Libraries promoting body mutilation as “joy” in Norfolk

[CarobBean72]

Anyone here from Norfolk?

Norwich Millennium Library has a display of “Trans Joy”, apparently aimed at children & young people, which IMHO promotes body mutilation & self harm of women & girls & glorifies drug use. In the wake of the Cass Report it’s incredibly irresponsible.

It includes images of hypodermic needles for injecting testosterone, a packer & mastectomy scars, with the slogan “Self-made men play God right”.

Most disturbing is a small figurine of a woman’s lower half, cut off at waist & knees, bearing what appears to be a hysterectomy scar & what is either a pseudo-phallus ( an appendage made from a flap of tissue removed from the woman’s arm or thigh, rolled up and sewn to the groin to mimic a penis ) or a hypertrophied clitoris, one of the often painful effects of testosterone on the female body.

The display is accessible to children as the cabinets stand only a couple of feet high, designed for a child’s eye line and it’s placed next to the 8-14 book section. The cases are by the entrance - not noticeable when you go in but inescapable when you leave.

I can’t believe someone okayed this. If it was promoting anorexia or cutting or glorifying steroid abuse to children and teenagers, we’d all see it for what it is. Instead, it’s promoting self-mutilation under the banner of “Trans Joy”.

It’s especially irresponsible in the week the Cass Review revealed how poor the evidence base for so-called “gender affirming care” is and how little followup there has been to assess regret and de-transition rates.

Ive been trying to find a contact for the head of Norfolk Library Services - it’s a woman called Kerry Murray, who is also the Safeguarding Lead! But I can’t find any email listing for her.

Any suggestions?

Sharing images with trepidation: it’s a horror show!

Post edited by MNHQ

if I'm experiencing it & I have a community who can vouch for themselves experiencing it too, to me that's secure knowledge

So just to be clear, if all the girls on the eating disorders unit believe they are fat, that's proof they are all fat?

You have no idea how shallow and superficial your thinking is, do you?

Am I allowed to shout “parklife” yet?

but then we can tell that hedgehog knows exactly what sex is when necessary as I doubt hedgehog has been off to male dominated boards like piston heads to tell off the menz

I am not the poster who first used the term MAP on the thread but I believe they were alluding to Minor Attracted Persons aka Paedophiles.

Good grief! You really are still putting yourself and your and your friend's trans identity at the centre of this. Your friend's art hasn't faced backlash for being trans - they are entitled to create whatever art they like, and some people have in fact commented on the fact that they found it interesting. Some people will like it and some won't- that's the nature of art, regardless of the subject matter. The backlash has been over the fact that it was entirely inappropriate for the space it was placed in and the fact that children would see it. I really don't think anybody here is trying to deny your experience (though of course I might be wrong- I'm not a mind reader). I am interested to hear it, because I think it is important to hear the views of those with a range of experiences and beliefs - how else can we broaden our range of experience of life? However I think it is important that you extend the same courtesy to others. You are trying to deny the experience of those on transwidows, who felt that transgenderism was at the root of their partners' mental health difficulties. Fine not to agree with it, but you can't just deny their experience! You are also trying to imply that your beliefs around gender are the only valid ones - people can listen to your views and respectfully disagree. That absolutely does not cancel out your identity. As you said, that's personal to you anyway.

It's nothing to be scared of, & the backlash my friend's art has faced shows that it's still not seen as valid.

Nobody is "scared" that there exist people who believe things that cannot be evidenced, or that don't exist in material reality.

But there are plenty of harmful things that follow from such beliefs. And attempting to force people to validate a belief that someone can somehow be a different sex from the one they really are results in all sorts of harms.

Nobody has suggested that your friend's art isn't valid, whatever you mean by that, but that it is completely inappropriate to he displayed where it was, and if you or the library staff can't see that then all of the regulars here will express our concern at your capacity to make appropriate safeguarding decisions.

You say you suffere from gender dysphoria. I don't speak for everyone here but nobody I've seen disagrees that some people feel genuine mental anguish when thinking about the sexed parts of their body. But what is not proven is what that discomfort is, or where it comes from, or what an appropriate treatment is, or whether that pain is related to sex at all and isn't just another manifestation of body dysmorphia. This disagreement isn't just here at FWR, but within the gender medicine community itself.

So pretending that extreme body modification, as depicted by your friend's art, creates some sort of joy in its victims, is both unfounded and worrisome to the elder here who care deeply about the wellbeing of the children and adults around us.

So it's okay for you to stop reading something you deliberately sought out because you found aspects of it hurtful, but it's not okay for people to object to being unexpectedly presented with something they find distressing in a space where nobody expects to be seeing that kind of thing (or at least, it's not okay if it's something that's the result of a trans person expressing themselves — presumably the usual conventions of appropriacy still apply to everyone else). The pain you feel when you encounter something you find difficult within material you actively went looking for, that really matters, and you're entitled to stop reading and ask other people to create a nice filleted version for you. But I should just suck it up if I'm distressed by a 3D, full-colour representation of legs scarred by self-cutting and hormonally-altered genitals appearing in front of me when I'm going to pick up some books or use the photocopiers. My pain doesn't matter but yours does. Got it.

Jeez, I've just caught up with this thread. I'm boggled at the brass neck of someone who has come on here to educate us all like we're a bunch of know-nothings who haven't been discussing this topic for literally years.

I'm wondering if @BeHappyHedgehog is familiar with the Staniland Question. If not, this is it:
Do you believe that male-sexed people should have the right to undress and shower in the same changing room as teenaged girls?

And then think for a minute about a) how the girls are going to feel about it and b) how allowing men to do this opens a huge great loophole for all the perverts out there (and God knows, there are plenty of them, I encountered several in my teenaged years).

