John Lithgow on JK Rowling

[QAOPspaceman]

basically admits he hasn’t bothered thinking about her position on gender identity. The Harry Potter books are about tolerance so her stance is ‘inexplicable’, yet he’s never met her and only ‘read about her views’.
Read her for yourself pal! Do your own fucking thinking!

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/feb/02/john-lithgow-says-he-finds-jk-rowlings-stance-on-trans-rights-ironic-and-inexplicable?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

How is advocating for female only safe spaces "opposed to acceptance", @Gretel346 ? Acceptance of what? Fully intact males in women and girls change rooms? Damn right most people don't accept that. How about you try having some acceptance for womens hard won sex-based rights?

@Gretel346 Perhaps you should actually read her essay first hand (not through a filtered and distorted second hand/third hand lens) before embarrassing yourself on here.

JKR doesn't think all people have the right to self determination so no, she doesn't really believe everybody should have the same rights.

People having the right to self determination is a separate matter to how they should be treated in terms to access to services. Different circumstances often require different treatment.

People who live in any social structure can self determination as much as they please.

She as far as I am aware has never objected to that.

Can you point out where she¹ has done so?

(¹And by she I dont mean a third party said she said .... )

JKR doesn't think all people have the right to self determination so no, she doesn't really believe everybody should have the same rights.

When it comes to sex (not gender identity or sexuality) she doesn't believe anyone should have the right to self determination (because you can't self determine reality - nor can you self determine your height, age, or how much you're affected by gravity). That is the same rights for everyone.

No one has the moral right to self determine into someone else's identity.

Men (original sex based meaning) cannot redefine womanhood to include themselves without undefining the basis on which half of humanity understands itself, without disconnecting the reality of women (original sex based meaning)'s experiences of their own bodies and how that impacts their own lives, and without disconnecting half of humanity from our history and understanding of how that leads to our current experiences.

I don't know about you, but I think the female half of humanity matter enough to have its own name and its own voice and its own history, even if that means some men are excluded from excercising self determination.

HTH

Her books do not simply accept people no matter the harm they cause. Voldemort is not accepted as a murderous bastard they should all just let murder whoever he wants.

But before this, he tries to cross boundaries and manipulate. Quite familiar that. He goes to see Dumbledore to ask for a job (really to try and get into Hogwarts for reasons I won't go into as spoilers) but there's a fantastic scene where he says to Dumbledore 'I am now called Lord Voldemort' and Dumbledore says no. He does it graciously but he does not agree to using Voldemort's new name and title (accept his self-identity as more important than anyone else). Doing so would be giving ground and allowing Voldemort to set terms. Dumbledore doesn't. He says, I recognise you as Tom Riddle and that is how I'll address you.

I mean it's basically the coercive control aspect of trans ideology right there.

The HP books are about healthy respect. Voldemort's the one trying to dominate everyone else via coercion (at first) and then brute force.

I think you will find that you and she agree.

Perhaps you should find and post a link where she has stated she doesn’t support people identifying how they wish. Otherwise you are sounding like every other person who hasn’t read what she has actually said.

JKR has liked/supported statements on X that call trans women 'men in dresses' 'delusional' 'dangerous' 'predators' so that kind of invalidates any notion that she accepts a personally subjective view on gender without their being some kind of perversion attached to their beliefs…ironically that she herself suffers from.

If she sees a man in a dress or observes male behaviour she thinks is predatory does she not have the right to say what she sees? You're confusing self-identification with imposing and forcing your view of yourself on everyone else.

I want everyone to see me as the millionaire I secretly am inside. The bank doesn't agree. They are not bigots for not giving me a million quid.

I'm pretty sure JKR (and most women) self-ID as recognising biological sex as important for safeguarding. Why are you not respecting that self identity as reality-based?

Why should someone like Katie Dolatowski who is a 6ft 5 convicted sex offender whose offences are against children be able to self identify out of my perception of him (which is also fact) as a male sex offender?

So both JKR and I believe that Katie Dolatowski can self-identify and see himself as a woman. We're not stopping him from doing that.

What we're saying is that WE (and most of the rest of the world) see him as a man. As I'm sure his victims do too.

Why are people unable these days to see the difference between thinking something about yourself and forcing other people to pretend to have the same beliefs? It's very 1984.

I feel this inability to see other people as fully human and capable of making their own mind up about what they see is not going to end well.

