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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

JKR Didn’t Have an Opinion. She Poisoned the Well

1000 replies

CSIRCP · 28/08/2025 14:32

This post will likely be a little too long for most, but if you can spare the time and have a cuppa handy let's sit down and have a chat, shall we?

Firstly, let’s stop calling this a debate. It’s not. This isn’t two sets of ideas clashing. This is one woman’s fear and confusion being weaponized against an entire community.

What J.K. Rowling has done is not just share an opinion. She’s poisoned the well. And that poison is spreading through politics, education, the media, and even the courts.

At the beginning, it might have looked like a tweet. Then a blog. But what she wrote in that essay was revealing: “If I’d been born thirty years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge.”
That’s not neutral. That’s projection. It was a confession, repackaged as concern. She projected her own dysphoria and personal battles onto the entire trans community and used it as the foundation for a movement built on suspicion and fear.

She said she cared about women’s rights. Then aligned herself with those who believe all trans women are predators.
She liked racist and Islamophobic tweets. She repeated antisemitic tropes. She cast activists as violent men in dresses. She accused anyone who challenged her of misogyny while branding herself the face of feminism.
All the while she built up a devoted audience that now includes some of the most extreme anti-trans voices in Britain and beyond.

This “gender critical” movement is not about safety, and it’s certainly not about truth. It’s about control.
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (Posie Parker), one of Rowling’s ideological allies, has welcomed neo-Nazis to her rallies. Actual Nazis. The kind of people Rowling once wrote villains about.
In one case, people connected to this movement were linked to the satanic terror group 764 — a group that has influenced teen suicides and violent attacks in UK schools. Let that sink in. This is who she’s empowering.

She didn’t just turn away when that started. She doubled down. She gave this movement a gloss of legitimacy. She used her fame to funnel people toward disinformation, fear, and cruelty—and dressed it all up as feminism. But it isn’t feminism when it excludes, vilifies, and harms other women. Especially trans women. Especially intersex people. Especially anyone who doesn’t fit into the narrow fantasy of who is acceptable.

Rowling’s language now echoes in government documents. Her phrases like “gender ideology” have been lifted from far right sources, including the Vatican and authoritarian regimes, and mainstreamed into British law. Her influence helped set the stage for the UK Supreme Court to redefine the word “woman” based on sex assigned at birth, stripping rights from trans and intersex people under the Equality Act. That’s what happens when the well is poisoned. People stop thinking. They start reacting.

Meanwhile, her cult chant her slogans as though they are scientific fact. But science says otherwise. Peer-reviewed studies show that trans people’s brain structures do not align with their sex assigned at birth. They show that gender identity forms in the womb, shaped by hormones and biology not ideology. Large-scale DNA studies have found gene variants linked to gender incongruence. And intersex people exist. That is biological fact. Not one of these truths can be erased by Rowling’s fiction.

What makes this so dangerous is how calm it all sounds. Rowling doesn’t scream. She whispers. She calls it “concern.” She says she’s “just asking questions.”
But it’s never neutral to question someone’s right to exist. It’s not a debate when one side is simply trying to live and the other is trying to strip away their legal recognition and healthcare.

This isn’t just a disagreement. This is a slow campaign of erasure, led by someone with a global platform and millions in the bank.

She’s not some deluded soul from MN; she’s a multi-millionaire author whose words shape global policy. She’s not being silenced. She’s being echoed by judges, by pundits, by politicians trying to climb the ladder by stepping on the backs of trans, non-binary, and intersex people.

And let’s not pretend it stops there. Her influence has allowed people to feel safe expressing open homophobia, biphobia, and hatred toward anyone who challenges gender norms. Some of the same people aligned with her have mocked survivors, denied racism, and claimed slavery was “fine” if it was “kind.”
This is not a group grounded in empathy. It’s a movement that thrives on exclusion and resentment. Some of them now openly identify as neo Nazis. That’s where we are.

So next time someone says “she’s just worried” or “she’s not anti-trans” or “can’t we just disagree,” consider these words. Show them what poison looks like. Not just hateful speech but the deliberate seeding of doubt, division, and cruelty, all wrapped in a soft voice and a smug smile. J.K. Rowling didn’t protect anyone. She infected people. And when she’s gone, her legacy won’t be literature it will be the damage she left behind.

You don’t need to cancel her. You just need to see her clearly.
And if you blindly follow Rowling and her ideas then you need to reflect on what you’re really endorsing.

