Yes, it's a victim act when you portray yourself as being made "the enemy" and that you're disregarded simply because people disagree with you. You're doing it again here, you can't help yourself: " Become toxic to anyone not in alignment with their exact views". Plenty of people in this thread have defended Rowling, only you and one other person have been called trolls. It's not simple disagreements, it's you.
Transgender rights discussion
- Thread starter crappycraperson
- Start date
Yes, it's a victim act when you portray yourself as being made "the enemy" and that you're disregarded simply because people disagree with you. You're doing it again here, you can't help yourself: " Become toxic to anyone not in alignment with their exact views". Plenty of people in this thread have defended Rowling, only you and one other person have been called trolls. It's not simple disagreements, it's you.
Unlike your statement suggesting that those criticising Rowling are doing so out of misogyny. That was done in very good faith.
People have tried their best reasoning with you. I guess it’s time to accept that some people can’t be reasoned with. At least that what I’m doing now.
My responses in bold, thank you.
OK, it's me. I am being told I am trolling because of one post where I observed that women speaking up usually results in gatekeeping and aggression. It wasn't absolving J.K Rowling or anything. It wasn't calling anyone a misogynist.
If you are a misogynist then I would expect people to react this way, that it was a little too close to home.
I don't think I am the enemy, people are speaking to me as if I am. Therein lies the difference. I am on the side of transgender people. Yet, if you look at the responses, you'd think I wasn't.
It's typical TERF tactics to say that they're pro trans people when they very obviously aren't.
Again, the big factor here is likelihood. No one is disputing that it could happen. Anything can happen but if someone is going to speak about risk it absolutely 100% has to include a measure of likelihood for it to be relevant.
Every person who makes this argument fails to provide evidence of likelihood. I can speculate as to why but the most probable reason is that they don't have sufficient evidence to support their belief that it is high risk, such as documented cases of it occurring. I've no doubt that it has or will happen but the truth is that some predatory man dressing up as a woman to access female only spaces and cause havoc is so unlikely that society doesn't even need to mitigate against it.
It's typical individuals on the internet tactics, to gatekeep who can support a certain group. I get it, you're trying to look good.
What are you talking about, are you denying that some terfs pretend that they're pro trans people when they're actually not? All strains of bigotry have this. Racists will say they're not racists, for example.
As a man, it is not my place to tell women in a society that a risk facing them is something we don't need to mitigate against because I, as a man, say that it is low. I'll let women who use those spaces debate that one.
You're levying that charge at me when you know zero about me.
No I didn't. I made a general observation and you couldn't cope. Unless you're a terf pretending to be pro trans people then it doesn't apply to you, but your reaction is very telling.
It's a fair and true observation to make, but it's not an accurate observation of this thread. Which is why, to most it appears to be an attempt at shitstirring rather than an invitation to any kind of serious discussion. When I actually engaged, you came back with "I can see you're the little guard dog of this thread, which is cute", which again doesn't really suggest you had any intention of debating anything.
It's not about gender, it's about risk management principles. To effectively assess the risk we need historical data so that the likelihood of it occurring can be properly assessed. As it stands we have not been provided with this evidence or we have a very small number of occurrences. This means that any faithful application of risk management principles would say that it's low risk.
Furthermore, your argument that it's not your place to comment of the level of risk because you're a man is deflection and is, indeed, trolling.
I wasn’t talking about Rowling or this thread specifically, more trans related stuff in general. It’s not something I’ve ever googled tbh, most of my education on the subject comes from the caf.
Oh sorry my post wasn't a reply to you.
More just a general rant about how it's easy to find out about Rowling transphobia
Ah I see, no worries
Yep, but going by the numbers in that Twitter post, it seems trans people are targeted to some extent.
The murder stats are showing spikes within certain demographics (in the US).
Last edited:
That's fair enough in general terms, and fair enough also for your long reply to @Rudie a bit above. (Without wanting to speak for @Rudie; I am in no position for that.) What I don't get, though, is why you brought this up in the first place. I don't see how it is relevant to this specific discussion. As others have pointed out, Rowling isn't being attacked by men without arguments; people are explaining in a lot of detail why she's wrong and what she's saying is hurtful, and a lot of those people are women.
That's why you coming out of nowhere with a statement on men shouting down women is taken very badly. Since you did not provide any context or further points, your comment had to be interpreted on its own in the context of this particular thread. And then I see only one possible interpretation: you're saying that Rowling isn't wrong here, but just being dismissed by men in their stereotypical male condescending way. You say you didn't mean that, but again, without context, that's what it appeared to say. Obviously, that's very hurtful to the people targeted by Rowling, which is why...
...you get the ensuing hostility. It's only natural that, once you have been identified as acting in bad faith, people approach you negatively. But maybe that will diminish now with your longer clarifications.
