Transgender

Nihilism and a bleak, morbid world view inspire the lyrics through gloomy, mysterious and cathartic whispers, mumbles and screams: Here is the harsh truth; do you dare face it and keep on?

"Will you watch petals shed from flowers in bloom?" is the cruelly crucial question: Can you accept the alive and the dead, life and death together? Does the awareness that in the end there is nothing but death affect or change the way you look at things in front of you right now?

Once you know that everything you are and will ever be is doomed to end, "you'll never be pure again". Merciless, concise, and true...

Life keeps moving ("Nothing in place of catalysts"), you can never go back ("You'll never be pure again"), and death awaits you ("Nothing can stop it's narrative").

Great song, but very morbid.

You know all of that eerie mumbling at the beginning? I think this is what it says: Are from the start from the start from the start The chosen know I know who you Are from the start from the start from the start Oh I'll lie with you, out in the dew

From a seed, real love true Regarding a deal, is it really who I love you, is it really you 'Cause I have some news for you

Keeping the title in mind, I think this song might be about the suffering transgender people go through with their bodies while growing up.

"Will you ever preserve, will you ever exhume?" Preserve could refer to the body before puberty. When gaining secondary sex characteristics, a body tends to become more masculine/feminine. If this process is paused (with the use of hormone blockers) transitioning becomes much easier. So here they could be referring to the body before being changed by puberty. How long could they hold on to the body before it starts maturing? Could they ever preserve that? Would the people around them let them? To exhume means to dig up, this could refer to their identity. Will a child realize that they're transgender? (possibly before puberty) A lot of children do acknowledge that they don't feel like the gender they were assigned, but a lot of them don't realize that it may be an actual thing, instead of something weird that they only go through. Parents try to tell their child that what they're feeling is wrong, just a phase and something they should forget about. Only much later do a lot of people find out that it's an actual thing and that they're not crazy.

"Will you watch petals shed from flowers in bloom?" I think they're referring to the changes the body goes through. Falling petals could suggest that the flower is falling apart. This could refer to the person that is feeling discomfort with their body. That they're 'falling apart' because of their discomfort with their body. The fact that it feels wrong. 'Blooming' would then refer to puberty. Will you be able to go through that discomfort? Will they be able to witness those changes? Will they be able to go through those changes? A flower that is blooming and shedding petals at the same time; Someone that is growing up, but falling apart at the same time.

"Nothing can live up to promise. Nothing can stop it's narrative" Even if you promise yourself that you will change your body, the fact remains that you'll always be transgender. You always will pretty much have those chromosomes and your body will always be that of a certain sex. You can't say that one day you'll be exactly like the opposite gender biologically. (at least in this day and age) It's a grim realization. A very grim one which I imagine a lot of transgender people stuggle with. Narrative could refer to the narrative of your body, of nature. Your body was programmed to be a certain sex and you could of course use hormones and surgery and whatnot, but as I said; you're still transgender. Nothing can stop that. Your chromosomes can't just change from XX to XY and vice-versa. and at the end of the day your body itself would just want to continue being that biological gender, not caring if you like it or not. Another really grim realization.

"Nothing in place of catalysts. And you'll never be pure again" By catalysts they could be talking about hormone blockers again. If you don't have those, your body will just go through puberty normally, making transitioning harder (not impossible though, mind you). Catalysts being 'helpers' in chemical reactions and hormone blockers being 'helpers' when it comes to transitioning. By being 'pure' they could be referring to the body before puberty, before becoming overly masculine/feminine, before the discomfort because of puberty. After puberty, they won't have that anymore, not without something like hormone blockers.

I noticed the other comments talking about how this song refers to life and death and perhaps it's applicable here too. Transgender people can feel trapped inside of their body, some can become depressed, maybe even suicidal. Not just because of their body, but because of how society treats these people. Life and nature won't stop still and change it's routine. Everything will just go on. It's up to them to make changes and to accept who they are. Can they face it, though? How life cruelly goes on untill it's withered away? How we're all so powerless when it comes to these things, How we just have to deal with it? and on top of that, the fact that society hasn't accepted these people yet?

This is a very grim song overall.

So as a transgender woman myself, I've been looking forward to the opportunity to add my interpretation here on Songmeanings about this particular song.

I'm going to go off a whim here and say that it's from the perspective of someone who loves or is in love with a transgender person, but is not willing to fully come to terms with their transition. You could either interpret it as either romantic or familial love, although it perhaps reads better as romantic love.

What has me caught up with this interpretation and why I don't think it's a general song about the difficulties of the transgender experience is found in the whispered sections at the beginning of the song,

"You are the chosen few" - the chosen few is of course the trans community "I'll lie with you out in the dew" - the dew is usually there when the grass is wet in the morning, but evaporates and dries as the day progresses. In other words, this person who loves the transgender person plans to remain close to that person in the beginning, but is starting to feel that they too will disappear as their transition continues.

