Im sure there’s more that can be done. I might be totally wrong but I suspect there’s a point where we have to accept it’s ok to not be comfortable with certain aspects of society. I think acknowledgement and acceptance is key rather than forcing everybody to like everything about anything that can possibly exist.
Transgender rights discussion
- Thread starter crappycraperson
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Im sure there’s more that can be done. I might be totally wrong but I suspect there’s a point where we have to accept it’s ok to not be comfortable with certain aspects of society. I think acknowledgement and acceptance is key rather than forcing everybody to like everything about anything that can possibly exist.
Have you read what Rowling said? What did you think?
the essay in the link? No I’ve not read it but will do!
not read the book either yet. Apparently it’s shit so not sure it’ll be enjoyable just to find out if she’s a raving transphobe
I've never read any of her books. Cannot comment. My sister used to like them.the essay in the link? No I’ve not read it but will do!
not read the book either yet. Apparently it’s shit so not sure it’ll be enjoyable just to find out if she’s a raving transphobe
EDIT - IIRC her take is that the first Potter book is horrendously written but she gradually got better from there and that thinking she's an appalling writer in a world where Dan Brown exists is not fair.
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Nah, no one deserves death threats for something that they’ve said. It’s just aggressive loonies trying to justify their behavior with a right cause.
It’s so weird that an author whose biggest work was basically a huge anti-discrimination manifest (although she went over the top with those post-factum homoerotic reveals) turned out to be so blatantly transphobic.
There's the goblin bankers, the Irish boy who blows things up and the just bafflingly named sole Chinese character.
If she did set out to be hugely anti-discriminatory she was really bad at it.
TERFs are feminists, right? And I don’t think I’ve ever met a feminist who wasn’t left wing! The Graham Linehan gang seems to have more than its fair share of lesbians, who I’m sure would consider themselves as generally anti-homophobia and in favour of LGBT rights.
I’m sure you know much more about this than me but as a casual observer of the endless bickering on twitter it definitely looks as though there’s much more in-fighting than in the historical progressive movements that @Mockney references. I could be wrong, though. This stuff interests me but politics and the human rights movement is miles outside my sphere of expertise!
I don't tend to call people TERF's because of that issue. I don't see the point in deciding whether or not I think they are a radical feminist.
I don't know any left wing feminists or LGBT advocates who don't support trans rights. Either personally or that I've heard of.
Name names! I'm ready to start my list of traitors!
You haven’t read it, right?
Goblins, elves, muggles etc. are all addressed to in a big metaphor regarding discrimination, as the magic society is horrendously outdated and unjust to minorities. More so, all those minorities are humanized one after another as Harry grows – first the muggle-born (never really in question though), then the elves, then the goblins (closer to the end) etc. She hasn’t really addressed homosexuality, which is why she went all-in after the fact
I’m not saying that she did it flawlessly, but that was clearly the intent behind her work.
Isn’t that the point though? I’m not sure even J.K. Rowling herself thinks that she wants to deny trans people their rights. It’s just that she has a different opinion on what giving them rights might look like, as compared to the opinions of the assorted twitter profiles shitting on her this past year or two. A lot of the vitriol is between people who are basically on the same side, which is where this differs from progressive movements from previous decades.
I think I managed two pages when I was 9, as my older sister demanded it. I'm just trying to blag, like lots of people in this thread are regarding what Rowling actually said.You haven’t read it, right?
Goblins, elves, muggles etc. are all addressed to in a big metaphor regarding discrimination, as the magic society is horrendously outdated and unjust to minorities. More so, all those minorities are humanized one after another as Harry grows – first the muggle-born (never really in question though), then the elves, then the goblins (closer to the end) etc. She hasn’t really addressed homosexuality, which is why she went all-in after the fact
I’m not saying that she did it flawlessly, but that was clearly the intent behind her work.
Ooh, I forgot the slavery stuff! The house elf things?
Yeah but who though?
