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

Willowflower, you're reading the Feminism and Women's Rights section of Mumsnet. Many of us here have been following this for years, and expended much time and effort both examining the arguments, explaining the issues and campaigning elsewhere.

I doubt any of us is likely to apologise for or feel we should excuse our emotional investment in our rights and the rights and protections of our daughters, mothers and sisters. Many of us have been touched by this issue specifically in multiple ways - via children, husbands, parents, through our jobs, or love lives, or healthcare experiences. We have experience of abuse, oppression and hardship due to our sex, and a commitment to battle against that for all other women.

Anger and emotional investment is entirely appropriate, and no one is ever 'shut down' here, they are simply asked to make and defend their case without calling us pejoratives and flouncing when they can't. By all means, ask questions, and make your views known and defend them. Our responses will be honest and robust.

How would you expect a person of colour to react to being told they were cis black by someone with an afro perm and a Bo Selecta mask?

I am emotionally invested in this issue for many reasons. One is that, as a victim of abuse abs sexual assault, I do not wish to be forced to undress in the gym changing rooms by a Male person identifying as a woman. Does that count or am I being 'unkind'?

I see Obama follows one of the GC tweeters.... Any chance of a RT Barack?!

MockersGuidedByTheScience brilliant!!

The Guardian has started removing 'female' from FGM. They now refer to 'forced genital mutilation', as in this article (about girls).

Covid-19 school closures have exposed children around the world to human rights abuses such as forced genital mutilation, early marriage and sexual violence, child protection experts say.

What the fuck!!! I have no words to express how angry this makes me. This is done to GIRLS BECAUSE THEY ARE GIRLS. It's about controlling FEMALE sexuality. It's not just being done at random.

This is the thing about the whole shit show, the central thing. It strips our language of the very words we need to articulate why we need a political voice of our own.

I thought I couldn't get any angrier with the Guardian than I was after the Cologne assaults when they told me it was women's fault for flaunting their mobile phones, but I think they've just actually surpassed even this.

@willowflower19

I haven't read this entire thread, so there's a chance this has already been covered, but I've never had this question answered before a thread on trans women has been deleted.

Can somebody please explain why some women have such a visceral reaction to being called a cis woman?
There are a lot of emotional posts here, a few of which are incredibly transphobic and I will dismiss out of hand. But I'd like to ask those of you who've given your opinion without being offensive- why do you consider this term pejorative?

For me, it's not so much pejorative as just plan wrong.

Trans = gender identity does not match biological sex
Cis = gender identity matches biological sex

Acceptance of the term 'cis' means agreeing that we all have a gender identity, and that mine says 'woman'.
We don't. I don't.
It is not a universal experience.
The term is used to say that cis and trans women have something in common, that we are the same somehow. The problem is that there is never an explanation of what we have in common, or how we are the same. Just the constant repetition of the word 'woman's, 'TWAW'.
Well, a woman to me is an adult human female, no more, no less. 'Woman' isn't my identity, it is my biology

I am not cis.

Looks like Ralf Little argued that TWAW - but then deleted his tweets...

am same as you MRSKCastle

@willowflower19

If you don't understand the passion, it might be because you have not been exposed to the amount of damage.

There are many women who are not personally affected. But, increasingly, there are women and children who are.
Gender politics is being taught in school, and is permeating outwards.

The women here must have read hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of narratives, articles, stories and experiences.

It doesn't take long to see a pattern. Especially if you apply any kind of feminist analysis. Strewth, many women here weren't even feminists before this kicked off.

It's when you understand that there is not just a mechanism in place to put this multiple rapist and paedophile in a women's prison, but the will to enforce it, that the penny drops.

He has subsequently been convicted and moved, because, of course, he sexually assaulted the incarcerated women to which he was granted unfettered access.

Meanwhile, in Canada, a man identifying as a woman, who waxes lyrical about how can he can get to help 10-year-olds with their Tampax, was given leave by an equalities tribunal to sue ethnic minority women because they don't want to wax his penis. It's a woman's penis, and therefore they are discriminating against him.

The mechanism is in place, and there is a will to let this man drag these women through the court.

Likewise, the Vancouver rape refuge spent the best part of 20 years trying to stop a man who wanted to be a counsellor and listen to their rape stories, suing them. It went right the way up to the Supreme Court. Imagine the number of people who were signing off on this, that it took 20 fucking years to say no.

The rape refuge has since lost its government funding on the basis that it wants to remain women only. Despite the fact that there are eight other rape refuges in the same town who are happy to admit men.

This isn't about the social niceties of using a pronoun to stop hurting someone's feelings. This is about laws being put in place to eliminate the meaning of the word woman.

When women are equal, it won't matter.

But for the love of God, if anyone recognises why there is even a necessity for a fucking rape refuge, they must understand that recognition of sex is crucial to it???

In terms of emotional investment, it was the early demands that lesbians learn to love cock that did it for me. Like the vast majority of women I've had male humans try to coerce me into sex enough times that I recognize that pattern when I see it, and once you see the male socialization and the attempts at social engineering in one area you start to see the same in other areas too.

