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Today’s episode is part of our ProHuman Foundation Board of Advisors series, where we have been highlighting voices committed to promoting our shared humanity, open dialogue, and diverse perspectives.
My guest today is someone who embodies those values in her work and advocacy. Rosie Kay is an internationally renowned dancer and choreographer whose career has taken her across the world, using the power of movement to explore deep societal issues. She’s the founder of K2CO and Freedom in the Arts, a vital organization dedicated to protecting artistic freedom and defending artists against cancel culture.
Rosie is also a fellow board advisor for the ProHuman Foundation, where we work alongside other thought leaders to push back against the growing culture of division. Her own journey in the arts has come with its challenges—particularly as political ideologies and conformity have taken hold in creative spaces. She’s been at the center of debates on gender ideology, free expression, and the role of self-discipline in art, and today, we’re diving into all of it.
We’ll explore how self-censorship is creeping into the arts, why gender ideology is impacting women’s rights and spaces, and why open debate is essential for understanding one another. Rosie’s perspective is a powerful reminder that courage, resilience, and a return to shared humanity are more important than ever.
Rosie Kay (BA Hons) FRSA, MCR St Cross College, Oxford, born in Scotland, danced from a very early age, then trained at London Contemporary Dance School, graduating in 1998, before a career as a dancer in Poland, France, Germany and the USA. Kay returned to the UK in 2003, founded Rosie Kay Dance Company 2004-21 and set up K2CO in 2022. Kay’s works up to date include Romeo + Juliet (2021), Absolute Solo II tour in 2021 with three personal solos danced by Kay, with Adult Female Dancer celebrated as the ‘Top 5 Dance Works of 2021’ by The Observer and Kay is nominated for a National Dance Award 2022 for Outstanding Female Performance (Modern) for Absolute Solo II. Kay is well known for the multi- award-winning work 5 SOLDIERS (2010- present) based on intense research with the British Army and large-scale development of this work, 10 SOLDIERS (2019). Rosie Kay’s Fantasia, a pure-dance work about beauty was included in The Guardian’s ‘Top 10 Dance of 2019’. MK ULTRA was created in 2017 a work about conspiracy theory and pop made with BBC film-maker Adam Curtis. Other works include Motel (2016), Sluts of Possession (2013), There is Hope (2012), Double Points: K (2008), Asylum (2005) based on research with asylum seekers. Kay choreographed the live Commonwealth Games Handover Ceremony (2018), watched by over 1 billion people worldwide and has worked in film as the choreographer to Sunshine on Leith (2013). Kay was the first choreographer appointed Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford (2013). Awards for her work include Best Independent Company (2015) and nominated for Best Choreography for 5 Soldiers (2015), National Dance Awards and nominated for Best Independent Company 2012 and 2017, a Royal Society for Public Health Award for support to military communities, and the Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award. Kay was invited to meet Queen Elizabeth II as a young achiever of Scotland at Holyrood. Kay is a Director of Dance Consortium and She enjoys walking, yoga and reading with her family. In 2023 Kay also set up a new organisation to support freedom of expression and protect artists from cancel culture, Freedom in the Arts with co-founder Denise Fahmy.
What have you done today to make your life a better life? What have you done today to make the world a better place? The world is a better place if we are better people. That begins with each of us as individuals. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything you’ve got. Make each and every day the day that you want it to be!
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**Transcript and timestamps begin at conversation**
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:07:09
Wilk
Rosie Kay, thank you so much for joining me on the Direct The Hate podcast today. I do appreciate you taking the time.
00:00:07:11 - 00:00:07:16
Rosie Kay
Oh,
00:00:07:16 - 00:00:10:18
Rosie Kay
thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you very much.
00:00:10:20 - 00:00:12:09
Wilk
Yeah, absolutely.
00:00:12:09 - 00:00:14:11
Wilk
Yeah. We've been trying to get together here for a little,
00:00:14:11 - 00:00:15:15
Wilk
little while.
00:00:15:15 - 00:00:19:13
Wilk
The time zone thing is, is obviously been a challenge.
00:00:19:13 - 00:00:26:09
Wilk
You being in Britain, me being here in the in the United States central time zone. And then to complicate things further.
00:00:26:09 - 00:00:26:22
Wilk
We got the, the,
00:00:26:22 - 00:00:31:14
Wilk
the, daylight savings time and then technical issues.
00:00:31:14 - 00:00:33:23
Wilk
But you know what? We're here. It's all fantastic.
00:00:34:04 - 00:00:34:14
Rosie Kay
We're here.
00:00:34:16 - 00:00:37:10
Wilk
We're we are here.
00:00:37:10 - 00:00:41:07
Wilk
Rosie. So, Yeah, like I said, incredibly grateful to,
00:00:41:07 - 00:00:47:21
Wilk
and to have you join me here on the the The Hate podcast. I have been looking at the work that you're doing.
00:00:47:21 - 00:00:54:06
Wilk
This is this is obviously a, well, maybe obvious to you and I, but maybe not so obvious to the listeners.
00:00:54:08 - 00:01:01:09
Wilk
This is a part of a bigger series that I've been doing with the Board of advisors from the Pro Human Foundation and,
00:01:01:09 - 00:01:10:05
Wilk
and of which you are a part of as well. And so, so this is fantastic. This is fantastic. The work that you've been doing.
00:01:10:05 - 00:01:15:22
Wilk
Is is the work that you've been doing in this space of,
00:01:15:22 - 00:01:28:17
Wilk
whether it be censorship in the arts or gender ideology and how those two things relate could not be more important right now, not just here in the United States.
00:01:28:17 - 00:01:31:04
Wilk
Obviously, it's a global issue.
