'He has a point, but he's too blunt.' JKR

[IwantToRetire]

In response to " Interesting interview with @Glinner on @GBNEWS a few minutes ago about the trans debate. It's interesting how the tide is turning in his favour. I've seen old friends who shunned him admit he has a point but that he was too blunt. Even that would was unthinkable a few years ago. "

From the start, a key tactic of the gender identitarians has been linguistic prescription, and it's proved shockingly successful. Trans activists' shibboleths and euphemisms have been allowed to penetrate the upper echelons of our culture with devastating consequences to freedom of speech and belief. Huge swathes of liberal media, the arts, academia and publishing have thrown themselves with gusto into the defence of a quasi-religious belief causing provable real world harm, and in their arrogance they've been outraged when people they assumed were part of their In Group have refused to march meekly along in lock step.

Time and again, I've seen and heard well-educated people who consider themselves critical thinkers and bold truth-tellers squirm when put on the spot. 'Well, yes, maybe there's something in what you're saying, but it's hateful/provocative/rude not to use the approved language/pretend people can literally change sex/keep drawing attention to medical malpractice or opportunistic sexual predators. Why can't you be nice? Why won't you pretend? We thought you were one of us! Don't you realise we have sophisticated new words and phrases these days that obviate the necessity of thinking any of this through?'

As the vibe shifts, and a lot of people in the elite professions start trying to reposition themselves, the obvious place to start is, 'it's not that I couldn't see your point, but did you have to say it that way?' We dissenters were supposed to find a way of questioning the chemical castration of children while calling it 'gender affirming care.' We were meant to defend the rights of vulnerable women while also using female pronouns for male rapists. We should have found a way to discuss fairness for women and girls in sport, while pretending that the ineradicable physical advantage men have over women doesn't exist.

Either a man can be a woman, or he can't. Either women deserve rights, or they don't. Either there's a provable medical benefit to transitioning children, or there isn't. Either you're on the side of a totalitarian ideology that seeks to impose falsehoods on society through the threat of ostracisation, shaming and violence, or you're not. The alternative to being 'blunt' - using accurate, factual language to describe what was going on - was to surrender freedom of speech and espouse ideological jargon that obfuscated the issues and the harms caused. We've always needed blunt people, but we need them most of all when being asked to bow down to a naked emperor.

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1995491771950797148

Just a reminder that our resident heeeerailer will be in his basement squirming with delight that yet again he's managed to get women's attention and take over the actual subject of the thread

I'm not on Twitter, but does anyone know if JKR has specifically addressed the issue of people thinking the EHRC guidance is 'too blunt'?

What's brilliant about her is that people do listen. Newspapers report on what she says, and her words end up all over the media.

I'd really like to see some public discussion on the exact problem she's highlighted. But in relation to the EHRC guidance. Because if it's too fucking blunt, what is the alternative?

What is it?

Because, at the moment, we've got exactly what we've always had. Airy fairy words about it being too blunt, too harsh, not fair, difficult to implement. Blah blah blah.

But absolutely zero suggestions about alternatives.

I want to hear how you can be a bit pregnant, a bit dead - and a bit female.

I think that many of us on FWR have been on the pointy end of the pointy finger of shame for using accurate language to describe male people who demand to be treated as if they are female people. And to describe what motivations some of those male people in those demands.

There have been noticable points along the way that have pushed the Overton window though. One was the Forstater tribunal where we were told that having the view that male people cannot be female was not hateful or transphobic.

Another was ‘He’s a man!’ drifting across the pool as Thomas lined up to swim. Then came the ridiculousness of ‘rapist gender’. Then came the crystal clarity of Naomi Cunningham using male language for Upton.

It has been a journey.

Obviously one can be pointlessly rude to individual trans people, or one can lie and make up fake "stats", but so long as one is being honest and not targetting anyone, then one cannot be too blunt.

I think this touches on one of the biggest stumbling blocks. In our frustration with TRAs and individuals like Howse and Butterfly etc we sometimes allow ourselves to be drawn into petty bitchy personal attacks. I get it, I really do. The frustration, the sense of impotent rage where you want to scream basic facts into their faces, my blood pressure spikes just thinking about it.

I know some genuinely good people who have dysphoria and have ‘transitioned’ cosmetically, I bear them no ill will, I know they have huge mental health struggles that have been somewhat eased by surgery etc. But the constant use of the word ‘gender’ when we really mean sex has allowed the TRA movement to blur the truth and confuse far too many people.

The emperor is so obviously naked, but we’ve been bullied into complimenting his frock. It has to stop.

