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?

This took boodleoops on twitter half an hour to put together.

I am sure Daniel Radcliffe will be along any minute now to condemn the misogyny she is being subjected to.....

I don’t think she’s wrong in the sense that gender is largely nonsense and that we cannot just ignore the biological realities of sex. However, I also don’t think that trans people should be taking a kicking for being the product of a society that completely pushes the notion of gender upon them. It’s not for us to deny the lived experience of trans individuals but to encourage a society that is less rigidly divided by gender roles and expectations.

@LumpySpacedPrincess

This took boodleoops on twitter half an hour to put together.

I am sure Daniel Radcliffe will be along any minute now to condemn the misogyny she is being subjected to.....

And as usual those replies are full of people going on about transwomen when JKR's tweet was about transmen...

to encourage a society that is less rigidly divided by gender roles and expectations

Otherwise knows as what feminism has been engaged in for rather a long time now.

Never mind just spotted one about transmen. My point still stands however.

Those tweets really are vile though.

Summary... people abusing a woman who created a fantasy world because she doesn't consent to live in one herself.

Saying ‘sex matters’ is considered transphobic, what is horrific about say sex matters?

I do not understand your question

JKR said sex matters....she is being called transphobic

I did not say that ‘sex matters’ is horrific abuse, i said that HE thinks transphobic abuse would be something horrific...not merely someone saying sex matters

Thank you for that lumpy

Guess who is being shown that when they finally get out of bed

I’m with jk on this.

We cannot get rid of the word “woman“. Woman is adult female human. I won’t change that word to please a small minority. I won’t let men erase our language and infiltrate our safe spaces. My dna makes me a woman. And that shapes everything, from the way I think, my fertility, my chance of getting cervical cancer. You cannot change dna.

Why is it important? I am part of a local online running community and just today someone posted about being harassed by men whilst running alone. Some carry alarms, done feel the need to run with a dog, many retold stories where they had been made to feel scared by men whilst alone.

I feel empowered when I’m around other women. I listen to them tell me stories about how they survived cervical cancer, how they defied the odds and became pregnant after years of infertility, how they survived pregnancy loss or going through the menopause, or how they escaped domestic violence. Of course not all these things are Just “women’s issues”... men can still experience the sadness of pregnancy loss... but they will never know how it feels physically.

YABU

I happened to see a JKR thread on another (huge, popular) forum furthering the silly argument that JKR's tweet was insulting to women who no longer menstruate - 'are they not women then??'

Christ alive.

I’m post menopausal, as a result of an extremely chequered gynaecological history of endometriosis and adenomyosis, culminating in a hysterectomy and menopause at 41.

Saying “only women menstruate” does not offend me, because there is no way to (sanely) interpret that to mean that I’m not a woman.

What is insanely fucking offensive, on the other hand, is to drive a fucking great wedge between me and “people who menstruate” when in the ordinary course of things I should still be in that population at this age. I’m not because of illness, illnesses that have had a profound and horrible impact on my life. So where are the bleeding hearts among the woke for me? Where is the protection for my feelings? What do I become in this lexicon- “person who used to menstruate?”. Just “person”? Just nobody?

And the reason that these wokescolds care not a jot for how excluding their newspeak actually is, is that this bilge that passes for social justice is soaked to the bones in misogyny and ageism. Middle aged women do not have the right to an “identity”, or to the words that describe our realities.

I was born a girl, I became a women, I menstruated, I stopped menstruating, and all the way through I remained a woman.

YANBU

Hey, OP, what do you think of the results of your poll? Did they turn out the way you expected, or are you disappointed that all of MN is apparently as “transphobic”* as the feminism boards?

*pro women

YANBU

Why aren't women allowed to speak the truth about ourselves? How is that hateful?!

Everyone else seems able to say what they are

Yanbu. JK Rowling is a hero for taking this stand.

I support her. Did so on FB and had two colleagues tell me I'm wrong and lost a friend. It's all made me pretty miserable and I feel like I'm judged a massive bigot by people, which is exhausting.

I just seem to struggle with women who accept this dogma. It threw me into a pretty low mood all of yesterday.

@BadAlice

I don’t think she’s wrong in the sense that gender is largely nonsense and that we cannot just ignore the biological realities of sex. However, I also don’t think that trans people should be taking a kicking for being the product of a society that completely pushes the notion of gender upon them. It’s not for us to deny the lived experience of trans individuals but to encourage a society that is less rigidly divided by gender roles and expectations.

I agree @BadAlice but why does recognising sex exists and has Real consequences for female people denying the lived experience of trans people?

Why are trans people entitled to have their lived experience regarding gender recognised but women can’t have their lived experience regarding their sex recognised without being ”transphobic”?

Love JKR and admire her so much for standing up for women and the erosion of women’s rights.

I’d quite like (the odious but I find myself agreeing with him more these days) Piers Morgan to shine a light on this whole thing. He has been good at holding the government accountable re. Coronavirus.

Love her.

The thing is the silent majority of women agree with JK. They just won't come out and say it because they don't want to be burned at the steak and called a TERF.

In my close friends and family so women born between 1943-1990 everyone agreed with JK.

So the woke can scream whatever they want on social media, the silent majority disagree, and it's the silent majority who win in the end these days, because if anything goes to a ballot box, the silent majority use their anonymity to excerpt power, many of the silent majority also write to their MP's in secrecy to make their voice heard.

” Why are trans people entitled to have their lived experience regarding gender recognised but women can’t have their lived experience regarding their sex recognised without being ”transphobic”?”

@RoosterPie -this is a very good and important point. Well said.

@Melia100

And who are transmen? Part of the set of women.

Only girls and women have periods.

Yes. And it shouldn't be controversial to say so.

Why are trans people entitled to have their lived experience regarding gender recognised but women can’t have their lived experience regarding their sex recognised without being ”transphobic”?

^This^