Michael Rosen, queering children’s literature

[LiterallyProblematic]

I could cry.
twitter.com/wwwritingclub/status/1217210625153290240?s=20

[AutumnRose1]

Ah I see
I was expecting some sort of big statement but maybe he just jumped on the bandwagon!

[ScrimshawTheSecond]

The screenshot Tinsel has posted upthread, from Dr Anna Carlile, was posted first (as far as I can work out) and then I presume there was some kerfuffle, and Rosen posted the one nauticant has linked to above.

[AutumnRose1]

I’m late to this and the tweet has been removed

What did it say please?

[HorseWithNoTimeForThis]

Lang. Bang on the money. As usual.

[LangCleg]

How does Michael feel about "queering the safeguarding of children"?

Sounds a bit different when you say it like it is, doesn't it?

(Because, Michael, as you perfectly well know, it has nothing to do with greater representation of gay and lesbian characters in children's books.)

[Goosefoot]

He may not have anticipated the number of responses that he received. Being on the campus of a university where there is really only one POV on gender, but it's not an area he is very involved with, might work against him having a clear idea how controversial it is, or what type of people are upset about it. It's probably a bit of a bubble.

[stumbledin]

The point is he retweeted something asking for comments and then later said he didn't have time to think about it because his main focus that day was attending Holocaust Memorial events.

So why did he bother opening up a thread about gender?

Dishonest.

[nauticant]

As far as I know it was this one twitter.com/MichaelRosenYes/status/1217373545803780097 and it's still there.

[Helmetbymidnight]

he rt a tweet about mermaids training- the barbie/ken continuum? and asked for thoughts- i think the tweets gone.

[Lordfrontpaw]

Well that’s certainly underselling to topic somewhat.

[TinselAngel]

Here's a screenshot of the original tweet.

[ScrimshawTheSecond]

I don't know that he was the one that posted it, stumbled. Someone else posted a tweet advertising the event, with him tagged as one of the participators.

[stumbledin]

The worst part of it was his hypocrasy. He isn't some oldie living in social isolation. Even a superficial contact with social and mainstream media would mean he is aware of the issue creating strong opinions. And he must also be aware of the issue of free speech in universities.

What was absolutely the worst part of what he did is say I dont have time for this as I am taking part in 2 different Holocaust Memorial events.Which is fine of course. But if they were that important to him why chose that day of any to plant that click bait retweet.

And then to opt out by saying I'm just an oldie and need to focus of the Holocaust events.

Talk about shit stirring.

You would think he would have wanted to keep his timeline free to post reflections on the events he was participating in.

Am geuninely shocked that he would think this is okay.

Where is his respect - and of course the putting the toe in the water to see which side of the arguement re gender will be more beneficial to his career.

Shame on him.

[Helmetbymidnight]

I genuinely didn't see any hate, hostility or aggression even scepticism directed towards Rosen - and/or towards TRA.

I saw masses of people saying 'don't listen to them/they're transphobes' over and over again.

[perfectstorm]

He allowed the conversation to happen, on a high profile twitter account. If he did know more than he implied, then he's promoting freedom of speech, and good on him.

We don't get people to agree with us by assuming hostility in all comers. If someone asks questions, they deserve courtesy. And if they disagree with us but are respectful, same. He's not saying it's bigoted to be feminist gender critical - that's the militant misogynists. There are enough people attacking women for the temerity of pointing out that erasing us as a sex class has an effect on us,
without looking for hostility where none seems to exist.

[Goosefoot]

Was anybody on the feminist side actually rude to Rosen? Because all my experience of these debates suggests that the hate and aggression comes entirely from the other side.

When I was looking at the Tweets - and I didn't end up reading them all - I didn't see any I would say were outright attacking him, but there were some I thought seemed.. ill-advised? Usually I think the best strategy with this sort of thing is to take the person's interest at face value, and maybe provide them with some information that is specific to the area they are interested in. And not necessarily the information that resonates with people for whom this is an everyday topic of conversation, but some well-written and clear and very moderate sounding voices.

The sudden inundation of all kinds of tweeting, some of which was quite aggressive to other people making comments, may tend to seem kind of overwhelming.

[Melroses]

I expect it is not that simple these days - there are probably diversity boxes to tick, especially in 'educational' which would mean small alterations to mainstream books, and getting into the systems that decide this would be very useful for some groups.

If really good books were reprinted, my all time favourite, No Problem! by Eileen Brown, would be everywhere. As would be my other favourite by her, Tick Tock.

[MissSmith1]

People publish books to make money - if people don't buy them, and many aren't troubled enough about queering children's books to buy them, then they won't make money and won't get published /republished.

[ThinEndoftheWedge]

his name was next to Stonewall's, for something about "queering children's literature.

Yes - for prosperity...

‘Queering children’s literature’ has proactive connotations.

Is anyone actually attending the event?

[theflushedzebra]

I'm left wing too - and Michael's behaviour here has reminded me exactly of Jolyon Maughams in Jan 18, in the Jennifer James fundraiser furore. And Ralf Little, come to that. A play at naivity, an invitation to "tell me the issues" and then backing away completely. Since then, Jolyon has gone full-on TRA - so it will be interesting to see if Michael engages anymore.

But since his name was next to Stonewall's, for something about "queering children's literature" then it's incumbent on him to be aware of the issues.

[OldCrone]

He said that he hasn't followed the issue, which is totally plausible - most people know nothing about this. He sounds like he's at the level that most of us were at 5-10 years ago - thinking "of course I support trans people" and not realising there was anything more to it.

Plausible, but untrue. Did you miss the chat he had with CN Lester in 2018 which was linked to earlier?

//www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r4k4l

Listen to this and then admit he knows a lot more than he claims to.

He just acted confused.

You're right. It's an act.

[JanesKettle]

Quite a lot of us ARE left wing people, thanks so much.

[AnotherLass]

God, this conversation has wound me up. Michael Rosen has not turned out to be another Jolyon Maughan, or a TRA. That is such an outrageous misrepresentation

I often think that many of the people on this board just don't like left wing people

Rosen didn't state ANY support for any TRA ideas or policies. He engaged in perfectly polite, interested conversation with feminists (including me) on this topic on twitter, sounding ignorant. He said that he hasn't followed the issue, which is totally plausible - most people know nothing about this. He sounds like he's at the level that most of us were at 5-10 years ago - thinking "of course I support trans people" and not realising there was anything more to it.

He was obviously taken aback by the level of emotion, and was inclined to run away from it. But he hasn't gone around screaming "bigot" AT ALL. He just acted confused.

[Helmetbymidnight]

i thought the michael rosen threads were quite stark in illustrating:

gc arguments: heres some info - please read/find our more.

trans rights arguments: dont listen to them/dont read more, theyre transphobes.

[RuffleCrow]

I think there's a huge difference between talking about different family setups (which, yes, has been happening for decades - big whoop) and the inappropriate sexualisation of children through queer theory, which unfortunately is an ideolology which has grown out of paedophilia.