Daniel Radcliffe responds to J.K Rowling's tweets on gender identity

[EddyF]

Daniel Radcliffe responds to JK Rowling’s tweets: “Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people”

Daniel Radcliffe Responds to J.K. Rowling’s Tweets on Gender Identity – The Trevor Project

FULL STATEMENT

I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between J.K. Rowling and myself, but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what’s important right now. While Jo is unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken, as someone who has been honored to work with and continues to contribute to The Trevor Project for the last decade, and just as a human being, I feel compelled to say something at this moment.

Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I. According to The Trevor Project, 78% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity. It’s clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm.

I am still learning how to be a better ally, so if you want to join me in learning more about transgender and nonbinary identities check out The Trevor Project’s Guide to Being an Ally to Transgender and Nonbinary Youth. It’s an introductory educational resource that covers a wide range of topics, including the differences between sex and gender, and shares best practices on how to support transgender and nonbinary people.

To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you. If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much.

Love always,
Dan

Actors talk shit all the time. However it's the way other people are using this that's the worry.

Agree with RoyalCorgi
What she said was amusing and pretty innocuous. It is because she is female, high profile and refuses to be crushed that she is being named as “phobic” . It is a tactic to stop her millions of fans from listening to anything she might say. It has all the veiled threat of public shaming and destroying a reputation, that will make other women think twice about what they say. It isn’t really about her and her tweet, it is the crow hung up in the tree to frighten the other crows.

Ross Vodt
@RossVodt
·
3h
Replying to
@MayorWatermelon
Pretty much giving the game away on the fact that 'menstruators' is not pandering to trans men but rather to trans women - none of whom have the slightest possibility of ever menstruating, and everyone knows it. (Not even if they claim that cramps & diarrhea are periods.)

and

Worst Witch
@witch_worst
·
1h
Replying to
@MayorWatermelon
and
@Glinner
not weird when you realise “people who menstruate” is to save the feelings of transwomen not transmen. Women don’t menstruate, because transwomen are women. Abortion rights isn’t part of women’s rights, because transwomen are women. If transwomen can’t do it, neither can women

From the Mayor Watermelon twitter thread linked above. I hadn't made the connection

'She is taking all the HP books away from him now!'

Oh yeah and lets see how long that lasts when he's whining in week 43542 of lockdown

Just by the way, and irrelevant to the discussion but interesting anyway, my daughter says she attended school with the boy who actually got the part of Harry Potter. I won't mention his name here, but she knows it. The boy who actually won the part. At the last minute, Dan was shooed in.

I saw 'pregnant people' somewhere recently as well. FFS.

Crystaltree No I'm pretty sure she won't allow him to watch the HP films. She is very anti JKR now.

If I had all her money I would pay to remake the films.

@merrymouse

I refuse to support Daniel Radcliffe in any of his future endeavours

I think he is a twit, but I don't really care what he says. Thousands of actors have worked on productions of JK Rowling's work. I don't expect them to hold any particular views. He isn't the first actor to say something stupid.

On the other hand if people start trying to censor JK Rowling's because she defends women's rights, I will be on the streets.

@merrymouse I agree, I’m sure many actors and film set workers hold dubious views, but DR is extremely high profile as an HP legacy and as such is an instantly recognisable face for both sides of the argument. It’s not right for him to try to sway public opinion this way when he knows that his personal views take on a God-like missive for impressionable pre-teens who love HP. Irresponsible at best, and narcissistic at worst. Plus he has tried to censor JK with his statement, so get on the damn streets, woman 😁

Anyway, as he’s stuck his head above the parapet and crowed some intolerant rubbish, he’s now on my Neddy No-no list, as will be any man who does the same. And I want greedy Film and TV execs to know that women are voting with their purses. Seriously, it’s the only thing that truly resonates.

Actually in the 30s when at the point of starting transitioning, at a time when that was incredibly difficult. But don't let the facts get in the way.

