18th September 2020
If you thought Benjamin Button had finished making a fool of himself on air, get a load of this.
Bev, please, please get your lawyers onto this absolute clown.
Do ‘trans allies’ ever feel any awkwardness about being told to fuck off by trans people?
I love blue ticks like this
I only wish there was money in holding the majority view.
An actor writes
A few days ago I put out a call for tales of misogynistic wokismin the theatre world. We have our first response! As always, I’ve redacted her real name.
Hi Graham,
I saw you asking for tales from the wokeplace from actors and theatre pros. I’ve got one for you.
Until recently I had a really good agent. You know. A name agent. A name that makes people in the business go quiet in restaurants.
One night I got involved in a Twitter row with some silly teenager. He came crashing into my mentions when I was chatting with some other women. I didn’t bother checking his bio (who does?) before replying to him. He was anonymous with a laughable gamer name that could apply to either sex. Even though he had longish hair in his profile picture it seemed obvious to me that he was male.
He was spinning all the usual stuff about sex being a spectrum and didn’t we know there’s science to prove there are 97 genders etc. I couldn’t take him seriously so I took the rise, told him he had a shock coming when he found out where babies came from. I think I called him a silly little boy or something like that. Didn’t take long before he blocked us all, the women whose conversation he had invaded.
I thought no more of it but a couple of days later I got a phone call. Someone had (anonymously) emailed my agent screenshots of my comments. My Spotlight profile link was in my bio so I guess they found out who my agent was that way. There was no context as the comments I was replying to were not included.The email said I was bullying a vulnerable trans girl. My agency dropped me. I was devastated.
I’ve also been thrown out of an online forum for women theatre, film and TV makers. Every time someone posted an opportunity or flogged a project it was always about “Self-identifying females” or “self-identifying females and non-binary people”. I always commented on the post that female isn’t an identity or that everyone is non-binary etc. Mostly, I just got ignored.
Then someone posted a competition for “Female-identifying Welsh playwrights”. I said that I’ve never been to Wales but I “Identify as Welsh” and could I apply? The OP replied to say that no it was only for Welsh playwrights. We had a lengthy back and forth with me trying to get her to understand that if you can’t ‘identify’ as Welsh then you sure as hell can’t ‘identify’ as female. Almost immediately I got a DM from a group admin saying that I had been removed because of my “Anti-trans comments” because the group welcomes all women “not just cis women” and that they must consider the “Well-being of our trans and non-binary members”.
In other words, men.
The whole industry is wading in koolaid. It’s full of naive “TWAW” / “Non-binary people are valid” types who have swallowed the ideology hook line and sinker. I know there are others around who feel like I do and aren’t buying it but they’re too scared to speak out
I’m happy for you to post this but please make sure my name doesn’t appear. Not ready to commit career suicide just yet!
All the best,
Jane Doe
And here is what female actresses have to deal with when looking for work in Spotlight. Thanks to JANE DOE 2 for these!
Dear Graham,
This is happening more and more. The word ‘womxn’ replacing ‘women’ in industry breakdowns. They don't seem to have worked out what the plural form is yet! Pesky old English language making things complicated! This is a casting call for an advert.
“These womxn must be DIVERSE e.g ranges of body shapes, ethnicities, abilities & looks. They have confidence in their aura, speaking their truth rather than ‘performing’, proudly showing their personalities as they talk about their hair. We want to feel their authenticity & relate to them.
We are looking for womxn with challenging hair. We are looking for 3 unique people - a wide range of ages, hair colours, ethnicities, body shapes and type, genders, abilities and personalities. We are not looking for women with perfect hair. We are looking for those sparks of personality that will bring our film to life.
Hilarious that they slipped up on the final ‘women’.
And below a tweet from a big talent agency: @casarottoramsay
Bloody infuriating that this word is being welcomed by the industry and I wonder if people (women especially) are happy with it as a replacement for the real word? It seems insane to me! Was anybody even asked?
And get this. Another casting call for an ad.
WOMXN WITH BABY (Female, 25 - 40 years old)
We are looking for five real womxn, one with a baby.(We will need a second baby for insurance purposes and due to Covid, her mother who would be in the scene with her, ideally would be one of the main five womxn too. We will also require back up talent on standby for each role in case of Covid).
We want a mixture of races, ages and shapes, reflecting society in markets where the product will be sold* (Europe and Latin America). We want to consider different ethnicities, sexualities, gender fluidities, body sizes, abled and disabled-bodies – all would need to feel like the product is relevant to them. We want to feature authentically beautiful womxn with a mix of freckles, wrinkles, stretch marks, scars, cellulite and acne; long hair, short hair, curly hair, thinning hair; bodies of different shapes and sizes. We want to make sure we do not default to light-skinned black women.
Did I mention this ad is for Libresse by Bodyform? What I'm saying is THIS IS FOR SANITARY TOWELS!
Better keep me anon or Spotlight will tie me to a chair and throw me in the Thames!
Yours,
Jane Doe 2
Two hours of deeply reassuring sanity
“It is so much better in life to tell the truth.”
Those poor Jane Does, unbelievable levels of capture across the board and losing work because of it.
Discrimination cases need to help win this.
The wokerati could've at least spelled it correctly: WomXXn & Mxyn.
That gasp 🤣😆😂