Roisin Murphy's refusal to capitulate to the mob marks her as a true artist

Two years ago, however, she was catapulted across my X feed, the latest in a long line of women thwacked into the ‘gender wars’, somewhat accidentally. Whether office worker or nurse, mid-career poet or famous children’s writer, the pattern that plays out once you’ve offended the genderist movement is identical.

This is a merry dance to which I do know the steps.

It starts with a mild expression of fact and opinion. In Murphy’s case, a stated concern about the harms of giving puberty blockers to vulnerable young people who assert a trans identity, a comment she made on her Facebook page.

Others have found themselves in hot water after expressing some opposition to genderism when in conversation with a colleague, or even, as choreographer Rosie Kay did, at her own dinner party, organised for her (it transpires, rather zealously genderist) dancers.

Often, the ‘problematic’ statement is something we all agreed upon until yesterday, like ‘it’s messed up to say lesbians can have a penis’, or, as I did, ‘women shouldn’t face violence from mobbish louts decked out in trans flags for attending meetings to discuss legislation.’

(I was more polite than that, actually, when I said this in 2019. A desire to be so disappears, as we’ll discover.)

Your words are then put through a social-media mangling machine, or, if you’re not online, some staff intranet or To All email from a disgruntled colleague. Your concern about some aspect of genderism – even if backed by solid evidence – will be twisted beyond all recognition into two foundational claims: you hate trans people. You must be destroyed for it.

Upside-down world

Rumours spread. Solidarity is offered by women similarly beleaguered, hit with the worst-of-all-possible-adjectives ‘transphobic.’ But you’re in a strange, upside-down world. Gleeful competitors stick the boot in. Sometimes, there’s an Open Letter.

Work becomes difficult. Molly in accounts looks at you like you stab puppies for sport. You’re ostracised by colleagues. You can tell the boss views you as the troublemaker. The new-hire non-binary-identifying staff member complains you’ve no pronouns in your email signature.

They’ve also discovered you follow Julie Bindel on X. More evidence of your wrong-doing is gathered.

Opposing violent protests, and messing with the endocrine system of pubertal teens, feel to you to be things worthy of concern. You can’t apologise. Are people expecting you to??

Really??? Well, this feels bonkers, but let’s see if there’s a way to stop it, you reason.

If you try to, though (which Murphy did, in part, in 2023, saying she was sorry if she’d hurt anyone – though she didn’t apologise for her concern) it’s like piranhas smelling blood in the water. Only total capitulation is acceptable. Alternatively, your silence.

Meanwhile, you lose your job, or are overlooked for promotion. If you’re a performer like Murphy you’ll experience gig cancellations, idiotic reviews incapable of separating your art from your politics (The Guardian described Murphy’s album Hit Parade, released during the initial stooshie, as ‘a masterful album with an ugly stain’) and frighteningly aggressive activists on and offline.

Your life will be made – not impossible – but frequently ridiculous. You’ll find it difficult to explain to loved ones what’s happening. The isolation may be profound.

Eventually, after possibly years of this, you’ll have had enough. If you’re a woman in employment, you’ll perhaps take your employer to an Employment Tribunal and win, gaining the attention of the media in the process.

‘Friends’ disassociate

While supported too, you’ll be accused of attention-seeking, bigotry. Your family – as with the daughter of NHS nurse Sandie Peggie - will be dragged into it, so it’s no small feat to get through. Even ‘friends’ who agree with your views will say they can’t associate with you publicly.

You’ll downgrade many to ‘acquaintance’ and reason that, oh well, at least you’ll save money on stamps when sending this year’s Christmas cards.

If you’re an artist who didn’t pursue a life of creative freedom only to kowtow to madness?

Well, you may take to social media and say this: “The mob is out in force. The more I see of this cruel “activism,” the more convinced I am that I do not want them anywhere near me or my music, however that may affect my career. I won’t be held to ransom—no more blackmail.

“Perhaps I’ve lived through the last moments of the best period in popular music and, in fact, it’s over—or at least it is at the beginning of the end. If that is so, I have nothing to lose.”

And she doesn’t. The above is from a statement by Murphy last week; a refreshing blast of ‘I’ve had enough’ eloquence.

Non-artists may wonder why someone would feel compelled to risk fresh waves of vitriol from zealous artist-activists. But freedom in the arts requires authenticity; appreciating - but never beholden to - the demands of your audience.

I asked Roisin Murphy why now felt the moment to speak unequivocally.

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“I know I need to create,” she told me. “I’ve been avoiding it. I need a clean slate. I think of who it could be for when I write, and I want to think happy thoughts. I need the audience to be a muse, the muse, and I need to love them, or I can’t find it in me.”

We’ve been living through a social-media-turbo-charged era of authoritarian, genderist dominance. It’s caused cruel, still under-appreciated harm. A true artist feels compelled to address that directly.

So, welcome, Roisin Murphy! Come on in - the water’s boiling. But, I promise, it gets easier to withstand.