What a confusing world we live in.
High profile transgender model, Munroe Bergdorf has effectively been sacked as "Childline's "first LGBT+ campaigner". That's not the confusing bit. It's all the rest of it.
The NSPCC haven't stated specifically why they've cut ties with Bergdorf but media reports initially suggested it's because she posed for an online version of Playboy and they felt it was inappropriate as a role model for a children's charity.
To Bergdorf this is a hate crime because the NSPCC are "bowing down to pressure from a transphobic lobby". On the BBC it was reported that "...The BBC has been told that NSPCC trustees received "transphobic letters" after the appointment was announced on Wednesday."
Ah, journalism. What is a transphobic letter? "I don't feel it is appropriate that a woman who posed for a well known men's pornographic magazine is a good role model for children"? Who knows? they, of course, don't give us any examples, that would be transphobic, I guess.
The main pressure to sack Bergdorf from her post seems to have come from a parents group and Times writer, Janice Turner.
"The charity had faced criticism from some on social media for working with Bergdorf, including from an account called Safe Schools Alliance UK, which was formed in May, and from the Times columnist Janice Turner. The Safe Schools Alliance account said Bergdorf had invited children to get in touch with her directly on social media and was “supportive of children dressing as ‘drag queens’”."
Bergdorf said in a statement that she had never appeared in porn but that demonising those who had was unacceptable. She said she was “unbelievably sad” that the charity had decided to “bow down to anti-LGBT hate and overt transphobia”.
"Responding on Twitter, Ms Bergdorf posted: "I have never shot porn in my life, secondly demonising those who do isn't okay either."
See, what's she done there? It's quietly effective using demonising instead of criticising, it's what makes a criticism a transphobic hate crime. Turner hasn't demonized porn models but suggested that porn models aren't good role models. That is a moral perspective but one that's probably generally accepted and, within the confines of a children's helpline, almost certainly correct.
A spokesperson for Ms Bergdorf said the charity was "bowing down to pressure from a transphobic lobby running a hate campaign.""
I know I live off grid so I had no idea what misogynoir was. Apparently it's misogyny aimed at black women. So, not only are you transphobic, anyone who disagreed with Bergdorf's selection, but you're also racist. And homophobic (very ironic, see below) in some way too. Basically you are a Nazi.
Bergdorf's non-porn high art Playboy shoot can be viewed here.
In a sense Bergdorf is right (if it were only about the porn shoot). It's a moral point that the NSPCC have made and moral points are subjective, one person's porn is another person's free speech. However, in response, articles like why the nspcc cutting ties with munroe bergdorf is so concerning for trans youth from i-d-vice arguing:
"Munroe Bergdorf has found herself at the centre of a “transphobic hate campaign” after children’s charity the NSPCC bowed under the pressure of anti-trans lobbyists and campaigners and severed ties with the model and activist" is reminiscent of McCarthy-ite witchhunt speak.
According to the NSPCC statement it was because Bergdorf had publicly called herself an NSPCC ambassador which they state she never had been.
If you're bored you can read the NSPCC statement twitter feed here in which Turner apparently orchestrated not only a transphobic but racist and homophobic campaign against Bergdorf.
As a male who shamefully has used porn (like just about all men do) this looks pretty porny to me.
On Janice Turner's twitter feed you can tediously read the conflating of just about everything together without any context, thank god I am off grid.
It's a lengthy point to argue that supposed transphobia is extraordinarily subjective, like blasphemy. But homophobia is very easy to spot, right?
However, astonishingly, Labour didn't cut ties with her after this, but "she stood down from the Labour party’s LGBT advisory board last year after newspaper reports revealed comments from her in her early 20s describing suffragettes as “white supremacists”."
It just seems to dog her, these outrageous statements she makes, I mean this rampant transphobia by these cis TERF feminists and things.
She made a statement in 2018 saying she wrote those homophobic tweets when she was 23 and not yet transitioned but living as an effeminate (sic) gay male (which sort of makes it worse somehow in my head) and they were between friends just having a laugh Twitter and now at 31 she's a completely different person. And she is a completely different person from that male of eight years ago...
