Surely you should be able to criticise anyone you want. Like if you think Rowling's views are terrible you should be able to say so. If you think her opponents are a danger to women you should be allowed to say so. The same with any other topic.
Yes. I don't think anything Mahmood says is even that controversial, however the headline is the issue. It's misleading and implies she agrees with gender-critical views.
She isn't saying that. She is saying Rowling should be allowed to express them without being arrested or threatened with violence.
Which is of course true.
This is just the Telegraph shit-stirring the culture-war pot again.
She says she agrees that biological sex is immutable, which I thought was the standard model of thinking about the issue, i.e. that biological sex is immutable, but gender arbitrary and assignable. But the culture has shifted further now, so pro-trans people, at least online, seem to consider that people can actually change biological sex.
I think it’s a misrepresentation to say that pro-trans people think that people can change biological sex. Some perhaps do, but I think the main issue pro-trans people have, isn’t with the statement itself, but rather what comes after it.
E.g. “I think biological sex is immutable, so hormones should not be prescribed to trans identified people.”
The phrase seems to have become an almost dog whistle amongst anti-trans campaigners, who are using it as the justification for their anti-trans views.
Trans people, for the most part, know and recognise their biological sex. They quite literally have to, in order to transition.
> Some perhaps do, but I think the main issue pro-trans people have, isn’t with the statement itself, but rather what comes after it. E.g. “I think biological sex is immutable, so hormones should not be prescribed to trans identified people.”
I actually think this is the core of the problem with the discussion of trans issues, what it comes down to is that online trans communities have already decided a goal for what they want to occur, and the arguments that happen are really downstream of attaining that goal.
**So the Cass review is exactly like your statement above, what is being opposed is not really the review itself or whatever it says, it is the potential consequences of the review as seen from those communities**. So talking points get made up or misrepresented, like the claim about 98% of research being thrown out, and those talking points get spread around without challenge, because the point is not to engage seriously with the factual content of the review, it is to destroy its credibility, because it is seen as a barrier to the desired outcome. What that actually means is that real criticisms become impossible to parse, because they're hidden in a flood of transparent misinformation.
I don't actually have fixed ideas on this, "sex is immutable" is an incomplete statement which could mean a variety of different things, the ability to change part way or all the way into the opposite sex, is going to be partly technological, and partly related to basic science about which processes are reversible, and which irreversible, which we probably do not understand yet.
What I really dislike is how closed and didactic the conversation is, especially when it involves this kind of motivated approach towards topics which are scientific and depend on evidence to discover. Especially when that extends into scientific spaces and we lose the only mechanism we have to really understand.
>what it comes down to is that online trans communities have already decided a goal for what they want to occur, and the arguments that happen are really downstream of attaining that goal.
Another way of viewing this is people have made a choice about what they want to do with their bodies, a pretty basic principle of bodily autonomy. Those people are understandably frustrated when other people that are not them are choosing to undermine that right and dictate to them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.
Yes, that’s also at the core of it, I think there has been a shift in culture around that recently.
I see the argument, and sympathise, maybe that’s how things will change, but it goes against the existence of the prescription and licensing system for medications which exists in most developed countries. We could sell all drugs over the counter for instance.
Beyond that general question, you also have the issue that the debate is largely about children, where there is an additional duty of care. And also that ultimately we’re deciding what to fund in a public healthcare system which is built around decisions about which are the most effective choices on where to spend money.
> I think there has been a shift in culture around that recently.
For the worse in my opinion, people want their opinions about what other people do with their bodies enshrined in law so that it is illegal for said people to do said thing.
Most recent example would be the law banning all future generations from ever legally buying cigarettes. I don't smoke and never will but I don't think banning it is a good idea, although my opinion is clearly in the minority. It's disappointing we want to make so many unnecessary things illegal, banning anything and everything and removing peoples choice.
> It goes against the existence of the prescription and licensing system for medications which exists in most developed countries. We could sell all drugs over the counter for instance.
Well yes and it's effectiveness is questionable, many of these countries have huge black markets for said drugs which have a raft of negative effects.
It's now a popular opinion that the war on drugs was a pretty big failure but people want to double down on the policies that caused it, baffling imo.
> Beyond that general question, you also have the issue that the debate is largely about children, where there is an additional duty of care.
I don't think that is true though, yes the CASS review was focussed on children but they've immediately announced another one for adults and also one of the recommendations was to bring 18 to 25 year olds into similar rules for the children. So the debate is expanding well beyond just children.
The outcome of the review was a complete ban for all under 18s, I'm not trans and much older but I can tell you I would have been more than capable of consenting to a treatment such as puberty blockers at 17, it's kind of insulting to suggest that I wouldn't be. I don't think the outcomes from the review have got the balance right.
> And also that ultimately we’re deciding what to fund in a public healthcare system which is built around decisions about which are the most effective choices on where to spend money.
Well sure except the rules also ban private providers from doing the same thing, it's not really about money, indeed transgender healthcare is a drop in the ocean and doesn't move the needle at all in terms of government spending. It's all politics and people imposing their views on others.
Given the outcome of the current system has lead to 2 million brits regularly turning to drug dealers as well as a raft of other consequences (eg drug gangs etc.) I do not think the UK's current implementation of it's prescription and licensing system is fit for purpose no.
People already import things like testosterone illegally (a class C drug) and now there is a defacto ban, this will increase imo which is not a desireable outcome.
You’ve fallen for the straw man/woman/person. Sex and immutability is not what is being discussed. Consider Humza Yousef. When he explained why the proposed misogyny law in Scotland would cover transgender and cisgender women he did not make any claims about biology. Instead he pointed out that the threats made against a woman walking down a street is “because the perception of that person as a woman”.
