Bergdorf in The Guardian

[PenguinFlipper]

Puff piece on Bergdorf. www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/feb/11/munroe-bergdorf-interview-model-writer-trans-activist-memoir

Weirdly doesn't mention the NSPCC cutting ties with Bergdorf over safeguarding concerns www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48643467. And while discussing the Scottish GRC bill, fails to mention at all the controversy over rapists and other male sex criminals who say they're women being placed in women's prisons. Perhaps the journo's Google is broken?

Depressingly Bergdorf was bullied as a child for being an effeminate gay boy. "I was too girly for the boys".

How have we got to the point where homophobia is so rife that medicating / operating on unhappy people and helping them pretend they're the opposite sex is preferable to accepting them as gay? And then demonising anyone who doesn't want to join in the pretending?

Bergdorf seems to have had a hard life. I wish it had been easier with support for Bergdorf to accept Bergdorf's self as a gay man. In Bergdorf's own words: "How many people are going to die, and how many people are going to end up in situations like I’ve been in where they can’t love themselves, because the environment they are in encourages them to hate themselves?".

Of course, abuse of anyone including trans people is wrong and sounds like Bergdorf has had a truckload. I hope Begdorf does love Bergdorf's self. But I worry if Bergdorf has assigned happiness to other people accepting Bergdorf as a woman, because it's a belief not everyone shares, and I don't think it's abusive to state that men are not women. In fact, I think it's of critical importance.

Why? This is another quote from Bergdorf in the article:

white “existence, privilege and success as a race is built on the backs, blood and death of people of colour”

You can also apply that to sex:

"Male existence, privilege and success ... is built on the backs, blood and death of women."

If we accept that, then the oppressor (men) should never be allowed to identify as the oppressed (women).

I'm not sure Bergdorf appreciates Bergdorf's male privilege in claiming that trans-identified males are women.

Bergdorf is privileged enough; I'm pretty sure their mum was high flying and successful. Money hasn't been an issue for them.

Isn't mum white too, did she build her existence oppressing Bergdorfs dad?

Bergdorf just hates themselves.

@PenguinFlipper
" how many people are going to end up in situations like I’ve been in where they can’t love themselves, because the environment they are in encourages them to hate themselves?". "

Isn't that exactly the situation that they are breaking their necks to put young children in? 3 and 4 year olds upwards being told they're in the wrong bodies and to deny they're boys and girls and then, encouraging them to start thinking about those wonderful operations that will cure it all, when they get that little bit older but meanwhile, just have these injections and take these tablets!

@EpicChaos yes good point. If someone says they hate their body, I'm not sure agreeing that they are right to do so, and putting them on a pathway for damaging meds/surgery, is a great idea.

The point is @PenguinFlipper they are actively encouraging little kids, that barely have a sense of self, to hate their bodies, they have no right to do so!
The kids are being deliberately brainwashed into it!
Far too many degenerates being allowed to have far too much to say!

This Monroe Bergdorf?

@Sharktopus 😮

This Monroe Bergdorf?

Indeed, but of course it's not Bergdorf's fault that Bergdorf was exposed for making nasty homophobic remarks, it's the evil right-wing press digging them up that are to blame:
news.sky.com/video/trans-activist-defends-hairy-lesbian-tweets-11373545

Thank you for articulating how so many women feel about this so well.

Everyone alive can paint a back story full of pain and disappointment. It dose not give you the right to abuse others.

@TheBiologyStupid wait, so Bergdorf said those tweets were in the context of Bergdorf being 22 and "identifying" as a gay male? But now is a completely different person? Presumably still got same brain?

From the Guardian piece: But at the time she was terrified by the response. “The amount of death threats and rape threats … I saw a really dark side of humanity.

Has Bergdorf ever criticised the death and rape threats made by TRAs, I wonder?

@TeamadIshbel It's so frustrating to see it glossed over and unquestioned. Gargh!

Do all interviewers interviewing a transwoman have to pay some sort of tax in the form of referencing how beautiful/stunning they are? It seems to be a recurring feature.

