Róisín Murphy Replaced As Istanbul Festival Headliner Over Latest Transphobic Post

Istanbul’s inaugural Back in Town Festival has removed iconic 90s electronic musician Roisin Murphy from its lineup, organizers announced Friday, citing her recent statements as incompatible with the festival’s values. The event, debuting this year, aims to bring together local and international artists across multiple genres.

via: Stereogum

Two years after she first came under fire for speaking against hormone replacement therapy for children, Róisín Murphy is, unfortunately, still out here spouting transphobic bullshit. Last week the Irish pop musician posted a graph on social media suggesting that, from 2021 to 2024, there’s been a decline in young adults identifying as transgender and non-binary. One user pointed out: “Yeah people are less likely to be openly trans at times when hate speech at trans people is encouraged by people in power,” to which Murphy imprudently responded: “I think you mean when dissenting voices are heard.” Following those comments, a festival in Istanbul, Turkey has removed Murphy from their lineup. She was supposed to headline tonight (October 26) and is being replaced by Turkish singer/songwriter Kalben.

Translated from Turkish, Back In Town Festival said this in their statement on Friday:

Hello, we want to share an important announcement with you about our festival.

We are extremely excited about the Back In Town Festival, which will be held for the first time this year. From the idea phase, we started with the dream of a true music festival centered in Istanbul, which we missed — including everyone in all its diversity, where everyone can feel safe and belong.

Our entire language of communication, our selection of artists, and our partners have been shaped to strengthen this texture with all the opportunities available to us.

With the same perspective, we added Róisín Murphy to our line-up as a headliner, believing that she represents the energy we missed and touched many of you in a sincere place.

However, the statements she shared in recent days completely eliminated these feelings.

Because we would never be comfortable including her in such a festival set-up, we would like to state that we cannot include her in our program, keeping the values we try to introduce to you above all things — and knowing that this stance cannot have any financial equivalent.

Back in Town Festival will take place as planned with the new headliner that we will announce soon. We thank you for being with us, and we expect understanding from everyone whose hearts we have unintentionally broken.

And here’s what Murphy said in response:

The mob is out in force. The more I see of this cruel “activism,” the more convinced I am that I do not want them anywhere near me or my music, however that may affect my career. I won’t be held to ransom—no more blackmail. What I see more than anything is a spoiled and entitled childishness. I am not interested in being their “mother” or “queen”; these babies need to grow up and allow artists like myself the dignity of opinion and the space and freedom to create. Or let them have AI pop star avatars that never question them. Let the music industry do its worst; let it continue to infantilize and exploit them. Let them have a hologram, perfectly designed for an insular, echo-chamber culture. Perhaps I’ve lived through the last moments of the best period in popular music and, in fact, it’s over—or at least it is at the beginning of the end. If that is so, I have nothing to lose.

Just for the record, I have zero hate toward trans people; I do not deny anyone’s existence. The post that has caused such frantic panic among the trans activist mob is a graph that shows a steep decline in trans and non-binary identity in young people over the past few years in the USA. My declaration “it was never real” refers to the contagion that was undoubtedly aided by the submission of the media, captured medical institutions, and social media derangement. Recently, this wilfully blind and irresponsible behavior has been curtailed to some degree, as more and more people affected by it stand up and demand a long-needed audit of trans ideology, which continues to stamp its boot across anyone who decries its negative consequences. Children, families, women, and gay people have all been adversely affected by the insane belief that one can change sex—the core hallucination of this destructive and insidious movement—while bad faith actors have lined their pockets.

The arts as a whole are a shadow of their former free and inclusive selves. I’ve had the most free and fun time possible making the music I believe in over the past 30 years. If being a compassionate artist is to be my downfall now, then so be it. I know in my heart that one day, I will be remembered as a brave person, both morally and artistically uncompromising. In the long run, that will be my legacy.

As previously reported, the DJ the Blessed Madonna, who identifies as nonbinary dragged Murphy on social media for her transphobic comments: