J.K Rowling's Position

[middler]

I am not a regular on these boards but I am aware of the controversy over J K Rowling's position as I have encountered so many young people who have become very hostile with me if I do not show that I do not go along with them in their views that she is the equivalent of a racist in her attitude towards racists. I try and stay neutral and not declare my views but that is not enough for them. They want tos ee you express the same vitriol that they have so they can be assured you are on the same side. I find it so anti democratic frankly.

Privately I was relieved with the British ruling that means trans women who may well still have a penis and all the bad actors who could then take full advantage of a law that allowed transwomen into women only spaces, are not allowed to access those women spaces. I appreciate that most transwomen just want to go about leading their daily lives identifying as women and using women spaces is part of that and they have no ill intent. But many do not have bottom surgery and so yes they still have a penis as do the men who can just wake up one day and say they identify as a woman and start using those women only spaces and not have good intent? What am I missing? Why don't the younger generation see this and get that it is a huge risk to women? Do they think that there will be no bad actors? I just do not get it. The law is not to punish transwomen. It's to protect women.

I am not without sympathy for transwomen who genuinely feel uncomfortable going into male spaces. I appreciate that they identify as female but I just feel it's a conflict of rights and that you cannot sacrifice the right of women to feel safe in a women only space so that the smaller % of transwomen do not feel uncomfortable. Safety trumps comfort.

I personally would not react to a transwoman being in a female toilet but then I am aware how do I know it is a genuine transwoman and not a bad actor so I appreciate other women not being comfortable.
Maybe we need additional gender neutral toilets in this day and age.

But when this topic comes up with many younger people I can tell that the fact that I do not join in with the hatred for JK Rowling, that it puts me in the pro JK Rowling camp and I do agree with her support of ensuring that law got passed.

I am not so sure about the comments she made about kids not being trans as I think some kids as teens do seem to think they are in the wrong gender, maybe not in the large numbers that we are seeing today but clearly some people do feel they were born in the wrong gender and as a society I think we do have to support them without sacrificing the rights of an other group.

Rowling has never expressed hate for transpeople as far as I am aware. I do think she can be provocative in how she expressed her views and that is her choice but I just do not understand how the younger generation claim she is the equivalent of a racist but with trans rights? The language they use about her is so strong and I really try to avoid conversations about her because it has become so divisive- it is hard to find a millennial who does not agree with Emma Watson's viewpoint.

I am not 100% up to date with all Rowling has said but what has she said that is so bad that the younger generation have such deep hatred for her? I am just trying to understand it better and be ready to respond to the vitriol I get from younger colleagues when it comes up as it does seem to.

That image you linked is a goblin from the Harry Potter films. What's your point?

I don't think women should have to get unchanged with men, much less have to justify this to the world, but the rules of misogyny are a load of bollocks tbf.

Given the tsunami of misogynistic posts that's quite an achievement isn't it?
While I appreciate the efforts of women to analyse and challenge all the anti women drivel, I'm uneasy at giving so much attention to a man who spends endless hours on a board called Mumsnet demonstrating his anti social, anti safeguarding, anti women views.

I mean, one of the rules 'women saying no to men is a hate crime' is literally true in Scotland.

Another 'women's opinions are violence against men, thus male violence against women is justified' has been demonstrated on this very thread

I could go on...

Quite. I tried to work out if his nastiness toward women is escalating or has it always been that bad. Then I realise I don’t actually care as it is just repetitive trite nonsense but helpful to us in the long run.

The more women say no to him, the more he unleashes his inner incel

Women’s opinions are violence against men, thus male violence against women is justified.

But this is just nonsense. No normal people think VAW is justified. It's more often the other way around IME where people look for reasons why a woman did something violent because women can't possibly just be violent - "he must have pushed her to it" etc.

The worst thing about male violence is that it makes men look bad.

This is nonsense too. The worst thing about male violence is....well....the violence. You'd probs feel differently if you were a man - i.e. the main victims. And before you say it, yes, men are the perpetrators of it. This doesn't mean a black man is responsible for a racist attack on his person or a gay man responsible for homophobic violence.

Most normal people see other divisions apart from just sex. Many of these are more polarising. I mean, look at Israel/Palestine. Are we saying that the only victims that matter are the women and children because the innocent male civilians deserve the male violence visited upon them for being male?

I think the problem is that too many people read nonsense on twitter and try and extrapolate wider truth from it when it's mostly just people bickering online.

Oh my. You know, that's just what my feminism is lacking. A focus on those poor violent men.

I've not even read the rest of the thread but I'm willing to bet that your example of VAW being 'justified' is some nonsense posted online by TRAs. Probably that women disagreeing with them is 'literal violence' so they deserve what they get or something like that.

