Trans people are more obsessed with JK Rowling then they think she is with them

[BlueSkiesAndSunshiiine]

It's strange, isn't it? They really can't keep her name out of their mouths. Very baffling.

one of them confidently stated that JKR has said she will invest profit she makes from the new TV series in "anti trans activities".

Do they possibly mean "male-free activities" such as her all-female rape crisis centre?

NEil Gaiman established himself very firmly as a TRA ally. And is alleged only to have sexually assaulted women. I guess the venn diagram of vested interest has no overlap

I've seen that reposted lots of times. And reported it as false information each time, for all that's worth. And put a small cash sum aside to donate to Sex Matters every time I've resisted the temptation to engage.

I think (but am not sure) they mean that she's set up a fund for GC women's legal battles.

It's bizarre too because honestly his allyship is pretty weak. It consists of online posting and a trans character (no joke) named Wanda Mann in the Sandman Comics (same people who said Sirona Ryan in Hogwarts Legacy was offensive btw). He cared more and fought harder (including helping raise funds) for a man who was on trial for drawing some pretty nasty art that included anime style kids and things with animals (not the human like kind of cartoons like Robin Hood). His blog post about that case and why all that stuff should be legal I'd argue is more passionate than any activism for transgender issues he's purportedly done.

thanks all
also @TheCozyWyvern nice to meet a fellow Gaiman hisser. I am so disappointed.

I wouldn't put it past those who repost that stuff to intend it to be interpreted as "she's channelling her profits into building concentration camps for trans people" rather than the more mundane and totally benign reality.

JKR was controversial from the moment she stood up for Maya Forstater. At that point she had not trounced India Willoughby in even one battle if wit.

[Possible Derail] Oh I'm a long time critic of him (his online behavior creeped me out plus he wrote probably the worst comic I'd ever read-Snow Glass Apples) turned full on hisser after the allegations. [Possible Derail I'm sorry].

[continues derail: but Neverwhere. Oh god that was amazing]

[continues derail: I've never much liked Gaiman as a writer because I know too many of the old books he nicked from, but I have to give him credit for choosing good material to nick from]

[continues derail to be hugely receiptive to recs of the stolen-from material]

[further continues derail to second the recs for stolen-from material - please?]

(eta - I also hiss in his general direction…)

This has been a very illuminating thread. I have enjoyed butterfly's story arc which started with "I love JKR but she's preventing any common ground" through "I still love JKR but there are far more important VAWG things that she could support" and then "her lack of respect to TWs is unnecessarily offensive" before arriving at "you are all nasty, transphobic meanies and TWAM so there".

It’s been a roller coaster

That was because up to that point she was the heroine author of choice for anyone with any amount of internal wizardry and magic that meant a simple notion could transmute them from one sex to another and they immediately felt betrayed by her having an opinion that did not match only one single opinion of their own.

Rather like a particularly ubiquitous poster on this thread. Everything else is fine but one difference of opinion was enough to take to the annals of the internet and cast immense aspersions over every single achievement of her life and cause a schism not seen since Martin Luther discovered drawing pins in Worms.

Orthodoxy does that.

[continuing derail - Jack Williamson isn't very well known these days except to people heavily into vintage SFF, but his 1948 classic Darker Than You Think is one of the influential genre novels that hardly anyone has heard of]

Thinking of Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game is a very different property and fandom from Harry Potter, but I suspect they have this in common, that, among the huge casual audience, they attracted a very devoted following of misfit kids who became obsessed with the books and developed a sort of parasocial attachment to the author. Anecdotally, lots of boys who were obsessive fans of Ender's Game grew up to be gay men, and somehow they never clocked that Card was a conservative Mormon with conservative views on sexuality. They were really shocked and heartbroken to discover that he wasn't their flag-waving affirming surrogate parent.

Card's beliefs are not JKR's, but there's a definite echo there of a certain kind of HP fan - you can see them on YouTube, they're still obsessed with HP well into their thirties - and they often grew up gay or trans identified, and heavily into all things "queer", and with what I think is a very superficial reading of HP that it's all about the special kid who's oppressed by bigots but finds acceptance with the found family who recognise his specialness.

