Taxpayer-funded children's show with 'trans voices' branded tasteless

[IwantToRetire]

Scheduled shows at the Southbank include queer cabaret and 'tour around the human body' with trans, non-binary doctor

Upcoming events at the London arts centre will also include a show titled “The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions”, an “unforgettable celebration of queer activism”, and another about dancer who wants to translate their moves into “renewable energy”, according to dance company Marlborough Productions.

The Centre, which receives £16,828,042 in annual funding from Arts Council England, will play host to “Pxssy Liquor’s Office Christmas Party”, “a cabaret collective for queer gals and nb [non-binary] pals” that provides an “antidote to the male-gaze saturated cabaret scene”.

As part of its “Imagine Children’s Festival” in 2024, the Centre has an event taking place called “Little Big Sing with Trans Voices”, marketed for 5+.

The organisers said: “After witnessing the growing <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/11Y4B/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/21/trans-prejudice-doubles-three-years-jk-rowling-cancel/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">anti-trans rhetoric specifically aimed at children, both artists felt an urgent need to effect change and create a provision for mental wellness.”

Other events include “a tour around the human body with trans non-binary emergency doctor Dr Ronx”, an “inspiring, interactive writing session for children, with social justice at its heart” and an author discussing his debut novel, Pity, “a lament for a lost way of life”, about two brothers from a mining town, one with a “side hustle in sex work” and “weekly drag gigs”.

Full article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/16/southbank-hosts-childrens-show-with-trans-voices/

Can also be read here https://archive.ph/11Y4B

None of this is "experimental", it's all completely on trend bs. I don't think most arts councils would recognize something really experimental or original or counter-cultural if they fell over it. Although I will say, I think the idea that the arts are meant to be about experimental and counter-cultural ideas is quite over-blown.

And it doesn't just happen to be the case this doctor is nb, that's part of the package they are selling.

If I were a cynical person I'd suggest that for someone who wanted a career in the arts right now, magicking up some kind of special identity group to belong to would be a great career move. There are all kinds of funding streams available for people who are centering their work around gender, and it seems every artist profile I read these days, be it in the visual arts, music, theater, etc, says "So-and-so is a queer (insert other identities here) person who is passionate about (insert pet activist cause here.)

FreebieWallopFridge · Today 09:34

I don’t understand that either

Ah well, it's cunningly constructed so that, if you think you'll understand, the proponent will have a performative fit of the vapours and have you ostracised.

And if you don't understand and question, or worse, fall into their bear trap, the proponent will have a performative fit of the vapours and have you ostracised.

It's the postmodern "Heads I win, tails you lose!"

Nobody is ‘non binary’ - everyone is either male or female. Pronouns are sex based.

I don't think anyone IS non-binary.

I reject the whole concept.

And yes, I do consider it to be my business if other people identify as non-binary, because non-binary can only exist to the extent that everyone who is not non-binary is binary.

In terms of biological sex, we are all binary, including people who identify as non-binary. A doctor should understand that better than anyone.

In terms of gender, the idea that the vast majority of us identify with either feminine stereotypes or masculine stereotypes but there is a small group of special non-binary people who don't fit in the boxes the rest of us are in is a heap of regressive, offensive bullshit that can get right in the fucking bin.

I wouldn't be thrilled about my child being taught or influenced by someone who identifies as non-binary for the same reason that I wouldn't want them to be taught or influenced by an evangelical Christian who believes that girls should save themselves for marriage and that all non-believers are going to hell. Because they are proponents of a belief system I think is regressive and damaging.

It must be horrendous for children. Jimmy Crankee used go confuse me so much, now they see 100s of these.

This person's gender identity is mentioned.

Budding scientists! Go on an entertaining interactive tour around the human body with trans non-binary emergency doctor and TV presenter Dr Ronx.

Dr Ronx shares their incredible story of becoming an emergency medicine doctor, and leads an exploration of the human body through their jaw-dropping new illustrated non-fiction book Amazing Bodies.

https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/family-young-people/dr-ronx-amazing-bodies?eventId=970504

Just to say I posted this late last night ie early this morning, but I would agree that now I am in a less hurried moment, that the Telegraph has managed to blur some of the info to give a not totally credible story. (I only recently complained on another thread that I grew up with being told that if you want facts read the Telegraph but a recent experiment showed the Telegraph seems to have gone down the talk tv attitude towards information!).

