Alice Cooper's Anti-Trans Comments Cost Him Makeup Partnership
Rocker Alice Cooper parroted a volley of anti-trans talking points in a recent interview, including the claim that children identifying as trans is a "fad" and suggesting that adults are "confusing" children, "telling [them] 'Yeah, you're a boy, but you could be a girl if you want to be.'"
Cooper's comments prompted Vampyre Cosmetics to jettison their partnership with the famously makeup-wearing rocker, Billboard Magazine reported.
"The 75-year-old rock legend, whose hits include 'School's Out' and 'Welcome to My Nightmare,' had signed the brand partnership deal less than two weeks ago," the New York Post reported, noting that Vampyre cosmetics "markets spooky and gothic-themed makeup, lipsticks, palettes and lashes."
The makeup firm "describes itself as a 'proudly women owned, disabled owned and LGBT+ owned' company whose 'products are vegan, cruelty free and talc free,'" the Post added.
The rocker - who, Rolling Stone noted, "built a career partly out of defying and toying with gender expectations" - echoed transphobic narratives in an interview with Stereogum published on Aug. 23.
Two days later, Vampyre Cosmetics announced on Instagram that their deal with Cooper was off. "In light of recent statements by Alice Cooper we will no longer be doing a makeup collaboration," the company posted.
"We stand with all members of the LGBTQIA+ community and believe everyone should have access to healthcare. All pre-order sales will be refunded," Vampyre Cosmetics added.
"The collection, which had launched its presale on Aug. 14 and was announced on Cooper's official website, was said to 'exude Alice's style' with guitar- and amp-shaped makeup palettes and microphone-styled lipsticks," Billboard noted. "It also featured 'a new version of Alice Cooper's iconic Whiplash mascara, a unisex product originally created to 'Liberate Your Eyes.'"
Cooper's comments came in response to Stereogum noting that fellow recording artists Dee Snider and Paul Stanley of KISS had called "gender-affirming care for kids a 'sad and dangerous fad," and asking, "As someone who played around with gender expectations early on, do you have any thoughts on what some of your contemporaries have said before they walked those comments back?"
Another veteran rocker, Carlos Santana, also recently made anti-trans comments before subsequently issuing an apology.
Cooper, a self-described born-again Christian, launched into a wholesale regurgitation of right-wing claims about transgender people, saying, "I'm understanding that there are cases of transgender, but I'm afraid that it's also a fad, and I'm afraid there's a lot of people claiming to be this just because they want to be that."
"I find it wrong when you've got a six-year-old kid who has no idea," Cooper continued. "He just wants to play, and you're confusing him telling him, 'Yeah, you're a boy, but you could be a girl if you want to be.'"
The remarks by the "godfather of shock rock" strayed even further from reality from there, touching upon much-lambasted and roundly debunked claims among the right wing that some high schoolers identify as cats and have been accommodated with litter boxes in school restrooms.
"You're still trying to find your identity, and yet here's this thing going on, saying, 'Yeah, but you can be anything you want. You can be a cat if you want to be,'" Cooper said. "I mean, if you identify as a tree.... It's so absurd."
Trans people often know at extremely early ages that gender-specific clothing and toys do not reflect who they are, and they are the ones who signal to their parents that their gender identity and their bodies do not match.
But the rocker got that mixed up, telling Stereogum: "I'm not going to tell a seven-year-old boy, 'Go put a dress on because maybe you're a girl,' and he's going, 'No, I'm not. I'm a boy.'"
Cooper went on to cite even more baseless anti-trans tropes, claiming that allowing trans women to use the bathroom they are comfortable with is an invitation to heterosexual rapists.
"A guy can walk into a woman's bathroom at any time and just say, 'I just feel like I'm a woman today' and have the time of his life in there," Cooper declared.
Decrying what he called "[t]he whole woke thing," Cooper went on to ask, "Who's making the rules? Is there a building somewhere in New York where people sit down every day and say, 'Okay, we can't say mother now. We have to say birthing person...?' Who is this person that's making these rules? I don't get it. I'm not being old school about it. I'm being logical about it."
Looking back on Cooper's over 50-year career, Stereogum noted, "Even today, Alice Cooper remains as shocking as ever. Just not quite in the ways you'd expect."