Choreographer Rosie Kay forced to resign from her own company

[peonyred]

This is a share token so you can read the story. Another Janice Turner article. Simone suggested Crowdfunding for her new company.

Rosie Kay: I resigned from my own dance company after I was accused of transphobia

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3935bc4a-5858-11ec-a3f7-65d2d47c7fea?shareToken=d4efe0ddb11ede84d52835a0a02d70e3

It’s like they want to be the aggrieved discriminated against ones and are trying to turn us GC older women into “the enemy” As if we are the equivalent to those who were homophobic in the 80s. It’s like they didn’t have a “battle” so they made one up

I might have more sympathy for the six of them and wonder if they were telling the truth if it wasn’t for J K Rowling.

But I have read every single word that Jo Rowling has written and I have read what people say as a result. So I know how innocuous a statement can lead to accusations of transphobia.

So they actually wanted her to leave in disgrace, apologising.

@notafatlesbo

I've been to loads of events where someone espouses views I don't agree with - grace before a meal, prayers, political rants. I may engage in the argument if I feel able to or I may politely play along whilst thinking my own thoughts. I've been to weddings of other cultures where I've been forced to be separated from the male members of my family and to miss out on certain parts of the ceremony due to my biological sex. I personally found that problematic as a feminist and felt uncomfortable. But I just went along with it knowing it's basically nothing to do with me.

Plus, stating that biological males are biologically male, and that biological females are biologically female and that even if you identity as NB you are still able or female biologically are not beliefs. They are facts. Widely evidenced and known.

Plus plus, she apologised, verbally and in writing.

What on earth else can you do? Except know that if you ever say the wrong thing and don't "repent m#th3rf£cker" enough, you will be dragged through hell.

@notafatlesbo

IN her own home...... she she invited them into......AS THEIR WORK SUPERIOR.

Now....... let's have a serious conversation that if it'd have been a male that had invited people into his home ..... people who's careers he held in hand so to speak....... and then started banging on about his views on gender and sex etc... knowing some of her co- workers felt the opposite. and how it would be seen. It'd rightly be seen as some sort of bullying in the workplace. Why is this any differfent just because the antagonist is 'she' rather than 'he'?

It’s interesting you see it that way.

The dancers’ own accounts seem to suggest that Kay’s egregious transphobia boils down to “not using correct pronouns” and a polite enquiry around being non-binary that the dancers themselves say they were happy to answer.

This led to aggressive challenging by the men at the dinner; and in defending herself Kay brought up sex based rights.

Anyone who thinks that’s any sort of “abuse of power” needs to give themselves a shake.

Now, if she’d trapped them at the table berating out of nowhere then you may have a point, but the dancers own accounts do not say this happened.

@WarriorN

When I read between the lines Rosie's crime was to slip up on the pronoun stuff which is phenomenally difficult in highly pressured situations as she describes.

We've been using / exposed to singular pronouns since birth. Saying they when it's really a she when directing a dance piece must be extremely grammatically confusing.

You'd be using they when referring to groups of dancers. You'd be instructing and guiding the dancers on how how respond to her and "when she does this move, you do this move" etc. Using they or them would literally be directionally nonsense.

Saying him when you've obviously got a female in front of you, and dance relies on sexed biological strengths would also be challenging and forced speech.

I imagine directing a whole ballet uses more pronouns and "them/ they's" than other professions. it's certainly my experience when directing primary school plays.

Do we even know what the disputed pronouns are? I find myself wondering if they might not be the made up ones, rather than just "they", such is the level of the affected person's self absorption.

Oh the sweeties! They can be as horrid as They like, They are Pack and They can speak.

But object of Pack's distaste must shut the fuck up and not make Pack look bad?

It is interesting that they hadn't finished their schooling, been judged at the end of training. So they have their student egos intact. Theyrank themselves in their class rather than by the wider world standards. And they, by dint of being invited to dance for her, into her home, are the best of their class and so.... are Pack!

Sad bit is she saw they were lacking in bnding as a new dance entity, That's why she invited themn to her home, She could see their inecurities, inadequacies and was doing her best to help them grow through them, become a new team.

