An Apology to JK Rowling - "JK Rowling recently published an eminently reasonable, heartfelt treatise, outlining why it is important to preserve the category of woman. There’s only one thing wrong with it: it assumes a rational interlocutor... At no point does she use exclusionary or hostile language or say that trans women do not exist, have no right to exist or that she wants to rob them of their rights. Her position is that natal women exist and have a right to limit access to their political and personal spaces. Period.Of course, to assume that her missive would be engaged with in the spirit in which it was intended, is to make the mistake of imagining that the identitarian left is broadly committed to secular, rational discourse. It is not. Its activist component has transmogrified into a religious movement, which brooks no opposition and no discussion. You must agree with every tenet or else you’re a racist, sexist, transphobic bigot, etc. Because its followers are fanatics, Rowling is being subjected to an extraordinary level of abuse. There seems to be no cognitive dissonance among those who accuse her of insensitivity and then proceed to call her a cunt, bitch or hag and insist that they want to assault and even kill her (see this compilation of tweets on Medium). She has been accused of ruining childhoods. Some even claim that the actor Daniel Radcliffe wrote the Harry Potter books—reality has become optional for some of these identitarians. Rowling’s age, menstrual status and vagina come in for particularly nasty attention and many trans women (or those masquerading as such) write of wanting to sexually assault her with lady cock, as a punishment for speaking out. I haven’t seen misogyny like this since Julia Gillard became our prime minister. The Balkanisation of culture into silos of unreason means that the responses have not followed what might be loosely called the pre-digital rules of discourse... Three decades of postmodernism and ten years of Twitter have destroyed these conventions and, together with them, the shared norms by which we create and sustain social consensus. There is no grounding metanarrative, there are no binding norms of civil discourse in the digital age. Indeed, as Jaron Lanier shows with his bummer paradigm (Behaviours of Users Modified and Made into an Empire for Rent) social media is destroying the fabric of our personal and political lives (although, with a different business model and more robust regulation, it need not do so). The algorithm searching for and recording your every click, like and share, your every purchase, search term, conversation, movement, facial expression, social connection and preference rewards engagement above all else—which means that your feed—an aptly infantile descriptor—will quickly become full of the things you and others like you are most likely to be motivated to click, like and share. Outrage is a more effective mechanism through which to foster engagement than almost anything else. In Lanier’s terms, this produces a “menagerie of wraiths”—a bunch of digitised dementors: fake and bad actors, paid troll armies and dyspeptic bots—designed to confect mob outrage. Three decades of postmodernism and ten years of Twitter have destroyed these conventions and, together with them, the shared norms by which we create and sustain social consensus. There is no grounding metanarrative, there are no binding norms of civil discourse in the digital age. Indeed, as Jaron Lanier shows with his bummer paradigm (Behaviours of Users Modified and Made into an Empire for Rent) social media is destroying the fabric of our personal and political lives (although, with a different business model and more robust regulation, it need not do so). The algorithm searching for and recording your every click, like and share, your every purchase, search term, conversation, movement, facial expression, social connection and preference rewards engagement above all else—which means that your feed—an aptly infantile descriptor—will quickly become full of the things you and others like you are most likely to be motivated to click, like and share. Outrage is a more effective mechanism through which to foster engagement than almost anything else. In Lanier’s terms, this produces a “menagerie of wraiths”—a bunch of digitised dementors: fake and bad actors, paid troll armies and dyspeptic bots—designed to confect mob outrage... This is why the furore over Rowling’s blog post misses the point: whether we agree with her or not, the problem is the collapse of our capacity to disagree constructively. If you deal primarily in subjective experience and impulse-driven reaction, under the assumption that you occupy the undisputed moral high ground, and you’ve been incited by fake news and want to signal your allegiances to your social media friends, then you can’t engage in rational discussion with your opponent. Your stock in trade will be unsubstantiated accusations and social shaming.In this discombobulating universe, sex-based rights are turned into insults against trans people. Gender-critical feminists are recast as immoral bigots, engaged in deliberately hurtful, even life-threatening, speech. Rowling is not who we thought she was, her ex-fans wail, her characters and plots conceal hidden reservoirs of homophobia and bigotry. A few grandstanders attempt to distinguish themselves by saying that they have always been able to smell a rat—no, not Scabbers—and therefore hated the books from the outset. Nowhere amid this morass of moral grandstanding and outrage is there any serious engagement with her ideas. Those of us on the left—and left-wing feminists in particular—who find trans ideology fraught, for all the reasons Rowling outlines, are a very small group. While Rowling is clearly privileged, she has also become the figurehead of a rapidly dwindling and increasingly vilified group of feminists, pejoratively labelled terfs, who want to preserve women’s sex-based rights and spaces. Although our arguments align with centrist, conservative and common sense positions, ours is not the prevailing view in academia, public service or the media, arts and culture industries, where we are most likely to be located (when we are not at home with our children). In most of these workplaces, a sex-based rights position is defined a priori as bigoted, indeed as hate speech. It can get us fired, attacked, socially ostracised and even assaulted. As leftist thinkers who believe in freedom of speech and thought, who find creeping ideological and bureaucratic control alarming, we are horrified by these increasingly vicious denunciations by the left. The centre right and libertarians—the neo-cons, post-liberals and the IDW—are invariably smug about how funny it is to watch the left eat itself. But it’s true: some progressive circles are now defined by a call out/cancel culture to rival that of the most repressive of totalitarian states. Historically, it was progressives who fought