Looking at the link it seems to me that “sex is immutable” was being read as you supporting discrimination against trans people. This is fair because this is what most people who use that phrase are meaning too. So there is dishonesty here but only in the first part (it is reasonable to assume support for discrimination because it is so often used that way). How to respond to the dishonesty of the first part is where people differ.
The situation is somewhat similar to discussions in the past about gay people. There were many offering reasons why some people are gay. The point of this however was not to have a debate about the science of human sexuality. Rather it was to justify various discriminatory laws that targeted gay people. It’s interesting to note that today we don’t see so much about why some people are gay despite it still being something that is not completely understood. I think this is because the debate about how to treat gay people has been resolved (equally I’m glad to say) and that’s what it was really about all along.
> Looking at the link it seems to me that “sex is immutable” was being read as you supporting discrimination against trans people. This is fair because this is what most people who use that phrase are meaning too.
I seem to recall somebody mentioning a strawman somewhere a little higher in the thread??
The pro-trans people as far as I know generally consider biological sex to be something that is both ill defined and ultimately mostly meaningless in practice.
The common definition of biological sex is chromosomes. But you right now could have the opposite chromosomes of what you expect and there be the opposite "biological sex". What does that mean in practice? Not a lot. Even if you were to discover you were the opposite biological sex you'd keep living your normal life. But the mantra of "biological sex" is commonly used to say that trans people are their birth sex so they should be treated like their birth sex. I've seen people argue, for example, that trans women that look completely like women and have had sex changes should be carted off to male prisons if someone discovers their birth certificate actually says M because they're a "biological male" and therefore should be in the "male" prison. Something that I hope we can both agree would be ludicrous.
And that's sort of the key point. Even if biological sex is immutable there's sort of implication behind it. It's rarely just "biological sex is immutable", it comes with extra implications. It's similar to crime statistics. When someone with no prompting starts loudly telling you about crime statistics of certain demographics you need to wonder why they decided to do it. Even though what they're saying could be technically true it's a bit weird that they want to go on national TV and make a big deal of saying it. And well when someone does that you know what they're actually saying. They might not explicitly say it, but if a politician goes to the papers and starts rattling off crime statistics you know exactly what they're really saying yeah?
Depends, if you are prominent enough and you criticize Joanne, you might get a letter from her lawyers forcing you to apologize on twitter for voicing your honest opinion, lest you face bankruptcy. She\`s pretty notorious for doing this.
I mean, it depends what was said, wasn't it? I remember one person having to to post an apology but that was someone who took her words out of context to make it seem like she was okay with sending porn to children.
> you might get a letter from her lawyers forcing you to apologize on twitter for voicing your honest opinion, lest you face bankruptcy.
Slandering somebody isn't something you can do no. If you want to accuse somebody of something that they've never done, then you're going to end up in court for it and for good reason.
No, it isn't. You're just twisting SLAPP because you don't like Rowling so want her to be guilty of all the things the talking points say she is. Show evidence of her using SLAPP rather than acting against slander/libel.
Her recent acts of threating action against Jewish people calling out her mockery of the claim Nazi's targeted Trans people.
Something they factually did and the denial of has seen people get in trouble in Germany for.
Yep, they think they're patronising her. I'm sure they are all incels / "furries" who can't speak to any woman at all in real life, in a patronising tone or otherwise.
I think in this context it was largely popularised by the YouTuber Contrapoints who made a few very good videos regarding JK Rowling's anti-trans views, wherein she refers to her as Joanne mostly as part of her satirical tone.
The videos are very well done. Although while I think they are persuasive, and well thought out in a way that might change some peoples minds, they are long-form videos over an hour in duration - so I doubt many who disagree with her from the onset would bother to take the time to watch them.
I agree and also feel that Rowling like anyone else should be able to speak their mind in the subject without being hounded. That goes for those who agree and those who don’t agree with her views.
> That goes for those who agree and those who don’t agree with her views.
You're fully able to do so.
What you're not able to do is to lie about, slander and harass Rowling.
The issue is that she doesn’t just speak her mind. She uses her platform to sick her army of mad dogs on anyone that disagrees with her, and she uses her wealth to fund anti-trans causes. She’s become rather explicit about it nowadays, too.
She’s a multimillionaire, near-billionaire, who uses her mass following and exceptional wealth to promote a hateful ideology (and like it or not, Rowling has gone *far* beyond questioning whether a trans woman is actually a woman) and to silence those who disagree with her, via legal threats or exposure to her lackeys.
>She uses her platform to sick her army of mad dogs on anyone that disagrees with her
Never seen her call on her followers to attack people, I have however seen her haters do that, I've seen groups on twitter and here on reddit that will ask people to mass report her profile, or to mass reply to her tweets, I'd like to see an example of her asking her followers to attack people.
Most of the time when I've seen people that hate JK, they can never actually source any of the stuff they say she's done.
So someone who has a platform isn’t allowed to voice an opinion is what you’re saying ?
You talk about her “army”, what about those that hound her, try and get people to stop buying her books, abuse her online etc etc. It’s fine for them to do it but not if it’s the other way round right ?
But of course, don’t you know that unless you agree without question with everything someone who is trans says you are anti trans, hateful and a bigot.
If a trans woman is a woman, that’s very simple and easy to answer. No they are not and no amount of mental gymnastics is going to change that.
Just because you are offended does not make her wrong, that’s what trans people seem unable to accept when anyone does not see things their way.
> should be able to speak their mind in the subject without being hounded
That hounding falls under the same principle of freedom of expression as her expressing herself does.
Sorry I’m not following ?
