she's an angel: a trans allegory

happy transgender awareness week! (november 13 to november 19.) here’s a breakdown and interpretation of every single unique lyric in “she’s an angel” by they might be giants to support my idea that it’s an allegory for being transgender.

i met someone at the dog show, she was holding my left arm

the narrator and the angel are the same person. the person she met is her true self and the dog show is where her egg cracked. holding your left arm is body language for when you are nervous or in pain.

everyone was acting normal so i tried to look nonchalant

supports the last line’s interpretation! this person is nervous or in pain going through a very life-changing realization in the middle of a situation such as a dog show, in which everyone else is focused on something completely different. (the dogs.)

we both said i really love you

the word “said” is very important here. having your egg cracked often involves telling yourself that you love yourself when you don’t really believe it. as much as the concept has developed a kind of reputation, this is a case of “fake it until you make it.”

the shriners loaned us cars

this line is about hrt. pay attention to the keyword “loaned.” the shriners are not giving the narrator the car she needs to get from point A to point B. their cars are very important to them, why would they give them away? they’re loaning it to her. it’s conditional.

we raced up and down the sidewalk 20 thousand million times

what do you do after you realize you’re trans and start HRT? this refers to keeping up a boring daily routine even through these realizations, the intense amounts of healthcare necessary, the money it all costs and the mental strife brought about by it all. for a while, it can all feel like you’re doing the same thing 20 thousand million times.

why did they send her over anyone else?

this is the narrator lamenting that she could have turned out to be someone so much more privileged with so many more opportunities, questioning why she is having these realizations, as is common to do early in transition shortly after your egg cracks.

how should i react? “these things happen to other people.” they don’t happen at all, in fact

no cis man has ever wanted to be a woman to the degree a trans woman does. this whole sequence comes off as the narrator denying that they are trans and justifying their denial with the idea that all cis men want to be women. that isn’t true. the narrator quickly realizes that, leading into the chorus of the song where she starts to ponder the other realities of being a trans woman.

when you’re following an angel, does it really have to throw your body off a building

does it really have to take as much effort to transition as it does under capitalism and privatized healthcare? a lot of other analogies could be made from “throw your body off a building,” but i feel like it’s pretty self explanatory and i absolutely don’t want to get into it.

somewhere they’re meeting on a pinhead calling you an angel, calling you the nicest things

despite all the horrible rhetoric being corroborated about trans people, solidarity is more important than anything and there is a small, pinhead-sized community out there that will love you… even if you don’t know where it is quite yet. and that’s all the validation you’ll ever really need!

i heard they have a space program, when they sing, you can’t hear, there’s no air

obviously, you’re trans! after racing up and down the sidewalk so many times, you could see the reason you’re trans from space! but there’s no air up in space… so you could never exactly hear why. it makes you wonder how many people are in space right now, gasping for air, completely unaware of the fact that they’re trans just because they’re trying to find out how to survive.

sometimes i think i kind of like that and other times i think i’m already there

boymoding. sometimes the narrator likes denying her identity. sometimes it’s safer, and other times she’s doing it for the sake of people who don’t want to love her for who she is. other times, like when she’s alone with her angel or around people who genuinely want to help her through this, it’s much harder for her to deny her identity. she thinks she’s already there.

gonna ask for my admission, gonna speak to the man in charge

lots of baby trans people think there are prerequisites to transitioning. “am i too old to transition?” “can i transition if x, y, z?” so many of these hollow restrictions are, to a degree, put in place by the patriarchy. they certainly wouldn’t exist without it, anyway. womanhood has always existed under the pretense of powerful, ignorant and ridiculously privileged men telling them what they can and can’t do. trans womanhood is the exact same way. the narrator hasn’t yet figured out that she needs to try her hardest to live beyond those shackles. hence, the narrator wants to speak to the man in charge.

the secretary says he’s on another line, can i hold for a long, long time

the patriarchy will never completely accept who the narrator is. this line is the narrator denying that, putting her need for validation over her need for self-love. “it will happen!” she says. “it’ll just take a long, long time!” you could also add onto this that the narrator wants to delay starting her transition because she hasn’t fully accepted it yet. rather, she hasn’t accepted that there will never be a point at which she’ll be sure she’s fully accepted it.

i found out she’s an angel, i don’t think she knows i know

the narrator finds out her true self is a sort of beautiful guardian angel that has always been there for her, a reason for her to live through the nerves and the pain from the very beginning of the song. of course she doesn’t know the narrator knows; she doesn’t quite… completely exist just yet. an angel can never quite be real until you let its light shine through you.

i’m worried that something might happen to me if anyone ever finds out

this line is pretty self explanatory for any trans person. of course something could happen to her! she could be disowned by family or be a victim of violence… a very large problem early in transition is anticipatory anxiety. at this point, i think most people know that.

conclusion

no, of course this is not what they meant. i’m sorry, but i’d be willing to bet that almost no cishet american white men knew this much about being transgender in 1986. many of the feelings described here playing out in this sequence, however, are not native to the struggles of trans people. this song is about soul-searching and self-realization, but my particular experience with soul-searching and self-realization are very much tied to the fact that i’m a transgender woman.

so, do i think this song is about being transgender? it very obviously is and it very obviously isn’t at the exact same time. another big part of being transgender, by the way, is realizing that contradictory statements don’t necessarily have to be untrue just because they’re contradictory. essentialism is very close-minded.