Yeah, those ones. It’s actually quite nicely written – they’re simply a part of the magic entourage in the first book and suddenly in the second one the outsider, Hermione, points out that they’re fecking slaves (and Harry is quite reluctant to help her out at first as they’re so useful and seemingly happy with their role).
Anyway, the question for me is her intent – she clearly misses out on a lot of things, but the original idea of this book and the original conflict is “racist” dark wizards and the progressive muggle-friendly wizards. So I’d expect, perhaps, ignorant opinions from her, but not a well-informed and aggressive discrimination – and it’s clearly the latter at this point.
Well how about J.K. Rowling, for starters?!
It’s all so complicated. It used to be so much easier of just being left right or somewhere in between.
But she is fighting a war that she probably can’t win and making herself look worse all the time.
But she is fighting a war that she probably can’t win and making herself look worse all the time.
Yeah, that's the distinction I was trying to highlight earlier between the media's portrayal of her as an out of touch celeb saying the wrong thing by accident and the reality that is she is deeply versed in what she's saying.
The hard left J K Rowling? You're not gonna expect me to humour this. Just admit you were talking out your arse. It's a thing you do, it's fine. We know. Sometimes you pull it off, sometimes not.
are you tripping? trans people fear for their lives everyday. Please stop making BS statements like this under the guise of being constructive.
Quoting myself. I wish I could have a 2 line summery of the actual issues Rowling and Linehan have and why they are so seemingly determined to keep their fight going no matter the obvious harm it is doing to their public image.
How do those threats help trans people?
This is, with respect, utter fecking horseshit.
It's a cult. It sucks people in. It swears it is the only future for women's rights and the moment you believe that you are at risk of falling away completely in to the world where you are fighting a war that no one else understands outside of the Gender Critical community and so they are your only trusted friends.
Public image doesn't matter right now because time will ultimately prove you to be a hero of women's rights.
Well if you’re willing to go to war on my use of the adjective “hard” then I’m more than happy to concede defeat. You couldn’t have picked a better thread for “much lefter than thou” posturing
You could literally not make terrible statements like the one I just pointed out.
Look, either I stress 'hard' or you start pretending to believe Lib Dem supporting Guardian journalists are 'left wing'. I think I made the right call for both of us.Well if you’re willing to go to war on my use of the adjective “hard” then I’m more than happy to concede defeat. You couldn’t have picked a better thread for “much lefter than thou” posturing
Pogue’s been moving more right-wing for a while so I’m not surprised he thinks Lib Dems are hard lefties.
At least he answered my questions. The rest just have just said 'actually no I haven't read it' and bolted.
This one? I don’t have a slightest clue what’s wrong with it. Rowling is a worryingly popular transphobe that keeps spreading her dangerous messages via twitter. People that send her death threats are aggressive loonies that don’t care one bit about trans people and are happy to be able to make threats and abuse someone without any consequences.
Nice to see you around again Mockers, you’ve been missed.
It’s equally unsurprising that Lib Dem voters are now being portrayed as basically fascist by anyone to the left of them. Which brings me back to the point I was making, that the human rights campaigns of the past were being fought exclusively against people who believed in a legitimately regressive, highly conservative status quo.
Which obviously isn’t the case any more, no matter how far left the Overton window has shuffled in the last 30 or 40 years.
I can’t be sure because I was too young to actually go through it, but aren’t all culture wars viewed like that by the victors? Far more straight forward than they actually were.
Again, I’d say there are no historical examples because the people living in the times that normalised those things, well... normalised them!...you live with it. It becomes what is and the world doesn’t magically end. Just as it won’t end if trans people use their preferred bathrooms. There were plenty of people during those struggles however, who insisted that implementing them would lead to the destruction of the fabric of society...
