RÓISÍN MURPHY

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.

At this point this is almost exclusively on social media

mainstream media wouldn't see this is a story because her opinion is not controversial or upsetting to the bigots who have been controlling the narrative of gender issues in the past decade

it’ll eventually be reported as SINGER HOUNDED BY VILE SOCIAL MEDIA TROLLS

the ‘sing it back’ hitmaker has been SLAMMED by transgender activists online for expressing her views on controversial ‘puberty blocker’ treatments for teens

followed by a quote from some dickhead from the lgb alliance

Transphobia is also being weaponised against the Scottish government led by the SNP who is pro-trans, by the unionist parties UK branch (atm Scottish Labour still supports trans rights as do ScottishLiberal party. Its political opportunism mainly and its certainly creating moral panic in Scottish newspapers and especially the BBC. However there are anti-trans forces within the SNP waiting to take over.

I don't know who the person behind this account is but this is not leading me to expect an apology any time soon:

Roisin Murphy pic.twitter.com/vgpWEhZbfc

— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) August 24, 2023

India Willoughby is a well known person in the UK

Transphobia is also being weaponised against the Scottish government led by the SNP who is pro-trans, by the unionist parties UK branch (atm Scottish Labour still supports trans rights as do ScottishLiberal party. Its political opportunism mainly and its certainly creating moral panic in Scottish newspapers and especially the BBC. However there are anti-trans forces within the SNP waiting to take over.

― Toshirō Nofune (The Seventh ILXorai)

my understanding (i'm in the us and tend to avoid reading the news if at all possible because self-care is important to me) is that sturgeon was actually forced out of office due to her support of trans rights? which is probably the most demoralizing news i've heard out of the uk in some time :(

Nah, although the usual suspects were using trans issues as a wedge to undermine her, she left because of an ongoing investigation into fraud with the SNP's finances, leading to her husband's arrest

Whilst I do appreciate that the appalling war against trans people is heading in some very dangerous directions and is a real and concrete threat to the health and lives many, Im not sure comparisons with a genocidal famine that killed or displaced 2.5-3 million people are appropriate in this context.

droid it's 4 in the morning, i'm not sleeping, again, and i'm trying to get myself back to sleep by talking about things, and i see you coming up here and saying that you don't think what trans people are going through is _really_ genocide. why? why do you think this is a good idea? trans people _are_ suffering from genocide, right now, i'm telling you this as fact, now. i didn't before, i merely drew a comparison, and that alone, that was apparently enough for you to take offense on behalf of the victims of the potato famine. what do you want me to do? do you want me to justify or explain to you trans genocide? is that my responsibility, to persuade and convince you that we are being displaced and killed, systematically, as a result of deliberate policy decisions?

if anybody's being "inappropriate" here, i'm not entirely sure it's me.

i'm going to go to try back to bed. not sure how successful i'll be.

(funnily enough i did write a 3,000 word essay on the topic of trans gendercide - and "gendercide" is not a word i made up, it's an established term in genocide studies - back in february. i think it's one of my better essays. droid, you can't read it, but if anybody else wants to, i'll be glad to send a copy.)

Im not asking you to explain anything, nor am I denying anything, nor did I mean to cause you any distress. Im just suggesting that there may be more appropriate comparisons to be made. BTW, we dont call it the 'potato famine'. It is simply the famine, or the great hunger, An Gorta Mór.

The Potato Famine was also catastrophic in the Scottish highlands which led to the displacement of thousands. It seems to be actually forgotten about in Scotland.

Im not asking you to explain anything, nor am I denying anything, nor did I mean to cause you any distress. Im just suggesting that there may be more appropriate comparisons to be made. BTW, we dont call it the 'potato famine'. It is simply the famine, or the great hunger, An Gorta Mór.

