Róisín Murphy ‘will never be the same again’ two years after backlash to puberty blocker comments
Róisín Murphy was hit with backlash over her puberty blocker comments. (Getty)
Róisín Murphy was hit with backlash over her puberty blocker comments. (Getty)
Irish singer Róisín Murphy has said she’ll “never be the same again”, two years after she faced a backlash over comments about puberty blockers.
The singer-songwriter and producer landed in hot water in 2023 after sharing a post on Facebook which claimed “big pharma” was giving “mixed-up little kids” puberty blockers, and described the hormones as “f**ked”.
Puberty blockers are an array of medications which halt certain effects of puberty for transgender people under the age of 18. They are described as physically reversible by the NHS.
On Monday (8 September), Murphy took to X/Twitter, sharing a post that highlighted The Guardian’s five-star review of her album Hit Parade.
The Guardian called it “masterful… with an ugly stain,” referring to the furore.
“My album came out two years ago today, in the middle of a controversy,” Murphy wrote. “Having been told previously by music journalists that it was already ‘album of the year’, when the controversy broke I was instructed by the same people to admit ‘ignorance’ and apologise or face a drop in scores.
“These messages were passed on to me by my then record label, Ninja Tune. I have the receipts. This is not journalism or criticism, it’s authoritarianism. The record did indeed suffer revised scores across the board and was left off the end-of-year lists.
‘It was very frightening’
“It wasn’t just upsetting but also very frightening to see how the whole of the music media, in tandem, were able and willing to punish a work of art for the sake of activism. To say I’ll never be the same again is an understatement. Props to The Guardian for not changing the five-star score. But the piece itself is rotten to the core and the record was never again mentioned by them. I really hope one day that changes.”
After Murphy’s comments made headlines, she issued a statement saying she was “sorry” the remarks “have been hurtful to so many of you” and that she would “bow out of this conversation”.
However, last year Murphy told France24 that the backlash “wasn’t that bad” and constituted a few refunded tickets. She had previously cultivated a devoted LGBTQ+ fan base, becoming a regular performer at queer events and a public advocate of drag culture.
The electro-pop artist rubbished early reports that Ninja Tune would donate proceeds from Hit Parade to pro-trans charities.
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