Jen Cloher, as an LGBTQ activist since about 1990, I’m so used to stories like yours, but they still pain me deeply.

As a gay man, I’m sorry you didn’t find acceptance and community where you ought to rightfully have been an unquestioned member of the family.

As a writer and an advocate, I have a tough time understanding why gender should be so fraught in our society. Why it should be such a show stopper.

In my fiction and essays, I try to examine the senselessness of judging and evaluating people by how they experience gender and how they choose to express it.

For me, the irrational nature of the sort of misogyny that leads to negative experiences like yours is obvious. But I often lack the words to fully express myself.

It’s not my place to interject myself into a conversation about your lyrics, but I will say this: I feel the pain behind your expression. I wish we lived in a world where pain like yours did not exist.

I wish you peace.

Jim