Is JK Rowling ‘too big to be cancelled’?

[IwantToRetire]

When JK Rowling dared police to arrest her for challenging Scotland’s new hate crime law, one outcome was assured – the multi-billion-pound Harry Potter brand continues to be a licence to print money whatever controversy surrounds her vocal campaigns.

The author, whose provocative posts this week will not be treated as criminal by police, has become one of the few public figures who appear to be “too big to cancel”, due to the enduring appeal of her wizarding franchise for big business.

Accused of transphobia for her vocal support for sex-based rights, Rowling has faced calls for a boycott of Harry Potter, from its books and movies to the blockbuster video game Hogwarts Legacy.

Potter movie actors including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson joined the backlash, criticising her comments.

Younger staff members at one of her publishers, Hachette, threatened to down tools and refuse to work on her book, The Ickabog, in protest at her views.

Rowling has said she is not concerned about how the backlash to her position on transgender issues – she has stated that sex is biological and that female-only spaces should be protected – will affect her legacy.

She had added that anyone who thinks she is concerned has “profoundly” misunderstood her.

Corporations which might normally distance themselves from public figures who face “cancellation” for offending minority groups are standing by her.

Hachette pulled rank on its staff, saying it was “proud to publish” The Ickabog, citing “freedom of expression” as a cornerstone of publishing.

The BBC is currently shooting season six of Strike, the detective novels published by Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
A ratings winner for the BBC, the broadcaster is expecting additional scrutiny of the new episodes which adapt The Ink Black Heart, the novel which echoes her situation with the inclusion of a character accused of transphobia.

The BBC has had to apologise twice to Rowling after guests on news shows accused her of being transphobic.

The author has seized control of her own narrative by appearing on the podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, claiming that she is not concerned that the backlash will affect her legacy and that anyone who thinks she is transphobic has “profoundly” misunderstood her.

Its a much longer article than these few paragraphs, but I am surprised by the tone as it is published in the "i" paper https://inews.co.uk/news/media/jk-rowling-too-big-to-cancel-2987608

Can also be read at https://archive.ph/KavRe

I don't agree with her views on Scottish Independence and I think a lot of her views on trans rights stem from her allegiance to the union and desire to undermine the Scottish Government/SNP. I don't agree with her views on gender self identification, and I don't believe in the persona she's creating for herself as a hero "fighting" for "safe spaces" for women. Women's Aid are supportive of self-identification, and it's already in place for women seeking their services, so I'll take the views of a genuinely feminist organisation over someone who comes across as a bitter, angry and hate-filled individual.

It's my understanding that women's aid funding relies on them admitting men into women's spaces.

I don't agree with her views on gender self identification

I don't suppose you're actually going to address those views and explain what you think they are, and why you don't agree with them though, are you?

someone who comes across as a bitter, angry and hate-filled individual.

who's not only given a significant amount of their self made fortune to charity, but has set up their own charities, including one for orphaned children, and a refuge for abused women.

I don't believe in the persona she's creating for herself as a hero "fighting" for "safe spaces" for women

She really, really doesn't need to 'create a persona' for herself!
She's globally famous, crazily rich and hugely successful.
Do you honestly think she's just doing it for some kind of recognition as a 'hero'?

I think "JK Rowling doesn't actually believe that female people deserve single sex spaces and sports or care about child safeguarding, she's just pretending she does because she wants to undermine the Scottish independence movement" might be an even worse take than, "JK Rowling believes that female people deserve single sex spaces and sports and cares about child safeguarding because she has been radicalised by the same conservative Christians who tried to ban her books from American schools in the 1990s into hating a vulnerable and oppressed minority."

I'm impressed. I really didn't think that one could be topped.

Mindlessly parroting "trans rights are human rights" would have been a much quicker and easier way to achieve that.

someone who comes across as a bitter, angry and hate-filled individual

...to you, perhaps.
OK, angry yes, but I'm just not seeing the rest of it.

As a mother with a full time job I don't really have time to write an essay on each of her views and why I disagree with them (I'll maybe come back to it later though) but I'll take the I'll take the coherent and measured views from the likes of Women's Aid, Engender, Rape Crisis, etc. etc. more seriously than someone who comes across as an angry, bitter, trans-hating troll any day. The union is working well for JK, and I really don't trust her motivations.

