Right-wingers and TERFs alike were thrilled when singer Macy Gray made some ignorant comments about trans women on Piers Morgan’s show on Monday.
“Just because you go change your parts doesn’t make you a woman,” she told Morgan, well aware she was stepping on a hornet’s nest. “If you want me to call you a ‘her,’ I will,” she continued,
because that’s what you want, but that doesn’t make you a woman just because I call you a ‘her’ and just because you got a surgery. A woman goes through a completely unique experience and surgery and finding yourself doesn’t change that. Being a little girl is a whole epic book, you know? You can’t have that just because you want to be a woman.
JK Rowling was so excited by Gray’s recital of a number of TERFy talking points that she announced on Twitter that she had just gone and bought the entirely of Gray’s back catalog.
But mostly, people were pissed. At first Gray claimed she had been “misunderstood,” but of course she hadn’t been; if you read the transcript of her comment you’ll see she was completely clear about what she was saying, and fully aware of all its implications. I would guess that she’s probably made the same argument many times before in private.
At the same time she was telling her haters to “be whatever you wana be, and fk off,” which is something of a mixed message if I ever saw one, starting with something close to an apology before lashing out in anger. Needless to say the comment did not go over well with trans folk and their allies. This was on Wednesday.
By Thursday morning she was ready for her apology tour, which so far has had only one stop, on the Today show, in an interview with Hoda Kotb, where she took a radically different tone, basically dismissing her earlier comments as the result of ignorance and claiming that she had learned her lesson and changed her mind. In case you didn’t get that point, she repeated it again and again.
I never meant to hurt anybody. I think it takes a lot of courage to be yourself. Anyone who is in the LGBTQ community is a hero. … I said some things that didn’t go over well but my intention was never to hurt anybody. I feel bad that I did hurt some people and I think it’s about education, conversation and us getting to a place where we understand each other.
She continued, hammering her talking points home.
I’ve learned a lot through this. So I think that was one of the reasons that it happened. It was a huge learning experience for me. I just have compassion for, you know. I think you can … call yourself, like, you’re whoever you believe you are, and no one can … take that from you.”
Being a woman is a vibe and it’s something I’m very proud of and something that it is very precious to me. I think that if you in your heart feel that’s what you are, then that’s what you are regardless of what anybody says or thinks. Because now I know.
That’s not really all that radically different from her Twitter message to “be whatever you wana be,” but this time she finished the thought not with a “fk you” but by saying “I’ve learned a lot and I glad I did.” That sort of thing tends to go over much better than an expletive.
It’s clear Gray learned something between her Wednesday tweet and her Thursday Today Show appearance. Maybe she had a talk with someone who really did set her straight on the issues. Maybe she read some of the thousands of responses to her comments on Twitter and realized that she sounded like a bigot. Or maybe her PR people told her that if she didn’t change her tune, and quick, JK Rowling would be the only person buying her music.
Right wingers and TERFs, and right-wing TERFS, were of course appalled that Gray so quickly defected to the other side in this particular culture war. But they didn’t really blame her. To them, it sounded like she had a (figurative) gun to her head during the Today Show interview.
Rod Dreher of The American Conservative dusted off his copy of George Orwell’s 1984:
Wonder how they got to her and forced her to confess? It’s chilling, isn’t it? Macy Gray is a big star, a Grammy winner, even. They broke her in a day or so. We all know what she really thinks … and we all see her humiliation. Actually, I hope that we are only seeing humiliation here. The scary thing would be is if she accepted what Orwell called “the Party’s final, most essential command”: that she should stop believing the evidence of her own eyes.
Meanwhile, on PJMedia, a headline blared:
Singer Macy Gray Has Been Re-Educated on What a Woman Is and It’s the Creepiest Thing You’ll See Today
The writer, Victoria Taft, exclaimed
Well, that was fast. Singer Macy Gray has gone to a Leftist re-education camp and completely transformed her opinion of what a woman is. No longer does she think that being a woman is an immutable characteristic one is born with that is unchangeable; now she “believes” that womanhood is a “vibe and if you feel in your heart that’s what you are, that’s what you are.”
Taft got a little carried away:
After a struggle session on what a woman is, she came back contrite and chastened. A new-found penitent, Gray came to the confessional on NBC’s TODAY Show to tell Bishop Hoda Kotb her new truth and present her battered reputation as a woman as a burnt offering.
Meanwhile, over on Ovarit — the Reddit-esque virtual refuge for “Gender Crits” banned from the real Reddit — the regulars weren’t blaming Gray so much for her seeming change of heart as they were blaming the “bullies” who (allegedly) made her do it.
“It really does feel like a hostage video,” wrote pennygadget.
I kept wanting to yell, “MACY! Tug your earlobe if you need us to send a rescue!!”
