Kendrick Fumbled On "Auntie Diaries". And That's Okay.

Untangling my messy opinions on "Auntie Diaries" as a non-binary trans fan of Kendrick Lamar.

“My auntie is a man now”.

I was already giving Kendrick Lamar’s new album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers my full attention. It’s the big comeback album from my favorite rapper, and with so little information about it being public, I wanted to experience the surprise for myself. No peeking at the features, the song titles, producing credits, or anything until the next song came on. Which yes, included the nasty surprise of Kodak Black being on here multiple times, but I’m too excited to hear new Kendrick to care at this point. 

Getting to “Auntie Diaries” and hearing that lyric caught me completely off-guard. More so than any other part of this album. I guess I just kind of accepted that Kendrick was never going to address queer sexuality in his music because that’s not his bag. He writes about the black experience and what it means to grow up in impoverished communities abandoned by the system that swore to protect them. Not that it’s the only thing that Kendrick writes about, but it’s the main theme throughout all of his albums, from Section 80 to DAMN. Why would he need to write about the queer experience? And yet, here we are. Kendrick, for the first time in his career, directly addresses the queer struggle by opening up about his trans uncle and cousin, and how he learned to choose humanity and compassion over the societal expectations that isolated two people he loved dearly. 

I wasn’t sure how to take this at first. On the one hand, as a queer person who has loved Kendrick’s music for almost a decade, it was exciting to me, even liberating to hear him essentially confirm himself as an ally for the LGBTQ+ community. He genuinely understood the queer struggle and empathized with those suffering in silence. But something was off. Something about the song wasn’t sitting right with me. “My auntie is a man now”. Throughout the song, he continuously refers to his uncle as his aunt, fumbling between he/him and she/her pronouns the same way Frank Turner did earlier this year on “Miranda”. He went back and forth between calling his cousin by her chosen name, Mary-Anne, and her deadname. He mentioned how Mary-Anne discovering her identity predated Caitlyn Jenner coming out as a trans woman, but he didn’t use Caitlyn’s name. He used her deadname. As if it couldn’t get any worse, in the second verse, Kendrick starts using the f-slur. Repeatedly. Not in a derogatory way, but to illustrate how commonplace that word is at his school. How it was used as a punchline and how they referred to Kendrick’s uncle as one for his gender change. The song ends with Kendrick bringing up the incident where he brought a white girl on stage to rap “m.A.A.d city”, but kicked her off when she started using the n-word uncensored. It felt like a song meant to address the trans struggle was suddenly readdressed to be about his own vices. 

I remember when I finished the album and looked at what my friends were saying about the album, this was the song that divided them the hardest. A lot of them were shocked, even heartbroken to hear their favorite rapper use a slur so freely. Some of them were conflicted, understanding the supportive message of the song, but being put off by how messy the execution was. If Kendrick was truly an ally, why would he say that word so many times uncensored? Why would he fumble the pronouns this badly? It was intense enough that a lot of them were faced with the dilemma that maybe this was Kendrick’s first bad album. One tainted by an extraordinarily bad song that hit too close to home as many of us are trans ourselves. 

I didn’t feel that way. But I didn’t blame anyone who did.

The difficult question you had to ask with “Auntie Diaries” was, “Does the narrative and presentation of the song matter more than respecting the sensitivities of the community at large?”. Because once you look at the lyrics and read through the context of both the slurs and the pronouns, it makes sense. The song is meant to depict Kendrick’s journey in understanding queer identity and the power behind a word like the f-slur. When he uses the slur, it’s in reference to what he hears from the kids at his school. But when Kendrick himself is speaking, he uses the word “f-bomb” rather than the slur itself. Granted, he does use it again right at the end, but it’s from the perspective of his trans cousin, not Kendrick. And it’s done to depict a point, specifically towards himself. Kendrick realizes that his use of the word is no different than that white girl at his concert using the n-word. They’re both using a word that bears a history of hatred and oppression within it. If Kendrick truly considers himself an ally to people like Mary-Anne, he would know why his use of it as a cis heterosexual male is unacceptable. Similar case with the fumbling of pronouns. You can see Kendrick get better and more consistent with using them throughout the song, especially when he starts referring to Mary-Anne with she/her pronouns rather than deadnaming her or using he/him pronouns on instinct.

