English teacher tells class that JKR is transphobic

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Just that really.
I'm absolutely fuming.
30 kids now "hate" JKR apparently.
This is an abuse of influence surely, not to mention a worrying lack of critical thinking.
I've printed out the "transphobic" tweets so my Y7 child can make up their own mind. With a lot of ranting from me in the background .

@ArabellaScott

It's not a derail, it's a baby!!!

Well, that's true

@nauticant

My understanding of biology is derived from actual scientists who, en mass, say that sex differentiation is extremely complex.

Scientists say that gravity is extremely complex. Possibly so complex that a true understanding of gravity will never be achieved. However, gravity operates both at the extremely complex level but also at the day to day level. People are able to lead lives having an understanding of gravity that works. Vast civil engineering projects go ahead without gravity's extreme complexity needing to be considered for a moment.

People have understood sex in a way that has worked for millennia, possibly from before the dawn of civilisation. The idea that now it's beyond the grasp of people for whom it works day to day is simply argumental chaff thrown up to set people off down blind alleys.

nauticant thank you for this. It is such a good explanation.

[quote Shizuku]The teacher is making a perfectly valid claim in my opinion and I entirely agree with them.

Not that they really need to bother - loads of young people already think JKR is a transphobe.

Here's a detailed analysis of the alleged transphobia:

katymontgomerie.medium.com/addressing-the-claims-in-jk-rowlings-justification-for-transphobia-7b6f761e8f8f[/quote]
So this essay is proof of JKs transphobia? Awesome.

So if I (or realistically someone cleverer/with more mental energy than I) write an essay explaining how none of the things she said were transphobic, then that's proof that she wasn't. Isn't it?

@Igneococcus

I'm a scientist, a biologist, with a PhD and almost 30 years of research and a publication record and I wouldn't sign that piece of waffle if you'd put a gun to my head.

What's funny is that this sort of list thing is straight out of the creationist playbook. Or "Intelligent Design" sorry. They used to love lists of scientists who didn't believe in evolution.

So they don't know the name of the main character in a book they've read?

Apparently not, and I’ll go so far as to say that I don’t reckon they read the book, or any others in the series

I mean, she is.

poor Hibari who believes feminists in the UK are all Christian Conservatives.

@Hibari

I mean, she is.

Hibari, someone else has already made an identical comment.

Funnily enough, they weren't able to quote anything from JKR directly to support their claim. Perhaps you can?

@MondayYogurt

Perhaps the teacher can spend the next class going through a few other beloved authors and encouraging children to boycott their reading. Because children should only read work from ideologically acceptable authors, of course.

Kipling, David Walliams, Roald Dahl, Dr Seuss, Enid Blyton...

They can save all the evil books up for bonfire night. Very wholesome. Much normal.

Ritual book burnings - I wonder where else that has happened and under what regimes.

Complain. Ask the teacher to retract and apologize or put forth a proper argument. The latter may even be better, because you can then shred it to pieces and show the teacher up for the bigot that they are.

I think that someone who has commented on threads about ‘GC allies’ really should stop posting links to a activist who has been heavily involved in the very public sexual harassment of a women.

And one that mocks females for their toilet habits. Not one woman I know mocks another for ‘hovering’ or for toilet noises. Yet, these are just what Montgomery has been up to over the past few months.

If you want people (readers) to take notice of your arguments, you probably need to get reliable sources.

I feel like I have repeated myself a few times now, but links to that activist keep being posted. So, I guess it bears repeating still.

@SunbeamRapier

She’s (rightly imo) viewed as transphobic because she insinuates that trans people cannot be trusted and are dangerous. She’s likened doctors helping trans kids to grooming, and written a book on the back or her previous warnings where the serial killer dresses as a woman. Now ladies, you don’t have to be Columbo to see what point she’s trying to make. Oh yes: “Sleep with whoever will have you” and her own story of suffering domestic violence. Not by a trans person, but by a man. But spun so that the lesson is that if trans rights are granted, women will be put at risk. Understand this is probably not going down well here in the bubble. However, the simple fact remains: Just as homosexuals decide what’s homophobic, so do trans people decide what’s transphobic. But you want those actually painting them as a risk etc to be the arbiters of what’s offensive. The view here is that what trans people think doesn’t matter.

