RÓISÍN MURPHY

If she said something dumb in “private” out of well-intentioned ignorance it’s much better to wait until she knows what she’s talking about before making any public statement about how she’s learnt and grown

not sure i understand what’s “well-intentioned” about her “ignorance”

it’s the same old shit these ghouls always spout

i am bitterly disappointed

It's extremely easy to see how hurt many of her trans fans are right now, and some of them are apparently getting attacked by terfy types in the comments of her social media. I haven't had the stomach to read any of that shit so I'm only hearing that through a couple other forums I've read. She should have been able to craft some type of statement by now even if it was a banal empty gesture.

it's never simple ignorance, it's never anything to do with age or being out of touch, bigotry is never a naive accident, it takes a microsecond of reflection to recognise when you're spouting hate

This post from the Popjustice Róisín Murphy mourning thread makes a great point really well. Not saying we can’t stan all our cishet main pop girls (I will follow CRJ and her sword into battle!), but how about saving a little bit of that passion for actually queer pop artists? pic.twitter.com/rA8kRi692j

— Jed (@thelowestbitter) August 26, 2023

I'm a Midwestern rube who happened to move to LA and wouldn't you know it I happened to meet some folks around my age who now have kids who are exploring their gender identity. And it doesn't faze me because I've improved over time from my extremely culturally isolated upbringing and have some empathy. And I can't even claim that I've spent much time around trans people at all. What's her excuse?

I swear, if yesterday or something she'd come out with a statement that was really humble and a true mea culpa that might have done something to undo a lot of the damage and the hurt perhaps. I don't know, I'm not the one who is truly hurt by it. And who am I to forgive her anyway?

Was just thinking about how her fashion is such a big part of her appeal - or had been historically - and ofc it’s all piggybacking off people like Gareth Pugh who are actually outspoken members of the community, ugh ugh ugh

she wrote an entire song about paris is burning wtf is wrong with her, just makes it all feel like shit

Idk she kind of reminds me of the biggest narcissist I know in real life, not someone who's willing to accept criticism very well, nor show much humility and admit a mistake. For the sake of those she affected and as a pushback against some terrible people, I hope she still does say something. But again she's had plenty of time to say even just a single damned thing.

Maybe there should be a 77 thread to flag when people out themselves as transphobes, like the metoo threads. Today for example the film music historian Ne*l Br*nd retweeted some transphobia. But it's just all so depressing.

damn now i feel like selling my la tix. i just don't think i could enjoy it.

i don't know that she's have any idea who roisin murphy is... though maybe i'm off-base on that and i'm just projecting my personal ignorance!

I meant more asking her about her take on a musician I greatly admire who has said shit like this. Based on prior conversations, I think she'd probably tell me there are more serious threats to worry about.

On the other hand, at one time she adored Rowling's work. That's just heartbreaking.

not sure i understand what’s “well-intentioned” about her “ignorance”

I said if, and am only noting how empty a retraction would be right now.

for "if": maybe she's known and loved plenty of trans and gnc adults for decades, and has only just heard of the concept of puberty blockers, and has freaked out as a mum without learning anything more or thinking through why teens need the same support as anyone, not cotton-swaddling. (or maybe she's turned into a mumsnet tory ghoul all the way through. absolutely plausible.)

shutting up when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about is a policy that could behoove lots of public figures in lots of circumstances.
if she is really fully terforised, I'm fine leaving my interest in the Koze album fully cancelled until she reveals that or doesn't. if she's listening to better-informed friends who can explain that she's gotten some bad ideas from Bari Weiss, demonstrating that she's learnt and grown later on will mean more than a crisis-managed striped-loveheart-branded statement from a Ninja intern on her public facebook now.

she obviously profoundly doesn't understand what's wrong and gross and disappointing with the private post she made. a public statement counteracting it the next day would have been completely unbelievable.

well frankly radio silence sucks worse

again i'm not gonna look at her IG and can't see twitter, but my understanding from trans folks who are talking about it elsewhere is that the anti-trans types/terfs are coming out of the woodwork for her on there, attacking trans folks who are pushing back against her comments. it might be better to swiftly knock down all of that bullshit going on, vs ignoring it or taking a more strategic approach to her statement (if there ever winds up being one.) even something that indicates a better statement to come later, but for now would serve as a "back the fuck off" to the monstrous types who think she's an ally.

Yeah, the fact that she doesn't is telling.

shutting up when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about is a policy that could behoove lots of public figures in lots of circumstances.

i'd rather she just stays quiet instead of publicly doubling down and radicalising i guess, but still certainly not an ideal response. it'll probably come up again eventually in an interview though

personally i'm still expecting to enjoy the new album (although certainly not as much as i would have otherwise and i feel pretty jaded about it all) but wouldn't go see her live or anything now

gyac, I don't really know that much about Irish media, is it as TERF-infested as the UK?

