Meshel apologises to save her face

Well looks like Meshel has attempted to apologise for her part in the whole mess that was created on the 3rd of November by leaving a comment under the original online story that was on the Pride web story. It seems she has had a change of heart and is not so sure she is going to stick by her Transphobic behaviour or her attacking comments about me having no sense of humour. Strangely Q-News reported that she was always steering things in the right direction and did no wrong but that was just a clever cover up to save Meshel's face and now it seems she has decided to admit she did wrong and retract her prior behaviour with an apology to the Trans community and a vague apology to me. Thanks Meshel, now all you have to do is convince your other mates to do the same and then organise an official on air apology and a written one, but then that may be asking too much from someone who sincerely did not want to offend anyone from my community. I think it is very big of her to do so but I also guess under the circumstances she had little choice if she intended on ever showing her face at an LGBT event again.

It has been reported that she has just given birth to her twins, a boy and a girl and is happily getting on with that part of her life so I guess in her mind the whole situation has been saved and is now on the back burner in favour of nappies and formula milk feeds... Well that may be true for a while, of course that is until the ADCQ decide to start proceedings against the station and Ben Teo, at which time she and her crew will be dealing with number one's, two's and three's! As I promised here is my response quotes to her attack on me and my lack of humour and under that is her apology...... Thanks for your apology Meshel, it is something I guess until the ADCQ accept the complaint, investigate and hopefully force you all to appreciate the virtues of keeping your opinions to yourself and learn a little respect for a the Transgender Community.

Copyright (c) Robyn Whittaker 2009.

(My quote responses in full to Meshel's original attack on me are as follows....)

As a Transgender I have the right to stand up for who I am and react against a 5 minute on air vilification attack, regardless of how much Michelle has deluded herself in thinking having Transgender friends or working in a brothel affords her the right to denigrate my kind.

No sleep has been lost over the lack of a false friendship with the likes of Michelle and her Nova team, she can be well assured of that. And let me also assure her that I have a very good sense of humour and shock jock cheap shots that are aimed squarely at a minority to destroy their self esteem and garner negative feeling amongst the wider community for Trans people through sick comical vilification is thankfully not my idea of comedy. What next, is the LGBT community supposed to lay down and laugh at dictated humour styles by a bunch of glass house dwelling bigots just because they say they know a Trans person or a gay person?

On air, Michelle has been asking what gender her listeners think she will be giving birth to, with only two binary choices, boy or girl. How about a Trans child Michelle?, they are worthy of birth and love too! or is that not a valid guess from this listener?

Regards Robyn Whittaker.

(Her Apology as a comment under the Pride online story is as follows...)

From Meshel Laurie written by Meshel Laurie , November 26, 2009...

OK, seriously, this has gone way too far, mainly because I totally took my eye off the ball in a time of intense pressure and reacted glibly and defensively. I can't really cope with anyone suggesting that I am in any way homophobic so I lashed out at my accuser rather than considering that I may have lost my judgement while trying to get a cheap laugh. I really am so sorry for hurting the feelings of members of the transgender community for whom I have great respect. I am genuinely sorry for the whole thing.

(You can view her apology here at the bottom of the original Qld Pride online story in the comments section...)

http://qlp.e-p.net.au/news/nova-fm-dj-in-trans-attack-2942.html

Gary Burns lends a hand.

Gary Burns decided to give his valued opinion on this issue.....Gary is the only person to have successfully taken John Laws to court for his comments on homosexuals, referring to them as pillow biters etc. I am very thankful that there is such strong support for the Trans community by someone who understands that apathy is not acceptable on these issues... The story can be found in the link below......

http://qlp.e-p.net.au/news/burns-weighs-in-to-nova-stoush-2943.html

After sending in another two complaints about Transphobia and vilification on the Nova airwaves, the first of 3 being on the 26th with the Lady Ga Ga comments, I received after each complaint, response letters in the form of a legal jargon laden "we are sorry your offended but we don't believe we were offensive" style replies. Over the last few weeks I have been trying to get Nova to admit they were in the wrong and did in fact broadcast damaging vilification and Transphobia on the radio again on the 3rd and the 9th of Nov and get them to apologies in writting and on air directly to the Trans community, to no avail.