The idea that anyone would go "gosh, you're only being told you have to share changing rooms with heterosexual males with fully intact penises, why are you being so emotional?" makes me roll my eyes so hard it gives me a headache.

Can somebody please explain why some women have such a visceral reaction to being called a cis woman?

Because 'cis' enforces gender ideology, what am I supposed to be identifying with? The cultural expectations of how a woman should behave and dress? Why should I identify as anything? It's not as though I can identify as a different gender and prevent other people perceiving me as female.

Incidentally, lest anyone be in any doubt that the end game is to make women invisible, unable to name their own oppression, I have seen TRAs arguing that they themselves become "cis" at some appropriate stage in their transition process.

First they invent a prefix to demean us, then they realise it also serves to differentiate us, which they can't put up with, so they appropriate even that.

Yes, it really is that fucking nuts.

@MockersGuidedByTheScience

How would you expect a person of colour to react to being told they were cis black by someone with an afro perm and a Bo Selecta mask?

Fucking hell thats the quote of the day isn’t it!!?? 😮👏

Anger and emotional investment is entirely appropriate, and no one is ever 'shut down' here, they are simply asked to make and defend their case without calling us pejoratives and flouncing when they can't. By all means, ask questions, and make your views known and defend them. Our responses will be honest and robust.

To be fair, some of us may also go "ugh, just read the thread/the many other threads on this issue" because we are grouchy fuckers who are running low on patience due to the whole even in the middle of a pandemic misogyny never takes a day off thing.

Again on the race issue, my husband has a black grandparent. He's inherited certain physical features from her, such as afro hair.
I asked him the other day if he considered himself to be mixed race and he said no, it would feel crass and like appropriation. And yet he has FAR more reason to claim the label of black or POC than any male has to claim the label of woman. But he wouldn't do it because he's not a knob.

Is it absurd to call Jan Morris a woman?

Yes. Sorry, I know that's supposed to be an amazing gotcha, but yes it is absurd to call any male a woman. There are degrees of that, obviously.

It's when you understand that there is not just a mechanism in place to put this multiple rapist and paedophile in a women's prison, but the will to enforce it, that the penny drops.

Yes - you can say that this was one bad apple who does't represent the trans community, but regardless of whether this person is trans, multiple people signed off on the allocation to a female prison.

I saw this on twitter first thing this morning and have tried to stay away for the sake of my blood pressure and my professional productivity, but... Fuck This Shit.

It's been cathartic reading all 28 pages of eloquent, on-point posts, but also so fucking frustrating. It's so OVERT and unapologetic and - given the message of BLM - so hypocritical and wilfully blind. It makes me despair. (And the fact that so many of my twitter contacts have liked and retweeted it makes me want to delete my social media accounts and go and take up a life of off-grid self-sufficiency on top of a mountain.)

Daniel Radcliffe is like a white man millionaire in a fully-staffed 50 bedroom mansion making a big, philanthropic deal of handing over the keys to a sweet little cottage to someone in need of accommodation. The sweet little cottage belongs to someone else who doesn't want to share their house with a stranger, but who cares about them? Big round of applause and a packet of woke cookies for Daniel, hero of the homeless!

Also , this is a small corner of the internet where women make a conscious effort to throw off the shackles of female socialisation and express our opinions without dressing it up, apologising, tiptoeing round the subject, generally being "nice."

It's a refreshing change. It also comes as a hell of a shock to newcomers.

So when someone does challenge you robustly, and you interpret that as a personal attack, ask yourself "how would men respond to me if I went onto, say, pistonheads and said XYZ engine was crap and over-rated"? What tone of response would you get there? Then re-interpret whether the robust response really was a personal attack in the light of that.

I feel really sad and deflated about this today. Are we getting anywhere at all?

The dead rat that was nailed to the door of the Rape Crisis centre they were trying to close, the one Datun described, does tend to make one 'emotionally invested'

And then kind philanthropist Dan reassures everyone that they mustn't worry about the fact that the cottage's original occupants didn't want it given away because it's his cottage now since he once rode his tricycle around it when he was 3 and they let him.

Emotional investment? This is just showing up ignorance, again.

Hundreds of LGB organisations have spent the best part of seven decades trying to eliminate homophobia.

The Born This Way campaign caught fire.

And now, eventually, in the last few years, same-sex marriage is legal.

But look how bloody long it took.

And now, in one fell swoop, the entire issue has been undone!

Lesbians no longer welcome at pride. Not a single lesbian space left in London. Lesbians being hounded for sex with men and told they are bigoted for refusing, by their own organisations.

Homosexuality is called a fucking medical term by Stonewall!

Lesbians can now be two men giving each other fellatio. Lesbians can now be a man and a woman having PIV sex. Homosexual sex can be two women, or a man and a woman.

So yeah, if you're not emotionally invested, lucky you.

If someone says "only humans can drive" do they get thousands of people jumping on them demanding to know if that means they think people who can't drive aren't humans?

This is a perfect analogy never let it be said that feminists can't analogy!