Just so it’s clear l agree with her. What l take issue with is people thinking they can harass and hound her. The same way l take issue with anyone who does the same to people who oppose her view.
Her views are trans woman and woman are not that same thing.
That’s literally it.
Anyone who thinks she hates trans people has more than likely never heard her speak on the subject but just watched a YouTube video from their favourite vlogger.
https://spotify.link/t6bEbDZ83Ib
Here is a podcast series by Megan phelps about this controversy.
In it she interviews jk Rowling and she interviews some of her most famous critics. In it, it becomes painfully obvious that jk Rowling is one of the most unfairly maligned people in the world right now.
This is a fantastic podcast series and really one of the only ways to get a full understanding of Rowling or gender critical feminist viewpoints in relation to trans issues. Her views are nuanced, and although I disagree with some aspects of her views, pretty reasonable. I’d wager if they were made by anyone but her people would largely agree.
Interestingly, contrapoints (who people have been posting above) was also interviewed for the pod and asked why she thought JKR was transphobic, and couldn’t provide any concrete answers other than “the subtext”. JKR even offers to sit down and speak on contrapoints show which contrapoints refuses, and then makes a long hour video giving JKR no right of response.
> Like if you think Rowling's views are terrible you should be able to say so.
It's the constant harassment of Rowling that's an issue. Yes, you can criticise somebody's views, but the constant lying, hyperbolising, threats and so on that she receives is not okay.
This is the same person who gave support to the people who protested against a school for giving lgbt lessons which went against their religion
https://labourlist.org/2019/03/shabana-mahmood-under-fire-for-comments-on-lgbt-lessons-in-schools/
Seems like a shoo-in for LGB Alliance chair.
Yet the wider "LGB drop the T" crowd will still never see [where this leads.](https://i.redd.it/ufac4sb6a09b1.jpg)
Children not being preyed on by the mentally ill?
Women having their hard fought sex based rights being respected?
The biological basis of homosexuality continuing to be recognised and protected?
Oh no that’s all trans genocide, I see.
> She goes on to argue that the parents were “focussed not on prejudice, but on process”
Don't know about everyone else but I remember that slightly differently...
This needs to be higher up.
It's not about 'protecting women', it's not about 'respecting religious beliefs', it's any excuse for transphobia or homophobia that these people can get away with.
It's just not socially acceptable to be directly homophobic anymore, so they've shifted tactics and use dog whistles and other causes that look palatable to the public.
Hey you know what would be great for our election chances? Let's drive head first into a culture war the Tories have been desperate to drag us into for years.
> That which is allowed within the law you shouldn’t be stigmatised for, or prevented from saying, and you certainly shouldn’t feel that you might lose your job for holding perfectly legal views.
I think the vast majority of people agree with this. It thankfully isn’t really a Labour/Tory dividing line.
I have a feeling that most people who say stuff like this don't realise how deep JK Rowling is into the anti-trans narrative and are basing it off headlines. Just about a month ago Rowling launched an attack on a woman who runs a rape crisis center for the crime of being trans, despite working for over a decade campaigning for womens issues on domestic violence and rape for over a decade.
Rowling also supports Posie Parker, who openly assosiates with some very unsavoury characters, including having Nazis attend her protests against trans people, and has had people attending her protests do dramatic readings of Mein Kampf to attack trans people.
Rowling attacks Mridul Wadhwa ofer her gender identity in her list attack at the start of april. This list includes Murders, Rapists, and various sex criminals alongside rugby players, UN abassadors, and activists with little to no separation.
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774749262934356448?lang=en
Rowling retweets Posie Parker (aka Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshull) occasionally and offered to support her financially during legal procedings
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1663267564443631616
The level of "off the deep end" is close to, if not equal to Graham Linehan. Reaching a point where most of the community of her written works, and the cast who starred in the films consider her "persona non grata" should be telling.
Yep, Jk Rowling isn't just 'gender critical' in her philosophy. Everyone has the right to their own view. But JK has actively harassed people just for existing and being trans.
Logically, if the argument in defence is that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, then that also applies to the people with the opposite opinion to JK.
It's not a great line if the intention is that JK should be above criticism or disagreement.
>The Labour shadow justice secretary has said she agrees with JK Rowling that “biological sex is real and is immutable”.
I'd be a bit worried about anyone that *doesn't* agree with that, if I'm honest.
It's perfectly fine to say that gender is more important than sex, obviously, and therefore what we should refer to most of the time - that's an opinion rather than a cast-in-stone fact, after all. But that doesn't mean that sex isn't real or is now mutable.
The thing is, because the protected characteristic in UK law is sex, and a person can change their legal sex, sex is not immutable in UK law.
As you say, we can argue about what the best version of the law is, but when someone says that sex is immutable the point of that is to argue that a trans person should always be considered to be their sex and laws that don't align with that such as the GRA or the EA should be repealed or amended.
And yes, you can argue that there are better ways to implement the law, most trans people would agree with you, but do you think those will ever be implemented? Particularly given the current state of discourse on the topic, what'd likely happen is Labour and the Tories compete to paint themselves as the party with the correct position on how brutal they can be to trans people and there is no world that any law produced would actually be of benefit to trans people.
>The thing is, because the protected characteristic in UK law is sex, and a person can change their legal sex, sex is not immutable in UK law.
Why does it matter if the thing is immutable or not? Religion is also a protected characteristic and people change their religions all the time.
> Sex is immutable in mammals. The legal fiction created by a GRC does not change this (and is not trying to). It wouldn’t matter if we actually passed a law claiming mammals could change sex, any more than it mattered when laws claimed the earth revolved around the sun and those pointing out it wasn’t true were persecuted. Because the law does not determine reality.
