Precious Child
Appearances
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
I wish it was under better circumstances. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Mia. Glad to be here.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Well, you know, it's our lives. What can we do? Yeah. What will we do? Wow.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, so I've been making music as Precious Child for almost a decade. And it was my very first album that I put out, one called Trapped, that had this track on it titled Phantom. And that was an instrumental track with just some kind of whispery vocals. You know, it wasn't a song per se. It was experimental. And I put out a music video with it and it was pretty, it's pretty creepy.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And there's flashing lights. You know, if you think of movies from the 80s, like Hellraiser, it's kind of like that, you know, like kind of evocative of some type of greater supernatural horror genre. And the far right at that time, the far right vintage 2018, they found it and started reporting it en masse and tagging their friends and saying, report this, report this.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And this was on Instagram and Facebook. and on youtube as well and that video like as i said it you know it's creepy but it's there's nothing political in it and there's a little bit of like of blood but there's no gore but if they found it unsettling and explicitly satanic that's what they said this is satanic And that was my first brush with the right.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, it was, as you said, it was a moral panic. And their point was that I was amoral for making art like this. And this is the same thing that's happening today. I'm amoral for the art that I make. And it's not just my art, but it's me. It's me. Yeah.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And I think that's perhaps what has changed as well. Like, before they were saying that this is a satanic evil person because they're making this art. And now they're saying this is a satanic evil person making satanic evil art.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, I mean... Realistically, this has been pretty constant throughout my life as a public artist. And there was another track on that album that was also targeted. One called My Little Problem, Violet Door. That has some more provocative imagery than the track Phantom. It has some nudity and that was a collaboration between myself and an artist who is trans themselves, Kate.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
out of Brazil, and that has, again, some body horror in it. There's commentary about gender norms and plastic surgery and identity, but it wasn't explicitly political. Again, it was kind of a surreal body horror video. And that was Brigade reported not in 2018, but in 2019, and actually taken down from YouTube and then reinstated.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And that video is notable because as a result of what's going on today, YouTube took that down despite it being up for five years without a problem. It had tens of thousands of views and now it's gone. So that was the second time.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I didn't really think too much about the concepts in that direction when I made it or when And I know Kate didn't either at that time. However, the truth is for much of my young life, I felt out of body and I wanted my flesh to match my personal vision of myself and my identity. And that was something I struggled with for quite a long time.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
When I was young, I didn't have access to the information and communities that are out there now that support trans people. And I have had some gender confirming experiences procedures done, but not as many as I think I would have when I was younger. I did feel existential discordance. And I don't know if that's a word, but if it's not, I'm going to coin it because I didn't feel in concordance.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
with my flesh. And so, you know, I came to experiment what the boundaries were of my fleshy identity and my existence and my art.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, you know, I think gender is horrifying, period. Yeah. Not just for queer people, but also for cis people. Like, I'm going to defend cis people here for a second. So cis people struggle with gender dysphoria I think maybe, I won't say every bit as much as trans people, but they sure as fucking struggle with it. For instance, an example I will give is facial hair.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Lots of people that were assigned male at birth, they fret and worry over their facial hair. Is it too much? Is it too little? Then people that are assigned female at birth, you know, if they have facial hair, you know,
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
they they fret over it you know will people see it do i have to bleach it do i have to pluck it people fret over like their freaking jaw lines like you know if you if you search online like masculine jawline how do i get there's a huge community out there of assigned male at birth cis men that are trying to get more defined jawlines because they feel that their genetics are presenting them as a non-optimal male quote unquote
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And of course, same thing for quote unquote females. Like, do I have the female feminine body? Is it curvy enough in the right ways? Is my waist slim enough? Am I just brick shaped? And then all the industries around that. And that I think is horrifying. And everyone goes through that and struggles with it.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And very few people are lucky enough to embody the ideals of gender that we thrust upon ourselves. And to me, that is a tragedy.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
