Learning to be a better ally
Daniel Radcliffe’s Do it to Julia don’t do it to me:
I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between J.K. Rowling and myself, but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what’s important right now. While Jo is unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken, as someone who has been honored to work with and continues to contribute to The Trevor Project for the last decade, and just as a human being, I feel compelled to say something at this moment.
Translation: Yes, I know, nobody would give a rat’s ass what I think about anything if it weren’t for Jo Rowling but I’m going to throw her under the bus anyway because frankly women just don’t matter, ok?
Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.
What’s that supposed to mean? All professional health care associations give advice that any statement that men are not women is bad bad bad and forbidden? That seems highly unlikely. What does saying men are not women even have to do with health care?
Even if we re-word his claim more narrowly it still seems implausible. Do all health care associations advise that trans women must be told they are indeed women? And that they must be told that by the entire world, in public as well as private? That’s not credible, is it.
According to The Trevor Project, 78% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity. It’s clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm.
Now we’re just off in clouds of fluffy wool. What is “gender identity”? What is it to “invalidate” anyone’s “gender identity”? How does it cause harm? And, above all, why is it women’s responsibility to “validate” the “gender identity” of men who like wearing dresses?
I get that it’s difficult for men to wear dresses. I get that if, say, Mike Pence has a secret passion for wearing dresses, he would find it pretty much impossible to do so on the job. Mike Pence would not feel psychologically comfortable wearing a dress while standing next to Trump at one of those “press conferences” we keep seeing. What I don’t get is why such a passion would mean Mike Pence is a woman, and why it’s women’s job to make the dress issue go away.
I am still learning how to be a better ally, so if you want to join me in learning more about transgender and nonbinary identities check out The Trevor Project’s Guide to Being an Ally to Transgender and Nonbinary Youth.
Is there a guide to being a better ally to women anywhere? Anyone? Bueller?
To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you.
Oh fuck off. I’m not a fan of Potter but it’s not Daniel Radcliffe’s job to apologize for what Rowling says.
If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much.
So I guess Daniel Radcliffe is the author now, and that pesky Karen who wrote them is just an old newspaper we can put under the litter box?
Howtobeabetterally.
Not sure what is so wrong about *trans women are trans women*? Seems like a concept that agrees with itself, a tautology even. I mean if trans women really were women, then they wouldn’t be making a fuss about being women (unless they wanted to be trans men?). I wonder how many of them would give up the dubious distinction of being trans women to really be women (hypothetically of course). Anyway, it looks like they have poor Daniel fooled. Not many escape the trappings of fame and fashion.
You ever notice how this Critical Theory shit, by mangling meaning and composing convoluted, tortuous “theory”, exploits people’s discomfort with a lack of understanding? It’s rather like religion in that, and the rhetoric even takes the same form. If you were to swap the complaint to religious skepticism and the expertise to highly intelligent theologians, the result would not be out of place in any comment thread from back in the New Atheism days.
Ohhhhh yes. Going way way back – reading jargony bullshit in the late 90s and wondering why people were so easily impressed by it.
The numbers for women are almost certainly AT LEAST this high, though a google search turns up only women in the workplace discrimination, and women experience discrimination due to their sex in many places besides just the workplace. Plus, a lot of gender discrimination in the workplace goes unreported (I have not reported in years, because of the shit I received when I did report, which ultimately ended my career in that area). And the numbers are all over the place, probably depending on who is asked, what question is asked, etc.
Plus, since trans have been primed to believe they will experience discrimination, and since their definition of discrimination is extremely broad, and since self-reporting is not the most reliable means of assessing data, these claims should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
And…the reality is that once they transition, they will encounter discrimination AS WOMEN, so a part of that…possibly a large part, given the realities women face every day…may not be discrimination because they are trans. Being accepted as a woman means being treated like a woman, and the snowflakes appear to want to continue their white male privilege treatment even after putting on the dress.