00:01:31:04 - 00:01:33:20
Wilk
As you can attest to being an artist in,
00:01:33:20 - 00:01:39:02
Wilk
in the UK. So. So, Rosie, let's start there. Let's why don't you tell,
00:01:39:02 - 00:01:42:13
Wilk
the listeners a little bit about,
00:01:42:13 - 00:01:49:18
Wilk
your work as a as a dancer, as a choreographer and what,
00:01:49:18 - 00:02:00:10
Wilk
what you started to see as a problem in that space in the UK as you were doing the work that you were doing?
00:02:00:12 - 00:02:08:21
Rosie Kay
Yeah. So, I've been so lucky to spend my life in dance. It's a totally beautiful, amazing,
00:02:08:21 - 00:02:15:01
Rosie Kay
form, which I absolutely love and adore. But it's not easy. It's not an easy choice,
00:02:15:01 - 00:02:16:14
Rosie Kay
either to be,
00:02:16:14 - 00:02:22:13
Rosie Kay
to train to become a professional dancer, or, as I did, to switch to becoming a choreographer.
00:02:22:13 - 00:02:25:09
Rosie Kay
You know, it's just it's the Cinderella of the arts forms.
00:02:25:09 - 00:02:28:12
Rosie Kay
It's it's less funded. It's quite expensive to make.
00:02:28:12 - 00:02:43:08
Rosie Kay
It seems like people kind of feel like they don't get it. And I've always been bowled over by the power and the beauty of dance and that dance can have something really important to say about the times we live in. And so my heroes and heroines were,
00:02:43:08 - 00:02:46:02
Rosie Kay
people like Martha Graham from the US,
00:02:46:02 - 00:02:54:15
Rosie Kay
people like Pina Bausch and Europe woman who really broke the mold and made work about about the times they live in.
00:02:54:17 - 00:03:01:08
Rosie Kay
And that tells you something more than just me standing up and saying it. So that's sort of my where I'm coming from.
00:03:01:08 - 00:03:02:15
Rosie Kay
As an artist,
00:03:02:15 - 00:03:10:20
Rosie Kay
I danced all over the world. I was lucky, too. And then I realized that I really wanted to make my own dances.
00:03:10:20 - 00:03:22:08
Rosie Kay
I love the fact that you can combine like, history and art and music and theory and philosophy and dance and put it on stage and affect audiences and, affect them.
00:03:22:08 - 00:03:29:11
Rosie Kay
Not just it's not just a visual thing. I think dance really kind of connects emotionally with people. You can it is really our,
00:03:29:11 - 00:03:32:23
Rosie Kay
It's not just our bodies. We're not just athletes. We're really,
00:03:32:23 - 00:03:42:23
Rosie Kay
experts in dealing with human emotion and how it mutates and transforms and ultimately can be cathartic through, through movement.
00:03:42:23 - 00:03:52:16
Rosie Kay
So I'd always thought if I was going to be an artist and it's really difficult and it's really hard to earn money or make money, I better do it properly.
00:03:52:18 - 00:04:09:05
Rosie Kay
And I would choose subject matter that I found quite scary. And I started to develop that really into a sort of, I guess, like a brand, I suppose, you know. But I was more than that. I was I was constantly looking for things that no one else was looking at.
00:04:09:05 - 00:04:18:18
Rosie Kay
I was interested when I sort of feel when things were building in society, I could sort of pick up the zeitgeist a little bit sooner than other artists.
00:04:18:18 - 00:04:42:04
Rosie Kay
I felt an artist, a kind of tend to be a little bit ahead anyway. So, for example, I trained with the Army with an infantry battalion, looking at how the body trains for war, and that was just before we went really heavy in with the US into Afghanistan. And so the soldiers that I was so just I was training with had just come back from Iraq.
00:04:42:06 - 00:04:49:22
Rosie Kay
They were pre-deployment training. They went then off to Afghanistan, and it was kind of the worst period,
00:04:49:22 - 00:05:04:23
Rosie Kay
of injury and, and death. And so people I met a new person, they were coming back with life changing injuries and so sure, oh, this experience of like training with them, going to the hospitals to visit people, looking at the rehabilitation of soldiers.
00:05:04:23 - 00:05:22:18
Rosie Kay
So this is a really young fit, mostly men, but you know, a few women as well getting these kind of big, you know, double, triple amputations. And they're in their 20s and they've got their lives ahead of them. You know, how how do they deal with this new body, with this new way to, to to kind of live their lives?
00:05:22:20 - 00:05:43:13
Rosie Kay
So I made a show about that. And those person and that was back in 2010. And that was like my first inkling that, oh, you're not supposed to look at subject matters like this. And if you do, there's only one correct political viewpoint, which I didn't really think was very complex, like war is bad. Well, I know war is bad, but it's happening.
00:05:43:15 - 00:05:45:12
Rosie Kay
So can we look at it?
00:05:45:13 - 00:05:47:11
Wilk
So you were getting pushback, right?
00:05:47:11 - 00:06:05:07
Wilk
First of all, let me let me just compliment you. I love the idea that you're kind of stepping outside your own comfort zone. You're wanting to portray something that that made you uncomfortable. But take that and move that into the arts and show that to other people. That is that is courageous in and of itself.
00:06:05:07 - 00:06:29:04
Wilk
And I love it. But but then let me get this straight. So then you started receiving pushback about the message that you were you were just you were trying to show other people this thing that that obviously was outside of your comfort zone. And because you weren't portraying the message in the, I guess, toe the line kind of way, you started receiving pushback for that.
00:06:29:06 - 00:06:48:22
Rosie Kay
That's right. Yeah, yeah. And this is quite a while back. This is 15 years ago. So so that really shocked me, actually. I remember phoning I had heard that a really important producer had said that my work was disgusting.
00:06:48:22 - 00:06:55:15
Rosie Kay
And I didn't know what she meant. And I wonder if it's because I portray somebody as a double-amputee.