― droid

Fair enough. I apologize. I apologize for comparing the genocide my people are currently going through with the genocide your people historically were subjected to. The point wasn't to make a direct comparison in any case, it was to suggest a _larger pattern of behavior_, that British empire, by whatever name, is intrinsically linked to genocidal practices both historical and current.

those screenshots above aren't from india willoughby, they're from someone named Kabira (kabiraexplainsitall).

thanks, i did wonder whose words those were

I do want to, at some point, educate myself more about the great hunger. I'm a white American, but my great-great-grandfather was one of the people displaced by it. Came to America, where he died in an insane asylum. Those of you who think this fact explains a lot about me are probably right. :) I have/had some relatives who have more of an interest in their family history than I do who are/were pretty knowledgeable on the topic, but I admit that's not one of the topics I've learned a lot about myself.

There was a kind of nasty exchange about the potato famine over on the popjustice forums, someone mildly pushing back on someone who said she just should have sat down and ate her potatoes. The other person said they just would appreciate not using that as a retort and many others didn't want to hear it, and dismissed it as even being a slur.

I don't think even as an Irish American I quite understand just how much British people will still use that in a demeaning way against people from ireland, and how much it hurts. I think contextually it's a lot different, being Irish in the UK versus being Irish-american in the United states, where that kind of racism at that group has evaporated.

Kate I know you weren't doing that, just figured I would chime in on that topic because it was referred to in that other forum.

contextually it's a lot different, being Irish in the UK versus being Irish-american in the United states, where that kind of racism at that group has evaporated.

The famine insult isn't just hurled at Irish folk in Scotland. Its used against any Catholic. As a Kid I didn't even understand what they meant when someone would shout the famines over so go home. I thought they meant to stay in my own house.

What made it even worse was when I found out it affected Scotland too and our ain folk would still say it. Most of them dont know when you tell them, but they still don't care due to their blind hatred of Catholicism.

There was a kind of nasty exchange about the potato famine over on the popjustice forums, someone mildly pushing back on someone who said she just should have sat down and ate her potatoes. The other person said they just would appreciate not using that as a retort and many others didn't want to hear it, and dismissed it as even being a slur.

I don't think even as an Irish American I quite understand just how much British people will still use that in a demeaning way against people from ireland, and how much it hurts. I think contextually it's a lot different, being Irish in the UK versus being Irish-american in the United states, where that kind of racism at that group has evaporated.

Kate I know you weren't doing that, just figured I would chime in on that topic because it was referred to in that other forum.

― omar little

right, when i actually take time to think about it droid is totally right... i got a bit of a temper and i took what they were saying in totally the wrong way. god, if barbara were around to hear me refer to the famine as "the potato famine" she would Have Words with me.

my grandfather's generation (including barbara) did face anti-irish/anti-catholic prejudice, but my historical understanding is that the kennedy assassination pretty much put a stop to that. (it's kind of astonishing how much there was in 1960... nixon ran a lot of pretty openly anti-catholic ads against kennedy, there were suggestions that if kennedy was elected the pope would secretly be running the country, because, you know, kennedy was _super fuckin' devout_).

and honestly, i do have a certain amount of internalized sort of bigotry of my own. i thought about my anger and i've heard my family talk about having an "irish temper" but the truth is that i don't have an irish temper, i have a fuckin' american temper... ime americans tend to be far more temperamental and quicker to anger than just about anyone...

Correct and fwiw am aware that certain Irish-Americans have tried to leverage their historic oppression to silence black people

this is absolutely appalling to me fwiw... stuff like americans making a big deal about "no blacks or Irish signs" while completely ignoring things like the 1863 new york draft riots... like the first rule of allyship is _don't compare your oppression to other people's oppression_, i knew better, just wasn't at my best!

i grew up in family that made a big deal of their irish heritage at least in part to avoid acknowledging their whiteness... i have a lot of respect for ireland but as far as my irish heritage, its biggest direct impact on me is that i have liver spots at the age of 47, lol.

To circle back to the actual subject of this thread, her appeal is so niche, relatively speaking, that I wonder how much her career might be affected by this?