Furthermore, she is now using her power as someone that has a louder voice than we can hope for.

Power that comes with experience, knowing what you are doing and putting your money where your mouth is. And yet she stepped down from an organisation she fucking founded. They are so bloody blind to themsleves. See also their horror at her discussing eunachs - she referenced Greer's book, ffs!

Uneducated, semi literate twonks!

Her work sounds amazing! I’d love to see it when she starts choreographing again. She must feel so let down by the trustees who have known her ages. Surely they must know what kind of person she is like and that she hasn’t just turned into a bigot overnight and started to be horrible to her dancers.

Do we even know what the disputed pronouns are? I find myself wondering if they might not be the made up ones, rather than just "they", such is the level of the affected person's self absorption.

No we don't. If made up it's still bloody confusing when you're really focusing on your work.

They clearly challenged her on her forgetting pronouns.

She had to much to drink and had had enough of all of it given she doesn't "believe". She outlined her reasoning.

She later apologised.

They still weren't learnt happy. And got an outside HR company in.

That's my reading of the whole thing.

Neither seems particularly reasonable at the same time, what rights do they have to demand what they demand, force shame etc?

Non binary isn't trans and isn't a protected characteristic.

What on earth else can you do? Except know that if you ever say the wrong thing and don't "repent m#th3rf£cker" enough, you will be dragged through hell.

But we know that even the most abject apology is not enough. Ms Kay is guilty of wrongthink and the only solution is that she disappears forever. A kind of death.

/

It sounds like the young dancers truly believe that RK, by virtue of being their boss, has all the privilege of an old, straight white man. And not understood that her own life and experiences have taught her the importance of recognising sex.

Non binary Pronouns mean jack shit when you are asking a group of people in ensemble to dance. You can't refer to they or them when one person is dancing one thing and a group at the same time are dancing another.

And the boy jump and girl jump? She says he prefers boy jumps. But if the choreography requires female dancer to do girl jump because that is what looks best then of course refer to that jump. If dancers use shorthand then use that shorthand. Why is it offensive? I'm sure the differences are down to how physicality is used and one suits the male physique more and the jther the female physique.

The demands for apologies when the apology wasn't good enough is frightening. It really is. The fact that the apology was also followed by agreement to undergo training too and it still wasn't good enough is shocking. What more did the complainants want? And don't they understand that you cannot demand someone lose their job and their name and their company because your gendered feelings are hurt?

I despair.

God, you can hear the self-righteous sneering in the 'we didn't want her cancelled' statement. Makes my stomach turn. Although at least someone's put their name to it for a change.

I find it almost impossible to believe Kay would say something as ridiculous as all trans women want to use women's toilets to attack them. I'll stand corrected if I'm wrong. But it just all sounds like a wilful misunderstanding once they'd smelled blood. It's also repeated there was a lot of drink taken which surely has to be taken into account given the (men, was it) who loudly escalated things.

The worst thing here is Toby Young sticking his oar in. Not someone it ever really helps to have standing up for you.

Last post was a bit facetious reading back. Toby Young's an arse but of course it's not the worst thing about all this.

@NecessaryScene yes, I agree. I think that in general, trans people believe that their transness affects their every day life more than our non-trasness, that it's a bigger part of their lives and so OF COURSE it makes sense for them to raise it often. I think they often massively underestimate how much our non-trans femaleness affects our lives.

Being a woman has a far bigger impact on my life than being an atheist does.

I read that BBC piece with absolute disgust. Honestly, this is the product of a generation of children who think the world revolves around them. The entitlement and resentment pour off the page.

Also, its not just a demanded apology its the demand for RK to unsay what she said. And once she unsays it she has to follow the particular position the complainers have and then join them in demanding the apology and education of anyone else holding deemed TERF or transphobic beliefs.

It isn't good enough to be sorry for upsetting someone.

@SwumMum

"Iona McGuire, a non-binary dancer at the centre of the row, said: "We weren't striving to cancel Rosie. I was hoping for acknowledgement of her blatant transphobia and an apology for her constant refusal to use my correct pronouns."

