#Is JK Rowling a terf?

[darkfrog24]

A few weeks ago, I read Pamela Paul’s defense of JK Rowling in the New York Times. According to Paul, Rowling only said a few things about trans men and trans women, and they were very mild. With all this hate on J.K. Rowling for being anti-trans, I figured I should probably find out what she actually did. I found this article in Glamour.

JKR wrote a joking post in which she implies another post that says “people who menstruate” should have just said “women.”

JKR posted, “I don’t hate trans ppl and would march with them, but I think sex is real and has consequences.”

So far so not that bad. This is similar to what Paul said JKR said. But the Glamour article goes on to cite a post on her own website where we see Rowling’s views straight from the source.

Rowling says she��d been researching trans issues for a book, including taking notes on Twitter posts, and she accidentally hit “like” instead of just taking a screenshot on one of them. She doesn’t say what this Tweet said but does say that she was harassed after that, so I’m guessing it was transphobic.

Again on Twitter, she followed a then-dying lesbian who’d been (JKR’s words) a “a great believer in the importance of biological sex” and supporter of lesbian women’s right not to date “trans women with penises.”

She says TERFs shouldn’t be considered trans-exclusionary because “they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.”

She cites stats on people detransitioning out of regret that strike me as probably inaccurate. I heard elsewhere that most people who detransition do it because of prejudice from the outside, not belief that their transition was wrong.

She cites parents claiming that whole peer groups of girls decide to transition at once. That strikes me as questionable.

She seems to think that girl-presenting young people transition to male roles because they want to “escape their womanhood” and the sexism it entails.

She acknowledges that transition is the right choice for many people, acknowledges the increased risks of violence they face, and says she knows and likes at least one trans woman and thinks of her as a woman.

She says that women and girls are in danger from policies that allow “any man who says he’s a woman” to enter bathrooms. It’s my understanding that men don’t pretend to be trans women to enter bathrooms to harass women.

Okay, so in this essay, she seems sincerely afraid for other women, but the thing she’s afraid of—predators pretending to be trans women—isn’t real, and it would be relatively easy for her to learn this. What I’m drawing from this piece is that 1) Rowling doesn’t think she’s anti-trans. 2) She is anti-trans access to women’s spaces. 3) She has a number of misconceptions about trans people, many of them harmful. 4) She claims to support trans people in terms of protection from violence.

Back to Glamour.

Rowling deleted a Tweet praising Stephen King right after King made a pro-trans post and blocked King.

Rowling claimed there were fake Tweets on Twitter attributed to her.

Rowling said gender affirming care was like conversion therapy and that doctors were pushing it on teens.

Rowling wrote a fictional book about a man who disguises himself as a woman to kill women, which matches her fear of men pretending to be trans women.

The article cites Tweets in which people send death threats and say nasty things to Rowling.

Here’s my take-away: Rowling’s not the cartoonish proud anti-trans Mel-Gibson-style ranter I was expecting. She’s someone who’s anti-trans but doesn’t think she is. Not everything she says about women and trans people is wrong, to the point where I can understand why she doesn’t understand how any of it is wrong. She has indeed been harassed and hounded online. This is consistent with posts I’ve seen claiming that Rowling went through a process similar to the one that turns teenaged male netgoers into incels and fascists. They say something somewhat offensive out of ignorance, then they’re met with hostility, and then they allow themselves to be driven away from facts and toward self-justification. The difference is that those boys are children who can be forgiven for not knowing better and Rowling is an adult.

If Rowling comes back from this, it’ll be by putting her money where her mouth is: She claims to feel solidarity with trans women because they’re at risk of domestic violence like she was. JKR could follow up on that by supporting legislation, advocacy groups, and other organizations that protect trans people from violence. However, even according to Paul, JKR has argued that trans women should not stay in the same domestic violence shelters as cis women.

In the United States in the 20th century, many whites voted for laws that said “separate but equal.” I can’t think of an example of even one who went to bat and demanded that Blacks be given equal facilities and resources as the law seemed to demand.

This does not address the concerns about Rowling and antisemitism.

[jerrycummblr]

It's really simple. If you're born with a vagina and you naturally have elevated testosterone levels, you're a man. If you have a vagina and you take testosterone, you're a woman. But also if you have a vagina, you'll never be a man. But also if you have higher testosterone then you were never a woman. Woman never yes man a vagina testosterone no was an elevated. Vagina man.

