Wrabel’s music video The Village follows a transgender teen struggling to find acceptance. The five-minute video doesn’t shy away from highlighting the daily struggles of many transgender teenagers, beginning with a scene in which the protagonist’s father bursts in on their attempting to conceal their breasts with tape. “In nature, a flock will attack any bird that is more colorful than the others because being different is seen as a threat,” reads the video’s opening titles.
As the story develops, we follow the protagonist through awkward family dinners and toxic high school hallways until an uplifting ending. Meanwhile, Wrabel croons lyrics about being misunderstood at a piano — “there’s nothing wrong with you / it’s true,” he belts, his cheeks streaked with a rainbow of paint.
The story behind The Village:
I grew up in church. My childhood was quite nomadic, but church was the constant. Fast forward to when I was 23 and I came out to my church in Los Angeles. It was called “Reality” (how ironic). There they had a gay guru of sorts. He was the example of what it could be like to be freed from this burden of same-sex attraction.
I was offered reparative therapy but couldn’t do it. This “all loving god” I was taught about as a kid . this savoir that loves the outcasts. He’s hanging out and washing the feet of people that no one wants anything to do with but he hates me cause I’m gay? Cause I have a beautiful and humongous capacity to truly and deeply love another man? And so i got kicked out along with my first boyfriend that I met there. And it tore him apart and it tore me apart and it tore us apart. It left some of the deepest scars that still bleed .
Here I am, twenty eight, living in Los Angeles, writing and singing songs. I went on my first tour last year. My first time getting face-to-face time with people that have been listening to my songs and my stories. And I meet these two kids, two trans teenagers and here’s where the story really starts. Read on…