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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

JK Rowlings latest tweet. Just wow!

1000 replies

Imnobody4 · 03/05/2025 20:36

I've copied it in full.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1918747065460420745?t=bPXQ2pY9VAwPPqFR26_vvw&s=19

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.

I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?

I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.

Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?

But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.

History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.

Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.

One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.

I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1918747065460420745?s=19&t=bPXQ2pY9VAwPPqFR26_vvw

OP posts:
Thread gallery
36
StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:09

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/05/2025 08:01

You’re not going to answer because you know you can’t, despite the slightly sneery posts to other women that it’s all so simple to understand what living as a woman is. It is simple, but not in the way you’re attempting to claim. I rest my case.

I'm not understanding much of this post, but I just wanted to repeat what I said to another poster above. If you see no differences between the ways men and women live their lives, I think it would be the most useful for you to observe the men and women around you. My culture might be much more conservative than yours.

Helleofabore · 04/05/2025 08:09

Lostcat · 04/05/2025 07:58

Right. You don’t understand what being trans is. It doesn’t make sense to you. You don’t believe it is real. As you say, you’re still waiting for that “consistent and logical definition”.

that is what is at the heart of this. If that’s your attitude to trans people it’s no wonder you take the policy positions you do.

Lostcat, if I remember correctly, you can only define being transgender in a way that excludes transgender people. But you really don't like being told that your thoughts on this topic, that you claim some qualification or depth of study in, means you act as an arbitrator on who is and is not transgender.

Yet, you continue to act in ways on threads that puts you into a position of acting as a spokesperson for people with transgender identities.

Based on your logically flawed and incoherent explanations.

Hermiaxx · 04/05/2025 08:10

I have occasionally used men’s toilets (only when needs must and there’s never a queue and fuck it why not!). Only once been challenged and reassured the angry (though clearly not threatened) man not to worry as ‘today I was identifying as a dick’ so clearly entitled to be there. Can’t see TiMs using male spaces having a problem so no need for @StuckUpPrincess to worry about the poor menz in their own spaces.

Datun · 04/05/2025 08:10

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:06

I think it would be the most useful for you to observe for yourself how the men and women around you live differently, than for an internet stranger to try to tell you.

You intimate that you might be living in a different country?

If the two sexes have very different roles, do the men who identify as women actually inhabit the female role? Do all the domestic stuff, the child reading, take second place?

Or is it really about clothes?

If you say you can't describe it in other peoples culture, then describe it in yours. Without sounding hopelessly sexist, of course

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/05/2025 08:10

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:09

I'm not understanding much of this post, but I just wanted to repeat what I said to another poster above. If you see no differences between the ways men and women live their lives, I think it would be the most useful for you to observe the men and women around you. My culture might be much more conservative than yours.

explain what it means for you then.

DefineHappy · 04/05/2025 08:11

@StuckUpPrincess

I am interested in your response to my post, which referred to your comment that transwomen don’t seem to appear in reporting of attacks/violence/crimes against women. I have copied below in case it was missed:

Those reports you have read, and them not mentioning transgender perpetrators?

The media has been forced (although some have willingly complied) to report transwomen as women, just as women who have been raped have been forced in court to address their attacker as “she” or “her”.

Isla Bryson was referred to in news reporting as she/her with no mention of being transgender. It was only the photographic evidence that displayed the pink leggings that revealed male genitalia that gave any clue about transgender identity or being a transwoman.

If the media is not allowed to call a transwoman (biological male) a transwoman or a trans-identified male, then how would anyone know if the perpetrator is a woman, a transwoman or a cross dressing male?

Also, the police and courts have been instrumental in blurring and compromising statistics and reporting of crimes by transgender people (mainly transwomen (biological males)), as they have insisted on classifying any self-identified male as a woman or female (so TW are recorded as female by police, prosecuted as women, sentenced as women and incarcerated as women - when they are not).

Helleofabore · 04/05/2025 08:12

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:09

I'm not understanding much of this post, but I just wanted to repeat what I said to another poster above. If you see no differences between the ways men and women live their lives, I think it would be the most useful for you to observe the men and women around you. My culture might be much more conservative than yours.

It is logically flawed to believe that any male person who has only ever experienced interacting with society with their male body can ever 'live' as a female person.

It doesn't matter what cultural constraints you then wish to add to your definition, the very basis of the premise is logically impossible.

Datun · 04/05/2025 08:13

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:09

I'm not understanding much of this post, but I just wanted to repeat what I said to another poster above. If you see no differences between the ways men and women live their lives, I think it would be the most useful for you to observe the men and women around you. My culture might be much more conservative than yours.

My culture might be much more conservative than yours.

in which case, if living as a woman means adopting the most conservative role, in your culture, then can't you see how it's just cementing gender stereotypes?

If I want to be a woman, I must behave like this, because only women behave like this.

