@SimonedeBeauvoirscat
Thank you for the full link to her comments. She has expressed some of how I feel about women and womanhood.
Thank you Hillary Mantel for deciding to speak out. I would have been very interested to read the paper you almost wrote and I hope you still do write it.
Interviewer: From the point of view of a woman, what’s your opinion on the TERF-accusations against your colleague JK Rowling? I recently interviewed Margaret Atwood and she defended her. What’s your opinion about all this?
HM: "I have never met JK Rowling, but I know her to be a woman who has brought much pleasure and done much good. I think the attacks on her were unjustified and shameful. It is barbaric that a tiny minority should take command of public discourse and terrify those who disagree with them."
"I recently found myself ‘misgendered.’ I received a university publication, with news items relating to alumni, where I was referred to as ‘they,’ not ‘she.’ My books were ‘their books.’ I wasn’t singled out – the other alumni were similarly treated."
"I thought, ‘Being a woman means a lot to me. My sense of it has been tested. I have thought deeply about it. I value it, even though it has meant struggle and pain. I do not want my womanhood confiscated in print. It is not right to deprive an individual of identity on a whim, and make him or her into something neuter, plural. I have not given my consent to become a grammatical error."
"I almost wrote to protest. But my husband said, ‘It’s a fad. It will pass.’ I think he’s probably right, and the controversy will become a footnote in cultural history."