The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions deals with sexual liberation in an explicit way. The production also makes reference to discrimination and violence against the queer community. This is listed as being for 16+

As is Pxssy Liquor's Office Christmas Party

Little Big Sing with Trans Voices is advertised for 5+
Workshops are led alongside members of Trans Voices: Dylan Eleanor Faye, Ilā Kamalagharan and beatboxer Wol (FKA Bellatrix).
Trans Voices is the UK's first professional trans+ choir, launched in 2022 with Reclaim a Guardian Films documentary centring trans joy. Affiliated with world-leading alternative choir London Contemporary Voices, Trans Voices is a diverse group of over 20 trans+ vocalists.
Trans Voices collaborators include Years and Years (Absolut's Born to Mix campaign), Turner Prize nominee Jessie Darling, acclaimed violinist Anna Phoebe, BBC Radio 6 Music, Camden Roundhouse, Whitechapel Gallery, Royal Opera House, Pink News Awards and more.
Trans Voices also has a Young Company, TVYC. It's a collaboration between founder Ilā Kamalagharan and Trans Voices member Dylan Eleanor Faye. After witnessing the growing anti-trans rhetoric specifically aimed at children, both artists felt an urgent need to effect change and create a provision for mental wellness through music. TVYC is launching a long-term youth project in early 2024.

I wonder how as a % of their total output, shows/workshops are queer orientated, as opposed to lets say shows about biological reality. On one level reading the Trans Voices aims, you could say it is political bias for the Southbank to put on this performance as though they are qualified to say their position on trans will promote mental wellness in youth. Not sure the Southbank is qualified to promote this as a response to any 5+ child having questions.

The South Bank Centre referenced it once.

Do you have any evidence that Dr Ronx is obsessed with it, or that it shapes their presentation?

Because right now this is a thread full of outrage that trans and non-binary people are allowed to have any artistic interaction with kids, regardless of how irrelevant gender identity is to that artistic outlet.

OK. So what should happen to trans or non-binary teachers, for example?

What do you mean "what should happen to" them?

Here is the evidence of Dr Ronx's obsession that I posted earlier.

https://www.suvera.org.uk/team-blog/dr-ronx

Oh God Old Crone. I do read Dr Ronx as a bit of a twat, for sure. Their attitude to what needs to happen in healthcare feels so distorted.

I have a particular problem with pronouns on badges in healthcare because I work with people with communication problems. A name badge like the 'Hello my name is...' badge that I have is purely for the patient's benefit, so they know who is seeing them. Adding pronouns increases the cognitive load for the patient and makes language demands of them that are not necessary. I get that it may feel more inclusive for a very tiny minority of patients, but for the vast majority it is actively exclusive. I've seen badges where the pronouns are bigger than the name.

And the last time I looked at the (luckily very small) suicide statistics for people under 25, LGBTQ issues were considered to be a factor in 6% of them. A child who tragically died in the waiting list for the GIDS had been bereaved of their mother 2 years prior. That was probably the most important risk factor.

Why doesn't Dr R know any of this?

Could you imagine what would happen if an LGB choir tried to do....well anything. The TQ(rest of the keyboard) would be absolutely vile to them.

I'm happy that a Tran choir exists (bit concerned about targeting kids but that's because of the rest of the GI nonsense, it's not per se a problem), I'm sure they'll sound lovely. If I happened to be in the vicinity, I'd let 'em crack on. Might even have a listen, if it was free, join in, if it was a singalong.

Would their supporters extend the same courtesy to a GC choir? Would the Arts Council? Would the Southbank Centre? They don't want us to speak, never mind sing.

Yes, I know that interview was specifically focusing on identity related issues so maybe it wasn't a fair example, but Ronx does come across as pretty obsessed.

There was some interesting, even some quite sensible stuff in there, but then keep reading and there's something completely nuts.

Like being upset about there being gendered toilets in hospitals. I mean, you've just been talking about how you often need to put the patient's immediate needs before your own feelings, and yet you're angry about the existence of gendered single sex toilets which many patients need?

Campaign for additional gender neutral toilets if you want. I'll support you. It's the implication that everything that doesn't work for or revolve around trans people needs to be completely changed, even if a much bigger number of people want and need it to be the way it currently is.

The world does not revolve around you!

