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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:
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Helleofabore · 29/08/2025 12:01

Catiette · 29/08/2025 11:48

Thank you for your reply. Everything I've read from you so far (while acknowledging that I have missed some of your posts) has left me far from perceiving you the way you feel you may be perceived by some. Many of the early replies in your own thread seemed apt to me. You sound like a lovely human being who has had an utterly traumatic time, and my heart goes out to you based on that.

Your last paragraph above, set next to my post and your acknowledgement of women's fights, sums up what I sometimes feel is happening here. Clumsy extended metaphor follows. You may realise... I like writing. 😊

The fact is that the war for women's rights continues (and I think the enemy's advancing and regaining lost ground right now - while effective patriarchal campaigning has created a supporting army of well-meaning but confused quislings). Meanwhile, yours is another, separate battle for recognition - whether as a trans person suffering deep-seated dysphoria, and/or as a gender non-conforming autistic person (I agree that society has a way to go in accommodating and embracing both).

The thing is, our fight isn't your fight. And your fight is undermining ours from within, in the most devastating way imaginable. The worst of it is that it has catalysed a fightback from us against a large number of your more fanatical allies and leaders, when we would have preferred to fight alongside you!

To stretch the metaphor to breaking point, I feel as though many trans young people may be the proverbial lions led by donkeys. They clearly have such courage and resolve, and groups like Stonewall etc. - their generals - are misdirecting it. If they'd led you in fighting your own battle, for your own recognition, as trans and proud, with all the dedicated services you need, we'd have joined you in this! And I truly, honestly believe that, if this had been the approach taken, the trans community would be in a better place now in the UK for it. There could be more gender-neutral toilets and services, open to all those content to use them to prevent outing trans users themselves. There'd be more concrete popular support, as opposed to the confusion and fear that can masquerade as such now. There'd certainly be far less focus on and concern about trans individuals' place in society generally. Many of the women posting here have fought for minority rights all their lives, and there was always scope for your acceptance by them - as long as that wasn't contingent on them accepting your rejection of who they are, and their own fight, as part of the deal! Requiring us to wave the white flag of surrender on women's rights was never going to work. How could something so one-sided be expected of us?

And yet, your generals' campaign continues, with organisations such as Stonewall spreading misleading propaganda that teaches trans young people that if they're not accepted as the opposite sex, they are, by definition, hated and feared, when it's actually the ideology itself that is the issue. Most posters here are simply focussed on our own battle campaign against it, to regain our own lost ground of single sex spaces and our very language itself.

Many of us, though, are also frustrated and concerned that young trans footsoldiers are being misled about what their cause is - I'd love it not to be an absolutist denial of the reality of biological sex, but rather simply recognition in their own right - trans and proud!) We worry that they're being misled in who their enemy is - it's not really (or it didn't need be, at any rate) GC feminists, who support gender non-conformity - and have the strategic expertise of generations of feminist warriors in breaking down limiting sex-based expectations! And many Orca Women warriors do also worry that some trans warriors may also be being misled in who they actually are in themselves - they worry about whether trans young people have been swept up by an advancing army that is promising a security and certainty it actually can't give, precisely because it wraps its members in indiscriminate pink and blue flags without respecting them as the unique individuals they are - and that we can see.

Edited

Catiette

I am just wondering how far you got on that thread. Did you reach the part where the manipulation became apparent? And the coercive manipulation where that posted tried to tell us that if we wanted interaction we had to prioritise his version of reality?

And where he directly told a rape survivor that he should not be banned from a female only rape crisis service because he said he is a woman?

BezMills · 29/08/2025 12:07

it always goes like that doesn't it?

I'm really nice, me.

OK if you're so nice stop taking our stuff and pretending to be us. It's not cool.

But I want to so I will and you can't stop me. me me me me me me me

SidewaysOtter · 29/08/2025 12:09

@SnugPeach every single post of yours centres you. What you want, what you feel, what you're going to do, how you see yourself, how you want others to see you, and so on until the end of time.

Which is fair enough, but not once do you seem to have thought about the women in the spaces you want to access. Have you stopped for one moment to consider the feelings of those who do not want you in those spaces? Do you genuinely feel that your wants trump everything else?

Because, regardless of how you identify, that's a very MALE entitlement.

SionnachRuadh · 29/08/2025 12:10

BezMills · 29/08/2025 12:07

it always goes like that doesn't it?

I'm really nice, me.

OK if you're so nice stop taking our stuff and pretending to be us. It's not cool.

But I want to so I will and you can't stop me. me me me me me me me

Even when there's a genuinely sympathetic backstory...

It's like dealing with anorexics. However much you love them and want them to get better, it's me me me all the time.

SidewaysOtter · 29/08/2025 12:19

ArabellaScott · 28/08/2025 18:04

I made a bingo card once. Hold on.

There is an important point here that's been lost amongst all the performative whinging.