There's a great piece in The Guardian from May of this year titled "At the beginning of my transition I felt the need to look feminine – now I don’t care."
"Clothes used to hold a lot more significance for me than they do now. In 2011, at the beginning of my transition, I definitely felt the need to look feminine for people in order to validate my gender identity. Now I just don’t care.
"...It is getting rid of gender stereotypes that ultimately oppress everybody. I think that being complacent and not challenging norms is dangerous, because marginalised people don’t benefit from the norm.
Having one set look works for some people but my tastes tend to change, although I gravitate towards clothes that make me feel me empowered. I don’t have any fashion regrets: everything I’ve worn, I’ve wanted to wear at the time. Not everything works but it doesn’t have to – you’re allowed to get it wrong. I just wear whatever I feel excited by.
At the beginning of my transition, I was more experimental with my clothes – but even now I’m always up for trying new things. I’ve definitely honed it and know what is flattering for my shape – but, also, my shape has changed. I’m a lot more curvy now and I’ve learned how to embrace that. I guess I’d describe my style as “comfortably glamorous”."
Getting rid of gender stereotypes.
Anyhoo, the big problem with Bergdorf's appointment with the NSPCC, other than the NSPCC not reading about her history on twitter, not just the homophobic tweets, oh LGBT, but that the white race was "the most violent and oppressive force of nature on Earth" which got her fired from the transgender face of L'Oreal (her mum is white by the way) and the white supremacist suffragettes, is her inappropriate use of her role with the charity.
"Bergdorf had been been criticised for inviting children to get in touch with her directly on social media."
That, uh, that is quite an astonishing misjudgement on her part. Has she not even considered what that might mean? "She said she saw nothing wrong with letting trans children message her “as a friend to turn to” and argued that drag was a “cultural phenomenon” that had no age limit. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with kids playing dress-up if that’s what they want to do,” she said."
It is a mindboggling faux pas to think that an organization promoting childline should have a consultant or whatever exactly she was who suggested children should privately get in touch on social media with a stranger.
Not once has anyone condemning her actions mentioned that she's transgender. Or indeed, that she's mixed race. Yet she argues that "I’m hoping that this is a teachable moment in how transphobia poses a real threat to the progression of our community and our individual emotional wellbeing and livelihoods.”
One of the commenters on Janice Turner's twitter feed is a cousin from across the pond who describes Munroe Bergdorf as "a grifter." A perfect description I think, in British parlance it's a confidence trickster, god I'm quoting urban dictionary but it is apt:
" A Grifter, is somebody who can influence anybody, anywhere, at anytime, into doing whatever they choose to have them do, that will result in the grifter's personal gain. Usually monetary, but really anything that benefits him or her somehow."
I can't understand why the LGBT community are behind her. She reminds me of the absurdity of Trump, if Trump were transgender. It's quite embarrassing that everyone (except all those transphobes, of course) in the LGBT community and beyond aren't willing to cry "But she isn't wearing anything at all!"
Addendum: I'm depressed to say that well respected journalist Owen Jones, who is an all round lovely seeming chap, is also happy to go cognitive dissonance overdrive on the subject too...writing in The Guardian today (12/6/19): "Anti-trans activists claim they want trans people to have happy lives, but as their recent successful campaign to force the NSPCC to drop the trans model and activist Munroe Bergdorf as its first LGBTQ campaigner underlines, they want to drive trans people out of public life. [my italics]
There are self-described liberals who pit trans activists and feminists against each other, when the truth is that most trans activists are feminists and most feminists support trans rights, whatever a vocal minority claim."
Bonkers.
High profile transgender model, Munroe Bergdorf has effectively been sacked as "Childline's "first LGBT+ campaigner". That's not the confusing bit. It's all the rest of it.
The NSPCC haven't stated specifically why they've cut ties with Bergdorf but media reports initially suggested it's because she posed for an online version of Playboy and they felt it was inappropriate as a role model for a children's charity.
