I think the author here misrepresented the JK Rowling thing quite a bit. The idea is not to "scour" her texts for hidden anti-trans sentiment. The idea is that Rowling makes money off of selling her books and has built an empire, and the resultant power is now used by her as a platform to propagate anti-trans speech. Quite a different issue and also quite novel (pun unintended). Death of the Author is a concurrently operating, but in my opinion separate, question.
I think that society has become so complicated that people have become detached with reality and started inventing useless solutions to rather minor problems. Now, if you so much as touch something that is problematic, you automatically become problematic, and the solution for this is just to complain about it as loudly as possible.
Correct or not, JK Rowling's thoughts about femininity are likely shared by the vast majority of the world. Exaggerating her beliefs by calling her transphobic and radical isn't going to progress trans rights in any way.
Note that this attitude is entirely monopolized by "woke culture." It happens in other spaces as well (e.g. encouragement to name and shame a company you had a bad interviewing experience with).
I simply do not understand the furor over the JK Rowling affair. I read what she wrote, and I did not see "hate", or "transphobia", and many other very extreme adjectives. When she seeked to clarify her statements she was accused of "doubling down". Fans of Life of Brian will remember the Roman amphitheatre scene when Stan wants to become Loretta:
I thought and still think it's funny, "Where's the fetus going to gestate Stan, are you going to keep it in a box?" But now I'm afraid to laugh or reference it in public. The movie is probably going to end up on a list, and its fans made to feel bad for being horrible people. I think I can both laugh at Stan, who's not real, and accept and support misgendered people, who are.
But why is it considered anti-trans speech, when a villain is "a male serial killer known to have worn a dress"?
Surely, in many other books the serial killer is a straight male. Why are their authors not accused of anti-heterosexual speech? Are we promoting some sort of discrimination against straight males? Are they the only ones allowed to be evil?
If you're really curious about this matter, film analysis YouTuber Lindsay Ellis has an excellent video on the history of depictions of trans people (primarily in film) and puts Rowling's work into that context, tracing it back to Psycho and beyond.
Basically, there's a long and sordid history of the Cross Dressing Predator as a literary and film trope and this has been used against trans people heavily.
So it's not what she did, it's what other people did before her. Now, finally, we can call someone to task for it. Ah, this has so many parallels now with so many other things going on.
> But why is it considered anti-trans speech, when a villain is "a male serial killer known to have worn a dress"?
Mostly the cultural effects of the Hays code and decades of queer-coding villains as evil or sexually depraved in fiction and popular culture. A fictional male serial killer tends not to simply "have worn a dress," that specific detail, like all details in fiction, is intended to communicate something to the reader/viewer, and most of the time it's to present the character's non-heteronormative behavior as a symptom of their moral evil.
Technically speaking there's nothing wrong with depicting a Black person eating a watermelon and fried chicken but there's context behind the tendency to interpret it other than purely literal terms.
>Except the details of being white or male - those are not intended to communicate anything?
Not typically. Being white and male (and straight, and Christian) is considered so normative in Western society and culture that it's basically a blank slate, "default human." How often is a white character's race specifically mentioned, unless it's to form a contrast with some other non-white character's race?
It almost never happens, because white male characters are often just there. Every deviation from that norm has to be specifically mentioned and pointed out, and unless the author is part of the group or culture being portrayed, is usually done through stereotype.
I think this comment exemplifies the core of the issue. It’s not that many people actually have a problem with society holding famous people to account for their misdeeds. It’s that they simply don’t think they are misdeeds. They don’t find a problem with the things JK says and they feel like Woody Allen is probably a nice guy unfairly being attacked. Which like actually fine, that’s a legitimate position you can take which might actually be right, but it doesn’t really say anything about it being ok or not for the larger culture to sanction people
but it doesn’t really say anything about it being ok or not for the larger culture to sanction people
You can sanction Rowling, don't buy her books. You can criticize Rowling, you can publish books hating on Rowling, those are all great ways in a free society to show opposition. The problem is that activists want to destroy Rowling, erase her from public space, and deny others the right to buy and read her books. Rowling has enough power and stature where she isn't really threatened, but smaller authors are being "disappeared".
I mean I’m actually in a camp that this stuff can and has gone too far sometimes, but implicitly this is still almost always an argument about how bad the things said really are, because actually I’m pretty sure most people are fine with some ideas and people being “canceled”. They just think these particular ideas go too far. But the problem is that people then turn around and try to argue that really they’re just arguing for the free flow of ideas or some such
I think you're mostly right, but there are actually people who believe in the free flow of ideas. The liberals and libertarians believed it before the current spat of censorship started, and many people who just disagree with the censors this time are flocking to their banners in an alliance of convenience.
That is to say, I think there are actual true believers when it comes to free speech.
Edit: I just reread your comment and there's a "most" I missed the first time. Leaving this comment up, but safe to say I agree.
