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

@Viviennemary

"She seems to be stirring up trouble for troubles sake."

If what you mean by this is "She is risking her life to make the world a safer, fairer place for women and children" then I agree with you.

That cartoon actually makes zero sense 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well said, @FlirtsWithRhinos !!!

I absolutely agree that the issue is being hijacked for political gain.

I don't believe Nicola Sturgeon gave one flying fuck for trans rights and thought it was an easy win for "our ultra progressive wee country".

I'm pro-independence but feeling politically homeless over this and seriously considering spoiling my ballot.

I'm pro-independence but feeling politically homeless over this and seriously considering spoiling my ballot.

Job done then.

@BIWI I have noticed on more than one occasion (ok, A LOT) that this particular poster often replies with similar type comments. Often missing the point, totally unaware of current affairs or the subject matter being discussed. If there's ever a totally irrelevant, infantile or banal comment to a thread it is often made by the same person.

Good for her setting up and supporting charities. She still comes across as a bitter and hate-filled individual.

What do you imagine she is bitter about? You keep using that word so presumably you have some idea as to what you think it is.

She still comes across as a bitter and hate-filled individual.

She really doesn't. You see bitter and hate filled, I see passionate and principled. She's smart, articulate and uses her immense wealth to help women and girls. She was a single mother who fled domestic violence.

She's rightly angry at men barging their way into spaces, sports and prisons where they have no right to be, and our shite government for allowing this. Her status shines a light on this where before it went brushed under the carpet (males in female prisons for example).

Her wealth enables her to state facts that others won't or can't without fear of being cancelled/sacked from jobs.

She's amazing.

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.

You know, once you've been following the gender vs sex topic for a while across various platforms, you see a very clear pattern of phrases belonging to gender critical criticism of gender ideology turning up a few weeks or months later as accusations from genderists against gender criticism.

Of course flipped this way they make no sense at all.

"circular arguments"
GI: "a woman is anyone who says they are a woman" - circular
GC: "a woman is a biological female, including biological females with natural or elective physical variations" - not circular

"patriarchal ideas"
GI: "Women are mentally different to men. A woman is someone of either sex whose personality meets the cultural tropes of womanhood" - patriarchal

GC: "a woman is a biological female. Her womanhood is just a fact about her that does not restrict her to and is not contingent on any specific mental or cultural attributes" - not patriarchal

"boxing into categories"

GI: "you are assigned a gender based on your sex. If your box doesn't fit you need to transition by picking the gender box that matches your character" - boxing into categories

GC: "Your body has a sex. That has physical consequences. Our culture imposes personality boxes based on sex. Transitioning is just swapping one box for another. By its existence it implicitly validates the existence of the boxes. The real aim is to have no boxes." - rejects boxing into categories

"embracing of the spectrum of human variety and celebrating the difference"

GI: "you can only be accepted as yourself by embracing sex stereotypes or transitioning " - puts conditions around the spectrum of human variety and makes celebrates the difference contingent on social rituals

GC: "You are you and that's ok. Your sex is just your sex. You don't need to perform a gender or a physical or social transition to be accepted and acceptable exactly as you are." - embracing of the spectrum of human variety and celebrating the difference

"combined with the far right push to a nuclear family that can be controlled"

This one is all their own! Utter bollocks and obviously mistaken or sinply bad faith of course, but not nicked from us for once.

I doubt the genderists even realise they are doing it. I think it really is DARVO in action : "that's bad, I can't be bad, so it must be them that is doing it"

@Badburyrings and @BIWI

How arrogant of you to think that because we disagree with you we’re missing the point or unaware of current affairs. My job relates directly to current affairs and I’ve been doing it successfully for over two decades. I can assure you no points are missed, I just don’t think you’ve made any that are particularly convincing.

Men barging their way into spaces, sports and prisons where they have no right to be and our shite government for allowing this.

How can that be the case when the gender reform bill which was supported by MSPs from all parties has been blocked by our Westminster overlords? Absolutely nothing has changed in Scotland.

I'd use 'supported' loosely. I'd wager that more than a few were whipped.

A failed bill hasn't stopped men going into places they shouldn't. Crimes are still being recorded in a person's preferred gender.

wasnt for want of trying though was it!

left to the devices of the SNP Isla “rapist gender” Bryson would be in a female prison

I thought it was quite obvious, so apologies for not stating it outright. She appears to be very bitter about a very small minority being given some rights regarding self identification and protections against hate speech.

Men however they identify are not a small minority

That rapist was never going to be held amongst women prisoners. Do you seriously think anyone in government would think that was the right thing to do? No they wouldn’t and they didn’t. What nonsense. I can’t believe people are falling for this.

Cancellers must reflect that cancelling really
just means; disagree. They simply disagree with JKR. And that’s ok. Just as it’s ok to not disagree with her.

Where I wasn’t a Harry Potter book buyer before, I am now. What an excellent writer!

That's your framing of it.

Mine would be she is angry that men are given women's rights which leads to weaponisation against women who the rights were meant for in the first place.

It's not bitterness it's justified anger at the sheer male entitlement and the dangerous position it puts women in.

Have you had your head in a bucket of clay for several years?

It was happening everywhere.

YABU. What she said was not a crime.

@MishyJDI ”Read Judith Butler and free your minds from the rabbit hole”

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

free your mind from all rational thought and critical thinking, string together some word salad that means whatever the writer or reader likes, as long as any reality based meaning has been obscured

Bryson was initially remanded to Cornton Vale women's prison in Stirling, but has since been moved to a men's jail.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63823420

now the sort of fuckwits who even remanded Bryson to a female prison shouldn’t be in charge of running a bath let alone country however they were merely following Scottish prison policy

SPS policy states: "The accommodation provided must be the one that best suits the person in custody's needs and should reflect the gender in which the person in custody is currently living."
Prisoners are not required to have a gender recognition certificate to be considered transgender.

it was the huge uproar about Bryson that got that policy reviewed

james Morton from the Scottish trans alliance talked several years ago about their approach on this

We strategized – we strategized – that by working intensively with the Scottish Prison Service to support them to include trans women as women on a self-declaration basis within very challenging circumstances, we would be able to ensure that all other public services should be able to do likewise’.

so don’t tell us that there was nothing to see here!

Rapists are risk assessed and even if in a female jail, would be in an isolation cell.