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What has JK Rowling said or done that’s transphobic

165 replies

Ducketta · Today 13:26

Another thread has said that they don’t want their thread to be derailed. Y HK Rowling and morals, so I’ll start one. Can anyone please tell me what JK Rowling has ever said or done that’s transphobic? Please be specific and outline how she has been offensive to trans people and not just been protective women and girls hard fought right to separate single sex spaces.

I cannot find anything whatsoever that she has done wrong. Nothing. Nada. And yet this JK Rowling = queen of transphobia myth persists. And it’s bloody tiresome.

OP posts:
Grammarnut · Today 16:33

Soontobe60 · Today 14:45

Saying that a male is not a female isn’t “denying” anyone’s existence.

Also, afaik, she doesn't deny their existence, does she. She just says men can't be women, which is so true it is banal.

MoistVonL · Today 16:34

LVPLVT
There was also something about a character that she had in a novel that was dressing as a female to lure and kill women while having weird sexual fixations. That was taken by some to be a poor representation of the trans community within the context of her overall stance and comments.

That was what was claimed, initially by someone who had not actually read the book. (Troubled Blood.) It grew from there into her writing a book entirely intended to vilify trans people.

I've just been reading the Galbraith novels. In the second one (The Silkworm) there is a very sympathetic portrayal of a vulnerable trans character called Pippa (Philip on the driving licence) that Robin refers to by preferred pronouns and is very kind to, despite the character being violent initially.

Funny how all those kicking off about the Strike books forget that.

Grammarnut · Today 16:45

Lacksie · Today 14:02

Saying “I don’t believe Catholic doctrine” is comparable to saying “I don’t believe gender identity corresponds to biological sex.” But Rowling repeatedly goes considerably further than that. She has described trans women as “men performing their idea of femaleness”, called a trans woman a “cosplaying man”, described recognising some trans women as women as a “foundational falsehood”, and repeatedly framed trans-inclusive policies in terms of men gaining access to women and providing “cover to predators”. The equivalent wouldn’t therefore be simply saying “I don’t believe Catholicism is true”. It would be repeatedly characterising Catholics themselves as pretending, fraudulent or dangerous.

But all the things JKR has said about gender ideology is true.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · Today 16:50

Oh, MoistVonL, if you get to Troubled Blood can you tell us whether the character was said to have worn women's clothes (including, according to one review, a dress, and to another, habitually) on more than one occasion on which it was in response to a particular circumstance?

The interesting thing is that the summaries of the book in the first page of an on-line search don't mention even cross-dressing, let alone trans!

FlirtsWithRhinos · Today 16:51

FloraFaunaFires · Today 15:45

This thread would be a whole lot simpler if most of the folk on it said that they were transphonbic themselves and so is JK Rowling.

Most of you are saying 'I don't like trans people and think trans people don't have the right to self determination not rights to access a bathroom that corresponds with their identified gender and lowers their risk of violent attack.'

That is transphobia.

Deliberately misgendering someone, or thinking you get to question others gender because they don't appear enough like a woman to you (as JK Rowling has done, accusing a woman boxer and various others of being trans, with no evidence) IS transphobia.

Being a trans-exclusionary feminist IS transphobia

JK Rowling using her fortune and noteriety to fund people through court who are trying to exclude trans people from spaces IS transphobia because she is specifically and repeatedly going after a vulnerable population.

Equating trans people to sexual predators or accusing them or sexual deviance IS transphobia.

The whole bathroom debate is madness because it is anti-feminist - it makes women less safe by creating a culture where we feel free to constantly question other people's gender and demand proof because they don't appear 'woman' enough to us - ie they don't conform to societal expectations of women. It creates danger for women who are deemed to have 'masculine' body types, facial hair such as through having PCOS etc.

Trans women do not make your bathrooms unsafe.

Dangerous men will do as they please regardless. They also now would be able to present themselves as being trans men using the women's bathroom, as now required by law, so you really haven't solved any problems this way!

Look.

Genderism is fundamentally sexist. There is no getting away from that.

Firstly, because the belief that the thing that makes men and women different is mental rather than physical requires that you believe some ways of thinking and feeling are only correct for "women" and others are only correct for "men".

