JK Rowling - Thread 2

Cults. Humans have always made up weird fucking cults together, and tribes. It's our little cave-men instinct to find others like us and then to kick anyone out who doesn't belong.

When I was a kid I vaguely remember reading a book by someone suggesting that every ancient civilisation had ended after it hit peak "decadence" and had lots of infighting. He also suggested we were heading for that in modern society. It scared the heck out of tiny-autistic me, so my parents spent some time explaining how ridiculous the theory was, and how older people just dont like progressive thinking.

However, I think I can sort of see what he meant - it's like we always need something to fight about or pursue, and what do young privileged people fight about when all their basic needs like food and housing are met, and the generations before them have ostensibly tackled racism, sexism and homophobia etc.

Maybe that's bollocks though.

I've wondered for a while about paralells between some of the current ideas about identity, and how people become so immersed in fandoms.

Yes Goose - I've observed the same thing. I left online fandoms (sci fi geek!) due to the toxic splits and fan wars that happened over plot and character development. The investment in fantasy and its belief systems overtook the norms and social conventions of real life. People were just toxic both to, and about, each other. The demand for purity of thought is cultic.

Not sure whether to interpret that as "I have an imaginary friend and it's me" or "I wank a lot".

Much lolling in the stable at that.

Lamahaha if you’re on the app try clicking the tweet that’s being replied to, but be sure to avoid any highlighted bits or you’ll be sent to a link or another user.

Oops, x-post with LittleOwl there.

Oh, and Lamahaha, if you just click on the body of JK's tweet, it should bring up the string of replies - but I'm on desktop, not a phone.

Lamahaha - assuming you're on the web version rather than an app, click on the text of the tweet itself and it will open up over the page with all the replies below it.

Lamahaha, you can type @jk_Rowling into the twitter search bar, and it will bring up every reply she has had. There are a lot of them! Most of the more recent ones are just long convoluted arguments between respondents. If you click on an individual response, and then scroll upwards, it will bring up the whole thread.

I saw JKR's tweet about 10 mins after she posted it - ALL the replies were positive, and THANK YOU type replies.

Then within about 20 mins, the TRAs got wind of it - and started posting vitriolic "oh so you've gone full on terf" stuff, and telling lies about Maya "harrassing trans colleagues at work"

The TRAs have, over the past few days, whipped themselves up into a frenzy of lies, accusations, biology denial, threats, that "STF Terf" meme pointing a gun... It is utterly insane.

One person on twitter saying that JKR is responsible for the murder of trans people and mass shootings. YIKES

Didn't Janice Turner sue someone for a similar accusation levelled at her?

I very much hope JK does the same. You can't just go around telling people they are responsible for others deaths.

#mypronounsarenotyourpunchline

#mypreciouspronouns

Not sure if this has been shared already, you have to scroll past the Trump stuff but really good article on Maya.

nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2019/12/andrew-sullivan-what-we-know-about-trump-going-into-2020.html?utm_source=tw&__twitter_impression=true

umbel, yes I did that from the start, click on the bubble but all I get is a window to "Tweet your reply" I still don't see the replies of others. What am I doing wrong?

This new thing that means a tweet author can hide replies is a bit worrying.

The biology denying on twitter continues.

twitter.com/rayyaghul/status/1207967805401968640?s=21

That Bird-thread about why Rowling's tweet is so heinous despite it's seeming harmlessness:

Apparently it's because she's not supporting transwomen if she's merely happy to let them do their own thing.

It was an I-can't-belieeeeeve-this moment for me.

Hello? Who died and made you King? Why should I, or anybody, or JKR, support you? You're not supporting me much, y'know.

It's not about support, you entitled twit.

It's about all of us living our lives in peace. You don't get support. I don't get support. We just leave each other alone. It's called EQUAL RIGHTS.

Lamahaha, if you click on the small speech bubble at the bottom left of a tweet, you'll be able to see all the replies to that tweet. The number next to the speech bubble tells you how many replies there are.

This is the comment in the German news magazin Der Spiegel:
www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/j-k-rowling-die-dementorin-unter-den-feministinnen-a-1302365.html

Look at the title in the link. "JK Rowling, the dementor among feminists"
The comments are over all heartening though.

It's interesting - apropos of something I was reading a page or so back - the role that American cultural imperialism plays in this debacle.
North America has fallen.
I'm a writer and a member of the biggest and most influential writers' forum which is based in the US. (I've said this before so sorry for repeating!) I've been with them for eons but in the last couple of years hardly ever log in. They are woker than woke there, in fact it is on that forum that I first heard about trans ideology and words like cis etc. It was always an eye-rolling moment.

So just for curiosity I logged in again yesterday and indeed, found the Rowling thread and of course a pile on about how transphobic she is.

