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 😡'

No. She’s helping.

That is the nature ot twitter, though. It is why it is best avoided in my view.

She has always maintained that she has friends who identify as trans.

I agree that JK has made some disappointing, unnecessary and unhelpful statements there. "Female-coded energy" sounds like full-on gender woo.

If she’d said ‘female coded behaviour’, I’d have been able to thoroughly agree with her. Gender critical feminism would recognise that there is female coded behaviour, and would reject complying with it. A man can perform female coded behaviour without that making him a woman.
So I’d say that was a mistake.

Her choosing to use gendered rather than sex based pronouns for her friends might be surprising, might be disappointing to many, but it’s still her choice.

I find I can absolutely clearly keep at the front of my mind that Janice is a bloke, yet still unintentionally use female pronouns on occasion. I suspect it’s about how crucial it is in the moment. Janice heading into the women’s bathroom is going to be referred to as ‘he’. Janice heading down the pub more likely to be ‘she’.

I do think ‘female coded energy’ sounds like something a Kardashian would say, though 😆

Why?

It is true, is it not, that society tends to code certain behaviours into 'masculine' and 'Feminine'? That is what gender is. Social coding. We all have a mixture of coded behaviours and interests. It doesn't change our sex, though.

I don't think the dispute is that they aren't biologically male rather by virtue of typical/average behavioural associations trans women are more 'like'/associated to women than men & want to be recognised as such.

I would call this personality. Some people’s personalities align more with stereotypes of male and female, others don’t.

‘Boys don’t cry’, ‘man up’, ‘that’s not very ladylike’ - all harmful stereotypes.

Yes, but I draw a boundary at the 'recognised as such' bit. What you say or feel/ expect with your private circle is different to what happens at the level of public practice and acceptability. No male is ever female - and at the level of public policy it would be wrong to mandate that.

You are confusing gendered stereotypes with typical behaviours here. Stereotypes are societal expectations rather than on average behaviour.

Are posters who feel disappointed disappointed that these are JKR’s views/experiences or that she expresses them, or both? If posters are unhappy that she holds these views, fair enough, I guess they are realising their positions are less aligned than they thought. If they are disappointed that JKR is expressing her views, why do they think she shouldn’t? She has been lauded for speaking out when many others with her platform didn’t. Now there are nuanced difference showing up for them, they don’t want her to speak?

As many posters have pointed out, there isn’t a hive mind when it comes to ‘gender critical beliefs’. The point of conversion is that sex matters and that the male and female category do not include people of the opposite sex and that gender is a regressive concept. Beyond this, there are wide ranging views that should be expressed by those choosing to express them.

What she’s saying isn’t so different from her original essay.

She’s a human being, who has been hugely courageous in the fight against the erosion of sex-based rights. You won’t agree with her on everything, and a “purity spiral” helps no-one but the TRAs

HRTWT
i really like what she said
i agree with a lot of pp’s, TRAs are the (massive) problem, not trans identifying people per se

Yes, and we all have a mixture of socially coded behaviours. Recognising that some of our traits are coded as masculine does not mean we have become male. We understand that.

I also find this thread heartening. I do think that, however weasley and cynical Stonewall's recent change of tack is, it might also represent a moment when we can begin to have some trust that change is happening, and take off some of the battle gear.

I think that, probably, most of the long-standing GC women on MN are people who, before everything was soured by the vast over-reach of trans activism, would gladly have exercised a reasonable and compassionate level of toleration and solidarity for the (usually gay) 'female-coded' men who wanted to present as if they were women, and will gladly do the same thing again when there is a return to sanity.

@BeanQuisine Isn’t she simply saying that this person behaves in stereotypically, or even typically, female ways.

The GC position doesn’t prohibit one from recognising that.

Clearly JKR wouldn’t say that makes them female or a woman or gives them women’s rights.

It's generally agreed amongst GC and sex-realist people that "female" and "male" are sex signifiers, not "gender", and that this distinction needs to be emphasised.

JK seems to be saying "I'll play the misleading gender game when I think it's appropriate" but our message should be: it's always misleading, never appropriate.

I think my problem with what JKR has written is that she is calling her gay male friend "she" and "her" when talking about him to us. She describes him as having previously been a gay man.

Quite obviously he is still a gay man, just one who pretends to be a woman now. JKR has gone beyond using she/her for him as a friend to his face, she is using those female coded words for a man in public.

Going right back to pronouns are rohypnol, language is incredibly important. Humouring a friend in private should not leak out to public discourse, that's how we got in this bloody mess in the first place.

Quite! JK's original essay was full of warmth, compassion and subtlety - but when people expect every thing to be rigidly one way or the other things escsalate and get extremely polarised very quickly.

It is possible to distinguish and differentiate between public and private and know what is appropriate for each sphere. The problem arises when people try to force the private into the public sphere or vice versa.

No, I’m not.

This recent message just sounds like it's consistent with her original 2020 essay? That she knows trans people, and loves and respects them, but says that it's not possible to change sex, and that anyone with male biology shouldn't be allowed free reign in women's spaces.

Which all seems reasonable.

And as to the "female coded energy", wtf does that mean?

I think she is simply letting people into her private life. There is a risk in this, of course, because the nature of twitter is for people to use all content found there as a weapon.

She takes so much hatred and venom on twitter, and she is human.

I hear you. The way I see it is there are two parts to this issue that are the cause of conflict. Being your authentic self & how that impacts society. Whilst i support GC ideology insofar as there must be limits to the consequences of acceptance, pretending they lack legitimacy in terms of associations is unnecessarily combative.

But I think she is saying that it makes it easier for her to use female pronouns if a man behaves in this way. Which I find disappointing, it’s buying into stereotypes.