The point I made does not conflict with this. We have a system whereby people in the UK are protected from discrimination based on sex, and at the time there were also other issues where "sex" mattered in law such as who you could marry and pensions. Rather than rework the law so that it more accurately represented the position that gender rather than sex was what was being used, we ended up with a system whereby you can change your sex, but also there were a number of exceptions written in to the GRA around contexts such as sports, gender specific offences, and peerage(?) inheritance.
A lot of trans people don't think that how the law currently is is optimal, for reasons such as this all being confusing and leaving grey area for people to misrepresent the law, the notion that it is wrong that you need to go through a bureaucratic process in order to gain legal recognition that takes years, or that non-binary people don't feel they're adequately covered by the GRA. But would I support any attempt to amend the GRA or EA, given our current climate? Absolutely not, I have no faith at all in our government and public consciousness at large to treat the matter seriously and carefully.
> The point of stressing that sex it’s immutable is because some activists seemed to think shouting “trans women are women” constituted a policy, and continually sought to blur the lines on sex and gender, demanding that trans women be treated as women for any and all circumstances (sport, shelters, prisons, etc) when this was never the intended purpose of a GRC to begin with.
> Of course we have to consider how to compassionately treat those with gender dysphoria, but the starting point for any discussion of how we do this has to be reality. Not imported American slogans demanding we suspend it. That was never going to work.
The intent of the GRA was to give trans people privacy and legal recognition, while specifying that there _may_ be circumstances that trans people can still be lawfully discriminated against but they must be justified and proportionate. That position is unrecognisable, and as much as you want to decry "activists" for muddying the waters and claim that trans people should be treated compassionately, there is a disconnect between you and either your fellow GCs or your own actions.
The notion that trans people should have privacy is gone, trans people must be identifiable in society, or it's a threat to safety and/or dignity.
The notion that trans people should be treated with compassion is so dead and buried at this point that it's currently in the process of fossilisation.
You additionally decry what you view as slogans without substance, yet the endless chants of "sex is real" has both the Tories and Labour eyeing up the EA for an amendment that would carelessly invert how it was originally written, and necessitate a rewrite or repeal of the GRA. No matter how strongly you feel it was wrong to do so, the EA was written with the understanding that trans women could be treated as women, and attempting to "clarify" it by defining sex as immutable and "biological" would cause more issues than it solves.
If there is supposedly confusion about the exceptions for single sex spaces and services that mean it can be lawful to discriminate against trans people, saying it's instead meant to be about excluding trans men from women's spaces and there is no lawful access for trans women still has the glaring question of what altered or denial of service to trans men is acceptable within the law.
If you take the view that trans people and activists have been insincere and shallow in approaches to policy making, the answer to that isn't for you to turn around and be the same.
Firstly, I'm not saying it is purely the fault of GC people. There are a lot of people that are hostile to trans people, but less for philosophical reasons and more because they have personal biases against trans people or just a willingness to throw trans people under the bus for their own benefit. I would never consider someone like Piers Morgan to be any flavour of feminist, never mind GC, yet he is at the very least content with stoking conflict about trans people for the benefit of his personal brand. I don't think it's the necessarily the point, since just flinging shit about who said what and why they were wrong is a waste of time, what matters principally is legislation and public attitudes _now_.
As for the topic of trans people that are less "traditionally" (for lack of a better word) trans, I don't particularly understand them but don't think it much matters. I don't think the average person in the general population really understands what it feels like to have dysphoria but it's not required in order to go about your day to day life, often because it doesn't really affect you.
Not even just as it pertains to trans issues, I don't understand what it is to genuinely believe there is a God, what attraction to women feels like, or how someone can be in such pain that they want to seek the end of their own life. All of those you might understand on a conceptual level, but society contains a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds, and for something to be something I personally don't understand doesn't meant it's inherently wrong.
I don't understand non-binary people, the notion that your gender can be wrong is something I know personally is a thing, but the notion that you have _no_ gender or something along those lines is beyond my understanding. But I also feel I know better rather than to get mad at them for feeling as if they are being trans "wrong", and my perspective is not universal. You can point to Drummond and say that people like them are the reason that "real" trans people are getting shit on routinely, but I don't agree and also they've not really done anything wrong, their only crime is being weird and I don't feel the need to seethe that there are people out there that aren't hurting people but while they aren't hurting people they're _weird_.
I also don't believe that people like Drummond are the problem, given the zeal out there for coming down on the more typical trans people and the ever present urge to make life worse for all trans people. Hell, even the most upstanding of trans people aren't beyond reproach, I remember when Brianna Ghey got murdered and we had MPs that felt the need to make snide posts about how having effeminate interests doesn't matter and that if you're born male you're never going to be a girl/woman, as if a murdered teenager needed to be dunked on by people with more power and privilege than she'd ever have had in her life.
>Of course we have to consider how to compassionately treat those with gender dysphoria, but the starting point for any discussion of how we do this has to be reality. Not imported American slogans demanding we suspend it. That was never going to work.
And what would you consider "compassionately treat those with gender dysphoria" to be?
> Sex is immutable in mammals. The legal fiction created by a GRC does not change this (and is not trying to).
Just to pick up on this point of yours and explore it: Maybe a helpful analogy is adoption?
Biological parentage is a thing which we have rightly (or wrongly, I suppose some might argue) considered important through history. But we have another thing that says "also, if people A and B go through this legal ritual with child C, they should be treated for almost all purposes as if they *are* the biological parents of C - except where, as one example, testing for genetic disease is concerned, etc". It's not changing reality - it's just a legal fiction that's very useful. It's legal convenience, not philosophy.
