On Friday, Nashville folk-pop duo mmhmm released their self-titled debut album. The band features Raelyn Nelson, who happens to be Willie Nelson's granddaughter, and Hannah Fairlight, who's also an actress who appeared in Pitch Perfect 3. Those connections have surely helped the record get some attention. But not all of the attention has necessarily been favorable.
The first couple of songs are fine, if unremarkable. There's a cover of "Let's Get Together" from The Parent Trap and a trad-style country jam call "Aw Hell" about all the things that can go wrong going wrong. They seem to be trying a Birdcloud-esque mix of comedy and music, with playful conversations interspersed throughout. It seems innocent enough.
But then there's the seventh track: "Lookin' Like a Tranny Blues."
Uh, what now?
"It's tranny time!" exclaims one of the singers as the song opens.
Over an acoustic guitar and ukulele, the duo lays into an attention-seeking woman who just won't leave their man alone. Even worse, according to mmhmm, is that she looks transgender.
"Think I got a case of the / 'You're running ’round with Miss / Dress too tight / Riding up all night / Suck it in / Push it out / Lookin' like a tranny' blues," goes the chorus. There's a harmonica solo, and at the end of the two-minute track, the singers laugh and one of them says: "She looks like a tranny to me!"
It didn't take long for people to take offense. On Saturday, the day after the album's release, people started posting about the transphobic lyrics on the band's Facebook page. They called out the song as problematic, and pointed out that mmhmm is scheduled to play an album release party June 15 at the Lipstick Lounge, an LGBT-friendly bar in East Nashville.
On Monday, mmhmm apologized for the song on both Instagram and Facebook:
mmhmm would like to send our sincerest apologies to the LGBTQIA community. We were clearly very ignorant to the fact that the use of the word “tranny” in our song could cause so much offense, and we absolutely did not mean any offense to the transgender community and our friends. We see how this can be offensive now, and we are sorry for our ignorance in writing a song that was meant to tell a story and nothing more. We love and support (and are supported by) our LGBTQIA family and friends. We are planning to do another benefit supporting the LGBTQIA community soon, and we hope in the meantime to have the privilege of connecting with those who reached out to express their concern about the song to Lipstick Lounge and continue the conversation. - Hannah and Raelyn
When asked whether or not the song will still be performed live and included on the digital release of the record, the band's publicist Dana Gordon told the Scene: "Raelyn and Hannah stand by their apology and do not plan to play the song live again and are as well actively looking into how to have it removed from the album." Gordon also confirmed that the band's Lipstick Lounge show is canceled.
As of this posting, the song is still available on Spotify. It's up to the distributor or aggregator that submitted the band's music to submit a removal request, which could possibly take as long as a week to process, according to online distributor TuneCore.
On Monday, CNN reported that 2018 is already the deadliest year on record for the transgender community. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 28 transgender people were killed in the United States last year due to violence (much of it hate-related), and at least 12 transgender people have been killed in America so far in 2018. On Monday, the second transgender person in the span of one week was shot in Jacksonville, Fla.
According to the HRC's report A Time to Act: Fatal Violence Against Transgender People in America in 2017, published in January, at least 102 transgender people have been victims of fatal violence since January 2013. Of those 102, 87 were people of color, at least 88 were women and more than half lived here in the South.
Transgender people are more likely to be victims of violence, domestic abuse, workplace harassment and more. And "tranny" is a well-known slur. To use that term in a "lighthearted" song about an annoying woman who doesn't know how to dress further stigmatizes transgender people. It represents them not as humans, but caricatures or jokes.
The members of mmhmm are right to apologize, and they're right to pull the song from the record (if they do), but it's sad that the song was written, recorded and released in the first place — especially by women who appear to want to align themselves with the LGBT community.
