Bizarre Snopes article about JK Rowling

[Mermoose]

www.snopes.com/fact-check/jk-rowling-transphobia-transgender/

Snopes have written an article which, to be fair, does say that the claim on a Medium post that JK Rowling has 'confirmed her antipathy towards trans women' is false. But then it goes on to say that, on the other hand,

"Rowling has never articulated solidarity for trans people or support for trans rights or trans inclusion. A search of Rowling’s Twitter feed showed that she had never once used any of the following terms: “trans,” “transgender,” “LGBT,” “LGBTQ,” “transphobia,” “transphobe,” “transphobic,” “TERF,” “inclusion,” or “exclusion.” Though they are not necessarily indicative of her views, and certainly not definitive proof, these absences are certainly worth noting."

So Ms Rowling. We've noticed that you've never done any witch-hunting. Which is suspicious. Highly suspicious.

It is societal grooming to coerce people into thinking (or pretending to think) that those statements are fallacious.

Bang on.

Adding to my list of good phrases to use with the woke.

She followed Fionne Orlander, a transwoman who also identifies as male

Hilarious.

Fionne is male and happily aknowledges this.

(From the marysue article)

They’re going to get her one way or another. See, being a fence-sitter par excellence is no longer enough; hastily walking back those middle-aged moment ‘misstatements’ won’t cut it for much longer. These days it’s all ‘if you’re not overtly and vociferously for us you’re agin us’.

She has to come down on one side or the other eventually and these restless stirrings and not so veiled threats from TRAs are calculated to make sure she comes down on the ‘right’ side. The Potterverse is firmly established in pop culture and thus secure enough per se to withstand any backlash from the Woke hordes, so, arguably, she has little to lose materially if she declares for the GC party line but reputationally? Yeah, I dunno if she’s up for being publicly damned as a TERF (and owning it) - yet.

I think the trans issue is incredibly complex as there are trans people who I genuinely care about (whole I suspect JK does too) who are gender critical themselves and wouldn’t dream of making other women uncomfortable.

It really is like a religion where the majority of adherents are perfectly lovely individuals, but these really bad extremists who claim to speak for the whole are difficult to engage with without making the whole group feel potentially put upon.

It takes incredible linguistic precision to challenge a bad idea without that being taken as an attack on people, and anything that can be taken as a personal attack and your sunk in the arena of public discourse these days.

It’s not at all complex, Dervel, it’s the absolute opposite. We just need to stop lying to those we love. Transwomen are not women and transmen are not men, they never will be. Those people with vested interests or trying to be kind who are selling them the lie that they are/can be and insisting everyone else do the same are the ones who are harming them not people pointing out basic fucking reality. We all have people we care about but in no other arena do we feel the need to be tip-toeing around the fantasists, ideologists, opportunists and people with actual mental illnesses in our lives and thus encourage them in harmful behaviours and beliefs so their feelings don’t get hurt.

They’re going to get her one way or another

Who are "they" and what do you think they can do?

She has to come down on one side or the other eventually

She doesn't have to do anything.

She followed Fionne Orlander, a transwoman who also identifies as male

That's a bit of a head f*ck. Shall we add any more descriptors? A transwoman who also identifies as male, with male genitals, has arms and legs, actually not a transwoman, actually sex male, might sometimes enjoy the feeling of walking round in a bath towel or sarong, might sometimes be super emotional and caring, might enjoy shopping, fixing cars, sewing buttons on, playing with fluffy kittens and wrestling with dragons.

A person then.

LassOfFyvie “They” are TRAs, which I would have assumed was clear to all but the most obtuse or argumentative, you know, given the context of the thread. I think “they” can and will make public life very unpleasant for her. It’s already started, given the number of sniper shots being taken already across several platforms about the people she follows on Twitter.

And no I guess she doesn’t have to do anything, she can stick with trying to be Switzerland but, in the current climate, as I said before, it’s not a comfortable or practicably sustainable position to assume longterm for a person as vocally high profile as she is.

