Kinky Boots: Musical addresses transgender bathroom rights with new music video

Whether on Broadway or on its current national tour, anyone who’s caught the Tony-winning musical Kinky Boots has likely left the theater humming the final tune, “Just Be.” But definitely not with these lyrics.

Following an outpouring of support for the transgender community in the wake of North Carolina’s HB2 law, which has been criticized as discriminatory, the creative minds behind Kinky Boots — that is, writer Harvey Fierstein and composer/lyricist Cyndi Lauper — have re-invented their act two finale in a new music video, “Just Pee (Where You Want To Pee).”

Silly as the title sounds, it’s a message from a show that confronts equality issues head on, shedding some new light on the nation’s ongoing conversation about bathroom use in regards to transgender citizens.

Lauper is scheduled to perform in Raleigh on June 4, but will donate her concert proceeds to communities within North Carolina who are battling the HB2 bill. Furthermore, her contract rider dictates that the venue (the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts) must have a non-gender-specific bathroom.

Fierstein, an outspoken and passionate supporter of LGBT rights for decades, released a statement along with the video: “So, you don’t like transgender people? Have the balls to honestly say it. Today’s bathroom controversy is fueled by the same bigots that sought to ban gay and lesbian teachers forty years ago. All these years later they’re still hiding behind the claim that they’re only protecting their children. These discussions are great opportunities to educate and strengthen the bonds that make us all one human family. But when I see discussions on social media proposing a men’s room for adult males, a ladies’ room for adult females, a little girls’ room for little girls, a little boy’s room for little boys and then another pair of bathrooms for little boys with a parent and little girls with a parent… Well, it’s time to take a step back and laugh at our own absurdity. This video is a reminder that sometimes we go to the bathroom just to pee.”