Ahead of Pride 2024, Miki Ratsula returns with a special single dedicated to anyone who has felt like the elephant in a room, a powerful analogy for feeling like the odd-one-out in a situation. The track acknowledges how exhausting it can be to hide who you are, but the celebratory and upbeat sound encourages celebration and ownership of being different and owning one’s identity. “For me, one of the most difficult parts about being an openly trans person is constantly feeling like the elephant in the room. I feel it most often when I’m with people who are uneducated on trans people or haven’t met a trans person before. There’s this uneasiness I can sense, and it feels awkward. I don’t know when I can correct someone on my pronouns because I don’t know how they’ll react. And based on their reaction that awkwardness can triple. Sometimes I feel like I’m not able to take up space and talk about being a trans person. That I can’t talk about my scars or surgery or be shirtless. For most of my life I’ve had to hide this massive part of myself just to make other people comfortable. Even now after coming out I’m still being told to tone down my transness for the comfort of others. This translates on social media too. I get countless messages from people degrading me for being shirtless and celebrating my transness online. It’s exhausting living this same cycle,” Miki shares. “I wrote “elephant” about feeling tired of being the elephant in the room, tired of being told to dim myself down. It’s a song about resilience. The chorus ends with the line “‘**** being the elephant, this room needs something different’”. I wrote it to be an anthem for anyone who has been othered and forced to hide themselves away. Advocating for trans folk is an important part of my career. I wanted to make a song that connects that directly into my music,” Miki states.