And secondly, because it requires that the female half (and indeed the male half) of humanity cannot have language that refers to us and to us alone simply for the commonality of our sex.

And this even though being female has had serious consequences, physical, social and economic, that still affect how we experience ourselves within society today.

Which is crazy when you think about it! I mean, we have words to differentiate between various shades of ginger hair, but apparently not something as significant as the basis on which we have been abused, belittled, marginalised, even at times been legally literal propery of men!

Now sure, you can hide the sexism by pretending that "men" and "women" don't refer to sex snd claiming something that impacts on the female (or indeed male) half of humanity can't therefore be sexist because it isn't hurting "women" (or men) unfairly, but that just moves words around. It doesn't change which people feel the impact.

That is what people are reacting to.

Not some irrational desire to hurt trans people by pointing out that their gender does not override their sex, but the need to protect the reality of sex in law, society and culture because sex has consequences.

It isn't fair to just bundle female people legally, socially or culturally in with whatever it is mentally that trans women feel makes them a "woman" (or assume we are mentally outside whatever it is that trans men feel makes them a "man") without bothering to find out how we see ourselves or to consider what changing the basis on which we exist legally, socially and culturally means for us.

And really, all this can be solved in an instant by simply recognising that if sex and gender are different, as trans people themselves clearly prove they are, they should simply just have different names. Leave "man" and "woman", "boy" and "girl" to refer simply to sex and coin new terms, new concepts, to capture and understand and support this thing that is "Gender".

And not because that's the "right" meaning (words are just words) but simply because that was the meaning when those words were used to write our laws and histories and stories. It's the meaning those words had when Feminists came together to understand our shared experiences and the social structures that created them, so it's the most practical way forward. Otherwise we'd have to rewrite all those things to clarify they do and always did refer to the female half of humanity not sinply those who feel a commonality of a certain gender.

So please. Spare me this superficial idea that this is all about being nasty to transwomen. This isn't about them at all really. It's about the right of women to exist in our own right, retain our own language that links us to each other and to our history and our rights, and to ne allowed to describe our own experiences and needs and self knowledge entirely outside of a man's frankly irrelevant image of what he thinks we are.

No one is saying trans people can't be who they are. We are just saying don't use the language of sex to name it because that has consequences far bigger than trans people's feelings, however genuine they may be.

Mouldemort · Today 16:51

This chap has done some helpful videos from a trans perspective, though it is from two years' ago. She's got even worse since then.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzlI__xX_74

Mouldemort · Today 16:55

And here's a recent, straightforwardly transphobic quote tweet with an anti-trans slur.

x.com/jk_rowling/status/2065916054660935694

Ducketta · Today 16:55

Mouldemort · Today 16:51

This chap has done some helpful videos from a trans perspective, though it is from two years' ago. She's got even worse since then.

I can’t get past the ‘denying that trans women are women’ he starts with. Trans women aren’t women. Fact. What’s the issue?

OP posts:
AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · Today 16:55

I suppose that what with the inquisition and the penalties for heresy and the threat of hell, the Roman Catholic Church did try for several centuries to enforce its beliefs on the entire population. They have been defanged in this country now, but they used to be very powerful indeed and still are in many places. So saying you don't believe their doctrine is safe enough here and now, but that's not always (been) the case.

And come to think of it, the behaviour of some RC priests with regard to abusing children means many people are suspicious of all RC priests. I can suddenly see parallels.

SparklingTurquoiseOcean · Today 16:57

Mouldemort · Today 16:51

This chap has done some helpful videos from a trans perspective, though it is from two years' ago. She's got even worse since then.

Respectfully I'll pass thanks I don't class one sided you tube videos as a viable source of information. Why on earth would you have such a username if you don't like JK Rowing? I get it's meant to be some kind of witty play on words but it just shows how rent free she lives in your head.

backformoreofthesame · Today 17:00

transwomen are not women - that’s just fact. indeed it’s the very definition - a man who identifies as a women is a transwoman. Someone whose gender identity doesn’t match their sex.

Funnywonder · Today 17:03

thesilliestgoose · Today 15:58

Those threads are started for actual discourse and not disingenuous. Maybe if you stop worrying about strangers genitals you’ll be able to discern the difference.

