JKR on more people accepting reality and rewriting history

[fromorbit]

The surge in Reverse Ferreting after the the US election has resulted in another great post from JKR written in response to the New York Times article saying "Transgender Activists Question the Movement’s Confrontational Approach".

J.K. Rowling

The rewriting of history begins.

Opponents of gender ideology haven't merely 'endured unsparing criticism'. I haven't simply been told I 'betrayed real feminism' or received a few book-burning videos. I've been sent thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence. A trans woman posted my family's home address with a bomb-making guide. My eldest child was targeted by a prominent trans activist who attempted to doxx her and ended up doxxing the wrong young woman.

I could write a twenty thousand word essay on what the consequences have been to me and my family, and what we've endured is NOTHING compared to the harm done to others. By standing up to a movement that relies on threats of violence, ostracisation and guilt-by-association, all of us have been smeared and defamed, but many have lost their livelihoods. Some have been physically assaulted by trans activists. Female politicians have been forced to hire personal security on the advice of police. The news that one of the UK's leading endocrinologists, Dr Hillary Cass, was advised not to travel by public transport for her own safety should shame everyone who let this insanity run amok.

Lest we forget, gender apostates have been targeted for crimes such as doubting the evidential basis for transitioning children, for arguing for fair sport for women and girls, for wanting to retain single sex spaces and services, especially for the most vulnerable, and for thinking it barbaric to lock in female prisoners with convicted male sex offenders.

Now the political landscape has shifted, and some who've been riding high on their own supply are waking up with a hell of a hangover. They've started wondering whether calling left-wing feminists who wanted all-female rape centres 'Nazis' was such a smart strategy. Maybe parents arguing that boys ought not to be robbing their daughters of sporting opportunities might, sort of, have a point? Possibly letting any man who says 'I'm a woman' into the locker room with twelve-year-old girls could have a downside, after all?

Mealy-mouthed retconning of what has actually happened over the past ten years is predictable but will not stand. I don't doubt those who've turned a blind eye to the purges of non-believers, or even applauded and encouraged them, would rather minimise what the true cost of speaking out was, but 'yes, maybe trans activists went a little over the top at times' takes are frankly insulting. A full reckoning on the effects of gender ideology on individuals, society and politics is still a long way off, but I know this: the receipts will make very ugly reading when that time comes, and there are far too many of them to sweep politely under the carpet.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1863579675877884385

Plenty of people on Mumsnet towers are noticing a shift. We are entering a new stage of the gender wars. There will be an attempt to shift the blame onto women who pointed out biology is real.

That's an excellent summing up by JKR, as one would expect. Every point was clear, succinct and accurate. It surprises me that allthatfalafel seems* *to have concluded that her explaining about the vile threats and abuse, which have only ever flowed in one direction - towards women, are akin to homophobia.

It's ludicrous, anyone who's followed the subject must have seen what the trans zealots have said and indeed, done. They must have seen newspapers, with photos, news footage and online posts of the disgusting and disgraceful slogans and threats, of trans zealots ranting their demented threats.

She's spot on, as always.

I ❤JKR

Ahh you’re still here! Was on another thread talking about the times of datun and langcleg 🤣

Glad to see you here and thank you for all your work over the decade! Nice to see some sanity is returning.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

And breathe

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Two words: material reality.

Anyway...

... As I was going to say before I nearly died laughing.

Getting a piece in the New York Times is in itself telling.

Yes I'm still here! And women who got banned are still fighting the fight, just not on here

And as this thread shows there will be the Clingons.

Fat chance that women's rights and safety will be seen as bigoted in 10 years time.

The times are a-changing.

Amazing JKR. 👏

Hooray to JKR, and hooray to @Datun, and everyone who has been here and elsewhere for fucking years, and have never given up

Sure, it's normally used in long-running episodic storytelling such as book or television series where writers have got themselves into narrative difficulty and therefore jettison inconvenient plot or charachter points that don't fit their current story.

In this case, the it's used to describe the attempts by some to claim that they didn't say the things they said, or that they'd believed something different all along. Similar to gaslighting, without the abusive baggage.

With history, certainly facts can be grouped together, given more or less weitght, or ignored to create narrative context, but those facts still exist. What is implied by a retcon is a little more sinister.

Top work as always from JKR. Just on 'both sides-ism', I was half-watching the ITV news earlier and a guy was interviewing Daisy Cooper, Lib Dem MP, and he said, are you worried about the direction in which politics in general is going? (the election of Trump, etc). She yes, and a bit more, and then he said, what can be done to take the toxicity out of current debate? Ah, that bloody word! both sides are just so toxic, aren't they? [essays 'more in sorrow than in anger' facial expression]

Full blown Gender craziness is doomed.

The biggest thing will be the experiments on kids are going to be banned in most places as they already are in many countries. A few years after that they will be seen as horrific.

