Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong says moral panic over trans issues is “fucking close-minded”

Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong has said the moral panic over trans issues is “fucking close-minded” in a new interview.

• READ MORE: Green Day – ‘Saviors’ review: their best work since ‘American Idiot’

Speaking to the LA Times, Armstrong recalled playing new song ‘Bobby Sox’ to a friend, who is a similar age to him. “And it brought a tear to his eye when he heard the second verse,” Armstrong said of the song’s lyrics, which explore gender fluidity.

The verse in question sees Armstrong sing: “Do you want to be my best friend? / You can drive me crazy all over again / And I’ll bore you to death / Doesn’t matter when we are in love / You’re not just any type of girl / My one true love and you’re my world / Do you wanna be my girlfriend? / Do you wanna be my boyfriend?”

He added: “Nowadays it’s more common for kids to be LGBTQ, and there’s more support. But for us, back in the day,” he continued, referring to the late ’80s and early ’90s, “that was like the beginning of when people were able to openly say things like that.”

When asked what Armstrong and his bandmates made of the current moral panic over transgender youths, he told the interviewer: “I just think they’re fucking close-minded. It’s like people are afraid of their children. Why would you be afraid? Why don’t you let your kid just be the kid that they are?”

‘Bobby Sox’ is taken from Green Day’s latest album, ‘Saviours’, which NME described as “their best work since ‘American Idiot’,” in a four star review.

It reads: “There’s also some serendipity in the band hitting the road to celebrate 30 years of ‘Dookie’ and 20 years of ‘American Idiot’ later this summer. Not only does ‘Saviors’ spiritually bridge the gap between the two, but it uses the palette of the best of the band to tell us something else.

“Look to the artwork: ‘Dookie’ was a cheeky carpet-bombing of shit, ‘American Idiot’ was a hand grenade, ‘Saviors’ is an act of defiance met with a shrug; a band saying, “We’re still here and we’re still fucked”.

In a recent interview with Vulture, Armstrong commented on the similarity between ‘Saviors’ and their classic records ‘American Idiot’ and ‘Dookie’, highlighting how the band was initially unsure of what ‘Saviors’ was going to sound like.

“We had a large batch of songs that we recorded in London and when we saw it come together, I remembered thinking, Oh, this is the connection,” Armstrong explained. “’Saviors’ does feel like a trifecta with ‘Dookie’ and ‘American Idiot’ where it feels like a life’s work. I went from not knowing what the hell I was doing to going, “Oh gosh, we managed to bridge the gap between those two huge albums.”