It's sooo regressive

McLennonK · 04/05/2025 08:15

Imnobody4 · 03/05/2025 20:36

I've copied it in full.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1918747065460420745?t=bPXQ2pY9VAwPPqFR26_vvw&s=19

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.

I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?

I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.

Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?

But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.

History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.

Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.

One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.

I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.

So what is the solution for someone like me whose child is absolutely certain that they are the gender opposite to that on their birth certificate? Sdo I just ignore their feelings? Treat them like they are mentally ill? Tell them they are just falling for some 'myth'? While my child threatens to self harm if they are forced to carry on in the gender that feels completely wrong to them? I simply don't know what to think, and JKR and these extreme anti-trans people make me frantic with worry for my child.

It would be good, instead of ranting against trans people and their supporters, if JKR and her ilk could offer some real solutions.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 04/05/2025 08:15

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 07:43

OK, if you can truthfully say that you don't know what it means to live as a man, or to live as a woman, maybe you could ask people you know. I do feel that it's very obvious, so you're best off asking people who know you and might understand why you don't observe any differences between the way men and women live in our society. To me, the general differences are so obvious that I don't think I'd make a very good job of teaching this point.

So we're back to stereotypes. Why can't men and boys do stereotypically feminine things AS MEN AND BOYS? And vice versa, obviously. Wanting to do those things is an expression of personality, nothing to do with which sex you are.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/05/2025 08:16

I have “observed the men and women around me” and the conclusion that I have come to is that there is not one factor that each sex has in common beyond their biological sex. So if there is something different, you’ll need to make your extraordinary case as to why you think a group of men should be classed as women rather than the men they are. Your obfuscation on this point is obvious, @StuckUpPrincess

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:17

Helleofabore · 04/05/2025 08:00

You are here telling women your opinion about them allowing some male people into their spaces.

Yet, you don't seem to have the depth of understanding to explain the concept you are supporting. Does that give you pause at all? Or is it more of a case that because you feel that it is a righteous cause, you think that other people have done all the thinking around it and they must be correct so you will repeat their views?

I'm not understanding how you got all that from me saying that observing the world around you is the best way to see how men and women live differently. I only said that since a couple of posters have said that they really and truly don't know the ways in which men and women live differently.

EweSurname · 04/05/2025 08:17

McLennonK · 04/05/2025 08:15

So what is the solution for someone like me whose child is absolutely certain that they are the gender opposite to that on their birth certificate? Sdo I just ignore their feelings? Treat them like they are mentally ill? Tell them they are just falling for some 'myth'? While my child threatens to self harm if they are forced to carry on in the gender that feels completely wrong to them? I simply don't know what to think, and JKR and these extreme anti-trans people make me frantic with worry for my child.

It would be good, instead of ranting against trans people and their supporters, if JKR and her ilk could offer some real solutions.

What solutions do you propose that would also respect women’s rights eg to not be housed in prisons with men (regardless of their gender identity)?

HPFA · 04/05/2025 08:18

ThatCyanCat · 03/05/2025 22:55

I forgot about this one! The "words are made up so men can be women and cats can be guitars and books can be traffic cones" thing. Haven't heard it since lockdown.

But we now have full clarification that women are born females, so hopefully that helps everyone who couldn't work out which parent is their mother.

This has always seemed an odd argument for TRAs to use.

If all these words are meaningless why are they bothered which one they're called?

Igneococcus · 04/05/2025 08:22

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:17

I'm not understanding how you got all that from me saying that observing the world around you is the best way to see how men and women live differently. I only said that since a couple of posters have said that they really and truly don't know the ways in which men and women live differently.

Because this is not the experience most of us have. I don't live my life differently to my male partner. The only difference is that I occassionally wear dresses or skirts and he doesn't, and sometimes I wear makeup but not often. Otherwise there isn't really any difference, we even have the same education and type of job.

SidewaysOtter · 04/05/2025 08:23

JKR is an absolute QUEEN. “Hail Mulvaney” was genius Grin

But why the hell does every thread get piled on by deliberately disingenuous TRA arguing the toss and thinking they’re clever for making the same bollocks arguments we’ve been hearing for the last decade? Is Reddit full?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/05/2025 08:23

Anyway, I don’t agree with @StuckUpPrincessand since she clearly can’t back up her position I’m not going to go round and round on it with her repeating that it’s all so simple but she couldn’t begin to articulate it, even though it’s such a simple thing that everyone should be able to see.

I’ve had many of these conversations with genderists, and they don’t exactly convince me of the rationality of the gender identity ideology standpoint.

Helleofabore · 04/05/2025 08:24

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:17

I'm not understanding how you got all that from me saying that observing the world around you is the best way to see how men and women live differently. I only said that since a couple of posters have said that they really and truly don't know the ways in which men and women live differently.

Have I misinterpreted your posts then? I thought you were telling us that male people can live as female people but that you cannot articulate it, and you wouldn't be writing an essay about it.

