Dee Snider dropped out of LGBT festival because he liked Kiss star Paul Stanley’s tweet about trans kids
San Francisco Pride dropped Twister Sister frontman Dee Snider from their lineup next month after the legendary rocker approved of a tweet slamming sex changes for kids.
Snider’s 1984 hit We’re Not Gonna Take It was planned as the event’s 2023 theme song. The singer was also expected to perform. However, after Snider retweeted and liked a post from Kiss star Paul Stanley, plans have changed.
On May 1, Stanley tweeted a message titled “My thoughts on what I see.”
“There is a BIG difference between teaching acceptance and normalizing and even encouraging participation in a lifestyle that confuses young children into questioning their sexual identification as if it were some kind of game, and then parents let it in some cases,” Stanley wrote.
Shortly after the Kiss co-founder posted the tweet, 68-year-old Snider replied, “You know what? There was a time when I also “felt beautiful”. Glad my parents didn’t jump to conclusions! Well said, @PaulStanleyLive.’
Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider has been axed from performing at San Francisco’s Pride festival after liking a tweet from Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley
Kiss co-founder Paul Stanley has criticized parents who he says confuse their children about sexuality and gender identity while branding child sex is becoming a “sad and dangerous craze.”
Stanley said that while “there ARE individuals who may decide as adults that rehoming is their necessary choice,” he criticized “turning this into a game or parents normalizing it as sort of a natural alternative.”
He also warned against[…] Believing that because a little boy likes to play dressed up in his sister’s clothes or a girl in her brother’s clothes, we should lead them steps down a path that is far from the innocence of what they are doing.’
“With many children who have no real sense of sexuality or sexual experiences caught up in the ‘fun’ of using pronouns and saying what they identify, some adults mistakenly confuse teaching acceptance with normalizing and encouraging a situation that has been a struggle for that really touched and have turned it into a sad and dangerous fad,” he concluded.
Snider responded to criticism from his tweet saying to a user, “Parents need to be less reactionary; Right and left. It is not necessary to send the child in both directions. Let the child figure it out on his own, knowing that his family will support him.”
When one person tweeted to Snider, “Absolutely disappointed in you.” He replied, ‘In two days… you’ll eat your words. Stand by for big announcement!,” without elaborating.
On Wednesday, SF Pride said she and Snider had mutually agreed to part ways.
The festival’s executive director, Suzanne Ford, who is trans, said in a statement that their organization was “heartbroken and angry” to learn of Snider’s support.
In a statement, Ford said Snider has acknowledged the tweet represented an “educational moment.”
“As transphobia spreads and becomes increasingly enshrined in law across the country, we must stand up for those most affected among us,” Ford said. the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview.
Snider has previously described his politics as either conservative or liberal, but more focused on pro-LGBT rights and anti-censorship.
With a post titled “My Thoughts On What I’m Seeing,” 71-year-old Paul Stanley — who helped found the iconic rock and roll group in the 1970s with Gene Simmons — weighed in on the debate on gender-affirming care
The festival takes place on June 23.
April Snider tweeted his support for drag queens in the wake of several states passing laws restricting performances.
“I get a lot of respect from the LGBTQ community. Being a straight man and getting into fights all the time to dress up gave me a lot of insight into what others go through. I couldn’t get them to stop looking at how I wanted to look… and I didn’t,” Snider said.
While in a 2014 interview with the Windy City Times, Snider described himself as neither liberal nor conservative and said he was a supporter of LGBT rights and of the Second Amendment.
“I try to do what is right and judge each situation individually on party lines. I am both praised and reviled by the conservatives and the liberals.’
In the same piece, Snider said he was “super pro-gay rights” and pro-choice.
Amid the criticism of his response to Stanley’s tweet, Snider retweeted a message that was critical of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Stanley’s post on the social media platform comes as debates about the controversial topic rage in the US, with several states weighing up laws that limit or protect the rights of transgender people.
Supporters of Stanley’s statement applauded him for posting it, with several people responding to his post and thanking him for joining the debate and taking a stand.
Critics, however, pointed out that the musician and his bandmates made a career out of wearing flamboyant makeup and clothes — relevant due to much of the trans rights debate, which also includes drag performances.
Others referred to Stanley and Kiss playing songs about sexualizing underage girls, such as the 1977 song “Christine Sixteen.”
It was not clear what prompted Stanley’s post. In a report on his statement, Rolling Stone magazine wrote what was clear from his statement that he had misconflated sexuality and gender identity.
The music magazine pointed out that these are developing independently and that the guidelines are shared by the Mayo Clinic – a not-for-profit US academic medical center.
‘People communicate their gender to others through gender expression. This can be done through mannerisms, clothes and hairstyles,” the clinic explains on its website.
‘Gender identity develops independently of sexual orientation. People’s sexual orientation is related to who they are attracted to on a physical, emotional and romantic basis.’