£1 million prize offered for anyone who can provide a clear example of a transphobic J.K. Rowling quote

[miri1985]

As the title says, a million pounds is being offered by Distance Magazine https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/we-will-award-steve-wardlaw-1-million?r=uglk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

"To win the Steve Wardlaw Prize™, an entrant must demonstrate that the cited statement by J.K. Rowling does not involve a rights conflict. That is, the cited statement must materially detract from the human rights of ‘transgender people’ without simultaneously arguing for the rights of another group, such as women, children, or people with faith traditions."

They've named the prize after Steve Wardlaw who I've never heard of but his pinned tweet is an apology to Alison Bailey

Definitive proof.

I mean, that Queen thought marijana was fun.

I've got nothing on JKR being transphobic, obvs.

... the cited statement must materially detract from the human rights of ‘transgender people’ without simultaneously arguing for the rights of another group, such as women, children, or people with faith traditions."

There's the rub, though - according to misogynists in our misogyny-drenched culture, it's necessary and right to argue against the "so-called" rights of women because they are structurally and systemically overprivileged in our society (and according to some, in all societies). Therefore, they'll claim, the very framing of THIS challenge is "bigoted" and "transphobic".

Women are a majority, after all! (And some of them are even white!) And Rowling herself is proof that they are colossally privileged. Why does SHE have all that money and I don't? How dare she stand upon for herself and protect her safety, her family, and her work? The people that threaten and attack her don't have the resources to respond to (for example) the type of lawsuit she can fund - she's punching down! So much for "intersectionality".

See also: "there's no such thing as women's sex-based rights." Repeat a fictitious mantra often enough and confidently enough and eventually a not insignificant percentage of (possibly even well-meaning) uninformed people will believe you and even repeat it too.

Ooh, I love this. Cone on all ye monitors.

Why won't my phone actually let me type 'come'.
Transphobia?

Great article.

It continues to astonish and depress me how much some men hate women. They hate Jo Rowling more than any other woman, not for anything she has said or done, but because she is richer than them, because she is more powerful than them, and because she does not say what they tell her to or care what they think.

Misogynist men absolutely cannot stand rich women, or powerful women, or women who have opinions.

We are seeing an explosion of misogyny in the generation of men who had unlimited access to the internet as teens. It’s almost like a steady diet of violent porn has shaped how men view women 😔

Fucking brilliant 👏

I finally understood why the TRAs argue so firmly that Rowling has made transphobic comments. It's because their ideology is a secular-religious one where disagreeing with the basic tenets is heresy and heresy is called transphobia.

The most basic tenet of that secular-religion is that transwomen are women, transmen are men, and nonbinary are what they say they are. So sex is erased, everyone identifies as sexist stereotypes or by assigning them to the other labels, in the case of enbies.

Only fully accepting that, and the total chaos it causes in worldwide redefinition of everything to do with women, women's rights, sex-based oppression (presumably disappearing now sex can't be mentioned) and so on would save a person from being a transphobe.

Of all the many, many, many illogical randomnities of the TRAs, for some reason I think this confuses me up the most.

They don't have to pretend that JKR only wrote about a trans character in the Strike books when they mention this man who briefly wore a woman's coat BECAUSE THERE IS A WHOLE TRANS CHARACTER WITH A STORYLINE in a previous book! It's so weird.

The TV shows don't do any of the books justice imo - I think they are a good watch and the characters are well cast, but the books have so much more to them.

@EnjoythemoneyJane eh ehhh wrong answer. Only one kind of women has feelings, at least feelings that you need to respect...

See also: "there's no such thing as women's sex-based rights."

It's such a stupid, thoughtless mantra. If there's no such thing as women's sex based rights there's no such thing as "trans rights" either.

The law protects both women and trans people from discrimination on the basis of their protected characteristic.

This, exactly.

I couldn't find the Vox article about Dworkin and Ginsberg, but I did find this quote in another article, which resonated with me: Dworkin to Ginsberg - “What you’re saying to me is that you’re an exceptional man, and you’re not,” she said, “you’re just a man, like all of the others, who has no respect for the rights of other people.”

<Waits impatiently for IW to swoop in with their winning quote and bag the prize>

Love it, genius.

I don't think it's just men who hate JKR, I think it's both sexes who are onboard the TRA express. I think you are right when you say why they hate her, must really annoy them how successful JKR is.

Apologies in advance for nit picking sorry, but only because the language subversion of the TRAs makes it so necessary to be acccurate.

In The Equality Act of 2010 the following are protected characteristics :
"These are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation."

"Women" is not a protected characteristic. but sex ( female ) is. "Gender reassignment" is unfortunately so vague without any definition, that it means whatever people want it to mean. Clarifying this would help enormously.

This is true, when the whole JKR thing kicked off I sent a message of support and received a lovely reply from her office. My DD who was 23 at the time arrived home, and I shared my excitement that I'd had a reply, assuming that any sane person would agree with me, let alone my daughter who had grown up with Harry Potter . My daughter was not happy - "JKR is VILE!" she exclaimed, and flounced from the room. Broke my heart. We don't discuss it but I think she's quietly come around to the sane side.

One of my DD (21) always said JKR is transphobic but could never tell me why. She has stopped saying it now and I think is coming round after me speaking of various threads on here. I will tell her about this and suggest if she still thinks it she should claim her million.

Hmm unfortunately this won't change a thing because the whole Bally mess is based on a belief system, not rationality.

As an example, check out the large list of current and past prizes offered to anyone demonstrating proof of the paranormal - there's huge sums of money there unclaimed and yet people still believe in ghosts 🤷🏻‍♀️ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listoffprizesforrevidenceofftheparanormal

People don't need proof to believe in something unfortunately.

Ha!
I hope this is being shared far and wide on "X" formerly known as TRA-Twitter.

Just reposting this fun takedown of a similar Vice article, from The Critic :)

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/february-2022/the-villainy-of-j-k-rowling/

I obviously don't think jkr is transphobic but with the dangly carrot offered I can come up with:
Ron is bullied for his girly dress robes and the other boys snigger at his pathetic use of a severing charm to get rid of the frills instead of instantly affirming him and asking his pronouns

Neville imagines Snape in a dress and dresses him in his grandmothers clothes in boggart form. The third years all find this hilarious and Snape bangs about in a towering mood, bullying Neville worse than ever. No one calls Neville a terf, tries to cancel him and provide Snape with a safe space and his own flag

An old wizard called Archie argues with ministry officials at the quidditch world cup about him not passing as a Muggle as he is wearing a night dress. When he replies he likes a healthy breeze around his privates he is not immediately apologised for and called m'am.

The existence of Ginny Weasley, Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson. All brazenly being good at sport without claiming a male energy.

Squibgender, Mugglegender, Mudblood gender and Pureblood gender lack their own flag.

Half-bloods are valid.

Anyone come up with a creative idea to get the million? My only ideas so far have been to change my name by deed poll to JK Rowling and tweet something outrageous or to get a job at the OED and add extra meanings to some words by stealth.

"Woman" is absolutely a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. It means being a female human (the definition is expanded for ease of drafting to include girls). Other mammalian females are not covered by the Act.

Brilliant. 😂

I’d say pregnancy provisions are sex based as well, personally. Am I correct in thinking that they don’t just apply to women who are actually pregnant, but also cover things like potential employers asking if you are getting married/ planning a family in the near future?