LCD Soundsystem synth player Gavin Russom has today come out as a transgender woman in an interview with Pitchfork.

“Over the last year and a half, I went from my trans identity being something I was in touch with and worked through in one way or another, to suddenly this shift where it’s on the front burner. Now it’s time to become a whole person.”

“A new photo that reflects how I feel comfortable expressing myself, feminine pronouns, and I’m using my old name.”

Russom joined the band in 2010 to contribute her synth expertise to This Is Happening, although she has worked with James Murphy as a part of his record label DFA Music for years, creating custom analogue synths, while also pursuing her own musical project in Delia Gonzalez and the Crystal Ark, and solo work as Black Meteoric Star

Throughout this time, the 43 year old tells that she has identified as a trans woman, but it wasn’t until the band’s return in 2016 that she felt she was able to publicly transition, having met a supportive community in New York.

“It allowed me to hear all these different perspectives and see the ways in which the trans experience is so varied and so individual,” Russom says of the group, which was comprised of trans people of a wide range of ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds.

While she was able to transition with the help of a supportive community, she describes other challenges she’s faced over the last year, including a surprising internal battle.

“There was that horrifying realization of, ‘Oh my God, this stuff gets to your blood,'” she reveals. “I experienced transmisogyny towards myself. But there’s also something wonderful about that too, because it felt like now I could see it. And if I can see it, I can accept it and say, unfortunately, this is the reality of living in a dysfunctional culture.”

“Over the last year and a half, I went from my trans identity being something I was in touch with and worked through in one way or another, to suddenly this shift where it’s on the front burner. Now it’s time to become a whole person.”

“The major experience has been one of things falling into place; things that maybe seemed incongruous about my life,” she added. “Suddenly, as I started to accept the reality, it started to make more sense – like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s what that was. Oh, that’s how this period of my life connects to this other period.’

“Maybe the most important kernel is realizing that being a transgender person is really a real thing. It’s not any of the things that I think people who don’t have this experience tend to frame it as.”

You can read more about Russom’s experience in the full interview.

Russom and the rest of the band will now be heading to Australia to perform at Splendour in the Grass, before releasing their next record American Dream on September 1, their first release since This Is Happening all those years ago.

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