Also - "The reasons are twofold, she says – the trans community in general doesn’t trust mainstream media, and mainstream media has not prioritised hearing trans voices. The result is unsatisfactory at best. Imagine if the same were true for other minorities, she says. “We’re not looking to white people to be the authority on the black experience.”

This person told women that centering their own biology at a women's march was exclusionary and reactionary. So yes, I can imagine that being true for other minorities, very well 🙄

We lost one of these already today - here’s the deletion message:

Pehaps we should request it be moved to Chat or AIBU, where the rules are different?

This person told women that centering their own biology at a women's march was exclusionary and reactionary. So yes, I can imagine that being true for other minorities, very well

Here’s a receipt for that!

I wonder if Bergdorf has discovered any compassion or empathy for women in all of this self-discovery.

I used to like Simon Hattenstone's interviews, but he seems out of his depth on this one. He throws in the sentence, "While Bergdorf and her allies argue that trans rights are on a par with previous battles for racial and sexual equality, gender-critical activists argue that trans women threaten the safety of biological women, and the sanctity of single-sex spaces", but in the very next sentence appears to join in with Bergdorf in characterising this as "the fact that the trans community has been weaponised by politicians".

As for Bergdorf's unsubstantiated claim that "trans people have been notable for their absence in the debate on their future", which Hattenstone allows to pass uncontested, this is somewhat undermined by the instrumental role that "Beth" Douglas has been allowed to play in Holyrood's legislative process.

Another piece supporting Bergdorf and suggesting that it's time to move on from Bergdorf's past homophobic etc. tweets: archive.ph/DrNDH

I doubt the author takes such a forgiving view of those "targeted" for cancellation on the other side of the debate, somehow.

Bergdorf saying offensive stuff when young isn’t particularly notable to me, young people say all sorts of stupid shit. If they stop it by the time they are 25 or so, I can let it go.

Bergdorf using a mainstream platform to berate women’s rights activists for centring issues unique to female bodies? That’s much worse.

And Bergdorf soliciting private messages from gender distressed minors on social media? That’s the big one.
Absolutely no acknowledgement that it’s just not ok for celebrity influences to be private messaging other people’s kids. A simple ‘sorry, I’ve turned off the DM function and will seek out information on proper safeguarding protocols, it won’t happen again’ would’ve been nice.

Oh @ArabellaScott you know the answer to that one already!

Almost every bio I've ever read about an adult transwoman contains a history of homophobia and sexism, often at highly abusive levels. So I'm not at all surprised to read this.

A trans identity might be an understandable reaction, on a personal level, to these kinds of horrible upbringings.

But taking trans ideology to the masses and forcing everyone to believe in it, essentially endorses that homophobia and sexism. Society really screwed up by treating transwomen as super special males rather than tolerating them as simply believers in another religion.

It's kind of like, if PTSD sufferers decided to group together to fight for rights, understanding and recognition (perfectly reasonable) but then also pushed to ensure enough kids suffered traumatic childhood events just so that more people would grow up with PTSD, in order for the campaign group to keep on growing.

The #nodebate command meant, and still does mean at the Guardian, that certain groups are now sacred castes and the only way they can be discussed is with pure praise or at most neutrality. This has boomeranged and damaged the trans activist movement, because they have been allowed to say things which are factually wrong and also create slogans which now have them in a corner ("acceptance without exception" as an example of how Isla Bryson must now be viewed as a woman by all and not doing so is bigotry).

In Bergdorf's case a more balanced coverage would have ultimately served even her better. That some things Bergdorf has said about women and feminism would certainly come across as dominating behaviour if carried out by some man with no transgender identity is something we can't even mention on the left.

Thanks @ShireWifeofNigelFarage , I did wonder why there wasn't a thread already. We have to self police so much to even discuss someone who appears to have no such ability to self police themselves. And no problem telling women how to women.

And then there's this. Shocking evidence of "transing the gay away". Colliding with homophobic parents to destroy their children's health.

And Hadley had to leave The Guardian to tell these stories. I'm left wing politically but I'm horrified at the capture of the ideological left. "Be kind" = "fucking over women".

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f38ca170-a236-11ed-9d5c-69bd3c5b98b3?shareToken=08c87b70474a5200b2d70b4b1cd67574