against limits on freedom of speech and action. But the digital–identitarian left split off from the old print-based left some time ago, and has become its own beast. A contingent of us are deeply critical of these new directions. Only a few on the left have had the gumption to speak up for us. Few have even defended our right to express our opinions. Those who have spoken out include former media darlings Germaine Greer and Michael Leunig. Many reader comments on left-leaning news sites claim that Rowling is to blame for the ill treatment she is suffering. Rowling can bask in the consequences of her free speech, they claim, as if having a different opinion from the woke majority means that she is no longer entitled to respect, and that any and all abuse is warranted—or, at least, to be expected. Where is the outrage on her behalf? Where are the writers, film makers, actors and artists defending her right to speak her mind? Of course, the actors from the Harry Potter films are under no obligation to agree with JK Rowling just because she made them famous. They don’t owe her their ideological fealty: but they owe her better forms of disagreement. When Daniel Radcliffe repeats the nonsensical chant trans women are women, he’s not developing an argument, he’s reciting a mantra. When he invokes experts, who supposedly know more about the subject than Rowling, he betrays his ignorance of how contested the topic of transgender medicine actually is: for example, within endocrinology, paediatrics, psychiatry, sociology, and psychology (the controversies within the latter discipline have been demonstrated by the numerous recent resignations from the prestigious Tavistock and Portman gender identity clinic). The experts are a long way from consensus in what remains a politically fraught field. Trans women are women is not an engaged reply. It is a mere arrangement of words, which presupposes a faith that cannot be questioned. To question it, we are told, causes harm—an assertion that transforms discussion into a thought crime. If questioning this orthodoxy is tantamount to abuse, then feminists and other dissenters have been gaslit out of the discussion before they can even enter it. This is especially pernicious because feminists in the west have been fighting patriarchy for several hundred years and we do not intend our cause to be derailed at the eleventh hour by an infinitesimal number of natal males, who have decided that they are women. Now, we are told, trans women are women, but natal females are menstruators. I can’t imagine what the suffragists would have made of this patently absurd turn of events. There has been a cacophony of apologies to the trans community for Rowling’s apparently tendentious and hate-filled words. But no one has paused to apologise to Rowling for the torrent of abuse she has suffered and for being mischaracterised so profoundly."
Author Fired After Supporting J.K. Rowling - "An author from Glasgow, Scotland, has been fired after supporting J.K. Rowling’s stance vis-a-vis transgender ideology.According to Herald Scotland, Gillian Philip, author of a series of popular children’s books, tweeted in support of J.K. Rowling and was subsequently fired from her position with Working Partners, a fiction packaging firm... Gillian Philip said that an abusive mob destroyed her professional life."
Even outside the trans issue, the left isn't about freedom of speech and thought, so
J.K. Rowling and the road to terfdom - The Spectator - "I may sound like an old-fashioned hack, but I do remember a time when ‘news’ meant more than ‘things some people are saying’. The traditional vox pop, a report based on a few non-randomly selected remarks from a few non-randomly selected people, has always had its place in journalism, but that place was rightly low down the list of important, serious formats.No longer. Now though ‘some people said things on Twitter’ is news, apparently. At the same time, a lot of media executives have come to worry that people don’t value their products enough to pay for them any more. I offer no further comment on that striking coincidence. The second lesson of modern life played out in the degradation of the transgressor Rowling is that the world must always be divided neatly into good people and bad people. Good people are entirely good and so is everything they do. Bad people are bad, and likewise everything associated with them.Hence those ‘stories’ are full of people on Twitter weeping at Rowling’s betrayal and how it poisons her work and very existence. People who just loved the Harry Potter books now simply cannot bear to think of those stories now that they know their author holds opinions that differ from their own, apparently. Perhaps this surprises you. Perhaps you think: surely it’s possible to disagree with someone on one thing without presuming them evil? Can’t you dislike an artist’s stance on an issue while also seeing merit in their work? Apparently not.It will be no surprise if the Rowling ‘story’ soon includes ‘calls’ (from people on Twitter, obviously) for her books to be removed from libraries, withheld from children or just burned. And how did J.K. Rowling go from good to bad? How did the creator of one of the world’s favorite childhood stories go from being beloved and benign to the someone who is routinely (and tellingly) described on Twitter as a ‘c**t’? This lesson of modern life is most particular to the trans debate, though it relates to the broader Twitterization of culture. Bad people don’t just do bad things. They have bad motives. It is impossible for someone to say something with which you disagree for decent, honest reasons. People who reach different conclusions to you are not well-meaning but mistaken. They are wrong and bad. End of.In the trans debate, this means that anyone who — like evil old J.K. — raises questions and doubts about the implications of legally recognizing as female any male-born person who describes themselves as a woman is, ipso facto, a hateful transphobe. The only viable explanation for such actions is bigotry and prejudice... I don’t know Rowling, but I suspect she would not object to being called progressive and liberal. She has given tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds to charities. She donated to Gordon Brown’s Labour party, was friendly with Barack Obama and used to work at Amnesty International (long before it embraced trans orthodoxy, I should note). She opposed Brexit. She is not, in short, someone who can be described as a social conservative. If left and right still mean anything, she’s on the left.So are many of the women (and men) who have gone before her on the road to terfdom. Most of the feminist campaign groups and grassroots organizations that have sprung up to raise concerns about the interaction of ‘trans rights’ and women’s legal and social status are driven by women on the left of politics. Woman’s Place UK, the most prominent of those groups, was founded by