That bingo card has a square marked "SEX FUDGE".

Erm...what? I'm envisaging never being able to go into a Devonian gift shop again without retching.

Catiette · 29/08/2025 12:22

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.

This is, simply, wrong, as I'm sure others will have pointed out. Having read beyond the post I just replied to now, I'm becoming a bit frustrated and concerned by the insistence that because your perception of reality is a certain way to assuage your own discomfort, we must all align our own perception of reality with it, whatever the cost to ourselves. It simply doesn't work this way.

The best I can offer is that, as long as I'm not being asked to reformulate my own (and physical) reality - that a male is not male - at my own expense, I can grant you the concession of pronouns and readily argue for third spaces etc. I can't yet make that concession, though, because it leads to the assumption that I'm prepared to sacrifice my rights to your wellbeing, or am in some way morally flawed for not embracing you as female.

For your part - we all struggle and suffer. Marie posted a lovely response a few pages before the above, Beetle has shared her problematic operation, I have a counselling appointment in an hour... If I'd been told I could reshape the world to instantly relieve Beetle's pain and solve my own issues, I'd be tempted to try this, too. But I like to think that 1) I'd recognise I can't, and 2) I'd not want to if it was clearly at the expense of a huge number of people losing their rights (as women were doing, before the Supreme Court ruling reasserted these - I'm afraid I trust the court and majority of commentators more than a single individual, there will always be opposing views). I also hope that, as others have said, if I was struggling to accept 1) and 2), I'd 3) look for psychological support, realising that I need to work on myself as opposed to the world at scale.

SionnachRuadh · 29/08/2025 12:23

SidewaysOtter · 29/08/2025 12:19

There is an important point here that's been lost amongst all the performative whinging.

That bingo card has a square marked "SEX FUDGE".

Erm...what? I'm envisaging never being able to go into a Devonian gift shop again without retching.

I don't read that literally, I take it in the same spirit as those Sunday Sport headlines saying "JEREMY CORBYN SEX DWARF EATEN BY BADGERS" before a totally legit and completely not made up story.

Catiette · 29/08/2025 12:23

Helleofabore · 29/08/2025 12:01

Catiette

I am just wondering how far you got on that thread. Did you reach the part where the manipulation became apparent? And the coercive manipulation where that posted tried to tell us that if we wanted interaction we had to prioritise his version of reality?

And where he directly told a rape survivor that he should not be banned from a female only rape crisis service because he said he is a woman?

Edited

No, though I think I'm may be getting closer - I just read your response to me after posting the above. I need to go now, but aim to catch up later.

Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 12:25

Catiette · 29/08/2025 12:22

This is, simply, wrong, as I'm sure others will have pointed out. Having read beyond the post I just replied to now, I'm becoming a bit frustrated and concerned by the insistence that because your perception of reality is a certain way to assuage your own discomfort, we must all align our own perception of reality with it, whatever the cost to ourselves. It simply doesn't work this way.

The best I can offer is that, as long as I'm not being asked to reformulate my own (and physical) reality - that a male is not male - at my own expense, I can grant you the concession of pronouns and readily argue for third spaces etc. I can't yet make that concession, though, because it leads to the assumption that I'm prepared to sacrifice my rights to your wellbeing, or am in some way morally flawed for not embracing you as female.

For your part - we all struggle and suffer. Marie posted a lovely response a few pages before the above, Beetle has shared her problematic operation, I have a counselling appointment in an hour... If I'd been told I could reshape the world to instantly relieve Beetle's pain and solve my own issues, I'd be tempted to try this, too. But I like to think that 1) I'd recognise I can't, and 2) I'd not want to if it was clearly at the expense of a huge number of people losing their rights (as women were doing, before the Supreme Court ruling reasserted these - I'm afraid I trust the court and majority of commentators more than a single individual, there will always be opposing views). I also hope that, as others have said, if I was struggling to accept 1) and 2), I'd 3) look for psychological support, realising that I need to work on myself as opposed to the world at scale.

Edited

Snug just wants us all to affirm his right to the word woman and women's single sex spaces. Nothing more!

Helleofabore · 29/08/2025 12:27

Catiette · 29/08/2025 12:23

No, though I think I'm may be getting closer - I just read your response to me after posting the above. I need to go now, but aim to catch up later.

Someone on the thread posed page 20 as being when the other shoe dropped. But I reckon it probably becomes clear by page 22 for sure. By the end of the thread, you will see it as bright as a beacon.

Many of us started as you did. And I can see your trajectory is following a similar pattern. It didn't matter how much ego stroking, civility or kindness was shown. All that mattered in the end was whether the manipulation worked for the poster or not and whether we agreed that he, especially, can be treated as a woman.

In other words - it went the same way that pretty much all those threads go. Maybe less explicitly abusive though.

However, I am all for you trying again. Maybe you will strike just the right tone to get the message listened to and will succeed where we all failed.

