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Robyn discusses her “lesbian haircut” and gay fans in “Out”

It seems like Robyn is taking over everything lately: the music industry, gays, my dreams, and pretty soon, the world. In a web exclusive interview with Out, the Swedish former teen pop star (circa “Show Me Love”) turned bad ass dance/electro-pop messiah talks fame, Body Talk and, yes, the gayness that she just doesn’t possess, but can totally relate to. Robyn doesn’t just relate to queers – she gets totally immersed in gay culture. In fact, the photoshoot for the Out feature ended up taking place “smack dab in the middle of the gayest week of her life,” Noah Michelson wrote, referring to the singer’s back-to-back performances at Logo’s New Now Next Awards, the White Party, and an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

It’s no secret that gay men love this Fembot. But lesbians do, too, and not only because some would assume, based on appearances, that she’s “one of us.” She told Out:

I get mistaken for a lesbian all the time – but I guess I do have the most lesbian haircut of any of the girls in my field.
She continues:
And when I was growing up and I introduced myself to people I’d say, “Hi, my name is Robyn and I’m a girl,” because in Sweden, Robyn is a boy’s name and I had such short hair. My handicrafts teacher thought I was a boy for three years. I tried to tell her I was a girl, but she’d just say, “My little boy wanted to be a girl when he was a kid, too.” Finally my mom had to write her a note that said, “Please don’t assume that Robyn is a boy anymore because she’s a girl.”

Having that experience where I was confronted by people’s reactions to what I looked like or what I was supposed to look like made me identify with queerness. It still happens to me all the time, and a lot of the time it happens to me in America because even though what I consider butch is still very feminine in Europe, here you can shock people very easily just by looking a little queer.

See, Robyn’s obviously not gay, because she didn’t use the term “futch” where it totally applied.

Later on in the interview, Robyn acknowledges that her hit “Dancing On My Own” had become an accidental gay anthem of sorts, and she’s OK with that.

She said:

Gay culture has always had to embody outsidership. I think we’re all just scared to be lonely. We all want to be loved and we all want to be seen. When you’re different on a very basic level, that feeling is going to be with you more often than someone who doesn’t have to face what being an outsider is really like. I think it’s a song about being on the outside – very physically – and if it feels like a gay anthem then I take that as a super compliment.
Robyn, the gay boys and girls are super complimentary of you. Oh, and I guess everyone else, too.

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