lifelong trade unionists. Among their supporters in the Labour movement were several senior figures in the inner circle of Jeremy Corbyn.All this is awkward for the witchfinders now seeking to put the scold’s bridle on the wicked Rowling. Having explained, tirelessly, that anyone who does not repeat the catechism of transgenderism (‘Trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary people are non-binary’) is guilty of mortal sin, they still struggle to explain where that sin originates.The best hope of the zealots is to suggest that the failure to embrace trans orthodoxy is somehow part of a nasty, regressive social conservative agenda driven by mysteriously powerful right-wing Americans. Look at Trump and those Republicans fixated on bathrooms! (Ignore inconvenient facts like Hillary Clinton’s refusal to say the holy words ) Remember Section 28 banning teaching about homosexuality! (Ignore the fact that sexuality and gender are different things.) The terfs are all part of the global march of regressive populists intent on unravelling progressive societies. Or something. And this is why J.K. Rowling — clever, thoughtful, nuanced J.K. Rowling — presents such a threat to all those people who talk about ‘terfs’ and what should happen to women who say things they don’t like. Because if you’re going to shout about the views of J.K. Rowling and her wickedness, you’re going to have to come up with an explanation for that wickedness, and in so doing, to ask people to reach their own conclusions... The first explanation is that a lot of people who have previously been firmly on the liberal-left side of politics have — secretly — been converted to social conservatism by right-wing ultras, on this one issue alone.The other way to explain J.K. Rowling’s journey down that road to terfdom is that she is an intelligent women who has taken a careful look at the issue and decided for herself that there is nothing progressive or kind or liberal about a movement that encourages autistic children to be given untested drugs. That tells adolescents uncomfortable with their bodies that surgery brings happiness and the alternative is suicide. That tells lesbians they’re bigots if they won’t consider sex with women who have penises. That showers women (and really, it is just women) who question these things with violent and sexualized abuse.I don’t know J.K. Rowling, but I know which of those two explanations I find more plausible."
J.K. Rowling Warns About Experimental Cross-Sex Hormones - "Rowling “liked” a tweet from Sophie, a “transgender woman” who rightly warns about the rush to medicate children.“Hormone prescriptions are the new antidepressants. Yes they are sometimes necessary and lifesaving, but they should be a last resort – not the first option. Pure laziness for those who would rather medicate than put in the time and effort to heal people’s minds”... Rowling shared a brief documentary about the gender identity clinic in Britain, where whistleblowers have voiced concerns that some parents push transgenderism on children because the parents prefer a “straight” transgender child over a “gay” child.Transcripts from anonymous employees “say that some parents appear to prefer their child was transgender and straight, rather than gay, pushing them towards transition,” the documentary explains.“Whistleblowers were talking about transitions driven by homophobia”... cross-sex hormones have serious long-term side-effects. Rowling shared research concluding that cross-sex hormones “may increase risk for cardiovascular events.” She also quoted Carl Henegan, a professor of medicine at Oxford University, who described the off-label use of so-called puberty blockers on minors as an “unregulated live experiment on children.”"
Pedro Ponciano 🧢 on Twitter - Emma Watson: "Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are."
"love you emma. you were great in little menstruators."
Facebook - "I don’t think we’re very far from hearing about the first library to remove its Harry Potter books because its author is problematic"
JK Rowling's new thriller takes No 1 spot amid transphobia row - "A bookshop in Australia subsequently announced it would not be stocking new Rowling or Galbraith books, following in the footsteps of several bookshops around the world that announced they would drop her books after she published an essay in June laying out her belief that trans women who have not undergone hormone therapy or surgical transition should not have access to single-sex spaces"
I guess her publisher is glad it didn't drop her
JK Rowling: Hachette UK book staff told they are not allowed to boycott author over trans row - "JK Rowling’s publisher, Hachette UK, has told staff they are not allowed to refuse to work on her novels because they disagree with her views on transgender issues.The news comes after a group of employees at the company objected to being asked to work on the author’s new children’s story, The Ickabog... “We will never make our employees work on a book whose content they find upsetting for personal reasons, but we draw a distinction between that and refusing to work on a book because they disagree with an author’s views outside their writing, which runs contrary to our belief in free speech.”... This is the second controversy Hachette has found itself at the centre of in recent months. In March, it cancelled its plans to publish Woody Allen’s memoir after a staff mutiny."
Ironically, when it comes to conservatives with moral objections, liberals love to say if you don't want to do your job, you should be fired, even if disapproving of an author and refusing to work on his projects is fundamentally different to refusing to work on projects you disapprove of due to their content
Authors quit JK Rowling agency over transgender rights - "Four authors represented by JK Rowling’s literary agency have resigned after accusing the company of declining to issue a public statement of support for transgender rights... “Freedom of speech can only be upheld if the structural inequalities that hinder equal opportunities for underrepresented groups are challenged and changed.”In its response, the Blair Partnership said it took pride in the diversity of views represented by their authors but it could not compromise on the “fundamental freedom” of allowing authors the right to express their thoughts and beliefs. A spokeswoman said it would always champion diverse voices and believe in freedom of speech for all but it was not willing to have staff “re-educated” to meet the demands of a small group of clients. The authors’ public resignations pose a challenge for the publishing industry, which has traditionally prioritised freedom of speech but is facing rebellions from staff and clients over the views of authors... The co-author of the Trans Teen Survival Guide suggested the literary agency should conduct staff training with the group All About Trans but “these requests weren’t met positively by the management”."
