Is JK transphobic: A critical analysis

[LitCritChick]

Following the posting of this 'proof' on another forum, I did an analysis.
katymontgomerie.medium.com/addressing-the-claims-in-jk-rowlings-justification-for-transphobia-7b6f761e8f8f

Introduction

The first issue I come across in the introduction is the claim that JK's essay is purposefully too long to obscure the facts and true intent. The essay takes around 9 minutes for a slow reader I would estimate, and is a concise, whilst personal communication of the main problems JK has with the erosion of women. It's hardly surprising, as the other side relies on snappy slogans that don't stand up to much deconstruction, #twawnodebate.

^JKR’s original post was long and it contained so many falsehoods it is very tricky to address concisely, therefore this article is very long.^

Now, this statement I would argue is false, yet implies the writer has done the leg work so you don't have to read the original essay. However, I would estimate it to be around the same length as J K Rowling's essay so the save you time argument falls flat. It does, however give it's own reading of the text which happily I have spent some time looking into so here goes. (Literature nuts please feel welcome to deconstruct as we go. It's no Heart of Darkness, but it is an interesting analysis exercise.

Maya Forstater

This section basically refutes the meaning behind this statement from JK Rowling:

For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.

It levels the accusation that Maya was campaigning to take away existing rights.

^This was not a simple case of someone tweeting something innocuous in passing, it involved months of (still ongoing) campaigning to take away the rights that trans women have today for protection against the misogynistic sexism and sexual violence they face for being women, and a refusal to respect trans people for who they are.^

It fails to explain what these rights are. As a group we know that the people are thankfully entitled to the same protections as everyone else. Therefore we have to assume that it does not refer to existing rights but rather the assumed rights granted to women based on their sex. You can see this conflation above. It seems to therefore refer to misuse of the equality laws to erode single sex spaces and undermine the equality act.

The quote from the case is then quoted, asserting that Maya is absolutely about her beliefs around sex and this is incompatible with dignity etc.

An interesting statement, but I can't help but wonder if the ruling would be equally applied to others whose belief in sex was absolute. Many religions view sex as absolute and thus would male Muslim colleagues be held to account in the same way?

It then makes the oxymoron claim that trans people do not deny there are two sexes and that they understand sex is more complicated than two sexes.

^It is the the belief that everyone is put into box based on their genitals at birth: girl or boy, and that that is what they are for the rest of their lives. This is false and is not supported by science — biology is far more nuanced and complicated than that. ^
Note the use of assigned rather than observed here which has connotations of choice rather than fact. It then immediately conflates being trans with intersex as a means to demonstrate this complexity, despite the fact that the intersex community have increasingly asked not to be used as an illustration for this argument.
After arguing that sex in humnans is more complicated than that it then fails to provide any illustration or summary regarding humans on that.

What follows is the misrepresentation of this quote. This quote clearly expresses lack of confidence in anyone who would lie and be dishonest enough to tell children they can change sex. Obviously that would be a cruel thing to tell someone who felt desperately uncomfortable with their own sex.
The quote is twisted to make it sound like the mistrust is due to who the person is, i.e trans, a minority and not what they say.

^The idea that trans people can’t be trusted around children because of who they are is an extremist and disgusting position, ^

It would be a disgusting position,but as the quote illustrates it's about an ideology which is not adopted by every trans person anyway.
'Passing' trans people are also brought up here to presumably support the idea than sex is more complicated than male and female, in addition to making the false assertion that the mistrust with children is levelled at the dishonesty and not the person.

Note we are one section in and JK hasn't really featured,other than guilt by association.

Magdalen Berns

^^Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises
One of the most frustrating things about GC views is they are always wrapped in several layers of dogwhistles and misdirection.^^

So this section quickly does the following: Accusations of dogwhistles and misrepresentation. An assertion that trans people are far more aware of biology than women because of their discomfort with their own and poor healthcare which is geared to the binary. Hence cis privilege.