Catiette · 29/08/2025 12:28

Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 12:25

Snug just wants us all to affirm his right to the word woman and women's single sex spaces. Nothing more!

And the answer to that is, I'm afraid, no. For all the aforementioned reasons.

Catiette · 29/08/2025 12:31

Helleofabore · 29/08/2025 12:27

Someone on the thread posed page 20 as being when the other shoe dropped. But I reckon it probably becomes clear by page 22 for sure. By the end of the thread, you will see it as bright as a beacon.

Many of us started as you did. And I can see your trajectory is following a similar pattern. It didn't matter how much ego stroking, civility or kindness was shown. All that mattered in the end was whether the manipulation worked for the poster or not and whether we agreed that he, especially, can be treated as a woman.

In other words - it went the same way that pretty much all those threads go. Maybe less explicitly abusive though.

However, I am all for you trying again. Maybe you will strike just the right tone to get the message listened to and will succeed where we all failed.

Edited

It's sad (times) if that's the case. but I still like to try, and hope I always will, if someone appears to be in good faith. What ultimately convinced me of the GC cause was the reason and compassion here - and the appalling lack of it on the "other side".

BernardBlacksMolluscs · 29/08/2025 12:34

SidewaysOtter · 29/08/2025 12:19

There is an important point here that's been lost amongst all the performative whinging.

That bingo card has a square marked "SEX FUDGE".

Erm...what? I'm envisaging never being able to go into a Devonian gift shop again without retching.

Ah Kier Starmer’s sex fudge

memories…

Helleofabore · 29/08/2025 12:37

"However, I am all for you trying again"

Sorry, just dashed that off but meant to add, 'I will cheerlead from the side in support'.

DeanElderberry · 29/08/2025 12:39

BernardBlacksMolluscs · 29/08/2025 12:34

Ah Kier Starmer’s sex fudge

memories…

Thank God we're surrounded by water.

SionnachRuadh · 29/08/2025 12:39

Catiette · 29/08/2025 12:31

It's sad (times) if that's the case. but I still like to try, and hope I always will, if someone appears to be in good faith. What ultimately convinced me of the GC cause was the reason and compassion here - and the appalling lack of it on the "other side".

I came to the conclusion a while ago that dysphoria and Malaga are not two separate things but a Venn diagram.

But I agree. Having seen how TQ+ spaces turn on those who deviate from the party line, it's worth at least trying to engage with those who aren't in transparently bad faith.

SidewaysOtter · 29/08/2025 12:45

Ah Kier Starmer’s sex fudge

I'm not sure adding Kier Starmer to my mental image is helping anything.

MyAmpleSheep · 29/08/2025 12:49

SionnachRuadh · 29/08/2025 12:10

Even when there's a genuinely sympathetic backstory...

It's like dealing with anorexics. However much you love them and want them to get better, it's me me me all the time.

It's like dealing with anorexics

In so many ways!

ArabellaScott · 29/08/2025 12:51

SidewaysOtter · 29/08/2025 12:19

There is an important point here that's been lost amongst all the performative whinging.

That bingo card has a square marked "SEX FUDGE".

Erm...what? I'm envisaging never being able to go into a Devonian gift shop again without retching.

'Sex fudge' was when Labour kept going on about 'safe spaces' and tried to claim they cared about 'single sex spaces' while concurrently claiming that men could be of the female sex if they paid the princely sum of £15 for a special certificate.

Namelessnelly · 29/08/2025 12:52

Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 12:25

Snug just wants us all to affirm his right to the word woman and women's single sex spaces. Nothing more!

Well he can get tae fuck as they say.

Helleofabore · 29/08/2025 12:56

ArabellaScott · 29/08/2025 12:51

'Sex fudge' was when Labour kept going on about 'safe spaces' and tried to claim they cared about 'single sex spaces' while concurrently claiming that men could be of the female sex if they paid the princely sum of £15 for a special certificate.

Yes. That magic certificate that cannot be requested as evidence for access to provisions, but it doesn't matter anyway. The law was clear. If a person is male they should just stay the fuck out of female single sex spaces.

Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 12:59

Right, time for me to go back to worshipping at my altar to JKR.

I may even dress up for the occasion.

JKR Didn’t Have an Opinion. She Poisoned the Well
JKR Didn’t Have an Opinion. She Poisoned the Well
Boiledbeetle · 29/08/2025 13:03

Namelessnelly · 29/08/2025 12:52

Well he can get tae fuck as they say.

He certainly can!

Worriedandsuspicious · 29/08/2025 13:05

I was here way before JKR..just before the Spartacus threads iirc

lcakethereforeIam · 29/08/2025 13:06

Nrtt but the thread title is pissing me off. We're not a resource that anyone can help themselves to. Water doesn't have a say in who takes it. Women, womanhood isn't a brainless material just there for men to use.

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