Janice Turner Interview with Rosie Kay

It's tragic that women like Rosie will be tarred by incidents like these, possibly for the rest of their lives. So many people will see the word transphobia in the headline and associate her with it, rather than her life's work.

To be able to see this kind of - now commonplace - news report and think deeper, see the bigger picture of what happened to the woman at the centre and what it really means, is vital.

I hope the letter writers have learnt that you need to choose your battles.

I can't find it now, but there's another article out there where the dancers who kicked this off complaining that the publicity around this is negatively impacting on them and could affect their future employment.
You couldn't make this up!

The point isn't that the witchfinders were doing themselves out of a job. If Kay really was doing something awful using her soldier ballet to profiteer off weapons or something stopping her in spite of their jobs would be a Good Thing.

And it's not a generational divide. Just because more people who can be led around by the nose are young does not make it generational.

It's a matter of justice. Of seeing women as human beings, as people who have rights. Not as comfort animals whose only real job is making real people feel better. "Validating" them.

BBC has picked up the story www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59584638

So glad they all lost their jobs. Your actions have consequences.

I might start actually buying the Times for this story alone. I liked the part where no one had read the book …

Plus apparently she talked about eunuchs, in the context of the female eunuch and they all took offence cos no one had read that either.

I’ve just read the story in the Times. What the actual fuck?

I salute you Rosie Kay. (And I watched some of the 5 Soldiers piece - very clever).

I might start actually buying the Times for this story alone. I liked the part where no one had read the book …

When the company became a charity he made sure that despite losing control of the organisation she nonetheless retained the IP.

I still can't understand why her father is credited with the protection of her IP to the ballets? Have I missed something in the articles? I read the Unherd version, not the TOL

I think all these cases seem so completely insane and so obviously counterproductive to everyone's interests at once - women, those identifying as trans, the dance audience, the arts community, young dancers starting out, older dancers moving into different roles - that it's almost impressive. I'm casting around trying to find some logic to it.

But the problem isn’t young people speaking up.

Indeed. Rosie is not reporting them to HR for what they said. I don't recall that ever been a thing we believed in in our generation.

But the problem isn’t young people speaking up. It’s the ones who are saying ‘you can’t say that’ and pulling any levers they can to enforce it.

I'm trying to imagine the process. I never want to end up saying 'youth of today, yuk' because it's lazy and wrong and we miss important change that way. I feel in my generation we thought if we spoke up things would change, and what was wrong was silence (silence=death etc). Now young people who have been taught to speak up do so, and I am right there with others saying, well, we don't think you should have said THAT, that's not what we meant.

And yet... as a woman of 52 I know that I remain painfully and sometimes joyfully aware of my sexed body. Im sure Rosie Kay is as well, more than me. To find that I am suddenly not supposed to speak that awareness out loud is really frightening. How can I even explain what is happening to me if I can't say how the world is? When RK said 'boy jumps, girl jumps' and said she liked boy jumps she was expressing in a friendly way an exploration of what sexed bodies can do and whether we are limited by sex. But she demonstrated awareness that sex exists. It must have been a shock I guess to the younger dancers. But how could that be a shock to them? A friends child is a ballet dancer in training. No profession could be more aware of their physical being.

And I can absolutely imagine that she said something utterly innocuous and reality based, and other people went off alarming.

We see it all the bloody time.

Puzzling account of how she was brought so low, and unsupported by a lawyer; where she agreed to apologise and go for training, yet speaks of not giving in

I suspect that initially she may have thought she had done something wrong if she was unaware of this brave new world.

This link is the trustees, some connected with other organisations,

register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/sector-data/top-10-charities/-/charity-details/5079863/trustees

Thanks @Livelifeinthebuslane

As well as a bit of digging I think a flurry of Adult Human Female postcards is called for if I can track down addresses.

This person on twitter has posted a screen shot of another write up of the case in the paper.
mobile.twitter.com/genderisharmful/status/1468887602057158659

It says the trustees told the charity commission and arts council that she was being investigated for transphobia, and requested an external hr consultancy to investigate.
mobile.twitter.com/genderisharmful/status/1468887602057158659

The company say they are surprised by the account and strongly resist the interpretation of events.

I will be digging because I think this all needs to be out in the open, and hopefully it will show other employers that they need to be fair with peoples reputations when it comes to a clash of views like this.

I found this really devestating to read about. You think you are used to the misogyny in this movement and then it hits you afresh. What a way to treat a talented woman who is training you. Incredible. The Free Speech Union on twitter have posted directions to her garden.

What are their assets? Money in the bank I guess. I'm not sure they'll be able to touch the cash. Couldn't she argue that all of it came through her own artistic talents and given her protection of property rights, they (trustees) may now be restricted in what can be used. Couldn't she put a hold on the money? Have no idea about intellectual property rights but I'm sure she is in a strong position. I'd really love to hear from one of the idiots who started this, just to see how hard of thinking they are

That was some very bad legal advice. Especially in view of the Maya judgment that found gender critical beliefs are protected in law.

She has a strong constructive dismissal case but it is sad she resigned.

What a horrible betrayal by her students. This ‘encouraging students to report teachers for thought crime’ is very, very typical of the Nazi and Communist dictatorships.

She's at almost 5k already