Sam Smith recently released a song with German singer-songwriter and trans icon Kim Petras titled “Unholy,” and their latest single launched at number 1 on the Billboard Global Charts.
In a recent interview with GQ, Smith, who identifies as non-binary, looked back on the early years of their career and how they used to dress up.
“This is what I think people don’t understand: that the first five years of my career, I almost felt like I was a woman, at times, dressing up in male clothing.
It didn’t feel like I was regressing in any way. It just felt like I was trying new things out.
That’s when I realized that I felt a bit trapped. Like, ‘Oh, wow, people think this is who I am and what I’ve always been,'” the 30-year-old English singer-songwriter shared.
They continued:
“I’ve always felt queer. I’ve always felt gender non-conforming. And I’ve always felt non-binary trans. My whole life.
And it wasn’t until I had to sit in interviews every day and tell people my story again and again and again that I realized this narrative that was being created was only a small fraction of who I was.”
Smith also expressed how their music has always been queer stating,
“The subject matter of my songs [has] always been about men I’ve been in love with. They’ve always been queer. And I don’t enjoy the fact that to be queer, it has to be dance music.
I think queer music can be country, it can be folk, it can be jazz, it can be anything.”
Sources: pinknews.co.uk, billboard.com