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Dox47
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28 Sep 2022, 2:00 pm

SummerAndSmoke wrote:
I don't think that JK Rowling did anything really bad initially. The problem is her CONTINUAL need to fight with trans activists online. It's not helping anyone..... it's not helping women, it's not helping trans people and it's most definitely not helping her. If she had just shut up about the issue, most people would have forgotten about it quickly. But she can't let it go, and she's digging a bigger and bigger hole for herself.


Is she not allowed to have and defend an opinion?


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magz
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28 Sep 2022, 2:35 pm

She is allowed to say anything - but saying some things can make one hated.

The freedom of expression means the state can't punish you for voicing your opinions, not that people are not allowed to hate or shun you for it.
Death threats, if she received any, are a different thing, though. There is a boundary, at least in the legal system where I live.


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28 Sep 2022, 6:44 pm

Here, earlier in this thread:

DW_a_mom wrote:
I'm going to confess that this whole topic makes my head hurt. But I think that JK Rowling's approach after initial questions were raised does leave a lot to be desired. There is more here than push-back against push-back.

This article breaks down a lot of it: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complet ... ontroversy

I'm going to summarize very poorly that a lot of the thing rests on the use of terminology. And the fact that for a writer she has not been expressing some of her concerns very tactfully. But back to the terminology, she seems worried about shared experiences and women's rights, with the terminology scuffle possibly mucking it all up. She also has raised questions about how and when youth convert.

I don't find either of these concerns entirely invalid, but there are some points I think her discussions are skipping over.

IMHO, no one has the right to tell someone else who they are. So if a person sincerely and consistently tells me they are a woman, it would be harmful of me to post a position that denies the possibility. Trying to address this position in society with language has been a messy business, and I do not personally believe that most people messing it up are out to deny someone else their lived experience. But some people are actually trying to deny someone else their lived experience, and that I have no patience for. But how are we supposed to tell the difference? As far as I can tell, and I could be wrong, JK Rowling is hung up on the language and what changing it would mean for other battles women in society fight, but isn't trying to deny someone else their right to be who they are. The problem is that the words currently are the only way people have to express who they are, which creates a conundrum.

I"m not, personally, worried that allowing transgender women to use all the female terms will harm the other issues women fight for. In many ways, the trans community has been able to assertively validate some of the lived experiences of women worldwide that society has often tried to tell us are solely in our heads. By having experienced life presenting outwardly as both male and female, but otherwise being exactly the same person, they know society treats men and women differently even when everything else is equal. They know how the way they got treated changed when their visual presentation changed.

But the language is tough. Trying to write some of the sentences of the paragraph, above, without risking offense, is definitely challenging. Did I use the words right? I'm not at all sure.

The other controversy, about youth transitions, really should never have been addressed in a tweet. As a parent, my feelings on how and when a youth should transition are complex, and absolutely no part of me thinks I have a right to any opinion at all without knowing each specific individual, family and community involved. Fact of the matter is that kids can know from a very young age that they are in the wrong body. But another fact of the matter is that children naturally try on various identities as they grow up, and can hold onto them very strongly and for lengthy periods. Knowing which is which is no small feat, and calling it wrong either way risks a lot of harm to the child. Parents call things wrong for their kids all the time, choosing one side or the other based more on their own needs, beliefs and perceptions, than what they are actually hearing from their child. With transgender youth, that problem seems to currently run in both directions. Asking parents ready to jump on the bandwagon with therapies to take a breath isn't a bad thing, same as pushing a parent refusing to accept their child might be transgender to see the harm their position is causing is not a bad thing. Right now the conversation is a little one-sided and overly confrontational, which squashes out the level of nuance and sensitivity that I believe is most likely needed.

I agree that the conversation about youth transition needs more nuance and sensitivity. It will probably be quite a few years before this controversy gets resolved in a way that fully accounts for the needs of both genuine trans kids and temporary tomboys.

(I myself wanted to be a boy when I was little. In my teens, I felt like I was neither a boy nor a girl; I probably would have called myself "nonbinary" had that term been around back then. By my early twenties, I came to regard myself as a gender-nonconforming woman.)


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Mona Pereth
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28 Sep 2022, 7:09 pm

Here, on page 6 of this thread, DW_a_mom makes some important points regarding language issues.

