Dee Snider's SF Pride performance cancelled after he supports Paul Stanley's controversial tweet

UPDATE: Dee responds: “So, I hear I’m transphobic. Really?”

San Francisco Pride is parting ways with Dee Snider of Twisted Sister after Snider tweeted in support of KISS’ Paul Stanley controversial statement criticizing gender affirming healthcare for children. In a statement, SF Pride say that they were about to announce that Snider would perform “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” which they had planned to make the “unofficial rallying cying of this year’s SF Pride Parade & Celebration,” on their center stage. Their statement reads:

San Francisco Pride was on the cusp of announcing Twisted Sister’s “We’re not gonna take it” as the unofficial rallying cry of this year’s SF Pride Parade & Celebration, with the band’s frontman Dee Snider performing the song on our center stage. Dee has always been a vocal supporter of LGBTQ+ rights.

However, when we were notified about the tweet in which Dee expressed support for Kiss’s Paul Stanley’s transphobic statement, we were heartbroken and angry. The message perpetuated by that tweet casts doubt on young trans people’s ability to self-identify their gender.

Transgender people, particularly transgender women and children of color, are disproportionately affected by hate and violence. And with transphobia proliferating and becoming more and more enshrined in law throughout the country — we have to stand up for the most impacted among us.

We have mutually agreed to part ways, but appreciate Dee seeing this as a teachable moment and a reminder that even allies need to be educated to ensure that they are not casually promoting transphobia.

To all our allies — we want to call you in — not call you out.

Stanley’s tweet, which many criticized as transphobic, reads:

There is a BIG difference between teaching acceptance and normalizing and even encouraging participating in a lifestyle that confuses young children into questioning their sexual identification as though some sort of game and then parents in some cases allow it. There ARE individuals who as adults may decide reassignment is their needed choice but turning this into a game or parents normalizing it as some sort of natural alternative or believing that because a little boy likes to play dress up in his sister’s clothes or a girl in her brother’s, we should lead them steps further down a path that’s far from the innocnece of what they are doing. With many children who have no real sense of sexuality or sexual experiences caught up in the “fun” of using pronouns and saying what they identify as, some adults mistakenly confuse teaching acceptance with normalizing and encouraging a situation that has been a struggle for those truly affected and have turned it into a sad and dangerous fad.

UPDATE: Paul Stanley has addressed the backlash over his tweet.

Snider replied, “You know what? There was a time where I ‘felt pretty’ too. Glad my parents didn’t jump to any rash conclusions! Well said, @PaulStanleyLive”

Snider expanded further in replies to his reaction, answering one person, “Parents need to be less reactionary; Right and Left. No need to steer the child in either direction. Let the kid figure it out for themselves knowing their family is supportive.

I had a vet/cop hardass dad who, while he shook his head A LOT…let me do my thing.”

Snider has not responded specifically to San Francisco Pride’s statement at this time.