Susan Sarandon’s son thoughtfully addresses mom’s comments on gender fluidity
Last week, Susan Sarandon spoke to People about gender fluidity and fighting old-school stereotypes at TrevorLIVE, an event in support of LGBTQ+ youth. During her interview, she offered a nugget of wisdom that was so awesome, the Internet glommed on to it all week long.
“My son Miles is a musician and a DJ, and sometimes when his band performs, they all wear dresses, and he has long hair,” Susan told People at the event last Monday. “. . . I think the more crayons you have in your box to color outside the lines, the more exciting it is,” she said. (Hell, yeah!)
Flooded with sudden attention, Miles took to Twitter, after Susan’s statement blew up on the Internet, to share his own statement on gender fluidity. And his response is both thought-provoking and worth a read.
“Is it really that strange for a guy to wear a dress? Because so so so many people, especially musicians, have done this before me,” he writes. “I wear dresses on stage, and to occasional fancy dress events because I do not enjoy neckties. I wear dresses to embrace femininity (adjective) but not to re-assign my gender to female (noun). I think that it is absurd to think that there is a rigidity to the identity of CIS and Heterosexual males and females.”
Miles, who’s in the band Pow Pow, continues by differentiating his CIS experience from that of transgender individuals. “I think that they are incredibly brave, and I cannot imagine how difficult it is to be born in the wrong body… especially in the brutal and unforgiving age of internet bullying… I wish that gender didn’t have to be assigned on public documents like drivers licenses, passports and such… that is the pressure that society puts on trans people.”
He continues: “I don’t deserve a discussion about my gender identity… I don’t have a struggle with my gender identity. I feel more male than female. And I am mostly heterosexual… That being said, isn’t it possible to distinguish between the adjectives of “feminine” and “masculine”, and the nouns “female” and “male”? …No I am not LGBTQ but I do identify with the concept of allowing yourself to be interested in the things that you are interested in, despite what the external influence of the world around you encourages you to pursue.”
His statement ends with a link to the The Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis and suicide prevention for members of the LGBTQ+ community ages 13-24.
Not only is Miles’ mom, Susan, a major supporter of The Trevor Project, she echoed her son’s statement about thinking beyond traditional gender stereotypes in a recent interview on Oprah’s Master Class.
“I’m so excited these days by the fluidity of gender that’s happening,” she said. “I think once all those ‘boxes’ are gone, it’s going to be so much more interesting and so much less energy spent on those ‘boxes.’ We can get down to the nitty-gritty of, really, what a person is.” Amen, Susan and Miles.
(Images via Instagram and Instagram)
