Artists work pulled from the Royal Academy for 'transphobic' views

[AliceAbsolum]

This is actually starting to scare me now. How are these institutions so scared of causing offense that they are no-platforming people like this?

'The artist wrote a blog in 2019 which said that a woman is “an adult human female” and “not an identity or feeling”, adding: “I can not accept people’s unsubstantiated assertions that they are in fact the opposite sex to when they were born.”'

"She argued that the “ideology” of gender politics placed people into reductive boxes, enforced censorship akin to that found in her birthplace of East Germany, and had a detrimental impact on the rights of women and girls.

Ms de Wahls, who claims to have been subjected to online abuse over her views, nevertheless expressed support for the rights of transgender people as a marginalised group."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/17/royal-academy-pulls-artists-work-shop-transphobic-views/

I wonder if they ever put on an exhibition of the modern famous female nudes - say of the reclining Venus by Titian, Velasquez, Goya and Manet - they would notice the irony that the artists would never have chosen trans women models.

That men in general must be transphobic if they don’t want to have sex with a trans woman?

What they have done is stupid and bullying.

If you want to contact the RA about this:

www.royalacademy.org.uk/contact-us

If you'd like to support Jess by ordering some of her beautiful designs direct from her:

www.jessdewahls.com

@Cowbells

There is a thread about this in Feminism Chat.

It is rank misogyny that child rapists Gill, Gaugin and countless male abusers are represented but a woman who asserts that women are adult human females is seen to be a pernicious threat to others.

I am SO tired of this. When will people get that you can be fully supportive of trans people and trans rights without pretending that there is no difference between a transwoman and a biological woman?

Why does acknowledging that a transwoman or man is a transwoman or man not a biological woman or man unleash a torrent of vitriol and threat whilst simultaneously being responded to as if the acknowledgement is proof the person holding that viewpoint wants all transpeople dead (I have seen this ridiculous argument so many times now. In the JKR row, the Adichie row and now with DeWahl.)

When will the trans community start campaigning on its own behalf to stop self-IDing by people who are blatantly not trans but exploiting trans movement to gain access to vulnerable women?

When will trans women start actively supporting biological women and understanding our vulnerabilities, needs and rights to be heard and fight hard against all signs of misogyny?

Fucking well said.

The irrational hysteria around this, the lack of common sense, the vitriol and aggression that routinely dogs any kind of discussion, the extreme and adversarial nature of the position taken by people unwilling to engage in anything other than propagating TRA dogma - it’s all designed to create an environment in which this kind of nonsensical bullshit is allowed to happen.

It’s sickening. I’d hoped the tide was beginning to turn, but with incidents like this continuing to occur I’m still filled with anxiety for the future of women’s rights.

There’s a petition in the petitions section, lots of jess’s work is already sold out on her personal site

And fuck the RA. What an embarrassment.

@ChinstrapBobblehat - I'm normally quite a placid sit-on-the-fence, see-both-sides person. But this has really angered me. I've now signed up to Filia's newsletters and signed up to volunteer with Sex Matters. It unnerves me because my gay son is so woke and I don't want him to start being fed lies about me secretly hating him and wanting conversion therapy and all the other vicious nonsense doled out by the irrational misogynists. I'm scared this will cause a rupture but I am so pissed off.

Gosh, and I believe XX are women and XY men, thank God I´m not an artist. No person should be fired or censored for believing biology is real and saying so.

[quote Cowbells]@ChinstrapBobblehat - I'm normally quite a placid sit-on-the-fence, see-both-sides person. But this has really angered me. I've now signed up to Filia's newsletters and signed up to volunteer with Sex Matters. It unnerves me because my gay son is so woke and I don't want him to start being fed lies about me secretly hating him and wanting conversion therapy and all the other vicious nonsense doled out by the irrational misogynists. I'm scared this will cause a rupture but I am so pissed off.[/quote]
You and me both, @Cowbells. My daughter identifies as bisexual, one of my nieces is gay and the other straight, and as a family we’re extremely close and have always encouraged open debate and discussion with all the kids, but Dsis and I feel like we’re up against a blinkered wall of wokeness on this one.

We’ve never been especially militant feminists, though I guess we’ve assumed that certain principles around women’s rights and protections are just the natural order of things - but no longer, apparently. We’ve no intention of hurting or alienating our daughters, and it does feel like their position on this comes from a place of kindness and inclusivity, which in itself is great, but their utter naivety and blindness to the ultimate implications of this whole ideology are frightening.

I don’t want to fight the good fight at the expense of my most precious relationships, but equally I feel I can’t just stand by and let this shit happen to us all unchallenged.

Good luck, hope your son comes to understand and appreciate your concern

I think it's key to not use bathrooms as the discussion topic. Prisons, refuges and women's sport are easier conversations that I've found are more persuasive with my woke teens

What a pitiful statement by the RA.

We appreciate you holding us to account on this issue

All signalling, no virtue. And scarily reminiscent of those “struggle sessions” used by the Communist Party in China during the Cultural Revolution.

I think they’re going to look like complete tools when the zeitgeist moves on. Obvs they look like complete tools to anyone with any sense already, but I mean in an overall, wider perspective: the world is just starting to move on (here in the UK at least) with Stonewall starting to lose its stranglehold on the great and the not so good, and Maya Forstater’s win last week, and here is the RA foolishly wagging its tail in desperation to be thrown a bone from the TRAs.

When these extremist gender ideologues are exposed and widely recognised as the misogynistic bullies they are, the RA will look really pretty stupid.

In the meantime, great news that Jess de Wahls’ work is selling out on her website! When JKR spoke up, it prompted me to buy the Strike books that I’d been meaning to read. I’ve just ordered one of CNA’s, ditto, after her amazing piece this week.

And looks like something from Jess will find its way into my online shopping basket next, perhaps one of her rather fabulous Heretic patches. Or some Women's rights are not a hate crime stickers. Or a beautiful Flovaries print.

(The She came, she saw, she conquered “orgasm flower” would be a wonderful option too, but given the £2,200 price tag, only if I win the lottery really)

We can support these women who put themselves on the line, and show that they can’t be cancelled, no matter how big the misogynistic pile on.

Every little helps.
(And an email to the RA too, of course.)

To paraphrase JKR's writing, if they could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every single person has heard of her, it was by banning her!

I bet that Jess has sold more on her site in the last twenty four hours than she ever sold through the RA.

I understand that there were only eight complaints leading to this "cancellation" and that one of them was an embroiderer in their own right. Dirty tactics to displace the competition? Strange too that Americans should take such an interest in what a British Institution sells in its shop.

There's also rather an irony in using GDR-style censorship to attack someone who complained of GDR-censorship.

I just wanted to update that RA are backing down. I'm not sure I would find it in me to forgive if I were Jess.

amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jun/23/royal-academy-of-arts-apologises-to-jess-de-wahls-in-transphobia-row

I cannnot agree with Peter Tatchell saying this:
“If an artist denied Jewish, black or gay people’s identity ….. “

Being a woman, black or Jewish, or gay, are not identities but physical states.

The physical reality of being a woman cannot be shared by a trans person. A trans person cannot be ‘denied’ the impossible.

Well said Scrolling.

Peter "Paedophile Information Exchange" Tatchell has some nerve.

Interesting, isn't it, that there are far less cries of "OMG mumsnet is so transphobic" on this thread than usual for a so-called "trans thread".

Rather focuses the mind when an actual example of the TRA lunacy comes to the fore.

@ScrollingLeaves YES, absolutely!!!

Getting so, so sick of this shit...