Rowling must be punished for knowing the difference between sex and gender:

 The indiscretion for which she must be punished is saying that sex is real.

That’s sex as in male and female, not as in the activity. What kind of body a person has, not what they might plan to do with it in a “social bubble” (an England-only social bubble, it should be stressed). Sex as in the real, observable, and immutable difference between men and women.

Fortunately for her own sanity, the woman who made up muggles and quidditch and death eaters knows the difference between things that are real and things that are the product of human imaginations. She knows that sex is determined by chromosomes whereas gender is a made-up set of rules about how men and women ought to be.

Another important difference between things is the difference between ideas in the head and brute facts of the body. We can all imagine our bodies any way we like, and we can also change them in some fairly minor ways through makeup, piercing, exercise, surgery and the like…but we can’t change them too radically if we want to stay alive to enjoy the changes. One thing we can’t change is our bodies’ histories. We can do a lot to resemble the sex we’re not but we can’t change what we were when we first tasted the air.

Unfortunately, she also knows what it’s like to experience both domestic abuse and sexual assault, which is one of several reasons why discussions about sex and gender are personally important to her. She, like so many women, has a very specific dog in the fight about who should be included in the definition of “woman”, and how laws and policies should protect women’s rights.

And guess what: so do most women. So, in fact, do nearly all women. A few may be so sheltered that they never experience domestic abuse or sexual assault, but even they probably still experience knee-jerk contempt and dismissal.

With Wednesday’s post she has made it crystal clear where she stands. Yesterday’s headlines focused on the disclosures she has made about her personal experiences, not her challenge to the Scottish Government to reconsider its plans to reform the law around gender recognition. Those who stick to secondary sources will have read about the darkest parts of the author’s life, but will likely have little grasp of why she has decided to write about them now.

Those in the outraged online echo chambers might try their best to drown out voices who want to talk about sex, but telling people not to read the world’s most famous author feels like a losing strategy. This discussion cannot be ignored. We cannot vaccinate women and girls against male violence, so we have a duty to listen to survivors.

And a duty to refuse to let trans ideologues shut them up.

What is UN Women?

UN Women is the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

That doesn’t work if women no longer means women but instead means women and men who call themselves women. Men who call themselves women are not subject to the kinds of contempt and neglect and dismissal that women are.

Gender equality is not only a basic human right, but its achievement has enormous socio-economic ramifications. Empowering women fuels thriving economies, spurring productivity and growth. Yet gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every society. Women lack access to decent work and face occupational segregation and gender wage gaps. They are too often denied access to basic education and health care. Women in all parts of the world suffer violence and discrimination. They are under-represented in political and economic decision-making processes. 

All of that applies to real women and girls, “natal” women and girls, literal women and girls, not men and boys who decide they too are female despite having male bodies.

This shit isn’t a game. This isn’t dress-up. This isn’t a pantomime or a drag act or cosplay or let’s pretend. This is reality, hard messy painful physical reality. This is girls who miss school several days a month because they don’t have access to menstrual pads or tampons. This is girls who are married off at age 16 or 14 or 12, with all the future life prospects that implies. This is girls who are impregnated at 16 or 14 or 12 and who are left with fistulas after the birth, and are exiled to a shed for the rest of their lives. This is rape jokes. This is not letting women talk. This is always hiring the man. This is always promoting the man. This is not a game.

For many years, the United Nations faced serious challenges in its efforts to promote gender equality globally, including inadequate funding and no single recognized driver to direct UN activities on gender equality issues. In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to address such challenges. In doing so, UN Member States took an historic step in accelerating the Organization’s goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women.

But now its Twitter account is promoting the words of a misogynist young man rebuking a woman for saying that women are women.

Talk about institutional capture…

UN Women quoting a male movie star publicly attacking the woman author who made him rich and famous. UN Women saying men who think of themselves as women literally are women. UN Women throwing women overboard with a boulder chained to their neck.

Another man does a pratfall by misusing that Simone deBeauvoir line.

