Dee Snider, the lead singer of Twisted Sister, has been removed from the lineup of San Francisco Pride following an allegedly transphobic tweet.
Snider had been set to perform the band's hit song, "We're Not Gonna Take It," on center stage at the event. However, the decision was reversed after he publicly supported Kiss member Paul Stanley's statement criticizing child sex changes.
Stanley's statement, posted on April 30, went viral and sparked support and outrage. In it, he criticized the normalization of child sex changes, saying that it confuses young children and leads them to question their sexual identification. Snider quote-tweeted the message, commending Stanley's words and adding, "Glad my parents didn't jump to any rash conclusions! Well said, @PaulStanleyLive."
San Francisco Pride, which had been planning to use We're Not Gonna Take It as the "unofficial rallying cry" of this year's event, issued a press release on May 2 distancing itself from Snider. The group noted that Snider had previously supported LGBTQ+ rights but said it was "heartbroken and angry" to learn of his support for Stanley's "transphobic statement." The statement went on to say that the message perpetuated by the tweet casts doubt on young trans people's ability to self-identify their gender.
The group also highlighted the disproportionate impact of hate and violence on transgender people, particularly transgender women, and children of color. It suggested that transphobia is becoming enshrined in law and that even allies need to be educated to avoid promoting it.
Several European nations have recently conducted systematic reviews of the evidence for child sex changes and found it inferior quality. Sweden, Finland, Norway, and England have all altered their treatment of young people who believe themselves transgender, advising extreme caution when embarking upon irreversible sex change interventions.
Stanley's statement called out parents who are normalizing the idea of sex changes, "believing that because a little boy likes to play dress up in his sister's clothes or a girl in her brother's, we should lead them steps further down a path that's far from the innocence of what they are doing." This description matches that of many celebrities "trans kids" whose stories are laden with stereotypes.
Jazz Jennings, for example, liked princess dresses and wearing a sparkly bathing suit, while Kai Shappley's mother tells of spanking Kai for "stealing girl toys." Susie Green, the former CEO of the disgraced trans charity Mermaids, revealed in a TED Talk how her homophobic husband wouldn't tolerate her son's liking for a tutu and a Snow White costume.
All three families decided to tell their gender-nonconforming male children that they were girls, setting them up for puberty blockers, a lifetime of hormones, and risky and invasive surgeries.
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