Can't believe I'm writing this, but disappointed in JK today

Modern inclusive language is just basic respect, and using it has - I'm so sorry to tell you - become completely normal.

Oh you so, so wish that was true. Desperate stuff.

Modern Inclusive Language took over from the age-nondescript-fashioned language of periods-of-uncertain-time between the differences-of-energy-between-Eastasia-and-those-coded-akin-to-ourselves-in-this-borderless-new-world. Thank deity-or-concept-or-denial of your choosing for that!

She has been in the past, but her latest statement is the Twitter equivalent of corporate bullshit! Wrapping things up in opaque language because it mustn't be admitted that anyone might have been wrong in the past.

Modern inclusive language - love this, though.

What happens when we get to the pomo phase?

so, nobody ever misgenders trans people? Tell that to Sophie Molly.

When women's language is erased without our consent while we are still using it; that's not natural evolution.

Authoritarianism is not just the preserve of the far right, but also the far left.

@MOTU authoritarianism is closely associated to right wing politics.

Have you met the Green Party?

It would be dishonest to accuse her of betrayal or a lapse in judgement. This is a (perhaps unnecessary) rhetorical flourish rather than a direct accusation of you.

• For it to be a betrayal she would have had have kept something hidden only to reveal it now - instead she's been remarkably consistent of the last 5+ years.
• For it to be a lapse in judge it would have to be something ill considered - instead it's something she's give a great deal of thought to and that can be justified in straightforward, logical way.

I wonder if you can imagine a world where everyone respects trans people's pronouns - and nothing bad happens.

Because that world already exists.

Some schools have 1-2 trans children. Teachers use their preferred names and pronouns...and nothing happens.

The sky remains intact.

I have rung school at 8am, given my son's name and asked for him to be excused PE because he has a period. The receptionist writes it down, says bye...and the Earth keeps circling the big star at the centre of our vast solar system.

In this world which already exists, teachers, health professionals and work colleagues use trans people's names & pronouns because everyone does.

I'm afraid refusing to use someone's pronouns is petty and ignorant. It just makes someone appear disrespectful and bad at detail, comparable with forgetting someone's changed their name on marriage.

Language evolves, so does society. What used to be called politically correct language is now mainstream. Where parents in the playground once shunned my mum for being divorced, it's now unremarkable.

Modern inclusive language is just basic respect, and using it has - I'm so sorry to tell you - become completely normal. You'd have more luck protesting the tide coming in.

That is what gender identity theory does, yes. But you can acknowledge that in some ways you/someone conforms to such 'coding' ( I for example I like creating a home and like shopping for home furnishings, and I paint my toe nails ( coded 'feminine'), but I also have short hair, never wear high heels, enjoy male company generally and like to photograph building sites ( coded masculine).

JK Rowling is saying that her friend conforms to 'feminine' coding in certain ways; but that doesn't mean that she thinks her friend is actually female. She doesn't feel compromised in any way by accepting her friend's self presentation or defintion because they both know he is merely playing with gender and doesn't think/claim to be female.

There are some basic differences at biological and physical level and at a population level between males and females ( which is where the stereotypes emerge from), and I'm not sure what is to be gained from denying that. These differences and the consequences of these differences are why we have single sex categories, facilities and services in the first place.

Unless you're suggesting any disagreement is rightwing and authoritarian. I disagree.

If we solve all the problems of transgenderism, and it is reduced, in the name of individual freedom, to something that deserves from society only a bare formal acknowledgement and a promise of non-discrimination (and I for one don't think it requires even that, for trans people to live a good life), then pronouns will be literally all they've got left.

It's not inconceivable that wrong-sex pronouns for trans people could then become (or continue to be) widespread without leading to error as to their actual sex. In that scenario, a refusenik would be seen as unreasonable – because rude – rather than a principled truth-teller.

Sadly, at this rate I don't think I'll live long enough to see the experiment play out.

ETA – because its going to take too long, not because I'm at death's door!

'police' is working hard here. People can disagree, and discuss why.

its authoritarian to police women's speech which is what is being done to Rowling here. authoritarianism is closely associated to right wing politics.

Sure she's pretty capable of saying what she thinks!

As long as they're acknowledging that they are not female and staying out of women's spaces, I'll call them whatever nickname and pronouns they like. Its not about their choices of pronouns, it's about their boundaries.

