Can't believe I'm writing this, but disappointed in JK today

[RobynMiller]

I know she is just one person but her tweets today are really undermining the whole GC argument.

Link: https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/2046948644373274709

'Nothing's changed. I was being honest about how I feel about an individual trans woman I know, who was a gay man pre-transition, and who I met for the first time post-transition. Objectively speaking, she has physical characteristics that make it fairly obvious she wasn't born female, but she's a gentle, funny person I've never referred to as anything other than 'she' and 'her'. I find it perfectly easy to reconcile my fond feelings towards her, and my experience of her as someone with very female-coded energy, with a belief that she hasn't literally changed sex (and incidentally, she doesn't believe she's literally changed sex, either).'

Basically, someone asked her about the trans identified male she mentioned in her 2020 essay and this was her response.

Does she not realise there can be NO EXCEPTIONS? Give an inch they'll take a mile and all that. It doesn't matter that he is gentle and funny or that he has very female-coded energy whatever the hell that means.

This does make it seem like when she calls TIMs out she is now doing it maliciously as she is perfectly happy to play pretend if she likes them enough.

Just so frustrating as it basically says that 'we could all play along with TRAs just fine and are choosing not to because we're such meanies 😡'

Now, it comes with the implication that you go along with the GI claim that a TW is an actual woman and bow to the threats, violence, cancellations, overt misogyny and gross sexism of the whole situation.

Only to narrow-minded people, and who cares what they think?

As ever, I doubt she cares much what anyone thinks about her. That's one of the things I like about her and the thing that is probably seen as the most transgressive for a woman (and probably why so many men hate her).

I still wouldn't put her, or anyone else, on a pedestal, mind.

I don’t agree with JKR on this specific issue but I do acknowledge that sometimes for personal reasons people who otherwise think it’s all bollocks feel they need to do the pronoun thing. I did once to a very vulnerable young man. A long time ago, and I wouldn’t do it now. Also winced at “female coded energy” but I just think it’s uncustomary use of clumsy wording by her in the same way people sometimes refer to particular men as “honorary women”.

Just so frustrating as it basically says that 'we could all play along with TRAs just fine and are choosing not to because we're such meanies 😡'

I don't think JKR doing this for a longstanding friend does anything of the sort as she obviously doesn't for abusive men, whether or not they wear dresses. Of course those driving TRA wants usually have abusive man energy so there is that...

YABU

I agree with JKR.

I am gender cirtical but will always do my transwomen colleagues the respect of calling them she and her.

I don’t think her tweets are undermining the GC argument at all. I think actually it would be worse if she showed herself to be bigoted and unfeeling - then people could dismiss her GC argument as an extension of this.

When someone is mentally ill, it’s not the best idea to go in fully argumentative and aggressively disagreeing with their delusions. You can gently say “Yes, but you haven’t really changed sex,” while still presenting yourself as a friend and confidant who will respect their feelings about how they see themselves and let them process it and maybe even heal from it. That sounds like exactly what she’s doing.

There's a big difference also between public and private behaviour. I think in some ways it's a shame she's felt the pressure to explain in public what she does in private for her friend on a very individual basis.

I think there's always nuance. Doing that where it's not coercing or upsetting or undermining the rights of other colleagues (e.g those who can't follow suit, those who are upset about lying etc) = ok.

Doing so when you're in a position of power e.g. a teacher in school and your behaviour will be taken as a signal regarding what is or is not acceptable for all children and may constitute a safeguarding risk = not ok ( no pronouns or neutral pronouns are better)

Edited to add: And it's back to public and private really. Where you're doing it in private to a friend is very different to in the wider world - which is why I think it's a shame JKR felt she needed to talk about this publicly. Where you're using wrong-sex pronouns in public you need to make sure you're not prioritising one person's delusion over other people's needs and rights and safety (if you care about a variety of people, if for MRAs they just don't care). Or in other words being kind to one person at the expense of everyone else.

I think we’re sort of back at the Ultras and Head Girls, aren’t we. I fully agree what she said is not massively helpful to the GC “cause” but I don’t like purity spirals of any kind. As pp said JKR isn’t going to care if people disapprove from any quarter. It’s not like she’s been walking on eggshells to appease the sensitivities of the trans lobby. So it’s the people who agree and disagree with this approach who are going to be pitted against each other, and that isn’t helpful either.