The other problem with this claim is that even if you do believe that J K Rowling's personal views are transphobic (and honestly, they probably are), she really doesn't seem to have been using her power to push them. The woke establishment that's been going after her, on the other hand, absolutely used their power to push transphobia in ways that actually mattered, including into UK law.
I mean we wouldn’t even be talking about this if she wasn’t you know a famous well respected author. I haven’t read her latest book, but my understanding is it has a character who is pretty close to the terf idea of what a trans person is which would seem like it’s using her writing to perpetuate her view
The concept that it is perpetuating her view seems very questionable to me.
Is it influenced by her view? Of course.
Does it perpetuate it? Surely that depends on how readers react to it. We are free to interpret works as we like.
My own view on this is complex.
The problems JK Rowling outlines are clearly real, but of course so are the problems of trans people in gaining acceptance in society. Both TERFs and Trans people are groups that face gendered violence.
If the mere writing of a character that holds a view ‘perpetuates it’, then don’t we need to burn all books written before the 1990s?
Being against the existence of trans people and criticizing the claims or actions of people that happen to be trans are two different things.
But the online trans community is extremely aggressive against any criticism, trying to slander whoever they consider their opponents and performing character assassinations.
Anti-trans speech may be perfectly fine. They're not saints and they're not perfect, why should they be beyond critique?
> On June 6, 2020, Rowling retweeted an op-ed piece that discussed “people who menstruate,” apparently taking issue with the fact that the story did not use the word women. “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?
I'm still not convinced this is anti-trans. I mean it's reality so for people to want to cancel her over this is ridiculous (which sums up the woke-ideology pretty much).
This pulled quote, in isolation, might not be, sure. The question about this particular complaint is whether its meant exclusively or inclusively. Does a woman who has stopped menstruating stop being a woman? Is a woman who has never menstruated and never will, in fact, not a woman? What if these people feel in their person like women? How one reads Rowling's comment in light of these questions informs one's sense of her intent.
If you read Rowling's comment inclusively then it's a clumsy, ambiguous complaint about shifting language norms that is harmless and warrants a clarification. If you read the comment exclusively -- which I think is fair given Rowling's other statements over the years -- then I find it hard to read in a charitable light. It is, I admit, entirely possible that Rowling doesn't hold trans-exclusionary views and has merely, accidentally chosen ambiguous wording over the years and is pig-headed enough to be unwilling to clarify but I do find this _unlikely_ considering that she's a famously clear author who is willing to clarify (and extend) her body of work for years after the fact.
> Does a woman who has stopped menstruating stop being a woman?
Equally does a man who wears women's clothes make them a woman? I'm happy for them to call themselves a trans-woman, and "she", but we have to have language that separates the sexes at the biological level.
> What if these people feel in their person like women?
The word "feel" in this context is extremely woolly. This is how we have gotten ourselves into this ridiculous situation where no-one can agree on anything to do with gender / sexes.
> If you read Rowling's comment inclusively then it's a clumsy, ambiguous complaint about shifting language norms that is harmless and warrants a clarification. If you read the comment exclusively -- which I think is fair given Rowling's other statements over the years -- then I find it hard to read in a charitable light. It is, I admit, entirely possible that Rowling doesn't hold trans-exclusionary views and has merely, accidentally chosen ambiguous wording over the years and is pig-headed enough to be unwilling to clarify but I do find this _unlikely_ considering that she's a famously clear author who is willing to clarify (and extend) her body of work for years after the fact.
So you might be partly right on this - but given her contribution to literacy and the arts and woman's rights we know she is a thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate person. Given all her positive contributions to society the hostile reaction from the trans-side is telling really.
>Woman most commonly refers to gender. Very few people know the sex of most people they meet.
If one would do a general survey, most ordinary people would consider sex and gender the same thing. Most of them would also say that they know the sex of somebody they see for the first time. Which is statistically true, because people whose sex and gender don't match are truly a small minority.
>The point is women isn't a synonym for people who menstruate even if you ignore trans people.
For the pedantic I guess she should have said: women who are in their fertile age without health problems or taking medications which prevent menstruation.
>What sort of answer to your original question did you expect?
Guessing right most of the time isn't knowing. And people not knowing how sex and gender differ doesn't change the fact that they rely on gender markers lots and chromosomes never.
People who menstruate is much shorter than your suggestion.
>Guessing right most of the time isn't knowing. And people not knowing how sex and gender differ doesn't change the fact that they rely on gender markers lots and chromosomes never.
"gender markers" and "chromosomes" are the same thing for 99% of the population. So guessing really is knowing.
> People who menstruate is much shorter than your suggestion.
Women is even shorter and everybody in the whole world understands it.
The tl;dr of it is that she's commented about biological femininity as a real experience distinct from trans-females. That offends the ideological extreme of the trans movement which has labelled her a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist).
