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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
murasaki · 29/08/2025 00:35

Everything you say is about not feeling like a man. But why does that mean you are a woman? Not just a man who likes different things from the mainstream? You've never answered that. Not manly in a blokey way does not equal woman.

FrippEnos · 29/08/2025 00:36

And yet that provokes the questions
What is a woman?

By changing the meaning of the word to include man/men you have just undone god knows how many years of women's suffrage.
Not only that but you also remove many protections that women have and also by denying biological sex you are saying that homosexuals do not exist.
Which frankly given that most if not all of the rights that you have are off the back of LGB groups.

As I posted by all means have the hormones, have the surgery.
Or don't, Just wear a dress and call yourself Katie.
Most people will support and go along with it.

But stop trying to take away the hard earned rights of others.

Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 00:36

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:27

Don’t you think I spent years already trying that. Why won’t any of you accept that’s not a reality that exists for me.

You came onto Mumsnet, we didn't track you down to ask questions of you.

Why won't you accept men turning into women is not a reality that exists. At all.

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · 29/08/2025 00:36

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:32

I give you an article from a person who literally worked on the Equality Act saying it was supposed to trans inclusive and your response is simply ‘so what’.

So the point is we did have those rights till the ruling and that is how the act was intended to be. As literally stated by somebody who worked on the Equality Act.

The Equality Act IS trans inclusive. Trans people are protected under the equality act. Meaning you can’t be discriminated against based on your gender identity - not as women/men of the opposite sex.

You really didn’t have all those rights at all until the ruling. The ruling did one simple thing - clarified what “woman” meant in the Act. It clarified women means, and has always meant, biological women. It NEVER meant transwomen. They were protected as transwomen, not as biological women.

So your community owes us a stinking apology for deciding that “women” meant them for the last decade, and used that definition to access spaces you never had a right to access.

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:36

TrainedByCats · 29/08/2025 00:32

And what are we supposed to do? Budge up and accept men who don’t like being men? Despite the our very legitimate fear? Our wish for dignity? That the introduction of just one man changes female only spaces?

Why do you expect untold numbers of women who hate having males in what were formerly single sex places to accommodate you?

Why do you think your wishes should overrule so many of us? Other than Patriarchy in action of course 🙄 it’s your very maleness that is leading you to think your wishes are more important.

You have no experience of being in female spaces because your very presence has changed them into mixed sex every single time.

What’s the alternative to not wanting to be a man but not being allowed to be a woman? Non-binary did not feel right to me either I tried to just say I’m not a man or a woman but it still felt wrong as wrong as being a man. Just as much as non-binary people don’t feel right as a man or a woman.

RapidOnsetGenderCritic · 29/08/2025 00:36

SingleSexSpacesInSchools · 28/08/2025 15:46

@CSIRCP

“This isn’t a debate. It is one woman’s fear being weaponised.”
It is a debate, and a long-running one. We are having it now. It concerns law, safeguarding, medicine and language, not one person’s feelings. Women’s rights are not granted or withdrawn because a single woman is anxious. They exist in statute, case law and safeguarding guidance.

“JKR poisoned the well across politics, education, media and courts.”
Courts decide on law, not on authors. Politicians answer to voters, not novelists. If institutions are re-centering sex where it matters, that is because material reality and safeguarding require it, not because a famous writer tweeted.

“Her essay was projection, a confession masquerading as concern.”
Dismissing women’s testimony as pathology is a tactic to avoid the substance. Her argument was about safeguarding and the social pressures on girls. You do not refute that by psychoanalysing the author.

“She aligned with people who say all trans women are predators.”
Stating that male people should not access female-only spaces is a safeguarding boundary, not a claim that all males are predators. Safeguarding is based on risk and sex, not identity or personal virtue.

“She liked racist or antisemitic material and repeats far-right tropes.”
Extraordinary accusations need evidence, not vibes. Even if you dislike her politics, ad hominem does not answer whether sex-based rights and definitions are legitimate. Argue the point, not the person.

“The gender-critical movement is about control, not truth or safety.”
It is about female privacy, consent and equal participation. Single-sex services, sports and data are long-standing parts of women’s rights. Calling boundaries “control” tries to shame women out of safeguarding themselves.