Before you go off on one, I'm not suggesting that trans people are perverts, I'm just trying to explain to you that it's practically impossible to separate harmless men from harmful men BEFORE a girl is groped or raped.

So if we have to accept people with male genitals in our changing rooms, how many girls (and women) have to be overly filmed with their clothes off, letched at, groped and raped in the interests of 'not invalidating trans identities'?

My answer to this is that male-bodied people can fuck off out of female spaces, because even one adolescent girl being harmed is one girl too many (sexual assault is rife anyway: I was sexually assaulted or flashed at five times before I was 18).

So, before you come preaching at us in our supposed benighted ignorance, just THINK for a moment why we're so bloody inflamed about all of this.

And that's before we get onto sports, prisons and the rest of it.

@Mochudubh that is correct, the reference to MAPs was to a term used to describe paedophiles.

I'll forever be grateful for the introduction of 'cryptic testicles' to my lexicon. I understand it's probably an actual, although rarely used, medical term. If I was in the market for a band name or a name change it'd be right up there.

Thank you for responding BeHappy
I agree you have been responding respectfully regards answering poster's questions and not name calling etc.

Re the Trans widows thread; I was specifically referring to you thinking it was about widowhood in the conventional meaning- which suggested at that point, that you hadn't read the thread.

Also, like others, I am not at all calling into question your strong belief that you have a gender identity, whilst also like others, expecting the understanding that others (like myself), don't have that belief.

Regarding the main point of my post you are responding to, it is sections like this, that you wrote, that I would ask you to reflect. In relation to coming onto a feminist board, where women gather who have been active feminists for years. This is what comes across as arrogance and 'secure knowledge' unquestioned:

"I think we're forgetting that feminism aims for equality for all, including trans people. If you're a passionate feminist I'd suggest having a look at the intersectionality of it as it's something mainstream liberal feminists (aka white feminist movement) tend to miss out. Researching intersectional feminism would be a great way to start understanding how factors other than sex assigned at birth play a part in privilege."

Also, referring to links from wiki is unsurprisingly insulting to the level of education and knowledge of the women on here.

Having said all this, kudos to you for engaging and stating that you may have gained some new areas to explore and learn about.

To add, I think you'll find that this approach is why you are receiving the kind of responses you are

"I think we're forgetting"

?Really? 'WE' ? ? ?

That may be the most offensive thing in the whole heap of poo.

Feminism is about women. That includes trans people who call themselves transmen, because they are, fundamentally, women. It doesn't include transpeople who call themselves transwomen, because they are, fundamentally, men.

I don't hate men, some of my best friends etc etc etc. But I know how things are stacked against women, and I will fight to right that wrong.

So getting back to the thread...

I think we've just witnessed how the grotesque display happened:

A teenage artist whose conception of gender comes only from tumblr and their equally ill-informed friends wishes to create an edgy art piece to center themselves in a public conversation about a controversial topic.

Having no concept of safeguarding themselves, and no grownups in the room at the library to tell them no - in fact willing them on to display their right-on progressive credentials - decided that the entrance lobby would get maximum visibility to expose the artist's journey to all those boring normies and their children who haven't bothered to educate themselves.

Sound about right?

As a couple of PP has said, nobody said your friend's art isn't "valid", whatever that may means in this context. Valid is not a word that really lends itself to having meaning in reference to art works. These works exist in the world, have presumably genuinely been created by the artist who claims to have created them, with the intention of creating some reaction in the viewer, whether than be emitional, intellectual or both. That, to my mind qualifies them to be art and therefore "valid". No disagreement from me there. Art does not have to be pleasant or comfortable to consume, it does not have to conform to precedent or custom, it does not have to have discernible meaning or purpose in the mind of the consumer.

But also: there are good reasons why as a society we often seek to restrict the art that is consumed by children. I liked the post earlier on asking whether it would be OK to have a performance of Rhythm 0 in a doctor's office. Do you have or know young children? How about letting them catch parts of the last three hours of Rhythm 0, or scenes from Eating Raoul or The Human Centipede, as they browse through the library books? These are all "valid" art, but should not be available in certain contexts. Can you really not see our objections to what happened in Norwich and our perspective that the trans agenda is inherently damaging to children, in multiple ways, as a feature not a bug.

My guess is that Hedgehog has an MA in Gender Studies from the OU. Or is possibly Sally Hines.

@theDudesmummy agreed, one of my favourite pieces of art is Vito Acconci’s Seedbed - still wouldn’t want my primary school child encountering it in a library.

I was curious 😲

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/266876

Apparently it was seminal.

Oh, @KnitFastDieWarm I didn't know that work, now I have acquainted myself with it, I say how about we push for a re-enactment (Acconi is no longer with us so maybe Abramovitch could do it. Or Emin might give it a good go)? It could be installed in the main gallery at the Natural History Museum. In the school holidays.

Valid art for everyone now!

fun fact - abramovic DID do a version of it in 2005!

Appreciating the art education!

I've been out doing manly stuff,so an catching up.
Have we done clownfish yet?

Nope, but it's all I need to complete my BINGO card and shout 'HOUSE'

I think PeskySquirrel made an apposite comment at about 14.37. How do we know the Hedgehog isn’t generated by ChatGPT or another AI?

Evidence:

• Reads Transwidows and concludes they are women whose husbands have died. No human would do that.
• when originally unable to determine what MAP stands for, doesn’t ask and makes an unlikely guess, not taking into account the implied sarcasm of the questioner
• says they are not a man but has made no claim to any female experience in spite of being on a feminist board.
• writes in a curiously flat mechanical style even when referring to matters they describe as emotional.

I really hope AI isn't going to routinely address us as 'we' like a particularly irritating old-style nurse.