JK Rowling - Thread 2

Then why is he categorically saying that TWAW Haworthia? Do you think he's being sarcastic or deliberately obtuse? Because I considered that but I'm really not sure he is. It wasn't just that tweet, there's these too.

And I agree I don't think he genuinely believes TWAW but I absolutely think that's what he's saying, regardless of the reason why.

There’s no way Gervais has backtracked. This is the tweet in question.

I think he was (clumsily) trying to draw a distinction between “genuine” trans people and predatory men who would exploit self ID to commit crimes.

But there’s no way he genuinely believes TWAW.

@Scarscar my understanding, which I put on the Andrew Nolan & Ricky Gervais thread, is that RG is making a deliberate distinction between predatory men who use self-ID to gain access to women's spaces for abusive means, and 'genuine' trans women who simply want to be viewed as women. He does specifically state that trans women are women. Which does seem somewhat of a turnaround from what his tweets earlier that same day were saying, but a lot of those tweets were sarcastic and messing around so it's hard to know. Part of me wonders whether he's enjoying being deliberately obtuse.

I do however think there's a different and much more serious tone in the tweets where he makes it's clear TWAW and he doesn't want (predatory) men being able to easily call themselves women.

So could some one help me understand, has Gervais just done a massive U turn by saying he was joking and that he believes trans woman are women?

and the thread on mumsnet showed 94% agreement with Rowling. The emperor is naked.

Likes on Twitter are now over 191 thousand. Comments are around 35 thousand. Some of these are going to be supportive and others are the same people commenting many times.

Surely it is obvious that the vast majority of people agree with the sentiment of the original post. The threats and magical thinking are coming from one side only and it is not the reasonable one.

However I think picking women who haven't spoken out and basically forcing them to say one way or another is unfair when we know what the outcome is.

I agree with this.

And I also accept this is why we have a very unbalanced civic discussion in many ways because one side is very vocal, supported and amplified by social media, and the other isn't.

According to this article, Ricky Gervais was just joking with his tweets.

"After one person said he was probably “joking” by sending the tweets, Gervais claimed he was “playing along” with the “spoof account”."

"Eventually, when someone asked him to clarify his stance on trans rights, Gervais wrote: “I think trans women are women. I wasn’t talking about trans people.”"

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/ricky-gervais-transphobic-tweets-jk-rowling-maya-forstater-golden-globes-twitter-a9256746.html

Sorry if this has already been posted and I've missed it.

bold fail there!

*Well, I do blame her! Caitlin works for The Times for heaven's sake! Ordinary women are speaking out, women without the platform she has, and they are standing up and being counted.

She can be a clever writer, she could shed some light on this quite easily.
I fear she has fallen in with the 'but I know some lovely transwomen' gang*

yes, I agree totally with this.
The Times have been very forthright with their honesty on the Trans stuff. They haven't avoided it. They've confronted it head on, just as any intelligent, clear thinking journalist/newspaper would. I applaud them.
Caitlin is employed by the Times, isn't she?

Re Caitlin Moran - I think if you’ve written a book called How To Be A Woman and have made a reputation based on writing about and promoting feminism, then it’s cowardly to shy away from this issue.

I'm in awe of all the women who have spoken out too, I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

However I think picking women who haven't spoken out and basically forcing them to say one way or another is unfair when we know what the outcome is.

Everytime I read "don't blame so and so for not speaking up" I hear Mercury singing Galileo in my head.

I am in awe of Navratilova for her outstanding work this year and the snowball effect that had, I sincerely hope Rowling is just getting started.

Well, I do blame her! Caitlin works for The Times for heaven's sake! Ordinary women are speaking out, women without the platform she has, and they are standing up and being counted.

She can be a clever writer, she could shed some light on this quite easily.
I fear she has fallen in with the 'but I know some lovely transwomen' gang.

I don't think that transgender nutcasery can be laid at the foot of the U.S.A. Plainly it cannot, as the weeping and wailing of fainthearted HP fans who can't believe that their fave author has the nerve to have opinions of her own is an international phenomenon. It's all stupid.

I get intersectional vibes from Caitlin

I really like Caitlin but I definitely get 'like me, like me' vibes.

I don't really blame her for not putting her head above the parapet, the backlash is so swift and harsh.

I couldn't do it.

I get intersectional vibes from Caitlin, but hope to be proved wrong.She's always seemed far too wise and far too savvy to not understand this stuff. There are many many (if not a majority of) journos and celebs who are fully aware of this and on the same page as JKR, but pretending not to notice (because they're afraid of the fallout, which is aggressive and relentless)
JKR is so brave. She's fearless. I love her.

This has reminded me of the mania of the Sherlock fans. At one point there were many blogs dedicated to trying to prove that Benedict Cumberbatch’s wife/marriage/children are a PR stunt.

so that educated me I hate this phrase “educate yourself”. These days it seems to mean do as you’re told by us and don’t question anything.

Now she has effectively torn it up and is free

I hope so.

It might be a relief, not to be beholden to the Tumblr masses anymore. She was slated for not being inclusive enough, for not having openly gay characters in her books...the charge sheet was mounting.

Now she has effectively torn it up and is free

I'm fascinated by how few Slebs With Ticks have either condemned or congratulated JK for her tweet.

Barely anyone at all.

Which is peculiar, makes me think that they all think the same as her but are still to find Magdalen Berns' videos and therefore their brave?

The number of the devil, it's all making sense!

Just skimmed the thread so sorry if someone's posted this. JKR is gaining followers. SS from Thursday when the tweet was posted.

I suspect JK Rowling knows that her fanbase encompasses a huge range of people, from the sane and well-balanced who just like a rollicking good story to the rather more unstable who perhaps invest too much of themselves in her imaginary world, through to people whose grip on reality is perhaps most charitably described as "tenuous."

After all, all authors of fantasy must be aware of the existence of fanfiction. On Archive of Our Own, there are currently nearly 234 thousand works in the Harry Potter fandom. Having dipped into it, these will range from quite well written "gap fillers" or "what if, instead of doing x, this character had done y instead?" spin-offs to barely literate drivel. A lot of them will be explicitly sexual in nature, and some of those really quite bizarre (and often graphically unpleasant) indeed.

It is not going to come as news to JK to discover that some of her fans are, to put it mildly, not playing with a full deck. This is in the nature of being an author of a highly successful series of books.

(To give you some idea of how weird it can get - and this is deliberately not taken from Harry Potter, but another fandom: I came across a Rogue One story. I didn't read it because one thing AO3 gets right is a very thorough "tagging" system which enables you to work out what the content is and avoid it if it's not your thing. But it was basically "furry porn" with Bodhi Rook re-imagined as a chinchilla. That is how weird some of this stuff gets.)

The detrans sub on reddit spells out time and time again that it's all a cult online, and that it feels amazingly warm and welcoming and affirmative when you're part of it, and then very difficult and mean if you try to leave.

A woman I know who has de transed recently talked about how someone who she knew previously, thought was a friend, and who was also trans, mouthed "fuck you" when they saw each other at a pride march.