Applause for Nigel Warburton there.

But Pullman went off the rails.

She didn’t mean by men saying they are women. Nope, that’s not what she was saying.

So now The Body Shop is telling us what to think – and in fact telling us to think lies are truth. The Body Shop, for god’s sake. Hey has anybody asked Pizza Hut what it thinks?

we stand with ALL menstruators.

What for? And how? What do they do, summon all menstruators so that they can stand with them? What if the menstruators would rather sit, or run, or not be anywhere near The Body Shop?

But then the serene confident way they tell a woman that men menstruate.

People have periods – women, men and non-binary people.

They don’t though. Men don’t have periods. Commercial enterprises that sell lotion or shoes or chainsaws or dog food don’t get to tell us that men menstruate any more than they get to tell us that Donald Trump is a decent thoughtful compassionate man.

And then blah blah blah – it’s Pride month, conversations, educate ourselves, be inclusive, stand together (what is all this standing?). It’s a product, not an ideology. And men are not women.

Another treacherous ungrateful shit joins the pack.

Rupert Grint has become the latest Harry Potter cast member to speak out in response to author JK Rowling’s recent comments on transgender issues.

In a statement, the actor – Ron Weasley in the Potter films – said “I firmly stand with the trans community”.

What a treacherous self-serving shit. By saying that he implies that Rowling stands against “the trans community.” By saying it he implies that she’s malevolent and harmful and bad, and needs to be ostracized and monstered by shits like him and Radcliffe and Watson.

“Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment.”

But they’re not. Trans women are not women; that’s what “trans” means. Trans men are not men; that’s what “trans” means. It’s a lying bullying slogan worthy of 1984 and people should stop robotically repeating it on command.

As for being entitled to live with love and without judgement – that’s bullshit too. No we should not all be entitled to that. Love is relational, and it’s not subject to command or coercion. Judgement is inevitable in life, and nobody is entitled to say “Judge all those other types of people but not my type – I get to be immune from judgement.”

Grint, now 31, told The Times: “I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers.”

Yeah exactly – it’s a creed, and you recite it obediently just like your peers. High five.

The BBC ends the article with

A school in West Sussex has dropped plans to name a house after Rowling, saying it did “not wish to be associated” with her views.

Her views that women are women and men are not women.

The Guardian cautiously mentions that inciting violence against women may not be entirely admirable.

The government’s lead adviser on domestic abuse has written to the editor of the Sun to condemn the newspaper’s decision to publish a front page interview with JK Rowling’s first husband, under the headline: “I slapped JK and I’m not sorry.”

In the letter seen by the Guardian, Nicole Jacobs, the independent domestic abuse commissioner, said it was “unacceptable that the Sun has chosen to repeat and magnify the voice of someone who openly admits to violence against a partner”.

Of someone? A partner? It was a man who openly brags of hitting a woman and saying he would do it again. It’s not a gender-neutral someone who brags of hitting and it’s not a gender-neutral partner he does it to. It’s a man doing it to a woman. If we can’t name these specifics we don’t even know what we’re talking about – everything becomes random and mystifying and unfixable.

“The media can play a vital role in shining a light on this issue and bringing it out of the shadows, but articles such as this one instead feed the shame that so many survivors will feel every day, minimising their experiences and allowing perpetrators to continue to abuse without fear of consequence,” Jacobs wrote to Victoria Newton, who was appointed the Sun’s editor in February.

“I am troubled knowing that this article comes at a particularly difficult and dangerous time for victims and survivors, many of whom are being forced to stay under lockdown conditions with their perpetrator. The huge increases in calls to helplines is testament to that.”

Still all gender-neutral language – thus drawing a tactful veil over the fact that this is overwhelmingly a crime against women by men, on account of how men have a large physical advantage and a bigger supply of available aggression.

Domestic abuse claims the lives of around 100 people every year, and last year there were 2.4 million adult victims.

The Guardian too: gender-neutral.

Don’t say “women.” It never pays.

