The guardian - thinking we’re idiots as usual

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/sep/29/jan-morris-conundrum-memoir-transgender-son

if you just see the headline that the guardian have chosen to quote you’d think Jans son mark was and is an enthusiastic cheerleader but the reality is very much not the case

“One group, though, are still a hidden story: the children of trans parents. We are our own selves – I have used “my father” throughout this piece, called him “him” when he was to me a man, and “she” when a woman. For, whether trans advocates like it or not, Jan was my father. People still call Jan to my face “your mother”: to do so is to deny me my identity, and my actual mother her rightful place”

“For Jan was very successful in putting her own views in her writing in such a way that they were rarely questioned. Certainly that was true when painting a picture of the happy, loyal family, who supported her with their love all her life, and which so many writers about her seem to have swallowed so uncritically.
The reality was rather different. She was extraordinarily charming to friends and acquaintances, but she needed to be the constant centre of attention and, to a certain extent, admiration. Deeper empathy, deeper understanding, I never saw or experienced – she was, I think, incapable of truly understanding the feelings of others, and thus appeared to care little about those feelings”

But no the guardian chose to imply the complete opposite

from the sub header:

When celebrated writer Jan Morris published a memoir about her gender reassignment in 1974, it brought trans identity to public attention. Fifty years on, her son Mark reflects on the flawed woman he thought of as his father

FFS you idiot subs, he thought of Morris as his father because Morris was his father. And then was a narcissistic attention seeker.

Yep & Mark is crystal clear that Jan was his father.

”People still call Jan to my face “your mother”: to do so is to deny me my identity, and my actual mother her rightful place”

What agenda pushing wankers.

”People still call Jan to my face “your mother”: to do so is to deny me my identity, and my actual mother her rightful place”

Thankfully, the children of transitioners are beginning to find their voices. Probably after they have processed all that they themselves feel. But maybe also because they have now been given the right to express negative feelings about it now. I know what it is like to have a parent that people outside the immediate family thought was funny and charming, yet was manipulative, abusive and detached from family life.

It takes years to process. I cannot imagine Morris' children's feelings to constantly see their father lionised and celebrated when they have felt so many complex emotions. I am glad that they are finding their voices.

Morris was not a 'flawed woman'. He was a public school and army man who decided to put himself through 'sex reassignment' for some obscure ego centered reason, found it was a route to commercial success, changed his name, went on depending on his wife's domestic support, and clearly despised women. I feel so sorry for his children.

Conundrum is the only Slightly Foxed edition that I have thrown across a room. ‘Me, myself, I’ from start to finish. Morris was an extraordinarily selfish individual.

Jan Morris's daughter Suki Morys has also written about her cruel, selfish father. His wife and daughter seem to have suffered the most. He really did seem to hate women.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/jan-morris-was-a-trans-pioneer-and-a-cruel-parent-9x82s5cg9

Archive link:
https://archive.ph/bupdZ

Thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4695399-sunday-times-article-by-jan-morriss-daughter

Many years ago, I heard a Children’s Guardian in care proceedings observe in a case where a mother had transitioned to live as a mam, that however much people supported the adult in question, the fact remained that the children had lost their mother

Thank you. I just read the headline and decided not to read the article - I should have known that it was a misrepresentation of the son's real feelings.

A very well written article with a deeply misleading headline and sub-heading. Thank you OP.

Interesting that he thinks the family should have had counselling. I agree but suspect that or trans widows and children of trans parents today would say they still don't get this.

I very nearly did same. I only read it because I’d read the articles from JM daughter & wanted to know why son took a different view

turns out of course that he didn’t and doesn’t

the mis representation is off the scale

it’s like when films quote something from a review like “an astonishing achievement” when the actual review says “an astonishing achievement in bad film making”

Aaaand... Here we have one of the reasons why I don't buy the Graun or even the Obvs any longer.

Which is such a loss all around as Sodha's piece on child poverty in today's Observer was good.

That's exactly why I read it.

The disingenuous misogynist rainbow flag waving arsehats.

This was in The Observer. I do wish they would differentiate in the URL which paper it was published in.

Interesting that Morris mentions his father's deeply engrained sexism but is silent on the despicable treatment meted out to his sister - even while he discusses his own university experience, a privilege that was denied her because of her sex.

