Debbie Harry has shared her thoughts on queerness, taking the stance that people would do better to recognize “both within ourselves”.
Harry has always been someone who tests boundaries and thinks outside the box. In the late 70s, Blondie became the first punk band to embrace the disco movement and throughout her time as frontwoman, she was leading a group of men in a male-dominated industry. She has since described herself as portraying a “transsexual creature” embracing all sides of her identity.
In a candid interview with NME, she was asked about whether she feels she would have identified with genderqueerness if the term was in use at the time.
“Perhaps,” she responded. “I don’t know if I made myself as clear as I possibly could with that because I always felt that lyrically with these songs, I was trying to represent the guys in the band as well as myself. I was trying to speak for all of us.
“And I always felt that since all my life, I was always called ‘Debbie’ or ‘Harry’ – so I embodied this myself and it’s just the way it was. It probably still is! Yeah, so I don’t know – I never really had any problems with that and I’m always surprised when people have a fear or frustration about their combination of sexualities – I think we do better recognizing both within ourselves.”
You can read the full interview here.
