JK addresses “language policing”

[Mayyouleave]

Haven't seen a thread on this, if there is one I'll ask for this to be removed.
JK posted about language policing today.

It has started a lot of intense discussion (as do most JK posts) however this time it is mainly from women and men who are gender critical, sex realists, trans windows etc who are upset and annoyed about her post.
I agree with her about language policing, I wonder what the thoughts are on this board?

x.com/jk]]

I'll copy the text in for those not on twitter/X

*I say the following again because, while I understand people's strong views on the matter, some of the language policing is getting a bit wearing.

As I've said multiple times, I do not believe that a person can be born in the wrong body and I don't believe in gendered brains or souls. I believe the ideology that preaches such ideas is dangerous.

However, there are people in this world who want to present as the opposite sex for many diverse reasons - some of which I'm truly sympathetic to, others far less so - all of whom call themselves 'trans.' I use the word 'trans' in the full awareness that this umbrella term covers multiple groups who have nothing else in common with each other, such as straight men who enjoy cross-dressing for erotic purposes and young lesbians who, tragically, feel they'll be happier without their breasts.

When I talk about sex-based rights, I use the word 'trans' to denote 'people who wish to be seen or treated as the opposite sex', no more or less. Telling me ad nauseam that 'there is no such thing as a trans person' isn't overly helpful, because you're trying to pull me into a different argument, on which I've already made my position clear.*

No. its not exactly the same. But JKRs definition "a transperson is someone who wishes to be seen or treated as the opposite sex" doesn't cede any ground or belief (its not the same thing as calling Mary the mother of God, or of calling a transperson someone who is born in the wrong body) but provides a good definition of the group that group members and people not well versed in the debate would recognise. Its impossible to communicate without a shared language, or at least a mutual agreement to try to understand what the other person is talking about.

@CherryBlossomArt I meant to say I agree with you about "trans allies" also being people who fit into that belief system but aren't trans - which is why I think JKRs definition is so simple and clear - it includes the people you would expect to be included without confusing the issue further.

She can’t take terms she didn’t coin and change the definition of them, expecting to be understood.

It would be like defining “‘Mary, the mother of God’ is someone who gave birth to Jesus, the founder of the Christian church”.

People would be quite within their rights to be very 🫤 and heavily grill that person making such a definition:

“‘Mother of God’ is a far stronger statement and inherent claim, than ‘mother of the founder of a religion’, so how can you expect to be understood if you use such overtly religious language to describe factual reality?

Well what is the official definition of a trans person then?

There’s no “official” definition of “trans person”. It is a term which has been arrived at by a gradual mission creep. The first term was “transvestite” or “transsexual” then “transgender” to cover both (obfuscating the difference between genital surgery and just clothes), then “transperson” (changing the meaning from being about the way someone presents, to who they innately are) to “trans person” (dividing all people into “trans people” or “cis people” - replacing the sex binary).

The definition is vague because it does not name anything concrete or real. There is, mercifully, no “official” definition of “trans person” in the UK, because people are fighting back against it being written into law.

There is no definition because "trans" doesn't exist in biological reality. That might be the word that mentally ill people choose to use to describe themselves but there is no obligation for anyone else to use that word. I refuse to play along with the delusion as it just gives the illusion of legitimacy to men using that word to self describe and infringe on women's spaces and rights.

If there's no official definition then JK Rowling can't have changed it then.

A term doesn’t need to be “official” for it to have been coined by a group of people (extremists in this case), and to be foundational for their belief, and for it to be widely understood to be foundational for that belief.

If someone who doesn’t share the belief comes along and tries to redefine that term so it doesn’t imply the foundation belief it was coined to describe, they are very unlikely to be able to make that usage catch on or be perceived differently from its original meaning.

OK so what is the definition according to believers?

It’s very hard to get a solid definition from believers, but chants, such as “Trans women are women”, would imply something along the lines of either:

”A trans person is a person who has, by all meaningful measures, literally become a person of the opposite sex (material transubstantiation)”

or

“Material reality cannot be known or measured, all that exists is mind and ideas, therefore reality is simply what we identify it to be, and a trans person is a person who correctly names themselves as the opposite sex to the one others imagine them to be”.

If it were nonsensicle people wouldn't be able to understand it. Clearly everyone here does, even those telling others they shouldn't use it.

If someone talks about "trans people" in a discussion of something like the GRC, or medical interventions, we know who is being referred to.

You don't have to agree people are really born in the wrong body or actually change sex, or all are similar in motivation to have that discussion.

If anyone wants to use another phrase themselves no one is likely to complain. But constantly telling other people in the discussion they need to use differernt words when you darn well understand what they mean is just really pushy, and comes off as a power trip.

Sorry, I want to add, that it also implies something like:

Something, unbeknownst to science, exists - an ‘essence’ of sex or ‘gender’ within every person.

Most people are born with their sex or ‘gender’ ‘essence’ being the same as their biological sex and the gender roles and stereotypes they are conditioned into, according to their sex. But for some people this ‘essence’ was born into the ‘wrong’ biologically sexed body and gender conditioning.

