This article describes a song with a narrator who expresses murderous intent against a transgender woman.
Rapper YG dropped his new album The Gentleman’s Club on June 19, which includes a controversial track called “Tiffany” that tells the story of a man who brings a fictitious woman home only for her to disclose she’s transgender right as they’re about to hook up. In a narrative that mirrors the popular “trans panic” defense — now illegal in 20 states and the District of Columbia — the narrator flies into a murderous rage after the revelation. That sound you just heard was multiple trans listeners sighing in unison over the subject matter.
Already drawing unsurprising criticism from queer and trans people, as well as some allies, the first half of “Tiffany” focuses on Chris, a man lusting after the eponymous woman in the club and plotting to get her to come back to his house to have sex. The two proceed to get very drunk in the club — with YG emphasizing that Chris is so drunk “his vision can barely see,” after which Chris drunk-drives them both back to his house. It’s concerning enough that Chris has to wake Tiffany up from a drunken sleep to get her to go into the house, but then, just as the two are about to have sex, Tiffany says, “I’m a trans woman.”
The second half of the song is deeply disturbing, and includes Tiffany begging for her life, saying, “I should’ve told you, please don’t hurt me” as Chris contemplates murdering her for being a “master manipulator.” Chris proceeds to describe thinking about shooting her and burying her to cover up the murder: But the demon in me is sayin’ take your soul / Tonight, I think the Jesus in me is gone/ So the demon in me is finna take control
After brutally physically assaulting her, Chris decides against killing her, after which YG switches narrators so we can hear from Tiffany herself: I struggle with identity and fear bein’ judged / The truth never set you free, I knew in the end, it’s some blood / My jaw fucked up and you got me layin’ in this mud / I’m they, I’m them, not a girl, not a stud / I just wanna be loved
It’s important to note that depiction is not endorsement, and that “Tiffany” is a storytelling song rather than an autobiographical account. But that doesn’t place it beyond criticism — and in fact, the narrative on which it hinges is already itself a harmful, transmisogynistic stereotype, according to multiple trans creators who reviewed the song’s lyrics and themes. They say that aside from failing to generate productive conversations about the potential dangers trans women face while dating straight cisgender men — which is a generous read of the song’s intent — the song promotes the myth that trans women are trying to “trick” people into having sex with them. In other words, the story itself is not something that happens in real life with any regularity, but rather a fantasy often engineered in reverse to justify transphobic violence.
“I got a question — and I know the answer but I want you to answer this — if all y’all can clock a trans woman, ‘clock her,’ why are so many of y’all getting ‘tricked’ by her?” TikTok creator @theehoodcinderalla asked on TikTok in response. “She waited until the clothes was off? That don’t make no sense. I don’t know a trans girl who would do shit like this. It’s the fact that y’all came out with that lie and the lie stuck to the point y’all say that all trans girls be tricking and lying. How they lying if y’all can clock them?”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.them.us ’
