“Heated Rivalry” author Rachel Reid on J. K. Rowling - “the bar is pretty high in how evil you have to be,” “ I’m extremely the opposite of everything she believes”

[YankSplaining]

Well, this is disappointing.

”[Reid] has a keen desire not to disappoint her fans, especially when they’re sending her photos of freshly inked tattoos of her words on their skin. ‘I know of another author that a lot of people got tattoos of but then wanted them gone. Like, J. K. Rowling,’ she says. ‘The bar is pretty high for how evil you have to be, but I don’t want to let a single person down.’ I ask if she’s a TERF. ‘No, I’m extremely the opposite of everything she believes,’ she replies.”

Well, too late, she let me down. “Extremely the opposite of everything she believes,” huh? I guess Rachel Reid thinks teenage girls should be forced to undress after PE in front of naked male classmates who gawp as their dicks get hard. Or that female inmates should be locked in cells with male inmates serving time for serial rape.

I don’t expect Reid to agree with Rowling on trans issues. It’s the monstering of Rowling that I take issue with - the “evil,” and the framing of Rowling as so extreme that Reid feels the need to be extremely the opposite of everything she believes.

Edit: title should read “on how evil you have to be”

Well of course. GC's aren't objecting to how people dress, but their use of female spaces

And yet they mock trans women as 'men in dresses'. But interestingly don't mock trans men or butch women as performing 'man face'.

But most of all that they claim the identification with 'woman' is what's really the the most triggering issue. I suspect even if they only claimed to identify with women & not be women that would be equally upsetting because of the implication of female group identified behaviours.

My experience with many militant GC adherents is that they are particularly hostile to feminine identified behaviours/presentation because they themselves are gender non conforming. They will often claim their hostility is because these are the product of sexual stereotypes imposed by the patriarchy but I suspect its more of an insecurity complex hence the 'over reaction' to what are mostly organic personal preferences rooted in utero hormonal & genetic influences.

That term is used when we're being told to laud them as 'stunning and brave' ladies.

Transmen tend not to be presented in the same way

People can claim all sorts of things about themselves. Them being wrong isn't the issue. It's society accepting these claims as truth with no evidence to back that up.

The indisputable evidence is group behavioural association. Most normal functioning people accept the fact associations equal group categorisation hence societies acceptance. Categorisation is a fundamental cognitive process by which humans structure, understand, and simplify the vast complexity of the world. It's the process of identifying similarities and differences, allowing the brain to group objects, people, and ideas into classes.

It's not a mockery, it's a description. They are men, and they wear dresses. Nothing wrong with that.

The problem is when they demand that we believe they are women.

There is such thing as natural, or biological, kinds, you know.

Far be it from me to get picky about pronouns (that’s not normally our cup of tea). But you can say ‘you’, not ‘they’. We are all right here. As others have said, men in a dress is an accurate description, not mockery. For some men, wearing opposite gendered clothing can give them a sexual kick. For most women it’s a straightforward preference or practicality - precisely why so many of us wear trousers, for example. So-called ‘women’s clothes’ have often formed part of women’s oppression as objects to be looked at. I’m not against men wearing dresses but I am against them doing so in a mocking or highly sexulised interpretation of womanhood and, as others have said, thinking their clothing gives them the right to enter women’s spaces. And I find it offensive and odd that a dress has come to symbolise ‘being a woman’ for so many men. For example, the Canadian shooter, Jesse van Rootselaar was initially described by police as ‘a woman in a dress’ and that was (correctly) interpreted by many as meaning a man who identifies as a woman - although this wasn’t spelled out until the following day. Had they said ‘man in a dress’, as well as being accurate, that would have been far more helpful to the people they were trying to protect, wouldn’t it?

I'm not sure I'm really following this very convoluted point but the categorisation is a biological one. Being a woman is a biological state, not a behavioural one.

You used a statement about lesbians committing more domestic abuse than heterosexual women. (By the way, would you like to think about 'why' that might be? Could it have something to do with the power difference between male and female people combined with vulnerability in domestic situations? Meaning it is rare that female people attack male partners because female people will rarely overpower that male partner. Do lesbian women have a greater rate of committing general female on female violence outside of domestic situations? And do lesbians also commit violence at the same rate as the male population in general? By all means, please show those rates.)

You didn't demonstrate anything that was useful to making safeguarding decisions. The safeguarding principles used for policies around accessing publicly accessible provisions are applied equally across the characteristic that is being segregated. Because no one using the provision at the time should have the onus of carrying out an instant case by case risk assessment if someone of the excluded characteristic enters the provision.

The point is also that even if there were sub groups within that segregation characteristic that had a lower rate of risk of committing violence or abuse towards female people, it should not also be up to female people to have to check if the male person accessing a female single sex provision is part of that sub group or not. Hence, ALL people in that segregated characteristic are excluded with no exceptions. ie. all male people above the age of about 8 years old are legitimately excluded.

The point there is 'legitimately'. Because the discrimination has to be legitimately applied. Applying the exclusion to publicly accessible single sex provisions based on sexual orientation where it unfairly excluded a group within that sex class would not be appropriate. Hence, exceptions such as excluding lesbians from female single sex publicly accessible provisions would not be legitimate.

As I also said, it is not just based on risk to safety. It is also based on privacy and dignity. That privacy and dignity does not apply within a sex class for the purpose of accessing a provision, only between the sex categories.

So, even if the statistics were wrong and male people with transgender identities were proven to commit sex crime at the same rate as the general female population, that they are male people means they are excluded based on the privacy and dignity needs of female people.

People with transgender identities have not changed sex therefore they are treated as all the rest of the people in their sex category for the purposes of being excluded from the opposite sex single sex provisions.