Because ignorance is not an excuse. Not anymore.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
34
myplace · 28/08/2025 18:48

Toseland · 28/08/2025 18:46

What J.K. Rowling has done is not just share an opinion. She’s poisoned the well. And that poison is spreading through politics, education, the media, and even the courts.
That isn't poison; that's the antidote, that's sanity.

She used truth serum. Veritaserum.

RedToothBrush · 28/08/2025 18:52

JKRowling is responsible for war, famine, pestilence and death.

We get it. She is the devil incarnate.

Anyway, meanwhile in the real world not a 'fanfiction', she's just a woman with a womb and everything.

And that's what is hated most.

Merrymouse · 28/08/2025 18:53

Sammybabes16 · 28/08/2025 17:55

Bless you dear. You TERFs are do funny yet bitter and sad.

Real younger 3rd and 4th wave feminists know what true equality is. Every TERF of GC I have ever met are either middle aged or older angry women or far right men.

it’s extraordinary you claim to be feminists having allied yourself with these misogynist Right wing male groups.

sad ❤️

The funny thing is that from our point of view YOU have allied yourself wth misogynist right wing male groups because you define women according to gendered expectations and don't believe women need rights!

PennyAnnLane · 28/08/2025 18:55

Tell me you have no critical thinking skills without telling me you have no critical thinking skills…

Haulage · 28/08/2025 18:56

Catiette · 28/08/2025 18:37

With sentences like that, I really need to go back and RTFT...

The further up the thread I go the madder it seems to get! Sad to have missed all the deleted TRA posts though - I bet they were tiny works of genius.

Boiledbeetle · 28/08/2025 18:58

Bannedontherun · 28/08/2025 18:41

@Boiledbeetle Have you checked your safe lately?

It had better still be there. What with your little protection racket where I keep you in snowballs and you stab your quills in anyone who comes sniffing round the safe.

Please tell me even if the money has gone JKR hasn't been in and nicked the keys to my super yacht again?

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · 28/08/2025 19:00

RedToothBrush · 28/08/2025 18:52

JKRowling is responsible for war, famine, pestilence and death.

We get it. She is the devil incarnate.

Anyway, meanwhile in the real world not a 'fanfiction', she's just a woman with a womb and everything.

And that's what is hated most.

IKR

I mean there are men in Iraq who’ve just legislated to legalise the rape of 9 yo girls.

A man in France has just been convicted of taking payments from other men to rape hai elderly wife.

BUT JKR with her opinions and the fact she isn’t super kind to every man on the planet - that’s who we should cancel

Greyskybluesky · 28/08/2025 19:01

Sammybabes16 · 28/08/2025 17:58

you do realise there has been a huge increase of violence against transwomen because of the Gender Cult agenda? Can’t see how transwomen are responsible for this so called increase of violence against women.

Bless you dear ❤️

I'm glad you realise gender is a cult

SingleSexSpacesInSchools · 28/08/2025 19:09

Catiette · 28/08/2025 18:46

I hope the author doesn't mind me re-posting this. It's so thorough and thoughtful.

If nothing else, it'll highlight the OP's inevitable inability to address any of these pithy responses.

Edited

Hop that pulling the points out one by one helps!

Mapletree1985 · 28/08/2025 19:20

CSIRCP · 28/08/2025 14:32

This post will likely be a little too long for most, but if you can spare the time and have a cuppa handy let's sit down and have a chat, shall we?

Firstly, let’s stop calling this a debate. It’s not. This isn’t two sets of ideas clashing. This is one woman’s fear and confusion being weaponized against an entire community.

What J.K. Rowling has done is not just share an opinion. She’s poisoned the well. And that poison is spreading through politics, education, the media, and even the courts.

At the beginning, it might have looked like a tweet. Then a blog. But what she wrote in that essay was revealing: “If I’d been born thirty years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge.”
That’s not neutral. That’s projection. It was a confession, repackaged as concern. She projected her own dysphoria and personal battles onto the entire trans community and used it as the foundation for a movement built on suspicion and fear.

She said she cared about women’s rights. Then aligned herself with those who believe all trans women are predators.
She liked racist and Islamophobic tweets. She repeated antisemitic tropes. She cast activists as violent men in dresses. She accused anyone who challenged her of misogyny while branding herself the face of feminism.
All the while she built up a devoted audience that now includes some of the most extreme anti-trans voices in Britain and beyond.

This “gender critical” movement is not about safety, and it’s certainly not about truth. It’s about control.
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (Posie Parker), one of Rowling’s ideological allies, has welcomed neo-Nazis to her rallies. Actual Nazis. The kind of people Rowling once wrote villains about.
In one case, people connected to this movement were linked to the satanic terror group 764 — a group that has influenced teen suicides and violent attacks in UK schools. Let that sink in. This is who she’s empowering.