This ‘essence’ is paramount above material reality, so material reality must be changed to reflect it.

@TempestTost I'm with you on that.
The frustrating thing is there are more and more words that, either deliberately or by accident or a bit of both, have ended up being used to mean quite different things.

Many of them are common words on these forums, so when you get people unfamiliar with the history on here it becomes impossible to unpick what they even mean.

E.g. "feminists" wanting sex equality vs hating all men.
"Women" being any females regardless of what they're like or how they feel vs any male/female with a set of feelings who is "like a woman".
"Gay" being homosexual or attracted to people of the same inner feelings as oneself.
"Gender critical" meaning critical of gender and believing sex is real and sometimes important vs transphobe who wants to harm trans people.

All of these are things I've wanted to or tried to get clarification on the intended meaning in the past week or two on here. The "sex is consensual" one was a new one.

The term "gender non-conforming" could simply mean someone who doesn't subscribe to gender stereotypes (most feminists?) and doesn't necessarily mean someone who is "struggling with their identity"; it's really not the synonym for "trans" that you seem to think it is. 🤷‍♂️

My children’s ‘true believer’ friends, would presume, from JK Rowling using the term ‘trans people’ that she is signalling that she too believes in ‘gender essence’ and ‘being born in the wrong body’.

There is no way whatsoever, that they would think she means it in the way she defined it.

Yeah, I think the only way to deal with that is clarify what people mean if it seems to make a difference to the discussion.

Often that is the only thing required to carry on and have a useful conversation.

Sometimes, as in the "sex is consensual" example, it's so far in left field that you can't accept it.

Something like "trans people" can vary depending on the context a lot. I don't tend to use it, but at it's most basic I see it as meaning "that group of people who see themselves as living as the opposite sex in some sense." That is a real group of people who exist and sometimes it's the group under discussion. It can still be used that way even if the people discussing think there are totally different causes of the phenomena.

It's a bit like "alien abductees". There is a group of people who think this happened to them. I can have a conversation about this group with someone who thinks they were really abducted, even though I don't agree that's what happened.

Well she's said she doesn't, so they are a bit silly.

Yeah, lots of people are both of those things and nothing to do with thinking they are transgendered.

It's a bit like "alien abductees". There is a group of people who think this happened to them. I can have a conversation about this group with someone who thinks they were really abducted, even though I don't agree that's what happened.

Well perhaps this is the crux of it. In order to engage skittish, volatile and likely delusional people, you might pretend (somewhat disingenuously and manipulatively) that you don’t believe they are delusional, by using the language they use, to stop them disengaging from you.

If you then turn to other people, and say “I have been speaking at length with alien abductees” those other people will reasonably assume you believe that they were indeed abducted, because you are using the terms of the believers.

But people who do want to be treated/viewed as the opposite sex definitely do exist. If they didn't, most of the conversations on this board would be null. People that want to be treated/viewed as the opposite sex are something that exist in material reality. Of you argue that they don't then people will quite rightly ask what your problem is.
It's a neutral term. It also isn't one she has pulled out of thin air. It's one that I think most people, even those who have only a passing knowledge of the issue or haven't been paying attention, would understand easily and recognise.

She wrote that statement as a clarification, because others have been confused and offended by her using the language of believers. In that statement, she proposed her new, personal definition of ‘trans’. Not everyone who reads quotes of her using ‘trans people’ will also read this particular tweet where she redefines it for herself.

Also, you start by defining them as mentally ill, then describe them as men who want to infringe on women's spaces and rights. Those are 2 very different things (though they may overlap). Also the set of people that are mentally ill might include those relevant to the debate (trans) but also lots that aren't. Likewise men who want to infringe on women's spaces. Saying "mentally ill people" want X or "creepy men want Y" are at the same time too broad (capture people you aren't talking about) and too specific (exclude people you would also want to talk about, not all of them are mentally ill or men trying to encroach even if we can demonstrate some are). I can do a diagram but I'm on my phone...
I think that there is so much deliberate mangling of language going on that being able to communicate clearly and describe concepts/phenomenons matters - refusing to use words that do this is counterproductive (and means other people can define them for you) .

I also think that centering the conversation round what people are asking for rather than what they are** is the only way to have non inflammatory communication. You might never agree with me about what I am (that's a complicated issue for anyone) but we can have a productive conversation about what I am asking for/want and whether it is or isn't reasonable. This also works for groups of people including trans.

**i don't mean not calling someone male where they are clearly male and it's relevant. I mean more generally philosophical questions about what trans is.

I don't think this needs to be disingenuous at all. You can have a conversation like that while being totally transparent that you don't think that they were really abducted, and understanding that the other person does. It's absolutely possible for both people to have the grace to have such a discussion in a respectful way.

Or in other contexts, it might not be relevant whether they were really abducted or not - so people's view of what really happened might not be evident.

I disagree. If you said, so when you were “abducted”, the person would hear those quotation marks, because you’d already established that you didn’t believe them. They wouldn’t find it respectful.