There's probably a similar thing here. "Person D *is* a man/woman"? That's a tricky one that gets right into what's meant by "is", to say nothing of "man/woman". There's obviously lots of scope for respectful disagreement, and a whole range of positions that can be argued. To say nothing of a lot of uncertainty and it being unclear how you even decide.
But "person D should be treated for (almost) all intents and purposes as if they were a man/woman" is different and easier. It doesn't say anything about *is* (except insofar as "the law requires X to be treated as Y almost all the time" can reasonably be shortened colloquially to "X is Y").
It's for these reasons that I think adoption *is* a useful comparator. Adoption says you treat the adoptive parent, for almost all purposes, as the parent, and most of the time it's rude and hostile to say "you're not the real parent". But there are common sense exceptions, when the distinction must be drawn, and these are basically non-controversial.
This is where I think we should end up with trans people. We don't seem to be there at the moment, as you say, but I think it should be the goal.
What services and spaces are provided in society for genetic parents that lawfully exclude adoptive parents?
The analogy really doesn’t hold because we don’t have spaces and services in society that exclude adoptive parents or guardians. We do have womens prisons, rape crisis centres, sporting categories, dormitories, changing rooms etc that exclude males.
There are times when it is necessary for society to recognise the difference between a genetic parent and an adoptive parent. We recognise that this is not an attack on the parental identity of the adoptive parent.
There are also times when it is necessary for society to recognise the difference between a cis person and a trans person. We should recognise that this is not an attack of the gender identity of the trans person.
On the opposite side I've seen people insist on referring to trans women's breasts as "hormone induced moobs" - something that is clearly wrong and based purely on their insistence that breasts are some kind of magic organ that only a true biological female could ever had. The simple approach is to just refer people based on the specific needs of their body and I don't see why that is particularly hard. It's not like you'd refer a trans woman with breast issues to an andrologist because "oh they're a biological male" is it?
I work in the NHS and I know staff from nurses to the most senior consultants who are firmly behind "gender is more important then sex". Even the physio society has recently put out a statement that basically means that they don't want gender critical people in their profession. You'd think physios would be reasonably clear about knowing that male and female bodies and physiology are not the same but hey ho.
There's been a sort of religious uptake of dogma in the way that Christianity had a massive revival in evangelical times that swept through society for a while in NHS management. It's really strange.
The trouble with religion is that the message/liturgy remains the same, but diversity has a language treadmill and can always catch people in wrongthink as few ever keep up with it. Even the faithful will keep falling foul as the goalposts shift.
I spent years thinking "live and let live" but then the trans side decided that wasn't good enough and it became "we want what's theirs and if you disagree you are evil" in relation to women's spaces and services. If it had stayed "live and let live" then nothing remotely like what we've seen would ever have happened.
I sense that it worked for years as public bodies just gave in and a wave of policies just swept through unchallenged whilst legislating politicians also seemed to just duck and look like they were going to do what they were told, but now questions are getting asked and pushback is beginning. The threats and belligerence having worked for years has it seemed resulted in a hand that was overplayed as the contradictions in what has been demanded cannot be suppressed forever. Lunacy like "chestfeeders" is insane to the majority of people, but within the NHS went unchallenged.
Frankly the whole thing seems to stem from the toxin of self ID and this slogan that a transwoman is a woman. Would have made more sense to have legislated* for trans people as transpeople rather than insist on both a fiction and therefore a creation of a conflict that comes up when insisting that the carve outs for woman are now open. The venn diagram would have probably overlapped very closely as most people are live and let live so the carve outs only need to narrow ones, but instead activists demanded that our entire society is restructured to suit a handful of people.
*as in law or policy. I use the same term.
“Sex is real and immutable” is not a statement that most serious people, trans or ally, would disagree with. The issue is that when someone like Rowling says it, there is an unspoken implication of it - “sex is real, and is the only thing that matters. Sex is immutable, and so trans women are no different to men, and should be treated the same.”
You never see Rowling recognising the gender of anyone - you see her flying in the face of it, in fact. “Sex is real and immutable” is not some innocently correct statement, it is a declaration of her beliefs surrounding trans people.
I was going to write a reply to the above comment, but I think this pretty much sums it up. It's very common for certain people like JK Rowling to mischaracterise the gender argument as being "biological sex is either not real or doesn't matter" which doesn't seem to be a point-of-view many people actually hold.
Where has she said trans women are no different to men? Surely the point she is making is that there are certain environments where it’s import not to conflate sex and gender such as sports or prisons.
Saying females should have a protected sporting category or protected prison wing doesn’t preclude society from also offering protected sports categories or protected prison wings for trans women in sports or prisons which recognise their need to be protected from male people.
That's not just what she's saying though and trans people aren't saying this. Trans people are acutely aware of biology, arguably more so than cis people, (especially those who seem to think that it only exists in XX and XY forms), that's why a lot of them want hormones to transition.
JK Rowling is just using motte and Bailey arguments to defend her bigoted beliefs.
The answer to why somehow who has transitioned to be female would want to play in female competitions should be pretty obvious.
Issues surrounding fairness and inclusion should be decided by the organisations running those competitions. (As is already the case)
Gay people would rightfully be concerned if politicians were still going around saying "two men can't have a child, it's a biological fact."
It's obtuse to not see what's attached to this language. Like, say, associating innocent trans women with sex offenders, or trying to block them from using the most existing rape crisis centres.
> Gay people would rightfully be concerned if politicians were still going around saying "two men can't have a child, it's a biological fact."
Everyone is still saying that, including our politicians because it's a biological impossibility for two men to have a child together.
Nobody finds stating the obvious truth concerning except those who want lies to be unchallenged.
Edit: Apparently saying two men are incapable of reproduction is now a controversial comment, I honestly had no idea Reddit was*this* detached from reality.
