I'm really saddened (and embarrassed) to see Owen Jones, respected liberal journalist and gay rights activist, perform an extraordinary feat of cognitive dissonance in The Guardian today.
He peddles an argument that society is riddled with "rampant transphobia," likens trans rights to gay rights, the supposed rampant transphobia as similar to Section 28, and portrays Munroe Bergdorf as an innocent woman bated by a baying crowd of, well, rampant transphobes who got her fired from the NSPCC because they hate all transgender women.
Bergdorf is allowed to reel off Trumpisms about how people come up to her and ask her questions at talks she gives. Naturally, they're transphobes.
He allows Bergdorf to suggest that her role at the NSPCC was to let "kids know that there was a service the could contact if they needed it." "That she "wasn't there to change any kids...to influence kids," without any challenge to these statements. Really poor journalism in that he must know that Bergdorf suggested children contact her personally (and privately) via social media. That as "the face of Transgender" for the NSPCC her whole raisin d'etre is to influence people.
He allows her to suggest that the journalist who called Bergdorf a "porn model" is a troll and that she, Bergdorf, has never done anything pornographic, just "nude shoots and for Playboy online..."
Jones has called himself a feminist before so I wonder what his position on Playboy is? If Playboy isn't pornography what exactly is it?
"Bergdorf argues that she "used the platform as an empowering moment" for trans people, for young people growing up with body image issues.
It's astonishing that Jones let's Bergdorf get away with saying: "Abbie Clancy and Melinda Messenger have both done shoots in the same way. The shoot I did for Playboy is nothing worse than Lady Gaga or Beyonce or Britney or any pop star has done."
Jones should, as a respected journalist, at this point, say, but none of those people were the public face of transgender people for a children's charity. Right?
No, he answers "No, by the way I thought those pictures were stunning."
I'm gobsmacked and feel horrified and ashamed of Jones.
"That was not porn by any definition," he added.
Pornography. Noun. "Books, magazines, films, etc. with no artistic value that describe or show sexual acts or naked people in a way that is intended to be sexually exciting." Cambridge Dictionary
"1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction."
Merriam Webster
O O
What definition is Jones working to? Does he have some astonishing non-transphobic dictionary that doesn't define sexualized imagery as pornography?
"I see worse perfume advertizing on billboards," he adds.
Really?
And even if he did see worse images on perfume ads on billboards that doesn't stop them being hyper-sexualized imagery that are damaging to women (like Page 3), right?
"It's very tastefully done. Anyone who sees it will see how absurd that is," argues Jones.
Yep, tasteful. Art, really, I would say. Nay, high art. Like Manet's Olympia for our age.
"The people who made this decision are largely conservative, very traditional, they just want to remove trans people from having a seat at the table? From having any form of influence. I've been hounded or forced to leave or sacked from ever single position of influence, it's happened before...People need to start realizing what's happening to me, what's happening for years. Because this is not my first scandal. It's the same people doing it time and time again..." argues Bergdorf without any challenge from Jones.
She was sacked from L'Oreal for racist comments. She resigned from Labour after homophobic tweets came to light and saying that suffragettes were "white supremacists." Where is this transphobic hate campaign? At best she's a fantasist, at worse she's just playing the media. She's a grifter and this is going to make her bigger and better. Trump said "he could stand on New York’s Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and still not lose voters" and Bergdorf can be racist, homophobic, use sexualized imagery, make inappropriate suggestions in her roles yet she just gets bigger and bigger and her apologists line up.
"Those people who call themselves feminists who hound you, I'm just trying to work out where throwing a black woman under a bus comes under feminism," argues Jones.
My god, has he not read Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique? Page 142:
"Sisters, we feminists must get together and throw black women under buses, only then will we be equal."
You have to remember that it was written in 1963 and back then in the US it was still ok to throw black women under buses.
