Trans - Art - Opinion

With an increasingly hostile environment threatening trans people's safety, community members become vulnerable to self-policing in order to fly under the radar. Iarfhlaith O’Connell explores the issue, highlighting the need to push back against oppressive forces, particularly when it comes to artistic expression.

I would be surprised if any queer person reading this was not yet familiar with the work of Ethel Cain but I will offer a quick summary just in case. Ethel Cain is the musical persona of Hayden Silas Horner, a trans woman from Tallahassee who’s 2022 debut album Preacher’s Daughter gained her critical praise and an immediate cult following that has only continued to grow in the two years since its release. The concept album follows the daughter of a Southern minister who attempts to escape her oppressive upbringing by travelling through Western America but who is eventually eaten by a cannibalistic lover. It deals with broad themes such as intergenerational trauma, faith, sexual and religious abuse and ultimately peace and salvation.

Naturally, this has attracted a fan base of queer people who can relate to the emotional consequences of living under religious, or similarly oppressive environments, where experiences of loneliness, isolation and existential pain are bred into those who do not conform to the social order. It was confusing then, that when Cain embarked on her 2024 summer tour complete with a new merch run in anticipation of her next release, that it was so poorly received. While attending one of her London shows in June, my girlfriend, friends and I were amused and intrigued to see that Cain’s new merch mostly consisted of black hats, t-shirts and jumpers that had the word ‘perverts’ scrawled across them.