When Jan Morris was born, women still couldn't vote on equal terms with men and by the time he was 13 men were being conscripted.

When he began transitioning, it was still legal to ask a woman's husband or father to guarantee a loan and homosexual acts were illegal.

You really can't compare the world Jan Morris grew up in to the world we live in today. (Although looking at the drive to remove sex based rights that protect people who are female, gay , or trans, plenty of people would apparently prefer the world Jan Morris grew up in).

Just as an aside, my mom went to see a Harry Potter film and she said 'it's just people pointing sticks at each other'. She also described Lord of the Rings as 'just people running up hills'.

@merrymouse

sunshinesupermum

DD1 is 39 and has two sons aged 4 and 7

To be honest the penny didn't really drop for me until my daughter was about to hit puberty and I realised I couldn't protect her from all the shit you have to face when you are a woman - until that point I had honestly been living in a bit of a dream world because life wasn't really different for my son and my daughter.

HP/JKR is not a hill I am prepared to die on, sadly.

Agree, and I image JKR would also agree!

Absolutely this. I am heading into menopause as my daughter heads into puberty. I'm in bits over what's going on.

@MorganKitten

JK used the LGBTQ community when it suited her and she made money off of it, and goes against things she wrote about. She’s an awful women and lies each time she is is vile and says it’s down to being ‘middle age’.

You've just lied.

Piss off Dan.

I wonder whether he thinks trans men are men too?

Daniel Radcliff is an awful actor I'm sorry but he is awful. He now tramples on JK Rowling just to suck up to the twitter mob.

@PrimalLass

If I had all her money I would pay to remake the films.

Completely agree... enjoy your (celluloid) erasure Dan. New Potter IS Potter 😁

Daniel Radcliff is an awful actor I'm sorry but he is awful

Relevance?

my daughter says she attended school with the boy who actually got the part of Harry Potter. I won't mention his name here, but she knows it. The boy who actually won the part. At the last minute, Dan was shooed in.

I'd never heard this before. So do you know why the original boy didn't get the part or why DR did?

I'm glad this whole trans debate has started up again on here. During the height of coronapanic, I posted a thread about the former prisons minister Rory Stewart saying men 'self-identifying' as women had raped female prison officers during his tenure, but it wasn't picked up either by the wider press or on here at the time:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/12/female-prison-officers-raped-inmates-claiming-trans-rory-stewart/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

I hope he had the courtesy to call her up before releasing his statement. Because the woman who made him mega-wealthy has lived a hugely different life from him - including BEING a woman, giving birth, being a solo parent, having periods of having to seriously worry about money.

I didn't notice that the response was TWAW instead of TWAM, how absofuckinglutely telling and it goes unrecognised.

(By the way, I have referred to Jan Morris as 'he' above because I have referred to pre-transition events where sex is relevant).

Hiya. My first post on Mumsnet so bear with me.

First of all, I thought we lived in a democracy where people can have opinions. I find the notion that JKR's opinion has the power to erase someone's identity both hilarious and scary. That identity must be pretty fragile if it depends on other people's opinions.

Secondary, maybe most importantly. People have been conflating sex with gender. Sex is a biological fact like xx and xy. Yes there are outliers but they are medical conditions. To say that the outliers prove xx and xy are not an accurate reflection of sex is like saying that because some people are born without limbs, we can't generalise and say that people have to legs and two arms.

Gender are the society's expectations of males and females. They change overtime. So, a transgender woman can have female gender but not female sex.

I wrote my MA engender and Foucault so I think I'm qualified to say that the ideologues have misunderstood the whole concept and are now trying to silence critics for fear their pseudo theory is going to be exposed as lacking any basis in reality.

If 'trans women are women' but 'women are people who menstruate', then we have a serious problem.

I do wonder why so many people born with male sexual organs want to be women. It's still so much a mans world and the controversy over transexuals proves it.

@Mokosh thanks for posting. I held back for a long time reading the posts on the trans debate and silently fuming.