Dee Snider Refuses To Apologize For Gender Reassignment Comments: ‘You’re Not Canceling Me’

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Dee Snider: Alfred Nitsch, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT, Wikimedia Commons
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It seems Dee Snider‘s feathers have been ruffled some after being dropped from The San Francisco Pride Celebration Committee’s upcoming Pride parade.

While talking about being dropped from this event on the Chuck Shute podcast recently, the former Twisted Sister frontman said “You’re not canceling me. You’re not shutting me up.”

For context, some weeks ago, Snider voiced support for a controversial statement KISS’ Paul Stanley shared in regard to gender-affirming healthcare for kids. Snider was to take part in a parade organized by the San Francisco Pride Celebration Committee, but upon seeing his support for Stanley’s statement, he was dropped from the event. After news of this came out, Snider released a statement where spoke about his stance on Transgender Rights.

During this recent chat with Chuck Shute, Snider talked about the backlash he received for his comments and how he refuses to back down from what he’s said. He says that, whereas Stanley apologized for his statement, he’s “not apologizing.”

Below is everything Dee Snider had to say regarding his performance at the parade being canceled, the backlash he received, and how he stands by his words (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):

“Being that it’s Pride Month, I’m not gonna open that gaping wound so much. People are just looking for me to say more. And I said it all. They tried to cancel me because I didn’t see one hundred percent eye-to-eye with the community that wanted me to be the grand marshal of their parade, with the community that I’ve stood with and fought for decades.

“As a parent, I disagreed with children’s ability to make cognizant decisions at the age of five, six and seven. I have four children, and I soon will have — any minute, by the way — my fifth grandchild, and in my learned opinion, they are not capable. And they were, like, ‘canceled’ — not just the show, but they went after me and called me transphobic.

“I’m a hell of a writer. You’ve read my book. You know my speech in Washington. I broke out the pen, which is mightier than the sword, and I posted it on Facebook… You can go [to my Facebook page] and see what I said, although it was pretty covered in the media. And whereas Paul Stanley apologized, I’m not apologizing. Not when I did nothing wrong. I’m the first to apologize when I screw up. And I just laid it out. And [there were] a couple of peeps here and there, ‘Dee’s whining.'”

Snider goes on to add the following:

“You’re not canceling me. You’re not shutting me up. And the big point was that community — the LGBTQIA+ community, and whatever letters we’re adding — they need the support of not just the people who agree with them one hundred percent, they need the support of the middle, and that’s where most of us are. [They need] the people of the middle to accept them and recognize their rights and who they are. But that does not mean we have to — I use the word ‘fealty’ — fealty and bow down to every little thing they say. Who agrees with every single detail of what anybody says? So I just pushed back on it. Everybody backed off. They were shocked. ‘Cause most people just apologize or curl up in a fetal position.

“I wasn’t kidding when I wrote ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’… You’re gonna go after the guy who wrote ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’? And they were gonna use my song, too, as their battle cry. Why? Because it’s that defiant. And I have lived by my words.

“There’s nothing that’s changed with me. I’m not saying I haven’t grown and improved — my wife says, ‘You’re always trying to be better’; I am, and I’m a better man — but my basic belief system has never changed, and I still stand and believe in everything I’ve always stood [for] and believed [in]. So don’t come after me. I’m the worst person to come after, ’cause I’ll come back after you.”