In the context of discussions around transgender issues and rights and puberty blockers and women-only spaces, the statement "biological sex is real and is immutable" is both obviously true and *clearly a dog whistle*.
It's like if we were talking about black students underperforming in schools and discussing things like wealth disparity, how black people have fewer older relatives in higher educations, etc. and someone chirps in with "you know there are well established genetic differences between black and white people". The statement is true (skin colour being the most banal example), but it's really clear they aren't just sharing a 'fun fact' - they are trying to imply a statement they don't actually want to come out and say.
Likewise when people say "biological sex is immutable" in this context, what they are trying to imply is that transgender people are faking it.
I don't think that's correct. When people say that biological sex is immutable, they're saying that your sex doesn't change based on how you personally identify. This is the opposite of what trans rights activists believe. The famous slogan of "trans women are women" is designed to communicate that what defines someone as a woman is whether they define themselves as a woman, not whether they are biologically female. So there are clearly-identifiable opposing positions in this argument.
The argument is never really about whether transgender people are sincere in their beliefs or "faking it", the argument is more that an organism's sex isn't influenced by the sincerity of their beliefs so discussions about sex-segregated spaces, sports etc are not reliant on how sincere a person's beliefs about their gender may be.
Transgender activists often make arguments like "transgender people exist!" and "stop trying to pretend we're not real!". But this is not really relevant to any of the discussion over sex versus gender. I think that even the most vehement anti-gender person would happily concede that transgender people exist, are real, and may be completely sincere in their beliefs. The point of controversy is what rights those beliefs should entitle a person to and what to do when they clash with the rights of others.
> Likewise when people say "biological sex is immutable" in this context, what they are trying to imply is that transgender people are faking it.
It is not a useful superpower to be able to ascribe motivations for other people's statements.
I've learned from being on social media for a while that anything and everything can be a dog whistle, it just depends on who you ask, though it's funny and intetesting how only right wing people seem capable of dog whistling.
The whole point of the comment was that it's the context of the statement that makes it a dog whistle, not the statement itself.
If, for the sake of your example, the context of the statement 'evolution is a scientific fact' was one where a fictional atheist facist group was advocating for the internment of a religious group into re-education camps, then hell yes it's a dog whistle.
It's all about understanding nuance and taking time to think about what people are actually saying.
On an aside, my understanding was that evolution is a theory supported by facts. It's the model that best explains the facts, so it's factual, but it's more than a fact or a collection of facts.
'If, for the sake of your example, the context of the statement 'evolution is a scientific fact' was one where a fictional atheist facist group was advocating for the internment of a religious group into re-education camps, then hell yes it's a dog whistle.'
This is such a disingenuous argument. You're implying that when people typically say you cannot change sex that it's often being said in the context of sending trans people to camps - no one is saying that. Likewise no one is saying 'evolution is real, let's send the religious to camps'.
If I tweeted 'evolution is a fact, therefore religious people are denying reality to claim otherwise', you wouldn't (I assume) say it was a dog whistle.
As such, how is it a dog whistle to tweet 'sex is immutable, therefore trans people are denying reality to claim otherwise'?
How are the two statements any different? Or is it you'd prefer to think the worst in people suggesting the latter statement?
You're grasping at straws and putting them in my mouth. I was simply illustrating the previous comment's point about dog whistles was more nuanced than it was given credit as they require being taken in context not in isolation.
I don't necessarily disagree that it is immutable, pretty much by definition, but 'real' is a word that means different things to different people.
Sex is a concept we use to categorise biological states that aren't 100% neat and tidy.
Intersex people made this most clear, but we are even beginning to understand there are differences in brain structure that correlate strongly with sex *or* gender identity. (See https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/85/5/2034/2660626)
This suggests that the immutable characteristic could be more complicated than externally presented binary or indeterminate sex. It then becomes a question of whether these differences are part of a person's biological sex, or how we refer to these other immutable characteristics.
Do you not think that people on both sides are shouting past one another because they don't have a shared understanding here?
That is, there should be agreement that sex and gender are different.
But there doesn't seem to be. And I think that is why there are so many pointless fights.
There is a sort of talking past each other, but that dissolves and collides when we start talking about which level of identity grants access of which level of space. Space divided by chromosomal makeup? By hormone levels? By appearance? Or by internal identity? All are used by terfs at different times for different arguments - they align everything back to the chromosomes, except when they don’t. E.g. no trans women in women’s sports despite female level hormones for example, but Also using a nebulous idea of ‘social transition’ to control what kids wear in school (thus any cis girl dressing in masculine clothing is also targeted just as if they were trans).
They’ve just created a new bogeyman with forever shifting goalposts.
I think this is complex, no doubt.
But I'm not sure that it's about goalposts shifting, more that there is no agreed position by either side really.
And, of course, the people who lead the discussion are terminally online folk who don't really represent normal people who are, I think, much more willing to think about this with nuance.
> I'd be a bit worried about anyone that doesn't agree with that, if I'm honest.
Because it's become a dog-whistle for "trans people aren't real."
The statement may be true (depending on how you define "biological sex" - as biologists will tell you there are different ways and context matters), but the only reason to bring it up is as part of dismissing trans people as not really being real - in the same way that people used to around gay people (and some still do).
At the heart of the debate around trans rights is the question of "are trans people real?" - is there a subset of the population for whom there is something objective and based in biology that creates a disconnect between their assigned-at-birth sex and who they are?
The anti-trans position is "no." Trans people are a mixture of people who are delusional, perverted, have been tricked or groomed into "being trans", are being forced into "being trans" to conform to social expectations and so on (same arguments we see about gay people). Hence their horror at providing treatment for trans kids to help their transition, and their insistence that something must be done to protect children from the trans agenda. To them, telling people they can be trans and helping them do so is grooming, it is abusive and oppressive.
