Oh no, an academic – at Goldsmiths no less! – pretended to be non-binary. Pretended! Would you believe it?!
A university academic has sparked outrage after claiming to be transgender and asking students to call her ‘Mx Tippy Rampage’ before admitting it was a satirical character for a book.
Dawn Mellor, who was ‘the preferred tutor for transgender and non-binary students’ at Goldsmiths University in south-east London, inhabited the ‘toxic and unpleasant’ character online for several years.
Mellor, who demanded the use of gender neutral pronouns, has now been blasted by the LGBTQ+ community for ‘treating transgender lives as a… performance piece.’
A performance piece – how could nonbinary identity possibly be seen as a performance piece?!
An LGBT+ officer at fellow London university Queen Mary blasted Mellor on Twitter.
Florence, of QMUL Labour Society, said: ‘A lecturer at Goldsmiths has been pretending to be non binary for four years for a f****** book she’s been writing… Dawn Mellor you should be ashamed.’
The university officer added: ‘Dawn Mellor has been going by “Tippy Rampage”, who has presented as non-binary with they/them pronouns for YEARS, and had become the preferred tutor choice for trans/nb students, and it’s all turned out to be writing material.’
Another said: ‘This is such a disgusting breach of trust and I’m offended and so hurt on behalf of the trans/nb community who must’ve trusted her.’
How could they not have trusted her? How could anyone? It’s absolutely forbidden to doubt anyone’s Idenniny, remember?
Comments
7 responses to “Just kidding!”
Well, I can understand them feeling burned and betrayed. After all it exemplifies the total absurdity of their religiously held position.
Do I hear a distant echo of ‘No-one would ever pretend…’
I feel like we need a Poe’s Law-type rule for this. Like, “if your actual beliefs are indistinguishable from performance art mockery of them, they may require re-examination.”
I think there are some ethical questions here, though. If students confided in her because she pretended to be one of them, that seems a little iffy. But I guess I’m not entirely clear on the contours of the role of the “tutor” in UK universities. And the article mentions something about her account becoming a collective of 60-some people. I’m not sure if that just means a social media account, or if she was actually allowing other people to use her official university account in communicating with students.
‘treating transgender lives as a… performance piece.’
Well, aren’t they?
From the Daily Mail today:
Indeed, Goldsmiths posted this abstract of her research in September 2018:
From that abstract, I think her “Tippy Rampage Collective (Fictional Activist Group)” was all “invented personas” of hers, as the Daily Mail put it:
Well, some people sure seem to make the whole “identity” thing very much like a performance or based on little but a whim, or flip of the coin. When Pippa/Philip Bunce does this, s/he wins an award! Makes it hard to tell the “real” ones from the “pretend” ones, and even harder to figure out who should be validated and who should be vilified.
No, just joking.
If it’s a woman doing it, it’s vilification. Always.
Wait wait wait wait wait just a gosh darned minute – if this person faked it for years and was only discovered to be fake when she volunteered that information, does this mean that ‘real’ trans/nb is indistinguishable from fake? And that therefore there is no test that can determine whether a person is one or the other?? I am shocked at this revelation!
NONBINARY IDENNINY IS VALID