I even received an abusive phone call from Sean Ryan, the manager of Nova, yelling down the phone at me about my Blog ...."What is this rubbish you have written about me, saying that my apology was insincere?!!!" What apology Sean?! If you are apologising for offense that may have been caused you are only apologising for my own perception of what you are saying I perceived as offensive and not taking responsibility for actually being offensive, not to mention breaking vilification laws. You may have come down in the last one mate but this gal was a few showers before that I can assure you. I was amazed that after everything this lot had done to attack the Trans community, he thought he would ring me and berate me like a child for employing my right to defend my kind with free speech on my own Blog site. After calling him back when he hung up on me, he ended the next conversation with a threat to take legal action against me for harassment! Yeah right! go ahead, do your worst, I will gladly stand up in any court in Australia and give this issue the Media attention it deserves on your behaviour in regards to picking on a minority with reckless abandon. You lot are nothing more than a pack of glorified schoolyard bullies that have spread prejudice and have encouraged our youth and the wider community to despise and discriminate against the Trans community. Your on air handy work has the potential to cause loose canons in the community to commit hate crimes on anyone that you dictate is not worthy of respect and fair treatment. You need to be stopped from this irresponsible vile form of banal entertainment and as far as I am concerned this sort of broadcast is the reason that school kids, (one of your largest listening groups) commit heinous hate filled bullying attacks that they film and upload to what ever medium suits there sick minds, to fulfill a desire to physically and verbally abuse other kids they deem as under them.

Even after trying to get Nova to realise what they have done, Sean tried to stage manage with Q-News an alleged apology to the LGBT community..(Strangely that same apology was not sent to Qld Pride to print)... Meshel Lorry (spelling is intended) had sent Qld Pride a scathing attack on me accusing me of not having any sense of humour! Meshel you are seriously twisted if you think any of that broadcast was funny, and dear I don't give a flying duck wing if you worked in a brothel with Trans women you have no right to attack and ridicule Trans people. Your about to give birth any day now apparently, and what a revolting attitude to have when your about to become the mother of twins. Lets just hope you don't have to deal with anything other then the gender they are born with as I would guess you would be a real treat of a mother to them with that sense of humour. Yes you cleaned up your act at the end of that braodcast only when you realised that it had gone too far. Q-"News" was so certain you were steering the conversation in the right direction all the way through but you and I know that is not the truth, and anyone else that heard it on the day or during the week that it was left up on the Nova website, and those that hear it in the future will get to know you for who you really are, someone with a very twisted and sick sense of humour who thinks it is ok to vilify and persecute the transgender community!

Here is the link to the story that you can find on Qld Pride online and soon I will be posting my responses to Meshels attacks on my sense of humour!

http://qlp.e-p.net.au/news/nova-fm-dj-in-trans-attack-2942.html

Poor tasting Breakfast!

Well it seems that Radio Nova have decided to apologise for their poor taste!!! If that is the case, it would make alot of sense for them to apologise for all of their programing choices. Anyway after yet another week of Transgender bashing they assure me this is a one off occurrence and not discriminatory. Yeah right!!! Tuesday morning it was one of the Broco's turn to degrade and denigrate my community with his story about one of his ape like drunken buffoon mates over in Miami that apparently nearly walked out of a club with two trannies, as he put it he saved this guys life by telling his mate that they were blokes. Much laughter was shared amongst Meshell, Ash and the other fool with this Teo larakin for a full 5 mins of Transgender radio bashing...........OH yes radio Nova, it was only a one off occurrence! Poor taste! try hate based no taste!
And by the way, I rang Nova today to ask Morag one of the managers there if Nova supported the LGBT community and she said what does that stand for? And this is the same radio station that we hired Meshell from to compere our Gay Day at the Wickham....Wake up everyone, it is time to make sure that those that don't support us do not get access to our events or our dollars!
(Response letter is unable to be copied but I will find a way and it will be published soon.)

Here is my response to their predictable response...

Sean Ryan,

Thank you for your response regarding my complaint letter, I will now be contacting ACMA about this complaint as I do not accept your weak excuses for your announcer’s behaviour or your insincere apology. I will be taking this as far as it has to go and promise you that I will not stop until this behaviour is eradicated from your programming or anyone else’s for that matter. This is not acceptable behaviour and would not be tolerated if the comments were made in regards to any other minority, nor should it be acceptable.

I have evidence that this is not a one off occurrence and encourage you to look further into your own files before claiming such a false statement. Only this week your morning crew once again vilified Transgender people on your show and from what I know it was much worse than my complaint, so to claim that reasonable listeners would not pick up on this is complete rubbish. To also claim or insinuate that these comments were in some way light hearted and satirical because they were made during this style of show is not only offensive, it is ill informed and is based on ignorance.

Unfortunately for all concerned your response is not based on fact and to describe that this is a one off occurrence is untrue. If you look more closely into your programming you will find that this statement is false.


Robyn Whittaker