00:06:55:17 - 00:07:14:23
Rosie Kay
And so I phoned her up and I said, didn't you know, I knew she wasn't going to put my work and she wasn't going to promote me anymore. But and she had supported me in the past. So I knew that was sort of that was burned. But I wanted to to understand what I'd seen and who I'd talk to in the research I had, and also why some of these stories were not coming,
00:07:14:23 - 00:07:17:03
Rosie Kay
into the mainstream media.
00:07:17:05 - 00:07:44:12
Rosie Kay
There was the government was putting a kind of like delay on some of the injury figures in this country, you know, and these are things that you only know if you know this stuff for sure. And then I suppose that was when I first started to look behind the veil in terms of like the information that both the general public is getting, but also the way that the arts were starting to conform together to say we have one viewpoint and one viewpoint only.
00:07:44:14 - 00:07:47:17
Rosie Kay
And to me, that's the antithesis of,
00:07:47:17 - 00:07:49:08
Rosie Kay
an art making.
00:07:49:08 - 00:07:51:00
Wilk
Yeah, absolutely.
00:07:51:02 - 00:07:51:19
Rosie Kay
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:51:20 - 00:07:53:16
Wilk
So that makes sense.
00:07:53:18 - 00:08:02:14
Rosie Kay
So I guess from that point onwards, maybe, maybe I'd already somebody had put a little mark against my name because I kept going. I looked, I looked at religion,
00:08:02:14 - 00:08:08:00
Rosie Kay
and the body and how we evoke spiritual states through our bodies. I then looked at,
00:08:08:00 - 00:08:11:17
Rosie Kay
well, I tried to look at politics, and I ended up looking at conspiracy theory.
00:08:11:17 - 00:08:20:00
Rosie Kay
And I was saying back in 2017, this is a huge phenomenon, and it's going to affect everything.
00:08:20:00 - 00:08:37:06
Rosie Kay
And I did it through the medium of like, pop videos and how this symbolic messaging was coming through that kids and teenagers were picking up and talking about. At that point, it was the Illuminati. But I was saying these these young people, they're not believing anymore.
00:08:37:07 - 00:08:48:01
Rosie Kay
They both believe and they don't believe and they're getting other messages. The vacuum being formed, a political vacuum that other people are going to come into. So again, I was described by the times,
00:08:48:01 - 00:08:57:12
Rosie Kay
of England, of London as bonkers. But the F.T., the Financial Times did say Rose is onto something. There's something really shifting in our culture.
00:08:57:14 - 00:09:08:21
Rosie Kay
And of course, that was just around the time that you had your 2016 election. So, you know, I was kind of picking up that certain things were not okay. And like,
00:09:08:21 - 00:09:20:17
Rosie Kay
belief in what reality is was changing and the arts were really, really doing the opposite. The arts were becoming, like I said, quite conformist, very much the same, very much selling,
00:09:20:17 - 00:09:21:19
Rosie Kay
a brand.
00:09:21:20 - 00:09:41:05
Rosie Kay
And I was against that. So. So I walked into the gender identity debate, go back. Hang on. I'm a woman. I've got a stake in this. Every human on this planet has come from a woman. We all know what a woman is. We all know what a mother is.
00:09:41:05 - 00:09:49:03
Rosie Kay
And I was quite a new mum, and I was very concerned about the safeguarding of children and the messages that children get.
00:09:49:03 - 00:09:49:09
Wilk
Sure.
00:09:49:12 - 00:09:52:18
Rosie Kay
And very. I'm, you know, I'm an artist. I'm quite liberal,
00:09:52:18 - 00:09:54:12
Rosie Kay
like old school liberal.
00:09:54:12 - 00:09:57:11
Rosie Kay
But I understand the difference between,
00:09:57:11 - 00:10:07:15
Rosie Kay
I suppose civil rights and safeguarding. These are, these are, these are different things. There's a times a places and there are children and there are adults and there are reasons for that. And there are sexes, there are male and females.
00:10:07:16 - 00:10:13:06
Rosie Kay
Sure. And sometimes, you know, it doesn't matter and sometimes it does. And when it does matter, it matters hugely.
00:10:13:06 - 00:10:26:11
Rosie Kay
And that's to do with women's privacy, safety and dignity. So I could see this kind of I came, I came, I saw it coming up, actually, through looking at conspiracy theory and the whole transhumanism,
00:10:26:11 - 00:10:27:09
Rosie Kay
argument.
00:10:27:10 - 00:10:31:18
Rosie Kay
But, it did seem like it was quite an online argument.
00:10:31:18 - 00:10:43:22
Rosie Kay
Then then we had the big test case in the UK with my first daughter, who won eventually on appeal. The right to say that men and women are real is worthy of respect in a democratic,
00:10:43:22 - 00:10:47:06
Rosie Kay
society. And so for. Yeah.
00:10:47:08 - 00:10:49:16
Wilk
Before we go too deep into the,
00:10:49:16 - 00:10:52:15
Wilk
the, the gender ideology and,
00:10:52:15 - 00:10:53:10
Wilk
the,
00:10:53:10 - 00:11:03:07
Wilk
you know, the women's rights thing and the understanding of what a woman is which which I think is incredibly important. We definitely need to tie into that a little bit more. But
00:11:03:07 - 00:11:08:07
Wilk
before we do that, I want to get just a touch deeper into the whole arts,
00:11:08:07 - 00:11:10:07
Wilk
being a way of expressing ourself.