“Posie Parker welcomed Nazis. 764 was linked to GC circles.”
Guilt by association is not an argument. Bad actors sometimes turn up where cameras are. That does not erase the mainstream position: women’s boundaries, set by law and common sense, are legitimate. Condemn extremists and keep the discussion on policy.

“Rowling gave legitimacy to disinformation, dressed up as feminism.”
She is, like it or not, one of the most influential women on the planet using her platform to defend sex-based rights. You can disagree with her, but millions of women recognise the issues she raises from experience in schools, sport, prisons and healthcare.

“Government language now echoes her, and courts redefined woman by sex assigned at birth.”
Law has always recognised sex where relevant. Clarifying that “woman” means female in specific contexts protects women and girls. That is not “poison”, it is legal certainty. Women’s rights are not dictated by one person, they are upheld by democratic and judicial processes. Also yes - we won. Good news for all.

“Science proves gender identity is innate, brain-based, genetic, and intersex people exist.”
None of that, even if partly true (it's not), changes the fact that human sex is dimorphic and relevant to safety, fairness and privacy. Identity claims do not override sex in risk-managed settings. Intersex conditions (actually DSDs) do not abolish the categories male and female, and policy for millions cannot be set by rare exceptions. Nobody, not one single person is in-between sexes. No one.

“Questioning this is denying people’s right to exist.”
No one is denying anyone’s existence. The question is where sex matters in law and safeguarding. Saying “women need single-sex spaces” is not an attack on anyone’s humanity, it is a boundary.

"This is a campaign of erasure led by a billionaire author.”
Women asking for accurate language, sex-based data and protected spaces are resisting erasure. Wealth and fame are irrelevant to the merits. Either the arguments stand or they do not.

“Her fans chant slogans, spreading homophobia, biphobia and racism.”
Smearing a broad group with the worst online behaviour you can find is a way to avoid the policy questions. Mainstream gender-critical feminists oppose all bigotry. They are asking for sex-realist boundaries that protect lesbians, bisexual women and straight women alike.

“You do not need to cancel her, just see the poison clearly.”
What has “poisoned” the public square is the demand that women accept male access to female spaces and services on self-declaration, with penalties for dissent. That pressure created the backlash. Men forcing entry into women’s spaces caused the conflict, not a fantasy author pointing it out.

“There is no debate.”
“No debate” was tried for years. It failed. The debate happened in workplaces, school changing rooms, sports clubs, hospital wards and courtrooms. Once people were finally allowed to talk, many saw the emperor had no clothes. The public can hold two thoughts at once: be kind to individuals, and keep sex-based boundaries where they matter.

“Women’s rights are being used to harm trans and intersex people.”
Women’s rights are for women, and they do not rely on anyone else’s approval. Protecting single-sex spaces, fair sport and clear statistics is not harm, it is the minimum required for safety, dignity and equality.

Well done for your patience and clarity!

MyAmpleSheep · 29/08/2025 00:36

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:32

I give you an article from a person who literally worked on the Equality Act saying it was supposed to trans inclusive and your response is simply ‘so what’.

So the point is we did have those rights till the ruling and that is how the act was intended to be. As literally stated by somebody who worked on the Equality Act.

You don’t understand the legal system in the UK.

Courts interpret the words in the legislation according to specific rules. If the way the Supreme Court interprets what Parliament wrote doesn’t match the intentions of a civil servant who oversaw the passage of the legislation then they did a piss-poor job drafting the law in question. The correct remedy is to campaign for a change in the law.

murasaki · 29/08/2025 00:38

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:32

I give you an article from a person who literally worked on the Equality Act saying it was supposed to trans inclusive and your response is simply ‘so what’.

So the point is we did have those rights till the ruling and that is how the act was intended to be. As literally stated by somebody who worked on the Equality Act.

You didn't, the Supreme Court ruling merely clarified the law in terms even the terminally dim could understand. There had been a tacit acceptance by women of people who behaved. Then they stopped behaving and the niceness from women stopped.

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · 29/08/2025 00:38

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:36

What’s the alternative to not wanting to be a man but not being allowed to be a woman? Non-binary did not feel right to me either I tried to just say I’m not a man or a woman but it still felt wrong as wrong as being a man. Just as much as non-binary people don’t feel right as a man or a woman.

Accepting you are a man, and can’t escape that truth, and finding a way to live happily with it.

Or fighting for third spaces.

The answer is not saying “I’m a woman then” then expecting women to budge up and let a man in their space.

What makes you a woman?
What even is a woman?

Heggettypeg · 29/08/2025 00:39

Howseitgoin · 28/08/2025 23:12

JK is simply the manifestation of attention seeking haz been mythical creature that has been desperately seeking relevance via cos playing suffragette. And being the over achiever she is, seems to be 'selling' quite well again.

JK is the symbol and scapegoat for Mother Nature, who doesn't give some people the body they want.

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:40

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · 29/08/2025 00:38

Accepting you are a man, and can’t escape that truth, and finding a way to live happily with it.

Or fighting for third spaces.

The answer is not saying “I’m a woman then” then expecting women to budge up and let a man in their space.

What makes you a woman?
What even is a woman?

A women is more than just her biology that’s what I believe.

Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 00:40

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:36

What’s the alternative to not wanting to be a man but not being allowed to be a woman? Non-binary did not feel right to me either I tried to just say I’m not a man or a woman but it still felt wrong as wrong as being a man. Just as much as non-binary people don’t feel right as a man or a woman.

There is no alternative. That's life, and life in the main tends to suck. Learn to live with it, you are a man, nothing is ever going to change that.

FrippEnos · 29/08/2025 00:41

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · Today 00:36

The Equality Act IS trans inclusive. Trans people are protected under the equality act. Meaning you can’t be discriminated against based on your gender identity - not as women/men of the opposite sex.

This isn't true, it is

Gender Reassignment: Protection for people who are proposing to undergo, are undergoing, or have undergone a process (or part of a process) of reassigning their sex.

Which is protected under the Equality Act, Which does cover the SnugPeach.
but what you have posted is the line that stonewall etc. have pushed even though it was never true.

murasaki · 29/08/2025 00:41

Is it just me that has suddenly thought that the username here is a tad dubious, especially in conjunction with the constant breast references. Malaga written all over it.

TrainedByCats · 29/08/2025 00:42

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:36

What’s the alternative to not wanting to be a man but not being allowed to be a woman? Non-binary did not feel right to me either I tried to just say I’m not a man or a woman but it still felt wrong as wrong as being a man. Just as much as non-binary people don’t feel right as a man or a woman.

That is for you to work out.

Women are not defined as ‘not men’. That belief is profoundly insulting to women. And we’re not a consolation prize for men uncomfortable with current views of masculinity.

There is much about being a women that you cannot ever experience or know, just as I can never know what it is to be male.

And we are so much more than a pair of fucking DD’s 🤮

SionnachRuadh · 29/08/2025 00:42

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:32

I give you an article from a person who literally worked on the Equality Act saying it was supposed to trans inclusive and your response is simply ‘so what’.

So the point is we did have those rights till the ruling and that is how the act was intended to be. As literally stated by somebody who worked on the Equality Act.

I'm afraid that's not how the law works.

Parliament passes legislation. This legislation consists of words whose meaning sometimes has to be interpreted.

Sometimes, if the meaning of these words is not clear, or if the interaction of two pieces of legislation is messy, a case comes before the Supreme Court, who are the most senior lawyers in the country, whose entire job is to interpret what complicated legislation means.

In this case the Supreme Court has decided that the plain meaning of the words "woman" and "man" applies - in other words biological sex - because to apply a different meaning would lead to nonsensical consequences, like transmen not having maternity rights, or lesbians not being able to have clubs that didn't admit heterosexual men.

The opinion of a retired civil servant who worked on drafting the legislation 15 years ago, before it went to Parliament, does not override the interpretation of the Supreme Court.

There are some Labour MPs who think it should, but if they don't like the law as intepreted by the Supreme Court, they are literally Members of Parliament and can work to change the law if they really want to.

It's not our fault that Stonewall lied to you about whether you have a right to enter women's single sex spaces. Unless and until the law is changed, you don't and you never had.