They sure do. May I give another example of hideous gender norms? Yeah. So you, listener, you're hearing me, right? And you're hearing my voice. And this is another thing that all people fret about. It's not just trans people. Lots of AFABs I know. I'm just going to say AFAB and AMAB, okay? Lots of AFABs I know, you know, they have pretty darn deep voices, actually.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And I've talked with them privately, and they say that they worry about how husky their voice is when they just relax. And then same thing for AMABs. They talk about worrying if their voice is squeaky and thin. Talk like a freaking wrestler from WWE, you know? Like people, people like the, the cis people struggle with that too.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
So, you know, just something as simple as our appearance and our voice, you know, we're just torturing ourselves. And, uh, Ultimately, I got to say, Mia, you know, I'm a trans woman. However, ultimately, I'm a gender abolitionist because this shit sucks.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah. So, you know, in 2018, as I said, I put out this album and then I put out another. And so I was touring the country and... Canada and stuff, doing shows pretty much constantly. And then 2020 happened and I became involved in the George Floyd uprising and the Black Lives Matter marches and protesting.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And so I began to live stream those protests and marches with the specific intent of contextualizing what the heck was going on on the streets to people watching. Because A lot of people, regardless of their politics, did not understand what the issues were. And the thing is, in LA, there were a lot of continual police murders, even through the riots.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And by police murders, I mean the cops shooting unarmed black people in the back as they were running away, or executions, shooting them in the car, that type of thing. And so I was explaining that to the viewers, like, this is why people are in the streets, this is this specific issue.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
These are the laws surrounding it and why these actions by the police are not just horrifying, they're also illegal. And so I was doing that and I became pretty darn visible and popular. I was maybe one of the top five best known activists or racial justice activists.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
voices and i was targeted by a right-wing activist who was known for blocking the vaccination clinics at dodger stadium god specifically because i was visible because i was trans and so she she went for me and posted and said that i was a transgender individual who was in the women's spa of we spa and i was sexually harassing people And that went viral on social media.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
It was covered on Fox News for a week. I was getting constant death threats. And, you know, I was doxxed. It was pretty terrible, especially because I was not that person in the spa. And I was only picked up because I was picked up for my visibility. My response to that was, you know, I didn't immediately say, yeah, it wasn't me. It wasn't me. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
I didn't do that because I knew that if I said that, then they would just pick and attack some other trans person. And I know that the shit that the right-wing machine enacts, if it happens to one of us, it can happen to all of us, and it likely will.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
It's my understanding that this 2021 WeSpot controversy that I was targeted for became something of a right-wing playbook. It was after that that they started saying, oh, this and that person is trans. And before that, they didn't have a real moral panic around trans people, unless you look all the way back to the North Carolina, South Carolina bathroom, man.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, I think that trans people to greater America, to a lot of America, I'll say, are sensational. People imagine chicks with dicks and dudes without dicks and So I think that's really exciting for a lot of people, you know, for better or for worse. I think for worse, but... Yeah. I think that's just, like, people and their bodies, right?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Like, you know, I guess some people walk around thinking all the time about other people's crotches. I'm not going to say that's a bad thing. Crotch sniffers, you are seen. Okay.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah. So back to, back to WeSpa. Yeah, that was a pretty terrible experience for me. I'm not going to lie about it. You know, I, I, I'm glad that I stood up for, for myself. I'm glad I stood up for trans people that I didn't pass the buck. It was also really difficult and traumatic. And I didn't appreciate the death threats. I didn't appreciate being doxxed.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And people have come after me my whole life. I present, I think, just naturally, physically, like I present as being genderqueer. I've been pretty veering looking femme my entire life. That had nothing to do with my internal identity. I've been weird my entire life. I've perpetually been curious and provocative and interested in things that were provocative.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And so I've been harassed my whole life. However, until we spa, I hadn't experienced strangers by the hundreds saying that they're going to hunt me down and fucking shoot me.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
I never know if someone will recognize me when I'm out and be like, hey, buddy, I know you.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
So yeah, that was 2021. And that changed me. That experience of being targeted and just picked on out of the freaking blue, that changed me as an artist. And at the same time, it also firmly established me as a sort of celebrity. And I want to speak to that because there's different tiers of celebrity. Yes. At the top...
