LOS ANGELES — Actress-singer Lady Gaga took the spotlight after winning the Grammy honour for the best pop duo/group performance and gave a shout out to the “Trans people” during her acceptance speech.
“It’s such an honour to sing for all of you. I just want to say tonight that trans people are not invisible,” Gaga said, reports variety.com.
“Trans people deserve love. The queer community deserves to be lifted up. Music is love. Thank you.”
Gaga had just won the Grammy with Bruno Mars for best pop duo/group performance for their song “Die With a Smile.”
While Gaga did not get explicitly political in her speech, her remarks come amid a wave of executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump targeting trans people.
Among them are an order that the federal government will only recognise two unchangeable sexes, and an order that requires transgender women in federal custody to be moved to men’s prisons, reports variety.com.
Trump’s administration has also come after transgender members of the U.S. military, with an executive order that asserts that being trans “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
Gaga has long been an ally to the LGBTQ community.
Her nonprofit organisation, the “Born This Way” Foundation, empowers young people to build a “kinder, braver world,” and Gaga has also been a vocal advocate for queer people through her song lyrics.
Earlier in the award celebration, Gaga performed “California Dreamin'” with Mars, in a tribute to Los Angeles after the devastating wildfires. She also debuted a new music video during the commercial break, for “Abracadabra,” off her upcoming album “Mayhem.”
The mid-Grammys unveiling of the song and its music video had been previously teased although the actual song title had not at the same time Gaga shared last week that the “Mayhem” album would be coming out March 7.