"Freedom of speech is only good when it allows post-Marxist agendas to be pushed"
I like the use of "re-educated" - an apparent callback to Communist re-education camps
Thread by @jk_rowling - "If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.
The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women - ie, to male violence - ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences - is a nonsense.
I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so. "
Since trans activists claim if you refuse to be gaslit and assert objective reality, that amounts to "discrimination" and "transphobia"...
I’ve read JK Rowling’s ‘transphobic’ new crime novel. I’m transgender & sensitive to such abuse - but there is NONE in this book - "at least one bookstore in Australia will no longer stock JK Rowling novels and will “phase out” the copies of Harry Potter they currently have in store. They explained that this move was intended to help them become a “safer space” for the community.A community that needs to be protected from books is a community with a problem. If you want to comment on a book, you need to read it, and not rely on the rumour and gossip... This is not a book about transgender people at all but the male oppression of women. Rowling – a domestic abuse survivor herself – created a malevolent character to describe, in sickening detail, the depths of the human mind and what abusive men can do to women."
Titania McGrath on Twitter - "I still cannot believe JK Rowling has written a novel which implies that trans people can be villains. We in the LGBTQIA+ community are ALWAYS compassionate and loving and committed to justice, peace and basic human decency. #BeKind #LoveWins #RIPJKRowling"
"can someone smack the fuck out of jk rowling oh my god"
"Miserable old bitch go suck on your mum's dick x"
"fuck JK Rowling she can suck my fat juicy cock"
"JK Rowling can choke on my fat trans cock"
"JK Rowling can choke on a bowl of dicks"
"I doubt a dried up prune like you needs to worry about this"
"JK Rowling basically said that trans women are not women because they don't menstruate when her dry ass old pussy probably hasn't bleeded in years"
"does ur pussy stink? like i feel like she's rotten pls use water"
"you are the human equivalent of a yeast infection. If you could do the world a favour and crawl back up whatever dried up hole you were found in, the stench is absolutely unbearable"
"i want to punch jk rowling so badly"
"jk rowling is a crusty old white rich cis woman that thinks she has a say in trans issues and there are actually people supporting her?? embarrassing"
Liberals love misogyny when directed at women who don't follow the narrative
Disagree with JK Rowling all you want – you have no right to wish her dead for telling stories - "Fiction allows us to imagine the lives and feelings of others. It takes us out of ourselves into other places and positions, the better to return to our everyday dilemmas and thoughts. Without imagination, we are lost.Yet fiction today is under siege. Writers are being attacked for imagining characters who don’t resemble them, as if all fiction must be a form of autobiography – or for creating fictional people who are deemed morally unpalatable. JK Rowling has this week been targeted on Twitter, by the hashtag #RIPJKRowling, for daring in her new Robert Galbraith novel, Troubled Blood, to write about a male murder suspect who at one point wears a women’s coat and wig – something that has happened many times before, both in fiction and in reality. Rowling is accused, yet again, of “transphobia” – even though a man wearing clothes typically associated with women is not trans. The attacks on Rowling are alarming. Nothing she has said publicly or written in fiction has demonised trans people, yet she is repeatedly accused of having done so by people keen to make a witch out of this successful, self-made woman. More generally, the discussion around sex has been mind-bending in its wilful cruelty towards those women, in particular, who have suggested that there might be something to discuss in the moves to change the legal and metaphysical implications of words such as “woman”. Rowling is repeatedly accused of holding “hateful” views, although nothing she has said shows this, while the same people who accuse her feel free to wish her dead. We are not in the realms of literary criticism here: this is full-on scapegoating. The right of Rowling and others to imagine other worlds must be defended against calls to kill novelists and other artists. Nobody, you would hope, seriously wants the state to legislate on what can and can’t be thought and depicted, yet every day the ability to understand the world imaginatively becomes apparently weaker. One wonders whether the people feeling “outraged” by a book they most likely haven’t read feel genuinely put out – or whether this is simply a kind of performance, an excuse to exorcise whatever demons might be haunting them in other ways... epressive regimes over the ages have tried to circumscribe what kind of art can be made, and in which style. The new moralism strives to similarly censor unpalatable ideas and images, on the basis that they might cause offence or harm: but life is not safe, and the imagination is filled with potentially upsetting ideas. To attack someone because they write about things you don’t like is childish: to demand an image of the world that conforms to how you would like it to be is positively demonic. There is a tradition within philosophy of arguing that we are far more moved to feel empathy and proximity with other people through fellow-feeling than if we are ordered to do so on the basis of reason. Philosopher Richard Rorty suggests that a “sentimental education” through literature and other cultural forms is one of the hallmarks of a properly moral culture. During the last two centuries, Rorty suggests, “it has become much easier for us to be moved to action by sad and sentimental stories”.To demand that a writer “stay in their lane” and write only characters that look like them is actively dangerous for the following reason: if we cannot imagine what it is like to be someone else, to feel their pain, their suffering, their thoughts, their desires, then we cannot empathise with people in the real world. So much of today’s politics is divisive, teaching people that we are incommensurate with one another, that we can’t possibly know what it is like to be someone else – but this is how dehumanising begins. Under the guise of “goodness”, many of today’s activists promote the idea that we are all radically different from one another. But we are not, and fiction is precisely the place where, at a slight remove, we can see this... Rowling is a public figure and a fiction-writer: to attack her personally for telling stories, or for expressing views you do not like, is to avoid listening to what she has to say. You can easily choose not to read her work, or her public declarations, but to wish her dead demonstrates only how small and resentful your own worldview must be."
