Is JK Rowling ‘too big to be cancelled’?

I don't know how to do that I'm afraid. Is it a specific app?

They're not completely un-evidenced though are they? There's screenshots and supporting evidence from mainstream media reporting.

An Internet random with 388 followers? Yeah I’m totally convinced that JKR is not a friend to woman because someone on Twitter posted some completely unevidenced highly biased tweets

Flickersy. I can't see the full thread, only the first post. I have looked to see if it has been unrolled on the thread reader app, but it is not currently there.

The short answer is yes, she is too big to be cancelled.

And I don't believe it's because people like Harry Potter too much, because there are plenty of American millennials who continue to be obsessed with Harry Potter whilst believing that JK Rowling is an evil transphobic bigot.

But she has 14 million Twitter followers and so much personal wealth that she never needs to work again. She doesn't need to worry about the impact speaking out might have on her career, or on her ability to pay her mortgage. I expect she still worries about her personal safety, but she can afford a level of private security which others cannot. That wealth and power is what has enabled her to speak out when others have been intimidated into silence, and the 14 million Twitter followers mean that her message has been heard.

Most sane adults agree with her that humans can't change sex, that women should be allowed to have their own single sex spaces and sports, and that confused and unhappy children should not be enabled to make irreversible changes to their healthy bodies.

The Hogwarts Legacy game has been a huge hit. A new Harry Potter series is in the pipeline. Her Strike books continue to appear in the bestseller lists.

Basically, money talks. And the money is saying that most people either agree with her or simply do not care enough about her views on this matter to boycott her.

I've seen this twitter thread this evening, quite by chance, and I'm actually a bit shocked.

I'm no longer sure JKR is such a friend to women as I once thought. If true, I think she could lose a fair bit of her current core support.

I don't think anyone is "too big to cancel", although I have my own issues with the concept of "cancelling" (but that is another thread entirely).

https://twitter.com/innominace/status/1776980668615971086?t=JMk-FHaTWLvaQgBh8Jh1ng&s=19

Lively thread:

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1777028759754780771

What exactly don't you agree with? Do you believe people can change sex?

Can I ask, what is it you don't agree with?

Only one of the characteristics of this debate, is that many people don't actually read what she says before coming to a conclusion.

This! They did try to cancel her. Remember all the anniversary stuff about the films - sky did a whole big special with pretty much everyone even only vaguely connected with them in it - except JKR. Various awards she’d been given were rescinded, schools who had Houses named after her changed them, she was omitted from various lists highlighting successful children’s or British authors, the publishing house of the strike books had to fend off a staff rebellion if they published her books . They really did try but basically shes too successful, popular and rich and in the end that was what mattered.

I don’t really understand what all the fuss is about. Celebrity has opinion - so what?

People can choose to agree or disagree.
I do not agree with her views, but I respect her right to express them.

Yep.

I have the same concern. Everything she says is valid but it's the end point of a journey that she has been on for a while.

The population en masse are just starting that journey.

It begins by assuming that while one should use "polite" pronouns and it is "polite" to say "TWAW", society including police, politicians, teachers etc understand that TWAM, TW don't experience the same challenges as women so when it comes to women only protections and opportunities, those stay as they were intended to be for female people.

Those at the start of the journey assume trans women just want to be left alone to gwt married, do their shopping or whatever without nasty people pointing and laughing "that's a man!".

It doesn't occur at the start that some trans women also want to stop anyone saying "but that's a man!" when they join women's sports teams, gain awards for women's achievements, act as female representatives or are held up as examples of women in male dominated fields.

We and JKR know this journey inevitably leads to the realisation that "woman", "girl", "she" and "her" cannot exist in a Schrodinger-like state of being sometimes the name for female people and sometimes a polite honorific for men-who-would-be-seen-as-women. We all eventually come to realise that if female people are to have any realistic protections under law or in society they need their own name that means all of them and no one else to attach those protections to, and that to mix up "being female" and "identifying with some social constructions culturally imposed onto the female" under the same name is far from progressive but is in fact a muddle that relies on society continuing to impose those sexist constructs onto the female.

But that's a lot to expect someone just at the start of the journey to take on board.

People need to work this thing through for themselves, to see for themselves that the reasonable assumptions they start with are not how this is actually playing out.

So I think to be effective JKR needs to stay "ahead but in sight". Far enough ahead to ask meaningful questions, not so far that the questions can be ignored because they seem too far fetched.

(Oh, and stop goading IW. Grey rock that one. IW created a useful opportunity to make an important point that JKR was smart to seize, but overall that person is so small and obsessed with such narrow aspects of the overall issues that to continue to toy with them risks looking like bullying. What's that phrase - something like "It's not fair to get into a battle of wits with an unarmed man"?)

I don't think she gives a toss about being liked or cancelled or whatever. She's fighting for women and girls, that's all that matters.

New generations of kids are getting into Potter all the time.

World Book Day rolls around and you’ve got a lot of Potter costumes- Marvel/DC/Disney onesies and Potter are the big ones at our school.

Theres a bunch of young adults thought the books were written for them- not understanding that’s the mark of a good book, seeing yourself in it. Especially kid’s books. Now they think they’ve been betrayed because of what they projected onto it.

