What did JK Rowling do wrong?

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But what did she actually say? People have been calling her a TERF and worse for years now, surely she's actually said something genuinely transphobic, right?

Do you know what they're offended about? I thought you just said you didn't.

Only know the gist of it being something to do with transphobic comments people didn't take kindly to. I've never bothered to look up the tweet fight. I don't use twitter - never have - and have never read anything written by her, so, I don't really care. I just remember seeing some headlines about it posted by gay news publications and a few memes here and there.

That's been pretty typical of the responses I've seen, people have heard she said something transphobic, but no one seems to have any details, it's quite bizarre considering how many people take the story at face value.

What did she do wrong? Posting her thoughts on Twitter.

I know people within the trans community who don't believe she was wrong or transphobic.

If you published a novel in which a person just like yourself is found murdered, and the prime suspect was a rabbi. And the rabbi's alleged motive for killing your fictional alter ego was that your fictional alter ego made anti semitic, and pro Nazi, tweets on twitter...and if you had made tweets kinda like that in real life...that might get folks pissed off at you. Because you seem to be endorsing antisemitism and Nazism.

Substitute "Jewish" and "rabbi" with "trans activist". And Nazi with "transphobic". Its that novel that is the alleged crime.

So thats the "crime". Whether its really as bad as the above example, or not ...you can debate that. I am not a Rowling fan nor a Rowling basher. Not really up on her doings.

No, this started before she published any of her mystery novels, you've got the cause and effect backwards.

I think the accusations started when she mocked the sanitary pads for "people who menstruate".
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out ... e-n1227071
At least that's how far I can track it.

Its interesting how articles will pick random posts from the public to make their point even if those people arent especiallly noteworthy



i mean really ? shes jumping to an extreme response . its like godwins law but with sucide or other extreme threats . its not on and its not how you talk to people . its grossly manipulative

Grossly manipulative messages are part of the reality of Twitter - and picking up most extreme things is part of the reality of the press.

Anyway, if someone was wondering where sanitary pads entered this all, it's apparently this (not to repeat the removed off-topic part, discussion on sanitary pads themselves can happen elsewhere). JKR mocked "gender neutral" sanitary pads and a shitstorm happened.

You were asking about the CURRENT scandal. It maybe only a current iteration of an ongoing feud. But it IS what you're asking about.

I believe that her "original sin" (if that is what you are asking about) was sometime back when she declared that "transwomen are not real women". And that set the vendetta off. Both sides escalating.

So in terms of “original offence”:

- the aggressive objection to “people who menstruate” was weird. It’s like if someone said “religious people should get their holy days off work” and she responded “there used to be a word for religious people… Chrystens? Kristans? Help me out here.”

- coming out in support of Maya Forstater who didn’t have an employment contract renewed because she was creating a hostile work environment for trans colleagues

- included a trans character in one of her Strike books (book 4 iirc) who, when outed, was taunted about how she’d find men’s prison very difficult

- saying that trans people represent a safeguarding risk

- spreading the “social contagion” hypothesis

- insinuating that autistic trans people probably aren’t trans

- outright lying about how “easy” it is to get a GRC (it’s extremely hard!)

- framed trans rights as inherently misogynistic

- accused trans people of viewing gender as a costume

- reduced gender to genitals, and advocating for segregation along those lines

- denied that the “gender critical” movement is transphobic (“I don’t know anyone in Westboro who hates gay people”)

- included a character in book 5 (iirc) who was a murderer who dressed up in women’s clothes to carry out his attacks

Now, imagine this is 2005. Someone says that gay people are dangerous, that being gay is contagious, that the explosion in teenagers identifying as gay is proof that most of them will grow out of it, that a large portion of gay people are autistic so probably don’t know their real sexuality, that gay rights are inherently misogynistic, that twinks and stone butches view gender as a costume, that marriage is between a man and a woman, that homophobia doesn’t exist, and while you’re at it you’re writing books where the murderers keep turning out to be gay. Presumably nobody would have the slightest issue judging such a person as homophobic. Rowling is literally repeating homophobic arguments from 15+ years ago but with “gay” replaced with “trans”.

I hate to say “watch this very long video” but ContraPoint’s video is very good if you want a deeper engagement with what she says: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7gDKbT_l2us

The above article, dated June 7, 2020, says that JK Rowling "has been accused of transphobia for years," so the story reported there is not how it all started.

JK Rowling's own account is here.

Unlike some of her other claims, this one should be easy to double-check.

Do you know of a good source on the current procedure for getting a Gender Recognition Certificate in the U.K.? So far I've found:

- This official U.K. government page about the paperwork that one would need to submit.

- This page on an activist site listing the legal requirements -- Do you know of a similar page on an official government site?

Indeed this doesn't look super-easy.

It seems to me that some (though not all) of the recent gender-related language changes are actually going to be a very difficult issue to resolve.

Traditional misogyny has often involved reducing women to body parts, e.g. "piece of ass." To some women, "people with vulvas" sounds like more of the same. Even though the intent is very different, I think it's understandable why some women, especially some women who have experienced violent sexual assault, would have a strong emotional reaction against that kind of terminology.


Thanks. I'll watch this when I can.

Wut?

Why?

There's nothing sexually violent about the word vulva, or vagina etc.

This doesn't make sense to me. It's like any other anatomical descriptor, really. Can't say "people with faces," just in cases it upsets someone who had a difficult encounter with a person with a face? Or they themselves, a person with a face, had a difficult experience at some point in their life.

Normal anatomical names to refer to genitalia of people assigned female at birth are a problem now? Is there some other term that's catching on instead? People with birth canals? People with typically protruding mammaries? People who usually ovulate after puberty?

Silly madness, imo.