JK Rowling's latest novel isn't 'transphobic' | The Spectator - "No honest person who takes the trouble to read it can see the novel as transphobic. But then honest people are hard to find in a culture war.The men and women pouring out their loathing of Rowling online could not have read the unreleased book: not that their ignorance bothered them in slightest, as no mob on the rampage in history has ever stopped to read a novel... The moral of the book is not 'never trust a man in a dress'. Transvestism barely features. When it does, nothing is made of the fact that the killer wears a wig and a woman’s coat (not a dress) as a disguise when approaching one of his victims. Maybe this tiny detail is enough for the wilfully ignorant to damn Rowling as a 'witch' – I’m not making it up, for this is how Everton goalkeeper turned Twitter celebrity Neville Southall described her... In one respect, however, her critics are right to scream 'witch'. Rowling’s writing is becoming ever-more feminist; ever-more conscious of women’s physical and emotional abuse... In this sense, if nothing else, Rowling’s latest work honestly mirrors her online life. She knows, as her characters know, that women who speak out of turn find themselves alone in a free-fire zone."
Pink News Lied about J.K. Rowling's Book 'Troubled Blood' - Without Reading It - "For over 36 hours now, news outlets in the West have been buzzing with the release and outrage over J.K. Rowling’s new book, Troubled Blood, written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Leading the charge late on Monday was of course, Pink News, who have been obsessively commenting on her alleged transphobia after she expressed her views on the sex and gender debate. They announced that her new book was about a villainous man who dresses as a woman – subverting the subject of the book and giving readers the impression that the villain is a transvestite... The sheer extent of the falsities, lies, and hyperbole that Pink News chose to highlight was so egregious that Nick Cohen, well-known political commentator and columnist for the left-leaning Guardian and Observor felt compelled to respond, tweeting first that as an advance reviewer, he’d read the book and it wasn’t transphobic. The mobbing, hyperbole, and baseless screeching at Rowling however, didn’t end, and Cohen then published his review in the Spectator, commenting on the smearing of Rowling and how Pink News whipped up the mob and categorically denying the allegation that there is anything transphobic in the book... Benjamin Cohen, editor-in-chief of this notorious publication that profits off of fanatical accusations and whipping up hate responded that he had no intention of even reading the book. This is the man at the head of the publication that has published no less than 50+ articles about Rowling in a few short months. Yet Benjamin Cohen effortlessly and gleefully publishes at least two pieces on J.K Rowling in a day, commenting later on the ‘backlash’ faced by her book – a backlash spurred by its utterly false commentary... In an ironic twist, even the Guardian, that has so far taken an editorial position critical of Rowling, released a positive review of the book.To many that are even vaguely familiar with the debate, Pink News’ hyperbole, baseless vilification, and relentless demonisation of women’s concerns is nothing new. However, as the leading gay news outlet in the UK, Pink News continues to be read and shared by people who imagine they’re standing up for LGBT rights. Inflammatory headlines, outrage inducing sound bites, have been shared all over the internet, with the hashtag #RIPJKRowling trending because of the massive numbers of people wishing her death. Major US outlets have followed up... This exaggerated demonising of Rowling by multiple outlets without bothering to read her book isn’t really surprising if one notices the discourse among trans allies. In response to anyone who has pointed out that the passing reference is only to a cross-dresser, not even a transgender person, and that cross-dressing male villains have frequently featured in crime stories and horror epics, the baying mob has dismissed the distinction claiming that because of Rowling’s history of transphobia and of being a dreaded ‘TERF‘, in that context, this would be transphobic. The same inane response is given when it is pointed out to supporters of trans claims that there is nothing more than a reference to a criminal, supposedly in disguise. To the crowd that considers her transphobic, these are irrelevant details – because she’s already been tagged as transphobic, what would otherwise be a completely insignificant detail in a crime novel becomes a lightning rod for the outrage of trans activists and their ‘progressive’ allies... Even if one were to hold the opinion that J.K. Rowling is transphobic or holds problematic opinions, a minimum requirement of a vaguely civilised population should at last be the demand that the accused’s material is read or viewed before generating accusations and smear campaigns that lead to rape and death threats. For many ‘progressives’, and so called ‘allies’ of trans rights, this is no longer a requirement. They are more than happy to join in the witch-burning of a woman based on a media outlet that openly admits they don’t even bother to read or view what they’re critiquing. In so doing, they encourage and facilitate outlets like Pink News, with no journalistic standards or integrity – the tabloids that undermine a civilised democracy from its very core, eroding the most basic ideas of decency and accountability."