Finally, someone does say it.

Jane Keeper, the director of operations at Refuge, said: “The front page of the Sun this morning is as irresponsible as it is disappointing.

“It would ordinarily be troubling for such an editorial decision to be made – but to run with this during lockdown, when demand to Refuge’s national domestic abuse helpline have increased by 66%, is shocking. What this has done is give national media coverage to a perpetrator of domestic abuse to attempt to justify his actions.

“It is never acceptable to hit a woman. The first ‘slap’ can lead to a pattern of violence – and domestic abuse is against the law.”

And it’s evil and wrong.

Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, tweeted that the Sun headline was “awful”.

Gillian Martin, a member of the Scottish parliament, wrote on Twitter that the article would be “beyond triggering for many abuse survivors, and enabling to abusers”.

“It is irresponsible and dangerous. I could weep for the way women are treated by the tabloid press – still – in 2020,” she said.

Tabloids on the one hand and Guardianists on the other. Women can’t catch a break.

Barr and Trump and Pompeo see the ICC the way the surviving Nazi command saw the Nuremberg trials…and they’re not even embarrassed to say so.

The Trump administration has launched an economic and legal offensive on the international criminal court in response to the court’s decision to open an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan carried out by all sides, including the US.

The US will not just sanction ICC officials involved in the investigation of alleged war crimes by the US and its allies, it will also impose visa restrictions on the families of those officials. Additionally, the administration declared on Thursday that it was launching a counter-investigation into the ICC, for alleged corruption.

The most corrupt administration in US history is calling the ICC corrupt.

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, defence secretary, Mark Esper and attorney general, William Barr, gave a presentation on the decision at the state department, but then left without taking any questions.

Barr made clear that this was the beginning of a sustained campaign against the ICC, and that Thursday’s measures were just an “important first step in holding the ICC accountable for exceeding its mandate and violating the sovereignty of the United States”.

That is, an important first step in holding the ICC accountable for attempting to hold the US accountable. How dare anyone question anything we decide to do? Even if we do have a brain-rotted corrupt moral vacuum spinning the dials?

“The US government has reason to doubt the honesty of the ICC. The Department of Justice has received substantial credible information that raises serious concerns about a long history of financial corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels of the office of the prosecutor,” Barr said.

That’s interesting because the US population and the population of the world has reason to doubt the honesty of Barr and Trump and Pompeo and the whole administration they front. Financial corruption? Only every day. Malfeasance? Only every single feasance.

He referred to the ICC as “little more than a political tool employed by unaccountable international elites”.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Da Jooooz? Or what? They’re so brazen about the wannabe-Nazism.

The ICC was set up in 2002, as an attempt to extend the effort to impose international humanitarian law for war crimes and crimes against humanity begun by the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Over 120 countries, including Washington’s closest allies in Europe, are party to the Rome statute, the founding document of the ICC. Bill Clinton signed for the US in 2000, but said the statute would not be sent to the Senate for ratification until the US had assessed the court’s operations.

George W Bush informed the UN in 2002 that the US would not join the court.

The US sides with the perps not the victims.

It’s not ok to threaten women with death or rape, yes yes, blah blah, but what’s really not ok is to have “gender critical views” i.e. to have the view that women are women and men are not women.

Having such a “view” is not just view-having, in Jamil’s [cough] view, it’s rhetoric, meaning it could well be utter bullshit deployed for nefarious reasons. Having the “view” that women are women and men are not women “is what contributes to” [meaning, is the sole source of? the wording is meant to be precise but is actually confused and confusing] i.e. causes the actual rape and actual murder of trans women, not just threats. Not just threats.

Got that, women? Yes yes threats are bad, men shouldn’t threaten women with violence and rape and murder, BUT – the real bad, the bad that counts, the bad that matters, is women who say that women are women and men are not women – that actually gets trans women (i.e. men who say they are women) raped and killed.

I mean which would you choose? Just bratty privileged cis white Karens whining about threats? Or heroic stunning brave men who say they are women who face actual rape and actual death because of those bratty privileged cis white Karens who think that women are women and that men who say they are women are men?