This ignores the fact that any changes in a trans biology are of course medical not natural. It's a tangent but I can't help but feel this is a deliberate attempt to allow the uniformed reader to arrive at the incorrect conclusion that there are natural, spontaneous biological components to being trans.

The ellusion to cis privilege in medical care also ignores plenty of research that suggests men are the default body in the medical field. Trans people are not centred but neither are women either.

This section asserts that the cotton ceiling is a hysterical gender critical invention, a strawman as all trans people respect'genital attraction'. That the writer claims to know that most people that are trans agree with no evidence beyond their statement is lacking, particularly when many twitter screenshots berating lesbians for passing on 'girl dick' can be produced.

biology is far more nuanced and complicated than that

Sorry to interrupt, (and thanks for the thread), but it really isn’t.

Sex exists to ensure survival of the species through sexual reproduction, whether you are a frog, a horse or a human.

Humans might be more nuanced and complicated than frogs and horses, but the goal of reproduction is the same.

Am impressed that you managed to get to the end of the article OP!

^The idea is to present trans women as predatory and as forcing women into sex, that there is some inherent problem with trans people that they are a danger to gay people. Half of trans people are women, half are gay, this doesn’t make any sense.^

The above statement is then made that half of trans are women and half are gay.

There appears to be no study or scientific backing to back up these numbers, but the language used here is troubling. It either conflates transwomen with women and forgets trans men and neatly drops them into the same box.

Both of which show which people have been prioritised in this movement.

It then refers to another Magdalen tweet. Again, I have to remind you, dear reader, that we have yet to encounter a primary jk Rowling source which actually contains transphobia: it's still guilt by association.
The tweet is an aggressive one. It implies that dressing up as women is disrespectful and a sexual motivation.
I do have to wonder after how many rape threats this tweet was made, but it's obviously considered here out of that context.
Trans is then refuted by the writer to ever have a sexual motivation, again a sweeping statement not backed up by anything concrete.
Of course, if trans is not a sexual expression that does raise questions about it's inclusion in the lgb umbrella, which is clearly about sexual orientation.

From the use of this tweet and that argument they try and draw parallels with race and sex, which of course don't quite fit.

Terf section
This section tried to dismantle the idea of being gender critical from feminism, which is bizarre because feminism=women are oppressed by their sex through the tool of gender.
I mean, feminism doesn't really work well with genderits obvious.
We see conflation of trans rights with the fight for gay rights in this section.
It does discuss how transphobia as a term is overused, but accusations shouldn't be instantly shrugged off.
I actually agree with this sentiment, as do many GC people. It's just that our view on what actually constitutes transphobic greatly differs.

As an aside, myself, I would argue that most transphobia has roots in toxic masculinity, however due to the title of this section I would say the writer largely disagrees.

Again, unless I am very much mistaken JK had no section in her essay titled terf, so I am not sure of the relevance other than to make that accusation.

We then come to this line which is so outrageous I felt it needed its own section.

^You cannot address oppression if you cannot name your oppressor.^

This argument is so clearly a dark mirror of women's concern that we need sex based language and to be able to organise based on their sex I find it absolutely breathtaking in it's gall.

We also have here the statement that feminists can't include transmen in their feminising because they are not female.

Again, I would like to point out here that someone unfamiliar with the terms here could draw the incorrect conclusion that transmen=natal males. This is either a deliberate theme or the language itself is so muddy it's inevitable.

Eh whats with the all the dumping?

There's already a thread going on JKR if you care to read it

So just to simplify at this point the accusations of transphobia can be summarised as such.

Supported a feminist who had GC views.
Supported a feminist who was GC views.

It's an analysis of the 'evidence' provided in the JK thread. It's too long for there.

Actually I'm finding it interesting to read and I think it's better suited to it's own thread rather than "dumping" in an ongoing discussion.

Biology Section

This section sets up a strawman to attack.
The view is given that GC people don't believe trans people believe in Science. Various random examples of sexual nuance are then cherry picked from the animal kingdom. It then says this obviously isn't true for humans.