She didn’t just turn away when that started. She doubled down. She gave this movement a gloss of legitimacy. She used her fame to funnel people toward disinformation, fear, and cruelty—and dressed it all up as feminism. But it isn’t feminism when it excludes, vilifies, and harms other women. Especially trans women. Especially intersex people. Especially anyone who doesn’t fit into the narrow fantasy of who is acceptable.

Rowling’s language now echoes in government documents. Her phrases like “gender ideology” have been lifted from far right sources, including the Vatican and authoritarian regimes, and mainstreamed into British law. Her influence helped set the stage for the UK Supreme Court to redefine the word “woman” based on sex assigned at birth, stripping rights from trans and intersex people under the Equality Act. That’s what happens when the well is poisoned. People stop thinking. They start reacting.

Meanwhile, her cult chant her slogans as though they are scientific fact. But science says otherwise. Peer-reviewed studies show that trans people’s brain structures do not align with their sex assigned at birth. They show that gender identity forms in the womb, shaped by hormones and biology not ideology. Large-scale DNA studies have found gene variants linked to gender incongruence. And intersex people exist. That is biological fact. Not one of these truths can be erased by Rowling’s fiction.

What makes this so dangerous is how calm it all sounds. Rowling doesn’t scream. She whispers. She calls it “concern.” She says she’s “just asking questions.”
But it’s never neutral to question someone’s right to exist. It’s not a debate when one side is simply trying to live and the other is trying to strip away their legal recognition and healthcare.

This isn’t just a disagreement. This is a slow campaign of erasure, led by someone with a global platform and millions in the bank.

She’s not some deluded soul from MN; she’s a multi-millionaire author whose words shape global policy. She’s not being silenced. She’s being echoed by judges, by pundits, by politicians trying to climb the ladder by stepping on the backs of trans, non-binary, and intersex people.

And let’s not pretend it stops there. Her influence has allowed people to feel safe expressing open homophobia, biphobia, and hatred toward anyone who challenges gender norms. Some of the same people aligned with her have mocked survivors, denied racism, and claimed slavery was “fine” if it was “kind.”
This is not a group grounded in empathy. It’s a movement that thrives on exclusion and resentment. Some of them now openly identify as neo Nazis. That’s where we are.

So next time someone says “she’s just worried” or “she’s not anti-trans” or “can’t we just disagree,” consider these words. Show them what poison looks like. Not just hateful speech but the deliberate seeding of doubt, division, and cruelty, all wrapped in a soft voice and a smug smile. J.K. Rowling didn’t protect anyone. She infected people. And when she’s gone, her legacy won’t be literature it will be the damage she left behind.

You don’t need to cancel her. You just need to see her clearly.
And if you blindly follow Rowling and her ideas then you need to reflect on what you’re really endorsing.

Because ignorance is not an excuse. Not anymore.

Oh, bollocks

eatfigs · 28/08/2025 19:23

CSIRCP · 28/08/2025 14:37

You were warned it was a little too long for some people; perhaps the implication was a touch on the subtle side.

But let's make it clearer for you.

What JKR has done is create a kind of "activism dopamine"; a hate activity which makes people feel like they're doing something without actually doing anything (or actually helping the thing they should be fighting against, in this case the patriarchy).

TERFism generally appeals to women who are enraged at the patriarchy but too comfortable with our current patriarchal society to try to make any changes by deconstructing the concept of gender, by portraying trans people as an acceptable lower class that they can punch down on and feel like they're doing something when actually they aren't. Talia Bhatt has some good writings on this in her book Trans/Rad/Fem.

For JKR specifically, it probably also helps that she can grift more social media attention and money out of being the figurehead for the movement.

Out of interest, have you read anything on this topic other than transactivist material?

MurkyWeather · 28/08/2025 19:28

Read OP's post.
Selected 'see all' and saw OP had made just one reply.
Did not read the rest of the thread
Will now hide thread

This is my new (academic) year's resolution. No more time wasted on ploppers😁

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 28/08/2025 19:29

Bloody hell, OP.

So you start off by implying that your post might be too many words for us to cope with.

And then you just regurgitate all the same tired old claptrap we've heard from brain dead blue haired keyboard warriors for the last five years now.

Here's the thing.

Female people exist. We exist in reality, as a category of people that does not include any male people, regardless of how those male people believe they identify or how sad they are that we don't want to include them. We deserve to exist in law as well and have some sex based rights that we don't have to share with the aforementioned male people.