I think this is one of the biggest issues I have with "non-binary". They genuinely seem to believe that everyone else is a less complex, less developed, less sophisticated human than they are, which is why they can put us all into these reductive "masculine" and "feminine" boxes whilst believing that they alone are outside them.

I don't know what goes on in other people's heads but I at least do them the courtesy of assuming that their inner life is as complex and interesting to them as mine is to me.

Would their supporters extend the same courtesy to a GC choir? Would the Arts Council? Would the Southbank Centre? They don't want us to speak, never mind sing.

This is the problem.

The TRAs are bad enough, but it is just about everybody ramping up the issue.

The Southbank is a qualified child support worker.

Who are they to assume that what children are really lacking are trans voices.

More and more it seems what children are lacking is the right not to have trans ideology shoved on then in every conceivable corner of live.

Obviously entertainment outlets are just thinking this is the latest trend let gadge in on it.

But this is more than a trend, this is about indoctrination into the world of a tiny minority at the expense of reality.

Does the Southbank offer a deprogramming session at the end?

As a child at the age the Southbank is saying is age appropriate, I would leave an event like this in total confusion. I hope parents are thinking long and hard before thinking this is just a fun day our for their young children.

Aww, how lovely. When I was five years old, there was nothing I enjoyed more at Christmas than listening to 'an author discussing his debut novel, Pity, “a lament for a lost way of life”, about two brothers from a mining town, one with a “side hustle in sex work” and “weekly drag gigs”. '

Squeee! It'll be so CUTE! Must get plenty of photos!!!

Typo - sorry!

The Southbank is a qualified child support worker.

The Southbank is NOT a qualified child support worker.

When I was a new parent I was quite clueless as to what was age appropriate... I'd have sat through something like this, felt uncomfortable but I wouldn't have left, out of embarrassment.
I'd never have returned though.

OldCrone · Today 18:07

^Budding scientists! Go on an entertaining interactive tour around the human body with trans non-binary emergency doctor and TV presenter Dr Ronx.

It seems peculiar that a doctor, of all people, would wish to present anti-scientific propaganda to children, in the name of science.

Well if non-binary people should be nowhere near children I’m asking what should happen to non-binary people who work with kids, like teachers.

What do you think about either of these performances is age inappropriate or would make you uncomfortable?

But that’s not a children’s event at the SBC so why are you referencing it?

Or are you just, like the Telegraph, hoping that if you smush enough adult targeted material in with the shock horror of a show about the human body or a choir made up of trans people, everyone else will get up in arms about it without bothering to check the detail?

Ah Janette always with the hyperbole!

No one is saying “NB” teachers shouldn’t be near children, what we’re saying is they shouldn’t use their profession as an opportunity to shove their tedious regressive propaganda down children’s thrusts the same way that an evangelical Christian teacher shouldn’t use it as an opportunity to shine religion down children’s throats

but you know this

The phrase "should be nowhere near children" is very dramatic, now, isn't it @PlanetJanette?

People who should be allowed nowhere near children are those who pose a real and direct risk of harm to those children, for example, paedophiles and child abusers.

I don't believe non-binary people pose a direct risk to children, they are proponents of what is in my view a bad and damaging idea, but then so are a lot of people who come into contact with children every day. If you stop all people with extreme religious beliefs, all people with bizarre ideas about gender, all people with misogynistic, homophobic or racist views, all men who like Andrew Tate and all women who project their food issues onto teenage girls from having any contact with children, you're going to have even bigger staffing issues in your schools.

I accept that my children will at some point be taught in school by teachers who have views or teaching practices I think are damaging. That doesn't mean I think they can or even should all be fired.

But it does mean that I'm going to have to spend my own time with my own children counteracting what they may have been taught by those people. I certainly wouldn't take my kids to see a one person show by someone who holds these beliefs.

"Non binary" will definitely fall into the "some people believe this and we shouldn't make fun of them but they are wrong" category.

Can you show where Dr Ronx’s show does this?

Because so far all we’ve got is that the SBC promo material references them being non-binary once, and they have done an interview once in a different context about gender identity.

Literally the only actual objection is that people have about Dr Ronx is that they are non-binary. And you yourself said ‘wouldn't be thrilled about my child being taught or influenced by someone who identifies as non-binary’ (note you didn’t limit your objection to non-binary people teaching certain viewpoints, you objected to people who identify as non-binary in general).