Anyway, I don't have the way with words of JKR. I thoroughly recommend the bit with Tom Riddle and Dumbledore refusing to call him Lord Voldemort. It's a great example. (p.414 in my copy of the book - just over halfway through).

If you are suggesting special treatment for some people can you expand your personal world view by answering the two questions below?

Can you please explain why you think a teen age girl should be made shower and change clothing in front of any male?

Can you then explain why you support the State policy which (on your behalf) decides that Women in the care of the State should be forced into providing companionship to male sex offenders?

And just to add. Despite the fact that Dolatowski has done terrible things, I'm not telling him he's a bigot for pretending to be a woman or wailing about his inability to accept my self-ID as a sex realist. Claiming he and people like him are literally DENYING MY EXISTENCE by not accepting my sex realist view. Am I?

Nope, if he wants to think he's a special male type of woman he can crack on. What he can't do is go into women's toilets because those are reserved for biological females. It's the law.

A conversation between JKR and a Transwoman. I can’t see any accusations of perversion due to this persons beliefs.

Would you like to post links to the posts that make those generalisations?

Or are you talking about her responses to the male people who abuse her or abuse other women and she responds to them?

I think if you make such claims you should be able to back those up. Is she making general claims, or do you believe she should absorb abuse directed at her and respond in the way you, personally, decide is appropriate for a victim to respond.

We typically do not welcome and applaud people who believe they can appropriate someone else's culture or identity as a costume.

A man who wears a dress because he likes dresses and thinks men should be able to wear them is cool.

A man who wears a dress because he enjoys the frisson of wearing "women's" clothes or because he believes he is a "woman" has disordered and sexist ideas about the reality of womanhood and is very much not cool.

I think it's absolutely fine to say the latter is a problematic man, being at least one if not more of a misogynist, a bigot, a sexist and a fetishist.

You don't get to 'determine' your sex though. This is the problem!

You can never change sex.

You can choose to live your life differently, take drugs and have extreme body modification. But ultimately you remain the same sex and this has implications to lots and lots of people whether you like it or not

We don't get to choose any of the circumstances of our birth. We just have to get the fuck on with it.

We can't make anyone else believe something they just don't. Nor should we try to force them.

I can see that the thread has moved on, but with regard to John Lithgow I am disappointed that, at this point in the discussion, he felt the need to say anything at all. To do so was entirely unnecessary and (in my personal opinion) we are now moving into a time period when people who speak out against her in this way risk making themselves look stupid.

What’s the old saying? Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. The first detransitioner medical negligence case has landed, Emma Watson has dipped her toe into a failed decelerating ferret and things on the US front are a good deal less certain than they used to be. That said, I guess Lithgow probably has many close acquaintances who are in the Helen Joyce, committed transhausen parent zone, so maybe he wanted to ease the pressure a bit. It’s just boring though, at this stage.

"Men in dresses" Is just factual and not negative (btw Dumbledore is a man in a robe) . Why @Gretel346 do you put it in the same category as downright insulting "perverts"?

You know there was a thread yesterday where two men were saying they were biological females because they took hormones and had extreme plastic surgery.

Not only is this grossly offensive to women, but it also shows up the magnitude of their lack of understanding of biology to the point that it cause them actual harm and cause others harm from their failure to acknowledge this and the delusional level of denial they have.

One of them was saying they had NEVER had a male experience of anything. And didn't really like it when pointed out this is absoluete crap as he'd grown up as a little boy even if this little boy wanted to be a girl. No little girl has ever peed through her willy. And no little boy has had to go through the process of starting periods.

There's issues about harm to medical staff, if they are giving false information and it leads to harm of the transwoman. There's issues with potential blood donation. There's issues if this transwoman decides to take part in a medical trial and doesn't disclose their sex.

It is not a neutral act. It has consequences. Even if the person is the nicest and most well meaning person out there.

And yes some of these men ARE utterly delussional and ARE harming women whether deliberately or unintentionally. This is not ok and should be discussed and we should be transparent about it. There is no excuse not to. It just allows harm to occur otherwise.

Ironically some of the people who need the most protection from this are transwomen themselves. Without recognition of their sex in law they have ZERO protection as transwomen as you can not define transwomen as transwomen without reference their sex. Otherwise any female could claim to be a transwoman...