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · 29/08/2025 00:42

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:40

A women is more than just her biology that’s what I believe.

And what is that “more”? What is it about women that makes a woman of it isn’t biology?

I know you think this sounds progressive but it’s the opposite

Women are defined as women by their biology. After that, women come in all forms - some wear make up, some don’t, some wear jeans, some wear dresses. Some entirely reject gender norms, some embrace them. They are ALL women - ONLY because of their biology.

Saying there’s more to women than biology means that some women who don’t meet whatever the “more” is, aren’t women. So what are they?

MyAmpleSheep · 29/08/2025 00:44

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:36

What’s the alternative to not wanting to be a man but not being allowed to be a woman? Non-binary did not feel right to me either I tried to just say I’m not a man or a woman but it still felt wrong as wrong as being a man. Just as much as non-binary people don’t feel right as a man or a woman.

A woman isn’t something anyone can “allow” you to be, any more than someone can allow you to be a squirrel or an amoeba or a bowl of porridge. This is a game we play with three year olds: today mummy I’m a lion, Roarr! Not with adults.

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · 29/08/2025 00:44

Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 00:40

There is no alternative. That's life, and life in the main tends to suck. Learn to live with it, you are a man, nothing is ever going to change that.

I despair every day that I’m not a millionaire. I also accept it and don’t turn up to fancy members clubs demanding entry because I simply CANT not be a millionaire, so they have to understand and accommodate.

FrippEnos · 29/08/2025 00:45

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:40

A women is more than just her biology that’s what I believe.

But that is not a working definition, and as laws and are based on clearly defined meanings. It is redundant.

Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 00:45

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:40

A women is more than just her biology that’s what I believe.

How is a woman more than her biology? What other thing is common in all women?

BeLemonNow · 29/08/2025 00:45

We did have those rights till the ruling and that is how the act was intended to be. As literally stated by somebody who worked on the Equality Act.

No that's not how the law works. Not a lawyer disclaimer but had relevant experience. There was never any right - a legal concept.

One person who worked on the article is claiming Parliament's intent was to include trans. A huge number of issues...but for starters Parliament intent is only one factor behind an interpretation of a law.

SC explained the other factors in the judgement - the coherence of the overall act (such as that it makes no sense for transmen not to have pregnancy protection) and the ordinary meaning of the words "sex" unless defined otherwise.

As explained by the judges it does fulfill the intent to give trans protection as if you a transwomen was hypothetically discriminated against believing to be female then that would be illegal sex discrimination. Which the policy maker claims is the intention in the Guardian.

At any rate you presumably don't have a GRC and the legal debate was only about whether trans 'legal' sex granted by GRC aligns with sex used for the purposes of the Equality Act.

Sigh going through legal stuff at this hour makes my brain ache. Never liked that job.

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · 29/08/2025 00:45

FrippEnos · 29/08/2025 00:41

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · Today 00:36

The Equality Act IS trans inclusive. Trans people are protected under the equality act. Meaning you can’t be discriminated against based on your gender identity - not as women/men of the opposite sex.

This isn't true, it is

Gender Reassignment: Protection for people who are proposing to undergo, are undergoing, or have undergone a process (or part of a process) of reassigning their sex.

Which is protected under the Equality Act, Which does cover the SnugPeach.
but what you have posted is the line that stonewall etc. have pushed even though it was never true.

Well yes that’s what I was getting at , albeit not perfectly worded - Snug for example is protected under the Act as a trans person, and a man. But not as a woman, because he isn’t a biological woman.

ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat · 29/08/2025 00:46

TrainedByCats · 29/08/2025 00:42

That is for you to work out.

Women are not defined as ‘not men’. That belief is profoundly insulting to women. And we’re not a consolation prize for men uncomfortable with current views of masculinity.

There is much about being a women that you cannot ever experience or know, just as I can never know what it is to be male.

And we are so much more than a pair of fucking DD’s 🤮

We should just call ourselves no-tails and be done with it (for the League of Gentlemen fans out there)

murasaki · 29/08/2025 00:46

SnugPeach · 29/08/2025 00:40

A women is more than just her biology that’s what I believe.

If you believe that, why are you trying to mimic female external characteristics while acting entirely like a man?

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