To ask about JK Rowling - can someone tell me what happened?

[christmaspigeon]

Just that really. I like her. I like how she gives so much for charity and how she put Trump in his place, but I know people's views on her have changed. Something to do with trans comments?? Can someone explain (in really simple language!) what happened? Thank you!

You don’t seem to let anyone else have an opinion.
@MorganKitten

Opinions are great, I enjoy hearing all sides (hence how I educated myself out of being a TRA). What is a bit of a nuisance is when people state their opinions like fact and then refuse to back them up. You cant accuse people of being bigoted without solid evidence. It's rude and destructive, and stalls intelligent debate. That's the greatest issue with talking to someone like yourself. You have decided you're right, anyone who disagrees is a bigot and there's no room for discussion. Even when plenty of women are saying there is.

I feel she is transphobic and given reasons why. I support all women. I don’t just see a vagina as what makes a women, funny how when men are sexist it’s because of how they see women... yet some women are the same.

What is your definition of 'woman'?

What, specifically, has JKR actually said that is transphobic?

I know you 'don't want to get drawn into it' ( wonder why that is? ) but you can at least answer those questions?

@Quaagars

Why do you and those who come out with the same stuff always turn tail and flee?

Turn tail and flee?
You realise they're still on the thread and haven't gone anywhere, right?
Or are you just pretending that's what "not talking to brick walls" means?

Hey, I'm not arsed who answers the golden question me.

No one can ever, ever give an example if something JK Rowling has said that is transphobic - despite her writing an entire essay on the issue!

It's always 'oooh she referred to Magdalen Berns (complete with the same SINGLE tweet out of 17,000 tweets where Magdalen was being harassed and lost her shit, rehashed over and over and over again), oooh she linked to this website, oooh she chose a pen name that isnt even the actual name of some obscure guy who floated gay conversion therapy).

And then it's always 'I'm not going to get drawn into a debate, it's pointless'.

Yaaawwwwwnnnnn!

LGB Alliance is NOT a hate group. Saying something often enough does not make it true. That is what the lies are based on. Saying something often enough.
And I’ve still yet to see something- even one short line - that JK Rowling has said that is transphobic. Unless you think saying Sex is real, or calling for women to be actually be called women is transphobic?

Because I have an open mind and don’t just see a vagina as what makes a women.

‘Female’ isn’t a status or an identity and it doesn’t denote value . It’s just a boring term like blood type. We have value simply because we are human.

However people with vaginas will always need specific rights because of what having a vagina implies. I can’t just walk away from the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy, whatever I feel about my identity.

I don’t speak for J K Rowling, but I believe that stuffing people into gender categories and attacking language that women need to describe their needs so that they can participate equally in society is regressive and oppressive.

If you call the desire to protect women’s rights ‘phobic’, you need to consult a dictionary and find out what ‘phobic’ means.

Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful

The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition

I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection

Some examples of what JKR really wrote about trans people in the essay linked upthread. What a terrible, terribly bigoty bigot.

The most frustrating thing about this debate is the insistence from some trans allies that they alone are able to understand what people really think. “Ah, she says that, but really she’s transphobic, it’s a dog whistle” etc.

Well if she is, then I am too. We all are. Biology is. Reality is. Now what word can we use for the small minority of people who really are transphobic, in that they actually wish to harm or do harm trans people in the real world, rather than just having unapproved opinions on the Internet?

oooh she referred to Magdalen Berns (complete with the same SINGLE tweet out of 17,000 tweets where Magdalen was being harassed and lost her shit

Well, that makes all the difference, if it was only said once and then only because "they made her do it" can't possibly be anything wrong with it.
Have you heard yourself?

Medieval peasant 1:That woman is a witch!
Medieval peasant 2: Can you provide evidence of her being a witch?
MP1: I feel that she is a witch.
MP2: That's not evidence.
MP1: I'm not going into a debate. I support all women.

Well, we may not have had answers, but at least we've had a reading recommendation of the silkworm. When I'm through with troubled blood that is.

@Passmeabottlemrjones

I feel she is transphobic and given reasons why. I support all women. I don’t just see a vagina as what makes a women, funny how when men are sexist it’s because of how they see women... yet some women are the same.

What is your definition of 'woman'?

What, specifically, has JKR actually said that is transphobic?