What gets me is the automatic assumption that all members, all writers, are automatically on board with the lies about her (apparently she was vile to her trans colleagues and went about spouting transphobic slurs etc), that we all agree on this.
There is absolutely no room for discussion. If I were to pop in and say a word the pitchforks would come out. I have a long-standing reputation on that forum as a "nice" person, very mild-mannered and not at all quarrelsome. If I were to say what I really think in a wink I would be demonised. The message there is that "we are all kind and inclusive on this forum" and on the right side of history. They are 100% following the agenda.

I am btw immensely proud that it is a member of my profession that has caused this amount of sunlight. I hope that one day I will have the guts and the clout to come out, as a public person, as being GC and pro-JK but sorry -- right now these nuts could ruin everything I'm trying to build up. So, public silence from me, unfortunately.
..................................................................................
On another topic: I am a total Twitter numpty and could do with some advice. I do have a Twitter account which I only use for book related stuff, but I follow people like Glinner and, now, JK. But I must be doing something wrong as I don't see all the vitriolic comments. What I see is her tweet, and then a couple of older, neutral tweets for her from November, then Who to Follow (Emma Watson), then retweets from JK dating back to March and earlier .
I get this page when I go to JK's page and click on Tweets and Tweets and replies. Where do I go to see the actual comment list everyone is talking about?

But they ARE more unsafe because they can’t go to Hogwarts anymore. A few days ago they could have safely boarded the Hogwarts Express without fear of attacks. Now, who knows what sort of hexes and jinxes await them on that long journey north? Will they be slipped a potion to try and “convert” them back to cis? Will transfiguration classes with McGonagall take on a whole new sinister meaning? Is Tonks being goady when she turns her hair purple? Is the Room of Requirement going to be that safe, third space people require? We know trans wizards are killed at a much higher rate than cis wizards because it says so in the Quibbler.

Dark times ahead.

The truly stupid thing is that none of these people are one whit more unsafe than they were a few days ago.

Nothing has changed in their lives. Nothing. If they lived in a homophobic hell hole they still live there. If, like most of the sad trans teens in my city, they live in woker than woke Progressiveville, they still live there.

They could act as if nothing had changed, including their beloved Potterverse - because it is still exactly as written - if they wanted to.

It's disturbing to me the demands for political purity from authors to their 'fans' (used to be known as readers, but I snidely bet some of them have only watched the movies!) I wouldn't be reading much if the author of every book I read had to be investigated for wrongthink first.

Fuck, but I'm a cranky old lady! But c'mon...nothing happened to them! All this outrage and why ? Because a woman posted a tweet. Transperbole, I'm calling it.

The Age is out of Melbourne; it's woke.

my wokestazi friend on Facebook has posted explaining that the original tweet from JKR is transphobic because the words
'Dress however you please.'
have an implicit subtext that when a transwoman puts on a dress or a transman puts on a lumberjack shirt and a binder then that is some kind of dressing up rather than a fundamental expression of who they really are

and likewise
'Call yourself whatever you like.'
has an implicit subtext that a transperson's name is a matter of choice that should be understood in the same way as anyone non-trans choosing to change their name (eg connected with marriage or divorce) rather than the correction of an unjust misnaming at birth, all records of which should rightfully be expunged.

I don’t know if it’s Australian journos in particular, or the state of the world in general, but even senior journos as as lazy as fuck.

They rely heavily on Twitter for content, (as opposed to interviewing people and doing actual investigation), and now, apparently, they can’t be arsed to even read the original Tweet and rely on some randos paraphrase.

Total misrepresentation of JKR in the Melbourne Age newspaper today by a journalist called Chip Le Grand.

It’s getting harder to know what is satire and what is ... not.

“Prominent male transgender activists such as Charlotte Clymer have gone full hysterical. “For several years, there has been substantial concern that J.K. Rowling is transphobic,” Clymer tweeted, referring, I presume, to the time Rowling followed the women’s rights campaigner Magdalen Berns on Twitter. “I admit that I held out that one of my childhood heroes was simply being misunderstood. This morning, that was dashed when she defended a researcher who was fired for transphobic tweets.”

“As a gay man that found safety in Hogwarts throughout my childhood,” tweeted Shamir Sanni. “Knowing that Trans people wouldn’t be able to have that safety breaks my heart.”

Should civilisation last long enough, I’m sure we’ll look back on the last decade and say, “WTF were we thinking?”

From here:
www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/transgender-politics-why-j-k-rowling-took-a-stand/?fbclid=IwAR0H-0a-r5PbZ2ONkppGeB5TEw_efZG_vdm435SXRSeQPScK7DpUAx7vaiQ