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

Yes, it's rather like arguing that spectators shouting, "GAY!!" at footballers in the early 2000s were participating in a change of language over time (that shouldn't be policed), rather than acknowledging that the entire point is that it retains exactly its original meaning, that the shouter thinks that original meaning is contemptible and that is precisely the reason it is being flung as an insult.

Yes. The argument (I have seen it on twitter as well) that men use ‘she’ for other men as a sign of changing language is weak argument. Doing it to disparage or mock another man is not a relevant use of language to represent linguistic change. The person using it in that way nor the person the language being used for do not have any belief that they are a girl or a woman.

I agree that policing how people talk about their friends is wrong. I already said that.

At the same time, your choice of argument is poor. The example you gave is of "she" being used in mockery of men, which is rooted in the idea that women are inferior. No one ever says to a female footballer "oops he fell over".

(Especially when they are literally appropriating your actual identify and “lived experience”. Transwomen make me uncomfortable and annoyed because they are literally claiming to be what I actually am, and that’s really insulting - and that’s before we even get onto the fact that for many it’s also a fetish. If I was black and objected to / was upset by a white person wearing blackface and stereotyped clothing and insisting they were therefore really black, people (including genderists) would be able to get that. Likewise with disability. It’s reasonable to be put out by someone imitating you and then demanding you accept that as real.)

To be clear I don’t think trans-identifying people should be discriminated against for the sake of it, just for “being trans” I.e. I don’t think they should be denied the right to housing, healthcare, the vote etc or persecuted etc. But identitying as something you cannot possibly be should never have become enshrined in law, and I think finding someone expecting you to confirm their untrue “identity” to be someone you don’t want to be around, employ or trust it totally reasonable.

in fact, I would argue there’s a possibly valid case of discrimination under the equality act in that if you identify as the opposite sex this is officially given a pass where other types of untrue identity claim are not.

This is what I think happened too. JKR very likely met this friend when most people didn’t think there was any harm in going along with pronouns. It’s not something I personally would do and I can understand why people are disappointed but I can also see why she has continued using them for this person.
In my opinion, it’s not taken anything away from her stance on the effects this ideology has on women and girls.

I find this difficult as yes it’s rude and hurtful, and I generally am not on board with that, especially as I think many trans-identifying people are mentally ill, vulnerable or dealing with trauma, and many will detransition and it’s not helpful to be oppositional for the sake of it. And yet I think she has a point here. To go back to my earlier post, I think employers would be right to shy away from someone identifying as a different ethnicity, or as having a disability they don’t have, or an adult identifying as a child etc and expecting people to go along with the pretence. and would IMO rightly consider this a problem - because it could indicate that they’re potentially controlling, deluded, unstable, inconsiderate etc or that it would place unfair expectations on their colleagues.

IMO what is weird is that we have been brainwashed into not seeing it like this when it’s people claiming to be the opposite sex. Even though that’s considerably less possible or convincing than some of the other false identities people could assume, and even though when it’s men claiming to be women, that comes with significant harms to women. (And I’d argue some harms the other way round too).

I'm guessing this is the case. What I'm wondering about is why she's felt the need to discuss it publicly.

She didn't start a thread on it. Someone questioned her about her 2020 article, in which she had referred to the friend as 'she', and she gave an honest answer to the question. It was towards the end of another thread.

I'm guessing this is the case. What I'm wondering about is why she's felt the need to discuss it publicly.

Agree, avoiding pronouns altogether is what I do - I find it cognitively easier than using the wrong pronoun as well as better ethically / morally.

I'm certain JKR would not use she/her pronouns for a man in a safeguarding context.

The point is that if it's normalised, or overheard, then you do end up with situations where people are deceived about sex where normal English usage would mean they were not.

Same is true of rape crisis counsellors, doctors etc.

If everyone calls Upton 'she' in a medical context then a vulnerable woman may think she's getting a female doctor until confronted with someone who's obviously male with 160% the punch power of her and all the power in that situation and frankly, observing Upton in court, obviously going to get nasty if she then objects. SP has ovaries of steel and asked nicely for him to remove himself from the women's changing room so she could use the space and look how nasty he got then - trying to get her sacked.

It's only because SP is so brave that we know about it. There was mention at the time of Upton complaining about an elderly patient who used correct English pronouns for him. I wonder if that patient was denied medical care as a result, because that's what it says in many of the NHS policies.

