To agree with JK Rowling?

[StraightenUpAndFryRight]

mobile.twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1207646162813100033

‘Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?
#IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill’

The vast majority of transpeople aren't forcing their beliefs on you, though, are they?

No they really aren't.

However, organisations like Stonewall (who may or may not represent most trans people) really are.

Brilliant idea Jean!

Allowing organisations to set the rules on what is and is not acceptable to think and say is a pretty dangerous path, don’t you think?

No, I don't really agree with this statement.

For one thing, no one is setting the rules on what it is acceptable to think - unless a mindreading device has been invented, that's impossible.

For another, it is usual to have rules in the workplace about what language is considered acceptable and what isn't. If you have no rules, where do you draw the line - we would be back in the 1950s - sexism, racism, homophobia - before you know it, if an 'anything goes' policy was applied.

I appreciate that the thread has moved on. Just wanted to add a link to an article posted on the JKR Twitter thread.

It's the first time I've heard or read a trans-woman saying that actually, no, trans-women are not women.

A well-written and thoughtful piece, worth a look if you've not seen it before

quillette.com/2018/03/30/plea-trans-activists-can-protect-trans-rights-without-denying-biology/

I agree. And it’s not like she said anything actually incendiary, like transwomen are men. She just said Maya Forstater shouldn’t have been kicked out of her job for saying you can’t physically change sex.

She’s getting a lot of abuse all over social media as far as I can see. Several folk on my Facebook saying ugh, fuck off JK etc. It’s shit.

And fucking hell, it’s not like something as egregious as Holocaust denial, where there is heaps of physical, empirical evidence.

Thanks for the link @EvenSupposing - got distracted with a tricky bit of my jigsaw puzzle. See you in there! First round on me

Compelled speech - making someone's employment conditional on them speaking a lie.

Avoiding a slur - avoiding a slur. No compulsion to utter a lie.

Not the same things at all.

Why should Gregor Murray, in this case, have the right to get a woman he doesn't work with denied work, because he insists - despite all appearances physical and behaviour-wise to the contrary - that he is a mythical neither man nor woman ? And that Maya must, on her own time, on her own accouts, out of the workplace, pretend he is a mythical neither man nor woman, at all times. Or else be sacked ? Not in a million years would I waste one cell of cognitive energy on trying to remember Gregor - he of 'woman are c*nts' - believes himself to be a very special category of human. Born a man ? Act like a man ? Look like a man ? Abuse women like a man ? I'll call you a man.

Even religions don't demand this level of ideological adherence from non-followers.

Men like this are taking the piss. And some women line up to help them do it.

The vast majority of transpeople aren't forcing their beliefs on you, though, are they?

No. There is no forcing of any beliefs going on anywhere

Also, even if I wasn't quite so blunt about it, I would expect to be able to say to my religious friend 'I don't believe in God' without risking my job. Even if it upset her and offended her. I would expect to be able to (and in fact have done in the past) say to religious colleagues 'that's nice but I'm atheist and don't believe' without risking my job.

But I can't refer to someone who is obviously male as 'he' without risking my job?

To be honest if they believe it so sincerely then it shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks should it? The fact that the whole thing relies on everyone else lying and playing along, being 'polite and courteous' in order for it to even work says it all.

Can you give me another example of any other kind of situation where someone is compelled by law to lie in order not to offend?

For another, it is usual to have rules in the workplace about what language is considered acceptable and what isn't. If you have no rules, where do you draw the line - we would be back in the 1950s - sexism, racism, homophobia - before you know it, if an 'anything goes' policy was applied.

In this instance the place where this organisation has drawn the line impedes employees from doing their job.

For another, it is usual to have rules in the workplace about what language is considered acceptable and what isn't. If you have no rules, where do you draw the line - we would be back in the 1950s - sexism, racism, homophobia - before you know it, if an 'anything goes' policy was applied.

You don't have to lie in order to avoid being homophobic, racist or sexist. You do have to lie in order to avoid being transphobic. It's not comparable.

A human adult male is in fact a man though. A person of colour is not a n* word. The first is fact the second is a derogatory slur. There is nothing offensive about speaking the truth. Misgendering is a stupid fucking term that isn’t a thing for fucks sake, not when talking about calling an adult human male a man, that’s just fact. Now I’m a woman, if you call me a man that would be misgendering, and do you know what- it doesn’t fucking do me any harm at all. Someone calls me sir or he (rarely happened but occasionally words come out muddled) it doesn’t do me any harm at all, it’s not an insult, it doesn’t do literal violence or all the other crap that’s claimed. If someone was to mistake me for a man (never happened but I guess it’s possible that it could happen to other women, more butch ones I guess) and say oi your a bloke what are you doing using the ladies, I’d simply say am I fuck and get on taking a piss out my fucking vagina. It’s not that deep, ‘man’ is not a fricken insult.

Again, misgendering is not a thing.

Policing language employees use outside work is policing their thoughts. And it has only very recently become usual to control language itself - as opposed to behaviour - in the workplace. It used to be that social norms about what is appropriate behaviour for the workplace were considered sufficient. My sister works for a big multinational. There’s a list of actual words they are not supposed to use because, in some cases, a single person found them offensive once. Most of them are really benign. Personally I find it abhorrent but if you’re good with having your ability to use perfectly acceptable language restricted by your employer, good for you.

