Lorde has shared an update about her gender identity and how she’s describing herself ahead of her new album release.
During an interview with Rolling Stone, published Thursday, the opening lyrics to the singer’s upcoming album were revealed to be, “Some days I’m a woman/Some days I’m a man.”
This prompted the interviewer to ask what that line means in regard to her gender identity. “[Chappell Roan] asked me this,” she told the publication. “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.’ I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up.”
Lorde describes herself as a cisgender woman and still uses the pronouns she/her. She specifically used the phrase “in the middle gender-wise” when talking about her self-identification.
The “Royals” singer then recalled one moment in 2023 when she tried on a pair of men’s jeans and sent a photo to Jim-E Stack, her main collaborator on her forthcoming album, Virgin.
“He was like, ‘I want to see the you that’s in this picture represented in the music,’” Lorde said. “This was before I had any sense of my gender broadening at all.”
Despite the new discoveries she’s made about her gender, she doesn’t want to take anything away from the transgender community and their daily experiences.
“I don’t think that [my identity] is radical, to be honest,” she said. “I see these incredibly brave young people, and it’s complicated. Making the expression privately is one thing, but I want to make very clear that I’m not trying to take any space from anyone who has more on the line than me. Because I’m, comparatively, in a very safe place as a wealthy, cis, white woman.”
Lorde announced the title of her new album last month. The alternative pop artist’s fourth record, which features the recent single “What Was That,” is set to be released on June 27.
The 28-year-old has historically dropped new records in four-year intervals; she released her debut album, Pure Heroine, in 2013, Melodrama in 2017, and the critically divisive Solar Power in 2021.
She first began teasing the new music on April 11 when she shared a snippet of the song “What Was That” on social media.
The song, in the singer’s favored synth-pop style, features the lyrics: “Since I was 17/ I gave you everything/ Now we wake from a dream/ Well baby, what was that?”
At the time, fans rushed to the TikTok comment section to celebrate Lorde’s return. “SHE HAS RISEN AND IT’S NOT EVEN EASTER,” one person wrote. “SECOND COMING OF CHRIST,” added another.