I haven't got the brain capacity to remember everything that has been said on this thread, but has anyone pointed out that this seems to be an established friendship of JKR's that may well predate the whole 'TW really are W' nonsense? It would be quite harsh to say to a friend, that you have called 'she' for years, that you are going to call them 'he' from now on. It feels a bit like punishing that individual for the sins of the whole 'trans community'.
The interesting question is what JKR and the rest of us are doing when we meet new trans-identified people. Personally, in social situations where activism would do more harm than good, I am using proper names and, if I absolutely need to reach for a pronoun, I use 'they'.

Telling people, who have genuine concerns of what happens when you capitulate to this ideology, that it is ‘dramatic nonsense’?

Come on now.

If people were complaining about calling a pantomime dame ‘she’ in the middle of a panto? You’d be right.

Being coerced into accepting that males are ‘she’ for the purposes of work, intimate procedures, changing rooms, sport, refuges and female spaces? No. You’re wrong and gaslighting.

Would JKR describe her friend as "she" if she was speaking about him in a situation where safeguarding was relevant? She has not said but she's also been quite clear that both she and he know he's a man. So maybe not. In the guides example the person telling others about Trish have a safeguarding obligation to disclose, however they personally wish to refer to Trish.

I dont believe most of us want to deny trans people protection against discrimination in employment - as long as they are not claiming positions that should be restricted to women. The TRA who is constantly complaining about pronoun use, though, or like Upton looking for anything he can complain about in a colleagues behaviour - yes no-one will want to work with them. That's not discrimination on the basis of gender identity, it's because they are troublemakers Unfortunately those trans people who really just want to get on with their lives are being harmed by those who claim to support them.

No adult who lies about their sex directly or indirectly or anyone else who helps them to do so should be employed to work with children. That should really go into KCSIE but I've done the consultation now and didn't include it. Rats.

And then you get the absolutely rabid TRAs, desperate - seemingly - to get penis into girls spaces labelled 'female only', who don't care about sexual assault of girls if it means men won't feel sad, who will claim that Trisha is a literal woman. So even a parent who is clever enough to say 'Um, I've never met Trisha, can you confirm Trisha is female' could get someone lying to them in the deluded belief they're morally right and following procedure (often). The whole 'Upton is biological and he's a woman so he's a biological woman' deception.

This is also why girls are being forced to strip in front of boys in schools ffs. Claiming boys are literal girls with their penis and 160% punch power and far higher statistical risk in terms of sexual assault. (before we even get to dignity, privacy and eroding boundaries of girls and making them feel that them being valued only and solely as male validation tools is reasonable).

Yes of course, there have always been men, paedophiles, who want to get into spaces where little girls undress, and will go to any length to do so (Catholic Priests, Jimmy Savile). But this obfuscation of what words mean, including what is 'kind', leads to well-meaning idiots helping them.

We've been here before and as the wonderful and much missed LangCleg pointed out creating a sacred caste to whom normal safeguarding does not apply never ends well.

Anyway it sounds like the guy she's using preferred pronouns is some sort of megatwink gay. It would be different if she was she/herring an AGP.

I have a much greater problem with this comment than with what JKR said about her friend. It's an ugly thing to say.

The problem with it is that wrong-sex pronouns are fine in your own home but as soon as you get into social spaces you get into the issue where you using 'she' for a man means anyone you talk to about that person will think it's a woman.

So, for example in the Guides, 'Oh yes Trisha's a volunteer, she's going to be sleeping in the tent with the 12-13 year olds'. And the person you're speaking to, who may be a parent or even a parent with a religion which requires their teen daughters to not disrobe in front of men (though presumably the massive safeguarding risk of sharing with a man without consent or knowledge would be the biggest issue) is deceived- if they haven't met Trisha. So they let their daughters do something they absolutely wouldn't if they knew the truth.

And the fact that Trisha is pretending to be a woman and keeping secrets from parents which enables him to get into spaces with young girls (which is what this scenario is) is, frankly, a much bigger safeguarding failure than if it was openly stated he's a man. It's gaslighting the girls and deceiving the parents.

I think I once would have thought the same thing re not going down that road again, but people have short memories and history does have an unfortunate habit of repeating itself. I think there is a real danger in becoming complacent, especially at this stage when we have really only succeeded in holding back the worst of the tide (and that only recently). The EA2010 as clarified by the FWS judgment and Workplace Regs 1992 are still being openly, routinely flouted (including, I gather, by the government itself) for no better reason than some people don't like the law protecting women and feel empowered to break it with impunity.