Penis News strikes again!
Sophia Banks on Twitter - "Let me explain something as a trans woman about this billboard in Vancouver. This message is calling me (a trans woman) a dangerous predator who should be denied access to women’s spaces. It encourages male violence against us. It encourages child abuse"
That's a lot to read into "I <3 JK Rowling". Liberals keep complaining about dog whistling, but if you keep hearing dog whistles, you must be the dog
Q&A: Why I bought an "I Love J.K. Rowling" billboard in Vancouver - "a lot of people who are feeling that way are basing what they've heard other people saying about what J.K. Rowling has said, rather than her actual words. So if you were to read her essay about why she got into the sex and gender debate, she specifically and clearly states that trans people deserve protection, and that she's not suggesting that they are predatory people. She's suggesting that men — as a sex class — can take advantage of self-identification laws, and that is the crux of the issue. It's not trans people, it's the people that will take advantage of self-identification laws... I just feel like we're at a point in our culture where things are so polarized, and the transgender activists who are speaking about this issue are so loud and angry that people are afraid to say anything. That's why I'm involved in this as I would like to start nuanced conversations that are sorely lacking on this issue... There have been allegations of female prisoners — who are arguably the most marginalized people in this country — being sexually assaulted by biological males who are housed with them in female prisons. We've seen Vancouver rape relief lose city grant funding because they don't admit biological males into their rape shelter. We've seen another rape shelter in Vancouver with an, I'm assuming a trans-identified person posting sexual pictures of themselves talking about the other women and the rape shelter. And we've seen the way that women's sports have been impacted by self identification as well. So yes, I do think there is a real threat... It wasn't until we posted photos of it on Twitter that the outrage started. Within 24 hours there, I have received thousands of threatening and hateful messages on Facebook and Twitter. (Another person involved with the billboard) was actually doxxed and people have been calling his home and business and his home addresses is out there. It has been pretty scary to be honest... The people who aren't aware of what's going on in the gender wars will see (the billboard) and to them, it's completely innocuous. And when they see the misogynistic backlash, and the level of vitriol that results from this small group of activists that makes them start questioning things, and wanting to know why this is such a toxic debate, and it starts the types of conversations that are quite valuable."
Statement from J.K. Rowling regarding the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award - "Since I first joined the public debate on gender identity and women’s rights, I’ve been overwhelmed by the thousands of private emails of support I’ve received from people affected by these issues, both within and without the trans community, many of whom feel vulnerable and afraid because of the toxicity surrounding this discussion.Clinicians, academics, therapists, teachers, social workers, and staff at prisons and women’s refuges have also contacted me. These professionals, some at the very top of their organisations, have expressed serious concerns about the impact of gender identity theory on vulnerable adolescents and on women’s rights, and of the dismantling of safeguarding norms which protect the most vulnerable women. None of them hate trans people. On the contrary, many work with and are personally deeply sympathetic towards trans individuals.Kerry Kennedy, President of Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, recently felt it necessary to publish a statement denouncing my views on RFKHR’s website. The statement incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people. As a longstanding donor to LGBT charities and a supporter of trans people’s right to live free of persecution, I absolutely refute the accusation that I hate trans people or wish them ill, or that standing up for the rights of women is wrong, discriminatory, or incites harm or violence to the trans community.Like the vast majority of the people who’ve written to me, I feel nothing but sympathy towards those with gender dysphoria, and agree with the clinicians and therapists who’ve got in touch who want to see a proper exploration of the factors that lead to it. They – along with a growing number of other experts and whistleblowers – are critical of the ‘affirmative’ model being widely adopted, and are also concerned about the huge rise in the numbers of girls wanting to transition.To quote the newly-formed Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), a group of 100 international clinicians:
The history of medicine has many examples in which the well-meaning pursuit of short-term relief of symptoms has led to devastating long-term results… The “gender affirmative” model commits young people to lifelong medical treatment…, dismisses the question of whether psychological therapy might help to relieve or resolve gender dysphoria and provides interventions without an adequate examination.
I’ve been particularly struck by the stories of brave detransitioned young women who’ve risked the opprobrium of activists by speaking up about a movement they say has harmed them. After hearing personally from some of these women, and from such a wide range of professionals, I’ve been forced to the unhappy conclusion that an ethical and medical scandal is brewing. I believe the time is coming when those organisations and individuals who have uncritically embraced fashionable dogma, and demonised those urging caution, will have to answer for the harm they’ve enabled. RFKHR has stated that there is no conflict between the current radical trans rights movement and the rights of women. The thousands of women who’ve got in touch with me disagree, and, like me, believe this clash of rights can only be resolved if more nuance is permitted in the debate."
‘Harry Potter’ actor: J.K. Rowling is not transphobic - "British actor Robbie Coltrane, who played the gentle half-giant, half-human Hagrid in the “Harry Potter” film series is defending writer J.K. Rowling from accusations of transphobia... Coltrane said that he doesn’t really think her remarks have been “offensive.”“I don’t know why but there’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended,” the 70-year-old told Radio Times magazine, in an interview that has been viewed by numerous British publications. “They wouldn’t have won the war, would they? That’s me talking like a grumpy old man, but you just think, ‘Oh, get over yourself. Wise up, stand up straight and carry on.’”He also added that he didn’t want to “get involved in all of that because of all the hate mail and all that s--t, which I don’t need at my time of life”."