How on earth can you tell from my comment about someone’s right to start a discussion that I’m ‘worried about’ strangers’ genitals? I’m worried about a lot of things, but that ain’t one of them. I would suggest that you are projecting. You might be able to seek help for that.

Scout2016 · Today 17:04

Mouldemort · Today 16:10

You can find tons of examples, but all the transphobes simply say the transphobia is not transphobic, because no one wants to acknowledge their own bigotry. Many people including her have been radicalised and "I agree with JK Rowling" doesn't suggest that she isn't transphobic, simply that they are. Her latest glorious effort is to body shame and post an up-skirt a trans woman which apparently is strictly legal.

You do know that photo is easily findable?
Freda Wallace on a platform for a panel discussion, sat down in knee high boots, fishnets and a very tiny skirt, with one leg resting on the knee of the other - not cross legged but leg raised so more can be seen than anyone wants to. It would have been impossible to take many photos of him at that event that weren't showing his crotch area, he arrived wearing next to little then got progressively drunker and sloppy in his body language.

That is not upskirting and it's offensive to suggest it is. Makes an absolute mockery of the damage done to those who really do suffer these crimes.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · Today 17:09

backformoreofthesame · Today 17:00

transwomen are not women - that’s just fact. indeed it’s the very definition - a man who identifies as a women is a transwoman. Someone whose gender identity doesn’t match their sex.

The only way to travel from one place to another is to be in the first place in the first place.

I would have thought that stood to reason.

Thus only a man can become a transwoman; and since chopping off bits of your anatomy or taking powerful and somewhat destructive drugs (for the 95+% of transwomen who don't have surgery) doesn't actually make you into a woman, transwomen can't actually become women.

This is extremely sad, because such people have so much invested in the whole business. I just wish they could find ease – just not at the expense of fifty per cent or more of the population.

MoistVonL · Today 17:11

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime , I finished book 4 today (Lethal White) but I'll be away for a short while before I've time to start Troubled Blood. I'll be sure to let you know once I get to it.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · Today 17:19

Scout2016 · Today 17:04

You do know that photo is easily findable?
Freda Wallace on a platform for a panel discussion, sat down in knee high boots, fishnets and a very tiny skirt, with one leg resting on the knee of the other - not cross legged but leg raised so more can be seen than anyone wants to. It would have been impossible to take many photos of him at that event that weren't showing his crotch area, he arrived wearing next to little then got progressively drunker and sloppy in his body language.

That is not upskirting and it's offensive to suggest it is. Makes an absolute mockery of the damage done to those who really do suffer these crimes.

Edited

What he was doing was very much the behaviour of a flasher, really. Except we know it wasn't actually his genitals that were on show to the audience, it was a roll of fat on his upper thigh, thank goodness.

Thinking about this: are there any cases of women being flashers? Since I was a very small child we have all known about men who wave their willies around in public to alarm and distress women, but do women ever do the same thing to alarm and distress men? The only example of something similar that I can think of is the streaker who invaded the Twickenham rugby match wearing nothing on the top half of her body, but I don't think she alarmed or distressed anyone.

BackToLurk · Today 17:28

Mouldemort · Today 16:10

You can find tons of examples, but all the transphobes simply say the transphobia is not transphobic, because no one wants to acknowledge their own bigotry. Many people including her have been radicalised and "I agree with JK Rowling" doesn't suggest that she isn't transphobic, simply that they are. Her latest glorious effort is to body shame and post an up-skirt a trans woman which apparently is strictly legal.

And once again I find myself back watching Peter Tatchell muttering “no more wine”. So thanks for that at least.

BlueSkiesAndSunshiiine · Today 17:49

Ew men got to this thread quick.

SomeoneIsWrongOnTheInternet · Today 18:16

She’s spoken out in favour of women over men’s rights activists, and so if course she’s been targeted by the misogynists.

Funny how it’s never the rights of the majority of trans people, the Fto M transitioners, that anyone is concerned about is it? Or why there are so bloody many of them? Why do many young women not want to be young women? Radio silence on that. Except for the very obvious attacks on anyone who promotes women’s rights, and the increasing attacks on all women.

