People contain multitudes. Take me, for example. I’m an ultra-feminine trans woman who rarely leaves the house without decking out my lips and eyes in bright colors. My closet is full of pink frilly outfits. My Spotify is jam-packed with punk rock, rap, and pop tunes belted out by women. My politics are leftist — I support unions and a free Palestine and anything even remotely jingoistic repulses me. You know something else? I also have a deep knowledge of country music, specifically tunes from 2002 to 2014. 20th century country music legend George Jones (A.K.A. The Possum) is one of the few musicians I’ve ever seen in a concert. Lyrics for “You Can’t Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl” and “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” still live in my head rent-free decades after obsessively listening to them over and over again.
I grew up in Texas and didn’t know the phrase “transgender” until I got into college. So maybe my love of country isn’t too surprising. After all, the pop culture we cling to as we grow up can take on strange forms. It often isn’t a 1:1 parallel for who we become as adults. “Any port in a storm,” as they say. The same is true for tormented youths looking for artistic escapism in turbulent times.
As an autistic kid grappling with undiagnosed ADHD and depression — not to mention lots of internalized ableism about my autism — the idea of being perceived as “different” or “special needs” from my neurotypical peers terrified me. I shunned being associated with other neurodivergent folks and tried hard to mask any “autistic” behavior traits. In the process, I was trying to ingratiate myself with people (students and teachers alike) who didn’t really care for me or only liked me because they thought it was funny to coerce an autistic kid to swear.
These tumultuous experiences make it obvious why I was so sad in my youth. But, at the time, I couldn’t figure all that out. I was just looking for balms for my soul, some ways to feel a little less alone. When I got home from school or needed to retreat from the world, I’d go into my room and turn on my old-timey-looking radio that used dials for operating.
Then, I’d turn to the three local country music radio stations, 96.3 KSCS, 99.5 The Wolf, or my personal favorite, the now-defunct 96.7 The Texas Twister. In these domains, I’d hear songs that weren’t quite like other melodies I heard on the pop stations. My ears were suddenly filled with Blake Shelton’s “Austin,” George Strait’s “Run,” or Keith Urban’s “Tonight I Wanna Cry” — all songs that felt emotionally raw for 12-year-old Lisa. Finally, I had music that seemed as sad as I was. Other late 2000s teens found sonic solace in famous emo bands like My Chemical Romance. Meanwhile, I was going “he gets me!!” to endless re-listens of the George Jones ditty “The Grand Tour.”
Especially appealing to me were wistful songs tinged with palpable fresh pain like Dierks Bentley’s “Settle for a Slowdown” or Gary Allan melodies like “Best I Ever Had.” These were songs about men softly harmonizing about relationships, friendships, and connections that just slipped out of their fingers. The distinct rawness in their vocals suggested they were nursing emotional wounds all alone in this terrible world.
Coming home from a nightmarish middle school day, these songs communicated the internal pain I could barely comprehend. I could point to these lyrics to say “this is how I feel.” Putting my ear next to the radio, acting like Bentley or Allan were singing directly to me was the perfect remedy to spending hours in a school where I felt isolated. Someone else knew what it felt like to be alone or watch potential connections dissolve into dust. They were surviving. Maybe I could too.
Country music is also where I first heard Taylor Swift for the first time. I’ll never forget that day I was listening to KSCS and “Teardrops on My Guitar” came on. I audibly gasped as Swift began singing. My brain couldn’t comprehend it. Only men over 30 sang on this station, save for the occasional Carrie Underwood track. Swift’s presence shocked me to my core! Someone on this station closer to my age? Someone who knew about high school angst rather than just tavern squabbles or ranching mishaps? Swift’s music became an obsession for me, especially songs like “Fifteen” that confronted teenage melancholy head-on.
In hindsight, her songs allowed me to access gender euphoria long before I knew that term existed. Singing along to “Today Was a Fairytale” for instance, and getting really into hearing her saying phrases like “I wore a dress,” made me feel so ALIVE and I had no idea why! Country music was a gateway drug into sonic gender euphoria that led to me becoming the woman I am today. I never could’ve imagined that when I was picking my jaw up off the floor back in 2007 hearing “Teardrops on my Guitar” on the radio!
Another benefit of being a country music-loving gal at this age? It gave me and my dad something we could bond over. I wasn’t a sports fan like my father. I also wasn’t interested in South Park, video games, coding, or any of his other passions. There was often a barrier between us that could be difficult to hurdle. That barrier briefly crumbled when it came to our shared passion for country music. Some of my fondest adolescent memories are of me driving in the passenger seat of my dad’s car as he played George Strait’s “Milk Cow Blues” or David Allan Coe’s “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” on his various CDs. We especially loved singing along to the latter tune, which features an ultra meta-final chorus that’s still enthralling to this day.
