JK Rowling, is she being unreasonable? YABU = don't agree with JK, YANBU = do agree with JK **MNHQ edited wonky title**

[Thepigeonsarecoming]

Massive social media debate going on with JK stating “erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives”

Wanted to know outside the feminist board how people feel. Is she being unreasonable in being against transgender people identifying as they feel as in sex. Or is this the normal view and trans gender people should accept they are male/female dependant on their birth?

@JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown I haven’t claimed she said anything abusive. I simply copied part of a tweet. No one here is threatening her

Because it's about control of women.

You do realise that we can worry about this AND the pandemic, the economy, our future and BLM don't you

I didn't express myself very well. What I meant to say was 'OP, you are being unreasonable, and of all the people there are to concern us at the moment, JKR does not make the cut. Because nothing she has said is concerning. The idea, OP, that you want to have a little witch-hunt of JKR is gross.'

This is just a small example of the abuse she's suffered on Twitter from people twisting her words:

YANBU JK is being incredible brave. We need a lot more of her

Oh no. I didn't mean anyone was threatening her here. I haven't seen that and I'm pretty sure MN would remove quickly if they did. The abuse towards her are mostly on twitter and other platforms and they're staying up.
I've reported tweets saying they'd beat her to death if they ever saw her in real life and the tweets haven't been taken down.

That's because Twitter is a sewer and a very unpleasant place for many women.

This is a pointless poll because it isn't based on what Rowling actually wrote.

Why do you say that @bluemoooon? It’s just a thread discussing current affairs
Isn't it a vote on whether you agree with JKR or not and as this is mainly a women's website it will go for JKR which can be quoted online in the future as X% of MN anti-trans.
If it didn't have the vote I would say it was a discussion.

I have to point out that "suck my cock" is a deeply gendered comment, and not one that's indicative of the delicate and vulnerable feminine feelings that many of the individual making those comments claim to have. When women feel attacked we don't issue threats of sexual violence (and wouldn't even if we had penises, which we do not).

@babyboomtastic would add that they would also need to be told for ten years without right of reply that they have to be nice and tolerant to others at all times. To let others go first. To be chosen last for stuff. To have drugs not tested for them because their hormones muck things up and we can't risk that for the real menz. To keep quiet because being righteously angry means you are aggressive and unfeminine. That you are pretty, not clever, resourceful and creative and that that's important. That you have cellulite, too much body hair, not enough head hair, not the right kind of head hair, the wrong boobs, the wrong bottom, the wrong nose, the wrong skin, too many wrinkles, too many spots, etc.

Oh, and if they're in a film they have to stand at the back supporting the male hero and make him look good. Just talk about how they can't wait to meet the right man. Sleep with the Director to get the part. Made to feel like a bitch for complaining. Told you must be a whore/worn the wrong clothes/drunk too much if you've been raped.

To have people not up in arms that a large number of their group have to have their sexual pleasure taken away for life by other members of their group supposedly to avoid promiscuity. That it's dangerous for many of your group to go for a poo at night because there are no decent loos and you risk being raped and even murdered. That a large number of their group has to ask a man if they can have a passport, get a job, drive, go out on their own.

If they want to experience all that, then yes, they can say they know just what it's like to be a woman.

Look I even support trans rights. I don't want to see men who feel trapped in their bodies harm themselves, kill themselves, be beaten up, be abused etc. But how many of these things are at women's hands? So why is that women cop the abuse? Why are women's rights under threat but funnily enough not men's in the same way?

Twitter is a whole stack of blokes having a tanty because JKR is an autonomous woman, and whole stack of women thinking 'oh dear, the poor oppressed tanty havers.'

It's all the most ridiculous palaver I have ever seen, and anyone who thinks JKR has done some terrible thing either has zero comprehension skills or is arguing in bad faith. Or just hates women.

But prodigal that cock was once an amoeba, or something.

But how many of these things are at women's hands?

Virtually nil. It's a male problem, all the way down. It literally has nothing to do with JKR or any other woman who retains enough intelligence to understand that sex matters, and gender should be abolished.

It really is bizarre to see a position held by the vast majority of people framed as both bigotry most vile and somehow unusual. Do these people not have family members they talk to? Friends without anime or furry avatars? Cause "only women are capable of menstruation" isn't exactly controversial outside of small pockets of the internet.