Rubyupbeat · Today 18:19

The worst of the whole fiasco was all the luvvies that turned their backs on her. All have careers that wouldn't exist if not for her books.

FlirtsWithRhinos · Today 18:28

Saying "a transwoman is a man" is only bigotry if you have the sexist belief that the difference between men and women is mental rather than physical.

If you don't believe that, the whole thing falls apart.

Lacksie · Today 18:38

FloraFaunaFires · Today 15:45

This thread would be a whole lot simpler if most of the folk on it said that they were transphonbic themselves and so is JK Rowling.

Most of you are saying 'I don't like trans people and think trans people don't have the right to self determination not rights to access a bathroom that corresponds with their identified gender and lowers their risk of violent attack.'

That is transphobia.

Deliberately misgendering someone, or thinking you get to question others gender because they don't appear enough like a woman to you (as JK Rowling has done, accusing a woman boxer and various others of being trans, with no evidence) IS transphobia.

Being a trans-exclusionary feminist IS transphobia

JK Rowling using her fortune and noteriety to fund people through court who are trying to exclude trans people from spaces IS transphobia because she is specifically and repeatedly going after a vulnerable population.

Equating trans people to sexual predators or accusing them or sexual deviance IS transphobia.

The whole bathroom debate is madness because it is anti-feminist - it makes women less safe by creating a culture where we feel free to constantly question other people's gender and demand proof because they don't appear 'woman' enough to us - ie they don't conform to societal expectations of women. It creates danger for women who are deemed to have 'masculine' body types, facial hair such as through having PCOS etc.

Trans women do not make your bathrooms unsafe.

Dangerous men will do as they please regardless. They also now would be able to present themselves as being trans men using the women's bathroom, as now required by law, so you really haven't solved any problems this way!

This thread would be a whole lot simpler if most of the folk on it said that they were transphonbic themselves and so is JK Rowling

that's the long and short of it. The conversation goes:

person A: how is JKR transphobic. She's never said anything transphobic.

Person B: She's said all kinds of things, consistently, to the effect that trans people are pretending, fraudulent, ridiculous, dangerous, and their identities are not worthy of social respect or legal protection.

person A: yeh but I agree with all that!

Ok, so.... ? You do the maths.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · Today 18:42

"Phobic" is another word , like "woman", that has been adopted, adapted and made to man something it never used to.

I am not afraid of trans people, and it is pretty clear that JK Rowling isn't either no matter how much they threaten and vilify her.

Actually, going by the behaviour, I'd say quite a lot of people suffer from Rowlingphobia.... irrational fear of her.

SwirlyGates · Today 18:43

FloraFaunaFires · Today 15:45

This thread would be a whole lot simpler if most of the folk on it said that they were transphonbic themselves and so is JK Rowling.

Most of you are saying 'I don't like trans people and think trans people don't have the right to self determination not rights to access a bathroom that corresponds with their identified gender and lowers their risk of violent attack.'

That is transphobia.

Deliberately misgendering someone, or thinking you get to question others gender because they don't appear enough like a woman to you (as JK Rowling has done, accusing a woman boxer and various others of being trans, with no evidence) IS transphobia.

Being a trans-exclusionary feminist IS transphobia

JK Rowling using her fortune and noteriety to fund people through court who are trying to exclude trans people from spaces IS transphobia because she is specifically and repeatedly going after a vulnerable population.

Equating trans people to sexual predators or accusing them or sexual deviance IS transphobia.

The whole bathroom debate is madness because it is anti-feminist - it makes women less safe by creating a culture where we feel free to constantly question other people's gender and demand proof because they don't appear 'woman' enough to us - ie they don't conform to societal expectations of women. It creates danger for women who are deemed to have 'masculine' body types, facial hair such as through having PCOS etc.

Trans women do not make your bathrooms unsafe.

Dangerous men will do as they please regardless. They also now would be able to present themselves as being trans men using the women's bathroom, as now required by law, so you really haven't solved any problems this way!

Remember, everyone - women's rights are transphobic. JKR stands up for women, hence JKR is transphobic.

Ducketta · Today 18:44

She doesn’t seem to have said anything whatsoever that’s not true. So if we don’t lie we’re ‘transphobic’? I take pride in my ‘transphobia’.

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