A response to JK Rowling

[Hjft]

J.K. Rowling, like so many others, has recently been accused of transphobia and targeted for expressing some of her opinions on sex and gender. This is a very nuanced issue which many people struggle with, including members of the trans community. Assuming bigotry and shutting down debate is not the way to address these issues. Instead we should engage in reasoned debate in order to better understand the subtitles and find a way to live together with mutual respect.

On 10 June 2020 JK Rowling wrote about her reasons for speaking out on sex and gender Issues ( www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/ ) . It is a welcome calm voice in what she calls a toxic environment and I commend her bravery for standing up to the bullies. The essay explains eloquently what she believes and why she holds the opinions she does. She opens up about some very personal issues, and I hope all her detractors will read it before shouting her down.

An essay, however well written, carries a bias, and a reasonable author will recognise that bias and be willing to consider that they could be wrong. And so should the reader of an essay. By writing this essay, JK Rowling has exposed some very valid points which the other side of the debate wish to brush aside. However, she has also indicated a bias which I hope to address.

She conflates sex and gender, and she conflates the law and medicine. Firstly she worries that trans activism is ‘pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender’. This legal definition is for the protection of the civil rights of trans people and has no bearing on biology. Trans people still receive healthcare appropriate to their individual biological truths. Every trans person is acutely aware of their biological sex because it is incongruous with their gender. Remember when Harry Potter uses Polyjuice potion to take on the form of Goyle in ‘Chamber of secrets”. He does not stop being Harry. Now imagine if Harry had got stuck, and had to live his life with everyone believing he was Goyle. It would be intolerable for him and would likely lead to mental illness or worse. This is what it’s like for trans people, and why the law is in place to protect their right to be their authentic selves. Being Harry is ‘not a costume’.

This conflation is further illustrated when she expresses alarm that ‘A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law’. Again, this demonstrates a conflation of law and medicine. If a trans person can find relief from their gender dysphoria by permanently expressing themselves in an authentic manner then why should we expect them to accept medical intervention in order to get legal protection. Imagine you have a migraine. If sitting in a dark room with a glass of water provides you with sufficient relief, then you shouldn’t be expected to take strong pain killers or accept brain surgery. The ‘man’ she describes is not masquerading as a woman - she is living her authentic identity as a woman. The law protects her rights to do so. She is not a predator, and it should not be assumed that she is. Without these rights, her transgender status would be revealed every time she tries to hire a car, or open a bank account, and it is her safety that is in danger. A man masquerading as a woman is not able to legally get a Gender Recognition Certificate - because they are a man.

[redacted*] I hope JK Rowling’s essay will mark a turning point in the tone of these discussions, and people can start to properly address them.

• [edited by MNHQ to remove inflammatory content - we're allowing the challenges to this section of the OP to remain]

But then you realise that what they're actually doing - expecting women to budge up and nurture and be human shields and abandon our rights (and our understanding of ourselves) in order to massage their hurt feelings - isn't a rejection of masculinity at all. It's standard male socialisation, it's part of the problem, it's anti-women and anti-feminist.

It also involves pushing out of the door all females who can't tolerate mixed sex spaces - many for reasons of vulnerability - and leaving them with no provision at all so that vulnerable males may have the choice of provision and female surroundings they feel will meet their needs.

No one who pushes this agenda - we've had several in the past few days arguing on the board how foul and evil female people are to say no, and talk about their own female issues and needs when they know how distressing it is to vulnerable males - has ever yet had the guts to tell me what they intend to do for these female people excluded from all provision for them.

I know the answer: it's nothing. Because exclusion is a fitting punishment deserved for the subhuman female who will not abandon her trauma, overcome her disability, abandon her race and her faith and her culture on the spot, and act as support human for the more important people in the world. Whose own traumas, disabilities and belief systems must be respected and supported at all times.

It just interests me that they will never own it. Either it's a nasty truth they have worked on pushing out of sight - and this is a belief system that what is unseen and unsaid stops existing - or they realise that this is an extremely ugly side to this agenda that is indefensible. It would be interesting to know which it is.

I think some of them honestly can't see it, Michelle. They haven't the critical self-awareness to acknowledge that they don't believe in equality for everyone, they only believe in equality for people like them; their egos won't let them analyse their own behaviour because it would reveal that deep down, they don't believe people who aren't like them are really people. So they kick off instead, and get to go off feeling aggrieved instead of doing any self-reflection whatsoever.

they don't believe people who aren't like them are really people

This is it in a nutshell, isn't it?

We're not people, not human, not worth considering. Even some women go along with this. That's the shittiest thing.

