Tom Felton getting stick. Is this really the world we live in now?

I realise I went off on a tangent but I wanted to come back at the end and say that I'm also really concerned for the young children who are about to take up their roles in Harry Potter. How much is it even going to be possible to protect them from all this?

How long are they going to be given a pass because they're kids before they're expected to denounce JK publicly or even quit their jobs to prove they're on the "right side of history" when it comes to trans issues. How old are these children going to be when they're reading death threats?

I feel so sad thinking of how excited they must be and what awaits them. I'm sure there's already awful comments out there but looking at the pictures of their little faces they just look so small and I just truly hope they're protected as much as possible from this.

I say this as someone whose political views have mostly aligned left through my life, but 'the left' have absolutely lost the plot and while I think there are some online communities where it is more extreme, it's also becoming a wider problem in the 'real world' too.

There is this really insidious vibe that there is only one right way to think and anyone who strays even slightly from that is demonised. There is zero room for nuance. Sometimes I feel like they turn to their chosen online community to find out what that view should be for each issue then very aggressively parrot it.

At work we have a very firm 'no discussing politics' rule in professional spaces such as MS Teams, but a lot of people seem to think that criticisms of Trump or other big issues they feel on the correct side of are exempt from this. To be clear, I don't like Trump either, but they feel they are so objectively right that it doesn't even count as talking politics - to them it's just stating an undeniable truth. This is applied to many other issues which their echo chambers tell them they are objectively correct about.

Every celebrity at the moment wants to weigh in with their views on everything, despite often having no knowledge of it. I think it's refreshing Tom is stepping back and refusing to get involved as his job is as an actor and he doesn't feel he should have to justify his beliefs about every issue to everyone. We could do with more of that and less bandwagon-jumping.

I also hate that everyone thinks not only is JK Rowling herself awful but anything she's created should now be burned and never spoken of again. The irony is these are the same people who are often completely fine with the likes of Roald Dahl for example.

I got a load of flack online when my husband posted a picture with a bookshelf in the background that had my childhood Harry Potter books in them. I haven't even touched them for years but apparently I should not have them in the house or else I am part of oppressing trans people. Someone from a hobby group I'm part of said she would judge anyone who lets their kids read Harry Potter now.

I've watched a lot of people who are part of this 'tolerant' community, in the last couple of years, say some really horrific things about Jews (and no I don't mean they criticise Israel - I mean literally stating they have no sympathy when random Jews around the world are killed because the likelihood is they're Zionists so it's justified).

I watched a gay man at work do a talk about how to be a good ally and spoke a lot about how important it is that he can be his true self at work and how he should never have to hide who he is. I was relatively friendly with him but he completely stopped speaking to me when he found out I married into a Jewish family.

I've seen the same tolerant community completely dismiss the experiences and trauma of women and wish physical harm to survivors of abuse for the crime of wanting to be supported by a biological woman.

I admit that I did used to look at my GB-news watching family members and despair at how closed-minded they are when they said a load of stuff about e.g. immigrants that was completely untrue and IMO ignorant. I still just as strongly disagree with them, but it's harder to be holier-than-thou about it when the 'other side' seems absolutely no better now. The superiority from the left is honestly laughable at this point.

Shades of Hogwarts Legacy, isn't it? (Which I'm still wanting to play but it's not available for Mac )

There was a whole lot of wittering about how it was going to be boycotted, no-one would play JKR's game, that would show the awful TERF etc. etc...except it was a thumping success because people either didn't care or didn't agree with the boycott. I'm sure in certain corners of Reddit there was a boycott* *but one little echo chamber does not a population-wide action make.

They need to stop being asked every 5 minutes by interviewers who want to know their opinion on the trans debate and what they think of jk. Anyone associated with HP is constantly bombarded with the question

Tom Felton has low key had hassle for the last 6 years because he continues to trade on his HP role post stuff about Harry Potter on his socials and refused to denounce JKR. He knew what he would get taking this role and he doesn't care. Good for him!

no one cares about Harry Potter anymore,

Ha ha! Whoever said that hasn't been to Kings Cross Station lately. I was staying near there a few months ago. The shop selling Harry Potter merchandise was packed and the queue to have your photograph taken at the Platform 9 3/4 sign seemed to always be very long, even at 8 or 9 in the evening.

So often women's rights campaigns and campaigners are accused of receiving "right wing money"...except no-one has ever been able to back this up with sources or evidence. And what constitutes "right wing" anyway? To go by most of the comments about it, it seems to translates as "something I don't like and I'm hard left so it must be far right because there are only extremes and middle ground/nuance simply doesn't exist".

Isn't he just! It's a shame, as I've enjoyed many of his acting performances. He should have stuck to that. I've said before I have no idea why people turn to actors, musicians and other celebs in the hope of getting any interesting or informed views on current affairs. It's obviously different if they've thrown themselves into a cause and become experts, like Feargal Sharkey and water pollution, but just being famous doesn't make their views on other topics worth hearing.

I agree, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

To the poster who posted the long story about their trans relative, I am genuinely sorry for their distress and yours. It's only natural to want to alleviate their unhappiness and I hope they can find a way to live in which they find peace.

However, your relative is not a woman. No amount of surgery, hormones or attire makes a female human, females are born. Women's spaces and identities are not for those born male to appropriate and that is reality, both biological and legal. I can understand where your anger and fear comes from but your comments about JKR funding hate (or whatever your post said) are completely wrong. It isn't "hate" to say men aren't women and women's spaces are not only for women-only but they are not for other women to give away.