That's it.

As for "Nazis", guess what?

If you (or the people you support) show up to a peaceful women's rights event where women are literally just talking about their lives, and you are wearing balaclavas and armed with weapons, intending to intimidate and assault women, you don't get to point and shout, "But look, Nazis!"

You ARE the Nazis.

SionnachRuadh · 28/08/2025 19:31

Hey, I'm just here to see if Sammy's posts transition into haiku form.

Not knowing what they're responding to gives them a sort of quaint charm.

GailBlancheViola · 28/08/2025 19:31

My view on that screed of an opening post :

What a load of round bouncy things.

⚽⚾🏀🏐

DworkinWasRight · 28/08/2025 19:32

I came straight to the end hoping that by now we’d moved onto recipes for coffee and walnut cake.

I’m disappointed in you, vipers. Bitterly disappointed.

EmmyFr · 28/08/2025 19:35

Oh FFS stop already. Nobody's questioning your right to exist. You sound like our French boomers who scream "You're trying to kiiiiiill us" every time someone suggests it's not normal that 28% of my generation's salaries goes to their retirements even though the average pensioner is better off than the average working person. We're not trying to kill you. We're just telling you to stop parasiting (younger people / women)'s rights.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 28/08/2025 19:35

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 28/08/2025 19:29

Bloody hell, OP.

So you start off by implying that your post might be too many words for us to cope with.

And then you just regurgitate all the same tired old claptrap we've heard from brain dead blue haired keyboard warriors for the last five years now.

Here's the thing.

Female people exist. We exist in reality, as a category of people that does not include any male people, regardless of how those male people believe they identify or how sad they are that we don't want to include them. We deserve to exist in law as well and have some sex based rights that we don't have to share with the aforementioned male people.

That's it.

As for "Nazis", guess what?

If you (or the people you support) show up to a peaceful women's rights event where women are literally just talking about their lives, and you are wearing balaclavas and armed with weapons, intending to intimidate and assault women, you don't get to point and shout, "But look, Nazis!"

You ARE the Nazis.

Edited

Now you mention it Miss Scarlet ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r4zrg35vlo

Marla-Svenja Liebich wears a blue hat and dark glasses - with a tattoo on her neck

German controversy surrounds jail term for transgender far-right extremist

Marla-Svenja Liebich was sentenced two years ago to a total of one year and six months in prison without parole.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r4zrg35vlo

murasaki · 28/08/2025 19:38

Isn't it Sammy's bed time yet?

Boiledbeetle · 28/08/2025 19:39

DworkinWasRight · 28/08/2025 19:32

I came straight to the end hoping that by now we’d moved onto recipes for coffee and walnut cake.

I’m disappointed in you, vipers. Bitterly disappointed.

Hungry Cake GIF

Sorry.

INeedAPensieve · 28/08/2025 19:39

childofthe607080s · 28/08/2025 15:56

defining woman is easy - it’s the ones you try to shut up and ignore

transwomen clearly are not women because their opinions count

Exactly.

When society will believe a man who says he's a woman over the women who say he's not, then it proves that society knows exactly who the men are and exactly who the women are.

Waitwhat23 · 28/08/2025 19:47

Does anyone remember the discussion we had on a thread a couple of months ago where we theorised that somewhere a Professor in a Department of Gender Studies at a University (whose graduates are now a bit embarrassed to admit they ever attended) is setting assignments along the lines of 'Join in a discussion on an 'anti trans' discussion board using the following discussion points (insert bingo card here) and report on your findings. Bonus points for the use of far right, Nazi, JKR or moral panic'.

The OP in this case is pretty poor. A little more work required to meet the required standard for a passing grade.

Said Professor also perhaps needs to consider producing a 'how to use the quote button on Mumsnet' how to guide as there's been so many who seem unable to do so.

GiraffesAtThePark · 28/08/2025 19:51

@CSIRCP You talk a lot about feminism and misogyny. But your movement changes language in such an Orwellian way that you have demeaning names such as menstrators, birthers and people with menopause, but you don’t have a word to describe the group that covers all of these. It’s gross and sexist.

JohnnyRememberMe · 28/08/2025 19:51

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Waitwhat23 · 28/08/2025 19:56

SionnachRuadh · 28/08/2025 19:31

Hey, I'm just here to see if Sammy's posts transition into haiku form.

Not knowing what they're responding to gives them a sort of quaint charm.

None of us know
Which post Sammy replies to.
A sort of quaint charm.

It's been a fun game
Ticking off the bingo cards.
All been done before!

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