@Michelleoftheresistance - I think the main thing about it is that they just don't care. They want what they want, and they're not fussed about the fall out for women who can't cope with it - and if they're left out for the wolves, then so what? They don't need to think about it, because it simply doesn't matter to them, so long as they get what they're after.

We are all aware of the horrible discrimination that gay and bi people have faced and still do face, so it's made some people super sensitive not to do the same to this vulnerable group as well. But somehow, in trying to protect trans people, many are forgetting or just don't care about the ramifications for another vulnerable group: women.

they don't believe people who aren't like them are really people

I’ve seen many whinging about the abuse they get as a “trans” person.

Thing is, as far as I can tell it’s all pretty munch mundane womens issues, that they’ve appropriated - if they are women, why is it trans abuse and not plain old simple misogyny?

Complaining about sexual assaults- bums grabbed in public, being groped, fear of rape. Fear of walking down a dark street with a group of males approaching.

There was a whole list- every single thing was my experience too- so why is it far worse if you’re trans?

I think the main thing about it is that they just don't care. They want what they want, and they're not fussed about the fall out for women who can't cope with it - and if they're left out for the wolves, then so what? They don't need to think about it, because it simply doesn't matter to them, so long as they get what they're after.

And therein is the extreme childishness and pathology endemic in this whole movement.

A certain 19 year old male women's officer (still makes me shake my head that I have to write that) quite frankly explained that women of faith and minority cultures needed to just abandon it all on the spot and validate them as more important. It was like listening to a child, the magical thinking, the absolute egocentrism that those females existed only even in theory to better help the W Officer, the utter lack of any knowledge of what they spoke, it's the voice of the five year old that when you say you can't afford it, tells you to use your card. I suspect others have less naivety and more sense than to say the quiet bit loud like that.

I also remember the young girl interviewed, when an activist beat up Maria Mcllachlan at Hyde Park Corner, with the smartie crazed eyes and excitement, saying "I don't care! (that she's a pensioner and was just beaten up) she's a piece of shit! She deserves it!"

Again, those with such crazed, warped and dislocated from reasonable reality and social behaviours, do not have the competency or capacity to be anywhere near policy making. A crisis team, possibly.

There was a whole list- every single thing was my experience too- so why is it far worse if you’re trans?

Because they're male real people who get to walk through this world with the expectation of full human rights. You and me are female unpeople who don't warrant rights or respect, so when we're assaulted it can be just shrugged off as the natural order of the animal world.

If they really want to talk about the steaming dollop of intersectional shit faced by "trans people," then we should be talking about female-bodied gender-resisters, who get all the crap of being female plus all the crap of being deemed to be doing female wrong.

Men want, men get, good women supply, bad women don't.

I happily self identify as a bad woman.

Is OP still tracking these responses? I wonder if they turned off email notifications before posting? Another couple of pages and they’ll be a thousand emails deep 😂

The main thing about it is that they just don't care.

Well, yes. If it quacks like a duck, then must be a duck. It never ceases to amaze me how these people profess to be women, whilst expressing extreme and open acts of misogyny and other horrible male behaviour.

I have to say, and this honestly perplexes me - why exactly do trans women, especially the self ID demanders who have no intention of full transitioning, why do they WANT to be identified as women? It's not like we have such a great time of it! As Micah says, and as most women know, we get subjected to a heap of harassment, abuse, unwanted sexual attention and assault - as well as being deemed second-class citizens when it comes to rights, pay, medical research and I'm sure many other areas - what is Soooooo fucking attractive about all that? And then, THEN, they WHINGE when it happens to them too! What did they expect?! You want to look like a woman, then you'll find out what it's like being treated like a woman by men.

I just don't get it.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad This is what I don’t get either. Apparently applying for a GRC is dehumanising and lacks dignity and involves jumping through hoops, but if you’re planning to spend the rest of your life as a woman why is it dehumanising to have to provide a couple of pieces of ID to prove you’ve changed your name, a doctors note to say you’ve sought medical confirmation and wait 2 years to prove you’re serious? I’m sure people who apply to be Police Officers go through more rigorous background checks and they’re not claiming it’s dehumanising.

@DuDuDuLangaLangaBingBong

I happily self identify as a bad woman.

Is OP still tracking these responses? I wonder if they turned off email notifications before posting? Another couple of pages and they’ll be a thousand emails deep 😂

I'm a bad woman, too. I'll be a bad woman until the day I die. I hope the OP is still reading and has actually engaged their brain and LISTENED to women, rather than just whimpering on about how tough life is for them. If it's too tough in the kitchen, sunshine, why don't you bugger off back to your bigger salary and smaller workload? I don't give a toss about your feelz.

why exactly do trans women, especially the self ID demanders who have no intention of full transitioning, why do they WANT to be identified as women?