"But in relation to the EHRC guidance. Because if it's too fucking blunt, what is the alternative?"

The guidance has to be clear and accurate. If people think that is too blunt then they are trying to control the language to keep it obfuscated and prevent it from protecting those who it intends to protect.

She must of needed a long shower after that one….

We generally expect better standards of SPaG on these boards, as well as better arguments.

To use an Australianism back at you, I think many of us can see just how much of a 'winner' you really are.

I do not want to engage with that poster, but why would anyone tell a butch lesbian she's a man?

We know who women are.

This isn't even coherent.

Telling a butch lesbian that they are a man is not stating a fact and it is not an accurate description of a butch lesbian.

oh snap!

It was an incoherent post. I can only assume it was supposed to be baiting for engagement.

Off to self determine my way into getting a Freedom Pass.
Who is anyone to say that I am the wrong age and don't live in London?

I think this demonstrates the incoherence and ignorance of the argument. Butch lesbians don’t think they are men, they don’t want to be men, and don’t demand he/him pronouns etc. Butch lesbians are gender-nonconforming women. Not men.

It's the latest way that men get to insult women while pretending to 'be kind'.

They get to tell lesbians that everyone thinks they are men while claiming concern.

I'm guessing this "butch lesbian" example refers to mistaking a woman for a man in a toilet situation or something.

There was an interesting mini-discussion about this on one of the Helen Webberley threads. Basically, many women said they just don't care about sometimes being mistaken for a man. Responses ranged from amusement to indifference.

Just because it would be literal violence to a TRA to be "misgendered" doesn't mean everyone feels the same. But if you've built your life around presenting as something you're not then it's going to hurt more when people see through that.

It's quite a bizarre, illogical leap.

"It's not offensive to call a man a man, therefore it's not offensive to call a woman a man."

Who in their right mind would think that's a logical argument?

But to answer your question, I think that poster is the one who can't tell the difference between the sexes if they're not wearing the 'correctly sexed' clothing and exhibiting other presentation cues which indicate their sex. He has a variation of prosopagnosia, but to do with sex rather than faces.

People have, at least in the past, called gender nonconforming women "men" (and gender nonconforming boys "girls") as deliberate insults. This relies of course on an accurate understanding of their actual sex, and is based in sexism. This is a whole different matter from getting someone's sex wrong by mistake, or correctly sexing someone who wants to be seen as the opposite sex.

That okay, men can't be women if they rape someone or in a woman's prison, or alright then, not in sport, or fair enough, not if they're teaching in a girls school, but all toilets, yes absolutely. And changing rooms. Okay, not toilets in a school, and yes, obviously not changing rooms at work, but, um other changing rooms, certain changing rooms, what about toilets in a bar??
Or, or or, but, but, but.

This absolutely nails it for me. I'm reminded of posters who say on here "well, I don't agree that trans women should participate in women's sports. Oh, and not be in women's hospital wards obviously. Or rape support groups of course. But in XYZ situation they really are women"

No! No they're not!

Unless you have a solution that makes this 100% workable and watertight and DOESN'T involve expecting women and girls to just be kind?

Oh I am sure that we could predict just which link would be pasted to defend that women are being asked if they are in the correct single sex space for them.

And remember, I have posted just what is considered violence against a person under the hate crime descriptions. It really doesn’t take much to reach that bar according to the CPS. That needs to be changed now that NC has clarified that under court conditions. And now that Webberley brought that to repeatedly to our attention in those interviews.

It's not offensive, it's just not true. As 99.9% of people know.

So you'd look like the dick trying to offend people by saying it.

Saying a trans women is a man also isn't offensive it's just a fact.

It is also a fact that some men get upset by this fact, but reality upsetting people isn't really our problem to sort.

Lesbophobia is a crucial tenant of many transactivists unfortunately.

It's not a bug it's a feature.

If it's not telling women, men can be lesbians too and expecting them to 'try dick' it's telling butch lesbians they will be mistaken as men as a way to guilt and coerce women into accepting men into female spaces.

Lesbian have ALWAYS been on the front like of this, and it's why the original founders of Stonewall eventually snapped and formed the LGBAlliance because of this lack of respect for lesbians and this rampant lesbophobia.

It's abusive and manipulative and should be labelled as exactly what it is.

Butch lesbians don't look or sound like men if you pause for half a second.

Maybe the ehrc guidance should say toilets for women should be for people with bows on their heads.

Like the ones they put on baby girls so you know they're a girl.

Obviously there is no other way to tell someone's sex except for a fashion accessory is there?

Quite.

It's pinking shears, carousel, hatstand.

