Musician Carlos Santana stunned fans when he spoke out against the transgender community during a recent concert in Atlantic City, New Jersey, saying, “you know it ain’t right.”
“When God made you and me, before we came out of the womb, you know who you are and what you are,” the 76-year-old “Black Magic Woman” singer and guitarist said in a resurfaced video from the July show, which you can watch above.
“Later on, when you grow out of it, you see things, and you start believing that you could be something that sounds good, but you know it ain’t right. Because a woman is a woman and a man is a man. That’s it,” he continued.
He added that he’s fine with people embracing their transgender identity — as long as they keep it quiet. “Whatever you wanna do in the closet, that’s your business. I’m OK with that.”
Several concertgoers confirmed Santana’s comments to Consequence, with one person saying that the musicians remarks were “very disturbing and seemed to come out of nowhere.”
Another person who was at the show shared their reaction on Reddit: “I went to see Santana tonight in Atlantic City with my parents, my partner, and her mom. Super stoked. One song in though, Carlos Santana stopped and spent a solid 15 minutes spouting the most insane anti-trans bs I’ve maybe ever heard? … Thought music (especially with this history) was supposed to bring us together.”
A different Reddit user who was there, commented, “It was very uncomfortable, especially the guy shouting Amen throughout. It was weird that he went on about how we are all special and unique after.”
Santana also gave a shout-out to his “brother” Dave Chappelle, who has stood by his previous comments in 2021 that he is “Team TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), who does not support trans women.
“The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it,” Chappelle said in his 2022 Netflix “What’s in a Name?” “And it has nothing to do with what you’re saying I can’t say. It has everything to do with my right, my freedom, of artistic expression. That is valuable to me.” Chappelle also called people who criticized him “instruments of oppression.”
Santana, whose other hits include “Evil Ways” and “Smooth,” revealed to Rolling Stone in 2000 that he had been sexually abused when he was a child. In June, he told People that he had forgiven his abuser.“There’s this saying, ‘Hurt people hurt people.’ It’s my pain. It did happen to me. But if you open your hands, and you let it go, then you don’t feel that anymore,” he said.
The musician has been out promoting his documentary “Carlos: The Santana Journey,” which hits theaters in September.
TheWrap has reached out to Santana’s rep for comment.