As for that petition, IMO it's the modern-day equivalent of women who campaigned against women's suffrage.

Stonewall, perhaps.

Gosh. Well. That is me told off for asking for clarity. Oh. And my ‘friend’, I assume you speak of merry. I think I probably would have a friendly discussion with merry because she seems to be open to to having a discussion about what she says and seems pretty clear about it. But I don’t know her.

However, I think that this post pretty much sets the expectation of you providing any reasonable discussion about your accusations of manipulation and polarisation. You have made assumptions based on what seems to be your own entrenched prejudice and need to appear righteous and moderate.

When you don’t seem well informed at all, you seem to be unable to even have a discussion and have effectively ‘told’ me what I believe. So, I think I will take your accusations as being just as others before you who have posted about this in the past. in other words, based on falsity and pure laziness of thinking.

In the UK, and other countries such as Australia, women campaigning and contributing to court cases has been by women raising funds through crowdfunding. With the exception of JK Rowling only recently funding one or two court cases.

The polarisation accusations are just like Starmers rhetoric. Except it turns out that Starmer agrees with the women he diminished and belittled with such accusations.

But apparently, you can speak however you want, and use whatever tone you want, (you even acknowledged you were rude) while accusing others. That sounds like the definition of a hypocrite to me.

Oh he's a prat these days.

I'm sorry about your relative but there are many incorrect statements in your post. J. K. Rowling was just one of many donors who donated to For Women Scotland so that they could take their case all the way to the Supreme Court. The highest judges in the land have confirmed that the law was the way people critical of gender ideology have always said it was. Sex in the Equality Act means biological sex, not a self-chosen gender. We have never had gender self-ID in this country. Single sex spaces and services are permitted where proportionate and if someone is born male they remain male, so don't belong in a female-only environment, no matter how much medical treatment they have had to make superficial changes to their body.

Since the 90's 5000 transgender people have been murdered as a hate crime and counting. Where does this figure come from? It looks like a worldwide figure, in which case it will include Brazilian sex workers, whose high murder rate is in line with the very high murder rate in that country for anyone working in the sex trade. The number of trans-identified people murdered in the UK, for all reasons, not just transphobia, is absolutely tiny. Fortunately in most recent years the number has been 0. It's one of the safest demographics.

Finally, this a copy and paste of the OP of another thread which Mumsnet has hidden. It's not done to spam the site with the same extremely long and rambling post, especially when it's linked to a petition.

Very sensible approach. Some other actors could do with following his example, starting with David Tennant.

Yes, I agree that I am quite entrenched in my view that sex is relevant to law and policy, and that women depend on sex based rights to participate equally in the world.

I admit that I am baffled that anyone would think otherwise.

I remain unclear on your views, but you obviously have no obligation to spend time here explaining them.

Part of my job in charity fundraising once upon a time was to source grants from foundations which meant checking out their history of giving . Who they supported and what.

There were some bloody wealthy weirdo foundations and donors at that time.

So my family member tried to kill themselves after a series of bullying occurrences last year, before trans rights were even rolled back by JK Rowlings funding. It was me who found them and had to try to save them. Its a horrifying experience that i will never get over.

I am very sorry that this happened to your family member.

Perhaps you and they would be helped if you understood the law a bit better.

JK Rowling has not changed the law.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'cis', but women can only defend their rights if they can be defined in law. Women need abortions because of their sex, not their gender identity or their level of femininity. That is why the Supreme Court decided as it did - not because of a campaign against trans people, but because it has to deal in logic and the reality of the material world.

Your family member remains protected by the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

JK Rowling is a billionaire who wrote a children's book about wizards, and she uses her money to sway our democratic government by expanding her personal say on our laws.

JKR isn't a politician, or a Supreme Court judge, and she didn't write the Equality Act. FWS would have won in the Supreme Court however the case was funded, whether funded by a billionaire or by loads of £5 and £10 donations from the public. JKR's and everyone else's opinions were irrelevant to the case. FWS won because they were correct - women's rights and protections don't exist to benefit males, and never have.

If that is your view, that is fine, as in, you are entitled to your view, and I disagree, and that is fine.

I apologise for saying the bit about it requiring an epiphany and you'd need to dig deep, that was rude of me. What I meant was - you seem to be quite entrenched in your views and it takes time to engage, and I don't have that time. Sorry for being rude though. (I don't want to become polarised!)

Unfortunately it is the world we live in now @User012389.

To a very small number of people, all that matters is your view on trans.

I'm not on the side of women or men, and that's not the crux of the issue either (as much as I care very much about women and our rights).

I am on the side of right and truth. That's it.

See above my answer to your friend. I am making just one more comment then leaving you to it, and that is, please note that you are not on the "side of "women" and that all women think the same on every single point - we don't - there are as many opinions as there are women and this is how it should be. For example, I agree with some of what your groups says, but not everything.

The fact that you think that you represent all women in every respect and that you all tend to write as a homogeneous group without much fallout indicates that there has been some manipulation/polarisation.

The funding is a slightly different point.

I will leave you to it now.

And what you thought will forever remain a mystery.

Just that both sides are polarised, but you can't explain further.

This does give the unfortunate impression that you don't know what you are talking about.

if you cannot see that both sides are polarised,
Sex is either binary or it isn't. Sex is either immutable or it isn't. Sex matters or it doesn't. There is no middle ground.

I'm sure their attacks on his character will convince him to see the light.