New Zealand singer Lorde has opened up about her gender identity as she reveals that she has a much more ‘expansive’ feeling.
The Kiwi singer, 28, is set to release her new album Virgin next month, her first album since Solar Power in 2021.
While promoting her new record, the pop star has revealed that she had a different approach to this album, and has had some major changes in her personal life.
‘My gender got way more expansive when I gave my body more room,’ she told Rolling Stone. The outlet adds that this change in gender expression is clear in her album, and in the opening track, she sings: ‘Some days I’m a woman/Some days I’m a man.’
When asked by the outlet how she now identifies herself, Lorde revealed that it’s something she has spoken about with fellow pop sensation Chappell Roan.
‘[Chappell Roan] asked me this, she revealed. ‘She was like, “So, are you nonbinary now?”
‘And I was like, “I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.” I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up.’
She said that she still considers herself a cis woman and her pronouns are still she/her but she says she describes herself as ‘in the middle gender-wise.’
She added that as part of her gender discovery, she has found herself trying on men’s clothing in shops in 2023, adding: ‘This was before I had any sense of my gender broadening at all.’
She also revealed that she is now off birth control after a decade on hormones and most definitely feeling the effects, saying that her natural menstrual cycle is the best drug she’s taken.
‘But I hadn’t ovulated in 10 years. And when I ovulated for the first time, I cannot describe to you how crazy it was.
‘One of the best drugs I’ve ever done.’
Speaking about drugs, the singer revealed that she explored a drug therapy that saw her combine MDMA and psilocybin therapy (a type of PTSD treatment) to try and help her combat her crippling stage fright.
She revealed that the sessions took place between 2022 and 2024 and had a huge impact on her mind and body.
‘I was touring without stage fright for the first time,’ she said, adding that it also helped her to connect with her music.
‘I would play ‘Supercut, and all of a sudden there was a hook around my guts and everyone in the room was having the same feeling, [like] there’d been a huge pressure change. It made me realise how much I love and kind of need that very deep, visceral response to feel my music.’
In an interview earlier this year with Document Journal, she spoke more about how the psychedelic therapy helped her.
‘Reading is huge for me. Psychedelic therapy, honestly, is a huge cornerstone to my well-being and practice and just keeps me alive to what’s out there and what’s possible.’
She then emphasised the importance drug-taking has played in her art: ‘I’m obviously really fortunate not to have the genes of an addictive personality, but I remember first smoking weed as a teenager, and seeing my brain for what it was.
‘If I hadn’t smoked weed, I don’t think I would be an artist.’
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