Lawrence Rothman

Lawrence Rothman is an American singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. Their debut album "The Book of Law" was released on October 13, 2017 via Downtown Records/Interscope. The album was produced by Justin Raisen, and features contributions from Angel Olsen, Marissa Nadler, Kristin Kontrol, Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses, among others.

History
Rothman was born and raised in a middle class area of St. Louis, Missouri. They are Jewish. From a young age, they identified as genderfluid, wearing makeup and presenting in an androgynous style. Rothman's mother was accepting, but their father pressured them into growing a beard and acting more masculine, which left them depressed and suicidal. Rothman was homeschooled until the fourth grade and was bullied after entering the public school system.

From the age of 13, Rothman formed a number of punk rock, alternative rock and hip-hop bands, and toured throughout the United States. At 17, they left home and moved to Chicago with no support from their parents. Living with a cousin, Rothman encountered artists and musicians who helped them come to terms with their nonbinary identity. From 2002 to 2011, Rothman fronted the punk rock band Living Things under the name Lillian Berlin. After moving to Los Angeles, Rothman began writing music under their own name.

Quotes
"I've felt gender fluid ever since I can remember. My mother was very open to the idea of me not conforming to any one gender. [...] When I first started going to school, I didn't think anything of it. Then, over the course of a few years, I started experiencing major drama. I would check both boxes on the standardized tests: male and female. They started pulling in my mother and had me do counseling. It wasn't accepted in St. Louis."

"There was one woman who was a lot older than me, a musician and a burlesque performer. She had a very open mind and she was a very smart person. She was the first individual to help me understand what I was feeling and give it a name. Back then, there weren't all these names you can look up on the internet. All I knew was that I didn't feel fully male or female. She explained it to me in a way that made sense and then introduced me to other people that were feeling the same way. She showed me literature that was hundreds of years old, like Oscar Wilde and William Blake. Some of the Greek philosophers were talking about these ideas. She taught me that being androgynous has been going on since the beginning of time. For some reason, somebody decided that you're either male or female. But I don't think it's that cut and dried for anybody, really. Even if you identify as female or male, everybody's got feminine sides and masculine sides."

Links

 * https://www.lawrencerothman.com/