As legislative attacks against the LGBTQ community sharply increase around the United States, indie supergroup Boygenius is offering a fat middle finger to the lawmakers responsible.
In a new interview with Them, the group — Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus — spoke about the rising tide of anti-LGBTQ legislation, and how they’ve seen it affecting their day-to-day lives. The group acknowledged their own privilege as successful musicians, with Dacus poetically saying that they “get to navigate this with an ease that was afforded us by so much pain.”
But Bridgers added that they still feel the impact of these attacks. “The government being actually actively trying to kill the coolest people is something I think about every day,” she said. “It’s so overwhelming how different the world would be if the AIDS epidemic had never happened. It’s so overwhelming to me, to my exact world, everything that I value.”
Speaking about queer rights activists of the ’80s and ’90s, the trio said that the pain and suffering being caused by these new laws directly insults the legacy of those who worked tirelessly to make the world better. “If all of the David Wojnarowiczes and Leslie Feinbergs of the world did all of that suffering for me not to live in a world where I can be so f–king gay on a big stage and have a whole bunch of other gay people here for me and it’d be joy, then it was in vain,” Bridgers said. Baker agreed, adding, “The joy is the living amends that you do for your community as a performer.”
In discussing the future for the LGBTQ community, Dacus said that she wanted to see queer people get to a place of mundanity, like everyone else. “I want every gay and trans person to have the opportunity to be inarticulate, stupid and unexceptional,” she said. “I want to see more cool art by trans people and non-white people, and also poor people”
The trio’s new album, The Record, comes out Friday (March 31).
