#The witness didn’t recognize Labelle as trans just as someone with mental health issues

[coochiequeens]

“Reporter Jack Hadfield says his intention was to question Labelle on his history, but, seeing that there were children present, delayed his line of questioning until the end of the event.” Ok it’s not often this blog praises men but Jack Hadfield was doing his job as a reporter and he was mindful of the children present. So of course a man in a dress, and maybe even a diaper, attacked him.

A British journalist has reported he was assaulted by Canadian trans activist and artist Sophie Labelle after attempting to confront him on his history of using children as reference models for fetish art.

On Sunday, February 26, transgender artist Sophie Labelle held an event at the Cockatoo Club, a cocktails and cabaret venue catering to Manchester’s gay community. Labelle was set to speak about trans activism as well as his comic book franchise, Assigned Male. 

Labelle’s visit was announced by the club through their Twitter, with the comment section rapidly being closed as dozens of concerned netizens replied to the post and tried to alert the venue to Labelle’s disturbing history with “diaper kink.”

Labelle first came under widespread controversy in February of 2021 after it was discovered that he had quietly been producing and distributing diaper fetish art on secret social media accounts, as well as on furry fetish site “FurAffinity.”

WafflesArt, Labelle’s now-deleted alternate online persona, was dedicated to the “adult baby/diaper lifestyle” and “diaper fur” fetish which published Labelle’s drawings of anthropomorphic baby animal characters modeling in diapers, onesies, and behaving like toddlers.

Labelle was also found to have been following many pornographic models who role-played as babies for sexual arousal. One such account followed by Labelle was of a model who called himself “Little Boy” and posted sexually suggestive photos and videos of himself in diapers and surrounded by children’s toys. The model would mimic masturbation while wearing a diaper, utilizing baby oil and lotion to lubricate himself.

But possibly the most disturbing revelation was the discovery that Labelle had been using photos of real babies as reference models for his fetish art. 

After backlash grew on social media, Labelle admitted to the art but asserted that he “refused to be shamed” for it, and also proclaimed himself a member of the “little” community — a person who role-plays as a child during sexual encounters. Labelle connected his fetish to his transgender identity.

Despite his history, Labelle has been regularly invited to speak amongst children, including at Canadian elementary schools. He’s also been visiting different venues internationally as part of his comic book tour, with the United Kingdom having been his latest destination. 

Attending the February 26 event in Manchester on behalf of independent media outlet Valiant News, reporter Jack Hadfield says his intention was to question Labelle on his history, but, seeing that there were children present, delayed his line of questioning until the end of the event.

Hadfield reported that Labelle made a number of inappropriate jokes during the event, despite the presence of children. 

At one point, the artist laughed about “invading” single-sex spaces. “They usually say like it’s a full-time thing but for most of us it’s a hobby. After a hard day of grooming children… I like to relax by going to the mall and waiting in line for the women’s restroom.”

Labelle also called Member of Parliament Miriam Cates the MP for “penis-town,” after the politician had criticized the Sheffield City Council for organizing a child-friendly event with Labelle at the central library. Cates had expressed concern over Labelle’s child-adjacent fetishes.

Following the talk, Hadfield entered the line to speak with Labelle one-on-one. He obliged Labelle’s request to stand aside and let him finish his book sales first, and waited until he and Labelle were virtually the only ones left in the room. In his report for Valiant News, Hadfield reports that Labelle became increasingly hostile as he attempted to ask his questions, but ultimately admitted to using photos of real children to draw his kink art.

Sensing tension, Hadfield attempted to leave the venue but Labelle pursued him, snatching his arm and demanding to see his photo identification. Hadfield managed to break free and darted down the street, but reports that Labelle was soon “on top” of him, grabbing at him and attempting to take direct photos of his face.

Hadfield explained that Labelle, who is physically larger than he is, tried to steal his notebook and made an effort to wrangle it away from him. Hadfield shouted for help during the altercation, and a female bystander near a bus stop witnessing the incident threatened to call the police for help, recognizing that Labelle was attacking Hadfield.

Facing the possibility of police presence, Labelle released Hadfield’s notebook but continued to film him closely, yelling at Hadfield and accusing him of “harassment.” The female bystander once again came to Hadfield’s defense, at which point Labelle turned his attention towards her and called her “transphobic.”

The female witness provided Hadfield with a statement confirming what had happened, the audio of which was uploaded to Twitter.

