Please tell me about JK Rowling

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There's a lot of very pro JK Rowling sentiment here.
My children - especially my son - is very anti . . . and says what she has done is horrendous.
Please can someone help and explain the reason for her being so defended on here?
Thanks!

Eveta that fact is she isn't transgender so her opinion insulting to people who are.

Quite a lot of would absolutely have been diagnosed as transgender in their teens. And recognize that. It’s actually enormously alarming to realise. And terrifying that so many of us would have had our fertility compromised. It’s very scary to think that so many of these young girls would have grown up just like us had they been born earlier. Destroying fertility and sexual function without informed consent is utterly abusive.

Absolutely agree.

And if I was a person with severe, lifelong dysphoria I would have found JK's comments patronising and dismissive.

I think this is one of the problems though; that the two groups are being conflated and sent down a medical route (i.e. the few with severe gender dysphoria, and the many who are "just" gender non-conforming).

To be fair on JKR, she does say: "I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people."

I think many people on here just worry that it's extremely difficult to tell the groups apart, especially in teens, therefore think that medical treatment should be reserved for adults and only after thorough examination of other reasons for the dysphoria.

What is it about some posters that they can't read what someone - JKR or another poster - has written and just understand it? JKR writes lucidly and elegantly. What she write is really quite easy to comprehend.

She writes about her own experiences, nobody else's, but somehow there are people who perceive monstrous harmful hateful things that they can't quite define if asked, or point to in the text.

It's as if they've had a long personal conversation with the writer and misremembered things, but they haven't; it's all there in straightforward English words just waiting to be looked at again and read carefully.

No hate, no vitriol, nothing violent to be seen here, move along!

As the OP seems to have done. I hope s/he's reading and chatting happily with his/her DS and discovering what JKR actually said (or 'did').

A little commonsense and rationality goes a long way.

So to be clear, a child would never be prescribed cross sex hormones.

I thought that puberty blockers were only prescribed to those with very severe dysphoria to buy time and avoid the distress of puberty in the 'wrong' gender. I didn't think they were easy to get hold of at all?

So someone gender non confirming (I went through a phase of this too) would absolutely not fit the bill.

@SapphosRock

My question is why? What is gender dysphoria trying to solve?

I can't pretend to understand it but I imagine it's how I would feel as a woman to look in the mirror and see a beard, hairy chest and penis. It would feel weird and wrong.

No, it's not trying to solve some Freaky Friday remake. What is it actually trying to solve?

If 95% of young people claiming to be transgender are not genuinely dysphoric (and it's likely to be much higher), then JKR's response saying 'I would have felt the same' is not remotely patronising or insulting. She's speaking to the 95+%, not the much much smaller percent for whom the issue is likely to be genuinely long term.

I thought that puberty blockers were only prescribed to those with very severe dysphoria to buy time and avoid the distress of puberty in the 'wrong' gender. I didn't think they were easy to get hold of at all?

Dead easy. Mermaids points them towards the Webberleys. Phone call. Prescription in post. Job done.

And if I was a person with severe, lifelong dysphoria I would have found JK's comments patronising and dismissive

Well then, you have just dismissed umpteen women's experience, with a click of your condescending and patronising fingers.

Oh the internet is chock full of affirmation websites which tells youngsters the right way to phrase things so that they'll get the outcome they need.

@SapphosRock

Eveta that fact is she isn't transgender so her opinion insulting to people who are.

That's the second time you have decided that a person cannot possibly have the same experience as another person, even though people have pointed out that is exactly what transitioning is.

Goady.

There's no need to justify anything. Your son needs to read her full piece, read up on sexual violence stats, and learn about the history and development of women's spaces.

So to be clear, a child would never be prescribed cross sex hormones.

A certain disgraced GP (who relocated from Wales to Spain but still has the same U.K. patient base) prescribed cross sex hormones to a 12 year old natal girl.

The detransitioned boy in the Australian documentary was taking HRT prescribes to his mother (because she was terrified of the false suicide statistics that are weaponised by organisations like Mermaids and Allsorts).

Children are being prescribed puberty blockers after a couple of sessions. A Tavistock whistleblower said she conferred with her supervisor when a family were insistent but the criteria for blockers weren’t met and was told to prescribe them.

There’s a trans boy in my son’s year. He’s 13, taller than all the other boys and with a deeper voice and more facial hair - I dread to think what that particular cocktail of drugs is doing to a teenage girl’s body.

Teenage girls are breast binding, which is ALWAYS harmful, sometimes causing permanent damage, children in the US are having mastectomies.

We are concerned for good reason.

What @NearlyGranny said.

No sign of the OP? What a surprise

Yes Datun I have a few good friends who are trans (who are all pretty pissed off and disappointed in JKR).

I disagree that I've been illogical and inconsistent.

As an aside, my trans women friends do not consider themselves women. They consider themselves trans women. And do not claim to speak for women or women's experiences.

who are all pretty pissed off and disappointed in JKR

Have any of them explained why?

So to be clear, a child would never be prescribed cross sex hormones

I thought that puberty blockers were only prescribed to those with
very severe dysphoria to buy time and avoid the distress of puberty in the 'wrong' gender. I didn't think they were easy to get hold of at all

So someone gender non confirming (I went through a phase of this too) would absolutely not fit the bill

I dont know about children and cross sex hormones but I believe i saw that 14/15 year olds get put on them.

Why are we blocking puberty? If we go through puberty we become a bit smarter and probably that bit older and more able to deal with life. So if puberty blockers are just to pass better, why? Whats the big deal in passing better but having bigger problems from the blockers?
And they are amazingly easy to get hold of, if you cant get a prescription you can buy them online, same as "cross sex" pills.

And finally you keep dismissing us on here as gender non conforming. Why? I and others thought we were boys, just like the girls today. Only we weren't transed like they are now.
I believed I had to be a boy for various reasons. Others have their own story and you keep on dismissing them.

@SapphosRock

Yes Datun I have a few good friends who are trans (who are all pretty pissed off and disappointed in JKR).

I disagree that I've been illogical and inconsistent.

As an aside, my trans women friends do not consider themselves women. They consider themselves trans women. And do not claim to speak for women or women's experiences.

Why are they pissed off with her?

Sapphos: did you not watch the newsnight expose last Wednesday? Double figure clinicians are quitting the Tavistock because they say they are ignoring safeguarding concerns and that many children are being put on the path to sterilisation because not enough (or even any) talking therapy is offered.

So yes puberty blockers are being made available to many children without anything like "consistent dysphoria"

Wake up!!!!!!!

DuDuDuLangaLangaBingBong they found the whole thing dismissive and patronising.

A bit like if one of them wrote an open letter to JK about their wizard stories, and gently suggesting to her that she's not really qualified to write about wizards.

But it wasn’t about them it was about JK.

I fairly recently had a sudden shock when I realised that if I were in a play, or a musical, I'd be expected to play the female parts - In my mind I'd always be doing the male parts. It has actually put me off considering am dram.

It is quite clear from JK’s comments that she was specifically talking about not being trans. That is where her concern in regards to transgender ideology lies. She used her own lived experience, which has also been backed up by many women in a recent thread here, to illustrate why this issue matters so greatly to her personally and also why it absolutely continues to be important to make a clear distinction on sex where warranted.

She is specifically talking about those young and vulnerable people who are not transgender and who absolutely should not be encouraged onto a pathway that is a) irreversible or b) potentially very damaging to their overall wellbeing or c) patently untrue - ‘of course you can literally become a boy/girl or man/woman.’

She has valid concerns about safeguarding of children and young people. That absolutely is not hateful. And in fact is not about trans people or their experiences at all.