00:11:10:07 - 00:11:11:19
Wilk
And then all of a sudden,
00:11:11:19 - 00:11:14:15
Wilk
you see, as somebody who has come up as an artist,
00:11:14:15 - 00:11:17:08
Wilk
you see this conformist thing,
00:11:17:08 - 00:11:18:11
Wilk
starting
00:11:18:11 - 00:11:38:20
Wilk
I can imagine somebody who's devoted their life to, to a particular thing. And part of the reason, like you said, you're you're an old school liberal. Part of the reason that you've you've done this and you've got into the arts was, was to be able to express yourself and express yourself freely.
00:11:39:00 - 00:11:43:02
Wilk
Other artists I've known have had, have done the same thing, right? They,
00:11:43:02 - 00:11:47:11
Wilk
love the arts because they can actually get out there and express themselves and
00:11:47:11 - 00:11:49:09
Wilk
do things to, to really,
00:11:49:09 - 00:12:14:21
Wilk
you know, show different perspectives on things and just, just true open, free expression. But this is one of those things that I don't think enough has paid attention to right now, just because when I see some of the stuff now that is considered art, you know, arts, art, it's always been for us people that aren't aren't really artsy folk.
00:12:14:23 - 00:12:36:11
Wilk
It's it's always been kind of this strange thing, right? Because to try and interpret things is, is is sometimes a stretch. It's sometimes it takes some mental gymnastics to really get some of the things that are happening in art. But when I see some of the things that have happened in art in recent years, like, I don't know, like,
00:12:36:11 - 00:12:54:17
Wilk
like a golden toilet or, I mean, I that's like art that's, that's it's a weird other thing, but I see some of this stuff being it's, it's, it's portrayed as thinking outside the box, but yet it is conformist with that certain way of thinking.
00:12:54:19 - 00:12:59:19
Wilk
Right. So so dive into that a little bit for me.
00:12:59:19 - 00:13:13:14
Wilk
Dive into that a little bit deeper for me. Rosie. The, the idea that you watched the arts that you loved so much and that you got to be able to express yourself. And how did that, I guess, make you feel?
00:13:13:14 - 00:13:23:15
Wilk
As somebody who or when you started to see it becoming a more of more of a tow the line, conformist,
00:13:23:15 - 00:13:26:02
Wilk
type of environment.
00:13:29:09 - 00:13:49:19
Rosie Kay
So I think that the those of us that have spent our lives dedicating ourselves to whichever art form would, maybe we don't talk about enough, is the fact that this a lot of self discipline, along with self-expression,
00:13:49:19 - 00:14:12:10
Rosie Kay
So I think it's really interesting what you're saying around freedom of expression, which is something I really do believe in. But I think any of anybody that's sort of dedicate their life to an artistic profession would counter that with the huge amounts of self-discipline required in order to master your art form. And maybe we don't talk about that enough.
00:14:12:10 - 00:14:33:17
Rosie Kay
And there isn't just some unfettered kind of, hey, look at me. I can do anything. Listen to like, you have to listen to me and you know, and I can do whatever I want. And it's all inclusive. Like, no, no, no. Like, artists have to spend a lot of time mastering, first of all, their art form, then the the individual like technique of it.
00:14:33:19 - 00:14:53:19
Rosie Kay
You have to understand the history of your art form and your discipline, and then you have to learn the rules to break the rules, and then you actually have to find something that you have to say, and you have to really almost, I would say like go into like your own world slightly and not worry about what anyone else is going to think about it.
00:14:53:19 - 00:15:22:03
Rosie Kay
You have to really kind of like create your own world in order to say. And then at the end point you present it to the public, and at that point the public can decide whether it's great or whether it's absolutely rubbish. And you have to take that criticism. Things have really changed, I think, in that kind of relationship with between, like the privacy of the artist, the discipline of the artist and then the public sort of sharing of the art, and they've all got blurred now.
00:15:22:05 - 00:15:36:12
Rosie Kay
I think this has been happening for quite a long time now. We could philosophically blame the postmodernists for kind of like deconstructing everything. And that really happened from the turn of the 20th century onwards.
00:15:36:12 - 00:15:51:06
Rosie Kay
But let's say just in the past, say 20, 30 years, what became really clear to me was that a new level of administrator, bureaucrats and manager and entered the arts.
00:15:51:08 - 00:16:29:06
Rosie Kay
Now they've got a great job because they have all the money, all the power, all the privileges of like salaries, pensions, holiday pay, but none of the risk. So the artist ends up having to do all the work, all the kind of discipline, all the thinking takes all of the risk, but gets none of the benefits and, and basically has to go to the cup and that cap in hand at each point to try and get those little bits, those trickles of money, trickles of money to try and put together, especially in my art form, you know, and it's quite an expensive art form.
00:16:29:06 - 00:16:52:10
Rosie Kay
We have to pay people to be in the studio with me all the time. I can't just paint, you know, they say, yeah. So, so that that group of people that used to be absolutely passionate about the art became professionalized through different degree systems, and now they soak up a large majority of any of the arts funding of any, any country.
00:16:52:12 - 00:17:08:07
Rosie Kay
And they they're the gatekeepers. They're professionals. I'm not sure they like the arts. I don't think they like artists. And what's the most risky thing you can do? Make art. So that is also very risk averse. No. Much.
00:17:08:09 - 00:17:19:08
Wilk
How much does that lead to? I don't mean to interrupt, but how much does that lead to self-censorship? Right. In self-censorship in the arts is the the antithesis of art. I mean, that that's.
00:17:19:10 - 00:17:34:11
Rosie Kay
I'd say like we're now in the end process of that. So that's self-censorship. Yes. But there's just one step I was going to say along the way. So, so that group of say, arts management, they all start to become very politically aligned
00:17:34:11 - 00:17:54:08
Rosie Kay
and exactly. And so it one would say it was left or perhaps even so left. I mean, I'm kind of not really sure about these kind of left and right divisions really anymore, but it's certainly be had an element of sort of like control conformity, risk aversion.
