Why are TRAs body-shaming J.K. Rowling? - Jean Hatchett

Good article, btw, thanks for the link!

Greer suggested that - I don't know if I'm allowed to use this word on MN but when The Female Eunuch was written in the 70s it was 'transexuals' - idolised an idea of femininity that had virtually nothing to do with real female bodies. This goes for drag artists, too. It's not really connected to women; it's a hyper exaggerated simulacra of a sexually available pre-pubescent female. (Red pouty lips, impossibly pneumatic breasts, hairless, airbrushed, huge-eyed). A porny sex-doll, I suppose.

I expect this is where some of the anger comes from. Women don't look like that. It all ties in perfectly with the capitalist patriarchy - the effort required for girls/women to try and achieve this deliberately impossible ideal (and measure our self worth according to how closely we can simulate this abstract idea of 'female') is a useful tool.

So the impossible picture of 'woman' (nod to Purgatory's excellent posts on Platonic Forms the other day) is created and then used as a stick to beat women with for failing to live up to.

This was the idea of the 'third sex' Greer posited - probably what we'd call the feminine gender/stereotype. At least, that's what I recall from the book, which I read a long time ago. It's deliberately impossible, only achievable with the help of implements, tools, paint, surgery, expensive treatments, photo filters, lighting, airbrushing, etc.

Excellent article - thank you for the link.

Some of these TRAs are really revealing themselves for what they are, aren’t they?

The more TRAs show who they are the more people will see what's really going on. They can't help but show their misogyny. Let them crack on I say. There's less and less people defending this stuff now. I've even noticed the Guardian talking more and more about women.

I have such huge admiration for JK Rowling. She seems completely unfazed by these attacks. I already admired her charity Lumos, which is achieving real tangible benefits for vulnerable children around the world who are exploited by the ‘orphanage’ industry. But since she has taken a stand against trans activists who want to redefine women out of existence and replace us with themselves in female only sporting events, my admiration has grown and grown.

It is tough to take a public stand against a movement backed by so much money, which has to taken control of major gay rights charities and redirected their work to be about trans rights to the exclusion of all others. But it is sorely needed. I believe that the young people I work with have been stuck in an online vortex during lockdowns and bombarded with material designed to make them question their gender identity. The lack of real social opportunities has made them unusually vulnerable to these and has had devastating consequences for their mental health, resulting in some being sucked into a trans identity vortex that is at odds with who they were pre-lockdown. It is well-funded, orchestrated and evil. If we had more investigative journalists worth their salt they would uncover the deliberate psychological manipulation of our children.

I'm still in awe of my body and how it can grow a new organ, the placenta! How amazing is that.
I love the stuff she writes about how when we older our breasts meet the mattress when we lie in our backs! Totally relateable!

Women are beautiful.

This. With bells on.

There was no need to repeat what these abusers are saying, and give a explanation of the movement of breasts. They are abusive because they are abusive.

I can see what the PP was saying too, perhaps JH not being at the lunch tainted the article slightly.

Great article

What male trans activists want is to be a twenty year old female, not a fifty year old female. That’s why there’s so much emphasis on surgery. They want to create a hierarchy of worth based on sexual attractiveness, which they perceive as femininity, and middle aged women go at the bottom.

I think it's a great article. As a fellow saggy titted middle aged woman it really resonated with me. All the photos from that lunch reflected the GC position perfectly. You can look and present exactly how you like but your sex will never change. TRAs misunderstand this constantly. They don't actually want to be women. They want to be blow up doll/porn star caricatures of women.

I agree with you unwashedanddazed. There was no need to repeat what these abusers are saying, and give a explanation of the movement of breasts. They are abusive because they are abusive.

Well at least her "titties" are real
From female puberty through female hormones. This is what they don't like!! How have we reached this point when so called grown adults are behaving like this?

It's a great article. Every word of it is true.

Trans activists hate women.

Neo-gothic misogyny certainly sounds ✨fancy✨ but really it’s a fairly sad reflection on the male sex* of the C21 that while they cling to centuries-old ideas about sin & women’s bodies (albeit slightly reworked for the secular society) they are far less skilled at expressing them than the men of medieval Europe.

• it doesn’t matter what gender identity may be claimed, it is their sex - male - that is the common feature

I don't like the way she has focused on Rowling's body. Although she's criticising the TRAs for their misogyny, bringing the attention back onto Rowling is doing their job for them. She could have done the same job without being so personal. The whole piece made me uncomfortable.

That's a great article and so accurate. The hatred of woman and women's bodies runs through these men (no matter how they identify) like a stick of rock.

but if they find us so unattractive, why do they want to be us? The older trans-women I know mostly look like the rest of us older women, and are happy to do so...

Thanks for this, a brilliant article.

The TRA response to this shows the horror of the mature female body that is inherent in misogyny. It’s grim.

She's quite right now predictable it all was.

Anyone know anything about the book in her bio on there?

"Jean is a writer just completing a novel which centres two women at the birth of the radical feminist movement in the UK."