The thing is, the whole trans thing barely registers for the vast majority of women that don't spend loads of time online. Not to say that it's not an extremely concerning trend with men competing in women's sports/being housed in women's prisons etc. But you can't really use it to make sweeping statements about men in general.

Transwomen are a vanishingly tiny percentage of the male population with a high incidence of mental illness. Most blokes see them as weirdos even if they're wise enough not to say as much.

For comparison, the suffragettes were far more violent than the trans lobby - the latter haven't yet attempted to detonate bombs in packed theatres and churches and to my knowledge haven't actually killed and maimed multiple people through terror attacks. Nobody is using the suffragettes violent crimes to try and generalise about women, despite them generally being idolised.

Despite feminists always claiming to speak on behalf of women, most of us aren't down with the man hating stuff and studies repeatedly show this. The trans lobby are bonkers but trying to use it as a trojan horse to hate on half the population is just like the people banging on about immigrants. Most of us don't have a problem with good men. For most women, their closest ally is usually a man - their husband or partner.

Ahhh, the sound of cognitive dissonance when your hero's mask slips….

https://medium.com/the-radical-center/is-j-k-rowling-anti-semitic-f9f21fb04707

Across the world, across history, during times of war, women are subject to rape and brutalisation as systematic weapon of war. There's too many examples for me to even to begin to list.

Despite a very small number of men being the victims of domestic abuse, the VAST majority of those experiencing domestic violence are women, with a known starting point being when women are pregnant or just after having given birth.

Men who are family annihilators are often described as being 'a lovely family man who just snapped'.

Rape survivors are routinely humiliated in court. A recent case had voice recordings of the perpetrator outright admitting what he had done and it still wasn't a unanimous verdict from the jury.

I could go on giving examples from across the world through the night and I wouldn't even scratch the surface.

There is an epidemic of VAWG across the world. Do I really have to explain on a feminism board that women face abuse and violence from men?

And as for the whole Trojan horse nonsense, you do get that there are women actually affected by the 'trans stuff'? That self ID policies actually led to an independent review finding that ERCC had 'harmed rape survivors'? That women in Scotland have actually been locked up with male rapists following Government policy? I mean, women aren't even included in the Scottish Hate Crime Bill, because who gives a fuck, right?

And (i know, you haven't bothered to read the thread) but there's been plenty of examples of women being harmed and it being handwaved away, systematically, by institutions designed to serve us.

And many of us have men in our lives who we love and trust. But we actually give a shit about other women, who don't have safe, trustworthy men or women who have violence done against them in the street, in hospitals, prisons etc etc etc

But 'the poor men', right.

I fucking despair

And no, it's not just 'nonsense posted online'.

A selection of actual posters, at rallies. Actual threats against women. Did the Police do anything? Aye, right. Handwaved away.

"What possible justification is there for the posts in the first place?"

An explanation is not a justification just as it isn't for describing the predictable motivations of any brutal uprising. See: Hamas 7/10, The French Revolution, The Black Slavery rebellions etc etc.

10/10 for mirroring Zionist fasci 'terrorist supporter' manipulative accusatory tactics tho!

"If you think women saying ‘I don’t believe you should access female single sex provisions’ is suitable provocation you have a very warped sense of proportionate action."

Ho hum motte & bailey.
But that's not all they are saying. Dehumanising & demonising rhetoric goes with these 'concerns' like peas & carrots. Of course not being able to understand the problem with such language is perhaps why you can't recognise it….

"However, this is a list of women recording the threats made in person or on twitter , all found via twitter search today"

And I could provide endless photographic evidence of the carnage on 7/10 but that wouldn't prove the history of the conflict started on that date.

And still you are leveraging the atrocities of the situation between Israel and Palestine.

Just like you told us that if women didn’t allow male people into our groups, then male people wouldn’t know how to treat women with respect.

Your point of mentioning it is vile.

Your point can be simulated as below:

Women, you saying no to these male people will lead to their retaliation! Just saying!

Oh… no! I am not saying you would deserve it…. Just that this is where your denial of their access to your provisions will lead to them acting this way!

No Howseitgoin, you cannot explain away your leveraging of the situation between Israel and Palestine. You have done it, and we can see you have done it. You use of it was another act of misogyny and intimidation, amongst other things.

“But that's not all they are saying. Dehumanising & demonising rhetoric”.

oh! You mean women saying ‘we need our single sex provisions to remain single sex’ is dehumanising and demonising? Is that because women saying that are rejecting that any male should be treated as if they are female, which they cannot possibly be?

So, tell us, is there anyway that women can say, ‘we need our single sex provisions to remain single sex’ without it dehumanising and demonising those male people who a say they are female?

Perhaps it is just saying ‘we need our single sex provisions to remain single sex ‘ will always be dehumanising and demonising? Is that it?

