' thread (ie, to over-explain, it's a very fucking good piece of writing about music).

Thanks for sharing that link Kate - it very much absolutely does not belong in a 'worst piece of music writing ever' thread (ie, to over-explain, it's a very fucking good piece of writing about music).

― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski)

Apologies for the self-deprecation. It's a bad habit of mine I'm trying to wean myself from.

Kate, thank you for the link.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Thank you for listening, Alfred.

Yeah, no one can say for sure, but it really does seem incredibly probable. The whole of Cobain would have played out quite differently if we had a better understanding of the language around gender and mental health in the ‘90s

― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten)

Right. It's the hypocrisy of it, seeing Tommy Craggs write the sort of horseshit he wrote about Cobain in Pitchfork, writing about him as a "sensitive young man" who had "violent fantasies". Did I _know_ Kurt Cobain? No. Do I understand his _soul_? Not particularly. Is there a certain _context_ to his life, work, and death that most people are _not fucking considering_? Absolutely, and I _will_ speak to that context.

Yes, excellent piece, Kate. fwiw, I'm convinced. I'm a cis man and predictably the thought had never occurred to me, but all the details you mentioned were things that were super striking at the time. Back then I mostly mentally filed them under "androgynous" or "feminist" but in retrospect, being trans basically just makes more sense.

One minor question: I've never seen agnotology defined that way—is that derived from a specific source? I've only encountered it as the study of deliberate attempts to keep people uninformed (e.g., the tobacco industry & cancer; oil companies & climate change), mostly in social studies of science contexts. AFAICT, it's not technically a "real" word anyway—i.e., not in the dictionary—so I'm curious about your usage (I like the word a lot).

One minor question: I've never seen agnotology defined that way—is that derived from a specific source? I've only encountered it as the study of deliberate attempts to keep people uninformed (e.g., the tobacco industry & cancer; oil companies & climate change), mostly in social studies of science contexts. AFAICT, it's not technically a "real" word anyway—i.e., not in the dictionary—so I'm curious about your usage (I like the word a lot).

― rob

Nah I just picked it up somewhere and in the best tradition of language defined it to mean what I wanted it to mean haha

lol sounds good! Like I said, it's up for grabs.

Though now that I think of it, the other meaning would be extremely relevant to histories of trans people & cultures, including the one you outline in your piece

Yeah it really is, quite honestly!

I just went ahead and threw it on a tumblr.

https://www.tumblr.com/waskurttrans

Not exactly the best opsec in the world, but it's not the fucking Panama Papers or anything.

Really interesting piece Kate, it does connect the dots compellingly. I wish Cobain had found understanding. He certainly celebrated women and femininity at every opportunity and as you say, seemed to have a level of empathy far beyond the cis male range typical of the time.

ok, i'll say it. if you're a guy and you, in your heart, think of yourself as a "thwarted, sensitive young man" with a "teenage boy's blues", "beautiful, androgynous, too wounded to be threatening", you should consider whether you might possibly benefit from a blue pill made by Teva Pharmaceuticals with a lowercase "b" on the side.

― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, October 6, 2022 9:05 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Or you could just be a fag? I find this conversation really fucked up tbh.

As in, Kurt could have just been a fag, sorry for the second person there.

You can see the receipts on ILX of when I came out to my parents the final time, when I was close to 23 years old. I'd come out to them at 13 and 16, too.

The idea that a young cis man is trans just because he is "androgynous, non-threatening to women," "wounded," "enlightened regarding gender issues, " etc, is absolutely ridiculous. And I say this as someone who has lovers who are trans, best friends who are trans.

And yes, I read the tumblr, so feel free to tell me to go fuck myself, but I will honestly say that I believe your thinking is wrongheaded and more about wanting to impose your vision of trans-ness on the world than anything else.

https://andrewdubber.com/over-saulted/

Jesus fucking christ.

way to write a review that tells me everything but what it sounds like (oh they're a "jam band", how helpful!). and scolding the band for making the music available for free.

oh jeez

writer is maybe a bit churlish and should probably have mentioned Inflo at some point but I basically agree with his premise tbh

I tried to comment but everything was there except...the button to submit?

there are enough breathless uncritical encomia to sault among the UK critical establishment that we can permit the occasional humbug, no?

sure, do it in one paragraph, then. as that's about all of the content his review contained.

also tired of 'get off my lawn' being used in writing as a joeky "lol see I'm self-aware of how pretentious and shallow my criticisms are, ergo it negates that criticism"

idk his criticisms seem pretty pointed and evidenced? maybe it depends on whether you see sault's self-presentation and public engagement practices as slick marketing techniques or, idk, sincere enigmatisation of the artistic process

I agree with a few points, but that piece is a firehose of opinions4u, some of which are quite bullshit (the Albarn hunch is basically racist)

idk I find it hard to square complaining that "it's just marketing" with "it devalues music" like which is it

also it is quite clearly a review of the release method rather than the music

yeah the Albarn hunch + the cast-of-thousands stuff sells Inflo way short

I don't have any opinions on Sault whatsoever and my reaction to seeing I could download some albums for free was "hmm, that's nice, I might have to check that out"

writing that many words seems to indicate this was meant to be something remarkable to someone, his retort is "this isn't remarkable, maybe the music isn't good, maybe this is marketing"

why would someone think it's remarkable? oh, because it's covered by music news. who thinks music news is remarkable? people who write about music. who is feeding into this being something worthy of comment? the guy writing an overly long bit about how it's nothing

ultimately the artist decides how much they want to sell their music for, one collective giving the shit away for free doesn't mean Anal Stabwound's career is over because nobody will ever pay for his music again.

like maybe it is a nice thing to give people some downloads and it's also marketing
"it's very 90s" oh ok so you've seen this happen before, wonder if anyone's written about album giveaways before

my theory was that Sault's game was flooding the listening-time of critics just when they should be recapping 2022 lol

also daerest Nikhil, childe of death, won't be short of sponsorship I suspect

ultimately the artist decides how much they want to sell their music for
well, I wouldn't go that far!

Byt yeah you should know you're getting too huffily defensive when you're including "Untitled is not a title" in your list of complaints. That said, I don't think that's a terrible piece of writing really, just smug & unfocused; I mean it's a blog post from someone I've never heard of (maybe he's known to you all?).

This, otoh, took years off my life expectancy: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-case-for-listening-to-complete-discographies

damn that new yorker article is playing all the hits

my theory was that Sault's game was flooding the listening-time of critics just when they should be recapping 2022 lol

― imago, Thursday, 3 November 2022 14:09 (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is good then: critics shd spend far less time (= none at all) "recapping 2022" or indeed any other year past or future

EOEOY

catching up on things they'd missed is surely fine?

releasing something during a year end wrap-up season or awards season to keep it fresh in mind? wow never heard of that

next thing you know, albums will start coming out early in the year right before summer touring season and ticket sales

A few good points, a few bad ones. The article is as scattershot as SAULT's latest batch of material. DO YOU SEE

Maybe...it IS Sault.

It's a Sault of sorts

A Sault with a deadly Pepa

andrew dobber morelike

Why isn't his blog called Dub and Dubber?

i really don't understand the "sault is a jam band" thing like at all

sault is a jam band
someone talking junk
yo i bust 'im in the eye
and then I take the punk's blog

i really don't understand the "sault is a jam band" thing like at all

He's not from America; he doesn't understand the American definition of "jam band." He seems to mean that their songs feel like loose jams halfway thrown together right before someone presses the record button.