[football-in-tuxedos]

What's distressing, but also important to understand, about JK Rowling hitting the "Denying trans people were targeted in the Holocaust" point is that it's kind of the last stop before she just goes full alt-right weirdo.

Joanne is denying the Holocaust (if a group was targeted, denying they were targeted is Holocaust denial) and that's going to lead to pushback from historians and experts. But Joanne is too deep in to believe what anyone who disagrees with her says, so she's just going to dismiss what those historians and experts tell her. And once she's disbelieving them about that one thing, well it's just a tiny step to start disbelieving them about other things.

This isn't by accident either, transphobic circles are swarming with far right agitators, ready to use hatred of trans people as an in to recruit people into their causes. They have handbooks for this sort of thing and they are, unfortunately, good at it. I suspect Joanne will be spouting coded versions of Great Replacement stuff by the end of the summer.

This is not a plea to try and pull Joanne out. She's too deep in, and even if she wasn't, she's already demonstrated an inability to examine her own prejudices, an unwillingness to hear criticism and a weakness to flattery. She is perfect recruitment bait for people who know what they're doing, and my impression is she's surrounded herself with people like that.

No, this is to understand two things: First is to use her as an example, to understand how a well meaning liberal can chase their own prejudices down a very dark rabbit hole. We are none of us immune to propaganda and even if we can't change what's happened to her, we can at least use it to protect ourselves.

And second is to understand that one of the main reasons you can't pull Joanne out of the transphobic pipeline is cause she is the pipeline now. She is the transphobic banner bearer now, she is funneling money and attention to these groups, she is their most famous celebrity and she is helping recruit people. Being able to show people how far she's gone, how deep into the right wing rabbit hole she's going, is important to help other people who still think she just "Had some concerns" know where her path leads.

[akajustmerry]

anyway in light of hbo's silly new series announcement today, i am going to leave these links here

a video breakdown of jk rowling's connections and support for fascist organisers and groups (and yes she uses money from her works to support them)

article breaking down antisemitism in harry potter works

up-to-date video on the history of jk rowling's anti-trans discrimination + her new bullshit podcast

British trans support organisations to support

20 Trans POC-Led, Grassroots Organizations To Support

pro-trans donation list

[animentality]

[oarfishing]

Alright, I'm sick of seeing TERFisms on my dash, so here's a handy list of TERF dogwhistles and talking points to think about before you reblog a post.

I've seen a few of these before, but it doesn't hurt to make more. Especially when we're seeing a lot of radfem rhetoric popping up in LGBT spaces from people who might not know better.

SCREENNAMES: these are terms that commonly appear in radfem usernames across the web

rad or radical

fem or femme

vulva, clit, uterus, womb, ovary, vagina, etc.

febfem

anything along the lines of "angry woman"

xx or chromosomes

wombyn, wimmin, womyn, etc.

LGB

feminist

BIOS: things that show up in radfem bios

♀ or ⚢

febfem

female separatist

female, human female, adult human female

xx

something along the lines of "the scary feminist you were warned about"; being an angry woman, being sick of being silenced, being an evil woman, being an angry lesbian

detrans (NOTE: detrans people are absolutely not always transphobic)

dysphoric female

males/men do not interact

LGB✂️

misandrist

feminist (NOTE: again, very few feminists are actually terfs, but this is commonly in terf bios alongside some of these other terms)

TERMS: terms that radfems use in their circles

TIM - trans-identified male, a way of saying transfems, trans women, and other trans people

TIF - trans-identified female, same as above but the other way around, less commonly seen

DSD - disorder of sexual development, a way to avoid saying intersex and to categorize intersex people as "still male or female" (you might see "males with DSD" or "females with DSD" for example)

females or males instead of women and men

alternatively, women and males to dehumanize men

"peaking" or "peaked" - referring to becoming radicalized as a radfem or TERF

womyn, wombyn, wimmin, wo**n, and any other spelling that takes "man" out of the term woman

mentally ill men/women

sex-based oppression

gender critical

"TIRF" - trans-inclusive radical feminist (don't be fooled by the name, they're very much not)

