Your Daily Briefing: How a transgender songwriter paved the way for LGBTQ country artists

Marcus K. Dowling, Nashville Tennessean
·1 min read
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Good morning! This is country music reporter Marcus K. Dowling.

Welcome to your Daily Briefing.

In my job, I write about how songs change lives.

Here's a fine case of a life that -- once you consider the story -- changes the impact of a song.

"East Bound and Down" and "I May Be A Drag Queen, Honey, But Honey, It's Never A Drag" were written by the same person:

80-year-old Las Vegas resident Deena Kaye Rose.

Rose was not born with that name, however. In 2014, she finished her male-to-female transition and left her four-decade-long home here in Music City, where she'd worked as a songwriter alongside Jerry Reed, the vocalist of macho 1977 flick "Smokey and the Bandit" soundtrack hit "East Bound And Down."

"The worst thing to do back then was to be transgender," Rose said to The Tennessean.

"In [Nashville], they'd forgive you for being a liberal, but to be transgender -- those desires had to lurk in the shadows."

March's "Love Rising" event at Bridgestone Arena following Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee's signing of bills banning gender-affirming health care and "male and female impersonators" from public property raised more than $500,000 for LGBTQ+ causes in Tennessee.

The issue is no longer in the shadows.

In regards to the impact of her life on Nashville (and America's future, Rose says, "I'd imagine that some people will say, 'That song 'East Bound and Down' was written by a transgender woman. I'd respond, 'What does one have to do with the other?'"

Read the full story about Deena Kaye Rose.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Daily Briefing: How a transgender songwriter paved the way for LGBTQ country artists