Róisín Murphy: Irish singer in puberty blockers row

Singer Róisín Murphy released her sixth solo album earlier this month, but it has been overshadowed by her controversial posts on social media.

The Irish musician's latest album, "Hit Parade", has received many positive reviews. However, it "arrives under a cloud of controversy", said NME. 

In a post on her private Facebook account in August, which was later circulated on social media, Murphy voiced opposition to the use of puberty blockers by transgender children, saying the practice is "absolutely desolate" and had "big pharma laughing all the way to the bank". She added that "mixed-up kids are vulnerable and need to be protected". 

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Anticipating a backlash, she wrote: "Please don't call me a terf, please don't keep using that word against women."

The comments "dismayed many within her vast LGBTQ+ fanbase", wrote Laura Snapes in The Guardian, and Murphy later apologised and tweeted she would "bow out" following a deluge of criticism.

The former Moloko lead singer is set to have her "first UK top 10 album" with "Hit Parade" if it "continues to strike a chord with fans", said The Independent.

Who is Róisín Murphy?

Murphy was born in Arklow, southeast Ireland, in 1973. Her family moved to Manchester when she was 12 and returned four years later, leaving Murphy "at her insistence, to live alone in England" at the age of 16, said Caroline Sullivan in The Guardian in 2005. Murphy survived on "housing benefit" and had her "own flat in an old woman's house", she told the paper.

Her "journey to pop stardom" began in Sheffield when she met music producer Mark Brydon, eventually forming the electro-pop band Moloko in the mid-1990s, said the Irish Independent. They wrote "one of the stand-out songs" of the decade in 'Sing it Back' in 1999, which "could be heard everywhere from Inchicore to Ibiza" and "made Murphy a star".

Murphy and Brydon, who had become a couple, split up but the "band lived on until 2003". She released her debut solo album "Ruby Blue" in 2005, which featured a "supremely weird concoction of crank-jazz and flatulent beats", the NME said. Her latest album, her sixth as a solo artist, contains "accessible alt-pop that drifts from gorgeous, featherweight soul to intoxicating dancefloor euphoria and crackly electro balladry".

Murphy lives "in the hills" of Ibiza with her partner Sebastiano Properzi, where the "hedonistic party scene feels far away", wrote Philip Sherburne in Pitchfork. Her new album is her "most wide-ranging" yet, he added, "letting loose both sides of her personality", including a "dead-pan sense of humour" and "zero inhibitions".

Why is she making headlines?

After leaving Moloko, Murphy was "championed by a motley crew of fashionistas and drag queens", said the Irish Independent, and she was "fitting in" once she was "embraced by gay culture". But her recent comments on puberty blockers have left "swathes" of the "sizeable LGTBQ+ quotient" of her fanbase "dismayed", wrote Ben Beaumont-Thomas in The Guardian.

In the aftermath, and the release of the new album, the controversy has continued to make headlines. The Guardian was heavily criticised by some outlets for its review of the album, which gave it five stars and said it was a "masterful album with an ugly stain", while the BBC was accused of using the issue as "the reason the singer has been removed" from a scheduled programme featuring Murphy's music on 6Music, said The Independent. 

The BBC denied it was the reason behind the programme's removal, but was accused of "bowing to mindless groupthink" by The Spectator, which also lambasted The Guardian review as "one of the worst" and "shameful".

Murphy spoke out about the use of puberty blockers, which stop children's sex organs developing fully. They can be prescribed to young people with gender dysphoria in an effort to arrest the onset of puberty.

"Physical and psychological side effects of the treatment, including depression and weaker bones, have caused concerns," reported The Telegraph. And the NHS has said they will no longer be routinely prescribed following concerns about their use at the Tavistock gender clinic in London.

Murphy has not commented on the row since her initial apology, when she said making the remarks on Facebook was "deeply unsuitable" and that she would now focus on her work, saying her "true calling is music and music will never exclude any of us".