00:17:54:13 - 00:18:12:07
Rosie Kay
And I think that then builds into that. You can't always blame the artist. So there are artists that are believers in this ideology. But also I do think you could find an application form that doesn't say where we want you to apply for money. That demonstrates how you're,
00:18:12:07 - 00:18:19:04
Rosie Kay
sustainable and environmentally responsible and how you are inclusive and diverse in your practice.
00:18:19:04 - 00:18:27:22
Rosie Kay
So there isn't one thing that you could ask to get money for that, that you don't have to play the game. You have to.
00:18:27:22 - 00:18:42:18
Rosie Kay
And so these sort of rules are being imposed on artists and what artists do and don't say first of all, I think it was incentivized. Now, I think because there's been high profile cases like mine in the arts where people have been punished for speaking the truth.
00:18:42:20 - 00:19:02:18
Rosie Kay
Artists now are really terrified. I mean, I, I've spoken to I work with a lot of artists, and one described it as an atmosphere of fear and loathing. So it's constant fear, constant fear that you'll be attacked, that you'll be targeted, there will be allegations made against you. And there's a loathing because it's a horrible place to work.
00:19:02:18 - 00:19:09:18
Rosie Kay
And you also, if you have any integrity, you loathe yourself. If you're not doing something about it.
00:19:09:18 - 00:19:11:05
Wilk
I can only imagine.
00:19:11:05 - 00:19:22:06
Wilk
now, instead of being this free and open, openly expressive artist who's who's doing what I love and conveying the message that I believe,
00:19:22:06 - 00:19:34:13
Wilk
as a person now all of a sudden I'm stuck in in the realm of politics, in the realm of ideology, I have to I have to conform.
00:19:34:15 - 00:19:57:07
Wilk
Which to me and my way of thinking, art is the greatest way to be a nonconformist. But I have to conform if I'm going to do anything that people are going to ultimately see. It is a that is a that is an ugly parent. The loathing, self-loathing. I can only imagine what that must feel like.
00:19:57:09 - 00:20:16:15
Rosie Kay
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think if you can't speak freely, you know, that you're compromising yourself because you're just letting you're just going along with something that you know to be wrong. I think a little bit something inside of you dies, and that thing inside of you is also the kind of the root in the well of your creativity.
00:20:16:17 - 00:20:32:16
Rosie Kay
So it's something that needs to be treasured and looked after. And I think it's very hard. Like I've been very, very much publicly attacked and sort of bullied and harassed, but, but but I kind of feel all right inside, you know, like like.
00:20:32:19 - 00:20:34:00
Wilk
Because you're still you.
00:20:34:02 - 00:20:55:16
Rosie Kay
I'm still me. I have to, you know, take time out. I have to think about it. You ask me how it makes me feel. And I think, really weirdly, I've ended up feeling like I'm. I'm a rebel when I never set out really, to be a rebel, I wanted to challenge. I'm quite mischievous. I don't like sort of just joining in, you know, and everything I like.
00:20:55:20 - 00:21:02:17
Rosie Kay
I'm a choreographer. I look at everything and I watch everything and I think about it. Why, why, why, why?
00:21:02:17 - 00:21:10:22
Rosie Kay
But simply by holding on to that that's now made me quite a rebel in the, in the arts world.
00:21:11:00 - 00:21:11:22
Wilk
Wild how that,
00:21:11:22 - 00:21:17:06
Wilk
wild how that is has played out. Right, Rosie? That that. Yeah.
00:21:17:06 - 00:21:38:16
Wilk
We. Who who would have thought that things would have come so far that that that that now artists and people who are just trying to express themselves, that they have to have to conform and and those that, you know, never intended to be a rebel or now basically this, this rebel type figure.
00:21:38:22 - 00:21:46:10
Wilk
So let's, let's transition that a little bit into, well, transition might be a pun in this sense, but transition
00:21:46:10 - 00:22:08:11
Wilk
that into what we see so much of nowadays. I, I don't, I don't pretend to know how much of it's going on in the UK. I suspect it's quite a bit, maybe even more than here, but something that has happened in recent years in the last, you know, six, eight, maybe even ten years, but, but the, the whole
00:22:08:11 - 00:22:21:01
Wilk
trans thing in sports and, and women not being able to, to kind of effectively do their thing and women only spaces and, and
00:22:21:01 - 00:22:25:07
Wilk
you know, trans women in women's sports and and and
00:22:25:07 - 00:22:36:03
Wilk
how that because I know that this is a, this is a touch point for you that I've seen you write about. So let's talk a little bit about that.
00:22:36:05 - 00:22:54:01
Rosie Kay
Well, I suppose sort of coming at it in in two ways. One was those extremes of like, if you take away the word women's meaning in law, that it's sex based, then women no longer means anything. It means,
00:22:54:01 - 00:23:01:21
Rosie Kay
not non-self. It means it can be all of this explicitly, and that has huge implications in in those places that really matter.
00:23:01:21 - 00:23:10:17
Rosie Kay
I think sports is a is a really great example that people can really see that. But it's also things like women in prison and now in prisons with men,
00:23:10:17 - 00:23:12:02
Rosie Kay
hospitals,
00:23:12:02 - 00:23:20:03
Rosie Kay
kind of just and just general privacy toilets, changing rooms, places where women are vulnerable. And we know the statistics,
00:23:20:03 - 00:23:24:04
Rosie Kay
about any man that we don't know can be a potential threat.