What the fuck is he talking about? He seems to be suggesting that feminists should ignore Bergdorf's ridiculous pixelated male sexual fantasy persona and support her because she's mixed race. Does questioning this make me racist as well as transphobic?
"It's a return to traditional values, that there are two genders, that homosexuality is a sin, that LGBT queer people are a danger to children," argues Bergdorf. Yeah, if you disagree with her you're a homophobe too. Sigh, it's insanity that Jones is agreeing with this nonsense.
Jones portrays the argument around the NSPCC cutting ties with Munroe Bergdorf as an argument about someone "preying on kids" and deviancy. It's almost as if Jones has not read the open letter cited as being the reason why the NSPCC cut ties with Bergdorf.
Here's the open letter from The Safe Schools Alliance UK:
Dear Mr Wanless
We are Safe Schools Alliance UK, a group of concerned parents, grandparents, teachers, governors, health professionals and education professionals who have come together to help schools meet the safeguarding needs of all students, whilst taking into account the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010.
One of the things that we are particularly concerned about is the social pressure on girls to look and act in a certain, sexualised way, whether this be by wearing clothes that limit their ability to be active, or engaging in sexualised activity at a young age, such as sexting and via webcams in their bedrooms. Young girls are under enormous pressure due to the prevalence of misogynistic and degrading porn that is freely available to any child with a smartphone. This pornification of children’s experience of childhood has meant that schoolgirls are now subject to an unprecedented level of sexual harassment and assault, whether inside or outside of school.
Girls need to understand that they have a right to feel comfortable in their own bodies, and we should be telling all girls that they do not have to participate in porn culture in order to be happy and accepted for who they are.
With this in mind, we were surprised and disappointed to read that the NSPCC has appointed Munroe Bergdorf to be Childline’s first LGBT+ Ambassador.
We would agree that the NSPCC needs to support all children, including gender-questioning and transgender children. However Munroe Bergdorf presents as a highly sexualised, porn-influenced image of what it means to be a ‘woman’, sending harmful messages to children (both boys and girls) that this is what women should look like. There are numerous, readily available images of Munroe Bergdorf on the internet in provocative, sexualised poses and clothing.
Bergdorf has had plastic surgery to address body dysphoria. This is of course the prerogative of any adult, but as an ambassador of a children’s charity, it sends unhealthy messages to children about how to deal with teenage feelings of discomfort with their bodies.
Bergdorf encourages children to make contact privately on the internet, which goes against child safeguarding principles, and can create mistrust between parents and their children. With the rise in rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) among girls, which has reached such alarming levels that the government has called for an inquiry, it is important that parents are able to guard against the possibility of social contagion, and advocate for their children.
Bergdorf is supportive of children dressing as “drag queens”, an inherently sexual form of dressing and dancing: Children such as Desmond Napoles, who has been recorded as dancing for money in gay bars while dressed in drag.
Bergdorf also had to step down from a role in the Labour Party after offensive homophobic and lesbophobic comments were discovered. This leads us to wonder why the NSPCC has not thought to appoint a lesbian or gay Ambassador. It would seem that this would be more relevant and needed by larger numbers of children.
Many of our children have heard about Childline from their schools. Schools rely on organisations like the NSPCC to work with them to help ensure childrens’ safety and wellbeing. We remain supportive of the excellent work that the NSPCC have done in protecting and supporting all children.
We call upon the NSPCC to reverse the decision to appoint Munroe Bergdorf, and continue to safeguard our children in a thoughtful and considered way.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Safe Schools Alliance UK
They cut ties because of her nude shoots, her comments on race and homosexuality and because she flagrantly breached child safety rules in a role based around child safety at Childline by suggesting children get in touch with her privately through social media. Yeah, kids, text a stranger.
The whole piece by Jones is a huge wilful piece of cognitive dissonance in which he puts aside the sexualization of women and Bergdorf's , at best, naive actions in the name of childline to push an imaginary queer and trans togetherness message with paranoid fearmongering that feminists who aren't really feminists but racist, transphobic and homophobic are waging a concerted campaign to undermine all transgender women (and by proxy queer people too) because they want to...I dunno, I just give up with this nonsense. I'm just embarrassed by Owen Jones's argument.
