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

www.reddit.com/r/GenderCynical/comments/rej4fp/terfs_continue_to_be_obsessed_with_genitals_as/

Just wanted to drop this link here in case it’s ever needed for a libel case against Pink News.

The PN article about Rosie Kay is linked on that Reddit post. Here is how one of the commenters at the link understood the article:

If any teacher is asking to see a pupil's privates, that's a massive red flag and a good reason to not turn up to the next class.

Yes, really. And I can get how they arrived at that understanding based on the PN headline. (The Redditors also call her a dance teacher not a choreographer, which is trivial compared to the other thing, but it is part of a very noticeable pattern of TRAs downplaying the status and skills of women who disagree with them.)

PN link and Reddit link are archived on archive.is. I understand we can’t post those links here?

Anyway I took it as a warning, I keep conversation bland when among the young ones.

Why does anyone keep anything in a locked cupboard? Why does anyone lock their houses? Why does anyone do anything or go anywhere or even breathe?

AARRGGHHHHH.

I tried to post a Reddit link but it got autodeleted. Pink News has written about this and Redditors have interpreted the Pink News headline in the following way:

If any teacher is asking to see a pupil's privates, that's a massive red flag and a good reason to not turn up to the next class.

I don’t think the Redditor’s interpretation is unreasonable based on the PN headline. Both Reddit link and PN link are archived.

I can’t post the Reddit link or the archive link so it might seem like a pointless post, but I made it anyway in case the article is legally actionable, in which case the Reddit discussion might constitute evidence of its misleadingness.

So you all think it's normal if a lecturer/trainer invites students/trainees into their home and discussed their genitals and the students/trainees just need to "toughen up"?

@CatherinaJTV

So you all think it's normal if a lecturer/trainer invites students/trainees into their home and discussed their genitals and the students/trainees just need to "toughen up"?

That is a deliberate misrepresentation of what happened.

@CatherinaJTV

So you all think it's normal if a lecturer/trainer invites students/trainees into their home and discussed their genitals and the students/trainees just need to "toughen up"?

Since we’re not Victorians or members of a weird religion that deems all mention of genitals taboo, I would say it depends on the context.

Lots of unacceptable contexts, bearing in mind the various power relations involved. Some acceptable ones, particularly where the discussion is rhetorical or the matter has been raised by the person in the less powerful position.

That is a deliberate misrepresentation of what happened.

Not according to the medium post of the dancers...

Since we’re not Victorians or members of a weird religion that deems all mention of genitals taboo, I would say it depends on the context.

Fair enough. The context has been given by the dancers in the Medium post. They perceived this as aggressive and objectifying. Some here seem to think that students just need to put up with that?

What were you supposed to say? Argh.

Well I suppose the professional reply - which I will give if I'm ever asked again - is that it's hospital policy and if I'm feeling keen direct them to the relevant policy.

My mistake was in thinking the question to be rather a foolish one that didn't merit a serious reply. Perhaps I was a bit facetious.
Literal violence obviously.

Needless to say, by the time their manager, my manager and the departmental head had been involved it took a grovelling apology and my own manager's people skills to de-escalate things.

When you're proselytising for a sex-denying religion, of course those pointing out your errors are going to discuss sex. If you're not prepared to discuss sex, maybe don't go into the public sex denial business.

Similarly, if you don't want to hear about the world being round, because you think that's aggressive and offensive, don't start telling everyone the world is flat, and it won't happen.

Don't start a debate for which you're not prepared to hear opposing opinions.

@CatherinaJTV

Since we’re not Victorians or members of a weird religion that deems all mention of genitals taboo, I would say it depends on the context.

Fair enough. The context has been given by the dancers in the Medium post. They perceived this as aggressive and objectifying. Some here seem to think that students just need to put up with that?

I don’t think that the fact that they claim to have perceived it so means that their claim is necessarily honest and their perception reasonable. I wasn’t there so am reserving my judgement on both counts.

Good point NecessaryScene.

Don't start a debate for which you're not prepared to hear opposing opinions.

