Sunday Times article by Jan Morris’s daughter

[BalooLikeYou]

archive.ph/bupdZ

This was a heartbreaking article. Thank you for sharing.

Much has been made, too, of her transition from male to femal

If only we could speak the truth.

How painful for Suki, who writes so well and insightfully. He sounds like a complete bellend. Glad she is able to shed some light on his treatment of her and her mum. It must be tough hearing him so celebrated.

Can feel Suki's pain and confusion. How sad that she had such a selfish narcissistic father.

Thank you for posting that.

I don't use the word 'transition' any more when discussing this subject, for that reason.

It is a heartbreaking account. It has always seemed to me that every trans identifying person who is a parent is denying their child a mum or dad. It is not not fair and will have a detrimental effect. There are many ways in which mums and dads screw up their kids, as Larkin put it poignantly. But this one, to me is so obvious. The day I became a parent my life became about my child. I do not understand anything else as a moral approach. I don't really understand people who don't get that.

Absolutely this.

What a sad, confused childhood Suki had. Who would talk about one child being a substitute for another who had died?! I wouldn’t talk that way about pets, FFS, never mind humans, never mind my own flesh and blood. Absolute main character energy from Morris there, with everyone else around, particularly women there to play secondary, subservient roles.

Horrible.

I am glad she has got the chance to have her say, I am always interested in hearing the stories of wives, siblings and children of transitioners, because my goodness isn’t there a pattern there?

As the proponents would say: What's it to you? what's the harm? Stop pretending to care for the children.

Oh well.

It is such a painful read.

That's very sad @ItsAllGoingToBeFine . I've actually got Allegorizings but haven't read it. Not inclined to now.

I only ever knew Jan as a woman and loved her travel writing. Another disappointing man , ultimately

Also very neglectful of his wife by all accounts, just an odious person.

I've heard Jan Morris being lauded in the past and yet I am not surprised to find she was self-absorbed and cruel. Not the poster child for the trans movement after all.

That's a very powerful testimony. Or should I say stunning and brave?

Incredible article.

Morris was a fucking monster.

The poor wife. Those poor children - especially "replacement child" Suki.

I wonder if there is a poster child for the movement.

Reading about/seeing interviews/hearing them talk it seems that narcissism and cruelty towards women is the norm. Happy to be corrected.

@DolphinWars I think previous the trans movement have held Morris up as an example of brave and stunning. It's just fascinating that time and again those put forward as apparently inspirational aren't quite what they seem.

Currently the most Recommended comment under the article mentions the transwidows threads on Mumsnet.

If this is how Jan Morris really saw womanhood, then the hypocrisy is jaw-dropping. Jan’s stance made no logical sense, but it didn’t really need to, as the rest of the family didn’t get a say. Suki and Elisabeth deserved much better.

Suki - I hope you get to read this thread, if you don't know this place already - you have a wonderful way of writing. Not fantastical. Tender and real.

I am sorry you had to live a life of putting up with this. Sorry for your mother too. I'm glad you have each other.

Thank you for writing this piece about such sustained and deeply personal pain. It is very important that it's heard.

A very powerful piece.

I think there is in some of the things I've read from some trans women a thread of, not hatred of female people exactly, but dismissal, a sense that a male person makes a better fist of being a woman than a female, that we have the privilege of being born women but don't deserve it, while they do it right.

It's misogyny of course, just the age old assumption by male people that we are lesser, the unconscious and self-perpetuating need to devalue anything a female person achieves to reinforce the male self image as the default achiever.