In fact, the complete opposite it true. More young people voted for Thatcher in the 80s than for any subsequent Conservative government (42% of 18-24 year olds in 1983, compared to 33% Labour - https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-october-1974) and in fact 97 & 01 aside, the the youth vote for Con & Lab have been relatively even up until 2017 and 2019, which showed young people leaning far more towards the liberal/left end of the spectrum in greater numbers than at any time ever... the divide between left and right is becoming increasingly polarised around age
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...r-than-class-now-determines-how-britain-votes
This is all without factoring in the fact that we will have been living under a Conservative government for 14 years by the next election, and one becoming increasingly authoritarian at that, and youth are inherently rebellious.
It seems a bizarre shout that trans rights (or A.N.other left bickering point) is going to be the thing that makes a whole 2 generations who can’t afford housing in a burning world living under an austere Conservative government suddenly flip Right and reverse the trend wholesale... there are some very vocal alt-right style figures trying to bring the youth over, the Shapiros and the like, but they are hardly representative.
I could of course be wrong, and there’s a whole generation of new Nazis coming up behind the zoomers, but so far, they aren’t being represented in the data.
And tbf the whole “they were so mean I changed my entire social and economical outlook” is also a very well worn straw trope of those resisting change by framing the argument around civility rather than merit (not saying this is you of course) and it’s usually just an excuse for people to act how they wanted to anyway..
And what if Hitler had a Twitter account ?
Checkmate ggs, debate over. Better luck next time.
Yeah, figured I could be wrong about this whole new generation of tweenie neo-Nazis thing as soon as I typed it. Sometimes feels that way if you spend much time online but reassuring to see data trump intuition!
Is Hitler still directly responsible for the death of millions of people or is he simply a glorified Piers Morgan in this hypothetical scenario?
There’s definitely radicalisation going on. Especially around YouTube anti-feminist discourse. And of course all that stuff is worrying. But I don’t think it’s cut through enough just yet. Because eventually they get older and do actually want to have girls like them (plus realising the economic reality for young people is awful in a conservative landscape) Something to keep an eye on for sure, but at the moment the far more pressing issue is old people being radicalised online. Primarily by Facebook.
So much so! Your parents are probably slipping in to Qanon as we speak, after looking further in to a #savethechildren post.
Well just discovered this thread the same way you sometimes stumble over a dumpster fire on your way home at 3am.
Some of the hyperbole around this subject is hilarious to see and well, most of it is regurgitated nonsense someone, somewhere read on twitter or instagram.
Which is ironic as a) I've been taking part in this debate for a few years now on Twitter and b) today I got rid of my Twitter because these perpetual and circular arguments are nothing more than sophisticated chronophage/time eaters.
While everyone dissects and discusses the most ridiculous idiosyncrasies and minor fouls or perceived slights, the people doing damage are walking out the back of the store with the proverbial TV, whilst the security guards argue which hand to hold the key in to lock the front door.
But you know, I'm not special, who doesn't enjoy a debate where no one ever changes their mind regardless or what is presented
Some of the hyperbole around this subject is hilarious to see and well, most of it is regurgitated nonsense someone, somewhere read on twitter or instagram.
Which is ironic as a) I've been taking part in this debate for a few years now on Twitter and b) today I got rid of my Twitter because these perpetual and circular arguments are nothing more than sophisticated chronophage/time eaters.
While everyone dissects and discusses the most ridiculous idiosyncrasies and minor fouls or perceived slights, the people doing damage are walking out the back of the store with the proverbial TV, whilst the security guards argue which hand to hold the key in to lock the front door.
But you know, I'm not special, who doesn't enjoy a debate where no one ever changes their mind regardless or what is presented
The deaths of millions would get him banned or at very least he wouldn't get a blue tick, so I'll go for glorified Piers Morgan.
Poor Susanna
Hitler needed to be removed from power by the correct political authorities by whatever means necessary. This misses the point.
death threats by the general public on social media are wrong as a matter of principle.
That was a really long winded way of saying absolutely nothing. You've got to at least tell give us examples of where the thread's going wrong. Not just 'it's all of it, all bad, I condemn myself even for taking part'.