Jordan Gray on getting signed, trans rights, and brand new single Platinum

After impressing judges and viewers on BBC’s The Voice UK, Jordan Gray is finally ready to release new music as a signed artist.

Following a year of travelling around the country performing at various Pride events and establishing a name for herself, the talented artist signed with The Record Label and is preparing to release her brand new single, Platinum.

We caught up with her and talked about her move from an independent to a signed artist and new music, her love for Paloma Faith, and on being the first trans artist to possibly hit the charts.

Firstly, congrats on getting signed! How does it feel to move from being an independent artist to a signed one? Thank you! It’s been a long time coming but I feel good – it’s what I had always wanted. I think though, that said, anytime you see anybody out celebrating with champagne because they’ve just signed a contract means they didn’t read it properly while their downing their sorrows, because basically it’s just a really long administrative process. The real work is already happening, you know, but I’m excited.

Let’s talk about your new single Platinum – the sound is quite different from your time on The Voice, isn’t it? It’s something you didn’t hear from me on The Voice for sure, it’s starts like a ballad, then it goes to what I guess is essentially like modern disco. It’s not vintage sounding – it does draw from Florence and the Machine actually, in fairness, there’s a bit of Florence in there.

Read more here: http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/culture/51800/jordan-gray-getting-signed-trans-rights-brand-new-single-platinum/

Transgender rights: France scraps sterilisation in status law

Transgender rights activists have welcomed a new French law that lets transgender people change their legal status without having to be sterilized.

The activist group ILGA-Europe called it “clear progress” that “another European country has dispensed with the shameful practice of sterilization”.

But it regretted that trans people in France will still have to get a court to recognize their gender change.

Laws in Denmark, Malta, Ireland and Norway have gone further, it said.

In those countries, legal gender recognition relies on the principle of “self-determination” – dispensing with medical or judicial requirements.

That principle was also advocated by the Council of Europe – the top European human rights watchdog – in an anti-discrimination resolution last year

Read more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37653459