The problem with the "biological sex is real and immutable" meme (rarely said by biologists) is the next part, which is usually unsaid but implied; "any anything else isn't real."
The false binary of "real and immutable biological sex" and "not real and meaningless social gender" came out of 70s feminism (and that's a whole other thing we could talk about), and was largely dropped by feminism when they figured out all the problems with it. But the "gender critical" people kept it alive (as an obscure area of distinctly-British feminist academia) and in the last 8 or so years the anti-trans movement has latched onto it to support their hate.
Talking about "biological sex" - in legal and political contexts - has become a dog-whistle for arguing that trans people aren't biologically real - that they should get no support or protections, and that they should be "driven back into the closet."
> Talking about "biological sex" - in legal and political contexts - has become a dog-whistle for arguing that trans people aren't biologically real - that they should get no support or protections, and that they should be "driven back into the closet."
Nobody's saying that the people aren't real FFS. Absolutely absurd.
As for no support or protections, here's a direct quote from JK Rowling
>I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. **Trans people need and deserve protection.** Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.
>
>So I want trans women to be safe.
It *is* impossible to change your biological sex, that in no way implies that Trans people aren't real.
Imagine writing that much arguing against something nobody has even said...
I should preface by saying I think JK Rowling has become obsessed with this subject and is tiresome on twitter but hard hat on: most of her views are pretty normie, in that she believes sex is immutable and there are specific circumstances where it’s appropriate for women to have spaces that are for biological sex only.
I respect that she’s put her money where her mouth is and personally funded a rape crisis centre for women who want to have counselling provided by biological women. She’s a victim of domestic violence and this is something that’s important to her. I don’t respect her getting into spats with trans rights activists online all day and have no idea where she finds the time to do this while writing those long as fuck Strike books.
I don’t agree with a lot of what she says but I also don’t understand how people can’t see that people responding to her transphobia by sending her abuse online and saying that they want to rape and kill her is not justifiable and has just fuelled her. There’s a tendency in leftist online spaces to think it’s okay to send abuse (often misogynistic) to people you consider bigoted without realising that it’s hugely hypocritical and is ultimately going to backfire.
Also saw something last year about a campaign against the Hogwarts Legacy game, activists bullied a popular streamer out of doing a charity stream of it where he was gonna donate all proceeds to 🏳️⚧️ charities.
Because the act of playing the game (which iirc had a 🏳️⚧️ character in or the option to make one) would be 'promoting genocide' or some other extreme reason.
This guy apparently raised thousands for earthquake victims on a previous charity stream, so think ignoring everything else we can say these activists did the cause more harm than good on pretty much every metric...
JK's on a weird hill but ffs it's pretty tame compared to some of the things I've heard irl. If those irl ppl hear about a story like this they just laugh, it's all 'lefties eating themselves again' as far as they care.
Most of her views *were* pretty normie, she’s jumped off the deep end recently. As usual with people like her, once people got comfortable with what she was saying she started throwing away successively deeper masks until she went from author concerned about freedom and accuracy of speech to rabid anti-trans activist, who spends the entirety of her time finding tweets from nutcases with three followers that she can broadcast to her army of sycophants.
I agree she’s becoming radicalised. Unfortunately she’s had thousands of sexually violent threats and no doubt that’s caused a siege mentality. These started as soon as she expressed even the mildest discomfort with the expectation that TWAW in every way without exception
Yes, the community does themselves no favours at all when they flood her with rape threats, death threats and promises of violence. And there are many really awful awful examples out on show.
This started with her thinking trans people could pose a threat to women. How on earth was that response supposed to change her mind?!
The other day, i saw someone arguing about how irrelevant Harry Potter is now, when Hogwarts Legacy was the best selling game released last year. Most people either agree with her or simply do not care what she says, and it has no influence on how popular her things are
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is apparently unparsable by the British press.
Also props to a Labour figure for saying so, as a Liberal it gives me (a small) hope for the next government being less terrible for freedom of speech than the last Labour one.
Everyone who is stigmatising J.K. Rowling are also standing up for what they believe in.
Rowling attacks the trans community but people who believe in trans acceptance aren't allowed to attack her back? What a moronic take.
Happy to see the pendulum swinging back to sanity on this. It used to be that if you defied the trans activist dogma even slightly on Reddit you’d get piled on and banned from the sub. The sooner people don’t feel bullied the sooner it will be possible to have an actual dialogue that isn’t toxic af
They're courting disaffected tory voters / right wingers to maximise their election gains; running over vulnerable minorities is going to be key in getting those types to spurt guff like "with these continued reasonable takes from Labour, they will absolutely smash the election".
Jk rowlings views are trans woman and woman are not that same thing.
That’s literally it.
Anyone who thinks she hates trans people has more than likely never heard her speak on the subject but just watched a YouTube video from their favourite vlogger.
https://spotify.link/t6bEbDZ83Ib
Here is a podcast series by Megan phelps about this controversy.
In it she interviews jk Rowling and she interviews some of her most famous critics. In it, it becomes jk Rowling is one of the most unfairly maligned people in the world right now.
They've gladly sacrificed us in order to get the votes. I'm voting Green in the GE The three main parties have terrible records on protecting trans people.
**Article text**
The Labour shadow justice secretary has said she agrees with JK Rowling that “biological sex is real and is immutable”.
Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary, expressed support for women who express gender critical views, saying that they should not be “stigmatised” for saying them.
Ms Mahmood, who took up the role last September, used her first major speech to warn of the dangers of “the rule of the mob” when “the rule of law fails”.