Be logical.

It’s making it so obvious how intensely misogynist the trans movement is.

This terrible terrible man.

The Sun had to have its two cents and it makes me so livid I can hardly see straight. A lot of my friends on Twitter are saying the same thing.

Glenn Greenwald thinks Rowling has no right to say she was abused.

The man is scum.

They are such shameless liars.

At Trump’s roundtable, attorney general Bill Barr says, “We’ve never had a president who’s more committed to reforming law enforcement.”

Fact check: The Trump administration abandoned Obama-era police reform efforts, which had included civil rights investigations into local police agencies with documented records of abuse and problems. “Police departments are not investigated under this administration,” Christy Lopez, who led the justice department group investigating police departments under Obama, recently told the Washington Post.

The roll-back of Obama’s efforts began under attorney general Jeff Sessions.

Let’s make the police worse again, guys.

See?

This is what his Tulsa “speech on race” (if that is what he’s doing in Tulsa next week) will be like. He’ll read it haltingly and clumsily, tilting his head back and forth for no reason, in a flat croaking voice that makes it clear that he has no idea what he’s saying or why he’s saying it. And he’ll say “it” will go very easily and quickly and easily. Yes, certainly, and that’s why we haven’t done it all this time.

There’s much buzz about Trump’s oh so tactful selection of Tulsa, famous for a race riot, and Juneteenth, famous for the end of slavery, as the place and time for his first rally in months.

The selection of Tulsa as the place where Trump returns to the stump and the date on which he is choosing to do it both suggest that Trump’s long-whispered-about race speech — in the wake of ongoing protests and unrest following the death of George Floyd — will happen next Friday, and at a campaign rally no less.

A “race speech” by Trump. Dear god. It makes me want to solder my ears shut.

Tulsa was the site of one of the most vicious acts of racial violence in American history when, in 1921, a mob of white people attacked a section of the city known as Greenwood or “Black Wall Street” and murdered hundreds of African Americans…And June 19, which has become commonly known and celebrated as Juneteenth, or Emancipation Day, commemorates the anniversary of the reading of the General Orders, No. 3, which officially informed slaves that they were free.

What can Trump possibly say, what finger can he possibly point, what invisible accordion can he possibly play, that will be of any interest or value? We already know he has nothing but simmering resentment at best toward black people, and we already know that his self-presentation is that of a bad insult comic. We know he has no knowledge or understanding of the history or the issues. We know he doesn’t give a shit. We know he’s repeatedly gone out of his way to express his animosity toward black people and anti-racism. What can he say that anyone but the boogaloo crowd wants to hear?

Maybe that’s not his plan, maybe I’m overestimating his advisors – maybe his plan is to go there to shout racist slurs and start the second Tulsa Race Riot.

“The African American community is very near and dear to his heart,” said White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday of Trump’s planned Tulsa rally on Juneteenth. “He’s working on rectifying injustices. … So it’s a meaningful day to him and it’s a day where wants to share some of the progress that’s been made as we look forward and more that needs to be done.”

And goats can fly and cars can be milked and Jared Kushner is a genius.

Classic.

Come to my rally during a pandemic to gratify my ego and help my effort to get another four years to destroy this country and maybe the world, and also sign this waiver saying that if the pandemic gets you at my rally it will bye YOUR FAULT and not mine.

Who could resist an offer like that?

Milley says that walk with Trump was wrong.

The top US military officer says he was wrong to have joined President Donald Trump during his controversial walk to a damaged church near the White House.

The 1 June event created “a perception of the military involved in domestic politics”, Gen Mark Milley said.

It sure as hell did, and that’s what fake-warrior Trump intended. Captain Bone Spurs wanted to walk his sorry cheeseburger ass up to that church with some SOJERS so that everyone would think he’s a warrior too instead of the blathering whining two scoops of ice cream couch potato he is.

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was speaking in a video for a National Defense University commencement ceremony.

