Grayson Perry

[madderose]

Interview in the Times:

Who could be more fearless, then, than Perry? So it comes as quite a surprise, within an hour in his company, to find myself beginning to suspect he is self-censoring. The suspicion is confirmed when I ask if he would call himself woke. “Me?” he exclaims. “What a question!” He pauses to choose his words carefully. “Well, I can agree with many of the things that the woke say.” He hesitates again. “But some of the perhaps more arcane campaigns of the woke might fizzle out before they become normal.” Such as? “Oh God, I am so not going there! Because there are certain arguments I keep out of that are real hot-button issues.” So the transgender debate, I begin but he cuts me off quickly, repeating: “There are certain arguments.” And he steers clear because? “I don’t want it to define my public persona. Like it has [with] other people.” Does he mean JK Rowling? He repeats: “Like it has other people”^ which makes us burst out laughing, because he sounds like a politician.^

So basically, he is GC but he's not brave enough to come out and say it like JK has? I've always been a fan of his but feel a little disappointed......

It OK for people to disagree with the gender identity ideology and to keep quiet about their views. I'm not especially brave about this and would be a complete coward if being open would destroy my career.

The problem comes when some people are so afraid they seek appproval by undermining those who are brave enough to stick their heads above the parapet. However, Grayson Perry isn't doing this and the interview is, overall, a positive.

The thing I do dislike about Perry is him exercising his fetish in public in ways that involve others.

I think he also has an actively super-woke daughter and may be wary of saying anything that would cause a rift with her (in the manner of Jonathan Ross.)

I have a certain sympathy with that position, having kool-aid swigging young adult daughters. We argue about it and I don't hold back on telling them my views but I'd be more circumspect if either of us were in the public eye and wouldn't like to air those disagreements in the glare of the media.

I think it's also different for him as a man. My Dh feels he doesn't have the right to argue with his daughters about their rights and identity.

@AbsintheFriends

I think he also has an actively super-woke daughter and may be wary of saying anything that would cause a rift with her (in the manner of Jonathan Ross.)

I have a certain sympathy with that position, having kool-aid swigging young adult daughters. We argue about it and I don't hold back on telling them my views but I'd be more circumspect if either of us were in the public eye and wouldn't like to air those disagreements in the glare of the media.

I think it's also different for him as a man. My Dh feels he doesn't have the right to argue with his daughters about their rights and identity.

Off on a tangent a bit but JR hasn't been back to Twitter since that whole affair where he back pedalled following his re-education by his daughter in June. I think he, for one, has decided to remove himself from the debate entirely.

If he's GC then he's changed his mind from a few years ago. It was a Grayson Perry documentary series (which included an episode with a FTM transitioner) that first led to me questioning all the trans stuff.

In the episode he was very much of the opinion that this person was "born in the wrong body" and thought the whole transition process (surgery and all) was great. There was a bit in the episode where the mum got very upset and I remember feeling really uncomfortable as he almost scolded her for getting so emotional about it. It felt like he was implying that her tears were a sign that she was being transphobic.

Here's his thinking from the series:

(although I don't know whether he's been consistent in his thinking).

In fact, there are a number of short video pieces:

www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Grayson+Perry+BORN+RISKY

It's funny isn't it. The art world he revolves around is meant to be controversial, but actually, they're pretty conventional thinkers who'll go with the wind that blows hardest.

I know a lot of arty/art industry types as acquaintances, met a lot through my ex. It seems to me the occasional exception is a creative genius with their own mind, the rest are derivative wokesters all looking to each other to see what they're supposed to be doing and thinking. The stuff arty types write about art (at least in those circles) is cringe-inducing bolleaux and usually involves guff about identity. And you are NOT allowed to question it because it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

An intelligent person updates their views based on the information available
I certainly have
but it may be that those in the media focus choose not to shout about their views

they have that absolute right
and anybody who decries another for being circumspect
should look at themselves first

the silent majority is a theme in all issues

I think the critical facto here is that you couldn't imaging GP ever putting in for or accepting any awards in his field intended for women any more than Barry Humphries or dare I say Les Dawson would have.

He's in a very different position than he was just a few years ago, and it's also hard to imagine that the TRAs haven't been actively trying to recruit him as a rôle model/ally. It must feel a bit precarious. He has much more to lose than JKR and is nowhere near as invulnerable.

I wonder how his fetish has affected his wife.

I find it hard to believe a wife would not be affected by her husband having a sissy fetish. (I think he has said that this is what he has?).

Is there such a thing as a "part time fetish"?

