Dee Snider axed from San Francisco Pride lineup for tweet opposing child sex changes

Dee Snider has been axed from the lineup of San Francisco Pride this year over an allegedly transphobic tweet in which he agreed with a statement criticizing child sex changes.

San Francisco Pride had been on the cusp of announcing Twister Sister’s song, We’re Not Gonna Take It, as the “unofficial rallying cry” of this year’s event and Snider was set to perform the song on center stage. But that was before Snider openly supported Kiss member Paul Stanley’s statement calling child sex changes a “sad and dangerous fad.”

“There is a BIG difference between teaching acceptance and normalizing and even encouraging participation in a lifestyle that confuses young children into questioning their sexual identification as though some sort of game and then parents in some cases allow it,” read Stanley’s statement on April 30.

The statement went viral, with an outpouring of both support and outrage. Snider quote-tweeted the message commending the Kiss singer-guitarist.

“You know what? There was a time where I 'felt pretty' too. Glad my parents didn't jump to any rash conclusions! Well said, @PaulStanleyLive,” Snider tweeted.

In a press release on May 2, titled San Francisco Pride Distances Itself from Dee Snider, the group noted that Snider had always been a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, and said they were “heartbroken and angry” to learn about the singer’s support for “Paul Stanley’s transphobic statement.”

“The message perpetuated by that tweet casts doubt on young trans people’s ability to self-identify their gender,” the statement continued.

The statement then went on to say that transgender people, “particularly transgender women and children of color,” are disproportionately affected by hate and violence and suggested that transphobia is “proliferating” and becoming enshrined in law.

“We have mutually agreed to part ways, but appreciate Dee seeing this as a teachable moment and a reminder that even allies need to be educated to ensure that they are not casually promoting transphobia,” the statement concluded.

Several European nations have recently conducted systematic reviews of the evidence for child sex changes and found it to be of extremely poor quality. Sweden, Finland, Norway, and England have dramatically altered course in their treatment of young people who believe themselves to be transgender. Each nation has noted that young people are still in a stage of identity development and advises extreme caution when embarking upon irreversible sex change interventions.

Stanley’s statement called out parents who are normalizing the idea of sex changes, “believing that because a little boy likes to play dress up in his sister’s clothes or a girl in her brother’s, we should lead them steps further down a path that’s far from the innocence of what they are doing.”

Stanley’s description matches that of many celebrity “trans kids” whose stories are laden with stereotypes. Jazz Jennings liked princess dresses and wearing a sparkly bathing suit, Kai Shappley’s mother tells of spanking Kai for “stealing girl toys,” and Susie Green, former CEO of disgraced trans charity Mermaids, revealed in a TED Talk how her homophobic husband wouldn’t tolerate her son’s liking for a tutu and a Snow White costume. All three families made the decision to tell their gender-nonconforming male children that they were girls, setting them up for puberty blockers, a lifetime of hormones, and risky and invasive surgeries.