Lorde opens up about being “in the middle gender-wise” while creating Virgin, revealing how her evolving identity shaped the album’s themes.
Lorde is getting candid about gender, identity, and creative freedom as she gears up for the release of her upcoming album Virgin. In a revealing new Rolling Stone cover story, the 27-year-old artist shared how her gender expression has evolved during the making of her latest project, describing herself as being “in the middle gender-wise.”
Though she still identifies as a cis woman and hasn’t changed her pronouns, Lorde explained that her sense of self has expanded. As she puts it in Virgin’s opening track: “Some days I’m a woman / Some days I’m a man.” The comment echoes a conversation she had with rising pop star Chappell Roan, who directly asked Lorde if she identified as non-binary. Lorde replied, “I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.”
“I know that’s not a very satisfying answer,” she admitted, “but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up.”
This exploration of gender is part of what Lorde calls “the ooze”—a broader physical, emotional, and artistic transformation she underwent after her 2021 album Solar Power. One symbolic moment came in 2023 when she tried on a pair of men’s jeans and sent a photo to producer Jim-E Stack, her primary collaborator on Virgin. He responded, “I want to see the you that’s in this picture represented in the music.” At the time, Lorde didn’t yet realize her gender identity was beginning to shift.
She later recognized a major turning point when she stopped taking birth control for the first time since age 15. “It sounds crazy,” she said, “but I felt that all of a sudden, I was off the map of femininity. And I totally believed that that allowed things to open up.”
One of Virgin’s tracks, “Man of the Year,” captures a key moment in her gender journey. Lorde recalled sitting on the floor of her living room, trying to visualize herself in a way that matched how her gender felt. What she imagined—and later created—was a version of herself in men’s jeans, a gold chain, and duct tape on her chest.
“That look scared me,” she said. “I didn’t understand it. But I felt something bursting out of me. It was crazy. It was something jagged. There was this violence to it.” She noted the outfit resonated with the bold fashion statement she made at the 2025 Met Gala, which she has called an “Easter egg” for Virgin.
Despite the deeply personal nature of this evolution, Lorde made it clear she doesn’t view her experience as radical, especially given the political climate. “Making the expression privately is one thing,” she said, “but I want to make very clear that I’m not trying to take any space from anyone who has more on the line than me. Because I’m, comparatively, in a very safe place as a wealthy, cis, white woman.”
As Virgin nears its debut, Lorde’s openness adds a powerful and vulnerable dimension to the project—one shaped by self-reflection, boundary-pushing, and the ongoing process of self-discovery.
