What has JK Rowling said or done that’s transphobic

If we were to carry out a thought experiment where we all decided to change the meaning of the word woman to: people whose subjective truth is that they are adult human females (which would incorporate biological women and trans women), would you propose that all people who fall under the new definition share changing rooms, toilets, prisons, refuges etc?

This is where my fear lies. If we accept that everyone who wants to be considered a woman is a woman out of politeness or in recognition of this phenomena, how do we mitigate the risk to biological women from biological men? Do you think that biological women should just accept the risk? Or would you separate those spaces into OG women and ‘new’ women?

FWIW @LacksieI have enjoyed reading your posts because you have clearly put a lot of thought into your position. I respect your views on this despite me thinking it’s fundamentally flawed. But I am curious how you see this playing out without compromising the safety of biological women who are anatomically female.

I'm saying I can't find a tweet where India says this. If it's been linked on this thread can you link it again?

Go up the thread, its there as a screenshot. I cannot reproduce that. If you really are interested to see it scroll up the thread. Its there!

IIRC correctly, India may have deleted the tweet but not before hundreds of screenshots were taken. I'm pretty sure @Lacksie won't accept them.

It's a common tactic of TRAs to do this, remove posts then say any screenshots we have are doctored, but many of us saw that tweet when it was posted and would swear to it in a court of law.

The lovely Mr Menno made a short video about it, with supporting roles from Ed Davey and Keir Starmer. It's a great opportunity to have an anatomy lesson and to see Mr M give a stirring rendition of 'Like A Cervix' 😍

I've sent an image, it may take a little while to show up

More screenshots

Posted today at 8.27 by @BackToLurk just read her post and click on the bottom bit and you will see India's tweet.

@Lacksie you said "have seen no direct evidence that Willoughby claimed to have a cervix — that is a claim that has been widely circulated on social media." Well it is there for you to see at 8.27 - details above.

It's so very cute to see that some people are still "she/her"-ing India Willoughby. 2018 is way back over there people!

He's one of the men that J. K. Rowling pointed out was a man, when she skewered the Scottish Hate Crimes and Public Order Act so that it couldn't be used against GC women just for pointing out that men were men. She named some slebs like Willoughby, and some male sex offenders, and some sportsmen who'd won women's prizes, all of them claiming to be women. On the day the bill was enacted (1st April 2024) she tweeted about each of them by name and said they were men and added “If they go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I’ll repeat that woman’s words and they can charge us both at once.”

Thus letting the Scottish police know that any over-reach in their response to TRA complaints about posts by GC women would make the police look very foolish in public. And yes her posts were reported to them, and no they didn't go there. Which might just be because they never would have pursued those reports in the first place. Or it might just be that they recognised the shot across the bows.

Anyway her tweets outlined a "safe space" for what can be said on social media in Scotland without either initiating a "Hate Crime" investigation or getting a "Non-Crime Hate Incident" recorded against your name.

(I'm not on X and I don't have a list of her tweets although I did see them repeated on other spcial media at the time. The quote above is from FSU https://freespeechunion.org/archive/jk-rowling-will-not-face-prosecution-under-scotland-hate-crime-law )

(edited for clearer wording)

Brilliant. Send in the clowns 🤡 🤣 great . Not seen this before.

The plumbing fathered a son India 🤣 under the knife to remove plumbing doesn't a woman make. Creating a fake area isn't real.

I think this is a much more legitimate question, because it moves away from “are trans people deluded (lying, pretending, etc. etc.?)” and onto the actual policy issue: how do we accommodate trans people while also protecting privacy, dignity, safety and sex-segregated settings?

I don’t think recognising trans women as women linguistically, socially or legally requires us to say that birth sex or reproductive anatomy must become irrelevant in every context. It is perfectly possible to be inclusive of trans people while also acknowledging that birth sex and anatomy can matter too. I also don’t think “everyone who says they are a woman must therefore be admitted everywhere women are” is the only possible model. Rules can take account of behaviour, safeguarding, privacy, medical transition, individual risk assessment or the particular purpose of the space.

What I object to is the framing of trans women as inherently deluded, mentally ill, dishonest or predatory, and the idea that their identity is therefore illegitimate and should be disregarded everywhere. I also think policy is moving in a very irrational and troubling direction. I don’t think there is any sound logic or good evidence to support the idea that excluding all trans women from women’s toilets would improve women’s dignity, privacy or safety.

Recognising that trans identity is real does not settle questions about language, toilets, prisons, etc. Those are separate conversations and I think they should be answered on evidence about actual risks and harms rather than by starting from the assumption that trans people are lying, deluded or illegitimate.

