Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, vocalist of New York post-black metal band Liturgy, has come out as transgender. In a new statement, she writes “I am a woman. I’ve always been one. The love I have to give is a woman’s love, if only because it is mine.”
In a statement posted to her social media, Hunt-Hendrix writes she always knew of her womanhood, even before the band started, but kept quiet out of fear.
"The music and ideas I compose come from a female heart, whatever that means, and I don’t want to partially distort the transmission through an ‘effeminate male’ mask any longer…. This statement is essentially making itself. I have no choice, there is no way for me to stop it from coming out, I am simply surrendering to it.”
Here is the full statement:
I am a woman. I've always been one. The love I have to give is a woman's love, if only because it is mine. To varying degrees many already understand this, but I'd like to make a clear statement about my actual gender. I could have done this before Liturgy started, but I didn't, out of fear. I knew I was female and not male, emotionally and in my experience of my body. But I was afraid – of social rejection, romantic rejection, career rejection, rejection by my family, failure. The vagueness and incongruity of my solution has afflicted me. I wish it had been different, though maybe that wasn't possible. The feminine imbues everything I am, beyond 'gender identity'. As a woman, I am a musician, theologian and poet and aim to model my life on the saints, to be an authentic channel for God's love. The music and ideas I compose come from a female heart, whatever that means, and I don't want to partially distort the transmission through an 'effemin' male' mask any longer. I don't fully understand what I mean, or why it is true, but I experience it with lived certainty, and say it with sincerity. I have no wish to efface that I am a natal male (I'm happy to be considered 'third gender'), and I have great respect for masculinity, but I've never known how to participate in it, because it isn't me. This statement is essentially making itself. I have no choice, there is no way for me to stop it from coming out, I am simply surrendering to it. I say this as an artist in a way, but ultimately it's about my own relationship to my emotions and my body. Through a long-developing process I've finally broken free from some kind of compromise I felt I needed to accept, without being fully conscious of what I was doing or able to seriously imagine an alternative for myself. It has been very emotional, and it's over now, so I am punctuating it.
Liturgy released H.Q.Q.Q. in November 2019.
[via Pitchfork]