You are illustrating my exact point. So in this framework, anyone who doesn't call your trans identified colleague she are being disrespectful, and to do so purposefully and repeatedly would be considered harassment. This is exactly how we ended up in the mess we have.

Exactly.

It’s not the first time she’s done similar.

I haven’t read the thread, but she is upfront that she has not really changed position on the usage of pronouns. I agree that it is an inconsistency that she seems to reserve for her friends, but it has also been widely acknowledged that some people will do this.

What this tweet of hers has done has been to somewhat resurrect the ‘ultra’ discussion and the distancing of some people from what they consider ‘extreme’. But it is not extreme to use established language conventions to describe people and to not agree to change those for someone’s subjective reality that is not based on material reality.

I think the difference between now and when that derisory term ‘ultra’ was used for the first time comes down to Naomi Cunningham’s win in court to be able to use correct sex language for Upton. That was one of the hugely significant moments. Now I think there are fucking far more ‘ultras’ and this discussion about JK Rowling’s choices will not likely change people’s decision to use accurate language.

The discussion is always a good one to have and in doing so allows people to freely make their choices understanding the issues better.

This is a fair comment. But what do you call it then? The term used to be effeminate but that 1) has negative connotations, and 2) is still etymologically rooted to 'femina'. Some men, especially homosexual men, have an extremely pronounced degree of effeminacy from early childhood and that has historically, for a variety of reasons (some speculative), been correlated with their decision to transition. You have to call it something to note it even if you don't think it's valid reason for transition or indeed using opposite sex pronouns.

when people say the gender critical movement is a far right movement this is exactly what they are talking about. most left wing women came into this argument because we objected to our rights being eroded and our movement being diluted by deliberate muddying of legal language and compelled speech. however compelled speech is bad no matter who does it - I should be free to use whatever speech I want - and it doesn't matter whether its TRAs or GCs offended, neither should affect my right to free speech

I agree with her. Her friend is not a woman, and doesn't claim to be a woman. It's OK to address people as they choose to be addressed, as long as it's accepted that doesn't change the fact that they're a man.

“I think we’re sort of back at the Ultras and Head Girls, aren’t we. I fully agree what she said is not massively helpful to the GC “cause” but I don’t like purity spirals of any kind. As pp said JKR isn’t going to care if people disapprove from any quarter. It’s not like she’s been walking on eggshells to appease the sensitivities of the trans lobby. So it’s the people who agree and disagree with this approach who are going to be pitted against each other, and that isn’t helpful either.”

It was due to come back to the ‘ultra’ discussion. Sadly I think we have to keep having it even though it feels regressive.

Ultimately though, it does mean that each time we have the discussion, people get clearer on what the issues are in using the demanded / expected language.

I would probably say 'stereotypical female personality traits'.

My surprise is that I read it as implying that her friend's female-coded energy / stereotypical female personality traits (whatever you want to call it) make it easier for her to use female pronouns for her friend.

I wouldn't use wrong sex pronouns myself, but I don't get to make that decision for other people. It's okay to disagree on some aspects of this debate, we don't have to be a hivemind. I don't have any issue with what she's said.

Well. I come at this from absolutely the opposite angle, but I agree with OP.

I think it’s hypocritical, either you believe trans people’s gender should be respected or you don’t. This “some and some” approach makes it plain firstly that you are fully aware how offensive it is when you misgender other people since you won’t do it to your own friend, it’s also setting yourself up as the arbiter of who are the “good” trans people, who pass sufficiently, or who have sufficient “female-coded energy” according to you (which I agree is a bullshit phrase). This is obviously not only very subjective, it also makes it plain you think respecting people’s pronouns is something you can use to either reward or punish them depending on how you feel about their behaviour. I would not want to be friends with someone who made respecting my identity conditional on my pleasing them. It also raises the question of why or how you think all the trans people that you think it is ok to misgender are different from your friend.

I’m also frankly uncomfortable when people use their minority friends as a shield against some of their more reactionary views, and I wonder if her friend is actually comfortable with this, or aware she is being used in this way, or whether she really does agree with JK’s views about her, or just avoiding the discussion for the sake of friendship. It’s particularly uncomfortable JK feels prepared to discuss her physical attributes on twitter, and I don’t actually feel that’s the act of a particularly kind or sensitive friend to announce to the world that you think your trans friend is clocky (even if you think it's true). I wonder if it has ever even occurred to JK to ask her friend if she is comfortable being used as a prop in her internet arguments in this way.