Indeed.

There have been a lot of Lacksie style posts over the years. All similarly empty waffle intended to distract from the fact that a man can never be a woman, and that sometimes the difference matters.

Thanks for sharing the screenshot. Even taking it at face value, I don’t think there is enough context there to know exactly what she meant, and certainly not enough evidence to conclude that India Willoughby is literally deluded about her anatomy. A single remark like “show you my cervix” could be rhetorical, sarcastic or imprecise. It doesn’t establish a persistent false belief about what anatomy she has.

There also doesn’t appear to be any contemporaneous reporting or archived copy of the tweet, and it is no longer on her account. If the screenshot is genuine, we cannot know from this alone whether it was a serious literal claim, something said rhetorically or in frustration, or something she later deleted because she realised it was unhelpful.

I certainly don’t think a single unverified screenshot with no context should be relied upon as evidence on which to build a wider argument about trans people as a group.

And that’s why some people don’t like JKR, because she not only has the platform but the rhetorical skill to cut through all the bullshit.

I think that line of thought was present in a lot of policy making before the SC judgment.

IMO one major problem with is was it allowed politicians and policy makers to fudge things and say "of course there are some situations where sex matters" - in the abstract, but then any time women actually wanted a single sex space that was never the right situation, or it was always up to someone else to decide, and that someone else was always either a gender ideolgist or someone who would cave to pressure from TRAs.

@Lacksie
What I object to is the framing of trans women as inherently deluded, mentally ill, dishonest or predatory, and the idea that their identity is therefore illegitimate and should be disregarded everywhere.

Irrelevant. It wouldn't matter if every transwoman were deluded or none. Or if every transwoman were a predator or none. Or if every transwoman were dishonest or none. That isn't what makes their presence in single-sex spaces illegitimate. It is that fact that they are male that does that. Currently that is the criterion upon which those spaces are divided. That is what JKR is seeking to protect.

As ever, if you wish to make the case that some male people should have access to places or services allocated to female people, then make that case. Clearly. Describe what it is about them - and no other male people - that means they should have that special access. Or clearly describe a different criterion to divide the spaces and services, and explain why you feel such a division would be necessary. (You can tell us where non-binary people would fit too if you want).

A man in a woman’s space is a boundary violator. That’s the simple truth.

Sooooooo

The sexual offences question?

Why do the super special lady brains want to commit sexual offences at a higher rate than other males?

In that vein you can't take JKR tweets at face value either. Even though none of them are actually offensive or transphobic.

Late to the party, and my general point has probably already been made, but it seems to me that a lot of the anti-Rowling brigade don't have the faintest clue about anything she actually said. They haven't read her posts or her essays, they have no idea what her opinions actually are. They have simply been told she is transphobic and that's that, they're against her now because it fits their pre-prepared package of "what I am supposed to believe to fit in with my liberal friends". I see evidence of this when I ask people what in particular about her they disagree with and I get a generic "she's transphobic" with no reference to any particular thing she did to make her so. I even had one person tell me "well, she's transphobic, so I don't care what she's said, why should I listen to what a transphobe has to say?" erm.... so you know if she's actually a transphobe??

I consider myself to be very left wing, and a liberal. But I also align well with JK Rowling. I admire her greatly in fact. The amount she has given and done for charities, the charities she has set up and all she has done to help women and children, and those with disabilities, the amount of her personal wealth she has given away and her outstanding bravery, are all extremely admirable qualities and acts.

And it really is a shame people don't take just a few minutes to think for themselves.

Do you have any robust evidence to support that claim?

Yes, exactly. Most of it is bandwagon jumping. It’s going to ramp up further with the new HBO series premiering at Christmas.

I certainly would not take one tweet - later deleted - at face value and evidence JKR is transphobic, no. absolutely I would not not.

If she had left it with the original tweet that started the whole thing - the word for people who menstruate - whoman - that famous one - and then immediately deleted it, I certainly wouldn't be here saying I believe her to be transphobic. What makes me believe JKR is transphobic, is her consistent, persistent statements and behaviour over many many years, of which there is an abundance of direct evidence which reveal views as per my first post on this thread.

It will be like Hogwarts Legacy all over again. The TRAs tantrumming and making impotent threats to other people for consuming it. A million mediocre think pieces.

I quite looking forward to that. It looks much more like the books than the films ever did. One thing I do vehemently disagree with Rowling on was her decision to allow those god awful films to be made. Completly ruined HP for me! 😄