Do you also think Douglas Ross, Murdo Fraser and Rishi Sunak et al are passionate about protecting women? JK took a similar angry troll approach in relation to Scottish independence and anything associated with it, do you think that’s a coincidence? Sorry but you seem very naive.

Why does being on one side (or the other) of the Scottish independence question make someone an angry troll?

Is this why you don't like her? You're still angry she took a unionist position in the referendum so therefore you will agree with the ideological position that some women have dicks just to spite her?

No idea, I don't have access to their inner thoughts.

What does any of that have to do with JK Rowling, who is a completely different person?

JK Rowling feels very strongly about a lot of political issues ranging from abortion rights to Brexit.

I don't think it is a coincidence that someone who is very political in one area is also very political in other areas.

The idea that her stance on women's rights is nothing more than a pretext to undermine the Scottish National Party and, consequently, Scottish Independence, is the kind of absurd accusation that only a completely obsessive Scottish Nationalist could come up with.

It does seem a bit of a leap! I disagree with her about Scottish independence so it’s fine for female rape survivors ti have to include men in their support groups

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I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for intelligent debate from those mentioned 😂

I just don’t particularly like or trust her and I think this issue is absolutely being hi-jacked for political gain under the pretence of caring about women’s rights.

Definitely not obsessive Scottish nationalist. Certainly have a strong dislike for the government we’ve been saddled with for the last 14 years, and don’t trust them or their affiliated MSM who have helped stoke up the anger around GRR and hate speech laws.

I strongly dislike the government too but have the opposite criticism of the MSM, which hasn't done enough to challenge gender identity theory IMO. The BBC upholding a complaint about Justin Webb for specifying that trans women are male is a case in point.

I don't agree with her views on Scottish Independence and I think a lot of her views on trans rights stem from her allegiance to the union and desire to undermine the Scottish Government/SNP.

Goodness me, that’s a stretch. Is that the way your own political views have developed? Everything a knee-jerk reaction to another thing you disagree with?

What kind of political gain do you think JK Rowling could possibly be seeking to achieve by taking this stance?

Are you aware of what has happened to her since she nailed her colours to the mast?

And what has happened to other women in, for example, politics, publishing, the arts and the charity sector, for saying similar things?

I don't know. Probably not. But seems a bit obsessed with trans people. It can't be good for her mental health.

Though the logic bombs of her positions must be keeping her up at night. Or perhaps not.

In the end the circular arguments tied to patriarchal ideas, boxing into categories and combined with the far right push to a nuclear family that can be controlled, versus the embracing of the spectrum of human variety and celebrating the difference, fail in themselves.

Read Judith Butler and free your minds from the rabbit hole. This is a controlled agenda, and many good people are being used.

Katie (the TRA many love to hate) captured it well here. On fire:

Well I suppose gender ideologists know a circular argument when they see one. Or perhaps not.

Love the faux concern for JKR’s mental health.

Obviously Clarabell didn't read the evidence given by Rape Crisis Edinburgh at the latest tribunal . Otherwise she wouldn't be placing her trust in them to protect women. As for Engender, come on!!!!!

Eh? That cartoon really doesn't make any sense.
Why do you think it's such a gotcha @MishyJDI ?

Cars have wheels, but some cars sometimes don't have their wheels on.

Tables don't have wheels, except sometimes they do.

Presumably, following their "there's no difference between a woman who is not currently (or maybe was never) able to produce large gametes and a bological male, including biological males who actually can or have produced small gametes" logic, Mishy, Katie and other TRAs of their ilk also believe some tables are actually cars 😂

But of course, all this mithering misses the real point.

It doesn't matter how you define "women" now, what matters is the group of people who met the boring, old fashioned, not-hair-splitting everyday definition of woman that everybody understood with no issues until about 5 minutes ago are the ones who bear the consequences of female biology and are the ones who suffered and still suffer from the sexism of a historically patriarchal society, so they are the ones that every single "woman only" space, opportunity, protection, support and political voice are for and refer to. Changing the definition of woman now to include people who were not included in that history of sexism does not give these new "women" any moral claim whatsoever to anythung that predates their inclusion in "womanhood".