Who did JK Rowling become?

[BraveBananaBadge]

A long read in New York magazine about what made JKR such a meanie. Surprisingly in-depth and not quite so much about the feelz, but you know a man would never, ever get this treatment.

I was pleasantly surprised by the comments section, especially for an American publication. Plenty of people seeing it for what it is and asking logical questions (read it last night, so hope they’re still there...)

www.thecut.com/article/who-did-j-k-rowling-become.html?fbclid=IwAR1PB4xuZKKgJHZA5jqQng-oaukuWPhLGcx5uindUO6aL4EiSI3fUc4iiCA

i wish I hadn't read that (to be fair, I skimmed most of it). The bit where she dismisses her abusive ex really annoyed me. Oh and the bit where she "felt" she was targetted with online abuse. Just FUCK OFF. Fucking leave her alone.

You, who feels unsafe near a penis, or her, who has to wrestle with an intense feeling of not-belonging and being a disgusting, third-rate, fake woman. Who wins?

Yeah, who cares that women are scared of being raped when there are men being looked at funny in the men's toilets!! (I say men, because JKR was talking about the dangers of self ID. I'm not suggesting all transwomen are rapists.)

When males are scared of other males, we're supposed to say 'there, there', validate them and move over. When women say we're scared of males, we're threatened with rape and murder.

It's not women's fault that males feel uncomfortable with other males. It's not our solution to solve either. Maybe TRAs should spend the time they currently dedicate to harassing women online on educating men to just 'be kind' instead. Not as fun as trying to slap a woman back down into place though, is it? Don't get the same misogyny kick from that.

Playing down domestic violence, too. Nice. Funny how an I❤JKR sticker is a hate crime and a police matter, and saying the word mother and woman makes transpeople ''unsafe'', it's literal violence, yet being abused by your husband is ''just'' a slap. Fuck off.

There is that, queen, I didn’t post the link just to grind people’s gears as that’s not very productive. I thought the comments were very surprising as it’s made out dissenting Americans practically don’t exist. To see people rationally mulling the issue over, considering themselves LGBTQ+ allies but starting to gently question this narrative, was interesting I thought.

The piece itself depresses me greatly as it only once again proves JKR right.

@HecatesCatsInXmasHats

It's like a tick box exercise in casual (and not so casual) misogyny. You have to admire these types for having such faith in their progressive credentials, while trotting out the same old sexist shit:

• The abuse didn't really happen.
• She cares about her appearance so therefore frivolous.
• Her writing isn't that good anyway, some serious men said so.
• How dare she take legal action to protect her work, only mean women do that.
• Doesn't she know that she's not as important as the fans (silly woman), so she should stop having an opinion on the books she wrote.
• acknowledges that she was the victim of a stalker but has goes on to deride her for wanting to make her world feel safe. Women's fears not valid, you see.
• Comfortably centre left (I.e. rich white woman who only cares about her own interests)

This ^.

And the author couldn't even resist having a dig at her writing ability.

Un-fucking-believable.

Can she really not see how her negative feelings are plastered all over her article. Envy, sexism, all of it.

And yessss to reducing JKR's abuse to a 'slap'. The slap is what her ex admitted to in the tabloids. Is it only when a man invokes it that it pops into reality?

The comments were interesting. I see quite a few of those readers being where we were four or five years ago.

Wanting to find a solution, not wanting to be unfair, but struggling with the absurdity of eg males in female sport. I didn't immediately see rapists in prison mentioned. I wonder if that's not widely known.

The commentators don't seem quite up to speed yet. However it's the subsequent threats, rage and utter determination to annihilate any disagreement which tends to focus one on the implications like nothing else.

Wow, they really don't like JKR, do they? The envy, xenophobia and misogyny drips from the page. Was she supposed to roll over when someone tried to cash in on her IP, or steal from her? And change her opinions on the characters she created and feminist politics because her readers don't like them?

However it's the subsequent threats, rage and utter determination to annihilate any disagreement which tends to focus one on the implications like nothing else.

