Lorde Explores Her New Gender Identity In “Virgin”

Lorde releases her next personal part of the upcoming album, the single “Man of the Year.” The track arrives next week and is already generating buzz for its sonic promise. Also, it specifically raises interest in the layers of self-exploration it represents.

On Monday (May 19), Lorde unveiled the single’s striking cover art via Instagram. It represents a raw, unfiltered close-up of her chest bound in duct tape. Additionally, the top of her jeans is visible at the bottom of the frame. “Man Of The Year. An offering from really deep inside me,” she captioned the post. In her words, it’s “the song I’m proudest of on Virgin.”

So, the track will be the second preview of Virgin, set to drop on June 27. It follows April’s “What Was That.” The track debuted at No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Lorde’s return to chart territory since her 2021 album Solar Power.

Lorde and Her Changes in “Virgin”

Yet, Virgin is more than a comeback. It’s a metamorphosis. In a recent Rolling Stone cover story, Lorde opened up about writing “Man of the Year.” The song came during a period of gender discovery that began after she stopped taking birth control. That change, she said, triggered a shift in how she experienced her femininity.

“I felt like stopping taking my birth control, I had cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity,” she shared. “It sounds crazy, but I felt that all of a sudden, I was off the map of femininity. And I totally believed that that allowed things to open up.”

The image on the single’s cover isn’t just for shock value — it’s autobiographical. Lorde revealed that she had taped down her chest before writing the song. Thus, she wanted to physically experiment with a vision of herself that matched how her gender felt in that moment. That act of self-imaging ultimately became the visual anchor for the single.

She looked at this year’s Met Gala — a slate-grey strip of fabric strapped across her chest. Thus, it was a subtle Easter egg, nodding to “Man of the Year” and the themes she embraces publicly. “This is my creation,” she told Vogue’s Emma Chamberlain on the red carpet. “It’s something of an Easter egg … To me it really represents where I’m at gender-wise. I feel like a man and a woman, kind of vibe.”

The Alt-pop Icon and Her New Identity

While Lorde continues to use “she” and “her” pronouns, her understanding of gender has become more nuanced. As she recounted to Rolling Stone, a conversation with fellow artist Chappell Roan helped her put things in perspective. [Chappell] was like, ‘So, are you nonbinary now?’… I was like, ‘I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.'”

This theme of duality — masculine and feminine, softness and defiance. Also, the ideas of control and release seem to pulse through Virgin. Lorde has also spoken about how overcoming an eating disorder was pivotal in reshaping her identity. It has influenced her both physically and emotionally. “I had made my body very small, because I thought that that was what you did as a woman and a woman on display,” she told Document Journal. “It had the effect of making me [feel] totally ungrounded. I was very weak. I look back now, and I don’t have that same feeling of floating away.”

Now, Lorde stands more grounded than ever—not in one identity or image, but in exploring all the possibilities of who she might be.

“Man of the Year” isn’t just a single — it’s a statement. And if it’s any indication of what Virgin holds, we’ll witness one of her career’s most honest, genre-defying chapters.

Virgin arrives on June 27.