00:23:24:06 - 00:23:30:09
Rosie Kay
But actually, I think the new stats in show that men who identify as women are actually even of higher risk,
00:23:30:09 - 00:24:01:10
Rosie Kay
than than than just men in general. So so there's that side to it. And that, I think, is probably the political side of the debate that I feel strongly, just as a woman in the world who had felt up until very recently that I was respected and had a say in the society that I live in, and that my child is growing up and know this, this was this was an important definition and were not to just be thrown away lightly, but to at least be properly debated and for the consequences to be
00:24:01:10 - 00:24:23:22
Rosie Kay
thought through. I suppose the other side I'm looking at it from is, is to do with the body, the body and the soul. Actually, my job is, is, is is the medium is the body. But like as I said at the start, it's so much more to me, dance. It's so much more. It does seem to be something about connecting the body, the mind and the spirit.
00:24:24:00 - 00:24:43:07
Rosie Kay
And I mean that in the widest term rather than, than just a religious term, but it seems that it taps into both by doing dance enlivens us. It tells us things, it seems to mess up past, present and future, but also by watching dance. It gives us huge pleasure and interesting information that we wouldn't pick up otherwise.
00:24:43:09 - 00:24:45:10
Rosie Kay
And it did seem to me that this whole,
00:24:45:10 - 00:25:11:20
Rosie Kay
trans agenda and transhumanist sort of approach is all about sort of carving ourselves up into what the activists would call meat sacks and sort of like almost potato head style genitals, that you can just chop off your genitals and put some new ones in, or the fact that you're in the kind of system is actually integrated, not just with your sex characteristics, but actually is is integral to your brain development as an adolescent.
00:25:11:22 - 00:25:33:07
Rosie Kay
So if you give puberty blockers or wrong sex hormones to children or teenagers, not only are you changing their bodies and for physiologies forever, it is irreversible. You're actually also changing it processes in their brain. So, for example, I think we know that if you give puberty blockers to young, they will never have a fulfilling sex life.
00:25:33:07 - 00:25:43:11
Rosie Kay
They will never orgasm. But there's more to it than that. They also won't be able to experience great pleasure from things like works of art. It seems to thwart those kind of higher,
00:25:43:11 - 00:25:52:20
Rosie Kay
brain sort of functions that mean that we can be really, really well functioning adult human beings. And our appreciation of,
00:25:52:20 - 00:25:56:08
Rosie Kay
is something that actually takes quite a few years for us to develop.
00:25:56:13 - 00:26:21:02
Rosie Kay
If you just think about how your child enjoys art to to your teenager, to an adult, there is a big transformation. And that is to do with how hormones affect our brains. So for me, there was something just horrific about not being like, I'm sorry, my body can be a nightmare to me. You know, there's no question. I've struggled with my body, with my weight, with all these things, but it is the only body I've got and I have to take care of it.
00:26:21:07 - 00:26:31:13
Rosie Kay
To think that you just don't care for your body at all, but then also that your, your whole system could be manipulated it and messed around. It's really scary.
00:26:31:15 - 00:26:43:04
Wilk
Absolutely scary. Absolutely scary. Yeah I I've, I've never been one Rosie who who was bought into the idea that that we can we can just take
00:26:43:04 - 00:26:51:18
Wilk
we can just take some drugs. We can chop off this body part or that body part or or manipulate this and that and make ourselves into something else.
00:26:51:18 - 00:26:53:08
Wilk
I personally am
00:26:53:08 - 00:26:58:04
Wilk
one who who believes there are two sexes and, and,
00:26:58:04 - 00:27:08:05
Wilk
God does not make mistakes in the sense that he does not he does not put a woman in a man's body or a man in a woman's body.
00:27:08:07 - 00:27:12:08
Wilk
I, I, I empathize greatly with all those
00:27:12:08 - 00:27:13:11
Wilk
who somehow have
00:27:13:11 - 00:27:17:19
Wilk
reached a point where where they, they think they need to,
00:27:17:19 - 00:27:21:09
Wilk
medically alter themselves to, to do that.
00:27:21:09 - 00:27:26:07
Wilk
But then I also on the other side and this is where, you know, my Derate the hate message,
00:27:26:07 - 00:27:27:19
Wilk
lies in this is,
00:27:27:19 - 00:27:32:23
Wilk
I greatly empathize with, with women who want women's only spaces.
00:27:32:23 - 00:27:43:20
Wilk
I greatly empathize with men or women who are same sex attracted and and want that part of their life to remain,
00:27:43:20 - 00:27:46:12
Wilk
you know, for, for them,
00:27:46:12 - 00:27:51:10
Wilk
and then this whole thing to pretend that that these are, these are monolithic groups,
00:27:51:10 - 00:27:55:13
Wilk
but then then to take that into what you're saying,
00:27:55:13 - 00:27:59:22
Wilk
with in the arts and how, how these things,
00:27:59:22 - 00:28:02:08
Wilk
translate into,
00:28:02:08 - 00:28:20:05
Wilk
the again, what we were talking about earlier, towing the line must conform to this way of thinking and just assume that because this is the way that that the power structures want us to believe today, this is the message that we're going with.
00:28:20:10 - 00:28:46:20
Wilk
And if you step outside of that construct, we are going to destroy you. And it is it is horrific. And I mean, it is horrific and and I almost I would say it's horrific in any industry, but I imagine it's, it's got again when, when your craft when your thing is producing art. And that is such a message
00:28:46:20 - 00:28:52:12
Wilk
that that is such a hot button issue, a hot point.
00:28:52:14 - 00:28:57:07
Wilk
But you in your soul and your understanding of of the
00:28:57:07 - 00:29:13:03
Wilk
physical part of our body, the the soul of everything else, when all of that stands in contrast to you and who you are, people often discount how that how that could affect you. So,
00:29:13:03 - 00:29:23:22
Wilk
you know, that is that is where this gets lost so often. Rosie in in things is is they're like, oh, well, you know, we've got to do this for this particular person.