Yes, expressing a mild concern or empathy for JK is met by unbelievable guilt tripping and hyperbole about the plight of trans people, and slurs on you as "unkind", "privileged", "out of touch" or "selfish".

This exchange made me smile.

Are you in a place now where you can accept that you will always be rich?” she asked.
“No,” said Rowling. “Are you?”
Winfrey said she was (“Kinda. Getting there”).

That was an exchange of equals who both know the score.

The rest of it was painful: snide, belittling and biased.

I am a huge Harry Potter fan. Slightly obsessed you might say. I read and write fanfic. At no point though do I think Harry Potter or anything in the books belong to me. I don't own them. I'm playing around with her characters and her world building. Perhaps it's because I was older when I got into but I have no trouble separating the work from the writer. There are lots of young people (teens and in early 20s) who feel utterly betrayed by JKR. They take it so personally and because they live in an online echo chamber, no one ever challenges their views. Even the most reasonable online communities can't get their head around that JKR is not transphobic. It's a little frightening.

The jealousy and malice are palpable. Any guesses the author is working on her own set of grubby YA dystopian fiction?

@BraveBananaBadge

There is that, queen, I didn’t post the link just to grind people’s gears as that’s not very productive. I thought the comments were very surprising as it’s made out dissenting Americans practically don’t exist. To see people rationally mulling the issue over, considering themselves LGBTQ+ allies but starting to gently question this narrative, was interesting I thought.

The piece itself depresses me greatly as it only once again proves JKR right.

Oh that 'fuck off' wasn't directed at you, or anywhere near you! Yeah, the comments were good. I was listening to Blocked and Reported this morning and they discussed the Tavistock ruling - very gender-critically. I think lots of Americans dissent but the hysteria and cancelling is a lot to cope with.

I read and write fanfic.

Do you ever write fiction based on your own characters? Haven’t you got more chance of becoming an author if you write about your own original characters? Or is what you do more about being obsessed with Harry Potter rather than wanting to write?

@midgebabe

If courses transwomen are safer in the female locker room

As is every Kevin or Fred

Because most violence is originated by males

Exactly.

Any male is safer in the women's locker room than the men's!

Any male is safer in the women's locker room than the men's!

Well, only if there's exactly one male in there...

The moment you've got two, each male is now in there with a male who likes hanging out in women's locker rooms.

As Debbie Hayton once quipped, given the offer of a "trans women" prison wing - "I rather take my chances in the men's."

What a horrible, nasty, misogynistic piece of writing.

"that trans women were men seeking to invade women’s spaces,"

FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME: no one is arguing 'all trans women are...' anything (except for biologically male, which is the entire reason for 'trans'). I don't think any 'gender critical' feminist (or 'feminist' as I think we used to be known!!) cares whether it's a trans woman or a man coming into spaces and roles set aside for women, it's that WE DO NOT MAKE THE DISTINCTION. It's not 'transphobia', it is 'recognising the threat that males pose'.

On a less shouty note : "The divide here between mainstream British feminists and their American counterparts is striking: American opponents of trans rights tend to be right wing. The difference reflects, perhaps, the relative insularity and homogeneity of British feminism..."
What?!

Oops, clumsy phrasing got me deleted there - just come back to say didn’t think you meant me, queen!

Was trying to explain this piece has made me reach a stage where I want to do more for WR than just sit here and get wound up - sorry, mods.

I'm glad we're "mainstream feminists" now to commentators in the US. Because that isn't what I keep being told.

@Typesofcatalogue

I read and write fanfic.

Do you ever write fiction based on your own characters? Haven’t you got more chance of becoming an author if you write about your own original characters? Or is what you do more about being obsessed with Harry Potter rather than wanting to write?

For me, (good, even great) fanfic is about taking JKR's characters and world building and playing around with what ifs and creating a new story while keeping the characters authentic and the world logic similar. We know the characters really well and one can instantly get into the fic. JKR has given us a great landscape to work from and the possibilities are endless. On AO3 there are around 273k+ Harry Potter fics and over 827k online. Most of them dross but it's the biggest fandom by far.

