Attempting to retract her claim that “changing your parts doesn’t make you a woman,” singer Macy Gray tweeted that her statements were “grossly misunderstood” before later deleting it.
The 54-year-old singer acknowledged that she does not think transgender women should be permitted to compete against biological women in sports in a no-holds-barred conversation on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Monday night.
‘Just because you go and change your parts doesn’t make you a woman, sorry,’ she told Morgan during the interview.
She faced fierce backlash online, and on Tuesday tweeted: ‘I got nothing but love for lgbt+ and transgender communities. I’ve been a supporter since day one and never a fake one. my statement on piers morgan was GROSSLY misunderstood. i respect everyone’s right to be whoever they wana be.’
The tweet was soon deleted, but she also told another user: ‘I wasn’t defining trans women. Just women. Because I know what it means to be one. I don’t know what it means to be a trans woman and I never said I did. But that goes both ways.’
J.K. Rowling offered encouragement earlier in the day when she tweeted: “Today feels like a good day to ensure I’ve bought Macy Gray’s entire back catalogue.”
J.K. Rowling, who has caused controversy for anti-transgender remarks of her own, defended Gray when the singer was being accused of “transphobia” as a result of her comments on the show.
After journalist India Willoughby accused the singer of “killing what’s left of her career” after the Piers Morgan Uncensored interview, Rowling defended the singer by sharing a screenshot of Gray’s tweet stating that the “truth hurts.”
In the interview, Gray told Morgan: ‘If you want me to call you a her, I will, because that’s what you want but that doesn’t make you a woman just because I call you a her and just because you got a surgery.’
Morgan said most public figures were too terrified to say ‘what a woman is’.
The singer agreed, saying: ‘I know!.. I would say a human being with boobs. How about you start there? And a vagina.’
The duo discussed the issue of transgender women in sports as the host said: ‘I support all trans rights to fairness and equality.’
Morgan then went on to add how he doesn’t support transgender people with ‘physical superior bodies’ that thrash on women in their sports.
Gray added: ‘I totally agree… if you want me to call you a “her,” I will, because that’s what you want, but that doesn’t make you a woman just because I call you a “her” and just because you got a surgery.’
She went on to say: ‘A woman goes through a completely unique experience and surgery and finding yourself doesn’t change that. Being a little girl is a whole epic book, you know? You can’t have that just because you want to be a woman.’
When Piers pointed out that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling had been criticized for her views on trans women, Gray said: ‘But it’s the truth.’
Adding: ‘I don’t think you should be called transphobic just because you don’t agree… there is a lot of judgement and throwing stones at people for just saying what it is, do you know what I mean?’
However, social media users were quick to brand the singer a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF).
One Twitter user said: ‘Did not have ‘Macy Gray is a terf’ on my bingo card. That f****** sucks.’
Trans journalist Imara Jones wrote: ‘Oh no! [Macy Gray] has gone full transphobic on [Piers Morgan] on 4 July no less! Her selective freedom for some is a ‘no’ from me. We have so much work to do [to] help everyone see that patriarchy is a universal problem. This is sad.’
Meanwhile, journalist Ernest Ownes tweeted: ‘SAD NEWS: Macy Gray & Bette Midler have come out as TERFs. Unfollow, un-support, and unsubscribe.’
Gray was also quizzed by Morgan about the backlash she received for saying that the American flag should be changed, and she said she was ‘excited to bring it [the subject] up again’.
The singer insists that the flag should reflect ‘diversity and culture.’
She received backlash for her comments on the flag in June 2021 – claiming it needs to be redesigned to represent all Americans and is currently ‘tattered, dated, divisive, and incorrect.’
‘My idea was to make the stars the colors of all of us. So there would be a star representing you, one representing me, one representing everybody in the room, right. So that way you look up to the flag, you feel welcome, you feel included, you feel like you belong there.’
Gray claimed ‘the flag was conceptualized’ and created to reflect what was occurring at the time – which was war.
‘That was not a thing we celebrate, a flag that represents war,’ she said.
She added: ‘It’s not that it’s about white people, it’s just that everything is different then when Lincoln was President. Whoever designed that flag designed it for that day. I’m just saying what’s wrong with a new flag and what’s wrong with representing where we are now?’
Republicans immediately attacked the singer, saying it stood for “liberty” and “justice.”
Gray asserted that she didn’t anticipate the response and assumed that everyone would support the notion of a new flag.
Following news that Morgan will take a month off from his show later in the summer since it isn’t drawing in the same viewers as when it originally debuted, Gray was interviewed.
The former Good Morning Britain host’s premiere programme, which aired on Fox Nation in the US on April 25 and featured an interview with former US President Donald Trump, received an average audience of more than 300,000 viewers.
But since then, the number of viewers has drastically decreased, with recent broadcasts only drawing in roughly 30,000 viewers.
Due to a planned vacation and filming responsibilities for a true crime documentary series he is producing, the presenter will be absent from the channel for about four weeks in late summer.