Too bad the bigger stars turned on her
Common Sense Extremists - Posts - "Transphobes, come at me motherfuckers. JK Rowling is a threat to children, suck my entire girlcock." Sounds like projection, but okay
Helen Steel on Twitter - "Twitter is not a neutral platform. #Twitter is #sexist .
Witness this contrast: "Only females get cervical cancer" vs "Suck my dick JK Rowling!!!!"
Guess which got banned"
J.K. Rowling Book Burning Videos Are Spreading Like Wildfire Across TikTok - "This doesn't even touch on the harmful fatphobia, racism and valorization of supramacists and child abusers in her most famous work."
Looks like liberals have gone all in in their allegations of witchcraft
Now they want to burn JK Rowling’s books - "she is frequently bombarded with rape threats and death threats. ‘Suck my cock!’, sexist pigs tweet at her. They invite her to die in a fire. They send her explicit pornography. This week #RIPJKRowling trended on Twitter. These people are insane. When your ‘activism’ involves tirelessly insulting and sexually harassing a woman for having a thought that is different to your own, you need to have a serious word with yourself... The blinkered philistinism of the anti-Rowling mob is confirmed in the fact that none of them has read her new Strike novel. It isn’t even published yet. But when did censorious mobs ever stop to read or observe or properly think about the book or painting or movie that they want to boycott or burn? Mobs are not known for reasoned engagement. Nor do they have any respect for the right of writers and artists to depict whatever they want. So just as National Socialists sought to erase degenerate art, and Mary Whitehouse types wanted to ban rude plays, so the anti-Rowling mob fantasises about setting fire to a novel they haven’t read because it’s by a woman they irrationally loathe... Why is the hatred for Rowling so heated, so unstable? It strikes me that there are two reasons. First, the very uncancellable nature of Rowling infuriates these mobs who are so used to extracting mea culpas from every public figure they set upon. Rowling is too big, too established, too global to be easily slain by the PC speechpolice. Her refusal to abandon her beliefs and opinions on sex and gender drives these self-styled moral guardians insane because it reminds them of the limitations to their censorious power... Rowling’s rejection of the idea that people can self-identify as whatever sex they like represents a challenge to the entire church of identitarianism... In bristling against the mad idea that people with penises can literally be women, Rowling implicitly calls into question the hyper-individualism and extreme self-regard of identity politics and helps to reintroduce into the discussion those small matters of collective reason and objective reality – in this case, the fact that society, and biology, have an understanding of sex and gender that you cannot just write off as ‘transphobia’."
"Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people"
Strange how hateful, vicious and vile the "tolerant", "loving" and "open minded" people are
J.K. Rowling Book Burning Videos Are Spreading Like Wildfire Across TikTok
Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen
I remember when it was Christian fundamentalists burning her books, and liberals who were mocking them
Facebook - "Apparently videos of people burning JK Rowling's books are popular on tiktok right now.
But y'all didn't burn your R Kelly cds after he was accused of raping girls.
Or your Bill Cosby shows after he was accused of druging and raping multiple women.
Or your That 70s Show dvds after Danny Masterson was charged with raping multiple women.
Or half your movie collection when Harvey Weinstein was accused by multiple women.
Or your futbol jersey after Cristiano Ronaldo paid an accuser off.
Or your porn videos after James Deen and Ron Jeremy were both accused by multiple women.
Men can literally go out there and rape dozens of people and y'all don't give a FUCK, but a woman dare say biological sex is real and you're burning her books (and threatening to kill her).
Nothing less than a modern day witch hunt.
Fortunately now, there are more of us and we won't go down easy."
Book shop bans JK Rowling novels from shelves to create 'safe space' for trans community
Clear proof that 'safe spaces' are safe from dissenting views
Children's Harry Potter book festival event is cancelled over JK Rowling transphobia row - "J. K. Rowling has again fallen victim to ‘cancel culture’ after a literary festival in New Zealand scrapped plans for a Harry Potter-themed event over her comments on gender issues. Peter Biggs, chairman of the Wairarapa book festival, reportedly decided to drop the annual children’s quiz that is usually held on the boy wizard following consultations with the LGBTQ community... Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, which is due to open its first branch in New Zealand next week, said: ‘J. K. Rowling is one of Britain’s most influential and respectable contemporary writers. ‘This is why the decision by the Wairarapa book festival to cancel a children’s Harry Potter quiz because of comments J. K. Rowling made during an important debate on women’s only spaces is chilling. ‘If the creator of our most successful export since James Bond can be declared persona non grata, anyone can.’"
Stanford Staff Condemns ‘Transphobic’ J.K. Rowling In Light Of Dorm’s Harry Potter-Themed Floor - "A Stanford University staffer issued a statement condemning popular fiction author J.K. Rowling after learning that one of the school’s dormitories was Harry Potter-themed. A common concept on college campuses is “themed” dormitory floors, wherein residential assistants make name tags and billboards based on popular movies, TV shows, or pop culture references. One dormitory at Stanford chose the theme, “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter,” which prompted a staff member to issue a statement condemning the series’s author... “We want to acknowledge that J.K. Rowling has made many transphobic, anti-semitic, and racist statements over the past year,” the staffer said. “Her beliefs do not reflect our values as a house, and we want to make it clear that we do not tolerate comments like hers in this dorm. Our theme … is intended to make this space safe and fun for you this quarter.” It is unclear what comments Rowling made that were deemed “racist” or “anti-semitic.”"