He peddles an argument that society is riddled with "rampant transphobia," likens trans rights to gay rights, the supposed rampant transphobia as similar to Section 28, and portrays Munroe Bergdorf as an innocent woman bated by a baying crowd of, well, rampant transphobes who got her fired from the NSPCC because they hate all transgender women.
Bergdorf is allowed to reel off Trumpisms about how people come up to her and ask her questions at talks she gives. Naturally, they're transphobes.
He allows Bergdorf to suggest that her role at the NSPCC was to let "kids know that there was a service the could contact if they needed it." "That she "wasn't there to change any kids...to influence kids," without any challenge to these statements. Really poor journalism in that he must know that Bergdorf suggested children contact her personally (and privately) via social media. That as "the face of Transgender" for the NSPCC her whole raisin d'etre is to influence people.
He allows her to suggest that the journalist who called Bergdorf a "porn model" is a troll and that she, Bergdorf, has never done anything pornographic, just "nude shoots and for Playboy online..."
Jones has called himself a feminist before so I wonder what his position on Playboy is? If Playboy isn't pornography what exactly is it?
Here, he talks about the campaign to end Page 3 in The Sun because it "sexualizes women." I'm assuming if the Sun Page 3 had a transgender woman naked he would see it as empowering trans women...you know, like that non-porn Playboy
"Bergdorf argues that she "used the platform as an empowering moment" for trans people, for young people growing up with body image issues.
I'm not a parent but I'm sure if I was I would not want my children finding such images "empowering."
Jones should, as a respected journalist, at this point, say, but none of those people were the public face of transgender people for a children's charity. Right?
No, he answers "No, by the way I thought those pictures were stunning."
I'm gobsmacked and feel horrified and ashamed of Jones.
"That was not porn by any definition," he added.
Pornography. Noun. "Books, magazines, films, etc. with no artistic value that describe or show sexual acts or naked people in a way that is intended to be sexually exciting." Cambridge Dictionary
"1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction."
Merriam Webster
O O
What definition is Jones working to? Does he have some astonishing non-transphobic dictionary that doesn't define sexualized imagery as pornography?
"I see worse perfume advertizing on billboards," he adds.
Really?
That Dior ad
"It's very tastefully done. Anyone who sees it will see how absurd that is," argues Jones.
Yep, tasteful. Art, really, I would say. Nay, high art. Like Manet's Olympia for our age.
"The people who made this decision are largely conservative, very traditional, they just want to remove trans people from having a seat at the table? From having any form of influence. I've been hounded or forced to leave or sacked from ever single position of influence, it's happened before...People need to start realizing what's happening to me, what's happening for years. Because this is not my first scandal. It's the same people doing it time and time again..." argues Bergdorf without any challenge from Jones.
She was sacked from L'Oreal for racist comments. She resigned from Labour after homophobic tweets came to light and saying that suffragettes were "white supremacists." Where is this transphobic hate campaign? At best she's a fantasist, at worse she's just playing the media. She's a grifter and this is going to make her bigger and better. Trump said "he could stand on New York’s Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and still not lose voters" and Bergdorf can be racist, homophobic, use sexualized imagery, make inappropriate suggestions in her roles yet she just gets bigger and bigger and her apologists line up.
"Those people who call themselves feminists who hound you, I'm just trying to work out where throwing a black woman under a bus comes under feminism," argues Jones.
My god, has he not read Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique? Page 142:
"Sisters, we feminists must get together and throw black women under buses, only then will we be equal."
You have to remember that it was written in 1963 and back then in the US it was still ok to throw black women under buses.
What the fuck is he talking about? He seems to be suggesting that feminists should ignore Bergdorf's ridiculous pixelated male sexual fantasy persona and support her because she's mixed race. Does questioning this make me racist as well as transphobic?