To get out of the meta-discussion a bit again, what I was wondering about:
That sounds great, but about your follow-up comments (I'm picking them from across your post here):
In my view, the issue is that you can't have both. You can't both let trans people use the restroom of their gender identity, and have safeguards in place regarding concerns that certain men might exploit the situation. Except if I'm missing something, you can do the latter only if you make people somehow prove their gender identity at restrooms, which of course is absurd, and would be very distressing and hurtful for many people.
Maybe there is some less invasive option, but then you get to @Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær's point about risk assessment. Yes, Fritzl was a horrible human being, but he is not typical of people. How common is this really? Or how devious are men going to be to be able to commit acts of violence in a public place? (Which a restroom is; anyone can enter at any time.) As long as no-one is showing evidence that what you're concerned about is relatively likely to occur, I'd suggest that any solution to the issue would do a lot more harm than it would prevent.
In general, I think this might be a case of being biased by the news. News media focus on things that are newsworthy, and stories like 'certain types of violence are relatively rare and reducing in society' don't get headlines. But instances of violence do, and so they seem more prevalent than they really are. That's not a good basis for policy though. (By which I don't mean to say that all is well across society. It's about the question of proportionality in this particular instance.)
It's difficult to compare for many reasons, not least because the US can seem like 50 odd countries, but their central government policy appears more accepting of trans rights than the UK. I think there is also much more media support in the States for these issues. There might also be more pushback but our main liberal paper the Guardian UK is a persistent purveyor of transphobia.
Certainly the trans exclusionary feminist agenda is not as politically mainstream as it is in the UK.
It might be a different story in terms of the threat of physical, sexual violence but I haven't seen any comparative data.
I think I'm getting old because I have no idea who that is. Apparently she wrote a series of books about some wizard.
She was misrepresenting changes to the law around gender recognition certs in Scotland earlier in the week too. At that point I made the wise decision to mute her name on twitter to avoid what I'm sure was a whole load of horseshit.
I never really cared much about her, just know she is famous, but read this thread with curiosity last year. Never had been to her twitter though. It's insane. It's an obsession for her, and given how long this has gone, it seems she is clearly willing to go down with the ship.
As these matters evolve, her opinion will likely become more entrenched, we've seen this movie with other celebrities.
I don't care for Harry Potter, but it's the thing that she supposedly does well and the thing that makes her mark in history. I think she risks that legacy. Unlike famous artists of the past, her indiscretions might not be brushed under the carpet. Might end up being cancelled in life by younger generations.
I already see today's young adults mocking millenials for their love of Harry Potter online. And Rowling has previously been criticised for various aspects of the actual books like the heavy use of stereotypes or her approach to revealing details about her characters (i.e. talking about characters being gay in interviews while avoiding representing it in the actual material). Add in the ever-increasing criticism of their author's transphobia and I suspect the Harry Potter books are going to be perceived as aging very badly as time goes on.
Last edited:
Personally always thought Harry Potter was trash.
Yep.
It's for kids, most stuff for kids is bad when you're an adult.
I wonder what the underlying thing is for her. I mean it's ok to have an opinion on something and to not be agreed with but she seems to really be pushing this like it really means a lot to her. It's one of those "the lady does protest too much" kind of things now.
I imagine she's strongly identifies as a feminist and sees this as a way for men to decide for women yet again.
She is already a billionaire, I doubt she even cares if Harry Potter books completely bomb out which is very unlikely for next 20 years at a minimum which you would know if you had any idea of the depth of its fandom amongst young adults.
Oh absolutely. Me and my wife both grew up reading them and enjoyed them, but won't engage with it now Rowling has shown her colours. She was given a Harry Potter studio tour ticket as a gift, she had it for a while then decided to just bin it as she didn't want to give any more money to Rowling.
I didn’t enjoy the Harry Potter books tbf when I read them the other summer. The last one however was a sack of bollocks.
It’s Twitter. You can’t immerse yourself online, constantly being attacked, over a period of several years without going a little crazy. Especially when you feel your cause is righteous (woman’s rights) She’s heading down the Graham Linehan path.
They deserve it. They’re children’s books. I always found it weird as feck that grown adults seemed to get emotionally invested in them. They’re perfectly fine for kids. My daughter loves them. But she’s 11.
Don't think this is even close.
No they are not. They start like so, but they become increasingly grim as Harry Potter himself ages. We see murder, anguish, depression, bullying, emotional and physical torture... none of these are children book concepts.
Unless you deem the entire fantasy genre to be for kids just because it's all surreal.
That’s almost certainly her internal justification. Although there’s obviously more to it than that. She will also be hurt by her art being criticised/attacked. And she must be naturally quite contrary to dig in this deep.
I’ve read them. They’re kids books. Kids books can have dark themes. Children can handle that stuff at a fairly young age. And yes, most of the fantasy genre is also aimed at kids. Not all of it though, obviously.
Last edited: