VIA JK ROWLING: Inside the feverish delusions of the professional arts class.

A few weeks ago, I ventured out to an arts event here in Belfast — something I do rarely these days. It was entitled Working Against the Clampdown: Who’s Afraid of the Arts?, and it was part of the Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics.

I was there with Sara Morrison and Rosie Kay. Both are outcasts from the publicly funded arts sector in the UK — Rosie having been kicked out of her own very successful dance company — the Rosie Kay Dance Company – by her own dancers, who complained to her board alleging ‘transphobia,’ which led to the board launching an investigation into her, and ultimately, the dissolution of the entire company. Sara, as I have written about here and here, was similarly treated by her employer, the Belfast Film Festival, after she spoke in favour of women only spaces at one of Kellie Jay Keen’s Let Women Speak events in 2023.

On a rainy night in late March, sitting in the audience with these two women, l listened to salaried grandees discussing the challenges they faced while existing off the largess of the British taxpayer. It was an experience of cognitive dissonance so sharp it felt like a slap in the face.

Read the whole thing.