Animal Go Topless

Below is footage of Ani Difranco performing a song off of her new album. The song, Which Side Are You On? is a remake of an old 1930s labor song of the same title. The song was written and sung by Florence Reece. Difranco revamped the song to reflect current times.

Here Difranco is joined by Animal Prufrock formerly of Bitch and Animal. Animal is a transgender man. FTM. Here Animal interrupts Difranco's rated G performance and quickly turns it into a Rated R performance. Security attempts to lead him off stage but for whatever reasons they leave him be.

We see Animal pull a similar stunt in Difranco's live DVD, Render. Bitch and Animal are accompanying Difranco on tour and when Animal dances with his shirt open in South Carolina he is almost arrested. South Carolina apparently has certain laws that prevent this.

Well, biological men are allowed to walk around with their shirts off. Why not transgender men? Is the issue that a transgender man who has not had top surgery has breasts that portrude? This leads to another question. Why is it that women cannot go topless?


Which Side Are You On? by Ani DiFranco - live at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa, CA

Ouch Animal! Looks painful to me! The young girl dancing around is just some random chickadee who jumped up on stage. Good for her!

It seems that women cannot walk around topless because there is this societal notion that men cannot help themselves. That if a woman were to walk around topless a man would enter a state of sexual frenzy. I spoke more about this issue in my 2011 post, National Topless Day. Hmm...

I don't know what the purpose of Animal's nakedness is but I do appreciate that he is challenging our heterosexist society. Bravo.