"Intimacy, real true love" - The subject of the song is now thinking about whether they can truly be intimate with the person as they transition. Perhaps they'll have to reckon with a sex change and their own sexuality if they are to remain with their trans partner. This is of course in a romantic sense. You could also interpret this in a familial sense where you may lose mutual understanding and the ability to be close to this person, or perhaps have to reckon with taking sides regarding how other family members might perceive the transition

"Regarding a deal, is it really true?" - the deal is the relationship. The subject is thinking 'Is our relationship really true then if you were trans this whole time?' This is confirmed by the next line "I love you, but is it really you?"

"Because I have some news for you" - The rest of the song is going to be how the trans person's partner is processing the transition or news of it rather (or family member if you take that interpretation) Perhaps the trans person just came out of the closet and the subject is giving them their own "news", namely point of view.

"Will you ever preserve, will you ever exhume?" - 'Will my trans partner stay the way they are and preserve themself or will they go back to how I know them eventually?' is what the subject is pondering.

"Will you watch petals shed from flowers in bloom?" - I also interpret the 'flowers in bloom' as the relationship between the subject and the trans person. Perhaps they had made plans in life or were apparently doing well as a couple, but now that's all been put in jeopardy with the transition

"Nothing can live up to promise" - perhaps many things were promised during the relationship. Perhaps they were engaged! But now any promises, agreements, and/or expectations must now be reevaluated.

"Nothing can stop its narrative" - the transition is going to happen whether anybody likes it or not.

"Nothing in place of catalysts" - There will always be things, i.e. supportive people and non-transphobic people, encouraging the trans person to be trans and there's no real way they'll get out of it.

"And you'll never be pure again" - The trans person will never be as they had initially been when the subject had met them.

Again, I could be off the mark here, but as a transgender person, there was just something so real about the lyrics. Although I had a mostly positive and less difficult transition than many, the lyrics seemed to hit the mark on how a lot of transphobic people interpreted my transition. They oftentimes treated themselves as the victim or as if I were the one who had been dishonest with them for not coming out sooner or not considering their "opinion" throughout my transition. Sometimes they would even offer their opinion and/or anger under the guise of "loving me" or "caring for me."

In the end though, it's never about your best interests as a trans person, but some people's own inability to accept you. Real friends, family, and chosen family, however will support your transition no matter what, and the song itself suggests is that this person is ultimately at their own loss. The bleak melody and ambiance to the song is all in their own head because the trans person is going to have a very happy life and if the transphobe's own prejudices and inability to find a new way to love their trans partner and/or family member ultimately impedes them from doing so, then for all I care, they can stay in the gloominess.

"Will you ever preserve, Will you ever exhume?"

• Will you transition?

"Will you watch petals shed, From flowers in bloom?

• Or will you let nature run its course?

"Nothing can live up to promise. Nothing can stop its narrative"

• The decision will always be tempting but unfulfilling in the end.

"Nothing in place of catalysts. And you'll never be pure again."

• You can't replace the natural chemistry/biology.

I’m a transgender I live in Sheridan Wyoming I was forced to come out by my piece of crap ex wife. She decided that it was her right to spread the news and Her famous words “ Hey did you know that if you commit suicide it will be cheaper than a divorce you should go try it Scott. She literally has gone out of her way to make sure that I can’t afford to get surgery she forced me to sell my house and proceeded to take all of the money I made on the sale than disappeared with my children. Having 4 kids get kidnapped really hurts bad I mean really bad. All because she said it’s ok you can trust me so After three months if trying to get me to tell her I’m transgender she began to destroy me.Being a transgender really sucks and I don’t know what to do. Why was I given this curse what did I do to deserve this punishment. I tried suicide I was in a coma for 4 days from eating 60 depicote and 30 zyprexa I laid on a hillside for three or four days from eating 25 30 mg OxyContin pills I woke up because maggots were being hatched in my eyeballs and around my mouth and eating me . Yet here I am still in a living hell. I’m a really old Skool constitutionalist I’m a firm believer in the bill of rights I build AK-47rifles I love my boat but I would rather be the same person with a female body .

It's about the fact that transgender people can not see or accept who they truly are. It is about the necessity to change your mindset and the need to learn to accept yourself and love yourself for who you are. However, if you choose the transgender mindset, you will never be happy, you will alway view things in a twisted and negative viewpoint. If you do choose to transition, you will "never be pure again" you will "never be human again" because you have denied who you really are and have mutilated yourself.

the song represents the depressingly morbid and inaccurate mindset of people suffering from the disease of gender dysphoria. Sadly, those suffering from this disease are unable to genuinely accept themselves for who they truly are. In this disease, one has the mistaken belief that they are some type of biological sex other than what they truly are. Unable to accept reality of him/herself, the transgender person is constantly asking, should I "exhume" parts of my body to look more like how I "feel" I should?

However, in the songs lyrics, we are reminded, that if you do elect the option of gender transition, "you will never be pure again", "you will never be human again" ... meaning you have mutilated yourself, an inherently inhumane act of self-denial and refusal to accept self. In this twisted and mentally deranged form of self-hatred, in transitioning, you have fundamentally changed yourself from the natural way you were born ... and there is no turning back after this decision is made.
This action then feeds into nihilism, compounding the disease.