I remember asking my mother when younger after learning about what life used to be like for women in various countries (including ours) if she thought women could ever lose the rights we'd gained. She said no, she thought that once we'd established them it would be extremely unlikely that they would be capable of reverse. As we've seen in all sorts of ways in all sorts of countries over the past 10 years - education, dress, physical freedom (Afghanistan), reproductive rights (US), single sex spaces and safe, fair sports (nigh on world-wide) - this is not the case.

The adaptation of language to address and talk about some people in the way they have asked you to talk about them is not going to threaten women's rights as some people seem to think it is.

It isn't even helping the fight, it's just creating a sideline fight where there doesn't need to be one and nothing can be gained by it. You're even fighting with other women now over whether they can call a relative or a great friend "she".

It's also a fight you can't win, since you can't police other women's language and there are plenty of women on this thread who don't see a problem with what Rowling has said or done. It's a thing that now exists, you can't undo it, you can only choose the words that you yourself use.

Women are not defined by being called "she" any more than by how they dress or the way they look or the way they behave.

Women are defined by not having a Y chromosome.

I feel there have been signs in the past that she doesn't see eye to eye with the most dogmatic pronoun-policing GCs, so it makes sense she tweeted this to wind them up a bit and clarify her own views at the same time.

I really get this, and the worry about going down these slippery slopes again. But you can't step into the same river twice, and JKR has done probably more than anyone else to reroute that river. I criticised 'female-coded' upthread (would have been fine with 'feminine'). But I don't think JKR is saying 'what's the harm?' at all. Her caveats around her friend knowing you can't change sex, and respecting single sex spaces, make it clear that conflating sex and gender is where the harm comes in. Not with 'be kind', with the muddled thinking it was used to obscure.

I think, as a society, with a clear head and the full backing of the law it's time to reclaim 'be kind'. People can "call themselves what they want' in the knowledge that they can't change sex. We're not going down that road again.

With apologies for my liberally mixed slope/river/road metaphors!

Because men.

As Naomi Cunningham's fight to be allowed to use correct sex pronouns and words for Dr Upton in court demonstrated - you don't have to codify anything or change any laws in order to run into an issue around this.

If it becomes a social more that refusing to refer to any man who wants to be a woman as 'her' and 'she' is nasty and bigoted and the only reasonable, polite or socially acceptable thing to do is call him 'her' and 'she' if he wants, you will find yourself at risk of losing your legal defence against widely drafted laws such as harrassment (using 'he' and 'man' will no longer be 'reasonable conduct' and even the interpretation of your objective intent will likely shift) because they are, really, dependent on prevailing attitudes of society at large (i.e. what is considered 'reasonable' will have changed over time without the letter of the law ever changing).

You will then find yourself, as Naomi came very close to doing, having to try to explain to a court why a particular 'woman' should not be permitted into the female changing rooms, why you were reasonable to ask management to remove 'her' and why it was reasonable to tell another woman that she was not welcome in your space. That is a far less clear and convincing argument than, "there was a man in the women's changing room and it was therefore reasonable for me to tell him to leave and seek to have him removed by management".

You can argue all you like that really everyone knows we're talking about the latter, even if required to use the language of the former, but human psychology is such that it makes a material difference to the strength of your case, people's reactions and everyone being very clear what we are talking about and what is at stake. A judge is likely to pause more over delivering a judgment that, in balance, this particular man should be permitted to undress in a communal women's changing room because it will hurt his feelings if he's not allowed to, than if he is able to write that this particular woman should be allowed to do so, like all the other women.

This is to say nothing of how it hampers even the flow of speech for barrister and witnesses if no-one is allowed to say what they see and must mentally substitute one word for another before any sentence (like having to avoid the words 'yes' and 'no' or words with the letter 'e' while giving evidence / cross-examining or presenting legal argument).

Just to be devil's advocate about the idea that deciding to refer to an individual using the wrong sex pronouns to be nice to them can have no detriment to women. In my opinion it's less obvious than your examples but is insidious in widely eroding all sorts of protections.

I absolutely disagree that that this has now been debunked and we can now all relax and go home. I'm afraid we're far from out of the woods yet.

As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I have no intention of falling out with people who decide themselves to use incorrect sex pronouns for people and therefore reject the idea that I'm "policing their language".

Do I think it's inadvisable? Yes. Do I think it is likely to prolong the confusion and nonsense around all this? Yes. Do I think it's most likely harmful to everyone involved, including those who are genuinely distressed about their sex? Yes. Will I do it myself? Not if I can possibly avoid it (but I acknowledge that there are some circumstances where other considerations might have to take precedence).

So I politely disagree with their conclusion and choice, but I often understand why people make it.