It's like if I said "dogs don't meow" and everyone gasped and went "how dare you?"

Just odd and a bit ridiculous, like do you not hear yourselves?

My BF used to work in a gender re-asignment surgery clinic, (NHS) Can accept a minority of people feel they were born in the wrong body, I got a lot of flack because I had an article published saying it was a problem in the mind not the body, in the same way some anorexics see themselves as fat, different types of body dysmorphia.and surely this could be overcome in some way, rather than extensive complicated surgery,hormone treatment. One of mine own DD "thought" at 14 she wanted to become a boy, (ironically because of dreadful heavy painful periods) and had a friend at 9 who was convinced she wanted to become a boy, cut off her hair and only wore boys clothes. Then both went on to be very "girly" girls. The fact that some people actually change their mind after surgery, or hormones has been largly hushed up. Course, these days, you only have to say you "are a woman(man) or identify as one, and thats it, you ARE

@TreeTopTim

She isn't against transgender people she is pro women. There is a difference. She, like many other people, is just sick of women's rights being eroded.

This nails it absolutely. Women’s rights are always supposed to come after everybody else’s.

If a trans woman's skeleton were to be dug up in 200 years, they'd be identified as a man.
Daniel Radcliffe has always struck me as being a bit people pleasing and inadequate tbh. Very 'Like me! Like me!' in interviews. It was endearing when he was a young teenager but it's such a shame that he hasn't grown out of it.
Can someone explain why it's ok for a man to 'be' a woman because they say they are but I can't (quite rightly) identify as black?

I am a bame women. Though, as i am of mixed heritage with very light skin, most people think I am white.

Despite being a bame women, my lived experience is not that of a black woman. Black women really suffer under structures that are actively, racist and sexist. More than black men and more than white women.

Despite being bame, i would not darken my skin and tell black women, what their experience is. I would not tell black women, that they are what I say they are and erase their experiences, erase their struggles, erase their concerns.

I dont sit here and pretend my life has been exactly the same as theirs. I certainly don't darken my skin and tell them what it means to be a black woman.

Being mixed heritage has its own struggles. Just like being trans has its own struggles. That doesnt mean i can take over black womens issues and claim them from my own.

I am not a black woman. I never will be.

Your sex is a fact. Its in every cell of your body. It impacts you everyday.

Transwomen are trans women. Even taking hormones their skeletal and muscular structures are not that of biological females.

They haven't grown up and lived as females. I dont know what it's like to be trans woman. Thats not my experience.

Its not OK for transwomen to tell me what being a biological woman is. Its not OK when its race, its not OK when its sex.

Trans people should be able to live their lives. They shouldn't be attacked for being trans. They should present as whatever gender they want. But their sex is, unchangeable.

And quite frankly, most trans people, know this. Theres a smallish, but vocal group who are misogynist bullies, who use anything they can to silence biological women. And do you know why? Because their male privilege has taught them that behaviour.

I have been absolutely dragged through Twitter in the last 24hrs for tweeting in support of JK and expressing disappointment at her attempted silencing by DR.

Been told to “stfu terf” more times than I can count. Accused of hate and misgendering (did neither). I almost expected it from men but a good number of the people telling me to “pipe down” and that I’m not a feminist if I “don’t include all women” are women.

I don’t know how JKR does it. I regret sticking up for biological fact and I probably won’t be doing it again on Twitter. The hate flooding my notifications and telling me to stfu is frankly too much.

I’m here bfing my baby. The one that was finally born after decades of endometriosis, period pain, gynae investigations, IUI, Clomid, IVF, miscarriages, a ruptured ectopic that nearly killed
me. Not experiences shared by all women, but NONE of these experiences shared by transwomen.

But I’ve learned today that nobody cares that it’s so.

Let's look at covid. Males are at far more risk from complications and death from covid.

Do you believe transwomen have the same risk as biological males or women?

We may find out later down the line that transwomen are impacted at the same rate biological women are. That transmen are impacted the at the same rate as biological males.

That doesnt mean they are biological women. That means there is an external factor and that the risk wasnt down to being male and female.

It wouldnt mean that covid, recognises gender rather than sex. Or that covid recognises someone's desire to be a different sex.

100% agree with Trevsadick