Oh was he! That’ll sting. That’ll get Captain Bone Spurs really mad.

He said: “I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics. As a commissioned uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it.”

Gen Milley added: “We must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the very essence of our republic.”

…

The general was wearing battle uniform as he walked with the president and critics said this suggested his support for the deployment of the military against protesters.

Just a tad.

Helen Saxby on Rowling and truth:

Speaking the truth about sex is becoming more and more difficult because of accusations of transphobia, and yet much of the reaction to Rowling’s tweet was just angry that she had highlighted this fact. We’re not allowed to say sex is real, but we’re doubly not allowed to say that we’re not allowed to say it. Many people suggested that Rowling was deliberately misrepresenting the truth. ‘Nobody is saying sex isn’t real!’ was a common refrain, presumably because being caught out saying sex isn’t real would make you look stupid. Trans allies want to deny sex exists but to do it in a sort of secret way without the fact being brought out into the cold light of day for examination.

They want to do it but they don’t want us pointing out that they’re doing it. That seems fair!

By the same token, they want to call us bitches and cunts and stinking holes, but they don’t want us to say they’re doing that and that it’s misogyny. Don’t name the problem, be the problem, yeh?

If we weren’t one of two sexes we would not be able to reproduce sexually, and that’s what the human species does.

…

It’s just biology. Biology is difference, it is exclusive, it has boundaries, it’s the truth. But are we allowed to name it?

…

But if, when the situation demands it, you do have to tell the truth about someone’s sex, then the correct trans ally response is to deny the sex. Sex suddenly is not real anymore. Situations which demand the truth are those such as equality law, sex-segregated sports, hostels, refuges and changing rooms, because in these areas sex really matters. Sex forms the basis of women’s rights. But suddenly this man in front of you, with a female gender identity, who you were happy to treat politely, is now literally a woman, no debate. If you don’t treat his gender identity as if it were his sex you are a transphobic bigot. Sex denialism serves to replace sex with gender when it’s expedient to do so, so that gender, in a sleight of hand, becomes sex, to all intents and purposes. If you notice the sex (and lots of women do notice) you are hateful. If you don’t notice, it will be used as proof there is no harm in letting males into female spaces, despite the fact that a woman’s boundaries have still been breached without her consent. The ethics of this are not to be discussed.

And if you try to discuss it, stand back while the flood of “cunt!” and “stinking hole!” comes pouring over you.

Reciting the mandatory “trans women are women,” Helen points out, is saying that sex isn’t real.

Transwomen by definition have to be male. Women by definition have to be female. The only way the mantra could be true is if you believe women come in both male and female varieties. If you do believe this, then you also have to believe that ‘single-sex spaces’ must accommodate two sexes, and at the same time that they must retain the name ‘single-sex’. This tortuous redefinition of commonly-understood words is crucial because otherwise you would have to admit that trans demands are impinging on women-only services, and the official line is that there is no conflict of interest.

How does “cis” fit into this redefinition project?

Transwomen are not, of course, adult human females. If they were they wouldn’t be trans. It’s just a way of hiding the fact that you’re saying women come in male and female varieties, a necessary camouflage when you don’t want anyone to notice you’re talking rubbish. The promoted way of avoiding this fate is to divide women up into ‘cis’ and ‘trans’, cis being the female women and trans being the male women. If you accept the categorisation ‘cis’ you accept that women come in both male and female varieties, and you are saying biology isn’t real. You also contribute to the negative consequences for women when ‘cis’ becomes weaponised as a sign of privilege over ‘trans’. JK Rowling is not just a wealthy white woman for the purpose of discrediting her opinion, but a wealthy white cisgendered woman, thus neatly putting women into the position of oppressors of men.

I think the way it works is that if a woman is white and cis she is also necessarily a Karen and that’s three strikes and she goes to the very top of the intersectional pole, oppressing everyone.