A lot of online fandom culture is like that, it's just that we notice HP more because it's such a huge fandom. Sometimes I look at the Daria subreddit and it's got a definite element of posters who say "as a LGBTQWERTY kid in the late 90s this show was a lifeline for me" and who have an encyclopedic knowledge of the show but who are always bitching and moaning about how "problematic" it was, and speculating about all the characters who are "queer coded" even if they were straight in the actual show, and...

...I mean come on, these are people well into adulthood who are throwing tantrums about an animated sitcom from 30 years ago and how it doesn't affirm them in precisely the way they'd like to be affirmed. I hope to god none of them get jobs in the creative industries, or they'll be even more insufferable than the male TV executives who keep trying to revive Charlie's Angels because they got their first boner watching the original show.

[rant over]

I never really notice the grown ups who keep up with childhood loves on account of being a LOTR fan... But yes, completely agree with that summary.

But it brings us back, yet again (as it so often does) with how to separate the "art" from the "artist". Are we cancelling Picasso and Dali because they were, frankly, awful misogynists? or do we separate that from the absolute brilliance that is Guernica or La Gare de Perpignan?

What about Eric Gill who still has a statue outside the BBC i think? Disappointing enough for me to find out about Neil Gaiman, it was awful to find out about Marion Zimmer Bradley. I truly loved the Darkover novels and read them over and over - until i heard about her and decided not to. Was that the right decision? I am not sure (I no longer have the books but i would love to read, some of them again)

etc etc. And i think the answer is: if the story/art is important enough to you in your life, then yes, you are perfectly entitled to separate them from the inevitably flawed (as we all are) artist. Which is why some of the young people who grew up with HP are re-covering their HP books rather than get rid of them.

Completely agree! I love that book (and radio play) and also Stardust and The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, and I thought Fortunately, The Milk was great fun. Not a Sandman fan, though.

I'm ok with loving the work and loathing the creator. Roald Dahl was a hideous antisemite, and the number of artists who were ghastly is beyond number.

I loved Jenni Murray's radio programmes and think she's brilliant but have heard from people that worked with her that she was an absolute nightmare. That's ok, that's not what I need from her, she isn't my boss. I'm a grown up; I can hold more than one thought in my head.

oh god Stardust. I love that book so much. (but moreso the film which is very different). And so i will keep reading. And if ever the 2nd Neverwhere does appear, i will buy it secondhand so that he gains nothing from me.

An author/artist would have to be provably vile before i stopped consuming their art, but i do think twice about how i access that art.

<Additional Derail> I've got Mistborn on my list to read now, I'm just finishing off a re-read of Pratchett so it'll be nice to have another long series to get stuck into 👍😊 Although, I do have to find time to add in Mark Lawrence's sequels in his Book That Wouldn't Burn series 🤔

I haven't read any Robin Hobb, despite seeing the name/books in shops and libraries over the years, I'll add one of those to my list as well. Having recently read the ACOTAR books, I desperately need a palate cleanser 🤯 </Derail>

I am mystified as to how Gaiman wasn't a bigger scandal - his behaviour was a classic example from the #MeToo era so I felt sure that women would be vindicated for whistleblowing his vile behaviour. But, somehow, The Right Side of History crowd still send all their ire and hatred towards JKR instead 😠

I think JKR's excellent sense of humour, her sarcasm, her wit, and her 'flagrant' ability to refuse cancellation are what irritates the scolds and censors most - she gets right up their nose for being the one thing they hate most: an uppity woman.

Start with The Assassin's Apprentice, @UtopiaPlanitia , that's the first book in the first trilogy. Robin Hobb is great, she's built an incredible world!

I… when someone keeps making statements that directly affect a group, yeah, they’re gonna talk about her, that’s kinda how it works. It’s not obsession, it’s reaction. Same way any group would push back if a public figure kept bringing them up.

Maybe men and their supporters (of both sexes) should stop trying to erode women’s rights and then she wouldn’t have to say anything, would she. That’s her reaction to men trying to gain access to spaces and sports they have no right to be in.

But what makes trans people special? Why shouldn't we talk about them, or question some of the odd choices a proportion of the group are making?