Kelly Clarkson, musician and long-time ally to the LGBTQ+ community, invited trans teenager Harleigh Walker back to her show two years after her first appearance.
The Kelly Clarkson Show, the singer’s weekday-running variety show, featured a section honoring trans people for Trans Awareness Week. In this segment, she was able to catch up with Harleigh. Her first appearance was back in 2023, where she, her father Jeff, and trans actress Laverne Cox talked about the importance of organizations that support LGBTQ+ teens. This wasn’t Clarkson’s first time sharing trans perspectives on her show. During last year’s Trans Awareness Week, she spoke with a trans woman from Utah, Jenna Tea. She has been considered a “gay icon” for years now and continues to support queer people in her performances and her shows. Her highlighting the everyday existence of trans people of all ages is extremely important right now, as the government tries to stifle trans rights.
In her conversation with Clarkson, Harleigh highlights how she is truly just another person, regardless of what the current administration is pushing: “I’m your average young woman. I’m having a blast with my friends. I’m super busy with classes. We’re going to football games, basketball games.” She also shares that being trans is “not all (her) life is,” but she still feels pride in her identity. Harleigh has graduated from high school, and is now a student at the University of Maryland. She wants people to know that she is “a thriving young woman.”
Regardless of what the government, the media, and the world at large is pushing, Harleigh and other trans people are just that: people. On the show, she touches on how trans people are not just something politicians can debate and use as a way to get votes. They are a community, with people from all walks of life, just trying to live and thrive as themselves. Even as the administration erases trans people from history and fights against DEI initiatives, the community is here to stay, and it always has been.
Photo courtesy of social media
