Jess de Wahls

[Mollyollydolly]

The Royal Academy have removed Jess' work from their shop due to a handful of complaints that she's 'transphobic'. If you want to support Jess her website is here.
www.jessdewahls.com
So sick of these utterly craven organisations. I hope she has a legal case against them for discrimination.

"I'm literally just reading it now". FFS.

Fuck this

“She says people cannot change sex. What’s your opinion on that”.

“Biologically I agree with that”

Person is trans. Very male voice.

Katie John Witt? Think that was the name at the end.

I thought it was a good interview. Michelle gave Jess to plenty of chances to get her points across and the whole thing was calm and discussed in a grown up and rational way.

My favourite bit was Jess explaining she isn’t there to validate other people. Exactly!!

Katie John Wint? (Spelling).

Utter cowardice from RA not to put anyone forward for this interview. I hope they end up in court. I'll happily contribute to a crowdfund for that!

Thanks Katie....

Just caught the end Kaite (?) something. Sex isn’t binary uhuh... not a professor of biology then.

As an aside, a transgender friend of mine had a brief moment in the spotlight a few years ago and found the self on the radio 4 go-to list for any interview - including things they were utterly ignorant of and had nothing to say about.

I've just listened to her interview, she was very good. I hope she is invited to speak again.

She is right, if the RA is hoping this will all just disappear, it won't. People will remember this. It will be brought up in articles, and on social media, and in discussions on here, and in books, and radio interviews, and on TV, and even if it's not mentioned for months and months, something will be said somewhere at some point and it will be discussed again (and again).

I contacted the RA twice, once by email and once on their website contact form, telling them I know I will not be welcome at their establishment because I share the same views as Jess de Wahls. And I'll always remember that, even if they backtrack. I'll remember what they did to her, and I'll know they would think the same of me as they do of her. And I just won't go, and I won't support them, and neither will so many other people now they've shown their true colours.

I've also contacted Jess de Wahls to say that I support her, that I think her art is amazing, that I will be buying from her shop (I tried to pre-oder but there is a problem and I couldn't) and that hate won't win.

TFABR has done one of her fantastic portraits as well, just as I hoped. I can't see it in the shop yet but I'll be buying it as soon as she does.

The follow-up trans person was Katy Jon Went. Google is available for your searching needs.

Missed who that was, but they misquoted the Equality Act

yes, I heard that Jules. Such a shame that the BBC still won't /can't challenge that misinformation.

I didn't catch the full name of the person at 8.49 either and can't find who it might be via google. I suspect the 'playing catch up' is because Today couldn't get anyone from Stonewall etc so had to find someone less familiar with the topic and I wouldn't blame Katie for that. Like Katie, I am quite happy to say sex is dichotomous and gender identity is not, although that is a minority view here.

Anyway, if the interview shows that the 'no surrender' activists do not speak for all transgender people, then that it is all to the good.

Jess was excellent earlier.

@NoTruckWithFrontedAdverbials

How arrogant to begin an interview “I’m playing catch up”

To be fair, that may say more about the BBC than the interviewee. It suggests they couldn’t find somebody who knew about the issue, but still felt they had to include somebody who doesn’t because ‘balance’.

Christine Burns decided it was too trivial an answer to be worth the comment - one (unironic?) reply to her about the interview:

This interview is on R4 right now. The interview is not being conducted by Justin Webb, so the interviewee is being asked real questions.

There was the ususal confusion around the Maya Forstater verdict, but you can't have everything, I suppose

twitter.com/AnhedoniAmelia/status/1406868989586857986?s=20

I thought Katie was fairly reasonable. Didn't agree with everything Katie said but Katie was open for debate.

[quote nauticant]Apparently trans activists within the trans community were approached to go on the programme but decided against putting forward their version:

twitter.com/JennAndieY/status/1406868011932438530[/quote]
I'm finding the downplaying of this very interesting. The retweet Christine Burns is telling - she mentions twice, in case we're unsure, that it's insignificant news that she's only become aware of this morning...

Fox Fisher tweeted last night 'Kudos to @royalacademy for being 'committed to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion' by dropping an artist I've only just heard of, called Jess de Wahls.' The 'only just heard of' letting us know how insignificant Fox thinks Jess is.

Many more trans commentators are using the same lines of a storey I know nothing about. Very odd that they're all so isolated from this one particular piece of news.

@somethinginoffensive

Stonewall declined

Were they definitely asked? Surprising they wouldn't want to stand up to transphobia during pride month? Surely this is their forte?

I didn't mean they were invited On this specific occasion. I was talking about last week.

Ah, okay datun. Good to be clear.

Jess spoke brilliantly.

JustcameoutGC puts it very well - Jess de Wahls is a self-employed artist, who makes a living from her own creativity. This has massively increased her profile, but not necessarily in a way she wanted and, according to the patreon email she sent out yesterday, has forced a huge overnight change in the way she runs her business, since she can't possibly cope with the increased demand, order fulfilment, admin and PR etc generated by this. It's great, but she's overwhelmed by it, and I guess there's a large part of her that just wants to be left in peace to make her work.

Meanwhile, the RA haven't troubled themselves to even acknowledge the shitstorm they whipped up. And on Twitter, Katy Montgomerie, says that they were asked to go on to R4 to take part in that 10 minute interview, but 'didn't have time.' This is the same Katy Montgomerie who was messing about on Twitter then, and probably will be for most of the day. (150 tweets in the last hour, twitter informs me.) When Katy said they were too busy to go on the Today programme, did they mean too busy on twitter?

I'm sending this message to the RA
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Having read your message regarding your removal of work by Jess De Wahls from your shop, I have two comments/questions:
a) there are, in fact, two biological sexes, and it is impossible to change from one to the other. This is scientific fact, not a matter of opinion
b) Having been an out lesbian for nearly 50 years, I do see myself as a member of the LGBT+ community. Claiming that the Academy is "standing with us" in this act of censorship is purely insulting. Why do you assume that the community is represented first and foremost by trans rights activists?
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and this letter to the i newspaper, who published this article at the weekend (I don't know if you can read it all without a subscription)
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I was interested to read Katy Brand's article of 19th June on "Great art by bad people". I agree with her that obnoxious or controversial behaviour or views should not mean that works of merit are removed from the public sphere. Picasso's violence towards women doesn't seem to have upset galleries yet. However, the Royal Academy recently removed work by Jess De Wahls from their shop after a handful of complaints about her saying that there are two biological sexes and that it is impossible to change from one to the other.
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Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

meant to link to the i article