I'm okay at fanfics but I have no desire to write my own original. I understand that many would be writers start off as fanfic writers.

NotYourHandmaid:

The difference reflects, perhaps, the relative insularity and homogeneity of British feminism..."
What?!

The homogeneity is a snide remark to say British feminists are white and middle class I think. Is the insular about the fact that we are on an island (you know the traditional view of us)? Or that we live in an echo chamber.

I'm glad mumsnet got referenced though as, hopefully, there will be people who saw the name and do a bit of googling and come to investigate.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

This comment: 🙄

But still, I understand how you feel. So what's the solution? Basically what it comes down to is either you have to get over it, or the transwoman does. So how do we decide who has to get over it? Well... maybe it should be based on who is more in danger. You, with a single transwoman in a locker room, or her in a locker room full of men? Or maybe it should be based on who is most uncomfortable? You, who feels unsafe near a penis, or her, who has to wrestle with an intense feeling of not-belonging and being a disgusting, third-rate, fake woman. Who wins?

Well... maybe it should be based on who is more in danger.

The lack of a shit being given to women is so in your face I cannot believe that so many still cannot see it.

A choice between keeping multiple women safe, or a male, the male, males win out everytime for some odd reason. Happens a lot on here too. Expecting women to be human shields as some males are awful people.

Tbh you could use the same shitty logic as in this post to say the opposite also. A single transwoman in a 'locker room' is one victim. 15 Women in the womens, are 15 victims.

Using such an argument is just stupid and offensive.

I am not suggesting all transpeople are criminals, though that should be obvious.

You, with a single transwoman in a locker room, or her in a locker room full of men?
Also this part stands out to me. Transwomen would be unsafe in a room full of men is acknowledged, as a number of men are dangerous..many more than dangerous women anyway. Yet, they cannot connect the dots. And they also think transmen, who are obviously biological females, should be the one in the mens and potentially at risk. Males win either way!

‘The difference reflects, perhaps, the relative insularity and homogeneity of British feminism..."

Other than being really bloody patronising and a tad bit xenophobic, this makes fuck all sense in context. I also think it’s part of an effort to make out that we are all white and posh, as if no working class or black woman has ever had the audacity to think about their sex-based rights.

Have they done a study on this or is this just an assumption made on this basis of no evidence?

That is the most boring hit piece I have ever read in my entire life.

This plonker is going back decades to dredge up copyright disputes, and whine that Dumbledore is gay and that Rita Skeeter is written as having large hands? JKR is either a fucking saint, or this is the most incompetent muckraking journalist in the history of journalism, or perhaps both of these are true.

It's all borderline amusing, apart from the uncritical reporting of her abusive husband's account of the violence in the relationship, "(I slapped her on the night she left") with no reporting of JK Rowling's side or even a hint that maybe abusive men lie sometimes. It's clearly been put there to minimise JKR's experience of violence. That's disgusting. The woman who wrote this piece is disgusting.

I love how an American thinks the UK is insular. You know that America where a vast number of the population never travel abroad, stereotypically where they are themselves as the leading voice in everything etc etc 🤣

I don't even like HP (I find it boring and naff sorry!) I love JKR

Here is a fine example of the lack of empathy towards women from TRA's. One woman in the comments section says this:

"But where else can we talk about these things? I had an experience last year in my gym's locker room, where I entered, what appeared to be a naked man with a penis was there, and I was uncomfortable."

The first reply is this:

"I'm sorry, but in this situation you feeling uncomfortable is less important than the trans woman in your locker room not having to face possible assault, rape, or death if she went into the men's locker room. At least 41 transgender people have been murdered this year. no transgender people have attacked anyone in a locker room or a bathroom."

no transgender people have attacked anyone in a locker room or a bathroom."

Even though these of course never happens, it actually couldn't happen, because of ... hormones, or something ... we also know that it won't be reported on when it doesn't happen, as it will either be reported on as 'female' crime or suppressed altogether (cf Barbie Kardashian).