No it isn’t.

That's good. I know Glinner lives in London and has done since the 90s.

regardless of whether she makes a statement admitting ignorance or doubling down, the thing I can't get over is that she made this comment in the first place. She is a very online popstar, in that she has cult following and critical acclaim without chart success, and in that she uses internet spaces beyond FB and Instagram such as live lockdown streams etc - there is no way that she could not have been able to predict this comment would be seen, screenshotted and shared. She could have put her phone down, and kept her misinformed opinions to herself and her private circle of in-real-life friends. She chose to type this out and hit submit because she felt strongly enough that it needed to be said. She felt that her opinion was valid and important and legitimate. That tells me how strongly she feels about this, and it tells me how little consideration she has for her queer fanbase which, let's be honest, in 2023 are a huge part of her sustained success.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwP-gMnIlz5/?igshid=NzZhOTFlYzFmZQ==

the comment she's pinned to this post, utterly abysmal. Any hope that she was just "taking time to educate herself" eradicated.

Gl*nner went on a long ranting tweet bonanza last night setting up the hashtag #istandwithroisinmurphy, tagging Jon R0ns0n, Ni$h Kumar and various comedy celebrities, links to buy her album to support her, tweets about Moloko videos, furious retweets of people who had come out against her.. this morning it had all vanished. He’s not one for deleting stuff usually either.

lol the most cowardly way to double down, pathetic

I don't see any pinned comments now, but I found a screenshot:

This is what Róisín Murphy thought would be the right thing to be 'pinned' on her last Instagram post. Says it all. 🚮

'This ideology is affectively transing away our gay youth'
SERIOUSLY @roisinmurphy ?!? SERIOUSLY?! GET IN THE BIN pic.twitter.com/9QHeOiGUMT

— diogo filipe filipe 🌈 (@DiogoFFilipe) August 27, 2023

"Leave kids be"

"transing away our gay youth" has to be the funniest and dumbest thing i've ever read

"don't socially affirm them" is a tell

ew ew ew

Popjustice locked their Roisin album anticipation thread out of disgust and everyone is canceling their preorders.

Funniest thing I read on that thread was from a Roisin defender (one of two, out of dozens who have completely disowned her) who claimed Roisin wasn't dependent on her LGBTQ fanbase, something along the lines of "well I saw her in Poland and there weren't any pride flags or gay chanting in the crowd" (??)

Imagine the pathology of a person reassured by the number of fans she's alienated.

thought about breaking down just how much that entire paragraph is made of bullshit but just like all fundamentally conservative/fascist ideology it willfully misunderstands and distorts every issue it's addressing. ime ppl who believe this have no interest in changing their minds

The sheer contempt of throwing statistics at a hurt group of people, and using a proxy bigot to do so

weird how the bad and hated tavistock is suddenly an authority when a terf claims a doctor there said something that supports their transphobia

Gay chanting? What? Lol

1) I don't think it's fair to claim that she is so dependable on the queer community. She was in the business long before most of you were born or aware of the fact who she (Moloko) was. She was living in a diffrent world with different people around. Certainly her last show in Poland wasn't dominated with LGBTQ community representatives at all (no flags, no transparents, no chantining....one big nothing).

Yeah there’s a reason the lgbtq community might be less visible in Poland…ffs

Seems like she unpinned that post.

xp yeah seriously

LOL at that post quoted by omar little - as a queer person living in Poland I am genuinely puzzled at what sort of transparent should I be bringing to concerts and what's the gayest way to chant so I get noticed by the poster

solidarity to you, i could get EU citizenship but i would have to live in Poland for a few years and...not doing that.

She hasn’t learned the first rule of holes.

At this point this is almost exclusively on social media. Pitchfork hasn’t done a news item. There’s one article I can find online, from some shoddy sounding sports site. If she does make a public statement I’m sure that will all change.

He also liked a transphobic tweet at some point and apologized saying it was “fat fingers” and liked by mistake and yet he followed the journalist before liking said tweet. So yeah as you said, the troublesome ones can be found by who they follow and interact with.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka)

fat bloody fingers are sucking his soul away

and yeah, no secret, it's jonny, and he gets it through his wife. (look at me, talking about transphobia like it's some sort of, i don't know, social contagion or something).

I think the US vs UK divide on this comes down to size, basically. The US isn't one country, like the name suggests it's basically 50 countries, and about half of them are governed by theocratic fascists or people who want to be and will be if given half a chance, but the other half aren't. And the US media is a patchwork, too, there's foaming-at-the-mouth right-wing media (mostly online) pushing a just-this-side-of-mob-violence anti-trans message but there's also trans defenders and people pushing back against that right-wing tide, and everyone's kind of siloed, reading and cheering for what they believe and occasionally hate-reading the other side. Whereas England is a little island with like 5 newspapers, all of which seem to have collectively adopted this frankly bizarre "the trans-es, they're coming to get us!" message, like people in a tiny rural village convinced that monsters are coming up the road, except the village is fucking London. Looking at it from outside it seems as if the entire British media culture (which again seems to be like 5 newspapers and 2 or 3 TV channels) has gone completely fucking insane.