I know you 'don't want to get drawn into it' ( wonder why that is? ) but you can at least answer those questions?

Would love to know the answer to both these questions.

Well said Persistentwoman!

@TheChampagneGalop

Medieval peasant 1:That woman is a witch! Medieval peasant 2: Can you provide evidence of her being a witch? MP1: I feel that she is a witch. MP2: That's not evidence. MP1: I'm not going into a debate. I support all women.

Loolll! Reminds me of Blackadder. Hair proves it!

So facts are phobic to reality; sounds like one of those odd cults where all the preachers compete. They sound like cranks.

Eventually people will wise up and claim to have had nothing to do with it.

Well, that makes all the difference, if it was only said once and then only because "they made her do it" hmm can't possibly be anything wrong with it.
Have you heard yourself?

I assume with the 'they made her do it' you are comparing with when violent men beat the shit out of their girlfriend or murder their wife and say 'she made me do it', with a woman who said something mean....

Women and their mean words eh....

You really don't come across like you think you do.

@TheChampagneGalop

Medieval peasant 1:That woman is a witch! Medieval peasant 2: Can you provide evidence of her being a witch? MP1: I feel that she is a witch. MP2: That's not evidence. MP1: I'm not going into a debate. I support all women.

Lol, yep.

JK Rowling is a woman to be admired and stood up to be counted when it really matters.

Biological differences are our lived reality and not a "choice" or "feeling" or how we'd like to be perceived.

Wishing our voices to be heard on this matter is not to be phobic (as if needs saying, but sadly does have to be repeated).

Witchsmeller: Do you deny that you were seen, on the Feast of St. Jacob the Turgid, speaking to this little cat Bubbles?
Edmund: Well, of course I deny it!
Witchsmeller: Ah, but the chambermaid Mary heard you say, and I quote, "Hello, little Bubbles, would you like some milk?"
Edmund: Well, I might have said that.
Witchsmeller: Ah! and what did you mean by it?
Edmund: Well I meant, would the cat like some milk.
Witchsmeller: Milk? What did you mean by milk?
Edmund: I meant milk, bloody milk!
Witchsmeller: Bloody milk! A mixture of milk and blood!
Edmund: No, no, just milk!
Witchsmeller: Ah, the blood was to come later!
Edmund: There wasn't any blood!
Witchsmeller: SO YOU HAD TO MAKE DO WITH MILK!

Because I have an open mind and don’t just see a vagina as what makes a women.

Nor do we. Women can be anything they want to be. They're just female. That's all. Never male. Words mean things.

For that matter, why is what your trans friends feel more important than what my women friends feel?

Yes, I'd like an answer to that.

They were founded because they felt that the likes of stonewall had lost interest in supporting lesbian gay and bisexual people,

And also because they make a distinction between those who are same-sex attracted, and those who have adopted gender ideology ie those who claim a "gender identity.

The LGB alliance holds that support for the rights of those who are same-sex attracted and those who claim a gender identity & specifically a transgender identity, are not the same, and in some caes are at odds with each other. For example, calling lesbians who are not interested in transwomen 'transphobic.'

LGB Alliance is simply maintaining there is a category difference between same-sex attracted people and transpeople. As is their right to do.

We don't require that trans supporting organisations also put a campaign for animal rights at their centre? Or a campaign for indigenous people? Or some other oppressed group, do we?

Mind so open brain has fallen out.

Not including the mock apology essay she wrote this year.

It wasn't intended as an apology. I'm not sure why you think it was. She is standing for women and girls and the safeguarding of vulnerable children. She doesn't have anything to apologise for. She was just laying out her position and explaining why she holds the views she does.

@TheChampagneGalop

Medieval peasant 1:That woman is a witch! Medieval peasant 2: Can you provide evidence of her being a witch? MP1: I feel that she is a witch. MP2: That's not evidence. MP1: I'm not going into a debate. I support all women.

BURN HER

It all bottles down to when is a human being a woman and when not. Is it someone who says they are, regardless of their sex, or is it someone based on their sex, regardless of what they say they are? Supporters of 'trans rights' believe the first, supporters of womens rights say the second one. The second one is written into UK law, so the second group actually has the law on their side. So why is the second group, the one with legal backing, clear definitions and a defined purpose, the group that is villified and told they are hateful and bigoted? Mmm, wonder why it is women who lose out to men and the ex-men who don't want to be called men...