But I ask again, “Does the narrative and presentation of the song matter more than respecting the sensitivities of the community at large?”. The song isn’t transphobic, quite the opposite. It uses slurs and misgendering as a narrative device, not to demean or oppress the people it describes. On paper, this should work, and even be lauded as a landmark moment in hip-hop. Someone of Kendrick’s status as one of the greatest of all time (GOAT) shows love and appreciation for trans people when many in the hip-hop community treat it as a punchline or something to be ashamed of.

Here’s the thing: It’s not that simple, and I can recognize the importance and even brilliance of the song while also acknowledging the execution was kind of fumbled.

But that doesn’t have to be an inherently bad thing! If you take away anything from this thinkpiece, it’s that acknowledging something’s faults and missteps don’t have to mean its quality or good intentions are lost as a result. Does the message lose a bit of its impact? Maybe, but that doesn’t have to mean the end result is bad. In fact, despite my many hangups with it, I’d say “Auntie’s Diaries” is a legit great song. Kendrick’s storytelling is incredibly compelling, his journey of acceptance and empathy for his trans relatives is really beautiful, and I’m always moved to hear Kendrick stand up for his uncle and Mary-Anne when they’re singled out by the Church. “The day I chose humanity over religion” is such a powerful line to me. The message of love and acceptance gets lost in the rigid rules religion creates for itself, and sometimes the humanity and love you have for your neighbor is more important and necessary than whatever your pastor wants you to believe.

But I can’t overlook the slurs and the misgendering issues. I’m sorry. It really is a dealbreaker for me. As powerful as the message is, I think it gets lost in the messy execution and what otherwise could have been one of Kendrick’s best-written songs is in all honestly one of his least flattering. The answer to whether the narrative or sensitivity is more important to the music, in this case, the sensitivity is more important. Primarily because Kendrick is speaking about an experience he has not lived. Not even just that, this is his first time properly addressing said experience. If Kendrick wanted to get across his growth as an ally to his cousin and uncle, were the slurs truly necessary? Was it necessary for us to know Mary-Anne’s deadname for the sake of her story? I know there’s a theory that it’s the same character as someone in good kid, m.A.A.d city, but nothing else seems to imply that the song is from someone else’s perspective. If anything, it not being about Kendrick’s relatives loses a lot of the impact because then it doesn’t feel like a personal journey. It just sounds like he wanted to make a song about trans people and fumbled pronouns and slurs for, what? Metaphorical characters? Why is this song called “Auntie Diaries” anyway if, in reality, the song is about his uncle? It doesn’t help trans people to constantly refer to their assigned gender at birth instead of their preferred gender. Part of the reason trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) rhetoric is so convincing to those uneducated about trans rights is that there’s a focus on the assigned gender at birth that’s used to fearmonger the idea of trans women being predators or infringing on the rights of cis women. When a trans person tells you their name and pronouns, it means they want you to address them as such. To view them as the gender they identify with, not the gender society wants them to be. The frustrating thing is Kendrick knows this. It’s part of his defense against the Church for degrading Mary-Anne. But he didn’t understand why sacrificing tact for the sake of art isn’t always an inherent good. 