Untangling the quotes:

DW_a_mom wrote:
For obvious reasons, you have no idea how much harm I managed to cause to my own daughter with words I used and assumptions I made, but I will say it now: the harm was real. She is not trans, but she is LGBTQ, and various things I innocently said during her growing up years drove a giant wedge between us. I watched her struggle with no idea how to help her. It was only being stuck together during shut downs that forced some difficult and very overdue conversations. So, yes, I not just believe, but know, that superimposing your personal beliefs of who people can or should be, over another person's view of who they actually are, causes harm. Whether or not you internally believe someone else's self-image, denying them ownership of their own image in conversation is more than rude.

To which Dox47 replied:

Dox47 wrote:
I'll be frank; this sounds like a hostage situation. Not that I blame you, it would be stupid to let ideology come between you and your child, but it does sort of color your thought process, doesn't it?

To which DW_a_mom replied:

DW_a_mom wrote:
It isn't always bad to let someone else influence your thought process. People you know personally are going to be a lot more honest with you. Have I gotten honest information in a non-combative way that I might not have gotten otherwise? Yes. Is that going to skew my views in a harmful way? No. It is going to allow me actual empathy, and get me closer to knowing how to do right by that person. That is GOOD. We should each have ownership of our own identities, and no one's personal beliefs should be considered to be more important. Why would a right to express an opinion be more sacred than a right to be accepted as the person you were born as? I shared that story because you claimed it caused no harm, it was just manners, but I know it does cause harm. Because someone I care about was finally brave enough to tell me their full and unvarnished truth. It wasn't a sales pitch or manipulation. It wasn't being taken hostage. It's finally being let in for a visit so I could understand pain I knew existed but hadn't been able to understand.

Excellent points. I agree.

Quoting this here because no one else has responded to it, so far. (This was at the point where the thread got derailed by a personal spat, not involving DW_a_mom.)

(See also my post here, in which I called attention to some sensible resolutions to some of the language issues.)


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Dox47
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28 Sep 2022, 8:37 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:
(I myself wanted to be a boy when I was little. In my teens, I felt like I was neither a boy nor a girl; I probably would have called myself "nonbinary" had that term been around back then. By my early twenties, I came to regard myself as a gender-nonconforming woman.)


Do you ever wonder how things might have turned out had there been a community urging you towards medical intervention, even coaching you on what to tell the doctors to get hormones and blockers, and a medical establishment willing to operate on you as young as 13?


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28 Sep 2022, 11:00 pm

Dox47 wrote:
Do you ever wonder how things might have turned out had there been a community urging you towards medical intervention, even coaching you on what to tell the doctors to get hormones and blockers, and a medical establishment willing to operate on you as young as 13?

Where is the medical establishment willing to "operate" on kids as young as 13??? Surely, not very many places, if any???

Here are the current Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8 by The World Professional Association for Transgender Health.


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29 Sep 2022, 12:58 am

Saw this in the mail this morning: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... wling.html

Worth remembering that Rowling is richer than Satan himself most, one of the reasons she can stick to her guns is because she can take the financial hit. Others ^ are bullied and threatened out of the discussion pretty quickly.


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29 Sep 2022, 1:10 am

Mikah wrote:
Saw this in the mail this morning: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... wling.html

Worth remembering that Rowling is richer than Satan himself most, one of the reasons she can stick to her guns is because she can take the financial hit. Others ^ are bullied and threatened out of the discussion pretty quickly.



While freedom of speech dictates the state can't punish someone for their opinions, there still needs to be a level of proportionality with any hatred faced by the general public.

People can and do end up in the courtroom when hate strays into harassment.

People need to remember what bigotry is too. It's a genuine hatred of a group of people for who they are and not a dislike over secondary issues that pop up with this group.



Dox47
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29 Sep 2022, 7:32 am

Mona Pereth wrote:
Where is the medical establishment willing to "operate" on kids as young as 13??? Surely, not very many places, if any???


From the NYT:

Quote:
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an international group of gender experts who write best practices for the field, had been planning for months to set new age minimums for most gender-related surgeries, including endorsing top surgery for adolescents age 15 and up. Although the guidelines are not binding, they provide a standard for doctors across the world. But this month, the group abruptly withdrew the proposals, a shift reflecting both political pressures and a lack of consensus in the medical community.

There are no official statistics on how many minors receive top surgeries each year in the United States. The New York Times surveyed leading pediatric gender clinics across the country: Eleven clinics said they carried out a total of 203 procedures on minors in 2021, and many reported long waiting lists. Another nine clinics declined to respond, and six said that they referred patients to surgeons in private practice.

