Maybe you are looking for a song that honors a transition, or a name someone chose for themselves and grew into. The songs below were written by trans and nonbinary artists about their own lives, so they ring true. If you want something written for one specific person and one specific name, Songbond writes an original song about your story for $39.90, delivered in 24–48 hours.
Listen: "The Name I Grew"
What makes a transition song land
The songs that land are specific: they name a real moment, not a general feeling. A coming-out anthem can lift a room, but the line that stays with you is usually small and exact — the stranger at the coffee counter who got the name right, the old name kept soft in a drawer. Transition is rarely one declaration. It is a thousand ordinary mornings of becoming, and the best songs trust that detail to carry the weight.
7 songs about gender transition, identity, and a new name
These are real, verified songs. We have included the artist's own framing where we could confirm it, and kept the descriptions plain.
- "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" — Against Me! The title track of the 2014 album written by Laura Jane Grace around her own coming out and transition. For the person who wants their anger and defiance heard, not smoothed over.
- "For Today I Am a Boy" — Anohni (Antony and the Johnsons) From the Mercury Prize–winning I Am a Bird Now (2005), it puts gender dysphoria in plain terms while reaching toward future fulfillment. Anohni is a transgender woman.
- "I Am Her" — Shea Diamond Diamond wrote this soul anthem of self-realization while incarcerated, as a kind of last testament. It became an anthem of trans resilience and self-acceptance. For someone who found themselves after being cast out.
- "It's Okay to Cry" — SOPHIE In many ways this song and its video were SOPHIE's coming out as a transgender woman. Tender where her production was often sharp, it reads as an invitation to be seen.
- "Brutalist" — Kim Petras Petras, the first openly transgender woman to win a Grammy in her category, wrote this about her childhood transition in Germany — the drives with her father for hormone therapy, a brutalist post office they loved that was later torn down. For a story rooted in family and the places that shaped it.
- "Talking 'Bout Bri" — MegaGoneFree A song built directly around the artist's chosen name and her deadname: that name is dead to me, so do not call me that again. It struck a chord and sparked a wave of trans listeners sharing their own names. For anyone whose new name is the whole point.
- The work of Lucas Silveira (The Cliks) Silveira is credited as the first openly transgender man signed to a major label, and he kept singing through hormone therapy, consulting other trans vocalists to protect his voice. His catalog is a record of a man becoming fully himself out loud.
The lyrics
They picked a name before they met me,
stitched it in my collar, sweet and small.
It wasn't a curse, it was a coat
somebody chose in a different hall.
I wore it to the bus stop for years,
shoulders never settling right.
Then one Tuesday at the coffee counter
a stranger said the true name — got it right —
and didn't blink, just slid the cup over,
called it like it was nothing at all.
And I cried in the car for a minute,
'cause nothing had ever felt so small and so tall —
This is the name I grew,
not the one they gave, the one I became.
A kid grows into a coat, my love —
I grew into my name.
The mirror and the body agreed.
This is the name I grew.
I sign it now and the loops feel like mine,
my own hand at the bottom of the page.
My aunt still slips — then catches herself,
turns the whole sentence mid-rage of the wrong —
"sorry, sweetheart" — and she tries again,
and the trying is its own kind of song.
I keep the old name soft in a drawer,
not a wound — just a where-I'm-from.
And I cried in the car for a minute,
'cause nothing had ever felt so small and so tall —
This is the name I grew,
not the one they gave, the one I became.
A kid grows into a coat, my love —
I grew into my name.
The mirror and the body agreed.
This is the name I grew.
To the kid I was at the bus stop,
shoulders aching in the cold —
hang on. There's a Tuesday coming
where a stranger gets it right and you feel whole.
You were never broken, just unfinished —
look how the plant turned toward the gold.
This is the name I grew,
not the one they gave, the one I became.
A kid grows into a coat, my love —
I grew into my name.
The mirror and the body agreed.
This is the name I grew.
Say it slow, say it true.
This is the name. This is the name I grew.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best songs about gender transition?
Among the most widely cited are Against Me!'s "Transgender Dysphoria Blues," Anohni's "For Today I Am a Boy," Shea Diamond's "I Am Her," and SOPHIE's "It's Okay to Cry." Each was written by a trans or nonbinary artist about their own experience, which is part of why they resonate. The "best" one is usually the one that matches the specific feeling you want to honor.
Is there a song specifically about a chosen name?
Yes. MegaGoneFree's "Talking 'Bout Bri" is built around the artist's chosen name and her deadname. If you want a song about one particular person's name, a custom song can be written around it — the moment it first felt right, who said it first, the version they grew into.
How can I get a personal song about someone's transition or name?
You can commission an original song at Songbond for $39.90. You tell us the story and the name that matters, a songwriter writes it, and it arrives in 24–48 hours with unlimited revisions. It is meant to be the one song that is only about them.
A song for the name you grew into
A great anthem can speak for a community. A custom song can speak to one person, by their real name, about the exact way they became themselves. If that is what you are after, you can commission an original Songbond song for $39.90, delivered in 24–48 hours with unlimited revisions — written around the name they chose and the moments that made it true.
From the same series: Coming Out Songs and Chosen Family Songs.
