White Town’s Jyoti Mishra: Stop singing my song, transphobes!

So over on Ovarit — the Redditesque hangout for TERFs — the regulars in the so-called “Gender Critical” forum were discussing the fact that trans women are still required to register for the draft in the US, as if they were men. Naturally, the “Gender Criticals” found this hilarious.

“You will never be a woman,” one of them snidely announced, addressing all trans women. “And you will never escape the clutches of Uncle Sam.”

That seems a tad mean. No one should have to register.

But then the discussion took a turn.

“Sometimes I sing ‘You will never be a woman’ to the tune of this song,” confessed another commenter.

The song she linked to was, of course, White Town’s 90s hit “Your Woman.” (The video is below if you don’t remember the tune but I think you probably do.)

“I thought I was the only one who did that lol,” wrote still another, with yet one more commenter adding “Me too” with a laughing-crying emoji.

In addition to being rather creepily obsessive, this seems not at all in keeping with the spirit of the song, a gender-bending classic written from the point of view of a woman, but sung by a man.

So I decided to ask that man — the writer/producer/singer of the song — what he thought of this, and of TERFs in general.

White Town’s Jyoti Mishra had this to say:

I am very much for trans rights and transphobes singing my song is yet more proof of how idiotic they are – ALL of that album is obsessed with gender, the construction of gender, gender as a prison and a liberation, gender as a mirage. Not just Your Woman – in The Death Of My Desire, I have a lyric that goes: 

“And now the years have forced me to be a man,

I find I can’t go along with this meaningless sham.”

No Marxist can be Marxist without dismantling one of the most oppressive tools of capitalism. It’s not idpol, it’s not an adjunct, I believe it is central in cadre development as much as studying bourgeois economic theory. 

Mishra is one of a select number of Marxist pop stars. (The guy from Scritti Politti was another, though he gave it up a long time ago. I’m pretty sure the guys from Gang of Four are still believers.)

Sorry for the rant but human rights for all is a basic thing I will always, ALWAYS fight for. 

So, TERFs, stop singing his song! It makes you look like idiots.

But then again so does most of what you say and do.

Anyway, here’s the video for “Your Woman.”

While a one-hit wonder (so far), White Town has other songs well worth listening to. Like, for example, “Wanted.”

You can check out the official White Town FAQ here, which explains a bit more about the meaning(s) of “Your Woman.”

And you can listen to the expanded 25th anniversary version of the album “Women in Technology,” which both of the tracks above are from, on Spotify, iTunes, and various other music sites/apps.

Unless you’re a TERF, in which case you should probably find something else to listen to. Might I suggest the sound of your own farts?

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