JK Rowling expressed concerns about the effects on women if we are coerced into believing that sex isn’t real. Many of the vile and offensive replies to her tweets illustrated the fact that sex differences are very real when it comes to insulting women. In the treatment of JK Rowling there was a very clear pattern of sexualised abuse from men that many women will recognise from experience.

Yep. I was surprised at how very familiar it was. How stupid of me – of course it’s familiar. There are only so many ways of expressing disgust and loathing of women, why would I think any of it would be original?

JK Rowling has been very brave. No matter what her personal wealth or privilege, she speaks for a huge number of women who don’t have a voice or stand to lose too much by using it. The lack of empathy for women who have suffered sexual or domestic violence seems to be growing as the most vocal advocates for trans demands stoop to painting even rape victims as bigots. How cold-hearted do you have to be to hear the intimate disclosure of sexual abuse from a former friend, colleague or mentor, and use it to publicly distance yourself from her and reinforce your credentials with your fan base?

Then she shares Emma Watson’s horrible treacherous tweet.

This should be a thing.

A group of women MPs and charities are urging the government to treat misogyny as a hate crime within the government’s new domestic abuse laws.

Their amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill would require all police forces to record and track crimes motivated by misogyny.

Those two sentences say two different things. Tracking misogynist motivation for crimes is not the same as making misogyny itself a crime. That’s quite an important distinction, don’t you think? Sloppy wording not helpful.

A statement from Citizens UK and the coalition of campaigners – including Refuge and Women’s Aid – says this approach will “not create any new crimes but would provide critical data on the link between hostility to women and the abuse and harassment women experience”.

They managed to make the distinction clear, I don’t see why the BBC couldn’t do the same.

Labour MP Ms Creasy said it was “time for change”, adding: “Misogyny is so much part of everyday life that we overlook the harm it does – at the expense of tackling the root causes of violence against women.”

Ain’t that the truth.

Lib Dem MP Ms Jardine said: “Misogyny in far too many instances remains unnoticed and unrecorded. “We must do everything in our power to tackle violence against women, and the requirement to record misogynistic crime and how it interacts with domestic abuse is a key step to tackling gender inequality.”

Yes, yes it is.

We will never surrender!

CNN has more information:

Hundreds of protesters marched into Seattle’s City Hall late Tuesday, calling for Durkan to step down after police continued to use chemical irritants to disperse crowds — despite the mayor’s 30-day ban on tear gas that she announced Friday.

Led by city council member Kshama Sawant, the protesters peacefully marched from Capitol Hill to City Hall, where Sawant allowed the protesters inside the building, CNN’s affiliate KOMO reported. Protesters left the building around 10:30 p.m. local time, and Seattle police did not report any arrests.

Durkan’s office responded late Tuesday in a statement to KOMO, saying the mayor “will not be distracted from the critical work that needs to be done at a moment that Seattle is facing its most challenging time in its history.

Well, its recent history. I think it’s had some pretty challenging times in less recent history, what with world wars and fires and earthquakes and general strikes.

“As the person who originally investigated the Seattle Police Department for the unconstitutional use of force, Mayor Durkan believes that SPD can lead the nation on continued reforms and accountability, but knows this week has eroded trust at a time when trust is most crucial,” the statement read.

Protesters have also camped out and occupied the area outside Seattle police’s East Precinct building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, which protesters are now calling the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.

Contrary to online rumors, Seattle officials say they have no indication that the occupied area is being coordinated by left-wing activist groups under the umbrella of Antifa.

Capitol Hill is the hipster neighborhood in Seattle. Having an occupied area around the closed police precinct there does not equal a takeover of the whole city, to put it mildly. Trump’s frothing is completely absurd.

Updating to add: CNN reports that Assistant Police Chief Deanna Nollette says police had received reports that protesters allegedly set up barricades, “with some armed individuals running them as checkpoints into the neighborhood.” That’s four levels of meta – reports, says, received reports, allegedly, so make of that what you will. The right-wing gun-brandishers do it where there are cameras, proudly, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t barricades and armed individuals in Capitol Hill.