Michael Rosen, queering children’s literature

[LiterallyProblematic]

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

Gah, I wish I was on Twatter now.

But I'm too scared 😟 > patiently awaits updates

I've long had a low opinion of Michael Rosen*. If he looks at both sides properly and realises that there's a potential problem here I will have to reassess that. But I'd be very surprised for that to happen.

• I'm sure he thinks I'm terrific.

The term ‘queering’ might be tone deaf, but using words like ‘agenda’ when you’re referring to normalising homosexual relationships and discouraging prejudice is just as bad @Sunkisses

This is good on queer theory. It’s been posted on mn loads.

Thanks OP

Yeah - I think we need to be very clear here - this is NOT about children's literature featuring diverse families - which most people approve of.

Queering the classroom is something far darker. Check out Peter Tatchell's plans for just what this means - teaching children masturbation. Not about masturbation - but how to masturbate. I mean really? Adults teaching children to masturbate? I thought there was a word for that - child sexual abuse. Consider this, together with Tatchell's views of the legal age of consent.

And check out the good doctor Christian's recommendation that children be shown porn in PSHE lessons. Something he claims to 'stand by' - despite considerable criticism - because, again, adults showing children porn is considered child sexual abuse. Then check out Dr Christian's rather sympathetic view of child brides too.

And check out Dr Em's research on the links between paedophilia and queer theory. It's pretty disturbing.

I hope Michael Rosen does start some deeper thinking about this - and doesn't just go down the close-minded "la la la you're just a load of bigots" route.

On a side note, my DD won a poetry reading competition with his "Oh Dear" poem - so we've always been fans of his.

@sunkisses all kids have social, emotional and sex ed. That's a good thing. All kids should understand that some adults love people of the same sex, because they will encounter gay families, and so ensuring they respect that is important. You don't need to get into the mechanics of it all to think that a broad understanding of diversity is important. It's not different to ensuring they understand different cultures. Education increases tolerance. And as they get older, it will reassure kids that if they are attracted to either sex or both (or indeed none) then that's all okay, too.

That's a very, very long way from thinking the Haywood Gallery 'Kiss My Genders' exhibition, for example, which was a queer-theory-based exploration of sexuality was ideal for primary school kids. That's a blatant and fundamental safeguarding failure. It's an interesting and challenging exhibit for adults, which is what art should be for - to make us think. But it's grotesque that they saw no problem with primary school trips. I'd have flipped if they'd taken one of mine to it.

And telling kids that their relationship with sexist gender stereotypes are responsible for their identifying as male or female are based around solid concerns that they promote and entrench sexism, too. That's also what is happening, and it is wrong.

Sorry - And telling kids that their relationship with sexist gender stereotypes is responsible for their identity as male or female promotes and entrenches sexism, too. That's also what is happening, and it is wrong.

It is a bit mystifying that as someone regularly on SM and attached to Goldsmiths, that this whole thing has passed him by.
Surely he heard about the JKR thing?

He's acting naive about the free speech aspect too - so he should be reminded that a boy was expelled from school in Scotland for saying there are only 2 genders.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3627656-The-kid-who-argued-that-there-are-only-two-genders-permanently-expelled?pg=2

And if he is attached to Goldsmiths, he should surely be aware that their LGBTQ group thinks women should be sent to Gulags for "re-education."

It is a bit mystifying that as someone regularly on SM and attached to Goldsmiths, that this whole thing has passed him by.

Looking at his tweets I'm getting a strong sense of faux-naïveté and his distancing with very brief "Really?" type responses looks like someone hedging his bets.

He's got masses of trans twitter on him there bleating about transphobia - and suggesting GC people are like Nazis.

'In their eyes trans people are simultaneously pathetic victims and an ovewhelmingly powerful evil conspiracy. Remind you of anything?'

From the description given by the professor advertising it, it sounds quite good?

“'Queering' means 'questioning the orthodoxy'. The children's literature orthodoxy, for example, would hold that all parwnts are heterosexual. Queering children's literature might therefore mean the inclusion of same sex parents as characters in a children's book Some people don't like the word 'queer' or 'queering' due to a history of its use as a term of homophobic abuse. However it's being reclaimed as it usefully encompasses a range of nonbinary characteristics in people's identities and relationships. When 3 year olds with two mamas see their families represented in a book they tend to respond fondly. 'That's like my family!' And their friends learn that their family isn't so weird or abnormal after all. Potential bullying is deflected. Similarly, when books illustrate the potential for children and their parents to exist outside binary sex stereotypes (pink for girls, etc), children recognise themselves in all their glorious diversity.”

Just because there’s been one inappropriate event that used the word “queer” doesn’t mean they’re all terrible.

Similarly, when books illustrate the potential for children and their parents to exist outside binary sex stereotypes (pink for girls, etc), children recognise themselves in all their glorious diversity

Wah, so those writers who've been producing books like that for years: like Astrid Lundgren, Jaqueline Wilson, or Kathleen Rundall, David Lucas, Sally Gardner, Frank Cottrell Boyce or JKR have actually been 'queering children's literature'? Who knew?

Some people don't like the word 'queer' or 'queering' due to a history of its use as a term of homophobic abuse

Yes, so probably good form not to use it.

However it's being reclaimed as it usefully encompasses a range of nonbinary characteristics in people's identities and relationships

This is gibberish. And as I said above, my 20 yr old hasn't reclaimed it, she thinks it's bloody offensive, so who is doing the reclaiming?

Similarly, when books illustrate the potential for children and their parents to exist outside binary sex stereotypes

There are many, many, many of these types of books in kids lit already. So why does an established tradition, say, of tomboyish girls, need to be 'qu**red' ?

Glorious diversity is a lot more than fucking with heteronormativity for 'qu**r' kicks.

@riotlady you might enjoy this interesting explanation of queer theory.

.. a boy was expelled from school in Scotland for saying there are only 2 genders...

And the teacher was unable or unwilling to say exactly how many there actually were.

Pathetic.

Helmet

The similarities are astounding. I'd imagine there's quite a lot of cross over between the groups slurring women and the ones slurring Jewish people.

suggesting GC people are like Nazis

Since Rosen's last tweet was Arriving Cambridge for Holocaust Education... then if he isn't worried by women being referred to as Nazis for having a particular political view then that would make him rather incurious.

Ugh, I misread you Helmet ignore me

Its a pity he doesn't read his own poems.

I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.

Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you...

It doesn't walk in saying,
"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution."

michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/fascism-i-sometimes-fear.html

But you're right, Janes, there is a big cross-over - both stem from the same mentality: The hierarchy of privilege, is it?

"Jews can't possibly be victims, they're all rich/successful blah blah. Only Muslims can be victims of racism.'

"Women can't possibly be victims, or need protections/rights, there is complete equality now and trans people are the most vulnerable in society.

This is gibberish. And as I said above, my 20 yr old hasn't reclaimed it, she thinks it's bloody offensive, so who is doing the reclaiming?

Im happy to identify as queer and in most LGBTQ+ spaces I’ve been it’s in common usage. As an online example off the top of my head, check out autostraddle.com, which is a queer women’s site, where it’s used frequently.

It’s really commonly used as a catch all term for “not straight and heteronormative”, rather than listing letters.

Including and normalising diversity in kids books has been going on for a long time. There's work to do but it's getting there and people in general are becoming more accepting and relaxed.

What's changed though is that including and normalising diversity has been incorporated into being under the queer umbrella and the queer umbrella and all it covers is now being pushed and if anyone says "I think we need to think about what's under the umbrella" this triggers the response "how bigoted you are to be against including and normalising diversity!"

Does this remind you of anything?