A trans comedian is receiving praise from mainstream media, but backlash from women, after a musical performance on UK comedy show Friday Night Live.
During the live program, trans-identified male comedian Jordan Gray ripped off his clothing to expose his entire naked body, and began to play his keyboard with his penis. This was during Gray’s rendition of his song “Better Than You,” which featured misogynistic lyrics intended to mock females.
“I’m a perfect woman, my tits will never shrink. I’m guaranteed to squirt, and I do anal by default … I am the lizard king, and I can do anything that any other woman can’t … I used to be a man, now I’m better than you,” Gray sang to an audience of delighted onlookers.
The explicit performance took place during a special Friday Night Live revival event marking Channel 4’s 40th anniversary. The revival featured former Friday Night Live cast members Ben Elton, Enfield, Brand and Julian Clary as well as a number of new comedians, including Gray.
Mainstream media coverage of Gray’s performance has been overwhelmingly positive. PinkNews, a UK-based outlet, referred to Gray’s song as “rousing” and called the performance “iconic,” and characterized any opposition to the performer’s exposure of his genitals on television as “anti-trans.” The sentiment was shared by some LGBT activists on Twitter.
Irish Mirror chose to emphasize glowing comments which praised Gray as “amazing” and stated that “seeing a trans woman get naked on TV is exactly what we needed.”
Reporting on Gray’s exhibitionist stunt, The Daily Mail in particular prompted criticism for the use of the term “her penis” to refer to the incident.
Even some beloved British figures took to social media to heap praise upon Gray. Harry Potter actor Jason Isaacs complimented Gray’s “magnificent boobs and equally magnificent member” and called for Gray to run for Prime Minister.
But while no mainstream British outlet has called into question any safeguarding concerns related to the program, many on social media have stated their shock and outrage at what they consider to be indecent exposure, a sexual offense, being normalized, celebrated, and highly publicized.
Speaking with Reduxx, UK-based journalist and women’s rights campaigner Jo Bartosch criticized the media outlets who chose to reference Gray’s genitals using feminine pronouns, and highlighted the significance of factually-based language.
“Whether it’s calling a man ‘Miss’ or using the oxymoronic phrase ‘her penis,’ these linguistic capitulations to men’s paraphilias are dangerous. It is a public sign of the power men like Gray enjoy. And it is terrifying, yet darkly comic, that respected journalists and broadcasters will now lie in this way, because to do otherwise is to risk breaching media guidelines which have been informed by trans lobby groups,” Bartosch said.
“The phrase ‘her penis’ is an insult to the profession, to audiences and to the truth,” she added.
Bartosch explained that she views pornography as an influential force in the concept of a “female penis,” noting that while it may seem bizarre to “the uninitiated,” there exists within the “male domain of pornography a logic to the idea of a ‘female penis.'”
She then cited as examples genres such as forced feminization, and sissification, which portray men as being transformed into women through processes that involve makeup, lingerie, sexual submissiveness, and humiliation.
“Whether it’s the rebranding of sexual entertainment as ‘children’s education’ or the use of language to reflect men’s fantasies; aggressively male behaviour which festers in online pornography has seeped over into the real world,” Bartosch stated.
“The excitement men feel is because they know that the social bounds that keep their base impulses in check are straining and being broken, and that it is happening in plain sight. Pornographic values have become so mainstream when men brazenly flash their fetishes they are celebrated for their bravery. One wonders which taboos will be the next to be broken?”
In the days following Channel 4’s broadcast, internet sleuths have brought to light how Gray boasted about being a representative for a charity that promotes gender identity ideology in schools. The charity, Educate and Celebrate, describes its programs as offering “the knowledge, skills and confidence to embed gender, gender identity and sexual orientation into the fabric of your organization”.
Since news of his involvement with the charity has been spread on social media, Educate and Celebrate quietly pulled a page from their site that listed Gray as a patron. “I go into schools to talk about gender as part of a campaign called Educate and Celebrate,” Gray told GuysLikeU.
“Toddlers kind of get it straightaway. I went into one school recently where there was a 7 year-old transgender girl. And her four year-old classmate, who was a boy, said: ‘Jessie’s a girl and she wants to be a girl. And I am a boy who wants to be a boy.'”
“Young minds are very accepting,” Gray added. “It’s teenagers who are harder to get through to. It’s good to educate these kids when they are young.”
A patron of Educate and Celebrate listed alongside Gray, Peter Tatchell, has previously made statements in support of pedophilia and questioning age of consent laws. Tatchell, a former leader of the Gay Liberation Front, authored an obituary in The Independent for Ian Dunn, founder of the former pedophile activist organization the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
Tatchell also published an essay in an anthology released by former vice-chairman of PIE, Warren Middleton, wherein he argued that argued that “children have sexual desires at an early age” and should be “educated” so that they can decide when they want to have sex.
“While it may be impossible to condone pedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive, and harmful,” Tatchell wrote in a letter to The Guardian in 1997.
The revelation that Jordan Gray worked alongside Peter Tatchell for a charity promoting the notion of a gender identity to young children mirrors a recent, widely-publicized scandal involving a pro-pedophilia campaigner’s ties to a children’s charity that promotes the medical “transition” of minors.
Earlier this month, Jacob Breslow, an Associate Professor at the London School of Economics, stepped down from his position as a trustee for UK-based trans activist organization Mermaids following revelations that he had ties to pro-pedophilia lobbyists.
Breslow had, on several occasions, made statements and published academic work that favorably portrayed pedophilia, and had once authored a blog that linked directly to child sexual abuse materials.
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