Remember that weird moment where Playboy merchandise was aimed at kids? Well, the world got weirder...
Ah, journalism. What is a transphobic letter? "I don't feel it is appropriate that a woman who posed for a well known men's pornographic magazine is a good role model for children"? Who knows? they, of course, don't give us any examples, that would be transphobic, I guess.
The main pressure to sack Bergdorf from her post seems to have come from a parents group and Times writer, Janice Turner.
"The charity had faced criticism from some on social media for working with Bergdorf, including from an account called Safe Schools Alliance UK, which was formed in May, and from the Times columnist Janice Turner. The Safe Schools Alliance account said Bergdorf had invited children to get in touch with her directly on social media and was “supportive of children dressing as ‘drag queens’”."
Bergdorf said in a statement that she had never appeared in porn but that demonising those who had was unacceptable. She said she was “unbelievably sad” that the charity had decided to “bow down to anti-LGBT hate and overt transphobia”.
"Responding on Twitter, Ms Bergdorf posted: "I have never shot porn in my life, secondly demonising those who do isn't okay either."
See, what's she done there? It's quietly effective using demonising instead of criticising, it's what makes a criticism a transphobic hate crime. Turner hasn't demonized porn models but suggested that porn models aren't good role models. That is a moral perspective but one that's probably generally accepted and, within the confines of a children's helpline, almost certainly correct.
A spokesperson for Ms Bergdorf said the charity was "bowing down to pressure from a transphobic lobby running a hate campaign.""
From the BBC
Bergdorf's non-porn high art Playboy shoot can be viewed here.
In a sense Bergdorf is right (if it were only about the porn shoot). It's a moral point that the NSPCC have made and moral points are subjective, one person's porn is another person's free speech. However, in response, articles like why the nspcc cutting ties with munroe bergdorf is so concerning for trans youth from i-d-vice arguing:
"Munroe Bergdorf has found herself at the centre of a “transphobic hate campaign” after children’s charity the NSPCC bowed under the pressure of anti-trans lobbyists and campaigners and severed ties with the model and activist" is reminiscent of McCarthy-ite witchhunt speak.
According to the NSPCC statement it was because Bergdorf had publicly called herself an NSPCC ambassador which they state she never had been.
If you're bored you can read the NSPCC statement twitter feed here in which Turner apparently orchestrated not only a transphobic but racist and homophobic campaign against Bergdorf.
On Janice Turner's twitter feed you can tediously read the conflating of just about everything together without any context, thank god I am off grid.
"A woman choosing to express herself sexually, is a woman taking ownership of and asserting agency over her own body. In this male dominated society, obsessed with censoring, policing and legislating the female form. Being unashamed of enjoying sex is a revolutionary act." Bergdorf enacting a women's revolution.
I concur with another male twitter user who suggested: "Munroe's idea of of womanhood is a male fantasy that is damaging to women, and one I want nothing to do with. This is a huge step backwards and only reenforces everything feminists have been fighting against. Be yourself Munroe but do *not* equate it to being a woman."
In this appalling transphobic world the NSPCC have been forced to make a public apology: The Guardian because some of their staff were upset about the handling of Bergdorf's 'sacking.'
The statement from the NSPCC read "The board decided an ongoing relationship with Munroe was inappropriate because of her statements on the public record, which we felt would mean that she was in breach of our own risk assessments and undermine what we are here to do."
I think the NSPCC statement might, at least partly, refer to her historic tweets like:
And lots more like it on Twitter.
These were uncovered when she was unveiled as the Labour Party LGBT adviser.
Bergdorf (right, just in case) with some hairy lesbian
It just seems to dog her, these outrageous statements she makes, I mean this rampant transphobia by these cis TERF feminists and things.
She made a statement in 2018 saying she wrote those homophobic tweets when she was 23 and not yet transitioned but living as an effeminate (sic) gay male (which sort of makes it worse somehow in my head) and they were between friends just having a laugh Twitter and now at 31 she's a completely different person. And she is a completely different person from that male of eight years ago...
