Kate Nash calls out bigotry towards the transgender community on her powerful new single, GERM.
Arriving ahead of her performance at this year’s Mighty Hoopla festival at London’s Brockwell Park, the singer-songwriter was compelled to write and record the track following the UK Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex under the Equality Act.
“I feel no threat from any trans person that might be in the toilets, I’ve never felt threatened by a trans person as it turns out,” she says in the song. “The 69,958 rapes that were reported between Oct 2023 and Sept 24 in the UK do slightly concern me though…
“91 per cent of people prosecuted for sexual offences are cis men aged 18+.”
Speaking about the track, the Foundations hitmaker adds: “Using feminism to erase the rights of others is inherently un-feminist. GERM is my response to the recent news that the Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex and that the concept of sex is binary. Trans people were excluded from the conversation.”
“I am left uneasy as I see behaviours we would otherwise or previously label as intolerance or bullying become normalised & even celebrated by the media & in society. I believe this will lead to more transphobia and more misogyny in the UK,” she continued. “I also believe it to be misdirected and not at all where feminist efforts should be focused. In fact, I don’t consider it to be feminist at all.
“The demonisation of entire groups of people, led by bad faith actors, is not a step forward but a huge echo of a past we should have moved on from. I owe so much of myself to feminism. Tarnishing the most important ideology in my life by denying the existence of trans women is something I take very personally.”
Nash concludes: “Denying that trans people exist and having a personal desire to remove them from public spaces because it makes you uncomfortable to share spaces with trans people is transphobic. Dismantling systems of oppression lies at the very core of feminism.
“If you are transphobic therefore you are not a feminist. Welcome to your rebrand GERM.”
