Lil Nas X is raising money for LGBTQ and human rights nonprofits ahead of his debut album, “Montero.”
The rapper tweeted a link to a “children’s registry” on Tuesday to celebrate the album, which comes out on September 17. The registry shows a list of songs that will appear on the album. Next to each of the 15 tracks is the name of a grassroots nonprofit group with a button that allows users to donate directly to the organization.
Since announcing the album’s release date last month, Lil Nas X has been sharing a series of pregnancy-themed photos on Instagram.
In the first photo, he is dressed in all white, wearing a baby flower crown and wearing a pregnant belly.
“SURPRISE! I can’t believe I’m finally announcing this. My little joy ‘MONTERO’ is coming out on September 17, 2021,” he captioned the image.
He continued to share pregnancy-themed photos, writing “12 MORE DAYS TO BRING BABY OUT” in the caption of a photo posted on Sunday.
The rapper kept this topic up with a children’s registry he shared on Tuesday.
The album’s title track, “Montero,” is paired with the Transinclusive Group, a South Florida-based organization led by transgender Blacks and providing resources for transgender and non-transgender people of color. gender appropriate.
Arianna’s Center – listed next to the “Dolla Sign Slime” soundtrack, which features Megan Thee Stallion – also supports the South Florida transgender community, but has “a particular focus on the most marginalized people.” , including the Trans Latinx community, undocumented immigrants, people living with HIV and AIDS, and people who have been incarcerated,” according to the organization’s website.
Alongside the song “Tales of Dominica” is Thrive SS, an Atlanta-based organization that supports black gay people living with HIV.
The last track on the album, “Am I Dreaming”, features Miley Cyrus, featuring Happy Hippie, an organization Cyrus founded to fight “injustice against homeless youth, young LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable populations,” their website says.
Lil Nas X wrote a personal message on the website for the Bail Project, another group on the registry of children fighting to end cash bail.
“Music is my way of fighting for liberation. It’s my act of protest,” he wrote. “But I also know that real freedom requires real change in the way the criminal justice system works. Starting with cash bail.”
Fans on Twitter told Lil Nas X he was “a beautiful people“to create registers and focus on small local organizations that are often underfunded.
Although Lil Nas X is getting the registry’s warm support, his pregnancy photo shoot has left fans divided.
Some fans claim that the rapper’s fake pregnancy photos were used to promote his album, ignore life experiences of transgender men, who may face medical discrimination and harassment while they are pregnant.
Danny Wakefield, a non-singular person known on Instagram as @dannythetransdad, wrote in a post Sunday that “it feels very confusing to see my identity used as a trigger. shock or to make a point.”
Lil Nas X is “profiting from a portrait where, in real life, you are rejected and persecuted by the health care system and ridiculed by mainstream society, and that comes from someone privileged is white male and male,” they wrote.
Other transgender people said the photo session provided important visibility for trans people who could get pregnant.
Some thought the rapper’s timing wasn’t good: He shared the photos shortly after Texas’ ban on abortion as early as six weeks pregnant went into effect.
Schuyler Bailar, the first openly transgender NCAA Division I swimmer, in an Instagram Live interview about the pictures on Sunday said Lil Nas X could take off her belly at any time. while pregnant women in Texas have lost the ability to make their own decisions. pregnant.
“We can’t step out of our transgender body. We can’t get rid of our uterus – and our pregnancies,” Bailar said.
Kaden Coleman, a black advocate who shared pregnancy pictures of herself and joined Bailar’s Instagram Live, agrees, but he said Lil Nas X probably didn’t know Texas’ abortion laws would have effect when he plans to take pictures.
He and other supporters also said the criticism Lil Nas X faced was racist. Some pointed at the makeup artist on YouTube James Charles, who they said did not face similar criticism when he shared a similar photo in February.
Coleman says photo sessions like Lil Nas X’s may be cross-cutting, but it has started important conversations about male pregnancy. He said a transgender man commented on one of his Instagram photos recently and told him he needed to “seek professional help because men don’t have a uterus.” .”
“And I said, ‘Oh, this man has,'” Coleman said. “These are conversations that need to happen. The fact that people are so adamant about male pregnancy is not a problem, and it causes a lot of trauma for us transgender men, especially in medical spaces.”
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