A search of Rowling’s Twitter feed showed that she had never once used any of the following terms: “trans,” “transgender,” “LGBT,” “LGBTQ,” “transphobia,” “transphobe,” “transphobic,” “TERF,” “inclusion,” or “exclusion.”

Well, that's just a wee bit chilling, isn't it? How often are we required to chant the slogans? Is it enough to chant them repeatedly on social media, or do we have to also display the requisite insults in public when apostates are paraded? Is this the full list of required beliefs, or are there more? Who is issuing the stipulated beliefs?

"How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."

Actually as a straight white male I’m very used to tiptoeing around feminists, ethnic minorities, homosexuals etc adding trans people to the list doesn’t actually make it grow all that much!

Privilege checking, lack of understanding of other people’s lived experience and a desire to avoid putting my foot in my
mouth and offending people.

So you need to tiptoe around people because otherwise you offend them? That's very sad. Have you got that thing that David Brent's got?

They” are TRAs, which I would have assumed was clear to all but the most obtuse or argumentative, you know, given the context of the thread. I think “they” can and will make public life very unpleasant for her

You mean a nebulous bunch of twitterers on the internet? What exactly are "they" going to do to JK Rowling?

How much time do some of you spend on the internet looking for ridiculous comments by extremists?.

Rowling follows less than 700 accounts on Twitter, and she recently added the aggressively anti-trans YouTuber Magdalen Berns to that list.

It’s “fewer than”. They can’t even do NewSpeak grammatically.

Glad I'm not the only one that was annoying, beans!

LassOfFyvie not that it’s any of your business how much time I spend on the internet or what I search for, I’ll answer in this instance: it took me all of 30 seconds after logging into mumsnet to find two active threads with JKR referenced in the titles. From there I didn’t have to spend very much time at all looking for ridiculous comments from nebulous twitter extremists targetting her on the Internet along with the pages on Snopes and the Mary Sue - I just clicked on some of the links on those threads.

I already answered your question about what I think they can do and it’s immaterial to me whether you agree. Now go find someone else to snark at.

Well, that's just a wee bit chilling, isn't it? How often are we required to chant the slogans?

The first person to stop clapping gets the gulag!

We just need to stop lying to those we love. Transwomen are not women and transmen are not men, they never will be. Those people with vested interests or trying to be kind who are selling them the lie that they are/can be and insisting everyone else do the same are the ones who are harming them not people pointing out basic fucking reality. We all have people we care about but in no other arena do we feel the need to be tip-toeing around the fantasists, ideologists, opportunists and people with actual mental illnesses in our lives and thus encourage them in harmful behaviours and beliefs so their feelings don’t get hurt.

Absolutely. It is usually part of loving or caring for someone to encourage them to get professional help when they need it, not to humour them if they are confused about reality or so distressed they can’t see it, nor to facilitate their self harming.

I thought this tweet was quite astute.

I’m not coming at this from an anti-trans or even and anti-feminist perspective necessarily, and I’m still not 100% clear what I am on about yet but I am beginning to formulate a view that the way we have entertained certain subjects whilst maybe coming from a well meaning place has led us into some very dark places and times.

Yes, I agree with this entirely. It's not like the trans stuff came out of the woodwrk, and its not all down to a conspiracy for us to embrace any and everything. It's all very much related to the way we've been taught to think as progressives, about all kinds of issues. The faulty logic in the trans lobby is at work in many other perspectives as well.

It is difficult to put your finger on. I've been reading a lot of Adolph Reed about race in the US lately, and I am finding that helpful. I still haven't totally put my finger on it but I feel like I'm circling in on it a litle more.

The other thing that constantly strikes me is the degree to which I recognise ideas and slogans that have been borrowed right from other kinds of political advocacy. Sometimes they've been twisted, but in many cases they were always bad ideas, and its just that much more obvious now how dangerous it was to allow people to believe they were ideas to be accepted.