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September 19, 2024 - 10:55am
A new work of art has been unveiled to great fanfare in London. Hundreds of masks of human faces are suspended on a metal frame on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, where they will remain for the next 18 months. The installation, by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles, has echoes of a macabre Aztec artefact, a 15th-century tower of skulls discovered in Mexico City. But that isn’t the most striking thing about it.
According to the Guardian’s review yesterday, Mil Veces in Instante (a thousand times in an instant) is “a memorial to all transgender victims of violence”. There are countries where high numbers of transgender people are killed, and Mexico is one of them. The UK most definitely is not, with some research suggesting that trans individuals are less likely to be murdered than the rest of the population. That’s not the impression created by the 726 faces posed eerily above the fourth plinth, all of them belonging to “trans and non-binary communities in Britain and Mexico”.
It’s pure propaganda, bolstering the zombie claim — it’s been debunked many times — that transgender people are disproportionately at risk of murder in this country. It’s a foundational tenet of gender ideology, which holds an international transgender day of remembrance each November, making emotional claims about the number of people murdered as a result of “transphobia”. Politicians accept such claims uncritically, especially in the US where the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, marked last year’s day of remembrance with a statement about people who have been “targeted and killed for living authentically and courageously”.
In an atmosphere where people live in perpetual fear of causing offence, the notion that transgender individuals are braver and more vulnerable than the rest of us is rarely questioned. It ignores the fact that in countries where high numbers of trans people are murdered, the victims are often involved in the incredibly dangerous commercial sex trade. A report in 2019 suggested that 90% of trans-identified males in Brazil depend on prostitution to survive, exposing them to the jaw-dropping levels of violence associated with selling sex.
In Mexico, 52 trans people were murdered in 2022-23, the most recent year for which figures are available. But 11 women are killed every day in a country where the failure to protect women is a national scandal. In May alone, 335 women and girls were murdered, suggesting that this year’s total could reach 4,000. Thousands of Mexican women and girls are missing, their fate unknown.
The UK has its own problem with violence against women, with police chiefs finally recognising it as a “national emergency” a couple of months ago. Two or three women are killed by a current or former partner each week. One in 12 women will experience male violence every year, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
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SubscribeMore woke, hectoring alienating nonsense foisted on us as ‘public art’. What relevance does this have to the population of the UK?
There is nothing authentic or courageous about a man pretending to be a woman. There is nothing authentic or courageous about propaganda dressing up as art.
“There is nothing … up as art.”
That has nothing to do with being transgender. It is only what you wish was true.
Tell us again how you are really an American doctor, one of those who like the ACPeds hate group with ~200 “doctor” members who are dedicated to abusing in law and policy, everyone who is LGBTQ — and tolerates such physicians who try to raise the dead through prayer?
Talia is a charter member of the
Keepers Of Odd Knowedge Society.
You are dedicated to hurting myself and all like me. Why is it odd that I bother to learn of my enemies?
Because you need to play the martyr.
No idiot. Since it literally is my health care and even right to legally exist which is at issue — it’s no matter of playing.
Your enemies only wish you silence, dear lady.
But then you’d have to confront the absolute nothingness of your cause.
“Your enemies only wish you silence”
No liar, they seek to make my legal existence impossible — and have done so in many jurisdiction, and, to make the healthcare I need illegal — and have done so in many jurisdictions.
You are a lying child abuser, and no better or other. Inflicting that abuse is your cause.
But you now have a piece of artwork in Trafalgar Square!
So violence against transgender people has now stopped.
It’s not like the artwork is pointless virtue-signalling….
It is signaling actual virtue, and so has a point.
How many people have trans people murdered? How many trans people have been murdered by trans people?
That might help us know whom is the greater danger to whom?
Trans Crime UK collates media reports of crimes committed by transgender individuals in the UK. We emphasize ‘individuals’ here, because we don’t think all males who identify as transgender are criminals in the same way as we don’t consider all men are criminals, despite the disparity in criminal convictions between men and women. For example, 98% of offenders convicted of rape in the UK are male….
https://transcrimeuk.com/
“We don’t think …”
Sorry. The crime is the crime regardless of the supposed gender of whoever committed it.
I do hope you aren’t campaigning for a subjective justice system with two (or quite possibly more) tiers …
In the United States, trans rights activists memorialize trans people who have been murdered due to hate crimes that year. The number of victims over the years are between 35-45. Most of them were killed due to domestic violence. Some I can think of were killed because they were prostitutes, one was hit by a drunk driver, some during drug deals, one was killed in the Dayton mass shooting, one died heroically trying to stop a mass shooting, etc. The bar shooting in Colorado was a hate crime, but usually only two or three murders are investigated as potential hate crimes. The day of remembrance is dishonest.
“The number of victims over the years are between 35-45”
That they know of.
“The day of remembrance is dishonest.”
No, it is not — but then, you hate honesty. You are here to lie.
More ideological capture driven by the tyranny of the less than 1%, who so desperately want to be noticed and affirmed that they cannot grasp how their actions have the opposite effect.
An appropriately pointed and powerful article.
“In Mexico, 52 trans people were murdered in 2022-23, the most recent year for which figures are available. But 11 women are killed every day in a country where the failure to protect women is a national scandal.”
This statement could be made, to one degree or another, in every country, and it has been the truth forever. Yet now, for a handful of male victims — as Smith notes, mostly trans-identified men doing sex work, an inherently dangerous occupation — we get days of remembrance and memorials. I guess because these few males performing “female” are authentic and courageous, whereas the infinitely more girls and women routinely killed in simply living their actual female lives are not, and thus still not worthy of the attention they should have received decades ago.
How many trans murders took place in the UK in the last 5 years ? And of them how many were in the sex trade ?
How many murders of non trans sex workers took place in the same 5 years ? And how many sex workers are there ?
Artwork? Artwork fartwork!
Well at least it will disintegrate!
Yes! Thank you!
And not a single 4th plinth to women victims of male violence.
Not that I agree with the plinth being used for that but now they’ve laid down their gauntlet.
It all starts so well … but then this “The UK has its own problem with violence against women, with police chiefs finally recognising it as a “national emergency” a couple of months ago.”
Come off it, Joan.
And just how many of these “national emergencies” can we afford ? And before the term is devalued to mean nothing.
She’s just got to turn this it into a competition between women and trans people and their relative status in the victim hierarchy. Impossible for her to treat this statue/whatever it is on its own merits. Her objection isn’t really that this thing is “pure propaganda” (her words). It’s that it’s not propaganda for her own pet cause.
I think that is a little harsh on Joan. When exposing how flawed, biased or unjust something is, it is perfectly reasonable to compare it to something else.
I agree the criticism is ‘a little harsh’, but Peter B is right to point out that the comparison is inappropriate. There was no competition for the fourth plinth to exhibit an anti-violence display of any kind. The subject is purely the choice of the artist.
Not sure about the “purely the choice of the artist” bit: this artwork is most likely the result of a commission, be it by the Mayor of London, Arts Council UK or/and various sponsors…
The criterea were to show London as, ‘inclusive, safe and accessible.’ How this was to be done wasn’t specified.