TERF's - Feminists that don't think trans women are women

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So you’re saying, correct me if I am wrong:

- opposition to trans acceptance is based on fear
- this fear is largely irrational
- we shouldn’t call irrational fear of trans people “transphobia”

If a sexual predator wants to go in a woman’s changing room then they will go in a woman’s changing room. Changing rooms do not require you to present your birth certificate or pass a blood hormone test before you enter, nor do they have guards checking your genitals before you enter.

Policies aimed at keeping trans people out of so-called “women’s spaces” have led to women being forced out of women’s spaces.

Butch lesbians have been thrown out of establishments because people assume they are men:
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-01 ... n-for-men/
https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/les ... -restroom/

Women like Caster Semenya, Santhi Soundarajan, Maria Martínez-Patiño, Ewa Kłobukowska, and Dutee Chand have been publicly humiliated, banned from competing, and had achievements thrown out. Semenya has to take drugs that make her slower if she wants to compete. Soundarajan attempted suicide.

Some men genuinely fear that allowing gay men into their changing room will lead to sexual assault. Less so these days, thankfully, but even 15 years ago you’d have got a lot of pushback on the idea. It was homophobic and it is a good job that society ignores those people.

So irrational fear of trans people, sometimes rooted in radical feminism, that harms not only trans people but also cis women. What should we call it if not transphobia?

The name calling kind of starts at calling trans women not women.

It is fine if there is some actual discussion, but a lot of trans people and allies are not willing to start at the "sex is real" level where there is an unwillingness to see a difference between sex and gender, and they can only ever be just dressing up as a sex. Rowling can only see that people are calling her mean names, when it is really only being done because she is doing the same in calling trans-men women and trans-women men.

If men are going to rape women in bathrooms because they are attracted to them saying they identify as such, then again what does that say I should feel if I though a gay guy stood next to me at a urinal? Do we start banning gays from public restrooms because they might rape a boy? Are we sliding back that far?

I won't deny that there are some cultural problems where men can be really bad to women, but we don't fix that by treating everyone with a penis as a dangerous animal, so everyone with a uterus has to be protected from them.

My bad, I glossed over looking at the actual post of hers because I didn't figure it could be massively longer than what was in the article. I'm going to try to amend responses to any of her points I misunderstood and address ones I didn't see before.


I believe this is once again just due to a better understanding of trans people and rising media coverage about us? It seems that the common belief before used to be that trans women were cross dressing gay men or something similar. Trans men were most likely to be passed off as butch lesbians, which trans men still are often reduced to. People seem to only somewhat recently be accepting that trans men aren't just butch lesbians and that being transgender isn't just men getting off over pretending to be women.

Also, autistic people in general are more likely to be trans. I don't know if the same genes that affect autism possibly affect the mechanisms that cause someone to become transgender, or if autistic people are just less likely to be swayed by public opinion and realize who they truly are (maybe even both), but it's no mystery that autistic people are much more likely to identify as transgender. Whether they're a trans woman or a trans man.


This is an understandable concern, but Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria isn't a medical diagnosis and has received massive scrutiny since it's been coined. The type of parents who are usually telling people their child has "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" often seem to either deny or gloss over signs of their child being transgender in childhood. Accounts of ROGD are mainly taken from parents and their perception of their children, not from consultations with actual transgender children and adolescents.

There are many transgender people who don't want to, or cannot for medical and financial reasons, take hormones and have surgery. People want to reduce these requirements because they're not actually representative of the experience all trans people are having. The rhetoric that "Trans people are born in the wrong body," which often pathologizes us and once again reduces us to our primary sex characteristics is being torn down. I honestly rather not force someone who doesn't require surgery and hormones to do so and regret it later. I thought that was one of her points, that she wants people to not force "women" into sterilizing themselves?


While I now see she's not saying trans women are an inherent threat, I still have issue with this. The doors have already been thrown open, this changes nothing about the fact a man can freely walk into a women's bathroom or changing room. No man is going through an expensive legal process to change his name and gender markers just so he can sexually harass people.