Two reasons: they don't want to be identified as men (and thus potential predators); plus the fetish that dare not speak its name.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad

I have to say, and this honestly perplexes me - why exactly do trans women, especially the self ID demanders who have no intention of full transitioning, why do they WANT to be identified as women? It's not like we have such a great time of it! As Micah says, and as most women know, we get subjected to a heap of harassment, abuse, unwanted sexual attention and assault - as well as being deemed second-class citizens when it comes to rights, pay, medical research and I'm sure many other areas - what is Soooooo fucking attractive about all that? And then, THEN, they WHINGE when it happens to them too! What did they expect?! You want to look like a woman, then you'll find out what it's like being treated like a woman by men.

I just don't get it.

It’s far, far less onerous and far, far cheaper than say, navigating the U.K. immigration/visa system.

(The GRC application fee is waived if you are in receipt of means-tested benefits.)

And it’s far, far less dehumanising than being assessed for disability benefits.

¯\(ツ)/¯

And it’s far, far less dehumanising than being assessed for disability benefits.

As a disabled person if I could opt out of my disability (both for it's actual impact and the treatment I get from the utterly vile processes of the DWP) then I bloody well would.

apparently applying for a GRC is dehumanising and lacks dignity and involves jumping through hoops,

So just like women’s experiences of:
Controlling their fertility
Terminating a pregnancy
Getting access to gynaecological care
Being treated seriously in terms of medical care particularly in the experience of pain eg endometriosis

I could go on ...

Getting access to gynaecological care

How ironic that men have demanded this for reproductive organs that don't exist, meanwhile women are allowed less and less of a say in their own health care and well-being.

why exactly do trans women, especially the self ID demanders who have no intention of full transitioning, why do they WANT to be identified as women? It's not like we have such a great time of it! As Micah says, and as most women know, we get subjected to a heap of harassment, abuse, unwanted sexual attention and assault - as well as being deemed second-class citizens when it comes to rights, pay, medical research and I'm sure many other areas - what is Soooooo fucking attractive about all that?

This.

It's like meeting someone who can walk who looks at your wheelchair and says longingly 'I wish I was disabled and couldn't walk, you're so privileged'. Except TW will largely carry enough privilege and sympathy as TW instead of the mere female kind to be able to identify out of most of the above downsides and many others of having been born female - and why TM often won't be able to. Like that poor TM who sobbed to police after their rape "but I kept telling him I was a man". That haunts me, it absolutely haunts me, that poor person. This is why it should never be possible to identify into a state that those born to cannot identify out of.

But also note - lots of talk about third spaces, the many female people who would be able to happily share mixed sex spaces, this won't do. It's the females who say there are parts of being female that mean we cant do this and here are the issues who are most hated, most reviled - and most chased. The battle is to stamp them out, to get into spaces with them, to remove any loop hole left that meets their needs, to take away everything. Those females are the goal.

Not the Emma Watsons of this world with their happy privilege who could lavish all the affirmation and shared spaces they want - no. They want the females who say no.

Which tells you pretty much all you need to know about what's driving this.

Yep, it does. Which I kind of knew - it is all about putting and keeping women "in their place", which is subject to men's whims.

Which makes it ALL the more infuriating that the woke feminist types just Can't See That.

I do apologise if this has already been linked to somewhere in this thread and I've missed it - but I've just found this elsewhere and I'm beyond gobsmacked by it! Half of it is just untrue and the rest is horrifying!

I'm assuming was written by a young teenage 'incel'

I strongly suspect that some of the non trans men cheerleading TRAs are doing so because they know very well how scared women are of unknown males in our spaces and they like the idea of making us even more scared, and of making sure that there's no place where we will ever be able to feel safe from that fear again. There's a level of malice there that's hard to miss.

Yes, I agree.

1. I don't find my own body "attractive"
2. Wtf?
3. Nope. Still can't. I've tried.
4. Righty-ho.
5. Yeah. I love my hormonal mood swings.
6. Mine have never been sensitive.
7. Only if said lesbians have the sexual orientation that makes them fancy non-natal women.
8. Wtf is a high quality male?
9. Softer skin and less acne. Don't make me laugh. Never been blessed on that front.

10. Eh? 11. I believe male pattern baldness links to high testosterone levels. 12. Hahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! That's why we get paid less, are overlooked for jobs and promotions because we are of child bearing age, that's why men sexually assault us. Need I continue? 13. Except femicide, sexual assault and harassment, muggings, emotional abuse, domestic violence. Need I continue? 14. GET THE FUCK OUT! 15. Sheila's fucking Wheels.