Women will get their sports and safe places back in the UK anyway. If Labour won't do it then the Tories will.

Gender beliefs will remain a thing in the same way new age beliefs are for some, but most people will move on. It will remain bigger in America, in the same way other extreme beliefs tend to be.

One question is whether people will let the right claim the credit for a battle in the UK started and mostly won by left wing women. JKR and mumsnet will keep telling the truth about what happened.

🎯

Gender beliefs will remain a thing in the same way new age beliefs are for some, but most people will move on. It will remain bigger in America, in the same way other extreme beliefs tend to be.

But still massive in universities, academia in general, and in showbiz. In the UK as much as the US. That's a hell of a lot of walking back to be done.

I'm wheeling out the phenomenon known as 'premature anti-[X]'. Two of the best known instances are to have been a premature anti-fascist or a premature anti-Nazi. Maybe what JKR is describing is women being premature anti-gender ideology?

‘Premature anti-fascist’ was the name by which the Lincoln Brigade veterans of the Spanish Civil War were known by the US Army in World War Two. This service and knowledge didn't distinguish them for a leadership position, it was counted as demerit on their record.

In John Platts-Mills' autobiography (barrister and post-war Labour MP), he recalls being ‘excluded from any form of normal war service by the stupidities of Bevin’. He noted: ‘An anti-Nazi history, was of no help and to have been prematurely anti-Nazi was a positive hindrance … we were condemned throughout most of the 1930s on the grounds that only Communists were against the Nazis and this hostility carried over into the war years.’

Commenting on (British?) veterans of the Spanish Civil War, Platts-Mills wrote that ‘many lefties who had served in Spain were called up or were accepted when they volunteered. Several more got in only after a tussle with the authorities.’

Yeah but I think you'll find how fickle people are when they see the bandwagon they are on is no longer cool fairly quickly too.

Yes there's is unraveling but backlashes happen pretty quick and most of these people that got on the bandwagon showed up just how spineless they were then.

I don't expect to see many of them finding a backbone suddenly.

I hope you're right, Red! There's a lot of careers at stake out there.

The people left clinging to it will be those who are particularly vulnerable and lacking in social skills (a large number of neuro-diverse won't read the room) and the ones seeking to exploit for more dubious reasons (misogyny, unresolved internal conflicts and those exploiting the loopholes it gives them). Amongst them will be a number of crazies who may become actively dangerous as they see it unravelling. Why do I think this? Because it's like a nefarious organisation which may have elements which are utterly Wac-o. If you catch my drift.

But the hangers on, the cowardly do gooding virtue signers and the trendy cause is good for my career types? Na. They'll fuck off pretty quickly. And that'll send the bunch above into meltdown with a sense of betrayal.

I have such enormous admiration for JKR. Her courage, integrity, decency and humanity (not to mention brilliant books and eloquence) are such an inspiration.

Agree @RedToothBrush, I think a lot of people take the path of least resistance and keep quiet to remain popular/ avoid cancellation. When the path changes so will they

I think if we can uncapture the institutions, media, academia and the arts that would help a lot.

There's the problem of people in bubbles of group think. An American friend of a friend who I had accidentally got into a debate with when I was asked what books I liked - I missed the warning signs (American, Colourful Hair, had already said she liked Queer fiction...) and had listed off some of my favourites including Harry Potter. Which was greeted by an inquisition about what I thought of JKR (Brilliant!) "But she hates trans people!" (I don't think she does, she cares a lot about women's rights though....) Etc followed by a bingo card of TRA talking points.

Anyway it was around the time of the Olympics and she casually threw out that they were trying to stop biological women with PCOS from competing. And I was just stunned. And I realised that if that's what your news and circle of social media feeds and friends were telling you, then you would think that was awful. And that I fully believed that male people were punching female people completely at odds with sporting fairness or safety because that's what the sources I listen to tell me.

We are so very vulnerable to the biases in our information sources. Her opinion is reasonable to her because she has a young trans identifying nephew who she can't imagine being a danger to women or girls and she hears the TRA side of things only thanks to unclear media reporting etc.

I don't think she was ready to question her stance, and because I had not been expecting the topic to come up IRL I wasn't very articulate or convincing. Mainly I was trying to be polite for our mutual friend's sake whilst also not wanting to pretend I agreed with her opinions which would have felt like a betrayal/cowardly thing.

At least I found out that even under social pressure and caught off guard my first instinct was to defend JKR and say she was brilliant. Proud of that.

You just watch - all the trans spokespeople will suddenly be transmen.

There will not be a transwoman in sight.

Really interesting @RethinkingLife. I agree. I think alternative ways will be found to keep demonising those pesky wimmin gender criticals as the crowd finds it at the right time. At least we will know and the children will be safe.

From me, too.

MN and the wisdom of women like you turned me into an activist. I’m good at it, too.