The ironic part in hindsight, of course, is that country music from this era wasn’t just oblivious to trans experiences — it was outright hostile to anyone challenging gender norms. Take Brad Paisley’s 2007 song “I’m Still a Guy.” This tune begins with Paisley elucidating the various ways his behavior conforms to standard cishet masculinity stereotypes even after he’s settled down with a beautiful woman. In the final verse, though, Paisley warns of a phenomenon sweeping the land threatening “real men” like him. “These days, there’s dudes gettin’ facials/Manicured, waxed, and botoxed,” Paisley ominously intones. “With deep spray-on tans and creamy, lotion-y hands/You can’t grip a tackle box.” The gays aren’t just coming for your guns, they’re also coming for your fishing gear!
Speaking of firearms, Paisley concludes the song with a warning. “But I don’t highlight my hair, I’ve still got a pair” Paisley croons. “Yeah, honey, I’m still a guy/Oh, my eyebrows ain’t plucked/There’s a gun in my truck.” Watch out men who dare to get their hair colored or use Aveeno! Paisley’s got a weapon and, in several states, he could legally use it to kill you!
It’s so weird looking back on that toxicity given how 2000s country music helped make my teenage years bearable. Cross Canadian Ragweed tunes kept me alive on some days. Yet this very genre thrived on rhetoric demonizing trans people but also countless other marginalized communities.
The cruel attitude towards trans and queer folks in these songs weighed heavily on my mind as I got older and learned more about the world. Specifically, I used these songs to “prove” I wasn’t trans. “If you listen to such ‘masculine’ songs, how could you be a trans woman?!?” my brain would inquire, which temporarily shut up the questioning of my gender. The same songs that helped me feel less alone at 13 were now being turned against me at age 23.
It’s been a few years since those days of self-loathing. My self-criticism, anxiety, and internal woes persist, but they’re a little less loud now. Internal challenges to the idea of “you’re not a REAL woman” are now rare, even non-existent. Sometimes, I’ll put on my headphones while I write and one of those 2000s country songs will find me. Instantly, I’m transported back to 2008, tears fresh in my eyes, ear glued to those radio speakers. There’s only me and “Jack Daniel’s If You Please” by David Allan Coe, a song young sheltered Lisa thought was about a guy named Jack Daniels.
Coming to terms with those songs has involved grappling with the nuances of the world rather than being reductive about my gender or just “ignoring” the horrific aspects of this music scene. Part of that process has included seeing other queer folks embracing the honkey-tonk music world. Orville Peck, for one, Lily Rose, for another. These folks have co-opted the country music timbre and ambiance to make exciting new queer art. Seeing them mold country music influences into defiantly queer material has been exciting and inspiring.
There’s something thrilling about claiming any kind of “ownership” over an art form often hostile to my own existence. Country music superstar Jason Aldean, for instance, is married to a woman who constantly spews transphobic rhetoric. He himself has reinforced those words in his stage performances. And yet, I listened to Aldean’s “Big Green Tractor” an embarrassing number of times when I was young. That fact now makes me titter with some mischievous glee. Your songs dominated the iPod of the very person you want to suppress, Mr. Aldean!
I’m sure these musicians would just shrug at that thought before returning to count the dollars I spent on country songs on iTunes in the early 2010s. Still, for me, there is some reassuring rebellion here. So many of the musicians I listened to in my youth don’t even want trans women to exist. Rather than vanishing again, I’ve opted to park myself in the “Okie from Muskogee” fan club. No matter what hateful things these artists tweet or transphobic politicians they endorse, I still know the words to “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.” Their songs are forever connected to a trans woman. They can’t change that.
And now to end this tribute to country music with a quote from Annette Bening as Dorothea in the modern masterpiece 20th Century Women. (Remember when I said people contain multitudes?) “The people who help you,” Dorothea tells her son, “they might not be who you thought or wanted. They might just be the people who show up.” Growing up is messy. In the turmoil of becoming an adult, we don’t meet people or art draped in gigantic glowing neon signs saying “INFLUENTIAL MENTOR.” Things that mold us just gradually help make life more bearable.
So it is with these country songs. Some queers had Final Fantasy video games or obscure gay cinema to make teenage life manageable. Me? I had mournful Dierks Bentley and Gary Allan tunes. Here was art that was inadvertently queer or personally relevant just through my eyes…and that’s okay. This is the art that “showed up” for me when I needed it. This doesn’t shield it from criticism nor does it suddenly make “Rain is a Good Thing” into “Fast Car” or “Good Luck, Babe!” However, it does belong to me and reminds me that comforting allegorically queer art can emerge anywhere. That includes radio stations blaring “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” at all hours of the day…
Thanks, Lisa. I’m from the UK but also discovered this music around the same time and it helped me too. I’ve had some conflicted feelings about going back to those CDs, but I have to admit that there’s some satisfaction in wearing my prettiest skirt and still being able to hit the low notes in Trace Adkins’ Dangerous Man 😏