TRA - trans rights activist, derogatory

sex-based rights

female separatism/"women's land"

WBW - womyn-born womyn

autistic girls/children

troon - (ridiculous) slur for trans people

RHETORIC: general ideological themes in radfem rhetoric

men are inherently more violent than women

women don't or rarely rape men

(woman on woman rape is ignored by almost all radfems)

being nonbinary is a way to "stop being" your assigned sex while still acting as your birth sex

lesbians are not attracted to men/penises and can never have sex with men/penises (otherwise, you're bisexual)

men can and will never be lesbians

there is no such thing as a bi lesbian, only lesbians and bisexuals. labels are rigid and sex-based

all of the world's suffering is driven by men

women would be better off separate

an all-female society is utopia

sex is binary, and intersex people are "glitches" or "still male or female but DisorderedTM"

men should expect to be feared by women

female/female relationships are safer and more pure than straight or gay male relationships

men and women are more different than similar

intersex people should not be allowed in sports

intersex people and trans men are never in men's sports

terrible world events wouldn't have happened if women were in charge

men are stupid and aggressive

being a man is not a positive thing

men's problems are lesser than women's

penises are disgusting and vaginas and vulvas are beautiful

trans women are performing at being girls

trans men see themselves as above lesbians

attraction is sex-based

porn is rape

porn is inherently violent

watching porn makes you predisposed to inflicting abuse

BDSM is inherently violent and misogynistic

transitioning children (whether socially or medically) are being abused

"bitch" and "cunt" are slurs against women

only gay men can say faggot and only lesbian women can say dyke

When you see a few or more of these together, RUN! It's a terf.

[nyancrimew]

im sorry but this is extremely hilarious

[shadow-------pact]

Well never make it to the gwibley room with all this women. I could eat peanutbutter this peanut buttery KIB all day.

[spaceman---29]

corn…males…moids… All gokuing.

[mysharona1987]

Great take on Reddit about the Imane Khelif situation.

She might even have a chromosome disorder.

It’s possible she just pissed off Russia and doesn’t look feminine enough for certain people.

[elierlick]

(cackles in transgender) her profits went down 74%

[thecutestlittlebunbunfairy]

IN THE WAKE OF THE PASSING OF BELOVED DAME MAGGIE SMITH...

There is going to be a STRONG impulse to guy buy HP merch...and I am here, a trans person and once a fan of the series and knowing how much Maggie Smith means to everyone

PLEASE. DO. NOT. BUY. MERCH

Trans people have been begging y'all to stop buying merch and giving that woman more money for a while now and I am making another plea.

The money you spend on merch goes directly to supporting anti-trans measures in the UK, already a repressive government for Trans-People

I am BEGGING you. Do not buy merch.

Draw something. Watch the movies. Post your support and love for Maggie but PLEASE

DO. NOT. BUY. HP. MERCH.

[ispambigots]

[animentality]

[autisticexpression2]

This bullshit around Imane Khelif has to be the biggest mass delusion I've seen from the right, and that's really saying something.

Transvestigators are nothing new. People have been calling Michelle Obama a man for years. But it has mostly been a niche thing not even taken seriously by most republicans.

Qanon is unhinged but mostly deals with that which is unknown to the average person, leaving room for speculation, however wild.

But Imane Khelif's gender is a straightforward issue. She is objectively a cis woman. This isn't at all debatable by any sane standard. There is absolutely no reason to believe otherwise. She is a cis woman from a conservative Muslim country where any expression of queerness is illegal. There is no way a transgender or otherwise queer person would be selected to represent Algeria. There are even photographs of her as a little girl if you're still not convinced.

But the right has arbitrarily decided that she's a man based on absolutely nothing, and suddenly, the question of whether or not this WOMAN has a penis, an objective true or false question, has become a culture war issue. So now it doesn't matter what PROOF you bring up. Saying this woman is a woman is woke now, so they have to disagree on principle against all evidence and logic. People who have been screaming about precise biological definitions of gender for years now have decided someone's gender based on vibes alone because irony is fucking dead.

And it's not just a niche view held by the more unhinged online sections of the right. Celebrities like Elon Musk, JK Rowling, and Logan Paul are tweeting it. Politicians are tweeting it. Babylon Bee is publishing "satirical" pieces about how abusing women is now an Olympic sport.