Anyway going back to Glinner and JKR.

The ultimate problem is people know and recognise Glinner is right because he says it in such a way it's jarring. It shocks them. They don't want to be shown as making really obvious stupid safeguarding fails. It embarrasses them.

They don't want to be jarred into acknowledging this.

They might be willing to be nudged slowly so they can say "oh well it wasn't that obvious, and we are all kind and no one has any dubious agenda". Because they want to live in a nice bubble of happy la la land where no bad things ever happen.

They don't want to engage with the idea that bad people exist and we have to consider safeguarding at all times because people you come across might not be so harmless.

They don't want to engage with the idea that they may have been targeted as a object for voeuyerism or that their daughter's / mothers may have been targeted.

They want it all couched in fluffy language and manners so they don't have to confront the real world.

It rocks their entire world and their entire privilege for this to be pointed out.

Just this week, I've had a friend show a photo of an old friend in his 50s now dressed as a woman and how they bonded over this friend's son who has done the same. And his (male) mate go 'yeah it's great no one cares anymore'.

The trouble with pointing out how this isn't true is you have to say "well he's a private school educated man who has a wife and kids who it's probably massively had an impact on but they can't speak out because of all the issues of being expected to just cope regardless of the psychological impact on them. And you'll then have to examine your own privilege and sexism about this. And furthermore your complete lack of consideration for how it affects vulnerable women in certain situations, how there is unfortunately a disproportionate number of sex offenders who are trans that we just can't pretend don't exist. And the fact that you might be crowing about how great it is his friend has done this 'without judgement', but you have two teenage daughters who I damn well know you wouldn't be happy being next to this fully intact bloke in a communal swimming pool changing room. Because I know you well enough to know you are protective of them as you are a good person. Being inclusive is great until you actually consider who this really impacts and how and why so many people like me don't confront you because they know it will end up in an almighty row and upset you both in the process."

Honestly after a pint it wasn't the time to start on that particular conversation, so I just picked up my phone and frantically swore at DH about what sexist wankers they were being and how tone deaf they are because they want to look right on and cos they don't want to deal with the reality of it all.

The worse bit is I know that the first guy is struggling with it all more than he's letting on - it's 100% a front and I know that going head on rather than softly saying "mate it's ok to love your son still, but yeah I get it's not much fun when someone turns out to be not such a great person and it's difficult to accept his lack of respect women and the fact he's hanging out in incel circles which you are fully aware of. This isn't your fault, you are not responsible for your adult sons life choices. You've done your best, but he has to make his own mistakes and that's ok".

Much like you can't go head on if a friend's son has turned out to be a drug addict and made a bunch of poor life choices.

There's ways to handle it well and ways to handle it badly. You have to pick your moments to drip drip the message unfortunately.

Glinner is the person who has the row rather than understanding social relationships are complex. JKR understands this.

Julie Bindel did a series of podcasts about how captured social services treated families with children who had become caught up. At the end she spoke to a young lesbian woman who had thankfully desisted and escaped but had been subjected to lesbophobia by her girl friend and her girlfriends mother when she was younger. It took the form of them constantly saying "oh you do that just like a man would", or "that's how a man would think", which pushed her and pushed her into thinking she must of course really be a man. She came to realise that both her girlfriend and her girlfriends mother were very uncomfortable with the girlfriends sexuality, didn't really want to the girlfriend to be a lesbian and were saying all these things about being like a man to deal with their own problem.

Or rather not deal with it, sweep it under the carpet and pass it on to another young lesbian causing her and her family a lot of distress. It was quite an eye opener for me, I hadn't even contemplated that angle before because it would never occur to me to tell a girl or young woman, or any woman, that they were doing things like a man.

Unless you have a solution that makes this 100% workable and watertight and DOESN'T involve expecting women and girls to just be kind?

And that's why they're not actually coming up with anything.

They're just bloody bleating about it.

It seems to me that it's mostly the rider that says if you pass 100% seamlessly you'll upset people of your own sex.

Which, on the face of it, looks as though they have absolutely nowhere to go to the toilet.

Well hello disabled people. Hello a woman with a push chair and two little kids.

And hello women who are unable to go to a mix sexed toilet.

We're not all King Charles who gets followed around by a flunky with a toilet seat.

I mean, it's irritating enough, that suddenly this is oh so special cohort are incapable of planning a journey using an app that tells them where there are gender neutral facilities.

But, and way more importantly, what is their alternative solution then?

Oh, they don't have one.

Well just get on with it then. Because this is a truly, truly pointless waste of time.

There IS no solution other than the one we've got.