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 think that lots of women on this forum are making themselves feel more secure by believing that they can reliably tell the sex of every single person that they meet.

I don't believe they're right, I think they just don't know the ones they've met where they don't know.

Trans, not fans.

The idea of forcing clothing on anyone was barking mad.

Only one person suggested forcing clothing on anyone. It’s an opinion (I think) more popular in the US and doesn’t have any traction whatsoever in the UK.

None of the well informed and thoughtful gender critical types who post think it’s anything other than a silly idea.

FFS my cat can tell a man from a woman. Dogs can tell. It's not hard.

I've met several people, mostly men, who were trying to look like the opposite sex. The most convincing ones foxed me for almost a minute, and they grabbed my attention on sight and kept it until I'd figured it out why something about them felt "off". You might read up on something called the "uncanny valley", which explains why that "off" feeling happens.

I think a lot of trans people make themselves and each other feel more secure by believing that they totally pass, completely unclockable. I don't believe that they are right, I think they just don't know how many times the people around them say nothing to be polite or avoid being the target of a trantrum.

You can only know for sure of the ones you spotted.

GIven the multiple skeletal, voice, and other bodily differences between the sexes, I doubt that there's many of those, if any.

Women's instincts to detect men are safety-critical and have been selected for for good reasons.

The "female-coded energy" is presumably this. Any of us who have experience of being with rescue animals who are very nervous around human males but not human females will also see that, every now and then, there is a man - who is very definitely a man - who just seems to be deemed ok. Obviously the animal does not care about gender performance or sexuality - it is probably in this sense that "energy" can be understood.

Being good with animals doesn't make you feminine...! Tell that to all the manly farmers out there who can calm a sheep down before shearing or whatever. Horse whisperers.

No, it's silly stereotyping. There's no objective behaviour that gives you "female coded energy". Women are female. Energy is what you use when you burn calories to lift a weight or climb a hill. Words have meanings!

You carry on believing that if it makes you feel safer.

You're leaving out the impact of modern surgery and hormone treatments and what can be achieved by active measures to genuinely present yourself as the opposite sex, as opposed to shouting about being a woman when you're clearly a man in a dress.

This isn't new, it's been going on since time immemorial and these people have been living amongst us. I think more recent activities of the aggressive trans lobby who are so obviously male has clouded issues considerably lately. And the AGFs have caused immense damage to trans people who were just in amongst us quietly living their lives.

Ah, magic hormones that shrink men’s height, change men’s pelvis shape so they no longer have a male gait, shrink their hands and feet and shoulder width. Change their torso length. Grow them a cervix and uterus…

TRAs are desperate to pretend there are loads of men capable of deceiving everyone as to their sex, yet funnily enough, none of the ones who speak out or protest ever come close.

“This isn't new, it's been going on since time immemorial and these people have been living amongst us.”

And yet even iconic representations of “LGBTQQ” life such as Queer as Folk completely failed to notice this: neither the 1999 original, by Russell T Davies and based on his own experiences of the gay scene in Manchester, nor the US remake in 2000 even mentioned them, much less considered them an important part of their lives.

That’s the same Russell T Davies who has since ruined Dr Who with his “woke” storylines so why would he have completely failed to put a single trans woman in his groundbreaking series? Unless they didn’t exist in his world at that time?

It took another US remake in 2022 before they put some trans/nonbinary characters into it - and that was cancelled after a single season because of its terrible viewing figures.

Fiction is generally a useful source of historical information on the types of people one finds in society. Many novels depicts characters who are clearly homosexual, even if discreetly signalled. Cross-dressers crop up occasionally in more bohemian-style literature. I can’t recall any characters that one would recognise as “trans” in the way it is understood now, and given what a rich seam that would mine for the novelist, it would seem to indicate that it’s a pretty new phenomenon. Perhaps others know better than me (I’d exclude women pretending to be men so they can do exciting and adventurous things).

I don’t think you can have it that it is simultaneously about the impact of modern surgery and hormone treatment but also has been going on since time immemorial.

Yes I can. Physically there have always been slight boned men who could pass as androgynous women.

Surgery and hormones increase that number.

If I'm walking down the street and I pass a man dressed as a woman for half a second, I may not think "hold on, that's a bloke". But, an acquaintanceship, a conversation, someone in customer service, a workplace relationship, a neighbour - yup, it's very noticeable. Ditto with transmen (i.e. women who try to look like men).

Where exactly are all these biological males who pass unnoticed as women? Even if they've had facial "feminisation" and voice training, just from height, gait, bulk, etc. it's very clear they're men.

Ann Widdecombe's daft pro-trans Reform prisons policy argued that trans-identified men should be housed in women's prisons if they looked like women, and she gave the example of India Willoughby. Look at the linked photo and see if you can tell which are the biological men and which is the biological woman. Even with the drug-induced beard, the biological woman still has a female stance, foot position and hips, while the biological male next to her has a completely male body posture and stance (especially due to the different skeletol systems of men and women, particularly the pelvis/hips). He also has a very male voice, if you have ever heard him speak. Similarly, India Willoughby, rather than "passing", looks massive next to a biological woman.

White, Whittle and Willoughby

(Photo borrowed from our dear JK)

So without using sexist, outdated and offensive stereotypes, how does one “live as the opposite sex”?

behaving as the opposite sex

Regardless of cosmetic surgery or hormones to try and deceive people by their looks, one thing that never seems to change is behaviour men have been socialised into or driven/learnt by a lifetime of testosterone.

If it makes you feel more comfortable to keep listing men who are obviously pretending to be women to convince yourself that you've recognised every trans person you've ever come across, then you carry right on.

But I am laughing out loud, as a woman who is taller than many men, that you think men can be identified by height. And I've already pointed out several times that 20% of women have an android pelvis.

So is that a no on how one “lives as the opposite sex” without using outdated, sexist stereotypes then..,

I'm sorry I thought that was too obvious to answer.

One lives using the pronouns of the sex you wish you were. Sometimes, nobody realises.

So without making any changes physically, just telling someone I’ll now a man, I get all the male attributes and everyone will see me as a man, not the obvious woman I am! Awesome! Whoop! I’m now a man! No more housework, wife work, childcare worries or any nonsense like that!

Well I would be stupid indeed if I had written that, so it's just as well that I didn't.

Where is your evidence that nobody realises?

Maybe there's a special course for those who have reached adulthood unable to distinguish between men and women? Given it's vital for procreation, parenting, safeguarding, implementing the law, sport, medicine and so much else?

If there are increasing numbers stricken with this problem, there needs to be suport and help available?

Large numbers of lizard people actually live among us too, going entirely unnoticed, so well do they pass as humans.

The lizard folks have been doing so since time immemorial and with modern hormones and surgery it’s got even better.

The fact that you don’t notice a single one of them is clear proof of just how well they pass, you see.