If you're guilty of one liberal sin, you're deemed guilty of them all
Rowling Pens Essay Defending Herself Against ‘Trans’ Blowback: ‘I Refuse To Bow Down’ - "Among the reasons driving her concern are that she funds MS research, an illness that she says affects women differently than men, that she is a defender of “free speech,” and that she is troubled over the “huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning.” The author writes about the idea that young people might suffer under a potential “social contagion” as it pertains to transitioning, quoting Lisa Littman, a physician. She adds that trans individuals used to move through a “rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy, and staged transformation,” but that many of those safeguards seem to be in the process of being removed in the current rush. Regarding that idea, Rowling notes: “I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria.” Rowling then writes that when she was young, she felt “mentally sexless,” and wonders, given the vivid descriptions of anxiety, depression, and other issues experienced by trans people, if she herself might have “been persuaded” to transition if she lived as a youth in modern society...
The author then directly bucks the progressive orthodoxy, stating:
'It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves. But, as many women have said before me, “woman” is not a costume. “Woman” is not an idea in a man’s head. “Woman” is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive.'
Rowling, of course, notes that she wants transgender individuals to be protected, and that she thinks “the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined.” Referencing the recent tweet that got her in trouble (for which she received much alleged abuse), Rowling says bluntly that it would be much easier to simply follow the trends, tweet the right messages, and “bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow,” but that’s not for her. Rowling says: “I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class…” In the end, the author states that she simply wants women to be able to “speak up” about these issues without getting heaps of abusive and threatening blowback."
The Dishonest and Misogynistic Hate Campaign Against J.K. Rowling - "When J. K. Rowling first outed herself as a gender-critical feminist, my first thought was: If Rowling can be cancelled, anyone can be cancelled. Not only is she one of the best known and best loved authors in the world (the writer of children’s books, for goodness sake), she also has a personal history that ought to make her un-cancellable. This was the mum who escaped an abusive marriage and lived off benefits, writing the first Harry Potter book in an Edinburgh café while rocking her sleeping baby in a pram. This was the woman who became a billionaire, but then lost her billionaire status by giving away so much money to charity. If anyone was safe, Rowling should have been safe... “never trust a man in a dress” is very much not the moral of the book, and the Creed character is never described as a transvestite, or transgender, or trans-anything, in fact. He never even wears a dress, but instead disguises himself in a feminine coat and wig when approaching one of his victims. Although fetishistic cross-dressing is sometimes a behaviour exhibited by sexually-motivated murderers—the most famous being Ed Gein and Jerry Brudos, who provided inspiration for the Buffalo Bill character in Silence of the Lambs—Rowling doesn’t portray her murderer as trans, and so doesn’t employ the “trans woman as serial killer” trope, as she has been accused of doing. In fact, the only trans character to appear in the Cormoran Strike series (of which Troubled Blood is the latest instalment) is a highly sympathetic and vulnerable young trans woman who plays a small role in The Silk Worm. Not that the facts matter to those stepping up the hate campaign against Rowling, of course. Activists in this area are not known for their restraint. To the already relentless abuse directed at Rowling has been added the #RIPJKRowling hashtag, which is now trending on Twitter. “Does anyone need firewood this winter! JK’s new book is perfect to burn next to a Romantic fire,” tweeted the Irish musical duo Jedward. Other social-media users obliged by posting footage of themselves doing just that... a male Labour shadow minister wrote that Rowling had “used” her experiences of violence to “undermine the rights of others.” Rowling also suffered the public humiliation of a front-page story in the Sun, in which her ex-husband reported that he was “not sorry” for assaulting her. She then faced a further intensification of the online abuse that had begun after those first forbidden “likes” on Twitter and has not let up since. The feminist philosopher Rebecca Reilly Cooper has collected screenshots of some of the many aggressive tweets that either include Rowling’s name or were sent directly to her. Clear themes emerge, “shut the fuck up,” being one. The words “bitch,” “whore,” “hag,” and (ah yes) “Karen” start to give the game away. Many Twitter users seem to be convinced that Rowling’s gender-critical politics can be ascribed to her “stinky” or “dry pussy,” and suggest that she needs to be “fucking punched”. Others write messages like “suck my fat cock and choke on it” or (with no hint of self-awareness) “JK Rowling can suck my big transgender cock.” Have you spotted the pattern yet? Through all of this, Rowling has also attracted a lot of support—in fact, probably more support than criticism (though you wouldn’t always know that from headlines that suggest otherwise)... She is now a heroine in the eyes of many gender critical people—including gender-critical trans people—and some have said so very publicly. “I heart JK Rowling” advertising posters have been popping up all over the world, paid for by gender-critical feminists. They have been met with official resistance. One was removed from a railway station in Edinburgh by state-owned Network Rail, despite there being zero public complaints. And last week, another in Vancouver was defaced and then taken down. These posters said nothing except “I heart JK Rowling”: No other slogan, no link to a website, nothing. That’s how toxic her name has become, according to some."
