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 😡'

I'm guessing this is the case. What I'm wondering about is why she's felt the need to discuss it publicly.

Agree, avoiding pronouns altogether is what I do - I find it cognitively easier than using the wrong pronoun as well as better ethically / morally.

I'm guessing this is the case. What I'm wondering about is why she's felt the need to discuss it publicly.

She didn't start a thread on it. Someone questioned her about her 2020 article, in which she had referred to the friend as 'she', and she gave an honest answer to the question. It was towards the end of another thread.

I find this difficult as yes it’s rude and hurtful, and I generally am not on board with that, especially as I think many trans-identifying people are mentally ill, vulnerable or dealing with trauma, and many will detransition and it’s not helpful to be oppositional for the sake of it. And yet I think she has a point here. To go back to my earlier post, I think employers would be right to shy away from someone identifying as a different ethnicity, or as having a disability they don’t have, or an adult identifying as a child etc and expecting people to go along with the pretence. and would IMO rightly consider this a problem - because it could indicate that they’re potentially controlling, deluded, unstable, inconsiderate etc or that it would place unfair expectations on their colleagues.

IMO what is weird is that we have been brainwashed into not seeing it like this when it’s people claiming to be the opposite sex. Even though that’s considerably less possible or convincing than some of the other false identities people could assume, and even though when it’s men claiming to be women, that comes with significant harms to women. (And I’d argue some harms the other way round too).

This is what I think happened too. JKR very likely met this friend when most people didn’t think there was any harm in going along with pronouns. It’s not something I personally would do and I can understand why people are disappointed but I can also see why she has continued using them for this person.
In my opinion, it’s not taken anything away from her stance on the effects this ideology has on women and girls.

To be clear I don’t think trans-identifying people should be discriminated against for the sake of it, just for “being trans” I.e. I don’t think they should be denied the right to housing, healthcare, the vote etc or persecuted etc. But identitying as something you cannot possibly be should never have become enshrined in law, and I think finding someone expecting you to confirm their untrue “identity” to be someone you don’t want to be around, employ or trust it totally reasonable.

in fact, I would argue there’s a possibly valid case of discrimination under the equality act in that if you identify as the opposite sex this is officially given a pass where other types of untrue identity claim are not.

(Especially when they are literally appropriating your actual identify and “lived experience”. Transwomen make me uncomfortable and annoyed because they are literally claiming to be what I actually am, and that’s really insulting - and that’s before we even get onto the fact that for many it’s also a fetish. If I was black and objected to / was upset by a white person wearing blackface and stereotyped clothing and insisting they were therefore really black, people (including genderists) would be able to get that. Likewise with disability. It’s reasonable to be put out by someone imitating you and then demanding you accept that as real.)

I agree that policing how people talk about their friends is wrong. I already said that.

At the same time, your choice of argument is poor. The example you gave is of "she" being used in mockery of men, which is rooted in the idea that women are inferior. No one ever says to a female footballer "oops he fell over".

Yes. The argument (I have seen it on twitter as well) that men use ‘she’ for other men as a sign of changing language is weak argument. Doing it to disparage or mock another man is not a relevant use of language to represent linguistic change. The person using it in that way nor the person the language being used for do not have any belief that they are a girl or a woman.

Yes, it's rather like arguing that spectators shouting, "GAY!!" at footballers in the early 2000s were participating in a change of language over time (that shouldn't be policed), rather than acknowledging that the entire point is that it retains exactly its original meaning, that the shouter thinks that original meaning is contemptible and that is precisely the reason it is being flung as an insult.

yeah. I was surprised by the reasoning when I saw it rolled out on twitter.

However, some people have taken it as being a relevant precedent. It certainly isn’t a reason to support language change precedence.

Great post. Once you start comparing it to other deceptions it becomes much clearer. If someone shows an employer they will lie and lie repeatedly, or have a really tenuous grasp on reality, is it really unreasonable to not want this person in the workplace?

For some reason saying you identify as having a qualification you don't have is frowned upon but being the sex you're not is fine even though in lots of situations (doctor, nurse, anything medical, anything with children) it actually probably matters a lot more, in safeguarding terms, than claiming you got grade 6 flute or whatever when you didn't. I think it's almost analagous to claiming you have a driving license when you don't when your job requires you to drive sometimes.

