Girls Like Us: underscores’ ‘Wallsocket’ and Trans Identity in Midwest America
In the fictional town of Wallsocket, Michigan, underscores speaks to the experiences of trans kids in communities built on a foundation of conservative conformity.
Written by Noah Keany
Illustrated by Audrey Buckley
underscores' music operates within a fascinating framework that refuses to conform to easy categorization. The 25 year-old San Franciscan musician, real name April Harper Grey, merges hyperpop, pop punk, and drone to discuss everything from gun violence to religion to Midwest conformity, but her discography provides a particularly potent insight into the lives of the transgender community in America.
The hyperpop artist's 2023 sophomore album, Wallsocket, presents a narrative that weaves transgender identity through fictional Midwest suburbia. Through the character of S*nny and five additional tracks on the 2024 Wallsocket: Director's Cut, Grey illustrates the dynamics between transgender identity, Christianity, and an American culture of discrimination to echo the daily realities trans people face of communal, religious, and familial ousting.
The album centers on the fictional town of Wallsocket, Michigan, a Midwest figment of Grey and fellow musician gabby start’s imagination. S*nny, the transgender musician battling a rare disease, represents Grey herself, sharing her gender and Filipino ethnic identity alongside being a musician. In turn, S*nny acts as a vessel through which Grey can explore her own experiences while maintaining distance. Grey told The Music she initially avoided writing about being trans, wanting to be, "one of the good ones," before realizing this mindset was dangerous.
"Locals (Girls like us)" stands as one of the album's most defiant trans anthems. The track flips transphobic rhetoric into an empowering battlecry: "Stop me if you've heard this one before / Girls like us are rotten to the core!" This reclamation mirrors the album’s broader refusal to let conservative narratives define the trans experience. In this track, the mirror is held up to these conservative norms that the world is built around, “Blue Cross, golden arches, pearly gates / Supermarket, interstate, picket fence,” and these institutions of Midwest infrastructure and conformity set the stage for Grey to break them back down. This breakage occurs as the intro dismantles into a refrain of, “Arms, body, legs, flesh, skin, bone, sinew / Good luck,” that breaks down the walls of the American material world into what makes us human. For S*nny, this breakdown exists in the rejection of the conservative Christian attitudes in Wallsocket.
The most emotionally potent exploration comes in "Geez louise," a seven-minute track vaulting from gnashing punk to swampy blues before flowering into a heartfelt ballad. The track addresses colonialism's impact on trans identities in Filipino culture. Grey discovered that pre-colonial Filipino society had significant variance in gender identities, with those who did not conform to their assigned sex and were given divine reverence often viewed as shamans. Spanish colonization and Catholicism's dominance eradicated these traditions. The song's reference to ".41 at the back of my head / I know without my mother I'd be dead in an instant" speaks to the reality that trans people with unsupportive families face higher suicide risk.
"Johnny johnny johnny" tackles another harsh reality of many young transgender people falling prey to online predators in the hopes of being seen as pretty in the male gaze. Though Grey clarified to The Music that this track isn't based on personal experience, it addresses the vulnerability trans women face from chasers and fetishists.
Ideas around trans identity on “Johnny johnny johnny” and other tracks from this album reflect other work from Grey prior to Wallsocket and help provide a small glimpse into the perspective held by the artist separate from the character. For instance, “Girls and Boys” on her 2021 release, boneyard aka fearmonger, discusses the predation of cisgendered, heterosexual men on trans women as a romantic alternative to cisgendered women with the line of “Fuck it, I’m gonna go for somebody like you,” from Grey’s paramour in this track and the deeply depressing sentiment of, “I guess some boys go for anyone else if they can’t get with the boys.”
The third track on the album “Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” evokes religious fear held by S*nny in “Geez louise.” Through airy, downtrodden notes and biblical imagery, Harper Grey depicts the daunting fear of figuring out your identity in contradiction to the ideological worldview you were taught. Grey, as S*nny, sings that her, “...condition’s benign / And as rare as it gets.” Sonny’s “condition” refers to the fact that less than 2% of people worldwide identify as transgender, which further isolates her in a small Midwest town. She then describes the fear and pain she feels from her gender dysphoria as, “Divine intervention and the gnashing of teeth,” which references biblical verses in Matthew. The “gnashing of teeth” is seen as a punishment for sinners, which S*nny views herself deserving of due to the shame she harbors about gender identity.
"Good luck final girl" extends the exploration of navigating girlhood and womanhood through a trans lens, speaking to the turbulent interpersonal changes that come with transitioning through discussion of growing up to realize that you don’t need the approval of others to validate oneself. In reference to the character of Mara who formed a parasocial relationship with her, S*nny states, “that girl down the block said if I wanted to escape / I could always just knock on her door / But I don't need people like her anymore.” This sentiment is reflective of the growth she’s made from “Johnny, johnny, johnny” and even “Girls and Boys” in that this external validation, whether that be from a religious community or sexual partner, isn’t necessary.
The album's Midwest setting proves essential. Wallsocket exists as a place where people "white-flighted their way over" from Detroit, building an upper-middle class suburban environment breeding conformity and resentment. This backdrop emphasizes challenges trans people face in communities dominated by conservative Christianity.
Grey's approach proves absolutely appropriate given the hardship trans people face in America. With legislation targeting trans rights proliferating and violence remaining disturbingly common, her aggressive and emotionally raw presentation becomes not just justified, but necessary. The project employs a rhetorical weight through the emotional appeal of lived experience to create authority around Grey's perspective.
What makes Wallsocket particularly powerful is Grey's use of character-driven storytelling to make these experiences accessible. People form their own relationships with songs based on their identities and experiences, even if the creator's intention was specific. This allows the album to resonate on multiple levels while maintaining its core message.
Grey has long made music that embraces themes of trans identity with her 2018 EP skin purifying treatment acting as a sort of coming-out story. This EP sees her logical and emotional sides as two conflicting forces which attempt to protect and support Grey respectively. Her emotional side emphasizes the embrace of gender expression in “you look pretty good in that” and other tracks where this expression brings about a previously lacking sense of fulfillment. On the other hand, her logical side on tracks like “regulate you” and “melodrama” posit the same fears of judgement expressed on “Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
In a time where the American government persecutes trans people for existing, Wallsocket stands as essential documentation of the trans experience in Midwest America. The reception of this project indicates Grey succeeded in creating something that speaks to universal themes while maintaining specificity about trans experiences. Her discography creates urgency around issues impacting real lives while refusing to let antagonistic forces silence trans voices. The album discusses identity, discrimination and survival with the full force they deserve over infectious hyperpop styling.