In addition, does she not realize trans men who go through medical transition usually look indecipherable from cis men, and that even without medical transition some trans men can still pass quite well? I can only imagine that if I was a cis woman and a trans man with a beard plus all the works was forced to use the women's bathroom I'd be just as discomforted as I would be if a cis man walked in. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

^ All excellent points, I have many of the same issues with Rowling's 'arguments' so I won't reiterate what has already been stated here. Just to add to this particular quote:

I had read some on this in college, and I want to be clear I recognize it's only theory, but my understanding is a larger percentage of autistic people do identify as trans/non-binary because gender roles are social constructs, or rules, so those of us with autism are more likely to not adhere to them. If I had grown up in an environment that allowed me to question gender identity (I did not, for a variety of reasons), I would likely identify as non-binary now (for now I'm still fine with identifying as a cis woman, but I digress). Anyways, this is because I feel no emotional/sentimental attachment to 'womanhood,' and have a variety of so-called feminine and masculine traits and interests. A lot of radical feminists, like Rowling, leverage 'womanhood' as an argument against trans identities (which I think is wrong).

Also, just to be clear, I do not think that all autistic people have to feel the same way about this that I, or anyone else does. I'm sure there are a lot of cis autistic people who do have some kind of attachment to their assigned sex at birth, and I don't think there's anything bad/wrong about that at all - I just think that, as studies show, a lot of us also identify as trans/non-binary, or at the very least are gender non-conforming, and this is a theory as to why that might be. I'm interested in what others think about this, of course!

Oh god. This paragraph reeally needs some reliable sources. Basically, you're jumping into speculation about autism AND the very complex and unclear topic of the roots of transgenderism without giving any reasoning whatsoever.

Who knows whether autistic people are more likely to be transgender, or just more likely to be gender-non-conforming, and then get told that must mean they're transgender.

I didn't "know" I was autistic until I was 28. But I did know that I seemed to behave incorrectly around other men and that I had the feeling of playing a game, whenever trying to conform.
Most of my friends until adulthood were female.
I wonder what a psychologist today would diagnose me with if I told him/her that.

I didn't say there is an actual genetic link behind autism and being transgender. It has been proven that there is a hereditary factor behind being transgender and that there are specific genes that have been recognized in transgender individuals. There are also found genetic causes behind being autistic. There's also plenty of evidence suggesting that autistic people are disproportionately likely to experience gender dysphoria and gender nonconformity, and that a disproportionate number of transgender people have "autistic traits".

This doesn't mean every autistic person is transgender nor everyone that experiences gender nonconformity is. Since autism is disorder that affects social skills and development, and the mechanisms behind gender have affects on someones social identity and behaviour, I only wonder if there is the potential for certain mechanisms behind autism to contribute to the mechanisms behind gender dysphoria.

Also, being transgender is much more than just having female friends and not getting along with other men. If someone is so easily swayed into believing they're transgender because of this than that is no fault of other people.

Sources suggesting being transgender has genetic and neurological links:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402034/
https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(07)01228-9/fulltext
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754583/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub

Sources suggesting autistic people are more likely to experience being transgender/gender nonconformity, and that transgender people are more likely to have autistic traits:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 2115000049
https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 014-0285-3
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2904453/
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10. ... src=recsys

Let's not argue with the basics of biology and fact!

Avoid these topics, it's a form of brainwashing

This latest kerfuffle was precipitated by Rowling getting triggered over an advertisement where a company said they made products for "people who menstruate." She was mad that they didn't say "women who menstruate." Such nonsense.

I remember in the 90s where the homophobes warned us about "The Gay Agenda" and that acceptance of homosexuals would lead to gay people corrupting children. Now, instead of "The Gay Agenda" they talk about "trans ideology" and a need to "protect" women. Same sh_t different day. Conservatives lost the battle against marriage equality, so now they need another boogeyman to clutch their pearls at.

The world has never lacked for sexual deviants, and trans people have existed for generations. If there was such a threat of perverts posing as trans to gain access to women's spaces, why haven't they already done so in droves? Also, transgender people make-up a very small portion of the population. The idea that they are in any position to "oppress" cisgender people is a fever dream inspired by meth.

I'm just glad I never got into Harry Potter.

As a piece of fairness to my experience, I was diagnosed pretty young as having autism, and was not until around 28 that I recognised that I might be non-binary, most of my awkwardness could probably always been attributed to my autism, and being singled out would only have heightened my anxiety. I don't think that how things were was an environment that could have addressed both. I got called the f slur quite a bit and other bullying that came from I guess not acting right, which stunted quite a few things that I am only starting to work through now.