Normally this would sour my opinion on the song, but it kind of doesn’t. My complaints about the slurs and misgendering are very personal to me as a non-binary trans person because I know where Kendrick as a cis ally fails. I’ve seen this go down before. Hell, I brought up Frank Turner earlier and his song “Miranda”, which deals with Frank finding out his parent had transitioned into a woman and has become much happier and healthier for it. Frank’s fumbling of his mother’s gender stems from a lot of the album dealing with daddy issues, resenting his then-father for being neglectful and abusive. As he repairs that relationship with his now mother, he has a hard time separating the person Miranda was from the person she is now, but willingly accepts her with open arms. But it has the same problem as “Auntie Diaries”; if the trans person’s past gender really is that essential to the story, there’s no reason to be so wishy-washy on the pronouns. You want to establish to the listener, especially Kendrick’s audience which isn’t predominantly queer, that Kendrick’s uncle, Mary-Anne, and Miranda are who they say they are, not who they used to be. “My father is called Miranda these days” and “My auntie is a man now” work fine because it makes it clear that the person involved is trans and their current identity is the latter gender. But “When I was young he always seemed so filled with rage” and “She pick me up from school, they stare at her in the face” is unnecessarily reminding the listener of their past gender, something both people want to move away from as they transition into their new selves. There’s no reason you can’t correct the pronouns on those lyrics without losing the initial meaning. It comes across as not trusting your audience to understand who they’re talking about.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, I don’t begrudge them for any of this. Kendrick or Frank. There’s this misconception I see particularly among self-identified allies that when we point these issues out, we’re being ungrateful for nitpicking people genuinely trying to help instead of just appreciating that someone is by our side. As if merely supporting us isn’t “enough” and you have to fall into some sort of groupthink. In all honesty, I get the instinct. In places like social media, especially ones built upon short burst thoughts like Twitter, it’s too easy to get caught up in a summarization of an opinion and ignore the nuance because of an emotional reaction or an instinct to be defensive. But when I and other trans people point out the things about “Auntie Diaries” that make us uncomfortable, that’s not always an indictment of the thing we’re talking about. If anything, we’re this critical because we want to see people like Kendrick put in more effort to be a good ally. Supporting us and understanding our plight is a great start, but it’s only a start. Kendrick opening up about his trans relatives and asking his audience to understand and respect the trans experience is a wonderful start. But I also don’t want him to assume the work is done. He doesn’t expect that from me as a non-white person listening to his black music. I shouldn’t expect that from him as an ally to trans people. Me pointing out the issues with using slurs and inconsistent pronouns doesn’t mean the song is a failure. It means Kendrick has work to do, and that’s okay.

There’s another angle to this song that has made me think of it a little differently than I did on my first listen. One of my closest friends told me that he saw “Auntie’s Diaries” as Kendrick speaking from the perspective of black families. As a gay black man himself, he was moved by the way Kendrick perfectly captured the reaction of black communities when someone in the family comes out as queer. Whether that was from himself or his own trans cousins. And I think the importance of family is what makes this song better than I think a lot of people have given it credit for. Youtube essayist, FD Signifier, said something similar. “A space where the offensiveness of dead names and pronouns is not fully understood, but loyalty and family is”. The core message of the song isn’t just on the acceptance of queerness, but for black communities, especially black men, to understand the importance of sticking to the people most important to you regardless of their identity. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers in general is centered around black generational trauma and the ways toxic masculinity has broken Kendrick and his ancestors. It only makes sense that internalized homophobia would play into that. In this case, I recognize the song isn’t necessarily for me, rather, it’s for the black men with the same unchecked toxic masculinity Kendrick had. For the black communities who look upon queer people with shame and judgment to understand that we experience our own level of oppression, and their values of family and loyalty deserve to be extended towards us rather than leading us to isolation. I am not in that group, but I hope those within it hear Kendrick’s message and take it to heart. If Kendrick begins to lead hip-hop in a more tolerant direction, I’ll happily consider it a net positive.

It’s kind of weird how much of “Auntie’s Diaries” reminds me of “Same Love”. A song that has aged strangely as LGBTQ+ visibility has become inescapable. In the age of Steven Universe, Lil Nas X, Queer Eye, and the legalization of gay marriage, a song like “Same Love” feels like such a distant memory. One that in retrospect, maybe wasn’t the revolutionary moment a lot of people felt it was. Then again, I don’t think “Same Love” was a song made for queer people. It was a song made at a time when queerness was still being used as a punchline by straight people, and Macklemore simply wanted them to understand why it was important to uplift the gay people in your life. Those kinds of jokes can get to someone. It’s part of why the f-slur makes me so uncomfortable to begin with. I was in middle school when that song came out. A lot of my friends used that slur as an insult and a punchline. I was definitely called gay for my overeager mannerisms and just generally not being the most masculine person in the group. It didn’t help that the people I hung out with were even more flamboyant than I was. One of them turned out to be gay the whole time in fact. What I didn’t tell them was that I fantasized about kissing boys. A lot. For some reason, it never occurred to me why. But I knew I couldn’t tell people about it. In a weird way, “Same Love” helped me come to grips with that. It made me understand that gay people deserve love and compassion the same way everyone else does, and the jokes we make about them hurt when they can never be truly honest about themselves. It almost feels embarrassing to admit “Same Love” led me to the queer communities I cherish with all my heart to this day, but maybe it’s not so bad if it taught me and other kids my age to love and accept those of us still figuring some shit out.

I hope “Auntie Diaries” will be that song for someone.