Bergdorf is a role model for women and trans people everywhere and if you don't agree then, well you're just throwing black women under buses.
Jones portrays the argument around the NSPCC cutting ties with Munroe Bergdorf as an argument about someone "preying on kids" and deviancy. It's almost as if Jones has not read the open letter cited as being the reason why the NSPCC cut ties with Bergdorf.
Here's the open letter from The Safe Schools Alliance UK:
Dear Mr Wanless
We are Safe Schools Alliance UK, a group of concerned parents, grandparents, teachers, governors, health professionals and education professionals who have come together to help schools meet the safeguarding needs of all students, whilst taking into account the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010.
One of the things that we are particularly concerned about is the social pressure on girls to look and act in a certain, sexualised way, whether this be by wearing clothes that limit their ability to be active, or engaging in sexualised activity at a young age, such as sexting and via webcams in their bedrooms. Young girls are under enormous pressure due to the prevalence of misogynistic and degrading porn that is freely available to any child with a smartphone. This pornification of children’s experience of childhood has meant that schoolgirls are now subject to an unprecedented level of sexual harassment and assault, whether inside or outside of school.
Girls need to understand that they have a right to feel comfortable in their own bodies, and we should be telling all girls that they do not have to participate in porn culture in order to be happy and accepted for who they are.
With this in mind, we were surprised and disappointed to read that the NSPCC has appointed Munroe Bergdorf to be Childline’s first LGBT+ Ambassador.
We would agree that the NSPCC needs to support all children, including gender-questioning and transgender children. However Munroe Bergdorf presents as a highly sexualised, porn-influenced image of what it means to be a ‘woman’, sending harmful messages to children (both boys and girls) that this is what women should look like. There are numerous, readily available images of Munroe Bergdorf on the internet in provocative, sexualised poses and clothing.
Bergdorf has had plastic surgery to address body dysphoria. This is of course the prerogative of any adult, but as an ambassador of a children’s charity, it sends unhealthy messages to children about how to deal with teenage feelings of discomfort with their bodies.
Bergdorf encourages children to make contact privately on the internet, which goes against child safeguarding principles, and can create mistrust between parents and their children. With the rise in rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) among girls, which has reached such alarming levels that the government has called for an inquiry, it is important that parents are able to guard against the possibility of social contagion, and advocate for their children.
Bergdorf is supportive of children dressing as “drag queens”, an inherently sexual form of dressing and dancing: Children such as Desmond Napoles, who has been recorded as dancing for money in gay bars while dressed in drag.
Bergdorf also had to step down from a role in the Labour Party after offensive homophobic and lesbophobic comments were discovered. This leads us to wonder why the NSPCC has not thought to appoint a lesbian or gay Ambassador. It would seem that this would be more relevant and needed by larger numbers of children.
Many of our children have heard about Childline from their schools. Schools rely on organisations like the NSPCC to work with them to help ensure childrens’ safety and wellbeing. We remain supportive of the excellent work that the NSPCC have done in protecting and supporting all children.
We call upon the NSPCC to reverse the decision to appoint Munroe Bergdorf, and continue to safeguard our children in a thoughtful and considered way.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Safe Schools Alliance UK
They cut ties because of her nude shoots, her comments on race and homosexuality and because she flagrantly breached child safety rules in a role based around child safety at Childline by suggesting children get in touch with her privately through social media. Yeah, kids, text a stranger.
The whole piece by Jones is a huge wilful piece of cognitive dissonance in which he puts aside the sexualization of women and Bergdorf's , at best, naive actions in the name of childline to push an imaginary queer and trans togetherness message with paranoid fearmongering that feminists who aren't really feminists but racist, transphobic and homophobic are waging a concerted campaign to undermine all transgender women (and by proxy queer people too) because they want to...I dunno, I just give up with this nonsense. I'm just embarrassed by Owen Jones's argument.
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