And if the friend is the trans person mentioned in the comments, I seriously doubt that is a person who uses men’s spaces, which makes me wonder if the woman who literally funded the campaign to exclude trans women from women’s spaces thinks that doesn’t apply to the trans people she cares about – perhaps she thinks there are exceptions for people with appropriate “female-coded energy”. Perhaps it hasn’t yet hit her that the trans people whose lives she has directly impacted are people exactly like her friend. And if the friend is a trans person who genuinely avoids using gendered spaces altogether, I wonder if JK is aware of how much they have to limit their life in order to achieve that, and if she thinks that’s okay. It does make me wonder how close friends these two actually are, and if the answer might be not very (which makes it even worse that JK thinks she can wheel her out as a prop whenever she pleases).

That said, it doesn’t enormously surprise me to find JK’s views are not internally consistent and are somewhat hypocritical, her views have always been rather wobbly in their fact and foundation and at odds with her own self-perception, so I’m not surprised to find there is a great deal of cognitive dissonance there.

I’m also interested to see what will be the result of JK finding herself on the receiving end of the vitriol of the GC movement for a change, perhaps she’ll start to realise the real nature of the movement she’s been supporting? Or perhaps the cognitive dissonance will hold.

I also share OP’s surprise that this opinion is not more widely supported here, as I have regularly seen the views OP promotes shared loudly on this board, and when I choose to use trans people’s preferred pronouns on this board, I without fail get corrected.

I was thinking about this this morning and I think there are similarities to the Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie thread. Yes, you can be disappointed but we should also accept we are human & we don't exist in a vacuum.

We all make compromises in our values and are inconsistent and a bit (massively in CNA's case) hypocritical on occasion in all sorts of areas of our lives because most of us are doing a constant calculation of risk and loss in our actions and take the best possible compromise (or sometimes we say fuck it and do what feels best for us and us alone - that's you, CNA, again).

JK is braver and infinately more influential than most of us here. She's shone so much light and there is no question of her strong and deeply held beliefs that you can't change sex and women deserve SS spaces. If her line in the sand extends to allowing a wrong pronoun in personal interactions with a friend, who is OP or me or anyone to say it's wrong?

Maybe OP is willing to burn close friendships and face work disciplinaries over pronouns; perhaps staying strong & true to her principles is more important her than other people's opinion/feelings and it's okay to make that choice too.

But don't write people off & condemn loudly for not being 100% aligned with the cause - there's no awards for the most correctly feministy feminist ever and we all have our own lives to lead & decisions to make and they're hard enough at times. Just do your best.

I dont see anything wrong.

She is respecting her friend's wishes to be treated as female but recognises that she was born as a he and is technically male ie has penis.

Disagree, trans people simply existing isn't and has never been the problem. The problem comes with compelled speech, invasion of sex segregated spaces, incorrectly recorded crimes, etc. The problem is people denying science and insisting they've changed biological sex, or demanding access to services not made for them, or treating women like objects for their own pleasures and fetishes.

JKR has never been against trans people, just the ideology.

Yes. Because it doesn’t matter to me what you want to be called but it matters to you. However it doesn’t mean you can use female-only spaces.
If you want to be called an elephant, fine. Doesn’t mean you go in the elephant enclosure at the zoo.

”when people say the gender critical movement is a far right movement this is exactly what they are talking about. most left wing women came into this argument because we objected to our rights being eroded and our movement being diluted by deliberate muddying of legal language and compelled speech. however compelled speech is bad no matter who does it - I should be free to use whatever speech I want - and it doesn't matter whether its TRAs or GCs offended, neither should affect my right to free speech”

This is not about “far right”.

There is an inconsistency to arguing to regain women’s rights while also then contributing in ways to undermine defining those rights. It is correct though that it is an individual’s choice to use the language they want. Just as it should be acknowledged that we are all human and there may be inconsistencies in our views.

Which is fine if we acknowledge those inconsistencies. Meaning, if you treat a male person as if he is female in anyway and declare that it is respectful to use female language for him, have you considered whether you are undermining the definition of a woman or girl linguistically. We have seen direct evidence of how this has been harmful collectively and individually. Strip away all that emotional reasoning of ‘respect’ and what are you contributing to?

Is ‘far right’ to not consider it respectful to use female language to support a male person’s belief in their own subjective reality that is not material reality (ie to support a male in any way to believe he is a woman or girl?) ?