I agree, but if JKR feels she has made a mistake, then she should admit this rather than using nonsense-speak such as 'female coded behaviour makes everything OK'.

If she were to say "I think I have been too hardline in the past, while my position remains that a literal sex-change is impossible, I now believe that people behaving in a stereotypically female way should be referred to by female pronouns if that's what they want' that would be a clear and honest message which people could respect even if they disagreed with it.

I think "female-coded energy" is a weird turn of phrase and unfortunate as it serves to bolster the notion of a fantastical "female essence".

"Stereotypically feminine behaviour" works better as an objective observation of another person, expressing that observation with reference to societal norms and expectations.

Once upon a time, "effeminate" would have been the go-to word but it seems to have negative connotations these days and has fallen out of use. Now it would come over as just a posh way of slurring a man or boy as a "sissy" or "a big girl's blouse" or as a way of hinting at (shameful?) homosexuality.

The "energy" part of "female-coded energy" seems to express JKR's subjective experience of her interactions and relationship with her male friend. That "energy" cannot be measured as something radiated by him: it exists entirely within JKR's perceptions, her psyche and self-awareness and is a product of the relationship.

I might have missed something in the thread but I don't think the word "groomed" has appeared yet? This does not have to be a deliberate, deceitful, manipulative process.

JKR seems to have found a mental compromise that works for her without creating cognitive dissonance.

While some people will take from her words that perhaps some men have "magical female essence", others will use them as a stick to beat women into submitting to demands that they be "re-educated" and rearrange their thinking - just stop being bigots and #bekind like JKR.

However, as so many PP have already pointed out: JKR's position is not new. Anyone who is "disappointed" has not been paying attention.

The way the OP has expressed their disappointment says a lot more about them than about JKR:

JKR: "I find it perfectly easy to reconcile my fond feelings towards her, and my experience of her as someone with very female-coded energy"

OP: This does make it seem like when she calls TIMs out she is now doing it maliciously as she is perfectly happy to play pretend if she likes them enough.

This reaction has the same "narcissistic energy" (!) as that of a TiM who would have been be infuriated to have been "called out" by JKR and now has had his nose rubbed in it by her clear indication that she finds him deficient in "female-coded energy".

(Terrible, terrible, wicked JKR - so full of malice! As for those awful bootlickers she hangs out with, who get all the precious, precious pronouns. [Shudders!])

I am not saying the OP is a TRA, just that it strikes me, as it has struck some PP, that they are giving off "TRA-coded energy", IYKWIM.

OP you have prompted some really thoughtful and interesting discussion but FFS OP, cool your jets!

Also error, mistake, accident, and changing your mind.

Long live disagreement, argument, discussion, debate, difference and dissent.

I suspect that JKR is trying to justify behaviour (using 'gender-based' pronouns for a friend) which started before she thought about the issues, and continues by habit and because it is very difficult to back out of without being offensive to a friend. So I don't think she is being entirely rational in her thought processes, because emotion and self-justification are at play, as they sometimes are for the rest of us.

I don't accept 'female-coded energy' as a valid defence. It's muddled thinking, and influenced by the genderists. But we are trying to deal with the mess that has been created by elevating 'marginalised minorities' above everyone not deemed to be marginalised. That tangle is very difficult to unravel, and unfortunately pulling on the thread labelled 'sex reality' isn't sufficient.

Sorry, I’m not following you. How am I not being honest?

But the danger here lies in the suggestion that the 'coding' of your behaviour influences your sex (or 'gender') rather than the other way round.

That is: 'likes make-up, pink clothes and fluffy bunnies' = is feminine.

Rather than: "Is female, so is more likely to like make-up, pink clothes and fluffy bunnies"

This gives the reverse of: 'likes football, going down the pub and heavy metal' = masculine, so if you like those things, as a woman, you are being 'unfeminine'.

Essentially making certain preferences and attitudes the preserve of one sex or another, which is how we got into the whole mess in the first place - because we couldn't allow that a bloke might like fluffy bunnies and a woman might like football, without it signalling they were in the 'wrong gender'.

No one person is responsible for the whole movement, not even JKR. She hasn't undermined anything. She's not a figurehead and can have her own opinions, as we all can.