JK Rowling - Thread 2

They don't matter because they aren't men!

I think DP realised what he had just regurgitated at me when I said that! Too straight to be in a gay marriage, how exclusionary.

PCOS is a condition that a person can only have if they are female ffs.

There was at least one intersex org that very actively asked that TRAs stop using people with DSDs as a gotcha. Why do their feelings and their requests to be left alone not matter to our supposedly very concerned with kindness TRA friends?

I have PCOS, which apparently makes me intersex (his words). I told him when we get married next year I'll be changing my birth certificate to reflect the fact I'm not really female and he went quiet.

Erm, please please ignore everything Eugene Gu says - he's a creep

www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18147216/eugene-gu-twitter-social-justice-activism-abuse-sexual-assault

I agree with you that there's very little market, Lamahaha, but it wouldn't surprise me to see some publisher that's full of woke young employees give it a try anyway, at least until the sales numbers start coming in. In terms of what you might call the woke genderist youth I think many of them genuinely don't understand how little public agreement with their position there is - those of their peers who disagree seem to try to avoid either the subject or the people talking about it, so they assume any opposition is coming from older conservative people who're also racist, homophobic, etc.

I hadn’t read that piece by Claire Graham, thank you for sharing. It’s quite heartbreaking.

Because all this discussion that goes on about people who are intersex’s chromosomes, genitalia and reproductive ability isn’t out of interest and concern for them.

Claire Graham's What Is Dignity:

the judge [in Maya Forstater's case] goes out of his way to talk about the need for dignity for trans people. It’s important, we’re told, that we all pretend that the categories of male and female are nebulous and unimportant. That the feeling in someone’s head should override reality for the rest of us....The vehicle used to achieve this is, as ever, DSDs.

Where’s the dignity for people with DSDs in all of this, as our complex and often emotionally difficult medical conditions are trotted out and prodded by the ignorant, discussed with morbid fascination by people who have no idea about the reality of them? Who gives a shit about what is being done to us?

We mustn’t discuss or acknowledge the sex of trans people, because to do so would “out” them. We must let them retroactively alter historical documents because to not let them do so would also “out” them...Meanwhile, he thought nothing, as do so many people in this debate, of declaring that people with DSDs shouldn’t be considered male or female at all. Where does this end? To class us as “other” is to out us.

The only way we can counter this harmful narrative, is to out ourselves anyway. I have to write a blog, sit in front of strangers and describe my genitals, fertility status and medical history, just to be able to say “what trans activists say about us isn’t true. It’s unkind, unscientific and harmful”. Where’s the dignity in that? Where’s the newspaper column inches and TV shows for us? Where’s the outrage that a group of actually vulnerable people, just getting on with their lives, wanting to blend in and not be paraded for someone else’s party, are being mis-sexed?

There is no dignity, no compassion. We’re politicised and used as a footnote in someone else’s story. We’re prevented from being our own spokespeople. No one hears us. No one cares.

mrkhvoice.com/index.php/2019/12/18/what-is-dignity/

Yes it’s disgraceful and invasive. Because all this discussion that goes on about people who are intersex’s chromosomes, genitalia and reproductive ability isn’t out of interest and concern for them.

I find it really distasteful. People with DSDs are told by society at large they aren't proper men or women, now they have trans people saying they aren't, except sometimes when it means trans people aren't really trans. It's bizarre.

The intersex argument is used to control.
Deflection.
Most (if not nearly all) trans people are not intersex so the argument doesn’t even apply to them.

Stonewall is itching to add the 'I'. It's happening everywhere, the civil service trans network has done it already. I'm not saying it doesn't have any members with DSDs, and obviously people are free to organise however they want, but this organisation is very influential. It advises the EHRC among others.

My partner has been talking at me about this. He is just regurgitating things he had read online. Almost all of the sex genotype/phenotype stuff was included in my first year of undergrad but he's an expert now. I am disappointed and we had an arguement. But wtaf is it with these people? None of the intersex stuff is relevant. Intersex people cannot will themselves not to be. None of the non-human stuff is relevant either. Clownfish and mushroom reproduction are not relevant to human society ffs.

This was posted so we can educate ourselves but it is missing the bit were it explains what the other forms of male and female are

Michelle yes it is true but very rare. A chimera can occur if a foetus absorbs its twin, and could therefore have some cells with different DNA from others. Still only 2 gametes though.

Claire Graham writes useful accounts about DSDs and lots of mythology around them (confirming that particular types are very rare; debunking the 'same prevalence as redheads' or whatever that trope is):

mrkhvoice.com/index.php/2019/08/01/why-do-trans-activists-claim-to-be-intersex/

It’s a bizarre world where a lack of critical thinking is lauded.

It's a world that's very good for the 'leaders'.

My very first essay as an undergrad in the early nineties was essentially ‘can you write about a subject if you haven’t experienced it’. I actually got a C in part because I argued that it was impossible to fully depict something you hadn’t experienced. (In my defence, the subject referenced was quite niche and I got sidetracked by an obligation to myself and others with experience, and apparently forgot that I was answering an Eng Lit question )
These days, my complete gaffe and utter lack of thought would probably have resulted in an A. It’s a bizarre world where a lack of critical thinking is lauded.

Thank you MIdge and Endo

#ownvoices is such crap

Yep. It undermines the very point of fiction.

#ownvoices is such crap. How is anyone supposed to have a lasting career if you can ONLY write about characters like yourself? No matter how many diversity boxes you tick, eventually the times will change and you won't be trendy anymore.
And if your experience of being X doesn't line up with the prescribed version you'll get in trouble anyway.

intersex individuals that can produce both gamates

Wikipedia
Humans can rarely be born with both types of gonadal tissue ( ovarian and tesicular) but there is no documented case of a human having both types of tissue that actually functions. Most people with both types of tissue are infertile, but some can make eggs or more rarely sperm

@nachthexe yep depressingly my experience. I’ve more of less bowed out of the work I was doing in a certain field. Doing that work well means being able to play with ideas in a safe space, but a space isn’t creative or safe for me if I can’t politely object to gender neutral toilets or people being able to change sex without fearing total hostility.

^ was just about to correct: psychological suspense (not fiction)

Nachthexe (like your name -- are you really?) I can believe that you're right and that T is very trendy right now. I was referring though to them becoming a commercial success. Think New York Times, or (and this is the big one; NYT is I believe for hardback) Amazon Top 100 bestsellers. If you look at the latter list you'll see it's dominated by a few genres: romance, crime/thriller, psychological fiction. This requires thousands of book sales a day. I can't see that happening, frankly... readers aren't adventurous.

Male, absolutely. Done deal

There was a point in the late 90's, early 2000's, when post-colonialism was all the rage, and this person was consistently invited to opine on this having no interest or no background in post-colonialism. They write within the mainstream (white) tradition, and the invitations were solely on the basis of race.

It's interesting to me how quickly universities have moved on from their stated desire to right the wrongs of post-colonialism, in favour of a new trend.

I will mention it to them (not as a serious suggestion, of course, but as a factor in the difficulties they are currently having - zero academic papers on queering Proust!)

Another friend of a friend is in a department where they are writing a book on a famous GC feminist, and no-one in the dept will engage with her on her work. Racism is passe, sexism is passe, classism was never NOT passe...