“I was just waiting at the bus stop. This man, blatantly a man as well, because all of that strength was just physically attacking you, and trying to take your work off you, grabbing you, pushing you about, dragging you down the street, and I’m not standing for that,” the witness says. “Anyone that uses things like that as an excuse. We’ve all been through shit, we’ve all got mental health issues in this day and age. There’s no excuse to use that to inflict violence on people. I don’t care if I’m called transphobic. I’m not going to stand there, I don’t even know which gender they see themselves as. I saw you being attacked, and I was going to step in.”

Speaking to Reduxx, Hadfield praises the bystander who stepped in to both defend him and offer her testimony to confirm the events as she had seen them, noting that the woman had been entirely unaware of the circumstances surrounding the attack.

“I was extremely thankful to the witness who was brave enough to stand up for me during the incident. She didn’t know any of the background, but just saw one human being attacking another,” Hadfield says. “After I explained the whole story, she was disgusted by Labelle’s behavior.”

Hadfield tells Reduxx he is currently weighing filing a police report, but has some concerns that police will instead make him a target due to his politics.

“I am probably going to seek expert advice before I come down one way or the other, but obviously that combined with the fact that I have seen a lot of support adds to the equation on reporting it.”

Hadfield explained he had not been anticipating a physical altercation to break out when he chose to cover the event, and that he had been surprised at the sudden escalation of events. 

“I was extremely surprised that I was attacked for simply asking tough questions. I now worry for the safety of anyone else, be they journalist or otherwise, who dares challenge someone like Labelle publicly.”

Following the incident, Labelle posted to his Facebook that he had been “harassed” by someone on the “far-right” who was “pretending to be a journalist” at his event. He also suggested he was planning on reporting Hadfield for harassment to police, though it is unclear if he has done so.

Labelle will be completing his UK tour with two final stops on March 4, one at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, and another at the Catherine Wheel Pub in Norwich. Following the end of the tour, Labelle will be going on to visit Australia for similar events, and has stated he is planning on returning to the UK in June.

[a-woman-apart]

I am Bisexual

I am a black, bisexual ciswoman dating a white, straight cisman, and the fact that he is male and straight are not the reason I am dating him, nor are they a reason NOT to. Pretending though, that his labels don’t factor into who he is as a person would be completely idiotic. 

At the end of the day, though, we are dating because we share similar values, we are compatible in multiple ways, we respect each other, and we love each other and are committed to making this work. It is true, that as a straight man, he wouldn’t be open to dating me if I were a man, but it is also true that if I were a man, certain aspects of my personality would change, due to a complex combination of nature and nurture that scientists still haven’t figured out.  

Also, there are people from both our “communities” (said very loosely) that aren’t down with “The Swirl” which is only something you get to celebrate if you are extremely privileged and quite a bit into eugenics. We each have racist people in our families, and we both get dirty looks on the street when we’re together for different reasons, but hatred is always at the core of the discrimination. 

Loving vs. Virginia was passed in 1967, and it is important to note that The Lovings wanted to be left alone and to live in peace, even though their marriage wasn’t recognized by law and it was a crime, even for white women, to give birth to interracial children. The Lovings only took their case to court when they faced racialized harassment. 

To me, it is absolutely terrible that in roughly 10 years, we went to celebrating “love is love” to now criticizing people for who they choose to date or how they identify. I can’t tell you how many times on this site I’ve seen bisexual women pressured to identify as pansexual to be “less discriminatory” or told in disgusting tones, “Why date men if you can choose to date women?” as if bisexual and/or lesbian were just things you can turn on and off like a light switch. 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rise of radical feminism and AFAB-nonbinary/transmasculine culture has coincided with poorer mental health for women in our community and also with a HUGE uptick in misandry and biphobia. Even gay men aren’t above being “canceled” for so-called “transphobic” caricatures of women, even though men have been playing women in the theatre for centuries, and now, women can play men, too. #Progressive  

Honestly, one thing I will say that guys do better than us women (in general, there are always exceptions) is comedy. Yes, men, as a a general rule, are funnier than us. Men are more likely to make fun of themselves, us, and other people, with no mercy, and I honestly think the women/AMAB non-binary in our community-- either the black or the LGBTQ+ one, take your pick-- need to learn to take a fucking joke. It’s not that fucking serious, but the one thing that ISN’T funny is the hideous biphobia, racism, and backbiting I’ve witnessed online and offline this year. 