So RK apologised, sent a letter apologising, apologised some more BUT IT WASN'T ENOUGH. She wasn't the right kind of sorry, she wouldn't comply and utterly and totally fall into line and performatively acquiesce to the ideology.

Absolutely flipping terrifying.

And why is is so not ok to refer to a person's genitals sometimes (as stated in the article) and yet we have a whole generation of school children being told to say "person with a vagina/penis" instead of boy/girl. The demands are nothing if not inconsistent.

They wanted he to capitulated and surrender. They wanted to 'educate' her.

Except freedom of thought and critical thinking still exist and are valued in this country.

Theyve suddenly got upset that aggressive, refusal to accept an apology and their own hostile behavior is part of the problem. If you force the boss who owes the intellectual rights out of her job at the company you work at, what did you think your career opportunities would be?

She can't do a show if she's got no company. And although there might be others who can do new productions they havent the reputation or the draw to get the gigs.

They want everyone to give them a chance but still even now want to end her career permanently because she is in line with the law. Non binary doesn't have protection and these are non binary who freely auditioned for gendered roles in the first fucking place! Maybe the role just wasn't suitable for them. They somehow managed to recognise their sex mattered when applying for the damn job. Its selective bullshit and emperors new clothes. They used it to asset power over someone when it suited them.

Mob mentality is just as serious and problematic as abuse of power from position.

This lot have a lot to learn about life.

[quote ViceLikeBlip]@NecessaryScene yes, I agree. I think that in general, trans people believe that their transness affects their every day life more than our non-trasness, that it's a bigger part of their lives and so OF COURSE it makes sense for them to raise it often. I think they often massively underestimate how much our non-trans femaleness affects our lives.

Being a woman has a far bigger impact on my life than being an atheist does.[/quote]
Yes! I can avoid a place of worship and not take part in religious events and activities. I cannot avoid my breasts or identify out of my period.

"I think they often massively underestimate how much our non-trans femaleness affects our lives."

Yes! This!

But what's weird is some of them that do this underestimation are female themselves.

Plus, stating that biological males are biologically male, and that biological females are biologically female and that even if you identity as NB you are still able or female biologically are not beliefs. They are facts. Widely evidenced and known.

Exactly. How have we come to the position where someone can take offence to the point of getting their boss sacked, because their erroneous view that they are neither male nor female is disagreed with??

It's absolutely nonsensical.

And the fact that these people genuinely, one hundred percent believe that they have the right to force people to their belief system is very worrying. They truly think that everyone should pretend that they are not one sex or the other.

This is Rosie's company, why the bloody hell would she go out of her way to insult the entire company. I've heard a zillion times women being accused of saying that all transwomen are predators, to utterly disbelieve that she said so. She would, quite rightly, and accurately, have asserted that allowing men into women spaces is a risk.

Her crying was she stood up for herself and other women.

*crime was

Non binary doesn't have protection and these are non binary who freely auditioned for gendered roles in the first fucking place!

It's cake and eating it again.

Only trans people can play trans roles, but they can also play all the other roles.

I hope Rosie explains when next auditioning that the roles are specifically for people who are male or female.

I read the BBC article. All power to Rosie for pushing back.

@HereticFanjo

I read that BBC piece with absolute disgust. Honestly, this is the product of a generation of children who think the world revolves around them. The entitlement and resentment pour off the page.

Exactly.

It wasn't enough that she apologised, they wanted her to grovel. They wanted her to lecture her on why she was wrong, until she believed.

They didn't think there should be someone in charge either, uncomfortable because there's a boss fgs! They felt oppressed because they have to work for someone Nope, fresh out of education and they thought they were entitled to a share of her power.

And then the poor little brats got the shock of their poor little lives when a woman said NO. Boo fuckity hoo. They thought they could ride the coat tails of a woman's success and turn it into a student project where everyone's in charge and they can validate each other all day long, with HER reputation and HER revenue.

I find this appalling. Of all the professions in the world, the dance industry has long been one of the most inclusive of sexual orientation and gender.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo being a well-known example.

They probably decided to have a go at her because they went to an audition and didn't get cast.