#LoveWins

To those of you who aren’t aware.
I have been on the receiving end of an entire harassment campaign against me for quite a while now.

This is the part where you’re supposed to sit down, and get the kettle on and get comfortable, because there’s some reading to do so that you can understand this lovely design I’ve done, and the idea behind it.

To buy the print:
https://thefamousartistbirdyrose.com/collections/prints/products/lovewins-print
To buy the T-Shirt:
https://thefamousartistbirdyrose.com/collections/clothing/products/lovewins-t-shirt



I am launching this design as a print and a t-shirt to help me raise the funds for cease and desist letters. I know everyone’s strapped right now, so there’s no pressure, this will take however long it takes for me to save up,
I’m not going to rush it.
You may want to know why I need to do this.
So here’s my story, I’ll try to keep it as short as I can.

*Edit* Thank you very much to everybody who has bought a #LoveWins print or T-Shirt so far I have generated what I need for now. Profits generated from this specific design will continue to go into my “legal funds” pot in case I need anything else in the future. I am communicating with a solicitor and have joined the Free Speech Union and intend to update on this issue when I can. 

*Update*
Thank You so much for continuing to buy this piece. In the end, cease and desist letters were not issued - upon advice from a solicitor, however, I have been working hard and I am pleased to say that I will be able to update on my situation further soon.

A group of ex-friends from the Music and Art scene myself and Doozer have been a part of over the years have been engaging in a somewhat organised effort to harass, slander, libel and defame me for over a year now.
This is personal, it started a few years ago with some of them, to which we both quietly cut them out of our lives and walked away. Since then it has escalated. As well as the slander about me (which I honestly thought would stop after a little while), Serious false allegations of physical violence and attacks have been made about me behind my back, leading to my own safety being compromised as I now have good reason to believe that there are full grown men after me for retribution.

This summer, a very recent public campaign surfaced after I started my portrait collection, there was a false allegation that my collection is an “Anti-Trans Hate Campaign” (See “prints” section of this website if you don’t already know about this).
There was a call to attack and “cancel” me (whatever that means) which was posted publicly online for everyone to see.
Whether you agree with my Pro-Woman and Pro-child-safety opinions or not, I am entitled, as an Artist, to draw, paint and say whatever the hell I like.
However, my ex-friends don’t understand this. They see this as just another opportunity and/ or EXCUSE to continue to go after me publicly.

Here’s how it started this summer:
*All names and identities are concealed, but many of these screenshots are of statuses and comments written by the same group of people*

“Solidarity Wins!”

There were also threats made from local men about wanting to attack me:
But hey, at least no one risked using the wrong pronouns on me, even if it does make me sound like I’m more than one person...

This ex-friend And two local “Hate Crime Ambassadors” for Essex Police encouraged members of the public to report my Art for “Hate Crimes” I have yet to find out if this is on my records or not.

My Fiancé has since occasionally received messages from fans urging him to denounce me because he allegedly doesn’t know what I’m “really like” despite the fact that I’ve been with him for 8 years now.




It all sounds rather like “You need to shut your woman up”

It’s disrespectful to both of us.

To top it off, I was also compared to the Nazi’s:
(Again, worth checking out my T-Shirt page here if you want to see all of my bad Nazi things I’m allegedly doing)

Then, as if there wasn’t enough drama to feed off of, the main ex-friend then made up a lie about me threatening to sue him (I didn’t) and then decides publicly, to mock me because he doesn’t think I even have a case for harassment and knows that I don’t have a lot of money to pursue legal cases (this person is apparently NOT the bully in this situation):

The Drama Continues...

Within a day, There was also a song written about me by this person, and their band, there was a request for members of the public to participate by sending in clips of themselves shouting “SNAKE SNAKE SNAKE” at me, and later went on to brag about how “brutal” the song was.

Then, when it was due to be released, this person claimed that there had been a change of mind, ironically, because they didn’t want the “wrong message to be perceived” by a hate song written about a female artist on the scene...
If you think it’s disgraceful that all of this is happening because of my Artwork (allegedly), you have to wonder why this behaviour has been accepted as the norm on the Art and Music scene? Or even, in our society at all?

So now you’re probably wondering, if this has been going on for a while, why have I not said anything before?

While this was going on,  I was quietly reporting everything to the police and getting on with my life and hoping that these ex-friends would get bored and go away.
But they didn’t.
It only got worse.
Over the last few months I have been back and forth with the police about my case, and we’ve decided that the best course of action for me to take now is to get a solicitor.
So, I did that out of my own pocket, and what the solicitor told me is that I’ll need to pay for cease and desist letters. That’s the first action I can take. So, this is how I’ve chosen to do it.
I am an Artist after all.

Medusa is a good fit, the woman punished to be a monster with snake hair.
I’m also taking back that stupid #LoveWins hashtag that’s been used against me so many times.

I don’t just want to raise money for cease and desist letters, I also want to start up a decent, honest conversation about this.

We need to talk about how women are targeted, especially online, usually (typically speaking) by men who think they are above the law - unfortunately they’re often right, as access to civil law depends on the victim having a lot of money.

We need to talk about how Artists should not have their creative rights suffocated, even if you don’t like their work or their opinions, or their hair.

What even is Art, if you’re not allowed to express yourself truthfully?

We need to ask ourselves, what can be done to create better protections for female Artists like myself who face this type of bullying?
What I want is to ensure that women like me can invoke the appropriate legal consequences against their abusers without having to raise a large sum of money.

Someone I was speaking to recently suggested we need a public conversation about how this is happening in our society, and have dialogue around key words and phrases like “Controlling”, “Taking Responsibility for one’s own mental health”, “Resilience” and “Unreasonable demands on others” , I agree with this...

As history has shown us, it’s never good news when the Artists are being silenced, is it?

The conversation of what women in particular, who are in my situation can do to defend themselves is one that I think is important and worthy right now.  Women now more than ever, need to be able to rightfully speak up and stick up for themselves. Artists do too.

We need to talk more about freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of expression.

But most of all, we need to talk more about how better to help protect those who are harassed, stalked, abused and defamed, their livelihoods destroyed and their reputations ruined. Because I am definitely not the only one going through this, and it needs to stop. So what can you do to help?
Well, one thing I keep saying is, we can’t all be silenced...

Thanks for reading.
That’s my rant over.
If you’ve read this and you’re infuriated, good. Buy a print or a T-shirt to help me out while I think more about what can be done to change this for others who face the same or similar campaigns of silencing and bullying.
If you’ve read this and you’re infuriated because you hate me, then you’ve wasted your time haven’t you, and my unsolicited advice here is that you go and find things that make you happy, or find people that you do want to help, and focus on that.

The Famous Artist Birdy Rose.
https://youtu.be/XOoRtoHcwiM