Lady Gaga has responded to the spate of anti-trans bigotry sparked by her recent photoshoot with Dylan Mulvaney, saying, “This is not backlash. This is hatred.”
On Instagram on Monday, the pop star released a lengthy statement about Mulvaney, who shared a series of photos with Gaga last week in celebration of International Women’s Day. After several social media users flooded the trans influencer’s post with transphobic comments, some news outlets framed the response as “backlash.” Gaga, however, made it clear that that framing is harmful and incorrect.
“It’s appalling to me that a post about National Women’s Day by Dylan Mulvaney and me would be met with such vitriol and hatred,” she wrote. “When I see a newspaper reporting on hatred but calling it ‘backlash’ I feel it is important to clarify that hatred is hatred, and this kind of hatred is violence. ‘Backlash’ would imply that people who love or respect Dylan and me didn’t like something we did. This is not backlash. This is hatred.”
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Gaga continued her post by saying that although she “certainly [does] not speak for” the trans community, she admires their “endless grace and inspiration in the face of constant degradation, intolerance, and physical, verbal, and mental violence.”
Mulvaney’s original post with Lady Gaga included a series of photos of the pair posing together, as well as a video of them embracing and telling the camera, “Put this on your vision board, world.” Mulvaney shared the post on Friday, captioning it simply, “Happy international women’s day.”
In her post today, Gaga wrote: “I hope all women will come together to honor us ALL for International Women’s Day, and may we do that always until THE DAY that all women are celebrated equally. That all people are celebrated equally. A day where people of all gender identities are celebrated on whichever holiday speaks to them. Because people of all gender identities and races deserve peace and dignity.”
“May we all come together and be loving, accepting, warm, welcoming,” she concluded. “May we all stand and honor the complexity and challenge of trans life—that we do not know, but can seek to understand and have compassion for. I love people too much to allow hatred to be referred to as ‘backlash.’ People deserve better.”