Parents continue to buy the books/merch because they love it and the kids love it.

She’s no reason to care, it’s wishful thinking on behalf of some folk who feel let down “their” author isn’t in agreement with them. The real world continues to turn and JK Rowling will continue to be successful.

Just makes me think I will never understand poetry, I like jk tho.(not the serialisation of the strike books though, boring)

poor men
they had forgotten
that if you
punch a woman
6 more grow
from the wound. [Joelle Taylor, The Battle of Maryville]

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/the-battle-of-maryville/

Just read this poem on another thread and it made me think of JKR and her determination to help women and sustain women's rights.

I love this. Thanks for posting.

It's for women's sake.

What needs to be cancelled? She’s an amazing talented author whose talent has had worldwide recognition and produced millions and millions of fans. She has voiced her opinions on a subject that is extremely emotive and those opinions are 100% true and what many people believe but are afraid to speak about. She is not saying someone who believes they were born in the wrong body/sex/gender is wrong, she’s saying the subject needs to be carefully managed and that no one party or part of society should be ignored to fit another.

As for the other actors who went against her, seriously they are pathetic crown pleasers with no balls! Pardon the pun 😬

Of course her money is a significant factor, without it she wouldn’t be a target her fame and money go hand in hand.

Last night I met a new group of people. I went to a 40th birthday party on my own and didn’t know anyone but the birthday girl. After a few drinks people opened up and as I’m not afraid to speak my mind ( I do read the room first) but literally everyone there (age 40 & up) were so relived they felt they could speak their minds on the subject. Initially they were worried as I’m a parent at one of the school a couple of them work at. All of them were afraid to really speak their minds because the majority of the group work in some form of school/childcare role. The key fact when I was asked my opinion was “ADULT” I have absolutely no issue with an “adult” who chooses or feels the need to become a member of the other sex, if someone goes through hormone therapy, operations, lived a long life as a man or woman and applied for official documentation to become that person. Then I’m all for supporting them as long as they know that they were born Y and became a Faux X and willing to accept formal acknowledgment of that. Go for it. Self ID is completely fucking wrong, forcing a 4yo child to have pronouns and sending them to preschool dressed as a girl when they are a boy and making everyone else tiptoe around them is wrong. This was the exact situation one of the ladies who manages a preschool was dealing with. What fucking 4yo knows what the fuck they want gggrrrr

I’ve always had a huge respect for her, her talent is amazing and I could not understand anyone who dose not appreciate that, whether you like her books or not.

Is she too big for cancel culture, I honestly don’t know, I hope she is. I think the difference is that most people who have been cancelled absolutely deserve it, JK 100% dose not!

Thank fuck for her ‘stirring up trouble’!

Well, I do like her. And I agree with her. I also happily enjoy her writing. So I have made it a point to purchase more of her work and to pay for and watch the Strike series he in Australia, I also recommend her, and her work to my network. The Strike stuff obviously not the Potter stuff, we are all well past that.

I also make a point of speaking to the young people in my life about her reasonable position on things. They are often surprised to hear she isn't some mad transphobile, and I encourage them to look up her words directly.

She may be uncancellable, but that is because "we", the normal people, who actually think about things are making her so, and are making a point with small actions.

It helps that she speaks Truth. Reality WILL reassert itself. The gender idealogy position is so bloody absurd it cannot possibly withstand widespread public scrutiny. Most people when confronted with it know it is complete bullshit. Which is why it has been pushed so secretively and importantly why it must be pushed at children. Because a functioning adult with half a brain, and no agenda won't swallow it.

Incisive and articulate argument - full of points of evidence and no recourse to personal feeling or cliche.

As others have said, come back when you've done some reading. And thinking. About little things like free speech, the safeguarding of children and women's rights. "trouble for troubles sake" Sheesh.

And she’s punny, humour is very human.

Thanks and credit to Latticed-Kestrel on Ovarit.

https://ovarit.com/o/Radfemmery/547929/i-love-this-new-timeline/0a2d2cc1-e38d-4717-a41b-ff1219c56e5f#comment-0a2d2cc1-e38d-4717-a41b-ff1219c56e5f

Here are a few more for your entertainment:

1. There’s no real importance of biological sex since most people haven’t karotyped their chromosomes.

1. So weird. All three of my kids chose my uterus as well. Crazy

1. One of my testicles is larger than the other and I fear I might be pregnant.

1. The amazing coincidence of everyone gestating inside a womb since the beginning of time. What're the odds, huh?

1. So even though we have all girl parts, and have monthly cycles, get pregnant, give birth, go through menopause, we should still get tested to see if we’re really chicks? (GIF of confused person)

1. My wife kindly carried and gave birth to our 2 children. I feel guilty for not offering. Must do better I guess 😳

1. It’s just science. (Educational diagram of male genitalia with addition of a fetus labeled “Baby”)

1. J.K. are you able to insert yourself in the perspective of these people? I can’t make sense of it. I try to imagine the perspective of speakers, as to relate, and I can’t here. It seems like they jumped off in the deep end.

(I can’t make the numbers work 🤷🏻)

Well I think that summed it all up perfectly.