Also, yes OB, it is not his job to apologize for what JKR wrote, in her books or otherwise. His job was to act a part in the movies, which he did adequately in my opinion, but he had no part in the creation of the stories, the production of the movies, or anything other than playing a role. Whether you like her or not, JKR is a very successful creative talent, not just someone who plays dress up and make believe, they are different aspects of art altogether and he can’t legitimately compare himself with her on that level, or speak as if he is in the same league as her creatively or intelligence wise. What anyone got from her books is between the author and the reader. What anyone gets from her public statements is also between the author and the reader, and it is absurd for him to try and either translate or make apologies for either one. Of course actors are entitled to their opinions like anyone else, but the credibility factor is not the same as someone who creates the stories, and is not simply acting out the part. Being famous or wealthy does not guarantee quality opinions, or any admirable level of intelligence or morality, that takes more than some superficial estimate.
Ophelia: OMG, that was totally my reaction to Kierkegaard! He’s so full of jargony bullshit that I can’t accept that he wasn’t intentionally writing a parody that people couldn’t tell was parody. Just look at this and tell me it’s not a perfect send-up of philosophical pseudo-profundity:
It’s like somewhere in people’s brains, there’s this entailment engine running that says, “If I don’t understand it or it doesn’t make sense to me, it must be because whoever wrote it was suuuuuuper smart.” The implicit assumption is what, that if you’re smart, anything stupid makes sense to you? Because being smart means being able to understand things?
Obfuscating used to be all the rage. :D
Nullius – maybe it reads better in Danish!
There’s a kind of deliberately knotty writing that is that way for aesthetic reasons rather than in order to impress and mystify, and it can be quite exhilarating – think Moby Dick for instance, or Sir Thomas Browne’s Urn Burial. But the Theory-type obscurity is not like that at all, and aesthetic reasons are not even on the same planet.
Here is a truth claim.
Here is a moral reason not to deny it.
Here is me thinking the second part supports the first part.
Back under the stairs for you, young man.
Also
* If not-P, then I or someone else will be sad.
* I don’t want to be sad.
* Therefore, P.
QED
It’s like how the religious talk about choosing to believe because it feels better or makes them happy or somesuch rot.
I’ve been running into this kind of logic in regard to statistics about suicide. There’s good documentation that the claims about heightened suicide risk for trans people is overstated, but somehow talking about this is insulting to the people who committed suicide (and their friends and families). So not only can’t we talk about the truth claims about gender identity, we can’t talk about actual risk assessment, because, uh, I don’t know, it’s somehow upsetting to trans people?
iknklast@4 : you beat me to it. I would even venture to say that 100% of girls and women have been discriminated against because of their sex. So cry me a fuckin’ river, you 78%’s.
Nullius #10
Yes, we need to realize we are dealing with a cult/religion here. That is why they are impervious to logic and reality. The only things we can do to help them is keep trying to make them make a fact-based argument for what they believe to be true because maybe when some of them fail, they will wise up. The other thing we can do is never give an inch to them — not in words or deed.
SW, totally agree. There are certain unassailable facts they are denying, and the sooner they begin to understand that, the sooner they themselves will be understood. It may never go away completely, but it might go the way of astrology and craniometry at some point, if those of us who know better don’t aquiesce to their doctrine.
I feel rather sorry for Daniel Radcfliffe. Pushed into the limelight at an early age, and unsurprisingly finding himself unable to deal with it. He seems to be a moderately competent actor (the only truly excellent acting in the one Harry Potter film I saw was from Kathryn Hunter, playing a witch being interrogated in a mercifully brief scene – mercifully brief because the terror she expressed was horribly convincing). But he is now stuck with being famous, and is therefore supposed to have intelligent and thoughtful opinions, when he doesn’t.
Nullius, I studied “theory” in grad school, among other things. I enjoyed quite a lot of it. I am fond of, and amused by, many of the French post-structuralists. And don’t get me started on phenomenological hermeneutics. Ricoeur speaks to my heart.
But a whole lot of these glass bead constructions are so fragile that one wrong placement makes them teeter into nonsense. I think a number of theorists made that misstep in places. I recall an essay of Homi Bhabha’s that seemed more like Homie Babble. Can’t find the quote right now because we just moved.
And by Gawd I could never survive being a professor and having to read students’ poorly cobbled together mimicries. Complex theories in the hands of idiots… as they say, just enough knowledge to do some damage.
I have forgotten: what’s the origin of “Do it to Julia”? I get what it means, but I’ve forgotten the origin story.