I'm guessing this is the case. What I'm wondering about is why she's felt the need to discuss it publicly.

I think she was asked.

Let’s say JKR’s buddy is called Karen.

”Where’s Karen gone?” JKR: “She’s gone to the bar to get the pints in.”

”Jo, did you meet your friend Karen at a WI meeting?” JKR: “Well, no, because she’s a male and respects women’s single-sex spaces”.

I just can’t get worked up about this. JKR does so much as a feminist and a philanthropist and is not some kind of archetypally-perfect figurehead of the gender critical movement. Who knows, maybe the contrast between “Karen” - who she may have known for years - and the kind of aggressive AGP TRA that goes around bullying and threatening women contributed to her peaking.

Who knows, maybe the contrast between “Karen” - who she may have known for years - and the kind of aggressive AGP TRA that goes around bullying and threatening women contributed to her peaking.

Quite possibly. But I'm not convinced there is a clear dividing line between "Karen" and "India", "Sophie", "Heather" and "Stephanie". There are quiet men claiming access to women's spaces too. And you may have to know someone very well before you discover their attitude to women, or that they are claiming rights that don't belong to men, such as the "right" to be perceived as a woman and be referred to with feminine pronouns.

It seems to me that a bigger cause has not been any compromise an individual woman has made in her own life, but rather the insistence that EVERYONE must use certain words and avoid others, regardless of what those people want or believe.

Which is exactly what some people are doing to JKR on this.

And it’s entirely your right to refuse to call any transidentifying person by the “wrong” pronoun.

What you don’t have though is the right to insist that ALL other women do the same. It’s up to each person. Even Joanne Rowling has a right to freedom of expression. We don’t own her.

No-one is insisting that all women do the same. I am pointing out that I disagree with her approach and I am disappointed, like the OP, to see that she has used preferred pronouns. I also pointed out that we all know the dangers of not using factual sex-based pronouns and that truthful language is important. You are free to disagree with that if you want, or to not consider it important or relevant. Everyone has freedom of expression.

Nobody has threatened to murder her over it, true, but unless your understanding of the word “insist” requires some sort of actual force to be used I think a lot of people are insisting that she’s not entitled to speak as she wishes. I’ve seen comments on X saying she has “betrayed” women etc. That’s pretty strong.

We're talking about comments here, not on 'X'. She can say whatever she wants, and we can agree or disagree with her and we can express that.

The OP said
Does she not realise there can be NO EXCEPTIONS? Give an inch they'll take a mile and all that.

That seems to me like not accepting that she has the right to say what she wants.

Wow, now you want people who ask to be called "she" sacked and prevented from working?

That is as bad as the trans activists.

No that's saying that any exceptions weaken / destroy women's rights (and I'd add child safeguarding). I agree with that. I also believe in free expression.

Lots of people do things to weaken women's rights, particularly working class women's rights. As far as that goes JKR does more than most FOR women's rights.

However she can still do the odd thing that makes things worse (more than balanced out by her generosity and charity elsewhere, in her case, including of course Beira's place and Lumos).

It's expressing an opinion.

No, that's disagreeing with her. It sounds to me like you're insisting that people cannot have a different opinion to JKR!

No, that was not what I said. I said that it is as valid to not want to employ someone who is pretending to be the opposite sex and expecting people to go along with it and pretend it's true, as it would be with anyone claiming any kind of false identity and requiring people to act as if it's true.

It os "being trans" that is the anomaly here. People who claim to be something they're not and insist on that being validated can generally expect others to find them annoying, unlikeable or maybe not very impressive in a job interview, and I think that is OK. I don't understand why "trans" identity has been given a special pass when it doesn't work that way for anyone else claiming an untrue identity.

That does not mean trans people should be banned from having jobs. Obviously some employers will not have a problem with it, and some will love it. They're free to employ who they like. My point is that being put off by someone claiming a false identity that is actually someone else's real life experience, should be seen as totally reasonable, as it is in all other cases.

What employer would want to offer a job to the likes of Haech Lockwood a female claiming a non-binary identity? She took her employer to an ET & lost but the evidence presented at the ET showed she would have been insufferable in the workforce forever complaining of being misgendered etc

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6926ec33a245b0985f0340aa/Haech_Lockwood_v_Cheshire_and_Wirral_NHS_Foundation_Trust_and_others_2401211_2024___2407178_2024.pdf