Dr. Gallagher, whose unusual embrace of platforms like TikTok has made her one of the most visible gender-affirming surgeons in the country, said she performed 13 top surgeries on minors last year, up from a handful a few years ago. One hospital, Kaiser Permanente Oakland, carried out 70 top surgeries in 2019 on teenagers age 13 to 18, up from five in 2013, according to researchers who led a recent study.

“I can’t honestly think of another field where the volume has exploded like that,” said Dr. Karen Yokoo, a retired plastic surgeon at the hospital.


I have a personal rule here; never ask a question you don't already know the answer to. I have more examples, that one just happened to be impeccably sourced and recent.


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29 Sep 2022, 10:06 am

Mikah wrote:
Saw this in the mail this morning: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... wling.html

Worth remembering that Rowling is richer than Satan himself most, one of the reasons she can stick to her guns is because she can take the financial hit. Others ^ are bullied and threatened out of the discussion pretty quickly.


Can't she self publish her books? There is Amazon and Hulu. She can also do a patreon and post her work there.


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Dox47
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29 Sep 2022, 10:13 am

League_Girl wrote:

Can't she self publish her books? There is Amazon and Hulu. She can also do a patreon and post her work there.


And when those companies come under fire for "platforming" her and bow to public pressure? When her web host or security company is forced to remove her content? When she builds all of her own infrastructure and it's delisted?


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29 Sep 2022, 10:29 am

Re this issue: There seem to be genuine and understandable concerns. However there also seem to be those who'd be happy for transwomen and transmen to be wiped off the face of the earth. It's hard to tell from the propaganda, anti and pro JK Rowling, whether she stops at genuine and understandable concerns .



Dox47
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29 Sep 2022, 12:17 pm

firemonkey wrote:
It's hard to tell from the propaganda, anti and pro JK Rowling, whether she stops at genuine and understandable concerns .


I don't think it's a hard call at all if you look at what she's actually said vs what has been said about her.


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29 Sep 2022, 5:28 pm

I've read the New York Times article Dox 47 posted a brief excerpt from (More Trans Teens Are Choosing ‘Top Surgery’ by Azeen Ghorayshi, September 26, 2022), plus another New York Times article on the same topic from a few months ago (The Battle Over Gender Therapy by Emily Bazelon, June 15, 2022.)

I'm surprised to learn that top surgeries (not just puberty blockers) are allowed for kids under 18, at least in some places (mostly, just coastal cities here in the U.S.A.). However, judging by these articles, it still does not appear that such surgeries (especially for kids under 15) are very common, and parental consent is still required.

Unfortunately, the debate on this matter is extremely polarized these days. As the June article I mentioned above says:

Quote:
‘In our society right now, something is either all good or all bad. Either there should be a vending machine for gender hormones or people who prescribe them to kids should be put in jail.’


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Dox47
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29 Sep 2022, 6:09 pm

Mona Pereth wrote:
I'm surprised to learn that top surgeries (not just puberty blockers) are allowed for kids under 18, at least in some places (mostly, just coastal cities here in the U.S.A.). However, judging by these articles, it still does not appear that such surgeries (especially for kids under 15) are very common, and parental consent is still required.


Kudos for actually reading the articles, but I've got to point out that you're still adhering to what a lot of us on the right think of as the typical progressive two-step, which goes something like:

It's not happening.

Okay, it's happening, but it's rare.

Yes it's happening, and that's a good thing.

OMG how can you possibly be against this, bigot?

You're on step two.


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01 Oct 2022, 1:41 pm

Here is a recent (Sep 29, 2022) tweet by JK Rowling in which she screenshots a tweet by some un-named person who wrote:

Quote:
it's baffling that people still hide behind "can you name one thing she said that was transphobic" like sorry I don't keep a tally, I don't take notes, I just saw them, knew they were transphobic and acted accordingly. Why is it so hard to just believe us?

I would say that, in public debate, you should take notes and be prepared to quote people, with citations, not expect that people will "just believe" your impressions of what they said.

Be that as it may, J.K. Rowling posted this together with a sarcastic remark about Joseph Smith and the golden plates, effectively challenging people to dig up transphobic comments of hers.

I'll link to some of the responses in subsequent posts here.


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