So, I have done a search on her timeline for the word ‘predator’, she has not called anyone a predator except for a convicted rapist. She discusses how it impossible to work out who is and isn’t a predatory male person for safeguarding reasons.

Do you agree it is impossible to tell which male person is a predator and which is not? Or do you have a way you can tell?

Do you believe that a convicted rapist is a predator?

Here are the results from 'delusional':

22/05/2025

"I'm not obliged to pretend I believe in anybody else's God, I won't pretend to believe falsehoods and I don't owe delusional men validation. You support an ideology that reduces 'woman' to a set of stereotypes. I find that infinitely more offensive than calling a man, a man."

This is in response to a discussion about India Willoughby who has a very long history of being abusive directly to JK Rowling. I believe Willoughby even did a media stunt of reporting her to the police.

20/10/2024

"Please share the reams of proof you undoubtedly have that I want trans people to jump out of windows/send trans people messages telling them to kill themselves. Otherwise we might have to conclude you're completely delusional."

This is a reply to someone who has made an accusation about her and she has pointed out that they have imagined that she has said what they accused her of. (Sound familiar?)

10/10/2024

"The only reason you think sex-testing is discriminatory is that you think male athletes should be able to hide their sex when competing against women, and if you think a cheek swab, which is all that's required, is 'violent', you're too delusional to be allowed out on your own."

This is a reply to someone calling a cheek swab "highly discriminatory and violent practice in competitive sports".

18/10/2024

"I 100% know you aren't remotely narcissistic or delusional, and so does everyone who listens to you x "

this is saying that Kristoffer (who I believe is a male with a transgender identity) is NOT delusional.

31/08/2022

"They're exactly like the Loch Ness monster true believers who faked evidence of Nessie to prove they weren't delusional."

This one is referring to someone who posted a faked tweet saying it was something she posted to prove that she was a bigot and hateful.

Onto the next search....

You know @Gretel346 , perhaps you should have done these searches before you tried to say she has said these things ....

Indeed.
It will be interesting to see the way the celebs manage the harmful side of TRA.

I am mindful of the US NYC bloke who heroly knight-in-shining-armour style charged up Rapist Gender Hill.
After a 3/4 (?) day valiant twitter battle on The Right of a male rapist to be housed in a Womans prison had a Custer's Last Stand style multi-tweet claimed she had posted "allsorts" (and the kitchen sink) of horrid transphobic stuff only for another man (because he ignored any of them wiimn) to repost her single tweet which only used the word man.

🍿 I miss old twitter🫢

Another one for @Gretel346

'Dangerous'

There are many so I am not going to cut and paste. But I do recommend that you do the work yourself before making accusations that are very easy to prove false.

She used it to describe misogyny and ideology as 'dangerous'. She did call an ex-policeman who has been behind many reports of feminists and women's rights campaigners to the police and who posts abuse directly from many sock accounts 'a possibly dangerous man' in response to that man's threats against her family. (and yes, Watson identifies as a woman).

She has called mixed sex spaces 'dangerous', she pointed out that women are getting more 'dangerous' when she was referring to male people with transgender identities who have been caught committing crimes.

She made a comment about:

"This is totalitarian insanity. If you think small children should be punished for being able to recognise sex, you are a dangerous zealot who should be nowhere near kids or in any position of authority over them." 31/10/2025

Oh... here is a good example:

3/1/2025

"Right. So when I explicitly say 'that does't mean all trans women are dangerous', you hear 'the entire demographic is dangerous', do you?"

Oh... sorry... that says the OPPOSITE.

Here is another.

"No, possession of a penis doesn't make an individual person dangerous, but 98% of sex offenders are born with a penis and 88% of victims of sexual violence are born with a vulva, and those statistics don't change even when some of the penis-ed people claim to be women.'

She called Mermaids 'dangerous'. She pointed out false claims from Maugham and Good Law Project were 'dangerous'.

Oh.. here is another male person with a transgender identity she suggested was 'dangerous'. Barbie Kardashian. If you don't know who he is, feel free to look him up.

She suggested in 2024 that Willoughby was propagating 'dangerous' lies about how puberty blockers were 'totally harmless'. Do you agree Gretel?

So... Yes. She called two men who believe they are women 'dangerous'. One personally threatened her family and one was released from Irish prison after horrendously attacking women.

But of course, these searches are very quick and easy to do. If you have other sources of where she did what you have accused her of, please do link them up.