Singer-songwriter Hozier says respecting trans people is about “human decency”

Irish singer-songwriter and longtime LGBTQ+ ally Hozier is taking a righteous stand for transgender people ahead of the release of his third studio album, Unreal Unearth, next month.

“If you believe in a free and open society, part of that is respecting and supporting your fellow citizens’ rights to be who they are,” Hozier told U.K. tabloid Metro. “For me, it’s a question of decency and showing up. It’s a very simple question of human decency when you treat someone with respect, you treat them with respect whether that’s their pronoun, their name – it’s so simple. It really is. These things aren’t that complicated, you know?”

Related:

Hozier waved the trans flag while singing his biggest hit & the audience went wild

A fan brought the flag to the show and it made it on-stage, where Hozier waved it and took the audience to church.

He also slammed anti-trans hysteria in the U.K. as a political distraction, accusing anti-trans voices of “scapegoating” a minority group.  

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“I think it’s grimly predictable at a time we’re in a cost-of-living crisis, this massive crisis of inequality, a rental crisis, housing crisis,” he said. “At a time where there are already huge, huge questions to be asked about how our society is functioning and what we want out of an economy that really isn’t working for everyday folks … there are media companies who love picking soft targets, and rather than having conversations about the actual, serious, difficult questions of our time and our collective predicament, will just take less than one percent of the population and decide the most pressing thing is to talk about them in an existential way.”

This certainly isn’t the first time Hozier has spoken out in support of the LGBTQ+ community. The singer’s Grammy-nominated 2013 debut single “Take Me to Church” blasted religious dogma and shame around sexuality, and the accompanying video depicted a violent homophobic attack on a same-sex couple.

During a concert in 2019, Hozier waved a trans flag that a fan had tossed onstage. In June 2020, he posted a Pride Month tweet asserting that “trans rights are human rights.”

“I don’t know who might need to hear this today but you are loved, you are seen and you deserve to be happy and respected for who you are and the God given life you live. Solidarity, Love and Happy #PrideMonth,” he wrote.

His tweet was widely interpreted as a response to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s transphobic tweets.

Earlier this year, after Tennessee became the first U.S. state to pass a law aimed at banning drag performances in public spaces, Hozier performed alongside Sheryl Crow, Maren Morris, and others at the “Love Rising” concert benefiting Tennessee Equality Project, Inclusion Tennessee, Out Memphis, and the Tennesee Pride Chamber in partnership with the Looking Out Foundation at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.