Dee Snider Says ‘You’re Not Shutting Me Up’ About Gender-Affirming Healthcare for Trans Kids
Last month, organizers at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade decided to cancel a planned performance of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” featuring Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider. The move was in response to the fact that the outspoken vocalist had sided with a tweet Kiss’ Paul Stanley posted in which he called childhood gender issues a “sad and dangerous fad.”
During a recent interview on The Chuck Shute Podcast (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), Snider doubled down on his stance, claiming that people tried to “cancel” him because of what happened.
“They tried to cancel me because I didn’t see one hundred percent eye-to-eye with the community that wanted me to be the grand marshal of their parade, with the community that I’ve stood with and fought for for decades.
“As a parent, I disagreed with children’s ability to make cognizant decisions at the age of five, six and seven. I have four children, and I soon will have — any minute, by the way — my fifth grandchild, and in my learned opinion, they are not capable. And they were, like, ‘canceled’ — not just the show, but they went after me and called me transphobic.”
Immediately following organizers’ decision to cancel his scheduled performance, Snider took to Twitter to responded to critics by reminding everyone of his past support of LGBTQIA+ issues, as well as the fact that he was originally invited to represent the parade as its Grand Marshal. He then blamed the decision on the idea that “the Transgender community expects fealty and total agreement with all their beliefs and any variation or deviation is considered ‘transphobic.’”
In the days that followed Stanley’s tweet, the KISS guitarist walked back his initial statement. Snider, however, said he would not be apologizing at all, since he said he feels he did nothing wrong.
“You can go [to my Facebook page] and see what I said, although it was pretty covered in the media. And whereas Paul Stanley apologized, I’m not apologizing. Not when I did nothing wrong. I’m the first to apologize when I screw up. And I just laid it out. And [there were] a couple of peeps here and there, ‘Dee’s whining.’
“You’re not canceling me. You’re not shutting me up. And the big point was that community — the LGBTQIA+ community, and whatever letters we’re adding — they need the support of not just the people who agree with them one hundred percent, they need the support of the middle, and that’s where most of us are. [They need] the people of the middle to accept them and recognize their rights and who they are. But that does not mean we have to — I use the word ‘fealty’ — fealty and bow down to every little thing they say. Who agrees with every single detail of what anybody says? So I just pushed back on it. Everybody backed off. They were shocked. ‘Cause most people just apologize or curl up in a fetal position.”
“And whatever letters they’re adding.” Oof. That’s not great.
Still, Snider has a right to say what he wants and we fully support the use of the First Amendment here at MetalSucks. And usually we tend to agree with Snider on certain topics. It’s just that we also support the other side’s ability to criticize you if they don’t like what you said.