Itsnotaboutewe took things to a darker place:
She can apologise all she wants but not one person thinks she is doing so because she has changed her mind about the subject. Abuse and hate don’t make people more amenable to a different point of view. Everyone sees her as just another abused woman willing to say anything to stop a beating at the hands of people who claim to love her.
Well, that’s … a way of looking at it.
But I can’t help thinking that, as wrong as these people are about practically everything, they may have a point when it comes to judging the sincerity of Gray’s apology. Which is to say I’m not buying it either. I don’t think she changed her mind; I think she simply decided it wasn’t worth fighting over, and so she said what her PR team thought she needed to say to get this controversy in the rear-view mirror as quickly as possible. I guess we’ll have to see if it does.
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I don’t know if I’m “buying it”, but I’m not rejecting it either.
Of course as I often say, I really don’t care if you’re transphobic in your secret heart. Treat people right and your inner monologue can be anything. I’m not a telepath, and so I go by behavior alone. I just don’t worry about thoughts and beliefs.
It’s what you say out loud, what you write down, what you do — that’s what matters. And if Gray does all the right things for all the wrong reasons, I’ll never know or care.
At least she’s not going with the popular doubling/tripling down? Call me a +1 in the “not sure she’s going to expand her empathy, but I’m hopeful” category.
@Crip Dyke, I think that whether or not you’re transphobic does matter because that dictates not only behaviour but attitudes. If it’s just ignorance though then maybe they can change their minds.
If bigots still remain bigots privately, then that doesn’t solve the problem, they just go underground.
I believe in redemption and forgiveness, but they have to be earned. I felt so sad when I saw the clip of her saying those things. What was she doing on Morgan’s show in the first place? He doesn’t deserve the credibility she gives him.
I wonder if she thinks transwomen aren’t authentically women because they didn’t experience growing up female. I don’t agree with her but I know that attitude is out there.
@crip dyke
I posted something in the Depp/Heard thread related to this. It’s a commentary on the implications of the Forstater judgment.
The tribunal seems to have taken a similar, although not identical, approach.
To over simplify:
@Mimi Haha:
I wonder if she thinks transwomen aren’t authentically women because they didn’t experience growing up female.
I’ve seen people make that argument and it always seems ridiculous to me— I grew up female and my experiences still weren’t necessarily those of all other ciswomen; there are millions of variables.
Off topic, but it’s my sad duty to inform you Dim Tool– er, Tim Pool is at it again. The gory details courtesy of Def Noodles:
https://www.facebook.com/defnoodles/posts/pfbid02fqsX2YW4Y2hzfwfc3RqNk4k4x2JnZtZnoSiPLHyby1UTnZBvNJMfQaLgjdmYZ7Jel
@Alan Robertshaw, Yes but TERFs won’t disappear just because they can’t publicly express their views. They would continue to do so anonymously online and their ideas can still spread. The only way to combat that is by continuing to show why those ideas are wrong.
@Jono
As usual, you’re completely wrong. Prioritizing debate and “changing hearts” in the face of bad faith and propaganda is one of the things that got us here.
“Better that they’re in the open than scheming underground” is what liberals said about neo-Nazis, too. And now they’re basically in control of the US. Liberals tried debating them, and lost. The worst of these people absolutely will not change, and their victories depend on having collaboration and acceptance from the mainstream – so any effort that goes into enlightening them would be 100x more effective put into shutting them out of popular media, protesting them wherever they go in public, etc.
@Cyborgette, Perhaps you misunderstood me. I didn’t say anything about changing their minds nor am I against them being shut out of mainstream media, being protested against, or being banned from Twitter or Reddit or whatever, which is what should happen. I actually agree with you that debating with them useless because most of them will never change (I’ve tried). My main point is rather to call them out if we see them so that their ideas don’t spread further and others don’t fall into their ideology. It’s a bit like combatting creationists or conspiracy theorists, it’s actually useless to debate the actual leaders of these groups because they’ll never change but the people you want reach is the people who they try to influence.
I just don’t think that shutting them out of popular media, while necessary, is sufficient to stop their ideas from spreading, which can be dangerous. I believe in critical thinking and think that, in addition to that, communicate to other people what’s wrong with their ideas, so that they don’t fall into their trap if they come across them. In fact, I thought that the entire purpose of this blog was to call out misogyny and bigotry when it appears.
@Moon Custafer – Yeah, same. And it’s not like everyone with ovaries (I’m guessing “Ovarit” is for “ovaries” + “over it”) is going to experience everything ovaries can do or contribute to – good, bad, neutral. E.g., I have no plans to give birth. So it’s silly to go “only THIS thing makes you a woman,” whether it’s physical properties or life experience.
Macy Gray’s “vibe” language seems kind of vague, so I don’t know if she’s thought about this stuff all THAT much, but at least she seems to care about being fair to people, and that’s a start.
(edited because I made one paragraph bold by accident)