There are plenty of transwomen out there (and transmen) who have zero issue with the idea that they do not change sex in any way, shape or form. They transition to deal with intractable gender dysphoria, prefer to be treated as if they were the opposite sex (although why anyone would want to be treated like a woman - I mean, just look at the abuse JKR is getting for being a woman with an opinion!), but can handle reality being reality.

The book burning JKR is scum crowd call these transmen and transwoman, 'truscum', which gives you another good indication - if book burning wasn't enough - that TRA's are very much on the wrong side of this debate.

Imagine calling a person who has ben transitioned for decades, had very invasive surgery as a last attempt at living a life with gender dysphoria dialled down, who has plenty of life experience trying to identity WITH women, but keeps their sense of reality grounded, scum.

Imagine being that kind of person. The Gregor Murray kind of person. Women are cunts, and transexual transwomen are scum. And he is worth more in the eyes of the law than any of the rest of us.

That projected sign is so sinister!
Op I can't vote as on the app but I agree with you.
I'll be honest, until about August last year I used to get really irritated by the Feminism board posts popping up in active, and planned to hide them when I next went on the browser version. Something happened with ocado (and I was seriously their biggest fan, loyal customer of ten years, freebies every month), I clicked on to see what they were banging on about now and was fucking horrified. Those women on FWR are like the characters (animals?) in horror films that are trying to alert the smiling, unaware lead characters that you want to scream at to listen to them. That's a clumsy way of putting it but they've changed my entire outlook on life and radicalised me. My head's above the parapet and JKR has emboldened me

Can you give me another example of any other kind of situation where someone is compelled by law to lie in order not to offend

Yes, I'd like to hear an answer to this too.

Women who prioritise being 'kind' over the dangers of compelled speech may be thinking that it doesn't cost them anything to lie, so why should it cost anyone else ?

I'm thinking of the woman who was attacked by a trans activist (He was found guilty of the attack, by the way). The Judge in her case punished her for her refusal to lie about the sex of her attacker. He punished her by reducing damages. So in this case, it cost her money, money that she deserved as a victim of assault at the hands of a male.

Now imagine the women in shelters after DV placed in a room with a male, and required to lie daily that the man is a woman. What's the cost to her mental and physical health ? Well, if she doesn't lie, she could be kicked out of the shelter, either onto the street or back into the home of her abuser...are other women OK with that cost ?

Can you give me another example of any other kind of situation where someone is compelled by law to lie in order not to offend?

Yes - at the risk of someone misinterpreting them as my opinions in order to discredit my arguments, or leaping to the conclusion that I am saying all these things are offensive in the same way and to the same degree - there are numerous examples.

• Someone who for religious reasons doesn't believe in same sex relationships would not be allowed to express this view in the workplace (remember the case of the 'support gay marriage' cake?)

• Someone who believed in Nazi-style racial hierarchy theories wouldn't be allowed to express those views in the workplace.

• Someone who believed women were inferior to men wouldn't be allowed to express that view in the workplace.

Essentially, anything that would be outlawed as hate speech, or discriminatory speech, might compel someone else to lie if they, however abhorrently, genuinely held views that are hateful or discriminatory.

The vast majority of transpeople aren't forcing their beliefs on you, though, are they?

The belief that men can be women is forced upon us. It doesn't matter how many trans people believe it, it's becoming accepted and is affecting women and girls and giving us fewer opportunities than we had previously.

Even religions don't demand this level of ideological adherence from non-followers.

Men like this are taking the piss. And some women line up to help them do it.

Indeed. And at least it's getting some exposure now.

For another, it is usual to have rules in the workplace about what language is considered acceptable and what isn't.

And who decides that?

Who decides that words like transsexual and homosexual are suddenly 'dated'? Who decides that the people who use those terms to describe themselves are no longer relevant?

Imagine calling a person who has ben transitioned for decades, had very invasive surgery as a last attempt at living a life with gender dysphoria dialled down, who has plenty of life experience trying to identity WITH women, but keeps their sense of reality grounded, scum.

But many on the anti-TRA side don’t believe gender dysphoria is even a thing. They think it is a mental illness.That is not a constructive way to engage with genuine non TRA transgender/transsexual people.

Not being allowed to express X in the workplace is still not the same as being compelled to express X in the workplace.

I think this is quite clear - not sure why anyone is continuing to find this confusing ?

And yeah, of course it's offensive to state that the spoken fact that humans do not change sex is equivalent to white supremacy.

I’m very confused about the issue here. I am currently educating myself but can I ask in simple terms what happened.

Maya is not ok with GI. Judge ruled against her saying she is absolutist. But sex is either male or female and you cannot change that so it is absolute, is it not? Or have I missed something? Am prepared to be told I’m wrong!

The difference though with those things you've identified nun is that there are things that the majority of the public would consider unacceptable, so it's done by consent. It's the opposite way around with belief about whether men can become women, most people believe you can't change sex, yet this is being foisted upon us nonetheless.

I agree with everything she said. Brave lady herself.