I was asking whether you had given it any depth of thought at all. Because it is not even a logically sound statement, yet you are discussing it here on this thread.

IsItSnowing · 04/05/2025 08:24

She is amazing. She sums the whole sorry charade up perfectly.

StormyPotatoes · 04/05/2025 08:24

McLennonK · 04/05/2025 08:15

So what is the solution for someone like me whose child is absolutely certain that they are the gender opposite to that on their birth certificate? Sdo I just ignore their feelings? Treat them like they are mentally ill? Tell them they are just falling for some 'myth'? While my child threatens to self harm if they are forced to carry on in the gender that feels completely wrong to them? I simply don't know what to think, and JKR and these extreme anti-trans people make me frantic with worry for my child.

It would be good, instead of ranting against trans people and their supporters, if JKR and her ilk could offer some real solutions.

@McLennonK Trans charities need to come up with solutions. Trans advocates should have been focusing on this long ago. Instead they didn’t just push the idea that merely having the thought that you could be trans make you trans, they also have been advocating for younger children to have access to medical transition and even surgery (and thank-fucking-God ‘anti trans people’ (you mean gender critical women) were pushing back on that).

I have the greatest sympathy for you and there are supportive resources out there - have a look at something like https://www.transgendertrend.com to get started. Support but don’t affirm. In most cases children will grow out of it but once they’ve been affirmed it’s harder to walk it back.

None of this is the fault of women like JKR though. You should be furious at the lies TRAs have perpetuated at the cost of children to serve their own wants.

Transgender Trend - Who Are We? - Transgender Trend

Transgender Trend is a UK organisation advocating for evidence-based care of gender dysphoric children and science-based teaching in schools.

https://www.transgendertrend.com

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/05/2025 08:25

IsItSnowing · 04/05/2025 08:24

She is amazing. She sums the whole sorry charade up perfectly.

She really does.

StuckUpPrincess · 04/05/2025 08:25

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/05/2025 08:16

I have “observed the men and women around me” and the conclusion that I have come to is that there is not one factor that each sex has in common beyond their biological sex. So if there is something different, you’ll need to make your extraordinary case as to why you think a group of men should be classed as women rather than the men they are. Your obfuscation on this point is obvious, @StuckUpPrincess

I'm not seeing the connection between your first and second sentences. In fact I don't understand your first sentence. You're saying that no one has anything in common with each other except bio sex? And what's that got to do with trans people? I'm not understanding what grand case you think I should make.

To get back to the point, I think trans people should be classified as their preferred sex, if they have gone through a full transition. But since some people aren't comfortable even with post-surgery TW being in their spaces, TW and TM should have their own spaces. That would actually lessen the pressure on both to have painful and frightening surgeries.

AllPlayedOut · 04/05/2025 08:25

McLennonK · 04/05/2025 08:15

So what is the solution for someone like me whose child is absolutely certain that they are the gender opposite to that on their birth certificate? Sdo I just ignore their feelings? Treat them like they are mentally ill? Tell them they are just falling for some 'myth'? While my child threatens to self harm if they are forced to carry on in the gender that feels completely wrong to them? I simply don't know what to think, and JKR and these extreme anti-trans people make me frantic with worry for my child.

It would be good, instead of ranting against trans people and their supporters, if JKR and her ilk could offer some real solutions.

If your child genuinely believes that they are the opposite sex in spite of all evidence to the contrary and self harms when confronted with reality then yes I think treating them as though they are mentally ill would be wise because they clearly are. They can insist people lie to them and pretend otherwise but it doesn’t change their reality. They’ll be carrying on as the sex that they were born as no matter what measures and surgeries they undergo to pretend otherwise.

ArabellaScott · 04/05/2025 08:25

McLennonK · 04/05/2025 08:15

So what is the solution for someone like me whose child is absolutely certain that they are the gender opposite to that on their birth certificate? Sdo I just ignore their feelings? Treat them like they are mentally ill? Tell them they are just falling for some 'myth'? While my child threatens to self harm if they are forced to carry on in the gender that feels completely wrong to them? I simply don't know what to think, and JKR and these extreme anti-trans people make me frantic with worry for my child.

It would be good, instead of ranting against trans people and their supporters, if JKR and her ilk could offer some real solutions.

It sounds like you're in a very difficult position. I hope you have good support and are able to access good care for your child. Can recommend Bayswater support group for parents of gender questioning children. Flowers

Lovelysausagedogscrumpy · 04/05/2025 08:26

Candlesandmatches · 03/05/2025 20:47

Shame about the anti Carholic rhetoric. But I agree with her message.

I don’t actually think it is anti catholic rhetoric. The reference was to medieval Catholicism’s treatment of heretics, which is historically factual. The Inquisition was basically a series of church courts set up to investigate heresy using torture to extract confessions and carrying out the summary executions of those deemed guilty. An intelligent comparison to the bullying and gaslighting campaign to destroy womens’ rights.

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