We are living in the absolute stupidest timeline.

[ladycharles]

Occasionally JK Rowling says or does something so offensive to my sensibilities that I must speak. Sadly, today is one of those days.

This post, and the "male" she is referring to is a cis woman boxer from Algeria. There is an unconfirmed report that she might have an intersex condition in which one's chromosomes are XY. She may not even have this condition, but even if she does, it does not mean anything but that she has an unusual DNA quirk. We do not call Tom Cruise a woman for having an extra X chromosome, for example (nor would I expect Rowling to accept it if he decided to compete as a woman in the Olympics).

Now Rowling, upon being pointed out that she essentially pulled the twitter equivalent of Austin Powers punching that old lady because she "looks rather mannish", moves the goalpost. She claims, against evidence, that she an unfair advantage, going so far as to imply that simply by competing with a rare condition this woman has cheated.

This might seem bizarre coming from a self professed FEMINIST. It is the contention of anti trans "feminists" like Rowling that womanhood is being erased and destroyed by "trans ideology"; Yet here a cis woman achieves a olympic victory and they accuse her of being a man, of cheating. They erase her achievement, they erase her womanhood.

The subtext is racist and misogynistic - a strong Algerian woman with features that do not reflect Western beauty standards is being denied the very womanhood that TERFs claim to protect. She has lost to women before, she has no clear advantage... Yet by virtue of her looks and a possible rare genetic condition, she is now a "man" and a fraud.

This doesn't surprise me, and I suspect that anyone who has had to deal with TERFs will agree. But in case anyone is shocked here's my take:

TERFism has always been a reactionary movement. While it draws from second and third wave feminists and has an ideology on paper, any space with TERFs will tend to feature mad crusades accusing cis women of being trans on looks, attacks against sex workers that are harsher than those on the men who make that industry dangerous, few towards actual men, and a sense of outrage that trumps any real ideology.

It is feminism much like how "National Socialism" was socialist. And like the Nazis did with socialism, it uses the idea of feminism to legitimize attacks on perceived enemies while preserving the status quo. For TERFs that's traditional gender roles, which they have twisted into something that protects women rather than subjugates them. (This is not to say TERFs are Nazis, but it is a decent comparison because fascism is the ultimate reactionary ideology; full of symbolism and mythology yet devoid of any substance but machismo and hate.)

In a nuanced, good faith society, we might discuss trans women in sports using science to determine whether there are unfair advantages, and consult stakeholders and experts in sport and biology. We might study if chromosomes do impart an advantage, and weigh that against the other myriad genetic advantages like long reach or faster muscle gain to determine if there is any problem with current regulations. We might not do these things too, considering we have gone the entire history of sport without a single women's league collapsing from secret "male" invasion.

In Rowling's world, we first attack the winning woman as a "man in disguise" and rail against her without evidence. We have people replying "just look at HIM, he is clearly male". We have people writing violent revenge fantasies in which the Algerian woman gets beaten by a man or a gang of women to "teach her a lesson"... and JK does not once jump in to say any of it is inappropriate or hurtful to women who happen to have androgynous features, like some less fanatic people sharing the story have done.

When this is how their "ideology" reacts to an apparently "male looking" woman winning, we have to ask whether the liberation of women was ever the goal.

And the one thing that makes it all make sense, IMO, is that it's the lashing out that's the point. These people seem to enjoy calling a cis woman a man in much the same way they enjoy calling a trans woman a man. They enjoy the feeling of power as together they act cruel towards a woman who had the audacity to beat a white European. They seem to relish the ability to present themselves as feminists in one breath while brutally harrassing and demeaning women. Unlike ordinary bigots, they constantly bring up their crusade, as if they're growing dependent on the thrill. The cruelty, as they say, seems to be the point.

The danger of these ideologies is really becoming obvious ahead of the US election. Years of social media bubbles and astroturfing have made people like Rowling convinced that they are a silent majority, ironic for people who can't shut up.

Times like this I think are important reminders of where this can really lead. They may spin about being gender critical or concerned about women when the pressure is on; This is what these people do when they think they can get away with it.

This is the dark heart of their movement, beating loud enough to hear.