Twitter User Claims Nirvana's Kurt Cobain Was A Trans Girl, Sparking Platform-Wide Debate

Twitter is reacting with a predictable mixture of rage and bewilderment after someone made a post suggesting that legendary Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who took his own life in 1994, was a "trans girl."

Kurt Cobain was a trans girl.

she is ours now.

we will not be returning her.

— Magdalene Visaggio 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 (@MagsVisaggs) January 23, 2022

The tweet was posted by user @MagsVisaggs on Sunday, resulting in a lot of people discussing the idea, with over 3,000 quote-retweets in just two days. The majority of reactions seem critical of the poster for seemingly pulling the theory out of thin air. Many are claiming that assigning gender identities to people, especially those who are dead, is harmful to the LGBTQ+ community, suggesting nobody should have their gender assigned to them. Others took the time to make memes and jokes about the situation in typical Twitter fashion.

With all due respect, and while understanding that this is mostly meant as a joke, I feel like this is not in good taste. We can discuss and speculate but we cannot assign gender identities to people who have passed. We would never let anyone decide our gender for us.

— Dana Coffman 🏳️‍⚧️ 🦕 🛸 💉💉💉 (@AgentScullyPDX) January 23, 2022

hey haha what if instead of arguing about a long-dead celebrity’s alleged transness (an endeavor which literally has no point or benefit to anyone) people instead paid literally any attention to actual openly transgender artists who exist and make music right now? just a thought.

— 🏳️‍⚧️Hoity-Toity is still a band🏳️‍🌈 (@WeAreHoityToity) January 24, 2022

I’m not comfortable with people assigning a gender onto dead people, was there indications that Kurt Cobain might’ve been trans? Sure, maybe.

But the only person who knows for sure is Kurt Cobain, and they’re not here to tell us. It’s pointless & divisive to claim you know.

— 💀 Lilith Lovett 💀 (@LilithLovett) January 25, 2022

Kurt Cobain was a gamer.

He is ours now.

we will not be returning him.

— Punk Revolution Now! (@PunkRevNow) January 25, 2022

Although criticism has been perhaps the loudest response to the tweet at a glance, @MagsVisaggs, real name Magdalene Visaggio (a comic book writer), has also garnered a lot of support for her theory. One supporter, @JosieStarGirl, posted "proof" of Cobain's transness in the form of rough lyrical notes for Nirvana's song "All Apologies," pointing to the removed lyrics "let me grow some breasts" and "I am not a man" as evidence of his hidden gender identity. Another user wrote about how Cobain "wanted people to figure it out," mentioning interview clips where he says he wears dresses around the house, paints his nails and feels "alienated from masculinity." Of course, none of this is explicit proof of Cobain being trans.

"Prove it."

Okay.

"I am not a man." "Let me grow some breasts" lyrics she wrote while working on All Apologies that didn't make it into the final song. pic.twitter.com/cwawLneySw

— Josie the StarGirl (@JosieStarGirl) January 23, 2022

I agree. I was thinking a lot about this recently & it seems very clear to me that Kurt struggled w/gender identity. To Courtney's credit, she hasn't said a peep about it bc Kurt wasn't out. Wouldn't surprise me if a big part of Kurt's whole struggle was due to gender dysphoria.

— Buberella 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 (@buberella) January 23, 2022

she wanted people to figure it out, too. she mentioned in several interviews that she wears dresses around the house, in private. that she paints her nails sometime, feels alienated from masculinity, all the stuff about seahorses. but cis people never put two and two together.

— Comptroller of Flavortown 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 (@QuartsClock) January 24, 2022

In other Nirvana-related news, a set of official Nirvana NFTs comprising of unseen photographs of the band is set to drop on February 20th, what would have been Cobain's 55th birthday. Similar to the "Cobain is trans" theory, the NFT announcement has riled up more than a few on social media who suggest NFTs are exactly the opposite sort of thing Cobain would support.