― ydkb (gyac)

my general impression is that people with niche appeal are _more_ affected by it. partly because they're more precariat anyway, and partly because you have a less broad fanbase. alice cooper, i figure he's going to be less affected by it than murphy... my observation is that when this kind of stuff goes down, women and gender expansive folks are held to a higher standard than men, as well. i'd expect her to do a lot better in the uk, where transphobia is more mainstream, than in the us.

a huge of Cooper's fanbase will probably never even know the whole interview happened tbh

Most of my reading on the famine has been academic, but I would recommend John Kelly's The graves are walking and the Atlas of the great Irish famine as probably two of the major works.

Black 47 is very good, its entertainment, but as visceral cinematic portrayals go it cant really be beaten.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pSGZt-mhSY

The level of ignorance from the British on the topic is unfathomable, but TBF, the same could be said of a surprising amount of Irish people.

I would say that is happening to trans folk is different in many ways, but one important aspect is that its trans-national and unbounded by religion, ethnicity or nationality, so they are not a distinct 'people' as such. They belong to all of us.

Kinda hard to predict how her career would go at this point especially since this hasn't been picked up by anyone really, yet. But it will get picked up. And yeah it's not like she is a mega star, she is strictly a cult figure and her lgbtq fan base is a huge part of that. One feels like they had her back and kinda helped her to that upper level of cult success. So this is certainly more of a betrayal. And it's just so dumb, what she said was completely flawless and Ill informed but people say idiotic things and they can come back from them. She just doesn't seem to have any interest in doing that or acknowledging the hurt, which is the worst part.

Just want to push back on the idea that the SNP are pro-LGBT rights when they've been home to Joanna Cherry and taken cash from Brian Souter. They did the bare minimum around GRA and they only look good because the bar in the UK has been otherwise set very, very low.

Murphy's career is built on being a hipster gay icon. She's not going to come out of this well at all. I had a look at the Popjustice thread and it was full of people cancelling their pre-orders of vinyl releases of Hit Parade etc. Homobloc cancelled their "Non Stop Roisin Machine" disco event at the weekend.

The reason this feels so galling is that she's pretended to be on "our side" - just Google the words "Roisin Murphy gay icon" and you'll see quotes from her saying she feels like she's a superstar when she walks into an LGBT venue. But she clearly doesn't have any interest in actually supporting or respecting the audience that she's aligned herself with. At least with someone like Azealia Banks, awful as they are as a person, they've never tried to pretend to be something other than themselves. As a gay man, I don't want to be pandered to, and that's why I've felt more affinity with Murphy than your megastar pop divas like Lady Gaga, but now it feels like I've been taken in by some interesting videos and absurd fashion, and exploited as an audience.

Booming post boxedjoy, fuck RM

Haha I didn't mean what she said was flawless I don't know where that came from, I meant thoughtless

I mentioned this above, but I always got this really uneasy feeling that she was just an absolutely unapologetic narcissist, and as much as I love that last album and seriously it was my favorite of that year, I always had that feeling about her. This reaction she has had thus far to what occurred is kind of exactly what that type of person might do. I hate it when I have things like that confirmed.

Kinda hard to predict how her career would go at this point especially since this hasn't been picked up by anyone really, yet. But it will get picked up

Presumably she'll have a shitload of interviews lined-up to tie in with the new record, be interesting to see how those go

wanted to add that other than the nasty bit about potatoes, the popjustice thread is definitely full of righteous reactions, and a lot of sentiments similar to what boxedjoy feels -- the sense of being used, conned, and exploited. it feels like theft in a way, and maybe now it's seen as all having exclusively been at the service of her pursuit of queen status. don't want to necessarily have this all be coming from a place of confirmation bias obv but it seems to fit now.

I wonder if this is just an attempt to gin up publicity for the album.

I wonder if this is just an attempt to gin up publicity for the album.

No artist is that stupid. "I'll set my existing audience on fire in order to gain a whole new audience of bigots and scum!"