― read-only (unperson)

i'm not sure if i agree with your assessment of us vs. uk media culture! us media is extremely oligarchical... there may be a lot of newspapers but most of them are owned by the same people and push the same ideas. they're not all anti-trans - the new york times, for instance, is anti-trans, but the washington post is pro-trans.

honestly, i do see the difference here as being a more flatly political one... the new york times is an exception, really, in being a liberal organ that's also anti-trans. if i were to boil it down to its essentials, i'd say that the issue is that the democratic party is pro-trans and the labour party is anti-trans. in actuality there is no "debate" in the uk, because the people in all of the major seats of power agree: trans rights are a bad thing.

there's no debate in america, either, because it's impossible for people who live in two separate realities to debate, but it's also really difficult to succesfully implement political policy on a national level. that, to me, is the difference... the us is basically ungovernable on a national level. so a state like oregon can mandate insurance coverage for trans healthcare, and a state like florida can forbid doctors from even providing trans healthcare. in addition, since people can freely travel between states, if you're trans in a red state you have very strong incentive to get out - stronger incentive to move than the financial disparities which _discourage_ moving.

representation matters! a lot of prejudice is driven by ignorance. if you live in a place where you _see_ trans people, anti-trans rhetoric is markedly less effective (since anti-trans rhetoric is all basically lies). on top of that, a lot of "red states" manage to _stay_ red by rigging their elections and disenfranchising any voters who might oppose the republicans. it's a cycle, and i have some thoughts about where it leads, but i try not to think about it too much.

i think one of the other differences between us and uk culture is that transphobia in the us is more _overt_, more... _vulgar_. i wouldn't expect britain to build death camps for trans people.* not on british soil, in any event. that's not how britain does genocide. britain's approach is more sophisticated and genteel. there are a lot of similarities, i think, between the way britain handles trans people and... yes, i'm going to talk about it... the _potato famine_. like many famines, the famine wasn't the "natural event" famines are often portrayed as, but a foreseeable side effect of deliberate british policy. you deny the population you're not fond of the resources they need to survive, and then disclaim all responsibility, or better yet, blame the people you're starving of resources, when they did. in the case of the irish, it was food... in the case of trans people, it's readily available life-saving medical treatment.

it's worth noting that even though america has _absolutely obscene_ levels of inequality when it comes to quality of care, trans care in the us is still more widely available than it is in the uk. any further commentary seems unnecessary.

* come on, seriously, if you were to find out florida was building queer death camps, would you _really_ be surprised?

as far as roisin murphy... this is The Pattern. you tip your toe in and pull it back out. it's like getting in the bath. just because you pull your toe out of the water doesn't mean you're not going to get in the bath! anybody who's a fan... i'm sorry. it's time to start the mourning process.

only just seen this thread and fucking hell, gutted

the poland talk reminds me of the one line i've seen from louis ck in years, something tiktok recommended to me, from his "comeback" show. the joke starts something like "i was in poland last year... because i had to go to poland to do shows...".

there really is a huge difference between us and uk media culture re: trans issues, but the broader political culture is a major factor too.

the big thing is that in the uk, transphobia has been successfully laundered as a progressive, feminist position and has become the dominant position across the entire media landscape, even supposedly centre-left publications like the guardian and the supposedly neutral bbc. this has happened because the initial transphobic push was really driven by prominent media figures who generally had some sort of at least vaguely feminist, left of centre background (bindel, moore, etc.) who have been casually pushing transphobia for decades before ramping up in the past decade. the uk media is incredibly insular (and most of it is incredibly right-wing and loves a deranged moral panic) and that lead to that sort of bigotry getting quite wide takeup in the press, even the not-particularly-right-wing parts. this still hasn't lead to widespread public support for transphobia but definitely made things worse and created a very loud radicalised transphobic minority of voters.

it's a very different dynamic to the usa, where transphobia has been very blatantly driven by the religious right (which just isn't really a major factor in the uk), and so most democrat voters, even in the media, are already polarised against it for that reason, and there hasn't been any serious attempt to do 'transphobia is progressive' on a large scale. obviously there has been some 'liberal' publications trying to launder transphobia, especially more recently, but this has been usually just scaremongering about trans healthcare for youth rather than presenting their position as the true progressive one, and generally comes from a position of liberal faux-neutrality - wanting to find a culture war issue to concede to the right in order to be balanced. the only media figures to really take this up are smarmy centrist types (yglesias, chait, etc.) who already love punching left and urging 'compromise', and just blatant right-wingers who can manage to present as respectable to the nyt.