Rock stars tend to play with the boundaries of gender. Alice Cooper is one of them, flaunting his signature exaggerated makeup look for decades and speaking openly about sexuality.
However, in an in-depth interview with the eccentric musician, Stereogum’s Rachel Brodsky inquired about his thoughts on gender and sexuality, and it took an unexpected turn. “I’m understanding that there are cases of transgender, but I’m afraid that it’s also a fad, and I’m afraid there’s a lot of people claiming to be this just because they want to be that,” he answered. “I find it wrong when you’ve got a six-year-old kid who has no idea. He just wants to play, and you’re confusing him telling him, “Yeah, you’re a boy, but you could be a girl if you want to be.”
After calling the situation absurd and comparing it to a Kurt Vonnegut novel, he continued, “The whole woke thing… Nobody can answer this question. Maybe you can. Who’s making the rules? Is there a building somewhere in New York where people sit down every day and say, ‘Okay, we can’t say mother now. We have to say birthing person. Get that out on the wire right now?’ Who is this person that’s making these rules? I don’t get it. I’m not being old-school about it. I’m being logical about it.”
“It’s getting to the point now where it’s laughable,” he said. “If anybody was trying to make a point on this thing, they turned it into a huge comedy. I don’t know one person that agrees with the woke thing. I don’t know one person. Everybody I talk to says, ‘Isn’t it stupid?’ And I’m going, ‘Well, I respect people. I respect people and who they are, but I’m not going to tell a seven-year-old boy, Go put a dress on because maybe you’re a girl, and he’s going, No, I’m not. I’m a boy.‘”
He also invoked the debunked argument of men using trans laws as an excuse to enter women’s bathrooms. “Well, that’s going to happen,” he said. “Somebody’s going to get raped, and the guy’s going to say, ‘Well, I felt like a girl that day, and then I felt like a guy.’ Where do you draw this line?”