What makes it even more disgusting, is that while I am including AMABs in my roast, I have actually seen MULTIPLE stories of AMABs being excluded from AFAB offline gatherings (DOCUMENTED ON THIS HERE VERY SITE) in the name of “safety” because they are seen than nothing more than a man in a dress. 

So, here’s where I lose some subscribers...if a so-called “man in a dress” is unwelcome in your circles, do you REALLY think you have room to fucking talk when a huge portion of you you skirt the line between male and female because you can’t accept your own femininity? So really, are you really “non-binary” or are you just a scared little girls who can’t grow up?

Of course, that isn’t ALL of you, but when the country (as pointed out by J.K Rowling) sees a 4400% in female to male transition (a lot of it with very young girls becoming AFAB/non-binary, many of whom are taking testosterone) while male to female transition rates remain UNCHANGED, suddenly this isn’t a “trans” or a “non-binary” problem, this is a FEMALE problem. Trans people, prior to this huge upswing, made up less than 1% of the population, and that included MtF and FtM transition rates. These rates had remained steady FOR YEARS, so from a purely mathematical perspective this uptick is a huge statistic anomaly. 

For years people on the Right have decried the so-called “feminization of boys”, when in reality the “masculinization of girls” is statistically a far more pressing societal issue. 

I didn’t want to get this harsh, but this is concerning as a medical health issue, especially because research from the Scientific American reports that lots of young women who report having gender dysphoria end up not being dysphoric about their gender at all, but uncertain about their sexuality [click link]. If I had a quarter for every time a girl who never felt comfortable with her femininity or identified as asexual or aromantic turned out to “just be gay/bisexual” then I would be pretty fucking rich. 

I felt the same way. I felt like I was “Not Like Other Girls” and even though I never felt like a man, I often didn’t quite feel like a woman. It turns out that bisexuality, especially in women, corresponds with certain personality traits (aggression, assertiveness, high sex drive) that have been “coded male.” Gender bias in medicine is still responsible for why we don’t have more studies on lesbian and bisexual women, or on women IN GENERAL. As someone who is concerned about women’s rights and the safety of young girls and women, I think it is a HUGE DEAL that modern medicine still sometimes operates on the false assertion that women are just men without dicks and added baby-hosting parts. The effects of testosterone have been heavily studied, but there is SO much we don’t know about estrogen, including why different amounts of it don’t factor into PMDD, PMS, and other reproductive issues, as much as certain women’s brains and bodies responding to it DIFFERENTLY for reasons not fully understood. 

To make matters worse, while disparities in treatment based on race are less marked in other areas of medicine, black women still die in childbirth-- especially in the Southern U.S.-- at much higher rates than other demographics. Bisexual and lesbian women are also more likely than straight women to fear childbirth, which can be a huge source of anxiety for us. Even if we choose to undergo it, our anxiety is often downplayed by health care workers. This fear of childbirth can be seen even in bisexual and lesbian women who love children and strongly desire to be mothers. This, as well as the cost of surrogacy/IVF treatments, has been a reason that same-sex female couples often opt for adoption. 

Bisexual women, in particular, are also more likely to suffer mental health conditions and be the victims of male-perpetrated domestic violence than straight women and lesbians are. “Straight-passing” doesn’t really seem to provide a shield from that, I hate to tell you. 

The very concept of calling someone out for “passing” in an attempt to insult them actually reeks of jealousy and amazing privilege. In the case of bisexual people, it assumes that hiding an entire facet of our identity doesn’t matter and doesn’t take an emotional and psychological toll, because we can “choose” an opposite sex partner. This ignores the fact that falling in love isn’t based on choice, and that the moment we pursue a same-sex partner, we still have to “come out” if we want to maintain a healthy, open relationship with them. 

In the case of trans individuals, it assumes that “passing” erasing the fact that you have biological differences (such as typically being unable to parent children) from cis people that might make you undesirable to certain partners. Also, if you are also “stealth” you risk the chance of experiencing discrimination and/or violence if your identity is “discovered.” 

As far as being “white/European passing” this also does not erase the genetic and geographical ties you have to your ethnicity and/or country of origin. It doesn’t change the fact that if people start making racist comments about any of your racial demographics, it still hurts, even if you try to hide it.