Last week, Queen's Brian May gave an interview to the British paper The Mirror in which he reacted to the BRIT Awards -- the British equivalent of the Grammys -- doing away with the male and female solo artist categories in favor of just one single solo artist award. Now, he's clarifying his comments, which some have interpreted as being unsupportive of the transgender community.
On Instagram, May wrote, "Yes - I was ambushed and completely stitched up by a journalist...and it's led to a whole mess of press stories making it look like I'm unfriendly to trans people. Nothing could be further from the truth."
The guitarist was quoted as saying of the category change, "It’s a decision that has been made without enough thought..I get so sick of people trying to change things without thinking of the long-term consequences."
He then mentioned the current "atmosphere of fear," in which people are "are afraid to say how they really think," and was quoted as saying that if Queen's original lineup were around today, they wouldn't have been considered diverse enough.
"We would be forced to have people of different colors and different sexes and we would have to have a trans [person]," the paper quoted him as saying.
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