Munroe Berdorf has resigned citing transphobia and right wing attacks

[RedToothBrush]

www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/markdistefano/a-model-has-resigned-as-a-labour-lgbt-adviser-and-blamed?utm_term=4ldqpgm&bftwuk=&__twitter_impression=true
A Model Has Resigned As A Labour LGBT Adviser And Blamed Conservative Newspaper Attacks
"I refuse to be painted as a villain or used as a pawn in the press' efforts, especially those at The Daily Mail, to discredit the Labour Party and push their transphobic rightist agendas," Munroe Bergdorf said on Tuesday morning.

hipster I'm entirely comfortable with the way Madigan's old profile pages have come up, because Madigan has repeatedly lied about them. It would be easy enough, and understandable enough, for Madigan to have put their hands up and said "yes, I was a twit, but I was a very young twit, and I hope to be better and I've grown as a person" and all the rest of it. They'd have been lauded to the skies for this. (Look at all the transwomen who have had their sins - and much, much worse sins than being a teenage dick on twitter, look at Mark "Karen" Jones or Cherno Biko - washed away merely by virtue of them being trans.)

Instead Madigan went the "I have been framed by time-travelling TERFs!", which is about as plausible as all the politicians who cry "I've been hacked!" when their accidentally post about their porn habits on twitter.

I thought LM claimed their brother did it?

I think there's been a number of different "it wasn't me" claims from Madigan. I don't believe any of them. What do you think is plausible, really, here?

Honestly, I don’t know. The profile I’m thinking of (blowjob face, link to unpleasantly named website) I could completely believe somebody’s brother created as a wind up.

I don’t want to derail the thread, I just feel that sometimes this trawling of ancient social media is more tactic than genuine investigation.

I’d prefer MB to have been forced to step aside purely on account of their recent, politically relevant contributions.

Possibly also on account of being, as a PP said, thick as mince.

Oh well that's a relief. I actually hope LM gets it because that will hopefully shine an even brighter spotlight on the idiocy of all of this.

And yes, Lily claims his brother set up a fake account and made rape jokes, possibly due to not being able to accept LM's trans status and stuff and y'know hatred and literal violence. The brother has publicly denied it. I know who I believe.

Since the profile included conversations, and since Madigan's behavour now has chimed exactly with that I'd expect from someone with that profile, and since Madigan's brother denied it, and since there's no other indication that it was false except from Madigan's denials, I'll go with the most straightforward explanation, that it was Madigan's profile and that Madigan is lying.

If Toby Young had to go, then so did Munroe Bergdorf.

This.

Mind you I'm not defending Young, but if it was right and just to crucify him over old tweets then this has to hold true for others, too.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the transgander, eh

Tbf, Toby Young was definitely old enough to know better.

I’d be happy never to have to hear from either MB or LM again. I don’t think it’s necessary or helpful to fight dirty.

I'm definitely glad that social media wasn't around when I was much younger. I'm very grateful that the only record of my time at university that is available on the internet is a reference to me becoming vice-president of a student society. Not because I said or did anything in the league of Bergdorf or Young, but because my views (and how I would express them) have changed over the years.

However... Is the Labour party so inept that it can't even perform very basic due diligence (aka google searching past the first page of hits), and consider the implications of appointing an individual with a controversial history? Really??

See also Jared O'Mara

People say and do things when they were younger that they wouldn't do when they were older. When tweeting the resignation statement, MB said: "Who I was at 23 years old, is not who I am at 31." So even he is trying to appeal to society's understanding that people change and go through phases in life.

The bit that gets me, though, is that the transgender trend doesn't extend that understanding to children and adolescents who are questioning their sex, but rather suggests that their sense that they're in the wrong body is permanent and needs to be affirmed and medicalised. As far as I've been able to tell, many young people go through phases when they question their identities, and by their mid-20s most come out the other side, to accept their bodies. The concern is that many will by then have undergone irreversible medical changes when maybe all they needed was a lot of time and understanding from the people around them.

So it was "transphobia" that made Munroe say awful, sexist, mean-spirited things to lesbians on social media?

Sure.

I was too immature at 23 to be responsible for my actions and really understand what I was saying but yay lets encourage kids and young people of that age to trans. (Isnt that why the present system works)

The "I'm not that person any more" stuff is even more disturbing when you realize that it's meant to cover crimes up to and including murder (see Donna Perry and attempts to evade murder charges on the grounds that it was the old, male self who murdered prostitutes). If we let that logic stand on the small stuff like Munro's old social media comments they'll keep pushing.