Except she does not say that. she says that she does not trust all men (you known this, you actually point it out) and that men with agendas will abuse the rights that transgender people might be given to access otherwise single sex spaces. I wish people would criticise what she actually says. She actually says 'trans-identified people' pose 'zero threat' and goes on:

'When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.'

So she is talking about men. Where an opportunity exists for an abuser to slip through a net they will.

You must know she said this but why let what she said get in the way of an opinion?

What? Ah well!

Oh christ please not the 'sex differentiation is extremely complex' argument again, I can't!

It's not extremely complex! It's never been extremely complex to tell who are the men and who are the women, people have always known, history shows that over and over and over again.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

What? Ah well!

Pathetic isnt it 😀

Ah yes. Pathetic it is!

Definitely complain

She’s (rightly imo) viewed as transphobic because she insinuates that trans people cannot be trusted and are dangerous.

No she doesn't. She says that women need single sex spaces in certain situations, segregated by biological sex. And that she sees problems with 'self-id' where any man can declare himself a woman just on his say so.

She’s likened doctors helping trans kids to grooming

She said that there are issues with using off label unlicensed drugs on children who cannot possibly understand the implications of such use, due to their age and developmental level.

and written a book on the back or her previous warnings where the serial killer dresses as a woman.

As I understand it, the character dresses as a woman in order to gain access to women. This has happened in real life and is not an totally uncommon phenomenon amongst male killers. Of course in a culture of self-id, it would make women even more unsafe, but I don't know if she was deliberately making that point in the book.

and her own story of suffering domestic violence. Not by a trans person, but by a man.

What do you mean by 'trans person' here. What is it exactly that separates a transwoman from a man? At what objective point does a male who identifies as female, come out of the 'high risk' category of male and into the low risk category of female? What are the objective criteria for that move to take place?

But spun so that the lesson is that if trans rights are granted, women will be put at risk.

What rights do you mean here? What rights do I, as a woman, have that trans people do not have? I mean, trans people are currently allowed to legally falsify their birth certificate if they go through due process, I am not allowed to do that? So what rights are we talking about?

However, the simple fact remains: Just as homosexuals decide what’s homophobic, so do trans people decide what’s transphobic.

Yes. And they have decided that biological sex is transphobic, that women having anything for themselves or centering themselves in anything is transphobic, that women being allowed to define themselves is transphobic, that single sex provision is transphobic, that calling someone who has been pregnant and given birth a 'mother' rather than a 'birthing body' is transphobic.

We are well aware that trans people decide what is transphobic.

Lots of people have been asking for transphobic quotes from JK Rowling and complaining that they don't get any, or an explanation of why they are transphobic.

It's time to end that.

Here is a direct quote, written by JK Rowling herself:

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

This is not just a transphobic paragraph, it is the beginning of a whole transphobic novel, the first in an entire transphobic series.

We know this quote is transphobic, because trans people have been burning these books to demonstrate disagreement with the transphobia within.

Clear as day, really.

HP is very transphobic, characters, especially HeadTransphobe Dumbledore (additionally suspicious because he's apparently same-sex attracted, and therefore a bigot) keep deadnaming Voldemort. Why can't they accept that his identification as Dark Lord Voldemort has nothing do with them and that he has always been the pureblooded Voldemort and never the halfblood Tom Riddle?

However, the simple fact remains: Just as homosexuals decide what’s homophobic, so do trans people decide what’s transphobic.

This rule fairly applied should mean that women decide what's misogynistic. Somehow I never see this applied with the same enthusiasm.

That's a deconstructive reading. Which is interestingly what the analysis 'proof' relies on. Except it reconstructs to apply it's own meaning. It's been a while but I think there's a word for that type of literary criticism.

I don't think it's 'batshit' either.

It reminds me of studying Dracula at university and reading whole books on how x is not mentioned in Dracula and is conspicuous by its absence so hence Dracula is all about it.
I much prefer Dracula as a historical reaction to the 'new woman' myself.

So only transpeople can decide if something is transphobic but women are not allowed to decide what a woman is or if something might be harmfull to women and girls.

Gotcha 👍