QUEER COUNTRY: Putting It All On the Line
Heather Mae should be going viral for her art: she has a commanding voice and a deft pen, just as competent writing sinuous electro-pop and affirming, heartbreaking folk music. She is not shy about her politics: her music is unapologetically queer, fat-positive, and condemning of repressive Evangelical Christianity. Her double
Black News 
Heather Mae should be going viral for her art: she has a commanding voice and a deft pen, just as competent writing sinuous electro-pop and affirming, heartbreaking folk music. She is not shy about her politics: her music is unapologetically queer, fat-positive, and condemning of repressive Evangelical Christianity. Her double album kiss & tell (the pop one) and WHAT THEY HID FROM ME (the rock one, produced by Zdan) center the deliciousness of transgressive pleasure and owning one’s past – and future.
Instead, Mae got ten of thousands of views for being bodily carried out of the Tennessee State Capitol while singing in protest of House Bill 754/Senate Bill 676, which mandates the Tennessee Department of Health to produce a public report that aggregates the number and types of gender-affirming treatments across the state, and requires insurance company to cover detransition treatment. (While a recent study shows that 9% of respondents detransitioned, fewer than 1% did so because they want to return to the gender of their birth. In other words, the majority of detransitioners did so due to external pressure.)
Protestors like Mae expressed fear that this report would release identifying data of patients and their providers – which bill co-sponsor Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) assured would not be the case. Instead, he explained, he wanted this report to prove that gender-affirming care is a “fad.”
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