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 😡'

comparable with forgetting someone's changed their name on marriage.

I'm autistic. Forgetting people's entire names is a day ending in Y for me, never mind remembering that a particular obvious female wants to be referred to as "he".

I work alongside people from other countries for whom English is a second, third, or fourth language. Some of them talk about inanimate objects as "he", particularly those from the Slavic nations.

Thank you for continuing to demonstrate the ableist and racist nature of trans ideology.

I agree with a lot of what she says about purity spirals as i said, but I also believe pronoun bollocks is a big part of the problem and people have the right to disagree and discuss it. It is inconsistent to she/her your own TIM friends but not other identical men.

I appreciate the conversation has moved on from the original post. After seeing the jkr post yesterday I have been thinking of the women (&men) who have lost family members including children because they believed that to use the wrong pronouns for their child would be unhelpful. I've especially been thinking about the women (&men) who have lost jobs, opportunity and awards because they didn't feel it was right to use the wrong pronouns. I don't care if your friend is a sweet gentle soul and why should I trust that you think he is? If one man who has "female coded" feelings is exempt then they all are. How else do we keep the AGP predators out, the opportunistic sports men or the nice sweet men who want to join the menopause groups? I have especially noticed the new onslaught against the "ultras" today. Those women that do stick to their principles. I've certainly noticed that the onslaught has come from those who are building an online personality, those that have a substance or that make money from the continued war. After the Sandie Peggie case I thought it was understood that the bottom line is none of them are afforded the use of she or her. After watching Naomi Campbell argue the point several times I thought we were passed that. Plenty of Beth Upton's supporters said what a lovely kind, gentle soul they were and I believe them. Anyway hold the line because of you don't then you have nothing left.

This. I think this is a good discussion on this thread, mostly.

Substack not substance... They really don't have substance.

Some disappointing logical fallacies here on the part of JKR, interestingly mirroring some on here.

JKR confusing disagreement of opinion with being "dictated" to. Policing, purity spiral etc.

Why are these terms so misused in the GC debates, but not in the rest of politics/philosophy?

For example I agree with a lot of what Kemi Badenoch says but if I said "actually I disagreed with this particular comment she made and I wish she didn't say it like that" no one would pounce and accuse me of purity spiralling, dictating or policing her. We are allowed to agree with some ideas and disagree with others. Even if we agree with 95% of what someone says, it's OK, and even healthy, to disagree with the other 5%, courteously and with an explanation.

I think the whole concept of purity in a real life person is bonkers. It is those who shout down any disagreement who are treating JKR as a pure being never to be criticised.

Ironically it is JKR, here, who seems to resent any discussion on her comment as if she ought to be treated as "pure". She is saying there is a purity Spiral but no one is trying to cancel her for one comment. We are just criticising the comment itself.

We should be able to criticise a statement on its own merits regardless of who said it. Otherwise it is the Appeal to Authority logical fallacy "since JKR said it, it must be fine"

This is one reason why I don't take Rowling's approach. If I always use correctly sexed pronouns, then it's not a matter of liking or respecting anyone, or even about them being trans, but of me being truthful.

But I will not dictate to other women how they refer to their friends.

Naomi Campbell

Did you perhaps mean Ms Cunningham?

@TransParentlyAnnoyed Menstruation isn't an illness. I did everything in PE bar swimming when I was menstruating. It's not helpful to teach children that periods mean they can't do physical activities, unless of course your child has Satan's cramps, in which case your child has my sympathy.

Same here.

I don’t believe that you can change sex. However my daughter has a trans friend. When this friend comes to my house then yes, I will use the chosen name and preferred pronoun because I do not want to cause offence and upset to a lovely teenager. The person in question knows my views, I know theirs, but it’s a social adjustment I’m happy to make on an individual basis.

I can draw a very strong line between having a penis in a women's spaces, having a person who went through male puberty in women's sports and having people with XY chromosomes on women only short lists.

