Do you think JK knew what would happen?

[Alyssum34456]

She's hinted her views before, but this is the most clearly outspoken she has been. The backlash has been pretty awful tbh. I'm not sure I 100% agree with everything she is saying, but I do not like how she has been treated. Why the world is acting like she has made some 'Trump-like' statement I dont know. Perhaps because being trans is the most recent trending vulnerable group to gain support and influence? So it's a very risky thing to talk about? The fact it can't even be discussed is pretty sad.

I wonder if she realised this would happen. Do you think she had higher hopes that some other admirable high profile names would come to her aid, or at least have a healthy debate? Does she know people who have let her down? Perhaps they realised last minute that it was just too risky a move here's looking at you Dan Radcliffe. I can almost see him sending her a private message "Sorry Jo, really can't do this right now! I'm too young and I need the money from my next woke gig!" Or has he really truly lost touch with her and decided to break ties? Or did she really just decide throw it out there and hope for the best?

A part of me thinks she knew it all along. She is very good at standing out from the crowd. She had had incredible lows in her life. Even if she spends the foreseeable future in a downward disgrace, she has publicly planted a seed and now the initial heat is over people are starting to talk. The BBC even has an article on the Dan Rad response and links to articles about gender critical and what this means for women. I think they are being surprisingly unbiased actually.

The future starts here?

I just hope this doesn't scar her too much.

To me I read you say The backlash has been pretty awful and I think "You what? What's happened to her?!"

That's because I am not on Twitter. My news is all about real world events like the protests and pandemics.

Some people on twitter said mean things to a woman whose opinions they dislike. So?

She's still rich. She's not in prison or something. She's still powerful. She still has all bodily functions. The backlash isn't much of a backlash.

It feels like my kids getting over-excited about something a youtuber did or did not do. In their little corner of the interwebs it is massive. To most of the world, nobody has even noticed and certainly doesn't give a monkeys.

If I had even 5% of her fortune I wouldn't give a shiny shit what anyone on Twitter had to say. I'm not sure if the anime and furry avatars haven't realized yet that the only reason they've been able to shut women up so far is that most of us can't afford to never work again, or if they're very much aware and that's why the frothing about Rowling never went away even when she was staying under the parapet.

Twitter is a nonsense place.

Twitter is very important for the small percentage of the population on Twitter and fairly irrelevant to everyone else.
JK must have had a fair idea of what she was doing but in the real world most people will be totally unaware of what is happening on Twitter.

Twitter is a nonsense, but it's unfathomably influential. The hordes of abusive tweeters going at her are not going to dent her in material terms, though I do know that reading that much abuse written about will take a mental toll.

But this isn't just a Twitter spat, it's simply the most high profile place where the issue garners attention. It's picking up pace in many places elsewhere, online and offline. It is most definitely game on right now.

Indeed, and judging by the comments in the outlets that are allowing them most people are firmly Team Rowling.

And, for any lurking TRAs, that's not because she's famous, it's because she's right.

I think she's very thoughtful and considered. I think she knew exactly what would happen and that's why she did it. To hold a mirror up to the insanity of it all. She has the power to do it unlike so many and I admire her for it immensely.

Weirdly I watched a YouTube video about Roseanne Barr after she lost her career having tweeted something considered racist. It went over my head if I’m honest but Twitter went MENTAL. She is very obviously now a broken woman. I’m surprised she didn’t kill her self as she is now a reclusive pariah.

I pray JKR is strong and did anticipate the backlash as I can’t imagine how devastating it must have been to have the likes of Daniel Radcliffe through her under a bus.

It would be VERY interesting as an aside to know what Emma Watson really thinks as she’s an outspoken feminist and advocate for women’s charities across the world. I bet she is completely transfixed and hoping to god noone asks her her opinion.

Hah, she went over to the transide a while ago.

@justanotherneighinparadise

Weirdly I watched a YouTube video about Roseanne Barr after she lost her career having tweeted something considered racist. It went over my head if I’m honest but Twitter went MENTAL. She is very obviously now a broken woman. I’m surprised she didn’t kill her self as she is now a reclusive pariah.

I pray JKR is strong and did anticipate the backlash as I can’t imagine how devastating it must have been to have the likes of Daniel Radcliffe through her under a bus.

But Roseanne did spout something racist. JK spoke biology...

I hope JK is alright.

She has been absent from Twitter for a couple of days now, whereas recently she had been tweeting multiple times a day in response to drawings of the Ickabog story that children had tweeted to her. She was posting really lovely individual messages to children - literally dozens a day - and that's all completely stopped now.

So maybe she has been surprised by the reaction and has had to take some time out.

JK, thank you for having the courage to speak up.

I think she absolutely knew.

She also recently had Covid, which would tend to concentrate the mind.

She has be dealt with poverty, depression and was a single mother. She pays full taxes and is one of the biggest philanthropists, mostly in secret.

She has been outspoken about politics before , notably Indyref and Corybyn. And received considerable backlash there too. It is not her first Rodeo.

She may or may not have known that Radcliffe would throw her under the bus.

I hope TRAs are proud of having stopped the world's most famous children's author from interacting with children who're mostly stuck at home desperate for something fun to do. Right side of history, eh?

She knew. She absolutely knew.

She’s unbelievably brave. And I thank her.

I think it's time to read The Ickabob

She's just bloody marvellous.

Speaking for so many who are too scared for their jobs to say it.

there's no "disgrace" to be found in someone who has talent, money and a platform actually using those things to stand against misogyny and homophobia

Very true, but it is incredibly rare. I have boundless admiration for JKR and everyone who has taken that stand.

I hope TRAs are proud of having stopped the world's most famous children's author from interacting with children who're mostly stuck at home desperate for something fun to do.

It's not a movement big on social responsibility that benefits anyone but themselves, or empathy, or having the faintest interest in anyone else's needs or good. So yes, probably they are.

Children, female humans, mere collateral damage to getting what they want. Giant toddlers.

To most of the world, nobody has even noticed and certainly doesn't give a monkeys.

@TorkTorkBam I agree with you about Twitter. It's a sewer. However it's been picked up by the mainstream press and is being discussed all over. It's not just a silly Twitter spat.

I think she knew. But I'm scared. There's a discussion on a teachers' group I'm on about what to recommend instead of Harry Potter to kids. Someone had planned an arts week based around HP and now she's scrapped it and looking for a new theme. One teacher bravely said she agreed with JKR and I piped up too. But other than that most people seemed happy to remove HP from schools.

Some of the comments she's had are disgusting (but unsurprising). This is all the proof we need that the TRA movement is just MRA in different clothes.

Real world discussion is good. She will come out well from that. Most people barely know about the GRA and all that.

A Twitter anime avatar and woke beard pile on isn't reflective of how JKR's statements will be treated by the vast majority of people.

It getting into the mainstream press is great. The Twitter "backlash" will get a much firmer push back from the public at large.

The TRAs lose traction and go backwards on public policy changes every time they get publicity for specific issues, rather than vague let's be nice to minorities statements.

Who'd have thought it? Desperate to be thought of as women, but it's all about the dicks...