Why are TRAs body-shaming J.K. Rowling? - Jean Hatchett

[LittleWhingingWoman]

thecritic.co.uk/why-are-tras-body-shaming-j-k-rowling/

"We know what a female body feels like and moves like because we share the experience of living in one. A man does not, however he chooses to identify. These trans activists don’t seem to like the reality of female bodies in all their beautiful variety and are quick to pounce on a body that does not conform to a porn-dictated stereotype. Their tweets reveal a fear of the female body which is not surgically altered or surgically constructed from a male body."

Excellent article - thank you for the link.

Some of these TRAs are really revealing themselves for what they are, aren’t they?

Greer suggested that - I don't know if I'm allowed to use this word on MN but when The Female Eunuch was written in the 70s it was 'transexuals' - idolised an idea of femininity that had virtually nothing to do with real female bodies. This goes for drag artists, too. It's not really connected to women; it's a hyper exaggerated simulacra of a sexually available pre-pubescent female. (Red pouty lips, impossibly pneumatic breasts, hairless, airbrushed, huge-eyed). A porny sex-doll, I suppose.

I expect this is where some of the anger comes from. Women don't look like that. It all ties in perfectly with the capitalist patriarchy - the effort required for girls/women to try and achieve this deliberately impossible ideal (and measure our self worth according to how closely we can simulate this abstract idea of 'female') is a useful tool.

So the impossible picture of 'woman' (nod to Purgatory's excellent posts on Platonic Forms the other day) is created and then used as a stick to beat women with for failing to live up to.

This was the idea of the 'third sex' Greer posited - probably what we'd call the feminine gender/stereotype. At least, that's what I recall from the book, which I read a long time ago. It's deliberately impossible, only achievable with the help of implements, tools, paint, surgery, expensive treatments, photo filters, lighting, airbrushing, etc.

@tabbycatstripy

What male trans activists want is to be a twenty year old female, not a fifty year old female. That’s why there’s so much emphasis on surgery. They want to create a hierarchy of worth based on sexual attractiveness, which they perceive as femininity, and middle aged women go at the bottom.

It's why we have 50+ year old males prattling about second puberties and calling themselves girls. Despite all evidence to the contrary.

Good article, btw, thanks for the link!

"I am grateful to the woman who gave birth to me, the women who healed me after abuse, and the woman who saved me from death. Being alive in this body, imperfect though it may be, is a gift that women gave me.

Women are beautiful."

This is beautiful. Thanks to those unpleasant social media users and the system that has enabled them, leading Jean writing some of the most beautiful words.

I'd like to share this, but I think very few would get past their outrage to see the beauty

That is a beautiful article. So much resonated for me. Would it have done so before I had had children, before I had had to come to terms with the realities of a post-childbirth, post-menopause, ageing body? Yes, I think even then aspects of what Jean says would have resonated.

It's that 8th rule of misogyny: Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are. No. Women are what we are, our bodies are amazing and we carry our histories in our bodies. Self-consciousness and self-hatred are the products of men dictating that we should always look like their image of a permanently available, permanently fresh, permanently youthful, permanently pre-pregnancy female. Piss off.

The thing is they have always talked about how JKR looks. Long lenses on her holidays. Comments on her face.
They've never given Phillip Pullman or George R R Martin the same scrutiny have they. I wonder why that is?

Interesting article but it is overthinking it to some degree. Basically calling women ugly (in different guises) is an age old misogynistic tactic to keep women scared, under control and from organising for our rights. It only works in a patriarchal society where women are valued for both beauty and subservience and to some extent need men as protection or to survive. This is true no matter what clothes the man doing the misogynistic labelling is wearing.

They don't want to be us. They want to be a constructed, male centric fantasy. But they want to call it 'woman.

We actual women just remind them of how their self serving fantasy isn't real.

Real bodies, with miraculous function isn't what they want the term 'woman' to refer to.