They didn't start a debate. They were asked their preferred pronouns when they signed their contracts. I ticked "female" when I signed my contract. This doesn't mean I am ready to discuss my bits with my boss.

Right - and Rosie was not the lecturer but their boss, so these are not students in loco parentis but adults - if you start calling your boss a terf and a bigot, you should be protected from your boss responding to that with what sounds like engagement and discussion of what that implies?

In your fantasy world, Catherina.

If I went about calling my boss an anti-Semite or whatever in his own home, I imagine it would be considered generally ridiculous of me to then claim I felt “unsafe” if he wanted to explain what his actual views were on Israel and Palestine in response.

On another note, the story about the locked hospital cupboard is insane. How are these people going to manage in their jobs? How are they going to perform in a workplace context if they can’t react like adult individuals?

Nicely put, @foxgoosefinch.

@foxgoosefinch

Right - and Rosie was not the lecturer but their boss, so these are not students in loco parentis but adults - if you start calling your boss a terf and a bigot, you should be protected from your boss responding to that with what sounds like engagement and discussion of what that implies?

In your fantasy world, Catherina.

If I went about calling my boss an anti-Semite or whatever in his own home, I imagine it would be considered generally ridiculous of me to then claim I felt “unsafe” if he wanted to explain what his actual views were on Israel and Palestine in response.

On another note, the story about the locked hospital cupboard is insane. How are these people going to manage in their jobs? How are they going to perform in a workplace context if they can’t react like adult individuals?

If my boss started to ask me about my genitals, I couldn't guarantee my reaction. "Apologies, Bob, I'd prefer not to discuss my vagina with you" may just not be strong enough, especially if Bob insisted (which I understand was the issue here).

What I don’t understand about Fanny’s story is why management gave so much time to it.
I assume this is in the overstretched NHS but even if it’s a private hospital you would think they had more important things to worry about!

You are aware of the idea of hypothetical discussion, yes? Rhetorical questions? Did anything in this report convince you that Rosie Kay was literally asking for a discussion or reveal of the interlocutors’ actual genitals?

Sheesh, no wonder when words her reframed as “literal violence” are disingenuous posters seemingly unable to understand the normal rules of discourse.

And it’s your lot who want us all renamed as persons with vaginas/penises, vulva owners and menstruators! And then you want to complain you mustn’t hear words about genitals in company like so many miniature Victorians? We get called person with a vagina when it suits you, but you will gasp and stretch your eyes if vaginas are ever mentioned when you don’t like it?

Absolute hypocrisy.

*when words get reframed as “literal violence”

In my experience with TRAs, if you make any reference to biological sex, they screech "You're disgusting! You're obsessed with genitals."

They then blithely refer to us as "people with vaginas" or "cerivx-havers."

So it goes. They are ridiculous people, best ignored.

I have a simple factual question to ask: do dancers with male genitals need to wear any sort of protective "box" over them? I would have thought that in a leotard/tights, male genitals or the lack of them would be blindingly obvious to anyone. (Nureyev had a definite bulge.) Or do dancers who wish to pretend to male genitals they don't have wear padded codpieces? What can those with male genitals do if they wish to pretend to female ones?

I doubt that Rosie needed to ask which sort of genitals any of them had, to be honest. They'd done rehearsals with her.

Male dancers use a jockstrap under tights, to keep it all together as it were!

(There was actually a Royal Ballet documentary a few years ago where they devoted quite a bit of time to this question, so it’s hardly one that dancers would be blushing and shy about…)

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I have a simple factual question to ask: do dancers with male genitals need to wear any sort of protective "box" over them? I would have thought that in a leotard/tights, male genitals or the lack of them would be blindingly obvious to anyone. (Nureyev had a definite bulge.) Or do dancers who wish to pretend to male genitals they don't have wear padded codpieces? What can those with male genitals do if they wish to pretend to female ones?

I doubt that Rosie needed to ask which sort of genitals any of them had, to be honest. They'd done rehearsals with her.

exactly, so why did she ask to the point that everyone found the energy to write that complaint and get it investigated?

This one IIRC:

dancetabs.com/2020/06/men-at-the-barre-inside-the-royal-ballet-bbc-documentary/