I got the impression that he has always been GC, seems clear reading between the lines in a lot of his interviews.
Dont blame him one bit for not going on the record though, I wouldn't on anything that could do me career harm. I only recently "came out" to my teen dd which was met with predictable hysterics.
His wife seems nice and down to earth.
Having worked in the adult dating industry for years, I never met a crossdresser that wasnt bi.

@TinselAngel

I wonder how his fetish has affected his wife.

His wife is the psychologist Philippa Perry, she’s done some interesting documentaries too, I enjoyed her one about bipolar disorder. I follow her twitter and have seen tweets of her gently taking the piss out of GP being dressed up in a ‘that’s nice, dear’ kind of way. Quote from her Wikipedia entry (which you have to imagine she’s happy being public knowledge): She has often been asked what it is like being married to a transvestite and says, "Being the wife of a trannie is great, he always makes me look fantastic".[15] When asked the same question by a Buckingham Palace Press Officer when the Perrys went to a reception there in 2005, she said, "As obsessions go, it's better than football". His cross-dressing is treated as a hobby it seems, he’s not claiming to be anything other than a man playing dress up, and I don’t believe ever hid it from her.

I think any old man who gets a thrill out of dressing like a young girl is a creep, I don't understand why he gets a free pass on this and is seen as a national treasure.

That's interesting *lemony". I know who she was but didn't know if she'd spoken about it.

@ListeningQuietly

Tinsel You need to get out more. Re enactors - who obsessively live each weekend as if they were in Viking or Tudor times are far more disruptive to families than Grayson twirling in dress for the press. Seriously he is not the issue

You're very rude. I've got quite a lot of experience supporting women whose husbands have fetishes. They're not akin to hobbies.

I've also got quite a lot of experience of people who seek to minimise the effect of these fetishes on women.

Grayson Perry being perfectly happy and comfortable with himself, his wife being perfectly happy with it, he's very articulate talking about it, he's funny, warm.... He seems an excellent role model.....

I quite fancy him because he's obviously really secure in his masculinity. I used to fancy Eddie izzard for the same thing....

However....

When you put on women's clothes, is it that you think you are woman, you think you look like a woman? Or, what you really like is to be TREATED like a woman, seen as a woman, take a woman's place in society.... And a lot of that is to do with being seen as a sex object only, or at the very least just someone who looks pretty and not much else....

That's the thing I find most offensive about this....

@rabbitwoman

Grayson Perry being perfectly happy and comfortable with himself, his wife being perfectly happy with it, he's very articulate talking about it, he's funny, warm.... He seems an excellent role model.....

I quite fancy him because he's obviously really secure in his masculinity. I used to fancy Eddie izzard for the same thing....

However....

When you put on women's clothes, is it that you think you are woman, you think you look like a woman? Or, what you really like is to be TREATED like a woman, seen as a woman, take a woman's place in society.... And a lot of that is to do with being seen as a sex object only, or at the very least just someone who looks pretty and not much else....

That's the thing I find most offensive about this....

I think for some cross dressers the motivation can be that they like to be humiliated. What that says about their view of women speaks volumes.

Of course I don't know if this is the case with GP.

I like GP - I loved his art series during lockdown, he said something interesting in that - that he hadn't felt the need to dress as Claire while in lockdown - he is aware that it's performative.

Nothing wrong with performative challenges to society's gender norms IMO, males performing trad female roles, clothing and behaviour and females performing trad males roles, clothing and behaviour. bring it on, the more the merrier. He is quite clear he's male. that's the key issue for me.

This is what GP said in a Guardian article in 2018:

I’m an unapologetic fetishist, which is a dirty word in other branches of the trans community. Once during filming I hung out with a bunch of trans people and I overheard one say: “He’s just a cross-dresser.” I turned round with my gun-turret head on and said: “Just a cross-dresser?” I got their number.

The thing is that he was friends with Philippa before they were together as a couple and she knew what she was getting into with his fetish. That's very different from someone being married for several years to a guy who's always presented as male but now insists on being called a female name, says he's the children's mother and wants to wear his wife's clothes.

I think any old man who gets a thrill out of dressing like a young girl is a creep, I don't understand why he gets a free pass on this and is seen as a national treasure.

Because it has nothing to do with him believing young girls are sexual beings. The thrill comes, he has said, of trying to achieve a look that is completely inappropriate in an adult - no one in their right mind would think for a moment that he was a young girl and very, very few would fancy him as Claire - and it's that sense of humiliation, that he's doing something ridiculous and that makes him look foolish, that he seems to get off on. I suppose it's a creative form of masochism.

Still think it's creepy, more so if in his own words he thinks it is 'inappropriate'.