Which doesn't really prove anything other than the author knows some random animal facts.

DS awake now. I will complete later if I get time. Just to point out we are one long baby nap in and still no concrete transphobia evidence.

I'm liking it, thank you- you said things so much better than I could. (I think that the reference to "terf" is because it's "terf wars" is the title of the essay)

@dolorsit

Actually I'm finding it interesting to read and I think it's better suited to it's own thread rather than "dumping" in an ongoing discussion.

Agree

@dolorsit

Actually I'm finding it interesting to read and I think it's better suited to it's own thread rather than "dumping" in an ongoing discussion.

Same.

^I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women^

It then uses a veiled reference to intersex to imply that sex is too nuanced to consider as simply male and female and t do so is scientifically misleading.
This is obviously not true.
It justifies this claim by using the interplay between socialisation, hormones and chromosomes as a reason why sex cannot be catagorised simply.
Gender critical feminists would never argue that sex exists in a vacuum without social factors coming into play so this is yet another strawman. For example, women are well aware how socialisation, science and funding all impact on women's reproductive health issues. Arguing that feminists that JK is ignoring this interplay is turning the concept inside out. Feminists know that these things add up to contribute to how an individual differently sexed from another can have different health outcomes. It doesn't mean sex is null and void- it means these are factors in sex.
It uses the fact that transwomen are different from men hormonally to suggest therefore they have a woman's experience. Except all that this actually proves is that the trans experience is different from men's in this case. That does not automatically make it identical to a woman's experience.
This is a baffling side of the argument as if trans women do indeed melt into woman as a class they definitely won't be getting tailored healthcare. It seems like a really obvious own goal to me: depersonalising their healthcare so they can be in the preferred box.
In conclusion this whole section berates JK for being scientifically misleading, whilst being scientifically misleading.

Education and safeguarding

The next section tried to equate section 28 with current concerns about child medication. These are obviously very different as section 28 restricted discussion of same sex relationships and the concerns were homophobic. The writer tries to draw a parallel with safeguarding concerns and transphobia, but a direct parallel is impossible as gay people were not put on experimental drugs or pushing other people's boundaries. It tries to put feminists on the wrong side of history by presenting the concerns as bigoted.
Obviously it doesn't care to share why those concerns are being taken so seriously British law has recently made changes that impact children in the UK,it just throws them out as unjustified.

It finishes on this quote

^letting kids be kids requires letting LGBT kids be LGBT kids.^
Which serves the purpose of conflating gay rights with trans rights. These are obviously very different things, but the writer doesn't go into how trans kids can be trans kids and what they need to do this. Is it clothes? Stereotypes? Activities? Drugs? Surgery? It's not mentioned.

Well done on the patience to address any bs coming from Katy Montgomerie.

no, she's not.

Thanks @LitCritChick! Saving this one for the next inevitable time that article comes up

Freedom of speech

The writer then implies that JK and others are transphobic because the worry that trans people have been added to the freedom of speech act.
It uses trans as protected characteristic to try and imply that the only concerns anyone could have regarding free speech would be phobic and unreasonable, but as stating that sex is real and using sex based pronouns can be considered transphobic, these concerns are more justified. When misgendering someone is labelled as literal violence and this is an easy thing to do by accident a sense of unease around inclusion in the hate crime act seems justified (at least to me).
This section levels accusations of JK being a rich woman and so therefore dismisses her views.
In addition to this this section argues that the gender critical side has a huge platform, listing the guardian newspaper and the BBC.
Yes really.
Really.
It also criticises Rowling for turning comments off, as this is claimed to be against freedom of speech. I can't help but wonder if this was before or after the Ickabog penis gate, as one could argue having dick pics on a thread meant for children is quite a good reason to be cautious in the future about who you allow to comment.

Basically, this section implies JK opposed freedom of speech, without any evidence other than she limits comments on her twitter and is GC so therefore wants trans people silenced.
Poor evidence of you ask me.