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Trans musician Bells Larsen was forced to cancel his US tour: ‘My livelihood has been robbed’

The Canadian singer-songwriter is releasing an album about his transition. Trump’s ‘dehumanizing’ new passport rules mean he won’t perform it for US fans

He counts Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake and Sufjan Stevens as major influences, and calls Adrianne Lenker, who fronts the folk-rock band Big Thief, “one of the best songwriters since forever”. Pitney added that immigration lawyers were worried that US authorities could claim that a trans or non-binary traveler committed fraud if their gender markers did not match: “This isn’t something we’ve seen yet, but we’re theorizing it could and we have concerns.” ‘My livelihood has been robbed of me, but this is also so much bigger than me.’ Photograph: Lawrence FafardMassima Bell and Dust Reid are the producers of Transa, a sprawling music project out of the US released last year in support of trans rights, featuring songs from more 100 artists including Sade, Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Sam Smith.

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