2025 is the year of our Lorde.
The New Zealand-based singer and songwriter released her fourth studio album, Virgin, this summer, to acclaim from critics and fans. However, it's her comments about the album – and how it explores her gender – that have garnered the most attention.
Throughout her publicity for Virgin, which came out June 27, Lorde has made remarks about how her music relates to her gender. Now, two months later, she's spoken out again on the subject. Let's review everything she has said on the subject.
What does Lorde say about her gender now?
In her newest comments about her gender, Lorde tells Dazed that her pronouns have not changed, "but some days, I can't wear women's clothes."
"I've had to figure out how to have my makeup done in a way that doesn’t make me feel trapped or tight or like the wrong thing. Now I just tell people, 'Treat it like male grooming.' There always need to be options for clothing, or shirts," she says. "I had no idea there would be days when I felt totally out of body, and it was because I was wearing women's clothes when it wasn’t the right thing."
"It’s all a journey. I have no idea where it’s gonna go; it doesn’t feel like I’ve arrived anywhere permanent at all. I’m sure it’ll keep unfurling, the way these things do. It really took me by surprise how much shame I felt – feeling all that come up wasn't easy," she adds. "Even as I see my friends coming fully into their genders, feeling nothing but pride, love, respect, and bliss. I just think it takes time to metabolize and find itself. I’m excited to find out where that lands, if it ever does land. Your whole life, it keeps unfurling."
What does Lorde's Virgin album title have to do with her gender?
In her Instagram Stories, Lorde spoke about why she named her album Virgin.
"There is evidence that the word 'virgin' derived from the combination of the Latin words 'vir-' (for man, as in 'virile') and '-gyne' (for woman, as in gynecology) – a man-woman or androgynous person," a screenshot she shared reads. "This corresponds with the biblical story in Genesis 1:27: 'So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.' Perhaps God and the first human he/she created is/was intersex?"
Is Lorde's album, Virgin, about gender?
In an interview with Document Journal, Lorde said the new album was inspired by "becoming single, but also really facing my body stuff head-on, and starting to feel my gender broadening a little bit."
In the interview, she also said she "was coming into [her] masculinity a bit more." She also sent an email announcing the new album, which spoke about the personal places the new music came from.
"The color of the album is clear like bathwater, windows, ice, spit. Full transparency. The language is plain and unsentimental. The sounds are the same wherever possible. I was trying to see myself, all the way through. I was trying to make a document that reflected my femininity: raw, primal, innocent, elegant, openhearted, spiritual, masc."
What do Lorde's songs say about gender?
The opening track of Virgin, titled "Hammer," features the line: "I burn and I sing and I scheme and I dance / Some days I'm a woman, some days I'm a man."
In another song, she refers to herself as "Man of the Year." She told Rolling Stone that when she wrote the song, she tried to visualize a version of herself "that was fully representative of how [her] gender felt in that moment." That image included her "in men's jeans, this time wearing nothing else but her gold chain and duct tape on her chest."
"I went to the cupboard, and I got the tape out, and I did it to myself," she said. "I have this picture staring at myself. I was blond. It scared me what I saw. 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 told Dazed that the moment helped her come "into some understanding about myself, and felt a very pure version of myself present."
"I had this roll of tape and grabbed it, put my jeans on, taped up, and saw myself – and was like, 'Fuck, that's me.' Suddenly, I could see it."
What did Lorde say about her gender at the Met Gala?
Lorde attended the 2025 Met Gala, celebrating the theme Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, where she was dressed in Thom Browne. When asked about her look, which featured an open back, she said it helped her express her gender.
"I just love the open back. It really represents where I'm at, gender-wise. I love it. I feel like a man and a woman, you know?" She added that the outfit's top was "a take on the cummerbund."
What did Lorde say to Rolling Stone about gender?
In a Rolling Stone cover story, Lorde expanded even more on her feelings about gender. She said that while undergoing treatment for an eating disorder, she was allowing herself to take up more space, which led to her examining her gender identity.
"My gender got way more expansive when I gave my body more room," she said, adding that she still calls herself a cis woman and uses she/her pronouns. Lorde also said she describes herself as "in the middle gender-wise."
She also said that going off birth control for the first time in over a decade allowed her to "cut some sort of cord between [her] and this regulated femininity."
"It sounds crazy, but I felt that all of a sudden, I was off the map of femininity," she added. "And I totally believed that that allowed things to open up."
What did Lorde say Chappell Roan asked about her gender?
In Rolling Stone, Lorde said that Roan, who has become a close friend, asked her how she identifies.
"She was like, 'So, are you nonbinary now?' And I was like, 'I'm a woman except for the days when I'm a man.' I know that's not a very satisfying answer, but there's a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up."
Now, to Dazed, Lorde has cleared that up. "I think I misquoted that – I feel really bad," Lorde says. "She said, very sweetly, something like, 'So your pronouns are changing?'"
She clarified that no, right now, she/her pronouns feel right.
