Deliberately
The Independent (once a real newspaper) being absurdly censorious about a woman calling a man a man:
JK Rowling is facing backlash again after deliberately misgendering trans activist India Willoughby.
Oh no, not backlash. How will she cope?
There’s no such thing as “misgendering.” It’s a made-up crime or error. India Willoughby is a man. He’s also a bully and a toad – why doesn’t the Indy report on that instead of hissing like a burst hot water pipe at women who refuse to obey his orders?
The Harry Potter author has faced repeated criticism in recent years over her views on transgender rights, saying previously that she would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.
Blar blar blar. Fools yammer at her, and for some strange reason she doesn’t give a shit.
On Sunday (3 March), Rowling shared a lengthy tirade against the idea of trans women being allowed in female locker rooms, writing: “When men – all men, however they identify – are banned from women’s spaces, those who disregard the ban can be challenged, inside the space and out.”
Tirade yourself, Indy. Lengthy yourself, Indy. Snotty tendentious wording noted and rejected with contumely.
Willoughby responded to Rowling’s comments on Monday, writing on X: “Genuinely disgusted by this. Grotesque transphobia, which is upsetting. I am every bit as much a woman as JK Rowling. Recognised in law, and by everyone I interact with every day. The debate about whether JK Rowling is a transphobe is over.”
But he’s not. MPs can pass all the laws they like saying men can be women, but it still won’t be true. Laws can’t change facts apart from facts about the laws.
Last week, Rowling hit out at Sky News for referring to murderer Scarlet Blake as a woman in its reporting.
No she didn’t. She said words; she didn’t hit anyone.
The Supreme Court can call the tomato a vegetable; it is still a fruit. They can call the whale a fish, it is still a mammal. Every scientist I’ve ever met accepts that – a fiction is still a fiction even if it is enshrined in law. African Americans were once seen as property by law, and also were designated as 3/4 of a person. Does that make it real? I think not.
The big trouble with being Independent is that it requires you to think for yourself, which seems like such desperately hard work when there are so many people not merely willing, but positively enthusiastic, to do your “thinking” for you.
iknklast: Pedant alert: “other persons” (being neither “free persons” nor “Indians not taxed”) were counted at a multiplier of 3 / 5 by the apportionment clause of the Constitution.
Thanks, Alan. It’s been a while since I studied the Constitution, so was working from memory. I do remember it being 3/5 now that you mention it.
And I suspect those other persons did not include women. Because women weren’t people. They were children.
Nit: I think the 3/5 Compromise is misconstrued. It was a political compromise between the slave states, who wanted slaves, who were treated as property and who could not vote, as part of the population, and the non-slave states, who did not want the slave population included in the tally at all. The slave states wanted to use the slave population to wring benefits from the new federal government without the slaves seeing any of that benefit. A more reasonable number to have used might have been 0, not 3/5, and note the 1 being sought by the slave states. It’s not declaring slaves 3/5 of a person, it’s refusing to give slave states the benefits of a larger population count, while still throwing them a bone to win their approval of the constitution. I have a hard time looking at this and thinking that giving the slave states what they wanted, augmenting their power even more, in the interest of counting slaves as “full persons” in the population, would have been the right thing to do.
The text of the article in question says “… shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” Legalese to ensure there aren’t any loopholes, but “free Persons” I am pretty sure includes men and women, adults and children, citizens and non-citizens.
My comment was meant to be an analogy, not a political analysis. I’m sorry I derailed the thread.
Oh, that’s not really a derail, I think. More a development.