Openly gay country music star Steve Grand – who catapulted to fame with the video for his buzzy 2013 track “All-American Boy” – talked to the Daily Beast about the need for gay people to offer support to the transgender community.

Says Grand:

“…we can’t forget about the T in LGBT. I think now it’s our trans brothers and sisters that we really need to allow to take the lead. We need to listen to them and support them the way they have supported us all these years. I feel like they’ve put their needs, they’ve taken a backseat, to really help marriage equality come through and help people accept gay people better but that doesn’t necessarily help trans people. I think we need to be there to support them now. There’s a lot of issues that community faces that gay and lesbian people don’t have to face. There’s issues of what bathrooms they can go to and there’s blatant discrimination against them and even the way society thinks of gender is problematic for the way they see themselves and want to be seen by society. We have a long way to go. We’re really just beginning now so we really need to allow trans people to take the lead.”

Whatta guy. Cute, talented, AND compassionate!

Grand has a new album, All-American Boy, which was funded with a Kickstarter campaign that became the third most funded of all time with almost 5000 backers and $326,593 pledged.

See Trey’s post from last year to reacquaint yourself with Steve. And re-watch the video that launched his career –  “All-American Boy” – about a gay boy crushing on his straight best friend, below.