00:29:24:03 - 00:29:27:23
Wilk
And it's a very, very, very small part of the human,
00:29:27:23 - 00:29:29:22
Wilk
population that is,
00:29:29:22 - 00:29:33:21
Wilk
afflicted with, you know, whether it's, you know, whether somebody wants to call it,
00:29:33:21 - 00:29:42:03
Wilk
gender dysphoria or whatever, and they're like, well, we've got to this is this is what we've got to do because this is what's best for these people, which I believe is an opinion.
00:29:42:03 - 00:30:26:09
Wilk
I believe it's wrong, but this is what we have to do for this subset of people. And now we're going to make the other 99 point whatever percent of the population conform to it. Well, what does that do to everybody else? Who then is, you know, now I have to step outside of what my mind, body and soul is telling me to do, and especially in your case, as an artist who's trying to put together these beautiful works of art, and now you're having to again step outside of what you believe to be accurate and do something that is not in line with your morals, your,
00:30:26:09 - 00:30:27:15
Wilk
your way of thinking.
00:30:27:20 - 00:30:32:02
Wilk
What does that do for somebody like you?
00:30:32:03 - 00:31:04:09
Rosie Kay
Goodness. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because, I mean, I, I grew up in the UK in the 80s. I was born in this sort of mid 70s and through the 80s we had so many gender nonconforming, amazing artists. Whether you look at sort of like the New Romantics and men wearing makeup and long hair and Annie Lennox looking very androgynous, there's there's just countless incredible artists that that played with, with what we old school feminists would call gender like the appearance of sex.
00:31:04:11 - 00:31:23:04
Rosie Kay
And I think, oh, yeah. And I think also sort of I grew up, you know, in a generation I was part of the kind of acid house and house culture where, men and women danced together. There was, you know, white, black, brown people. There was that it felt like we were dancing out any racism where homosexuality,
00:31:23:04 - 00:31:26:04
Rosie Kay
was really, like, accepted and,
00:31:26:04 - 00:31:28:06
Rosie Kay
you know, gay and lesbian friends.
00:31:28:06 - 00:31:31:21
Rosie Kay
And we went to gay clubs and we'll dance together, you know, so I really,
00:31:31:21 - 00:31:49:14
Rosie Kay
you know, maybe we were the last hippies on earth, but we, you know, the generation X, we really saw that, and we felt like things were going in the right direction. So this whole idea, and I certainly never met anyone that was trans all through my, sort of teens, 20s, 30s,
00:31:49:14 - 00:31:52:16
Rosie Kay
and I think we've really got to sort of look at trans and how it's been.
00:31:52:17 - 00:32:01:06
Rosie Kay
It is a construction. Now, I do think that, you know, we can we can afflict ourselves with all sorts of strange, disorders with ourselves.
00:32:01:06 - 00:32:09:11
Rosie Kay
And the history of psychiatry will show you that, you know, the trends, the fads, you know, women having their wombs removed for hysteria.
00:32:09:11 - 00:32:14:09
Rosie Kay
In this sort of 19th century, you know, I think trans
00:32:14:09 - 00:32:18:01
Rosie Kay
is, is a construct.
00:32:18:03 - 00:32:48:02
Rosie Kay
And it's being manipulated and sold to people. And part of that whole manipulation of people is the kind of do not question it, do not debate. So that is actually that is been part of the strategy for whoever that for the pharmaceutical companies or whoever has done it. I think what shocked me the most about the trans debate is the fact that it's gone into things like medicine and the law without any evidence, and that really, really shocks me.
00:32:48:04 - 00:33:22:18
Rosie Kay
The arts almost. I'm kind of like, well, yeah, we're kind of a bit nuts, really, anyway, you know, like we make stuff up, you know, going back to that free expression. But actually what what's really disgusting is what it's, it's allowed is a culture of bullying and harassment and madness so that you, the one that is not mad, starts to think that you are the mad one because everyone else is telling you you're you're mad, you're the bigot.
00:33:22:20 - 00:33:43:15
Rosie Kay
And and so, so so you get those accusations. That's really shocking because you literally when this first happened, you I was like, maybe I have gone mad. Maybe I've missed something. Maybe I'm a really hateful person and you have to go away. Really think about it for I've got a very good family and just go, no, no, no, I'm I'm actually right about this.
00:33:43:15 - 00:34:03:20
Rosie Kay
I'm not right about a lot of things, but I am right. But this but I guess what what then happens when you have that kind of culture of conformity, especially in the arts and a little bit, a little bit vulnerable, like whether you're in, whether you're out, whether you're fashionable, not what you end up with if you do not conform is this is this real culture of hostility.
00:34:03:22 - 00:34:11:16
Rosie Kay
And that's awful. That's just like worse playground behavior. But from adults.
00:34:11:18 - 00:34:12:14
Wilk
Yeah.
00:34:12:14 - 00:34:15:21
Wilk
there's so many of these things have
00:34:15:21 - 00:34:21:15
Wilk
have we've, we've unfortunately that, that is the age
00:34:21:15 - 00:34:25:23
Wilk
that we are living in nowadays, this, this age of outrage,
00:34:25:23 - 00:34:30:21
Wilk
the constant pressuring of, of those who,
00:34:30:21 - 00:34:38:14
Wilk
who are perpetually offended to, to make people conform to their way of thinking,
00:34:38:14 - 00:34:40:19
Wilk
because somehow,
00:34:40:19 - 00:34:45:01
Wilk
we, we've, we've reached a point where we are not allowed to offend.
00:34:45:03 - 00:34:47:19
Wilk
And people have taken that,
00:34:47:19 - 00:34:54:01
Wilk
people have taken this, this, this whole thing of adverse opinions,
00:34:54:01 - 00:35:05:02
Wilk
ideas that are outside of our own comfort zone are now offensive. And if it offends me, you're not allowed to speak about it.
00:35:05:02 - 00:35:11:08
Wilk
It it is it is awful. It's awful in the arts. It's awful in business. It's awful in politics.