Yes, I understood this too - I had gleaned that Jan Morris was a bit of a monster to his family and that the son in question never doubted that she was his father. This article seems a bit revisionist and not without an agenda…

I'm getting tried at the level of fawning there is on Jan Morris, especially by women in the Welsh Arts scene.

I'd like to hear more from Suki, his daughter, personally.

From his daughter, Suki Morys -

https://archive.ph/bupdZ

Yes, this was what I remembered. Also sick of the fawning. Being trans seems to absolve you from being a decent human being/parent/partner.

Interesting header chosen by the Guardian, instead of this -

One group, though, are still a hidden story: the children of trans parents. We are our own selves – I have used “my father” throughout this piece, called him “him” when he was to me a man, and “she” when a woman. For, whether trans advocates like it or not, Jan was my father. People still call Jan to my face “your mother”: to do so is to deny me my identity, and my actual mother her rightful place

Twm Morys (another son) would agree, it seems. The first few lines from an article he was asked to write (about his father!!!) on International Women's day in 2020:

As I am her son, I was asked to write a piece about Jan Morris, the world famous author, for International Women's Day. Her contribution to the world since 1972 has been enormous, it's true, and there is no bigger fan than me!

But there is plenty of talk about Jan Morris, the world famous author at the moment, and the second volume of her reflection diary Thinking Again has just come off the press. And that or any of the pile of books she has written during her long career would hardly have happened if it wasn't for her partner, my mother, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth also deserves attention on Women's Day.

For one thing, she has been a woman for quite a few more years than Jan!

And then he contines to write the rest of the article he's been commissioned to write for International Women's day about his mother, Elizabeth.

article (in Welsh)

I found this article when looking for obituaries of Jan in the Welsh press, to see whether there were any angles not being covered in English language ones.
I noted at the time that Twm was being very clear (if understated) about his postition towards his father, and his position towards those who assume he will write about Jan as though Jan is his mother.

I loved the way he very simply said - you've asked me to write about my mother? yes, ok then - and proceeds to do so!

It's interesting, as he is associated more with Jan than his other siblings as he came back to live in Wales a number of years before Jan died (he was in Brittany for many years, I believe) and they rubbed along together fairly well by all accounts - the Welsh Arts scene isn't that big, and they would sometimes appear together.
However, his clarity, shared by at least 2 siblings that we know about, that Jan is indeed his father, made me think about how much the most well-meaning people just accept this stuff without question -

Jan is your mum, write about her for IMD!
Oh you're Jan Morris's son, what's it like having her as a mum?
etc etc

It's that shallow thinking again, people not being able to get to the end of a thought process - even when that's almost literally insulting to the person you're talking to.
How can someone talk about Jan Morris as Twm/Mark/Suki's mother, often directly to them, without realising they already have a mother who exists in her own right?????
Or is it just misogyny? Women as 2nd class citizens, support humans, as we say so often on here.

Jan was my father. People still call Jan to my face “your mother”: to do so is to deny me my identity, and my actual mother her rightful place.

I wouldn’t be too harsh on the subeditors. There isn’t much room in headlines or standfirsts for nuance. And this is the Observer, not the Guardian. I thought it was an interesting piece, in the sense that Mark Morris has curiously conflicting views. He’s very gung-ho about trans rights and allowing children to have puberty blockers, but he also recognises that his father was immensely selfish, that he had old-fashioned views about women (which applied to his wife, but not to himself) and that for the children of a transitioner, the experience is very difficult.

wish I could find the exact quote but someone observed words to the effect that Elizabeth Morris was a side issue in her own obituary

https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/2022/12/27/elizabeth-morris-conundrum/

Yes, the fact that Morris knew perfectly well that he was a man and expected to be treated as one comes across very clearly.

I remember reading Conundrum in the mid 70s and finding it dull, but not much beyond that. I think there was a comment about his sons being disturbed by the surgical procedure he had chosen. As well they might have been. The egotism required to put ones children's emotional and psychological wellbeing behind ones own is remarkable. I note that J M's father died when he was about the age his own sons were when he - removed? altered? their father. Bad parenting handed down.