A rock musician says she was bullied, blacklisted and ultimately had her band broken up because she expressed concern at material normalising child abuse being provided to transgender children.
Until late last year, rock-punk band Yoni and the Steamers, popular on Hobart’s pub scene, seemed destined for greater things, having released an EP and single and received radio play.
Now the three-piece all-female band lies in ruins, with legal action flagged.
Bass player Katie Warren said the problems started after she posted her outrage on Facebook about a book for transgender teens that appeared to normalise children as young as six performing oral sex.
There was a backlash from some in the transgender community. Warren insisted she was not anti-trans — rather, opposed to sexualisation of children — but complaints led to the band dropping off the bill at Hobart’s FemFest feminist festival, last November.
A festival organiser told Warren there was concern she was opposed to “children self-identifying as other genders”.
Shortly after, band member Sara Stevens quit, saying Working It Out and Equal Opportunity Tasmania viewed her involvement with the band as “complicit” with Warren’s posts. “In my professional role, I work alongside Working It Out and Equal Opportunity Tasmania,” she told the other band members in a message. “Members of both organisations became aware of my involvement in Yoni and view me as complicitly agreeing with individual posts on social media.
“Our band was never meant to be political and it has now been made so and I cannot be affiliated with this.”
Warren is shattered, believing she and her band are victims of an unfair “targeting”, costing her a source of income but also a “labour of love”.
“I just loved playing — music was something special to me and I’ve been playing in bands for 20 years,” she told The Australian.
Warren, the mother of a young child, said she consistently posted against cases of the sexualisation of children.
Feminist group Women’s Speak Tasmania is seeking legal advice on whether Warren has a case for discrimination, viewing it as a national test case in defence of free speech in the transgender rights debate.
Stevens confirmed sending the message but said she quit the band for a number of reasons.
Working It Out chief executive Lynn Jarvis was not aware of the organisation providing “formal advice” to FemFest or Stevens. Equal Opportunity Tasmania declined to answer questions. The FemFest Hobart organiser could not be contacted.
by Matthew Denholm
Source: The Australian