We can think it, but we must never articulate it. Is that what you are saying? Just as was admitted in the Allison Bailey trial and in the NHS Fife trial.

Please suggest how women and girls can say ‘we need our single sex provisions to remain single sex and exclude all male people’ without it being considered dehumanising and demonising.

"And still you are leveraging the atrocities of the situation between Israel and Palestine.
Just like you told us that if women didn’t allow male people into our groups, then male people wouldn’t know how to treat women with respect.
Your point of mentioning it is vile.
Women, you saying no to these male people will lead to their retaliation! Just saying! Oh… no! I am not saying you would deserve it…. Just that this is where your denial of their access to your provisions will lead to them acting this way!"

Look for threats everywhere & you'll surely find them. Pathologically viewing the world only thru the lens of intimidation is textbook tunnel vision. IE Being unable to comprehend patterns that produce predictable outcomes with out associating it to some internalised fixation of being 'manipulated'. It's no more a threat to warn someone that if they run across a busy road they might get run over than it is to notice that violently oppressing people will end up in violent push back. Facts aren't threats. Normal people find them useful as a way to mitigate predictive damage.

You find the same sort of derangement from extremists every time police warn women to take care that a serial rapist is in their jurisdiction. 'How dare you!'

I suppose warning children to take care not to get in a strangers car is some sort of attack on their freedom too?

I mean, do you even recognise the hypocrisy of warning 'mean words beget mean actions' & following up with 'how dare you warn me not to use mean words because they will end in mean actions'.

"So, tell us, is there anyway that women can say, ‘we need our single sex provisions to remain single sex’ without it dehumanising and demonising those male people who a say they are female?"

Yeah, as you've repeatedly been told its called 'not sneering at trans people as dangerous mentally ill sexual predators who don't have a right to self determination'.

“Yeah, as you've repeatedly been told its called 'not sneering at trans people as dangerous mentally ill sexual predators who don't have a right to self determination'.”

Thanks for confirming what you, personally, call women saying , ‘we need our single sex provisions to remain single sex’.

“It's no more a threat to warn someone that if they run across a busy road they might get run over than it is to notice that violently oppressing people will end up in violent push back. Facts aren't threats. Normal people find them useful as a way to mitigate predictive damage.”

I see. So women saying ‘no!’ to a group of male people who demand to be treated as something they are not, have been warned of the consequences of their actions. Drivers can be reasonably be said to accidentally harm someone crossing the road unpredictably, do you feel that male people cannot be responsibly expected to not respond to hearing that they shouldn’t access female single sex provisions with threats and violence?

Thank you for the analogy, it is again very illustrative.

So too are these:

“ You find the same sort of derangement from extremists every time police warn women to take care that a serial rapist is in their jurisdiction. 'How dare you!'

I suppose warning children to take care not to get in a strangers car is some sort of attack on their freedom too?

I mean, do you even recognise the hypocrisy of warning 'mean words beget mean actions' & following up with 'how dare you warn me not to use mean words because they will end in mean actions'. “

Thank you for warning women that if we exclude male people from doing what they want to, we should expect threats and violence in return. It is the inevitable end point.

Thank you for warning us that we should not expect male people who feel oppressed by legitimate exclusion to act appropriately.

You have done such great work in enlightening me today that, indeed, I should accept the consequences of my own actions of acting so irresponsibly by putting a male person in the position where they could not reasonably be expected to act with respect.

And of course, using the statements you have made today and yesterday, I see now that women must have provoked those responses by male people in the links provided, if not directly than indirectly. I can see that any women being abused, assaulted, threatened must have provoked it. If they didn’t personally provoke it, they belong to a category of people who did provoke it so therefore the reaction is inevitable.

Thank you for enlightening me.

Do you outsource all your views to poorly-argued blog posts? Put some effort in to your arguments, please.

Shooting the messenger?

Deny, deny, denial….

Did you read the article you linked? I don’t think you did. Why don’t you click on it and read it.

Please do point to any contradictions, you have the floor!

Can you point to the part of the article you linked to someone on Medium that says JKR is anti-Semitic?

You don’t seem very sharp. Are you ok?

Can you point to what part of using well worn anti semitic tropes of big nosed greedy controlling jewish bankers isn't anti semitic?

Note that the article carefully avoids quoting any of JK Rowling's words, instead relying on insinuation that the HP goblins must be an "anti-Semitic caricature" without even attempting to argue or demonstrate it.

Despite that, the author eventually concludes that JKR isn't actually antisemitic. So if that in particular was the point you were making by linking this article, then we can agree.

Can you point to the part that says JKR is anti-Semitic? It might be after the part where the author says he doesn’t see evidence she is anti-Semitic. Maybe point it out for all of us.