Creative Scotland, Jenny Lindsay and Alice Tarbuck - cracking Scotsman column

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

As re-tweeted by JKR. Artists should be demanding the closure of Creative Scotland (scotsman.com) There is an archived copy, apparently, but I was able to read the whole thing despite not being a subscriber.

The gist is that Jenny Lindsay, a performance poet, criticised the behaviour of a trans-identified male five years ago for abusing lesbians at Pride, and found herself hounded out of Scottish cultural life as a result. It is alleged that the part-time literature officer at Creative Scotland, Dr Alice Tarbuck, has recently been found to have phoned a bookshop telling them they shouldn't stock JL's new book Hounded, which is about women being hounded out of public life for having gender critical views. Creative Scotland agrees this happened, and shouldn't have happened, but has not sacked Tarbuck.

The organisation went through a “disciplinary” procedure and allowed Tarbuck to remain in post. Not only that, it was agreed she would not deal with “gender critical” writers to avoid a “conflict of interest”. That is deranged. Tarbuck is a living, breathing conflict of interest. Not only was she protected, her bosses made life more comfortable for her, removing from her the triggering duty of reading and thinking about things that made her unhappy, and allowing her to stay, a malevolent presence, a schoolyard bully given legitimacy, and then protected, by cowardly and amoral philistines.

That gives you a flavour. It's absolutely coruscating stuff. Good.

And he's still indulging violent fantasy:

'I have built up large stores of anger over the deteriorating political situation for trans people and expressing that anger as a trans woman has earned me threats of violence, some of them extreme. This in turn has had a significant impact on my day-to-day life. The productive power of violence is indeed far-reaching.
...
I see rows of people who have developed a long-simmering hatred of trans women into a political and money-making machine. There are the washed-up academics who turn their prejudice into lucrative careers as public intellectuals. There are the right-wing grifters looking to make easy money by nurturing the worst impulses of a reactionary public. There’s the billionaire whose own trans child can’t bear to be in his life. There’s the multi-millionaire author unable to tolerate a world in which she is not universally adored. I see all these people, and more, lined up against a wall and I wonder: when will it be our turn to use that productive power? '

https://cinemayearzero.com/2023/07/25/unlivable-lives/

x.com/TownTattle/status/1798412074928005227/photo/1

'It’s now been five years since I scared the shit of Julie Bindel. Still proud to have done it. More rich transphobes need to live in genuine fear. My one regret is I didn’t have a milkshake on hand.'

It's quite clear Brennan hates women.

However, he claims to be 'a big appreciator of milf butts' so perhaps he'd disagree.

https://x.com/TownTattle/status/1794413949380939973/photo/1

This creep is who Tarbuck, and Creative Scotland, is protecting. They are vilifying women for objecting to his violent, sexist rhetoric.

Holy shit!

I'm surprised you're surprised, cake. But maybe I'm just totally inured to this stuff.

It's the spite still being aimed at Jenny Lindsay because, what did she do, she criticised someone who was advocating for women to be beaten. The was it fed on itself and escalated. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the people indulging themselves in the burning of this particular witch are just following the mob. Perhaps they'd be ashamed surprised if they knew what was at the root of it. Or possibly not, the man called for violence against terfs after all.

Hm. I would say that since that all kicked off, the climate has changed enormously.

There are still some people with extreme views out there, of course. But increasingly they do not have the majority view behind them. I've watched this shift over the past few years. It's now quite marked, and the power balance has completely shifted.

What is a bit odd is that the last vestiges of the extremism is lingering in power, while (I would say) public opinion has swung very much away from it.

Most people can see very clearly that Brennan is a violent, abusive man. Most people who are aware of this dispute are not in favour of silencing or hounding women with 'gc' views. Many people are questioning whether CS are fit for purpose.

At the time, Brennan calling for violence against women had (unbelievably) an aura of acceptability about it.

It no longer has that; it now looks like the naked women-hatred that it is.

So anyone agitating on behalf of that woman-hatred is now out on a limb.

Just my own personal observations, of course.

They're acting on received wisdom that she's a transphobic terf. It would probably be transphobic to question that. I agree the climate has changed, Tarbuck probably didn't expect what she got, however mild.

Yes. It used to be the case that any woman accused of being 'transphobic' or a 'terf' would be ostracised and condemned on command.

Those days are over, for the most part.

Interesting that this is published on the same day as there is a change of leadership at The Scotsman. Perhaps this sort of forthright reporting will become more a thing? (Not in Scotland and do not know Alan Young but intrigued by his 'Lots to do')

not sure how I would feel about it, but would not be entirely surprised if twansfobic and nerf got reclaimed as badges of honour.

Scotland has been bonkers arabella and lead by our feminist to her fingertips

but maybe it’s going back a bit but councils and schools are still a bit bonkers

"the bestupiding effects of trans ideology" 😂
Great piece, thanks for sharing

This from a monthly email from creative Edinburgh :

Here at Creative Edinburgh, we're looking forward to our next event focusing on how we can Advocate for Belonging with the brilliant LGBTQ+ organisation Somewhere: For Us.

https://www.somewhereforus.org/?utm_source=All+Members&utm_campaign=3d0f4efe5a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_06_27_11_31_COPY_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-a391e005d8-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

https://online.fliphtml5.com/svvpn/ldtr/#p=1

here’s the magazine. So over this.

In the introduction it says nearly half of our young lgbtq people are estranged from one or more members of their family. Er..why? Because you f print sh** like this encouraging exactly that, no matter how accepting etc said family are. So crap. Rant over.

"somewhere for us" ? So that would be everywhere, all the fucking time, under any circumstances then. What are these nutters moaning about?

Euan's been a busy boy. He's got an article in the Spectator too

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-creative-scotland-was-corrupted-by-gender-ideology/

Well. Homophobia still.exists. May be worth asking if monthly Pride events and all the money poured into quangos is actually helping to address that.

Alex Massie column in the Times today, also mentions ERC:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/2efe2b9e-e297-495f-9639-a5af1418d9c9?shareToken=3ab5ec61b4635f4f514cfae9547fe4a0

I just went online to see if I could buy Jenny's book and am pleased to see I've already pre-ordered it. I expect it'll be an excellent read.

CS should be closed. It’s a farcical organisation.
top down pencil pushers, most of whom have never had any real experience in the arts at all, let alone making work and then organising a show. That is why some bizarre projects are funded - bizarre not in a reactionary ‘this isn’t art’ sense, simply bizarre in a WTF most people in the art world are wondering WTF particularly when grass roots projects that fund multiple artists and aren’t some bizarre one person renegade romp into the highlands don’t get the money and don’t fulfill frittata like audience evaluation- where the actual f’k did a supposed feminist fulfil criteria for asking other women to get f’ked in a cave (but not herself). Burn the temple down and shaft again. CS is an absolute shit show

Noting that the 'Cathy Brennan/TownTattle' is no longer an active account on X.