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
There's the tier that's known as I get a Christmas card from Tom Cruise every year.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And that's an actual thing. And that's the A-list. And you know you're on the A-list because Tom Cruise sends your Christmas card. And at the bottom is me, who's been in mass media many times now, but has none of the benefits. I make very little money as an artist and I don't have an entourage. I can tour and I play some shows and some of them are sold out.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
I'm playing a show in LA that's sold out, but I'm not playing large venues. I maybe play like 300, 500 capacity tops And most of the places I play are like small clubs, like 150 or so. And so I don't have the protection that most celebrities inherently have. I don't have book deals. I don't have movie deals. I don't even have an Asia. I don't even have a record label.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
So I'm the freaking D tier. I'm the D tier. And they're coming after me.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
It's something that I wonder about. Why would they do something like this? Why would Fox News be talking about me? Why would the founder of the Proud Boys, Gavin McInnes, did a whole video about me? Proud Boys is a terrorist group, if you don't know. They were recognized as a terrorist group by Canada. Not here, because we're just cool with that shit here.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
They're a white supremacist terrorist group. So why me? Why would a Congress person come after me? And my own hypothesis is that they punch down because they secretly believe that they themselves are weak. And attacking me, attacking people like me is a fight that they can win. And my view is that it's not a fight that they can win because they've already lost.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
They're trying to get power in small, small ways, in false ways, in my opinion. They're trying to get money, first of all. They want money. They want their views. They want their donations. And that's the entire top of the pyramid for them. And for me, though, I'm a fucking artist. And power is something that I've always been developing because I've sought to know myself.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
I've sought to understand who I am and why. And that extends to myself as a queer person to come to understand myself who I am as a queer person. That's not something they'll ever have. So I've already fucking won. And same with all the other queer people that are under attack, all the other DCT or queer celebrities out there. We fucking won.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, so right at the end of 2024, I think it was on December 28th, I was doxxed by a right-wing troll Nazi that has doxxed multiple friends of mine, the activist friends, artist friends. And they pointed out in a tweet how my art was on YouTube, specifically my music videos were on YouTube, calling for violence and how I was an evil trans person.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
And they added like at symbol YouTube and said that, These videos are in violation of your terms of service. Why are they still up? And Nancy Mace saw that because if you look at her Twitter, it's all just docs and trans people and perpetual rage bait about the queer menace, the trans menace. And so she saw that and retweeted it and said, YouTube, this clearly violates your terms of service.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Why haven't you done anything? And then immediately following that, my videos were taken down. The ones that were mentioned in these tweets. And as I said before, one of these videos was titled My Little Problem. That's been up for seven years.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, and... And YouTube terms of service, they're very clear. And I do my best to stay within YouTube terms of service so my work doesn't get taken down. And they state that stuff like violence,
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
minimal nudity that is allowed within the context of art within the context of music videos and so my my videos you know they weren't designed to this is from the terms of service they weren't designed to uh sexually titillate or gratify that's exactly what it says in in the in the terms
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
They weren't recreations of real life violence and they weren't real life violence, but they were still removed at the behest, at the easy click press of Nancy Mace.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
really something yeah you know it makes me kind of afraid honestly because yeah you know before i was a victim of a moral panic and now my work is effectively being disappeared with little fanfare so You know, what's going to happen next? What will we see just made invisible and unseen? And I know that in this country, I have freedom of speech, but that's really bullshit. We all know that.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Like, I'm not going to reach many people if I stand on a street corner at the park and yell at people. What matters nowadays is the freedom of reach that these social media platforms control that are themselves controlled now by the Republican Party. And what happens when our freedom of reach is annihilated and then suddenly trans people are actually invisible? We're very close to that, I think.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah, art is perhaps the loudest way a person can speak. And I
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah. Does she even actually do work for the people of South Carolina? Yeah. I saw all she does is just start shit with trans people. She's just another lousy politician trying to be an entertainer. And she's just a knockoff Prada of a bootleg Trump. That's what she is. She's not doing good on her fucking politics.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
She's tried to get this bathroom ban for disallowing trans people to use a bathroom at the US Capitol. And her own freaking party kicked the bill out of the bylaws. for this year. So she couldn't even get that. Yeah. So I guess she thinks she can get a win by harassing me. Harassing my art.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
Yeah. Thanks for having me, man. I really liked talking with you. It's been very good. And, uh, listeners, you can find my work on Spotify. You can also check out my website at precious child.com. And please sign up for my mailing list there as well. That is the best and most direct way for me to stay in touch with my friends and fans. I'm also Precious Child on Instagram.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
On TikTok, I am the last precious child. I also will be doing live shows this spring and summer in the US. And so follow me on my website and on social media to stay up to date on that and come say hi in person.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 165
There's one thing I want to add about, I said earlier about personal power and how I've developed my own personal power by getting to know myself. I want to tell you trans people out there, you queer people and your allies, That, you know, first thing is getting to know yourself. And then next thing is like, fuck these fucking laws. Fuck these fucking lawmakers. Yeah.