“There’s been a lot of talk, especially of late, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem,” Willis, who wrote the lyrics for the 1978 hit, said on Facebook on Monday. “As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life.

“This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout and since one of the writers was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people. To that I say once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not.”

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. There is a lot to unpack in that article.

Edit: From the paragraph that immediately follows:

The song, from the band’s third studio album, “Cruisin’” has spent years as an informal anthem of the LGBTQ community.

I came to age in that shit. To this day, I still struggle with the trauma. Glad things are better now, even if not much in some cases, for younger LGBTQ+ folks.

ACAB