JK Rowling

[Velella]

JK Rowling is being called out on twitter by Owl for liking Janice Turner's fox-in-the-henhouse article.

Many of us have thought for a long while that JKR is on side. I wish she would come out publicly and fully support women.

I'm mostly sad for them, as absurd as the whole thing is. And also frustrated in a big sisterly "please snap out of it before you hurt yourself any more than you already have" sort of way.

She will never turn out to be against women's rights. She wrote Robin Ellacott.

Fat fingers my arse! She's with us.

I have no idea what fujoshi is - but I'm so sad so many young women are going this road. Going for the double mastectomy and testosterone - rather than fighting for womankind's right to equality. We were so close .

This is probably my favourite diversion. If she does 'come out', I think I know what will have happened. She'll have been a good liberal woman, like so many of us, who clicked a like on something she agreed with and felt the wrath of the faux-righteous.
She capitulated because she didn't quite grasp the breadth of the madness and had an eye to the many young people who follow her so thought she was doing the right thing.

But she's a clever woman, so I really do have hope that she's been doing some serious mountaineering in the past few weeks especially.

And I think I'll re-iterate here, for the record, that I think JK Rowling is fantastic. A great role model.

I don't place any responsibility on JKR or any individual to "come out" or "nail their colours to the mast" or anything like that. But I'm always pleased when they do.

YANBU. There is no safe option to use in regards to someone who describes themselves as nonbinary. Which is likely to be part of their reason for doing so, imo - so much delicious power in making everyone walk on eggshells.

I’m holding my breath in case she comes out with another “oops my cat walked across my iPad haha” moment.

The fact that she has doubled down by liking another tweet is heartening though.

Fox & Owl are in a relationship yes? And do those godawful books for schools (fair opinion, yes?) Fox is tran-masc, Owl is trans-fem. so it's (factually) a het relationship. A male and a female. Which I find very amusing. Sorry - woke twitter lot. Fact is - you're worshipping an ordinary het relationship.

If I was Jk with all that lovely money in the bank and the relative power and freedom that brings, I'd be throwing my weight and my money around all over the place. Who can touch her? What can they actually do?
As it is I'm at the other end of the spectrum, no money and nothing to lose, I can spout my opinion about as much as I want. I'm free too.
Bloody Owl, bore off mate, so tedious.
I can't abide tantrums.

They're both non binary. They have a ridiculous video in which they discuss different names they could call each other relationship-wise because the normal stuff like partner or girlfriend or boyfriend is just so vanilla.

They come to the conclusion that the universe is so damned cisnormative that there is nothing that they can name their partner when introducing them that doesn't make clear how super special and sparkly their relationship is to set them apart from all the boring normals.

It's hard not to sob hard, painful tears for their struggles by the end of it.

It must be a tricky position to be in. Potter fans are such a broad age range - I'm in my forties and bought the books when they first came out; the teens and children who bought them then will be in the early to mid twenties woker-than-woke bracket. And the stories are deeply meaningful to many people. Thing is, it's people like me who now buy them for the next generation, and I think we're the ones with the more disposable income to spend on theme parks and World Book Day costumes. So if all one cares about is purchasing power, it makes sense to remember who buys the Birds Eye peas and the box sets and the family cinema tickets for the next generation.

I credit Rowling with not being as mercenary as all that...JK, if you are reading this, please, from the bottom of my heart, if you look at nothing else look at the safeguarding risks on this. It puts ALL children in danger; from predators, from each other.

And the fact is, woke twitter lot - Jk Rowling's "like" is just objecting to male rapists is women's prisons.

How could you be "for" that? How could you object to JK Rowling objecting to that?? What is wrong with you?? What is wrong with your ideology that you think housing male rapists in female prisons is an ok thing to do?

Genuinely hope she doesn't backtrack this time. That came across badly (and also gave penis news a chance to gloat..which is always bad)

Though, this is a very odd hill for TRAs to die on. Would have thought they would just ignore it completely..like the Challenor thing or Jess Bradley.

Owl is basically sending a bunch of people to read Janices fabulous article..and honestly, I cannot see many at all agreeing that its transphobic to want rapists not to go in female prisons ffs.

I think she’s in a tricky position- the current batch of TRAs and their followers will have grown up with Harry Potter and she must feel some obligation towards them, regardless of whether or not she supports their ideology.

On that Owl thread there were a number of posters saying they were gutted and disappointed in her showing herself go to a “bigot”- that can’t be easy to hear, especially if for the last 20 years you’ve had people blowing smoke up your arse.

Sometimes caring about young people means telling them no, though.

The fact that she has doubled down by liking another tweet is heartening though.

Just seen this. Fantastic.

On that Owl thread there were a number of posters saying they were gutted and disappointed in her showing herself go to a “bigot”- that can’t be easy to hear, especially if for the last 20 years you’ve had people blowing smoke up your arse.
I am sure JK knows that being a feminist is something you get criticism for. Especially from male people.

The doubling down says to me that shes not going back on it this time. I have a feeling her PR company may have pressured her to do so last time but with the second like it cannot be explained away as just a mistake really, not that it was a mistake in the first place but it seemed to satisfy the shouty abusive TRAs.

Exactly, but usually you wouldn’t have hundreds of messages accusing you of literal murder” and a boycott of your body of work for telling a young person to give their head a wobble.

Yes it is a tricky position. But she's itching to come out with those likes.
The first hp book came out when I was first year of secondary school so the age range of the first fans goes way up to mid 30s.
We're not all woke. And now we have the buying power and kids, nieces nephews, godchildren of our own to buy books for, take to the cinema or to exhibitions at the British library.

@Bolloxio I sincerely hope you’re right, but I’m not convinced given she didn’t maintain her position last time.

I just hope the fact the new Fantastic Beasts film is out relatively soon doesn’t cause her PR team to backtrack.

I was working, and way beyond school & uni when I first read the Harry Potter books. As were loads of my friends, and my DH. We're all in our (late) 40s now!

We read the books to our kids, and watch the films with them.

Harry Potter is not just for the young - and certainly not for uncritically woke.

I like to think she watched Posie Parker’s recent video, downed a glass of something and thought, ‘fuck it’.

‘Like’

There was a post on twitter a few days ago by a GC feminist (I can't recall who, sorry) where, to paraphrase, she said she wished she'd understood when first entering into this debate, that you might as well be hung for a sheep than a lamb.

Essentially she was alluding to the reality that however tentatively and sensitively you support a position/opinion that doesn't fall behind the total capitulation of sex based rights you're vilified as a TERF.

The thing is, I feel this TRA tactic is now working to our advantage.

More and more people with a large following on Twitter are falling foul of this.

It often starts with a back track, but slowly they seem to build up a head of steam as it were and over time become increasingly more outspoken as they realise there is no "middle ground" to be found in dealing with TRA's.

@Glinner is a cracking example of this, but you can also seek people like Robert Webb and Alison Moyet who increasingly seem to be "breaking ranks" to various degrees.

I can't pretend I know what JKR thinks about this issue.

However, I do believe she is a feminist and feels strongly about women's rights.

I'm really glad to see her doubling down in support of JT's article and it's equally heartening to see that twitter thread from "Owl" being robustly torn apart for its misogyny.

How the fuck did this person write a book?

I hope the Indie doesn’t pay for their submissions, the copy editor deserves double pay instead.