There is a fashionable theory among pop revisionists that Kurt Cobain was transgender. The evidence is there in the floral dresses, the sexual ambiguity and the air of transgression. That the Nirvana star never said anything about it, goes the line of thought, only points to the less accommodating mood of the grunge-era 1990s. The singer’s suicide at 27 might, in other times, have been included in the grim tally of trans death statistics.
Three years after Cassie Workman told Cobain’s story in Aberdeen, a melancholic spoken-word show, Emma Frankland is similarly drawn to reflect on the life of a musician who caught the imagination of a generation. Frankland knows the theory is unprovable, even a little absurd, but takes heart in the thought that it could be true. She refers to Cobain as she/her throughout.