And the fantasy doesn't even exist either. They just don't have the requisite tools to make it.

Maybe we should should abandon 'Women' and call ourselves 'Rowlings' instead.

They won't want to colonise that, but it does examplify pretty much all I respect about the female sex ...

Thank you for the link OP,
The comments made by trans activists about Joanne and Lianne are rude and misogynistic,
But their words won't cut any ice with these lovely women, for they know their own worth,
As all women should know, their worth is not dependent upon any man's opinion of them,
Their words are worthless, irrelevant to how we view ourselves (and in answer to a question nobody even asked)
Women have wised up. We are powerful, our bodies are capable of amazing things.
We don't need any validation by men with their unreal ideologies
All these trans activists are doing is showing themselves up for what they truly are,
They are jealous and afraid of a woman's power,
@LittleWhingingWoman
Your comment made me smile
Please don't tell them all our secrets

@lululongdog

but if they find us so unattractive, why do they want to be us? The older trans-women I know mostly look like the rest of us older women, and are happy to do so...

This exactly! I know a few old school trans and they are just like this, trying to live their lives and be accepted but not pushing any agenda. They are being thrown under the bus too.

"Titties" 🤮

Its envy for the most part

Sad

What they forget is that women have been told they're ugly and their appearance fully critiqued in terms of fuckability since they were about 11 years old. If we don't smile when ordered to, if we don't permit access to our bodies on demand, if we don't stand aside, we're told that we're ugly/fat/haggard.

As soon as we won't acquiesce to male demands and male entitlement and male abuse, from puberty, we're told our appearance is hideous and offensive to their eyes, often just seconds after they were convinced that we'd let them fuck us and be grateful for it, but found out that actually, no, we're not going to. As though not wanting to satisfy or facilitate any random man's entitlement is what has actually made us disgusting.

It's not anything to do with what we look like; it's the fact that we dared to say no that causes such rage and revulsion.

We're used to this shit. It's standard treatment for girls and women. Pretty much our entire fucking lives.

By fifty, we've heard it all before and it has no power over us - because men have used it as a means of control, oppression and abuse for near enough 80% of our existence, if not more, as 'you're ugly' often starts in the playground where boys parrot what they have been taught by men from infancy. It's just so very predictable. And boring.

They may as well call Rowling a teapot or a poopoohead for all the harm it's going to do to her.

I liked the article. Our bodies are real and imperfect, they change as we get older. Joanne looks lovely, they have had to make up problems to sneer. I loved how happy those women looked in each other’s company.

Women’s bodies are amazing and beautiful in their differences, complexity and capabilities. No surgical facsimile will ever be able to compete in all the ways that are important to women.

I also love my hysterectomy scar and said so to my female surgeon. It is extraordinarily neat (and much longer than I’d expected) and it tells the final part of the story of how my uterus has impacted my life.

Let the Trans activists make their misogynistic comments, they show themselves for who they are and what they think womanhood is about. And in the process demonstrate how irrelevant they are to our views of womanhood..

What they forget is that women have been told they're ugly and their appearance fully critiqued in terms of fuckability since they were about 11 years old.

Starts from birth. How 'pretty' girls are. 'Heartbreaker' T shirts. The relentless focus on how they look, and dress, and appearances. It's right from dot.

@NeinDanke

"Titties" 🤮

IKR. The misogynistic language around something they try and emulate speaks of considerable self hate to me.

I got shivers down my spine from that article, thanks Jean.

The article also reminded me of all those little slurs about biological women doing 'womanning' wrong by not performing effortless femininity where the latter is ultimately defined by that male gaze.

For 'woman' to be an identity only, it will, paradoxically have to be proven as a never-ending performance, and that must be truly exhausting for the actor.

I always get deleted for saying this, but it's a bit rich criticising the way a woman looks considering the way some of these transwomen turn themselves out in public.

Somanysocks quite

What a fantastic article that is. i wish I wrote half as eloquently as Jean Hatchet does here.