A video of Yungblud inviting a young fan on stage at a recent concert in the USA got anti-trans activists fired up online.
The British musician is currently on tour across the USA supporting his recent album Idols. While singing the Black Sabbath song Changes at one of his shows he invited a young fan on stage.
Across social media prominent right wing influencers highlighted the interaction describing the young fan as transgender and inferring the song was a message to encourage young people to change their gender. Quickly all manner of vile accusations were leveled at the singer.
In fact the 1972 ballad written by Black Sabbath members Ozzy Osborne, Tommy Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, and was largely inspired by Ward’s break up with his wife.
Yungblud performed the song in July at Back to the Beginning Concert in London which was Ozzy Osborne’s final show prior to his death just a few weeks later. Yunglud released his live version of the tune to raise money for charity.
It turns out they were also all targeting a young cisgender girl who had got to meet her favourite musician.
The girl’s mother took to Instagram to share her frustration that her eight year old daughter was now the victim of online cyber bullying.
“They’re falsely accusing a child of being a transgender to push their political agenda” she said in a video sharing her frustration that images of her child were now been co-opted by the anti-trans movement.
“Cyberbullying an eight-year-old girl is not okay.” she said. “No child deserves to be targeted like this.”
“She’s just who she is, she’s a girl, born a girl, been a girl.” the mother said.
After the additional information about the origin of the song, and the declaration from the child’s parent that she was not transgender some pundits started backtracking quickly, deleting posts and offering apologies. Other however have left the posts online.
But for those who were issuing apologies for targeting a young girl who was just having the time of her life at a music concert the question is being asked, why did you think it was okay to target a young person who is transgender?
Yungblud, who has previously spoken about his own sexuality, describing it as pansexual, has also been a huge supporter of transgender and non-binary people. At his concerts he asks that all the bathrooms be made gender neutral, and he’s often invited members of the trans community up on stage.
