The Pop Corporation

We’re going to go to through this bit by bit, just to show you how dreadful the reactionary, tabloid press is. The headline says ‘trans rights’ in it too, so you may already be on your haunches.

Let us begin with the Daily Mail’s headline: Now Aretha Franklin’s song Natural Woman is deemed OFFENSIVE to trans women: Outrage as ‘activists’ demand song is removed from Spotify and Apple Music.

Okay. A bit clunky for a headline, but it’ll do the job with their readers, eh? The article opens with the following set of words, and we’ll do the due diligence in return, right? Cool.

They write: “The song A Natural Woman by Aretha Franklin is being bashed by LGBTQ critics as ‘offensive,’ with one organization in particular saying the tune helps perpetuate harmful anti-trans stereotypes.” [Editor note: American spelling of ‘organisation’ there, the simps]. They continue: “Released as a single by the late Queen of Soul back in 1967, the stirring love ballad is now facing scrutiny – despite preaching positive messages in regards to women and femininity in general.”

More: “Leading the charge to have the song nixed is the Norway-based Trans Cultural Mindfulness Alliance (TCMA), a group started this year and has since made its presence known with a series of polarizing posts on social media. Statements made by the dubious organization – which defiantly claims that it is genuine and not a parody account – have spawned outrage, including its January 20 request to pull Franklin’s song from streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.”

Okay. This sounds like utter bullshit, doesn’t it? Let’s stop reading for a second and search for this organisation and see if they’re a parody account first, shall we?

Okay. That’s that then. What else have they tweeted. Best to make sure isn’t it? That’s what half decent journalism does, doesn’t it? Checks things for (in our case for this particular article) for at least 2 minutes.

Okay. Obviously, this is a pisstake. It might even be run by anti-Trans blowhards trying to prove some spurious point, we don’t know. They might just be taking the piss generally. We’re lazy researchers, but clearly, have already looked into this more than a literal national newspaper. And Fox. They ran with this as well, the lazy, boneheaded shit-fer-brainzes.

Standing for Women Founder, grifter and re-animated mop Kellie-Jay Keen felt the need to come out against… well… something that is so obviously not serious that you have to wonder if this person is getting enough sleep and has enough fun things to fill their day. In an interview with Sky News in Australia, she said with the straightest (what else?) of faces: “Being a mum, that is also being attacked, we’re now called birthing persons or pregnant persons.”

“I don’t think many women really know how much we’re hated – I hate to say it … I don’t have a victim mentality, but it’s really hard to ignore the misogyny of this particular movement.”

“It means a man who says he’s frightened to go in a man’s toilet – his words are more credible than a woman who says she doesn’t want that man in her space.”

Bullshit. You’ve been outside lately? Have you met a single cis-fella who has been holding his piss in, petrified of going to the bog (to not wash their hands afterwards and have a little spit while they’re there) in case the wokeists get him? Have you met a single cis-mother who held her baby in her arms for the first time, gazed into it’s big, wet eyes and said “I am your birthing person, and I’m going to love [you/your] for the rest of your life. You have truly made me feel like a natural formerly pregnant person. My gorgeous bundle of [they/them/it]”

Were the Daily Mail’s readers hip to the ruse? One wrote “No No and No. This madness has to stop now” and another added “Absolutely not! Everything in the past seems to offend someone. Get over it“

So what have we learned? Most parody accounts are shite, the tabloid rags and right wing media are even more shite, and anyone getting worked up over any of this needs to go for a walk and have a sausage roll and stop feeding into this absolute swill. We’re as bad for even relaying it, but honestly, sometimes you just need to call everyone involved a dick.

The big fact here, is that trans people and their rights absolutely matter and they’re such a petrified and small number, that the heat they’re currently getting from reactionary fuckwads is disproportionate and we should stick up for our trans pals every chance we get and do whatever we can to help them out, whether it’s telling off friends and family for being insensitive toward them, going for a dance with them, listening to them if something is hurting them, or indeed, simply speaking up with them when we’re needed.

Trans women – you’re natural women in our eyes either way. Love to you.