'If we’re miserable, they win': MUNA kicks off Pride with joyous Stonewall Inn concert

On the first night of Pride month, queer pop band MUNA took the stage at the Stonewall Inn, the site of the riot that started Pride and one of the nation's most iconic gay bars.

The trio known for opening for Taylor Swift and hit "Silk Chiffon" featuring Phoebe Bridgers were the main event at a Stonewall fundraiser for embattled queer organizations in Tennessee and Texas.

Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson opened their set with the 2016 ballad about safe spaces "I Know a Place." "I didn't want the songs we wrote in 2014 to still be so relevant today," lead singer Gavin told USA TODAY before the show.

But in a Pride month that McPherson described as "jarring" and "heavy," the band's anthem for those who "think being yourself means being unworthy" is as necessary as ever.

'Cultivating joy' is essential to Pride: 'If we’re miserable, they win'

Members of MUNA agreed that Pride month feels different this year. "It's jarring to think about our journey over the past 10 years and how much more dystopian things have gotten for queer people," said McPherson.

For the second year in a row, there has been an uptick in the number of states that grew more hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, according to the 2023 Out Leadership State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index report shared exclusively with USA TODAY.

"The political landscape, especially with regards to trans people, is so terrifying," said McPherson, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.

Despite increasing legal attacks on trans and queer people's health care and expression in public, the band said joy remains essential to their work and music.

"If we’re miserable, they win," McPherson said.

"I think it's important to show young people that I'm happier because I came out. I'm happier because I am who I am," Maskin added.

Joy has a "really important role" to play in "any kind of big time collective change – because it's hard work," Gavin said. "There are often times where you can just feel despair. So if you don't engage in this practice of cultivating joy and making this fun and having a good time, I just don't think that it's sustainable to keep up the fight."

Taylor Swift fans and the 'generous' new generation

MUNA also finds hope for the future in the younger generation.

The band is known for their avid queer fanbase, but they've also been playing to audiences outside their own fans as openers for Taylor Swift on her Eras Tour. "We've felt very welcomed by Taylor audiences," Gavin said of their sets with Swift so far.

"A lot of the fans that I see in the audience are much younger than we are," McPherson added. "They're so open-minded and generous with their time and their ears – and also very open-minded with their perspective on the world." They think it's likely that "we will get to a point with their generation" where an artist's queerness "just doesn't matter" in determining their "mainstream" appeal.

"Obviously, being a queer artist matters to our community," McPherson said, citing the value of representation. But they hope that the "ghettoizing" of queer artists to a certain niche – something they still feel, even at their level of success – won't be here to stay.

What is Stonewall Gives Back?

MUNA's show on the first day of Pride month was part of the annual Pride Kickoff Celebration for the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative (SIGBI), a charitable organization run by CEO and co-owner of Stonewall Stacy Lentz.

Funds raised from the event are being donated to three LGBTQ organizations in red states: youth center "Just Us" in Nashville, Tennessee; theatre company "Friends of Georges" in Memphis, Tennessee; and the El Paso, Texas community space Borderland Rainbow Center, which, among other things, supports gender-nonconforming people seeking asylum in America.

"We really want to specifically work on grassroots organizations that are being affected the most by these horrific drag bans and bans against gender-affirming care," Lentz said.

Contributing: Charisse Jones

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: MUNA talks opening for Taylor Swift, Pride concert at Stonewall Inn