I used to be a fan of J K Rowling. The world she built captured my imagination and I still enjoy Harry Potter. However, I disagree with her views. There have been calls for people to abandon her work, but I don't agree with that. I remember making a thread a while back about separating the art from the artist and whether it is truly possible to do so.

We live in a world of unfortunate truths. Sometimes the people that contribute significantly to society have believed or do believe discriminatory stances and / or have committed atrocities. We're faced with the question of whether their contribution changes how we would otherwise view them (whether they are good or bad), and whether we should discard the contribution or embrace it.

It's good to ask such questions and to determine what a society should value. This isn't the first time Rowling has been criticised. Whilst I am a fan, her work hasn't been without issue. Primarily due to her additional comments after the fact, she doesn't always think through the implications. For instance, she has stated in the past that werewolves are meant to represent the stigma surrounding AIDS. Which isn't great, since the vast majority of werewolves in the series are the bad guys (of course, knowingly putting someone at risk is a bad thing to do). Plus, turning into a werewolf makes someone go on a rampage, bite people and maim / kill other animals. It's just not a good analogy and I highly doubt that's what was going through her mind when she wrote the book. Rather, it comes across as an afterthought carelessly added on to appeal to her audience.

*Sigh* There were plenty of times where I just wished she'd stop digging a hole for herself. I don't buy that Hermione was intentionally racially ambiguous and could've been black in the books. However, I have nothing against her being played by a black actress, but the book claim I think is inaccurate.She's referred to as pale and white, I know that it's been argued that "her face went pale" could just be an expression to convey colour draining from her face in shock but even so, that does seem to imply a lighter complexion.

Despite her earlier statements she is not a good ally to LGBT community. First the Dumbledore thing (yes, it's in the books but I wouldn't blame you if you read them and missed it or forgot about that plot point) and now all of this.

It's terrible what she has experienced and it seems that she's still got some emotions to make sense of. She has fallen down a rabbit hole. I wish she'd just leave the books alone and maybe take a break from Twitter.

Last edited by Lost_dragon on 11 Jun 2020, 6:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

This.

Here is her original article where she brings Autism into it.
J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues

Thank you for that.
Here are some of the parts the haters are conveniently ignoring:

1. Rowling is not entirely set against gender transition.
"I want to be very clear here; I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people."

2. Is she transphobic? She recognises that most trans people pose no threat and are vulnerable themselves.
"I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I've outlined."

3. Her main concern is with the political erosion of the concept of biological sex and replacement with gender.
"The hundreds of emails I've received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much. It isn't enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves."

4. In particular, she is concerned about trans activists using slurs of of TERF and transphobic to stifle free speech on gender topics.
"It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags - because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter."
"I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who're standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society."
"None of the gender critical women I've talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth..."
"All I'm asking - all I want - is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse."

Actually I agree that the issue starts with not accepting that transwomen are women.

And in general, I agree that transwomen should be seem as women, however there are nuances to this that we're not being allowed to discuss. Because people can have variance between physical sex and gender, it can make be hard to work out which spaces they belong in within a society that is still divided along the binary men/women (eg. schools, toilets, sports, and so on).

The question is: can we be inclusive of all self-identified genders while also recognising biological differences between the sexes? Must we say the biological differences aren't important and only gender identity matters? Or can we find some middle ground? This needs discussion.

(My personal viewpoint is that the issue is with the binary nature of society. I would love to see us develop into a society that could accept biological males in womens clothes and womens roles and vice versa, perhaps one day becoming so open to all variations of gender and sexuality there would be no need for surgery to physically change sex- we would all be accepted as the people we wish to be).

But we're not there yet.

Nonbinary Autism Community Claps Back at J.K. Rowling's Transphobic Comments

I am not the person to be opining on this issue so I won't.

I started this thread because I thought it would be of interest to the Autistic community because of the substantial part of the autistic population that identifies as non-binary.

Rowling's comments, if it were a wrong planet post would be considered transphobic.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 12 Jun 2020, 3:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

Rowling only mentions autism once, here:

"The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers."

From my reading, I know that is true, autistic girls are overrepresented amongst transgender youth, there've been several studies.

Are we seriously going to castigate Rowling just for stating a fact? She doesn't go on to make any inferences about why that should be.