hello i dont want to come off as rude but can you give me a quick rundown of why harry is possibly trans? also is being genderfluid/nonbinary sit under the trans umbrella as well? i hope this isnt too uncomfortable to answer! thank you!
hi! you don’t come off as rude at all! and i’ll try my best to give you as much info as i can off the top of my head!
so, being trans means to identify as a gender other than the one assigned to you at birth. the white stripe in the trans flag actually includes all non-binary genders. there are both binary and non-binary trans people, so while both groups fall under the trans umbrella, non-binary identities (genderfluid, genderqueer, agender, etc.) sit under a small umbrella within the bigger one.
i obviously can’t say this without being clear that i don’t know every single person on tumblr dot com, but i haven’t come across a single person who believes harry is a binary trans woman (an amab who identifies exclusively as a woman). when we say harry is trans, we mean we think that harry has a non-binary gender, which is still considered trans, so we think he’s a non-binary trans person.
he’s spoken about gender, and about femininity/masculinity and his own personal relationship to this with more consideration than you can ever expect from a cis man.
“What’s feminine and what’s masculine…it’s like there are no lines any more.” - The Face
“I think ‘Lights Up’ came at the end of a long period of self-reflection, self-acceptance. Through the two years of making the record, I went through a lot of personal changes — I just had the conversations with myself that you don’t always have. And I just feel more comfortable being myself.” - Rolling Stone
“A part of it was having, like, a big moment of self-reflection. And self-acceptance. I think it’s a very free, and freeing, time. I think people are asking, ‘Why not?’ a lot more. Which excites me. It’s not just clothes where lines have been blurred, it’s going across so many things.” - The Guardian
“I think there’s so much masculinity in being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be feminine, and I’m very comfortable with that. Growing up you don’t even know what those things mean. You have this idea of what being masculine is and as you grow up and experience more of the world, you become more comfortable with who you are.” - i-D Magazine
“What women wear. What men wear. For me it’s not a question of that. If I see a nice shirt and get told, ‘But it’s for ladies.’ I think: ‘Okaaaay? Doesn’t make me want to wear it less though.’ I think the moment you feel more comfortable with yourself, it all becomes a lot easier.” - The Guardian
“I don’t think people are still looking for this gender differentiation. Even if the masculine and feminine exist, their limits are the subject of a game. We no longer need to be this or that. I think now, people are just trying to be good.” - L’Officiel
thematically speaking, fine line just screams gender. we know that harry puts a lot of thought into his image, into how he will be perceived. we also know that he loves a good callback, he loves weaving together an intricate narrative (eroda exists), and that he has never met a coincidence in his life.
the cover of his album has the colors of the trans flag (he’s the white in the flag) while the photos inside have the colors of the non-binary flag (x), which came from a deliberate collaboration between harry and tim walker, a gay photographer who explores queer themes in his work. from the guardian interview:
“In terms of how I wanna dress, and what the album sleeve’s gonna be, I tend to make decisions in terms of collaborators I want to work with. I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool. And more than that, I dunno, I just think sexuality’s something that’s fun. Honestly? I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that.”
(i’d like to emphasize that at this point, harry was becoming more guarded with his answers as the interviewer got more invasive about his sexuality, and flat out questioned if the album cover was a nod to the trans flag or if harry was just a straight dude sprinkling lgbtq crumbs)
he also sported pink+blue nails both during promo of the album and before, when he wasn’t working.
there are plenty of lyric analyses of she and fine line (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) though my favorite part about these songs is that in she, he alternates between his normal register and falsetto which happens when he switches between describing the man and woman, and he sings the entirety of fine line in falsetto (though it really hits different from the la one night only show)
he’s grown more comfortable with wearing things that lend well to his feminine expression, both for performances/appearances, and his personal life, like his vibrantly colored nails which he’s said he feels naked without now, or his pearl necklace (which he wore under a hoodie during christmas with his family), or his precious pink and lavender shoe strings.
there’s genuinely so many more examples like people close to him using female pronouns and neutral/fluid language to talk about harry, including the lovely harris reed who is genderfluid, or the fact that he can’t seem to shut up about childbirth, plus things i’ll refrain from mentioning because they discuss his body image meaning it’s more speculative than things that have been shown to the public so not necessarily evidence
oh! also he has a mermaid tattoo (which has a connection to the trans community in the UK) and when asked why he got it, he simply said “it’s because i’m a mermaid”
also also honorable mention to the fact that harry idolizes female artists and the fact that stevie nicks has taken him under her wing, which she has only done for budding female artists, and introduced him to the coven, which frankly, when has any man ever
so that’s some of the reasons why we think harry is trans. i’d also like to mention that the majority of us who are comfortable enough to have this conversation are trans ourselves, and we feel a personal connection to him and the signaling he’s done over the years, we see a bit (or a lot) of ourselves in his journey to self-discovery, or he’s made us realize our own identities just be being himself.
“boy or girl, whatever it decides” 💗
