San Francisco pride parade drops Dee Snider following Paul Stanley support
The parting was said to be mutual, with Snider taking the situation as a “teachable moment”.
Credit: Scott Dudelson/Getty
A San Francisco pride parade has dropped Dee Snider after the Twisted Sister frontman tweeted in support of a statement by KISS’ Paul Stanley that was labelled as transphobic.
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The San Francisco Pride Parade & Celebration had planned to use Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It as its unofficial rallying cry for the event, with Snider set to perform the song onstage. However, those plans have been cancelled as a response to a tweet Snider sent out defending a statement from Stanley calling the normalisation of gender-affirming surgery for children a “sad and dangerous fad.”
“You know what? There was a time where I ‘felt pretty’ too. Glad my parents didn’t jump to any rash conclusions! Well said, @PaulStanleyLive,” Snider tweeted, prompting the parade to issue a statement announcing a mutual parting of ways with Snider on its website. Noting the frontman’s longstanding support of LGBTQ+ rights, the statement read, “However, when we were notified about the tweet in which Dee expressed support for Kiss’s Paul Stanley’s transphobic statement, we were heartbroken and angry. The message perpetuated by that tweet casts doubt on young trans people’s ability to self-identify their gender.”
The statement then noted that transgender people, particularly transgender women and children of colour, are disproportionately affected by hate and violence, concluding, “We have mutually agreed to part ways, but appreciate Dee seeing this as a teachable moment and a reminder that even allies need to be educated to ensure that they are not casually promoting transphobia.”