San Fran bookstore stops selling Harry Potter due to JKR's 'anti-trans views' with women's fund being the 'last straw'

I suppose the problem we have is how are women to respond to obvious men in the women’s toilets or changing rooms in the moment? Report it to whom? Oh there seems to be no-one here now, where’s your evidence?

As we are frequently reminded, toilets are not policed, it relies on social norms/contract for people to obey the law.

Women are not physically able to stand up to a man in the toilets, or would be ill advised to do so because of the strength/size/power imbalance. We have no recourse if it is our word alone. Hence the photographic evidence option is more open to us.

I agree that it leaves room for mistakes to be made, but the alternatives are paid gatekeepers in every toilet, perhaps CCTV at the entrance, or just allowing men to continue to use our facilities no matter how it makes women feel, and despite it being against the law.

At the time of the offence, women have few practical options available to them.

Ooh, that awkward kind of misinformation that turns out to be true after all.

Agree. I think so many men underestimate the influence of middle-aged women in situations like this, probably because they don’t see us. I don’t need any more Harry Potter books, but I would boycott any store that took a hostile, antifeminist stance like this, and I imagine others would too. Middle aged and older women make up the bulk of the book-buying public.

We seem to be reaching the iteration of Nonsense Land up the Faraway Tree where actual women may not “pass” as women.

No level of ridiculousness is beyond the reach of these altercations.

I await further revolutions with eager anticipation.

How are women supposed to look?

A female person and her body is detectable even when wearing trousers and having short hair in a masculine style if that is what you mean?

Some pass some don't, some women don't fit the stereotype of how they are supposed to look.

This is nonsense, though, isn't it? Women who go round in jeans, check shirts and Doc Martens, and have their hair short, are still recognisably female almost 100% of the time.

which is why i said the blame for anyone "policing" (to be clear: I don't) the women's toilets lays fairly and squarely with the vocal TRAs. Nobody else.

In making of themselves such an obvious politicised store, then inevitably they may gain some kudos, but they'll probably also lose other custom. That's their business, of course, and their loss too. Creating a legal fund to support women in fighting for, and defending, their rights is one of the most impactful thing JK could do.

The popularity of Harry Potter not fading any time soon. I've recently returned from Istanbul and in one restaurant our bill was presented to us inside the cover of a Harry Potter DVD.

These men should not be in the women's toilets or changing rooms. They know this too. If after the recent ruling men persist and I personally come across a man in a space which he has knowingly invaded - then I'll probably take an image of him too. I'm not on twitter.......but I do have a large photo collection for use or reference when needed.

Some pass some don't, some women don't fit the stereotype of how they are supposed to look.

I think I would be very upset if I was confronted and photographed and plastered over SM. It would be a horrible experience

Are you saying there are no novels to match the popularity of Jo's and a bookstore will go out of business if they don't stock them?

I'm sure they'll be fine but appreciative of your concerns for them.

Well say youre a woman who has been accused of being trans.before. Maybe it has resulted in an unpleasant confrontation, now the confronter has "evidence" that they are right. Might not bother you, might not bother me but are you sure it wouldn't upset some women?

I think that's a very different situation if a man is in the loo doing that sort of thing

The blame for that lies squarely with those men who insist on using it, making some women jumpy.

And all joking aside, if you are a woman and you go out of your way to look butch or not "feminine" then you need to get used to people asking you. And then when you speak, they realise you're a woman and all is good. I was in the army. Several of my friends are butch lesbians. None of them has an issue with being asked, none of them has mentioned ever being actually asked. So. Meh.

Seeing as a significant form of protest for the GIGB (Gender Identity Great Britain - yea!) mob is a sort of (metaphorical) flooding of ladies’ toilets (e.g. in Parliament), taking photos of these scofflaws to discourage such behaviour and alert women seems only sensible.

FGS JK Rowling has been threatened with rape, torture and death. Talk about asymmetry.

There have been cases of women being harassed and marched out of toilets though, in America I think mainly. I was reading something about it yesterday somewhere, I can't remember where unfortunately but there were quite a few. One was a 6' 3 woman. I'd hate to see that sort of thing happening over here and I think JKR could be a bit more careful

If it's definitely a man that's different to thinking it's a man because they don't fit your stereotype.

I don't think it's ok to embarrass a woman like that even if it's rare. Would you be so comfortable if it was you?

It's fabulous. A word of warning - you may become hooked. My user name is a clue to my own obsession.

And actually, is any woman really going to be that upset by a rumour that they're trans? It's not a shameful thing to be. It's not exactly something that needs proving or worrying about, or will have any consequences in the way that it could do for a man in women's spaces.

i think you're reading way much into it.

We know, from experience and from talking to other women, the liklihood of any woman challenging, say Lilytino or Sophie Molly or any other of the famously male users of women's toilets, is low to zero.

Taking photographs - well, it's not my bag, but others may find it better to back up their suspicions with evidence if it comes to anything. We KNOW that many people think all transwomen pass and have no idea what we're talking about. Then they see pictures of some and the penny drops.

This is very, very unlikely, isn't it?

If a woman is sufficiently fed up to take a photograph and share it, it will be because the person in front of her is blatantly, obviously a man as many, many of the intruders into women's spaces are and quite likely doing one of the lovely antisocial demonstrations such as peeing or wanking with the door open, taking selfies or waving swords, and performatively being A Man Using The Women's Space.

I'm very much behind embarrassing the fuck out of those men. And I'm not up for them getting to hide, yet again, behind a lot of female socialisation about ooh but wouldn't it be awful if possibly, somehow, as a one off awful mistake, a woman got mistakenly accused.

I'm more worried about the women who will definitely suffer by letting these men crack on unembarrassed, unchallenged and enabled.

Extreme progressivist theories - of which gender identity theory is one - are directly responsible for the catastrophic social policies which have transformed downtown San Fran into a dangerous dystopia in which vulnerable drug addicted people are enabled and encouraged in their disease and in which street violence, theft and assault go unreported and unpunished.

It is of course SF's most vulnerable communities who are suffering due to this. The wealthy residents - who cooked up the theories behind these policies at Berkely, et al - can literally afford never to see or encounter the problem.

If you are a woman and they publish a photo saying you aren't actually a woman I wonder if there is anything you can do legally.

But they only think it, they don't know it. Imagine how embarrassing if you are a woman and end up with a photo is published saying you are trans.