There's a great piece in The Guardian from May of this year titled "At the beginning of my transition I felt the need to look feminine – now I don’t care."
"Clothes used to hold a lot more significance for me than they do now. In 2011, at the beginning of my transition, I definitely felt the need to look feminine for people in order to validate my gender identity. Now I just don’t care.
"I don't feel safe because of other women. That's really weighing heavily on me. I want to get people to think about how this narrative is affecting the transgender members of our society. If I feel this way, what does my sister feel like? Unfortunately it's got to do with a narrative - the trans people are a threat to cisgender women. There are no statistics to show that this is the case." Bergdorf in full Trump mode "speaking at an annual London event organised to celebrate womanhood"in The Guardian
"...It is getting rid of gender stereotypes that ultimately oppress everybody. I think that being complacent and not challenging norms is dangerous, because marginalised people don’t benefit from the norm.
Having one set look works for some people but my tastes tend to change, although I gravitate towards clothes that make me feel me empowered. I don’t have any fashion regrets: everything I’ve worn, I’ve wanted to wear at the time. Not everything works but it doesn’t have to – you’re allowed to get it wrong. I just wear whatever I feel excited by.
At the beginning of my transition, I was more experimental with my clothes – but even now I’m always up for trying new things. I’ve definitely honed it and know what is flattering for my shape – but, also, my shape has changed. I’m a lot more curvy now and I’ve learned how to embrace that. I guess I’d describe my style as “comfortably glamorous”."
Getting rid of gender stereotypes.
Anyhoo, the big problem with Bergdorf's appointment with the NSPCC, other than the NSPCC not reading about her history on twitter, not just the homophobic tweets, oh LGBT, but that the white race was "the most violent and oppressive force of nature on Earth" which got her fired from the transgender face of L'Oreal (her mum is white by the way) and the white supremacist suffragettes, is her inappropriate use of her role with the charity.
"Bergdorf had been been criticised for inviting children to get in touch with her directly on social media."
That, uh, that is quite an astonishing misjudgement on her part. Has she not even considered what that might mean? "She said she saw nothing wrong with letting trans children message her “as a friend to turn to” and argued that drag was a “cultural phenomenon” that had no age limit. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with kids playing dress-up if that’s what they want to do,” she said."
It is a mindboggling faux pas to think that an organization promoting childline should have a consultant or whatever exactly she was who suggested children should privately get in touch on social media with a stranger.
Not once has anyone condemning her actions mentioned that she's transgender. Or indeed, that she's mixed race. Yet she argues that "I’m hoping that this is a teachable moment in how transphobia poses a real threat to the progression of our community and our individual emotional wellbeing and livelihoods.”
One of the commenters on Janice Turner's twitter feed is a cousin from across the pond who describes Munroe Bergdorf as "a grifter." A perfect description I think, in British parlance it's a confidence trickster, god I'm quoting urban dictionary but it is apt:
" A Grifter, is somebody who can influence anybody, anywhere, at anytime, into doing whatever they choose to have them do, that will result in the grifter's personal gain. Usually monetary, but really anything that benefits him or her somehow."
I can't understand why the LGBT community are behind her. She reminds me of the absurdity of Trump, if Trump were transgender. It's quite embarrassing that everyone (except all those transphobes, of course) in the LGBT community and beyond aren't willing to cry "But she isn't wearing anything at all!"
Addendum: I'm depressed to say that well respected journalist Owen Jones, who is an all round lovely seeming chap, is also happy to go cognitive dissonance overdrive on the subject too...writing in The Guardian today (12/6/19): "Anti-trans activists claim they want trans people to have happy lives, but as their recent successful campaign to force the NSPCC to drop the trans model and activist Munroe Bergdorf as its first LGBTQ campaigner underlines, they want to drive trans people out of public life. [my italics]
There are self-described liberals who pit trans activists and feminists against each other, when the truth is that most trans activists are feminists and most feminists support trans rights, whatever a vocal minority claim."
Bonkers.
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