Language changes over time. The French call windows she and cars he and we have a long history of calling ships and cars she without anyone thinking it refers to their sex.

You are making too much of this. By making too much of it, you weaken your point in the fight with trans activists.

In that fight, we need to stick to what matters. Calling a friend what the friend has asked you to call them is not it.

You don’t get to decide what the definition of GC is. Nor do you get to decide what JKR may or may not refer to a trans individual as. In addition you’re not the rule setter on telling the rest of us what pronouns we use.

You mention feeling like the “tone” police on here are on your back. Yet it’s you who is telling JKR and us what pronouns we may or may not use.

You don’t get to decide for the rest of us - which you refer to as “the collective” . Who made you our God? Who appointed you to a position of dictating to us?

I'm afraid refusing to use someone's pronouns is petty and ignorant. It just makes someone appear disrespectful and bad at detail,

pronouns belong to the person who speaks them. Calling it disrespectful to not give in to demands to lie is itself disrespectful and compelling speech

I’m not disappointed, because what she says seems to align with her previously expressed views and with what I understand to be her personality and character.

I was disappointed with Harry Potter, though, which I found unreadable despite a life long love of children’s fantasy literature. Terribly clunky and derivative.

Ain't it just grand?

Loving it!🙌

I am literally dying inside. Yes I meant Cunningham 😂😂😂

I think it’s so valuable to have these conversations 🙌

Its easy to make pronouncements when anonymous.

Personally I just avoid contentious pronouns in real life. I mean its vanishingly unlikely I'd use wrong sex pronouns.

But for some people that would make life /work very difficult.

Thanks for posting that.

I know that JKR uses correct English / correct sex pronouns for the vast majority. She definitely knows about male violence. She definitely knows about the downside of 'preferred pronouns' (both on an individual and societal level) and I'm fairly sure has friends for whom using wrong-sex pronouns in their presence would be fairly cruel to them - e.g. women who've suffered harm or loss as a result of TRA acts, many of whom she's supported.

I find it interesting why she's posted this publicly. I don't know why but I'm sure she has a reason as she usually does. Of course the reason could be entirely personal and related to situations in her life we know nothing about.

Showing that it's even quite usual for people to - shock horror - get people's names wrong probably as a result of having too much to think about and is not any comment about them, positive or negative, at all.

Many parents find this a sticking point with their children. The cognitive dissonance of calling your very much loved son 'she' (in other words pretending he has become your 'daughter') or calling your very much loved daughter 'he' (in other words pretending she has become your 'son') is too much for many of us. It also is part of the social transition they want so much, which may lead to misusing hormones or undergoing cosmetic surgery in the mistaken belief that this will make them more the other sex. Loving parents who do not accept gender identity thinking, who know that it's impossible to change sex and that gender is a means of putting people in boxes, who aren't impressed with an ideology that encourages people to jump out of one gender box they don't fit comfortably into another that they can't fit either, are trying to help their children accept their physical reality and be themselves within it.

Ultimately we all have to accept aspects of our physical reality – height, aging, illnesses, disabilities, intellectual capability, death, athletic capability (and athletes have to accept the loss of that with old age). Pretending that 'gender' means that we can control our sex is unhealthy and practising a dysfunctional relationship with our bodies.

My impression is that she has just said 'you do you'. She isn't stopping anyone from expressing an opposing opinion. She has just responded to questions and explained her stance.

Which is precisely why her pronouncement is so unhelpful

I interpret that first quoted passage very differently. There were no explanations of her stance. She is accusing someone of dictating to her, and "deliciously". I find twitter/nitter hard to navigate so I couldn't work out the exact comment she was replying to, but I don't think it merited the response she gave it. Disagreeing with her is not the same as dictating or demanding.

To be clear for those who might need it, I'm not "policing" her, just disagreeing with her.

But then, JKR has written hundreds of tweets on the subject. It's OK to disagree with a few of them.