Don’t hit us, we hate her too!
MUST UTTER THE ORTHODOXY. MUST DO IT IN PUBLIC. MUST BE SEEN TO DO IT. MUST NOT LET IT SLIDE.
MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron, two of the largest and most well-established “Harry Potter” fan communities online, released a joint statement on Thursday in support of transgender individuals and rejecting the transphobic comments made by series author J.K. Rowling on Twitter and her website in June.
Because it would never do to just let her have her opinion. Must denounce! Must denounce the witch!
“Although it is difficult to speak out against someone whose work we have so long admired, it would be wrong not to use our platforms to counteract the harm she has caused,” the statement reads. “Our stance is firm: Transgender women are women. Transgender men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary. Intersex people exist and should not be forced to live in the binary. We stand with Harry Potter fans in these communities, and while we don’t condone the mistreatment JKR has received for airing her opinions about transgender people, we must reject her beliefs.”
No, it wouldn’t be wrong not to use their platforms to throw mud at the woman whose work is central to their existence. No, transgender women are not women. No, transgender men are not men. (Notice which came first. Always the way. It’s always the trans women who use up the most oxygen. Funny how being trans doesn’t change that, isn’t it.) “Non-binary” doesn’t mean anything. “Forced to live in the binary” doesn’t mean anything. No, there is no necessity for these twerps to reject Rowling’s beliefs in a self-important “statement” and thus do their bit to add to the bullying of her. No necessity at all.
Additionally, the sites announced that they would refer to the author as #JKR in the future, allowing fans to easily mute the hashtag to prevent posts about the author from appearing on their social media feeds.
Yeah. Organize your lives around her work, but erase her.
MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron’s statement was written with consultation from GLAAD and the Trevor Project.
So they don’t even know what they think about her views, they have to bring in the experts to throw the right amount and quality of mud at her.
And the root cause of those three categories is all in the mind.
A very real physiological condition caused be abnormal development of the foetus, as any half-decent developmental biologist can tell you.
Just as with tagging on behind the LGB movement, this is yet another example of dishonestly equating trans with groups that have nothing to do with their cause. It only serves to muddy the water, which is exactly what the TAs are aiming for – to have ‘identity’ spoken of in the same breath as sexual orientation and widely recognised physical issues and therefore to be regarded as equivalent to those groups. It seems to be working well on those those who don’t think too much about their claims.
How much notice we should take of adults whose lives appear to revolve around stories for children, many of whom will doubtless ‘identify with’ and role-play as the children from those stories I couldn’t say, at least I couldn’t say on behalf of anybody else. Personally, I find that level of infantilsation somewhat disturbing and would suggest they do a little more maturing before trying to get involved in real-world issues.
It’s amazing that surely virtually all these people saying The Words would, if pressed (but possibly only in private) admit that there is some sort of difference between trans women and natal women. Therefore they don’t really believe “trans women ARE women FULL STOP”. So now we’re just quibbling about what differences can be maintained by society. Most people are fine with trans people living as the other gender. They’re fine using names and pronouns of the preferred gender. Even most social conservatives will do that. So it comes down to areas where women want to be in private (bathrooms, etc.) or want to have their own opportunities (sports).
So let’s have a discussion about it then, right? Nope. SAY THE WORDS and let trans women into all women-only areas or else.
I’m glad J.K. Rowling and Martina Navratilova are not backing down. Hopefully they’ll be joined by many more in the days to come.
I feel there’s a “mud blood” joke in there somewhere…
@AoS
#1
Well, If people can identify as belonging to a Hogwarts house, …
There it is again. The comments’ transphobia is assumed. Not the “allegedly transphobic” comments. Not the “comments, which such-and-who consider transphobic”. Nope, they’re transphobic. Straight up.
My ire is somewhat soothed by the comments on the article, though.
‘it would be wrong not to use our platforms to counteract the harm she has caused’ What. Harm. I’m still trying to find out the answer to this. Someone tweeted the other day that Rowling ’caused’ the murder of two Black trans women, and got justifiably criticised for it: ‘If you have evidence that it was @jk_rowling did it, I suggest you contact the police.’
I am currently wearing my HP pyjamas (a birthday gift from one of my grandsons last year; it’s what you can expect of an eight-year-old. Whatever they like, you must also be a fan) which bears a message for J.K. Rowling and all gender realists:
The trans activists are the Dursleys of Muggledom. J.K. Rowling, and authors like her, create the magic which transcends our mundane existence. In the HP world, magic is a fact. The Dursleys wilfully ignore that fact, and try to impose their blinkered and prejudiced version of reality on the children, gaslighting Harry in an attempt to force him to become something he isn’t. Fortunately, he is rescued and allowed to grow up as the person he was born. Had the option been available to them, I daresay they would have had him on powerful drugs to prevent his magic powers from developing, and would have said that it was for his own good.
Good one, tigger. I’m sure they would have said that all the science said that the powerful anti-magic drugs were perfectly safe, despite the same drugs being heavily restricted for other used because of side effects, and then those drugs would later be followed up with brain surgery to remove the magical organs for a permanent fix. And if you refused to give your kid anti-magic drugs, then you’d be accused of trying conversion therapy on your kids to make them magical against their will, because you were Mugglephobic.
