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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
Boiledbeetle · 28/08/2025 21:42

MyAmpleSheep · 28/08/2025 21:29

I am going to start a petition that anyone who wants to use terms like "scientific understanding" has to get a special licence from the government before they do so. Your word salad in that post suggest you don't meet the criteria.

WTAF is "complex scientific understanding we have of our own bodies and that of other animals so who do in fact change sex" supposed to mean?

I'll take mine with a light vinaigrette, please!

Can I get a special dispensation if I agree to say 'understanding scientific shit.'

TheKeatingFive · 28/08/2025 21:43

Also there is zero evidence for the existence of 'lady brains'

CassOle · 28/08/2025 21:43

There was a time when people funnelled their discomfort with their body and feelings of not fitting in into music. Call me crazy, but listening to angry music for a few years is a much better option than being castrated and inverting your penis.

BeLemonNow · 28/08/2025 21:46

@SnugPeach I don't mean to sound rude, but having read your thread...the most plausible reason for your gender dysphoria is a long series of negative events related to being male from an early age, some traumatic.

MyAmpleSheep · 28/08/2025 21:48

Boiledbeetle · 28/08/2025 21:42

Can I get a special dispensation if I agree to say 'understanding scientific shit.'

Only if you post a picture of BoiledBeetle receiving a "special dispensation". Then you can have one. (The cartoons are fabulous.)

nutmeg7 · 28/08/2025 21:50

SnugPeach · 28/08/2025 21:14

I have my answer before. The only thing I could elaborate on beyond that is nobody chooses to be trans as much as people don’t choose to be gay you either are or aren’t. Surely in the complex scientific understanding we have of our own bodies and that of other animals, so who do in fact change sex. It’s not an alien concept to acknowledge that maybe some people are like this too. Some Brains are different.

A long time ago, my university professor said to me “just because you don’t understand a topic and think it is a great and complex mystery, that doesn’t mean that all the experts in the field don’t understand it perfectly well”

Humans can’t change sex, it is perfectly well understood by any biologist, even if pro-transition forums wrap it up in fantasy word salad, or say that because some species of fish can change sex to produce the opposite sexed gametes, mammals can do it too. Mammals can’t change sex. This is fantasy produced by absolute scientific illiteracy.

There is no surgery or drugs that will make you produce eggs instead of sperm.

You can be made to produce neither of course if chemical castration is your thing. Nothing is going to change your DNA in every cell of your body, or your basic physiological functions.

Do what you want to yourself if you must, but don’t be so ignorant as to believe what you are told by those who want others to validate their own stupid life choices, that you will actually change sex.

It isn’t true. It is total magical thinking, and we should leave that sort of fantasy behind in childhood. Adults have no excuse to believe such demonstrable nonsense.

BeLemonNow · 28/08/2025 21:51

MyAmpleSheep · 28/08/2025 21:48

Only if you post a picture of BoiledBeetle receiving a "special dispensation". Then you can have one. (The cartoons are fabulous.)

Poor Boiledbeetle is having issues getting any image, however innocent, past Mumsnet HQ.

I have had to serve drinks in the Bluestocking, and spilled booze all over the floor.

I also love her interpretative dance, possibly we should commission one for Christmas 🎄 🎁

Helleofabore · 28/08/2025 21:52

Nobody chooses to be trans?

Really, I find this surprising. We have been told by some people with transgender identities that they do choose to be transgender. There are videos of people declaring they choose this for themselves.

And then there are the transmaxxers. A couple of which came onto FWR to specifically ‘educate’ us, just as so many other men do. They told us they choose to be transgender too.

So, who should we believe?

Which group of transgender people do we believe over the other group?

Or maybe, we just say no human changes sex, and those people who are male with a transgender identity stay out of female single sex provisions and stop demanding that anyone has to act as if they share your personal philosophical belief.

murasaki · 28/08/2025 21:52

SnugPeach has clearly been to Malaga, given what he said about the plastic surgery he's had done. And the way he said it on his other thread. And that was definitely a choice.

Boiledbeetle · 28/08/2025 21:53

BeLemonNow · 28/08/2025 21:51

Poor Boiledbeetle is having issues getting any image, however innocent, past Mumsnet HQ.

I have had to serve drinks in the Bluestocking, and spilled booze all over the floor.

I also love her interpretative dance, possibly we should commission one for Christmas 🎄 🎁

I'm going to give it a go, just as soon as I can get Co Pilot, who appears to be in cahoots with mnhq, to play ball.