C'mon, the motivation for usually using 'man in a dress' isn't one of just being accurate. Its crude reductive delivery is specifically designed to ridicule & diminish its subject reducing them to an oversimplified deluded perverse caricature as a tool to avoid psychological, behavioural & cultural associations to women that interestingly don't apply to trans men. Far be from me to be picky about accuracy but it doesn't usually require degradation nor inconsistency in application.

In terms of 'men wearing dresses' as a symbol of woman hood, you sound like you're projecting your own interpretation as that's not a claim being made. Rather the claim is more about common inclinations that by extension influence behavioural patterns that given them legitimacy for entering women's spaces.

That some use clothing as a form of sexual gratification isn't necessarily reflective of the whole but I get how its convenient weaponisation serves the GC movement. As I mentioned upthread, isolated instances have long been exploited to stereotype.

"I’m not against men wearing dresses but I am against them doing so in a mocking or highly sexulised interpretation of womanhood"

Many women enjoy wearing highly sexualised clothing as an extension of their own sexuality & trans women are no different that's why there's a legitimate association. Are you against their preferences too?

I appreciate patriarchy enforcing dress standards has had an influence on women's choices but to assume that's the only reason particularly in modernity is to deny women's capacity for self autonomy….a thing the patriarchy & GC ideology have in common.

What part of JK Rowling's actions in regard to Iran is not specifically about protecting female people? Are you about to tell us that she doesn't sponsor programmes which are open to Muslim women and children? Didn't she assist in helping a group of female lawyers escape from Afghanistan?

With this post you do seem to be saying that JK Rowling should STFU about anything that you, personally, deem she should not discuss. Which could be twisted to be about anything using the bad faith arguments you have used here.

'she certainly contributes to manufacturing consent from the masses.'

It really is clear that you hold her to a much higher standard than anyone else and any media agency so that you personally feel justified in demonising her. Your prejudice is clear.

Apparently, she is personally responsible for influencing Kier Starmer as well you say? Yet, somehow Starmer makes decisions that she doesn't agree with. Remarkable, isn't it? That she demonstrably doesn't seem to have any additional power that any other person in the UK doesn't have to influence Starmer who is also ultimately responsible to his constituency as well as his party members.

Why are they all in dresses (and hideous ones usually) if they don't see it as a symbol of womanhood? Why don't you ever see a transwoman in jeans and whatever Tshirt they came across first in the wardrobe that morning?

"Could it have something to do with the power difference between male and female people combined with vulnerability in domestic situations? Meaning it is rare that female people attack male partners because female people will rarely overpower that male partner."

It's actually not rare that females attack their male partners in fact the numbers are comparable in studies. The difference is in the severity of violence. But Lesbian partners? There's significantly more severity between them and straight women. Why would that be? I suspect masculine behavioural patterns that more aligns them with male violence. Conversely that gay males are less violent than lesbians might therefore be related to effeminacy.

Cue trans identification?

"Do lesbian women have a greater rate of committing general female on female violence outside of domestic situations?

I'm not aware of studies that show that. From my understanding the studies done are more about intimate partner violence.

"And do lesbians also commit violence at the same rate as the male population in general? By all means, please show those rates.)"

Irrelevant to the point that lesbians are not representative of all women as trans women are not representative of all men.

"You didn't demonstrate anything that was useful to making safeguarding decisions.

I didn't need to as that isn't relevant to the point of false stereotyping by JKR being discussed on this thread.

"The point is also that even if there were sub groups within that segregation characteristic that had a lower rate of risk of committing violence or abuse towards female people, it should not also be up to female people to have to check if the male person accessing a female single sex provision is part of that sub group or not. Hence, ALL people in that segregated characteristic are excluded with no exceptions. ie. all male people above the age of about 8 years old are legitimately excluded."

Irrelevant to the discussion on this thread.

Ask yourself why Iran? Why not the multitude of other countries that practice human rights violations of women? I noticed she's recently upped the posting on Iran….& here we go again off to war & regime change. How 'coincidental'.

'We' do have conclusions that can be legitimately drawn from male people's prison rates. We can conclude that male people with transgender identities are convicted and imprisoned at a rate that is greater than the rate of female people generally. With that, we can conclude that they continue to commit sex offences at a male rate in the UK and not at a female rate of sex offences in the UK.

You have not presented any evidence that explains why that group's prison statistics should not be considered as an indication that with transition they don't commit sex offences at a rate similar to all other male people.

Which other government has recently killed 30K+ of its own citizen for demonstrating for their democratic rights and is killing more?
Personally I think you have to be an utter fuckwit to criticize someone who is drawing attention to the situation in Iran.

And yet she's so silent on a genocide in Gaza. Selective 'attention' betrays all.

She's posted about the situation in Sudan, Afghanistan and many other places. Iran is in the process of arresting, beating and murdering it's citizens, especially the female one's, why wouldn't she highlight the concerning situation?

What sort of warped and bitter mind must a person have to criticise her for doing so. 🤢

FYI there is no genocide in Gaza, which might be why she hasn't posted about it.

We’ve done this. Exactly what part of offence rates not being reflective incarceration rates do you not understand. You're grasping at straws.

God, I knew Gaza would be brought up, not Sudan, or China (Uighurs) or Burma (Rohingya) or Yemen or any of the other places where far more people have died.

She's been exclusively on Iran for ages. To what end? Her twitter supporters knowledge 'saving' Iranian women? Or manufacturing public consent for regime change.

The proof is in the outcomes.

Not in that record time of a few months & not on a population half of which are children.

Or rather the perpetrators aren't Jewish.