Alice Cooper dropped by cosmetics company after calling transgenderism 'fad'

Rock icon Alice Cooper, whose decadeslong goth-rock act and a name legally changed to that of a woman endeared him to audiences of outcasts, has been dropped by a cosmetics company over remarks with multiple misunderstandings of transgender identity.

“[T]here are cases of transgender, but I’m afraid that it’s also a fad, and I’m afraid there’s a lot of people claiming to be this just because they want to be that,” Cooper, 75, born Vincent Furnier, said in an interview published Aug. 23 on the music website Stereogum. “I find it wrong when you’ve got a six-year-old kid who has no idea. He just wants to play, and you’re confusing him telling him, ‘Yeah, you’re a boy, but you could be a girl if you want to be.’ ” He also repeated the discredited hoax of children identifying as cats.

Responding to the question “As someone who played around with gender expectations early on, do you have any thoughts on … [disparaging remarks] some of your contemporaries have said [about trans identity] before they walked those comments back?,” Cooper also stated, “If you have these genitals, you’re a boy. If you have those genitals, you’re a girl. There’s a difference between ‘I am a male who is a female, or I’m a female that’s a male’ and wanting to be a female. You were born a male. Okay, so that’s a fact.”

According to research by the American Psychological Association and studies published by Oxford University Press, the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine and others, sex and gender are different constructs. The presence of sex organs alone is not determinative due to elements including a variety of different chromosome combinations; naturally occurring testosterone and estrogen levels; brain morphology; and environmental factors. Transgender persons have been documented since antiquity.

The day after the interview, Vampyre Cosmetics ended its collaboration with the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, posting on its website: “In light of recent statements by Alice Cooper we will no longer be doing a makeup collaboration. We stand with all members of the LGBTQIA+ community and believe everyone should have access to health care. All pre-order sales will be refunded.”

The Long Beach, California, company, self-described as owned by “queer, disabled, and proudly neurodiverse women,” on Aug. 14 had added Cooper to its line of licensees, which includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Emily the Strange, Vincent Price, Silent Hill and others. “Alice’s use of makeup during his stage shows christened him one of the first male artists to show the art form of face makeup wasn't a gender-specific product in an era where this was controversial,” the company announced at the time.

Cooper’s representative had no comment Wednesday.

The star had adopted the name not, as apocryphally told through the years, via a Ouija board but spontaneously, he says in the biography "Alice Cooper at 75" by Gary Graff, released in January. "I just kind of said, ‘Alice Cooper.’ It just came out of my mouth. That was it. … I felt like it would make people go, ‘Wait … what?! Alice Cooper? They’re all guys. Who’s Alice Cooper?’ ”

Cooper and Rob Zombie, who are currently on a joint tour, are scheduled to play the Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh on Sept. 9.