Helleofabore · 28/08/2025 21:55

Did someone say ‘clownfish’? People are not clownfish.

Or bats

and girls, just train harder!!

Boiledbeetle · 28/08/2025 21:55

MyAmpleSheep · 28/08/2025 21:48

Only if you post a picture of BoiledBeetle receiving a "special dispensation". Then you can have one. (The cartoons are fabulous.)

Your image ma'am.

I even dressed up for the occasion.

Now give me my certificate.

There is an image attached, whether it appears now, in a few hours or never is anyone's guess today.

JKR Didn’t Have an Opinion. She Poisoned the Well
LadyBracknellsHandbagg · 28/08/2025 21:56

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.

Blah Blah Blah Whatever GIF by Minions

Blah blah blah

Boiledbeetle · 28/08/2025 21:57

Boiledbeetle · 28/08/2025 21:55

Your image ma'am.

I even dressed up for the occasion.

Now give me my certificate.

There is an image attached, whether it appears now, in a few hours or never is anyone's guess today.

Drums fingers.

I really hate you this week mumsnet.

Sort your IT dept out.

Why? Why do you wait until I've posted shit like this before you release the image??

Whhhhhhhy?

zerofeeling · 28/08/2025 21:57

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.

Nonsense - painfully innacurate and ill-informed nonsense. Fascinating in its way as an insight into the obsessive hatred transactivists have for JKR but still nonsense.

RedToothBrush · 28/08/2025 21:58

AstonScrapingsNameChange · 28/08/2025 21:26

It must be her fault we've got bloody mice again...

Well yes. She believes in sex and reproductive science so of course it's her fault.

OneWildandWonderfulLife · 28/08/2025 21:58

I always found the best way to deal with tantrums was to just ignore them, but my three had stopped having them by about 3 years old.

SionnachRuadh · 28/08/2025 22:00

And Trader Vic's is closed, so there's nowhere in London for a werewolf to drink a pina colada.

I blame JKR.

Urguth · 28/08/2025 22:02

im still laughing despairingly at the mental image I had in response to the very earnest posting of the dictionary entry. Having been bussed to hospital off my face on morphine at 3am with beyond excruciating abdominal pain that was gynaecological in origin. I’m now imagining a group of doctors solemnly consulting a tattered copy of the OED before they can offer any treatment.

Also, I know the thread has moved on significantly, but it was the fragrant Lauren Jeska (sp?) that brought me here, I think that predates JKRs initial tweet by a year or two.

GailBlancheViola · 28/08/2025 22:03

RedToothBrush · 28/08/2025 21:15

JKRowling trained Hitler.

And then Saddam. Then Bin Laden. Then Putin.

She's currently simultaneously responsible for Netanyahu and Hamas.

I'm sure she had a hand in training Pol Pot, Stalin and Chairman Mao too.

Interesting idea of a chat from the OP, does two lecturing posts now identify as chat?

RedToothBrush · 28/08/2025 22:06

GailBlancheViola · 28/08/2025 22:03

I'm sure she had a hand in training Pol Pot, Stalin and Chairman Mao too.

Interesting idea of a chat from the OP, does two lecturing posts now identify as chat?

Shit. I forgot Genghas Khan and William The Bastard.

CassOle · 28/08/2025 22:07

Well... you know that snake in the garden of Eden... turns out JKR had a hand in that too.

Urguth · 28/08/2025 22:07

i should clarify, it was the BBC reporting of the serious assault committed by Jeska that brought me here.

2016 that was. Bloody hell.

BeLemonNow · 28/08/2025 22:09

JKR has a time machine. She just wants to use it to add hate.

Helleofabore · 28/08/2025 22:11

Peer-reviewed studies show that trans people’s brain structures do not align with their sex assigned at birth.

Can we seriously stop having posted spread this misinformation.

No, brain ‘structures’ do not stop aligning with the person’s sex. Male and female brains are structured to fit their skulls. Skulls shaped and structured as per their sex.

Female brains are shaped to fit female skulls which differ slightly from male skulls in volume and shape. Female brain fibres are also more delicate than male brain fibres. Look up the Rugby study done by Swansea University. It is why no male person should ever play contact sport in the female category.

And the study that so many misinformed people then post links to shows that male people with transgender identity’s brain response groupings match the male profile. Sure some ended up grouped in one zone of that male profile, but it was a male profile and not at all a female profile.

So much misinformation and flawed evidence posted this week by male posters who believe women on this board see ignorant.

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