Singer Lorde discusses feeling 'in the middle gender-wise,' claims to be a woman except for 'when I'm a man'
Singer Lorde described her gender identity as a woman "except for the days when I’m a man" in Rolling Stone on Thursday.
The 28-year-old New Zealand singer spoke to the magazine about her upcoming album "Virgin," which includes a song called "Man of the Year" that features the lyric "Some days I’m a woman/Some days I’m a man."
Lorde explained that the lyric means she is "in the middle gender-wise" and referenced a conversation she had with "Pink Pony Club" singer Chappell Roan, who asked if she identified as non-binary.
"I was like ‘I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man,’" Lorde said. "I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up."
Lorde told Rolling Stone that she had been thinking about her gender in a different way since the release of her last album "Solar Power" in 2021, which led to a sense of her "gender broadening."
"My gender got way more expansive when I gave my body more room," she said.
After her decision to go off birth control for the first time since she was 15, Lorde, 28, said that it felt like she had "cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity."
When she attempted to be "fully representative of how [her] gender felt" while writing the song "Man of the Year," she envisioned herself wearing men’s jeans, a gold chain and duct tape across her chest. When she tried out the look, the image in the mirror "scared" her and made her feel like "something bursting" out of her.
This, Lorde told Rolling Stone Magazine, was part of her emotional journey writing her new album.
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Lorde still identifies herself as a "cis" woman and said she did not want to take attention away from people with "more on the line" than she does because of her privilege.
"I see these incredibly brave young people, and it’s complicated," Lorde said. "Making the expression privately is one thing, but I want to make very clear that I’m not trying to take any space from anyone who has more on the line than me. Because I’m, comparatively, in a very safe place as a wealthy, cis, White woman."