Upon the release of her high-energy summer single, “What Was That,” Lorde is opening up about the past four years of her life, including her journey and exploration with gender identity. In her latest cover story for Rolling Stone, the artist revealed she had endured a rebirth of sorts as she shared she is “in the middle gender-wise.”
Lorde, whose real name is Ella Yelich-O’Connor, told the publication that her “way more expansive” way of thinking about gender played a role in the creation of her upcoming album, Virgin. She reflected on a conversation she had with Chappell Roan, who candidly asked if she identified as nonbinary. Though Lorde’s response was brief, it was slightly telling.
“She was like, ‘So, are you nonbinary now?’ And I was like, ‘I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man,’” the Grammy winner explained. “I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up.”
As for how it influenced her creative process, she shared, “My gender got way more expansive when I gave my body more room.”
In 2023, she experienced a pivotal moment when she tried on a pair of jeans with a masculine silhouette and shared a pic with her producer and collaborator, Jim-E Stack, who responded, “I want to see the you that’s in this picture represented in the music.” Lorde clarified that she still uses she/her pronouns, adding, “This was before I had any sense of my gender broadening at all.”
When writing her soon-to-be-released track “Man of the Year,” she stuck duct tape to her chest as a make-shift binder because “that was fully representative of how [her] gender felt in that moment.”
“I went to the cupboard, and I got the tape out, and I did it to myself,” she said. “I have this picture staring at myself. I was blonde. It scared me what I saw. I didn’t understand it. But I felt something bursting out of me. It was crazy. It was something jagged. There was this violence to it.”
Fans have long speculated that Lorde was experiencing gender fluidity since she posted an Instagram Story in 2023 that echoed a similar sentiment. At the time, she wrote, “Some days I’m a woman. Some days I’m a man,” alongside a red carpet photo of her wearing an emerald green set and blonde hair.
More recently, the “Buzzcut Season” singer spoke about her journey with her gender identity when explaining the title of her upcoming record, Virgin. In a series of Instagram Stories, she posted screenshots demonstrating the origin of the word itself, which relates to “a man-woman or androgynous person.” According to the text, “a virgin has the whole potential of the total original human being,” which Lorde added “sounds very independent” to her.
While Lorde is slowly opening up about her journey, let this be a reminder that one’s expression and gender identity are nobody’s business but their own.