Weird. The trans people I know and speak to have no problem with the acknowledgement of biological femininity. Actually they mostly factor that fact of world into part of what defines their identity..
Excluding someone from a domestic violence shelter isn't just a way of thinking about something. Imprisoning people more likely to be raped with people more likely to rape them isn't just a way of thinking about something.
Cis and trans are opposites by definition. They existed long before they were applied to gender.
> Excluding someone from a domestic violence shelter isn't just a way of thinking about something. Imprisoning people more likely to be raped with people more likely to rape them isn't just a way of thinking about something.
True, but the relevance is not obvious because these aren’t problems caused by so called TERFs.
It’s also not true that censoring JK Rowling is required as part of solving them, either.
> Cis and trans are opposites by definition. They existed long before they were applied to gender.
Does that mean that you think that cisgender women are not in the same category as transgender women?
TE people advocate policies that create those outcomes. I've seen none support creation of separate but equal facilities for trans people. It's too costly for such a small minority they say.
Rowling hasn't been censored.
Cis women and trans women are in the category of women.
Trans exclusionary people advocate excluding trans women from women's shelters. This leads to trans women being excluded from women's shelters.
Most trans exclusionary people say trans women are men. Some say they should be treated like cis men in all respects including imprisonment. Others accept keeping them apart from cis women means putting them with cis men in practice.
It shouldn't surprise you politically active people have opinions about tax and how it's spent. I've seen it myself. Even people who say they support separate but equal facilities start hedging when asked about funding.
Cis women and trans women being categories of women isn't just a trans perspective. And don't play games. You asked a question. I answered.
> The idea is that Rowling makes money off of selling her books and has built an empire, and the resultant power is now used by her as a platform to propagate anti-trans speech. Quite a different issue and also quite novel
People building fame in art and using that fame to advocate for causes, including the cause of preserving the marginalization of particular marginalized communities, is not novel.
This take sounds like Rowling had written Harry Potter to fulfill her dream of one day being famous and crushing transsexuals beneath her expensive heels. "When I am a billionaire author," she cackled, "I will show them all!"
Famous people are still people, and they still have opinions. Opinions you might not even agree with. Are we to exclude the famous from speaking their opinions? I would love to see how that would work, both legally and as kind of a sci-fi premise. Actors interviewed on late night shows offering only the blandest of reactions to what is said. No longer are musicians able to fund charities with their wealth, since donations are speech, as per the Supreme Court. Court battles are waged over how wealthy must be or how many Google hits are found for their name before someone is too famous to have opinions.
It lacks laser-guns and aliens, but as a very dry, Burgess-like exploration of government policy as a near-future sci-fi, it might be workable.
> This take sounds like Rowling had written Harry Potter to fulfill her dream of one day being famous and crushing transsexuals beneath her expensive heels.
First, my response was denying that the description was of a phenomenon which was in any way novel as the upthread poster claimed, it wasn’t my description.
Second, I don’t read it that way: it was simply describing that, Rowling achieved fame and then, having achieved it, used it to sell certain ideas. There was no suggestion that it was planned in advance as a strategy, or even that that use was especially prominent among her uses of the fame.
Yeah, I used to think the JK Rowling thing was just another example of Twitter activists blowing a celebrity's words out of proportion, then I watched the Contrapoints video on JK Rowling. Now I'm convinced she's not only a transphobe, but is intentionally manipulating a public which is largely ignorant of trans issues into thinking she's the victim. As you can see from plenty of the other comments, it's working.
This kind of response is precisely the thing that irks me to no end and it's something nobody will ever discuss. They'll just shun you or hurl a slogan at you as if you said something utterly ridiculous.
Let's broaden our time horizons a bit to something longer than the time it takes to read a tweet. When did you start to stand up for "trans" and oppose "anti-trans"? I'm asking a serious question, if only rhetorically. When did this become the obvious thing to do, the right thing to do, a matter of fact, and beyond discussion? Was there ever a discussion? Because all I can remember is that one day we were calling this gender dysphoria, a mental disorder, and the next day, a bunch of aggressive campus demonstrators were making demands and hurling accusations and trying to silence and bully people into going along. Then, all of a sudden, a new generation of college graduates started entering the workplace repeating these stock slogans verbatim. What are they, agents of the Komsomol?
What horrifies me is how easily people go along without question. It is truly horrifying. It horrifies me that they don't even seem to realize that that's what they're doing, floating downstream, wherever the current takes them. Milgram was crude child's play by comparison!
So when you condemn JK Rowling for disagreeing as if she had committed some crime against humanity, in light of how things actually transpired, in light of how viciously this program has been and is being implemented, I really makes me wonder.
I've toured a few wastewater treatment plants (it's a hobby) on separate coasts of the US and it seems pretty standard to have some kind of fertilizer system in place, alongside on-site methane energy generation. And that end product water is drinkable, though it skeeves people out to do so.