Did I just let that metaphor get away from me?
Anyway, it’s nice to remember which side we’re on: we are on the side of letting kids grow up to be who they actually are. Boys, grow up to be men, as masculine or feminine, as tough or fabulous as you want to be. Girls, grow up to be women, as feminine or masculine, as fabulous or tough as you want to be.
Those TRAs are the ones trying to visit medical interventions on kids, trying to prevent them from growing up (quite literally) to be who they are, or destroy who they are once it’s too late to prevent them growing up. The stories of the increasing numbers of desisters are heartbreaking. For some it’s not too late to stop being a fake woman and start being a real man again. For others, it’s just a lifetime of being a eunuch no matter what they call themselves.
I’ve been out of the loop for awhile, actually avoiding blogs. I began to feel that I was in the minority when it came to trans language and activism. It seemed to me, as Papito says, that we should favour letting kids grow up to be who they are, and then dealing with that without pretending to be something or someone else.
On thing that alarmed me as the activist priority of getting young children to start the process of transitioning to a trans identity early, as early as 11 and 12, which means that it can’t easily be reversed when they get to their teen years and begin to think differently. It is said, as most laws nowadays do, that children can’t make up their minds about sexual relationships before 18 or so, that engaging in sexual relationships at 15-17, or especially younger messes with kids’ minds. How can it not really mess with your mind to begin transitioning at 11 or 12?
Besides, is it unreasonable to state, as Rowlings did, that women need the space to be themselves, especially after all the trials and tribulations of advancing women’s rights in so many dimensions of private and public life, without having to adapt to a whole different classification system of men (some of them still having all the sexual plumbing of men) posing as women. I read Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds and the kind of almost fascistic imposition of beliefs on those who differ in thought and opinion regarding so many things (need to read it again, but it made a good first impression). It is good for me to read the opinions of a number who seem to me sane about these issues. Trans-women are, whatever you might say, not women simpliciter. It’s simply there in that ineradicable ‘trans’.
Had a bit of a set-to with my daughter, who is gay, when I brought up some of these thoughts — much like I read above from Ophelia and others — who seemed to think I was a bit more than antediluvian about these things.
Skeletor @ 2
It’s a bit more than that. It’s also for instance is feminism for trans women? It’s should feminism “center” trans women? It’s should trans women take prizes, resources, quotas meant for women? Should a women-only shortlist include trans women?
Which means it’s also: should women agree that being a woman is a thing in the head as opposed to the material reality that is the body?
It’s: when a trans woman bullies a woman is that just women disagreeing or is it a misogynist man bullying a woman?
And so on. It turns out to be a little more complicated and detailed than just toilets and sports.
Also…it comes down to what anyone can demand that other people believe. It comes down to what we can be compelled to say, and what we can be punished for refusing to say. It comes down to what we think of questions such as “Do you believe trans women are women, yes or no?” It comes down to whether or not we can point out fantasy and delusion when we see it, and discuss it, and ask how we know what we know. It comes down to whether or not we can talk about epistemology, and whether or not we can even use the word.
Ophelia @ 10:
Hear hear!
Compelled speech was bad enough, but now it’s compelled belief they demand. Actually, it may be worse than that. If the narcissistic abuser pattern holds, then the belief will only if it’s sincerely and freely held. That way, the abuser can always find fault.
And by god they always do.
And, of course, once you do start mouthing the required belief, the expected words, the words, the beliefs, change. The language of the trans movement changes so rapidly that people who are “in” and “woke” today may find themselves the center of a twitter storm soon because that term is now unacceptable and not inclusive enough. And at one time, we were being urged to accept transwomen in women’s sports because they were taking estrogen and had surgery to remove male genitalia. Now we are being told that we should accept them without any change at all, it is just “because I say so, that’s why, die in a grease fire, TERF”, so if a big, bulky, bearded, obviously male-bodied person enters the restroom, we are bigots if we suggest they might be in the wrong restroom. If a large-for-males male wants to compete against women, and says “I am a woman”, we are supposed to applaud and smile as they lap up all the trophies, cutting girls and women out of the game that could help them win a scholarship, could make a lot of difference for them, and are probablly training harder than the “women” who are beating them.
And if we so much as suggest that a penis is not a female organ, we are to lose everything…our job, our friends, our families, even our lives if some of the most radical have their way.
Yep, it’s consistent with the behavior of a narcissistic abuser. Like this demand to “stop seeing me as a man”, the abuser’s demands constantly escalate and become increasingly difficult, because it’s really your failure to comply that feeds their ego.
TheraminTrees has put out a couple pretty damn good videos on how such malignant narcissists operate. (Of course, he did. I don’t think he’s made a bad video ever.) I highly recommend them. As I was listening, I kept shouting, “Holy shit, that’s exactly it!”
From his video on double-binds:
From his video on worshiping narcissists:
From his video on performing false emotions for tyrants