00:35:11:09 - 00:35:17:09
Wilk
It's awful for for humanity in general, in my opinion. I think it's I think it's awful. Okay. I know
00:35:17:09 - 00:35:27:11
Wilk
we've gone over our time, but I want to take a little bit this conversation is, is is amazing and I and I'm loving it. But but we do have to get wrapping up here
00:35:27:11 - 00:35:28:21
Wilk
pretty quick Rosie.
00:35:28:21 - 00:35:29:07
Wilk
So
00:35:29:07 - 00:35:34:13
Wilk
the pro human Foundation, our work with the Pro Human Foundation, the idea that we
00:35:34:13 - 00:35:37:02
Wilk
are all human beings and we,
00:35:37:02 - 00:35:38:12
Wilk
have the same
00:35:38:12 - 00:35:45:03
Wilk
needs, desires, that pro human message is so incredibly important. How did you come to be,
00:35:45:03 - 00:35:47:23
Wilk
part of the pro Human Foundation?
00:35:47:23 - 00:35:55:12
Wilk
Board of advisors and and if you have a message that you want to really get out there
00:35:55:12 - 00:35:58:21
Wilk
as one of those advisors, what is that message, Rosie Kay?
00:35:58:21 - 00:36:01:02
Rosie Kay
Well,
00:36:01:02 - 00:36:06:10
Rosie Kay
when I, I got kind of canceled or attempt to canceled,
00:36:06:10 - 00:36:11:21
Rosie Kay
just over three years ago and actually, one of the first people that got in touch was Bion,
00:36:11:21 - 00:36:15:12
Rosie Kay
and at that time, he was still part of FAIR
00:36:15:12 - 00:36:18:07
Rosie Kay
and then sort of through conversations with him,
00:36:18:07 - 00:36:21:05
Rosie Kay
helped set up FAIR in the Arts.
00:36:21:06 - 00:36:30:19
Rosie Kay
And I was just really struck with him and his integrity and what he was trying to do and how he was setting out to do it.
00:36:30:19 - 00:36:33:19
Rosie Kay
And so when the Pro Human Foundation was set up,
00:36:33:19 - 00:36:43:12
Rosie Kay
along with Lory, I just was like, I love I love your message. I see what you're doing. And, you know, if I can be of any help, then please let me know.
00:36:43:14 - 00:36:46:09
Rosie Kay
I suppose even by that time, by human rights,
00:36:46:09 - 00:36:59:18
Rosie Kay
set up something called freedom in the arts. So I was starting to also, like, I would never have thought of this three years ago, that I'd be sort of in this same territory, but it's, you know, like nobody was else was helping the arts and the arts,
00:36:59:18 - 00:37:02:02
Rosie Kay
particularly artists are particularly vulnerable.
00:37:02:04 - 00:37:02:18
Rosie Kay
So,
00:37:02:18 - 00:37:05:22
Rosie Kay
I was really delighted that we could sort of start to pair up,
00:37:05:22 - 00:37:16:17
Rosie Kay
with really international networks know of people because we all learn from each other. Yes. We've got different funding, we've got different political setups. But some of the some of the tactics and,
00:37:16:17 - 00:37:19:09
Rosie Kay
ways that we need to get our message across are really similar.
00:37:19:09 - 00:37:20:00
Rosie Kay
So,
00:37:20:00 - 00:37:42:15
Rosie Kay
I was delighted to form part of part of this and I suppose what my message, my message is difficult, actually, I should think that that really like my wider message is, is it's really about so this is it. I was about to say return, but I worry. No, I worry, I worry that we're past the point of return.
00:37:42:16 - 00:37:50:20
Rosie Kay
I used to feel like, hang on, if we just kind of stop and, you know, we ground ourselves and we remember, you know,
00:37:50:20 - 00:38:10:16
Rosie Kay
shared humanity, it's all going to be okay again. But I kind of think maybe we've gone a little bit past that. And in some ways, we we need to find new ways and we might need to set up new institutions and organizations like, like, like we already have and get a message
00:38:10:16 - 00:38:15:08
Rosie Kay
that it's okay to have different views, different approaches,
00:38:15:08 - 00:38:16:19
Rosie Kay
different beliefs.
00:38:16:21 - 00:38:45:06
Rosie Kay
It's absolutely okay. And maybe we're going to have to learn to teach each other how to discuss debate. Like withstand also different ideas that we build. Yeah, we build resilient humans who are open and curious but also know who they are as well. Maybe there's something missing in this equation right now.
00:38:45:08 - 00:39:05:04
Wilk
Yeah, it is absolutely okay for us to have differing opinions and differing ideas and different ideologies. And and you are absolutely right. We we do need to, as a human race in our societies, in our communities, in the things that we do, we we do need to,
00:39:05:04 - 00:39:18:18
Wilk
again, realize how important it is to withstand the idea that others will have different viewpoints than us, but we have to be able to to discuss those in a civil,
00:39:18:18 - 00:39:24:04
Wilk
and non-contentious way if we are to grow as a, as a, as a human race.
00:39:24:05 - 00:39:25:02
Wilk
Right.
00:39:25:02 - 00:39:26:20
Wilk
I love that message.
00:39:26:20 - 00:39:43:02
Wilk
I think you're right on track. It is very much in line with my way of thinking and why I do the work that I do here on the Derate the Hate podcast. Rosie Kay absolutely incredible conversation, and I love the work that you're doing. I hope we can do this again. And,
00:39:43:02 - 00:39:44:04
Wilk
yeah, this is beautiful.
00:39:44:04 - 00:39:44:23
Wilk
Thank you so much, Rosie Kay.
00:39:44:23 - 00:39:52:02
Rosie Kay
Thank you, thank you. Wilk. Really enjoyed it.
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