But when public figures
The lies they tell.
I don’t know who O’Hanlon is, but Rowling doesn’t “normalise hatred of queer people” or “legitimise extremists who want trans people to stop existing,” nor are the women who joined Rowling for that lunch the “extremists” he points out. They don’t want trans people dead. If we accused him of libel for saying they do he would “explain” that by “stop existing” he meant “stop existing as what they say they are” or some such formula – but that’s a dishonest tricksy dodge. The obvious meaning is “these evil witches want trans people dead,” and the denial might as well be made wearing a clown mask.
And saying that kind of thing is far more likely to whip up hatred of gender skeptical feminists than anything gender skeptical feminists say is. They accuse us of whipping up lethal hatred as a way of whipping up lethal hatred against us.
This guy is an editor (or maybe the editor) of the student paper Trinity News.
He obviously never read a single word JKR wrote.
But that’s not going to stop him scattering stupid lies about her all over Twitter.
“O’Hanlon” is Eilis O’Hanlon, a right-wing Irish journalist with gender-critical views:
https://twitter.com/EilisOHanIon/status/1460259276178530306
Pronoun morons coming out of the twitter woodwork like cockroaches. WTF is wrong with these idiots.
Who does this fellow mean by ‘queer people’? Nearly half the women who were at that lunch are lesbians, out and proud. As for the claim that they are ‘extremists who want trans people to stop existing’: that is a vicious lie.
Laurie Penny and comedian Ilana Glazer both call themselves “queer”, even though they are currently in relationships with men:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/how-broad-city-helped-ilana-glazer-embrace-her-queerness-studio-1270675/
The journalist Terrell Jermaine Starr also identifies as “queer”, despite saying he’s only attracted to women:
https://twitter.com/terrelljstarr/status/1506676992241979397?lang=en
Apparently being into BDSM or polyamory makes you able to call yourself “queer” nowadays, even if all your sex is hetero.
Laurie Penny reminded me she’s “queer” just last weekend. I asked her if she thought she [nevertheless] benefits from straight privilege at all, and she said “Oh absolutely.” So that’s something. But how is she actually “queer”? Still a question.
“Queer” these days means not conforming to some norm or other, although what supposedly makes one queer can be as trivial as badly colored hair. You don’t have to be queer to be a lesbian though, that much I’m sure of.
Well, if the norm being “transgressed” is arguing in good faith or being truthful, I’ll give Penny that. The badly coloured hair is, as it were, just the cherry on top.
It’s simple. By “ I am Queer” they simply mean “I am so special”.
J.A. @8
Borkquote. Sorry.
First they redefine her words as ‘hated’ and ‘violence’. Then they accuse her of spreading hated and violence. Not a lie, but truth by their definition. It’s a tactic I’m seeing used a lot these days.
Wait.
There must be some rules or standards as to who is and is not queer. Are there degrees of queerness? Maybe some people are just faking it just to appear cool when really, they’re not. If not everyone is queer, then their must be someone gatekeeping and policing queerness. But we’ve been told that “policing”, “gatekeeping” and “exclusion” are always wrong. Seems they want that both ways, too.
The background to this is the horrific murder of two gay men in Ireland:
https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/0415/1292503-vigils/
A young man has been arrested for the murders, as well as for assaulting a third man. He is believed to have contacted his victims on Grindr. His connection to JK Rowling and her lunch buddies is yet to be established.