I tend to agree with you archery.

I think that Monroe's comment about feminism, and about women, should have been enough to exclude them from an equalities post.

However, stuff that is said about women still seems to be much less important / forgivable so they (whoever "they" are) had to go looking for something more damning and found this stuff about gay people but I agree with archery it sounds like some of it was to monroe's friends, in context they could be affectionate towards Monroe's own community, you know? Rather than nasty attacks by an "outsider".

It was the same with TY he said awful things about women including sexualisation of underage girls but some of the articles didn't even bother mentioning that focussing instead solely on his classist comments.

Why is it still essentially OK to say whatever you like to or about women and girls? We have such a long way to go.

archery2 - you make a very good point. So the trans argument is that by the time you're 30, you're a completely different person from the homophobic bigot you were at 20. But if you're a 12-year old child who thinks you're the opposite sex and want to go on powerful puberty-blocking drugs, that's absolutely fine because 12-year olds know their own mind.

The recent posts have reminded of the saying about suicide being a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Transing gender non-conforming or confused children feels quite similar. I don’t understand why properly supported watchful waiting is so problematic.

Where is the pressure to trans quickly coming from? Isn't that pressure part of the problem not the solution?

I'm surprised gay men aren't more unhappy with transing gender nonconforming children as surely many of them weren't happy with the gender stereotypes as children either but are glad n-one put them on hormones. Children's futures will be so dependent on the type of parents they have in the future. Unless they have parents who reject sexual stereotyping and tell them it's OK for boys not to be macho and girls to be tomboys they'll end up irreversibly altered.
Maybe self id would be a good thing for these kids if they are then told it's OK for a boy to be "really" a girl despite going through puberty normally and remaining phenotypically male so they can change their minds and not be castrated.

I think we need to start using words like "castration" and " elective double mastectomy" instead of the weasel words TRAs would prefer like "bottom surgery" and "top surgery".

Red
Yes it’s part of the problem. But to even question it we are terfs. There was a post a couple of days ago about a an aunt, who found a fb post written by her 15 yo niece celebrating the fact her 4 yo cousin (the ops ds) was a trans girl. A poster came on - all posts swiftly deleted - proclaiming the child trans and advising the mother to seek medical intervention at 10! TRA’s seem to be either perverted or very angry and they are driving the obsession to trans so fast.

Bergdorf will get no sympathy for having been 23. I had graduated at 23. And yes, I was rather immature. But no way did I hold such radical and distasteful views let alone voice them.

YourVagesty, re Gok Wan I remember feeling uncomfortable about the programme's concept but I couldn't explain why, until Julie Burchill explained it for me I don't agree with her on everything of course, but I think she has an admirable ability to cut through the BS.

Where is the pressure to trans quickly coming from? Isn't that pressure part of the problem not the solution?

Red, my take on it is that this is money in the tills for someone - just like traditional beauty marketing and cosmetic surgery. Tell someone they're inadequate and they will pay to put themselves right (cf all marketing aimed at women, ever). That's not the whole explanation (various TRA agendas and other political agendas cut through it) but I think it's part of the explanation.

Yeah, I think capitalism is at the root of a lot of it.

Additionally, I would imagine that some transgender people might find it hard to get their foot in the door of the traditional job market. Therefore they are trying to carve out careers for themselves. Advisors, motivational speakers, charity workers, politicians.

Plus those sorts of roles give you the kind of validation (being told that you are brave and inspiring) that you probably don't get if you stack shelves at Asda.

A few of them have dodgy pasts (Karen Jones, convicted killer and sex offender now working as a motivational speaker for example). You can kind of understand why, that person would be unlikely to have much joy in the wider job market.

I'm trying to think of all the high profile (ie feted by the media) TIM that don't have a dodgy past of the sort that would preclude a woman being invited onto programmes, asked to write columns in national papers and advise major political parties.

AFAIK India Willoughby and Shon Faye don't, but Berdorf, Lees (prison for theft), Kelly Maloney (repeatedly beat his wife), Caitlyn Jenner (penchant for wearing teenage DD's undies), Karen Jones (rapist and attempted murder) do...