The shadow frontbencher cited the MeToo movement, saying it was “a powerful moment of liberation” but also called it a “damning indictment” of the legal system when “the only justice on offer was justice by hashtag, and not by a judge or jury”.
**Hashtag movements**
Asked about whether she had broader concerns about freedom of speech on social media, particularly regarding debates on gender, Ms Mahmood said: “Hashtag movements are sometimes used to shut down debate and often many women have had to go to court, usually in employment tribunals, in order to clarify their rights to free speech.
“To clarify their right to believe that for example because you referenced JK Rowling, clarify their right to say that biological sex is real and is immutable – a position that I also agree with.
“But they shouldn’t be in the position of losing their jobs for having views that are perfectly legal, and that they are perfectly entitled to express.”
It comes after Wes Streeting earlier this month admitted that he had been wrong to say that “trans women are women” in the wake of the Cass review into NHS gender care.
Last night, Ms Mahmood added: “I think that actually in this era of social media, that’s been a real challenge for people to hold onto what we would consider are normal legal norms.
“That which is allowed within the law you shouldn’t be stigmatised for, or prevented from saying, and you certainly shouldn’t feel that you might lose your job for holding perfectly legal views.”
The MP for Birmingham Ladywood said that “some of those issues are being resolved now” but said that she believed “it’s taken us far too long to get to this point”.
**‘Toxic debate’**
“I think that campaigners, like JK Rowling and others, have had to lead the fight in this area, which I know it’s become a bit of a toxic debate, but fundamentally what we should take refuge in is the laws of our land, they’re there to protect everybody.”
Setting out her views on the rule of law at Gray’s Inn, central London, Ms Mahmood said that law “must change with the world, and when it fails to - it fails us.
“For many women, the rise of the MeToo movement was a powerful moment of liberation. But it was also a damning indictment of our system that the only justice on offer was justice by hashtag, and not by a judge or jury.”
She told members of the legal profession: “And while monsters like Harvey Weinstein would eventually, rightly, go to trial and be found guilty of terrible crimes, others, never proved guilty of any crime, were accused and publicly shamed with no right to defence or fair hearing.
“The oldest principle of all – that all are innocent until proven guilty – was at times cast aside as the court of public opinion replaced the court of law.”
I'm sure we'll see her stick to her views on people not getting fired for posting legal things on social media consistentl.... hahaha, oh, no, I just fucking can't.
She's such a bullshitter.
What if i rightly believe Israel must be destroyed and Third Reich reinstated in it's place? I'm all for contructive criticism but people shouldn't be given crap just for who they are, and that's what JKR sometimes does
>
So Nazis shouldn't be stigmatised for what they believe in either?.....
This is the hyperbole that is utter madness.
Rowling is the only billionaire in the world who has willingly lost that status because she's donated so much of her wealth to help the less fortunate. She's openly donated millions upon millions to women's shelters and domestic abuse shelters. She's been an active proponent for fighting for women's rights for years.
But no, because she believes that biological sex should trump gender in terms of shared spaces, she's a Nazi.
Surely you should be able to criticise anyone you want. Like if you think Rowling's views are terrible you should be able to say so. If you think her opponents are a danger to women you should be allowed to say so. The same with any other topic.
Yes. I don't think anything Mahmood says is even that controversial, however the headline is the issue. It's misleading and implies she agrees with gender-critical views. She isn't saying that. She is saying Rowling should be allowed to express them without being arrested or threatened with violence. Which is of course true. This is just the Telegraph shit-stirring the culture-war pot again.
She says she agrees that biological sex is immutable, which I thought was the standard model of thinking about the issue, i.e. that biological sex is immutable, but gender arbitrary and assignable. But the culture has shifted further now, so pro-trans people, at least online, seem to consider that people can actually change biological sex.
I think it’s a misrepresentation to say that pro-trans people think that people can change biological sex. Some perhaps do, but I think the main issue pro-trans people have, isn’t with the statement itself, but rather what comes after it. E.g. “I think biological sex is immutable, so hormones should not be prescribed to trans identified people.” The phrase seems to have become an almost dog whistle amongst anti-trans campaigners, who are using it as the justification for their anti-trans views. Trans people, for the most part, know and recognise their biological sex. They quite literally have to, in order to transition.
> Some perhaps do, but I think the main issue pro-trans people have, isn’t with the statement itself, but rather what comes after it. E.g. “I think biological sex is immutable, so hormones should not be prescribed to trans identified people.” I actually think this is the core of the problem with the discussion of trans issues, what it comes down to is that online trans communities have already decided a goal for what they want to occur, and the arguments that happen are really downstream of attaining that goal. **So the Cass review is exactly like your statement above, what is being opposed is not really the review itself or whatever it says, it is the potential consequences of the review as seen from those communities**. So talking points get made up or misrepresented, like the claim about 98% of research being thrown out, and those talking points get spread around without challenge, because the point is not to engage seriously with the factual content of the review, it is to destroy its credibility, because it is seen as a barrier to the desired outcome. What that actually means is that real criticisms become impossible to parse, because they're hidden in a flood of transparent misinformation. I don't actually have fixed ideas on this, "sex is immutable" is an incomplete statement which could mean a variety of different things, the ability to change part way or all the way into the opposite sex, is going to be partly technological, and partly related to basic science about which processes are reversible, and which irreversible, which we probably do not understand yet. What I really dislike is how closed and didactic the conversation is, especially when it involves this kind of motivated approach towards topics which are scientific and depend on evidence to discover. Especially when that extends into scientific spaces and we lose the only mechanism we have to really understand.
>what it comes down to is that online trans communities have already decided a goal for what they want to occur, and the arguments that happen are really downstream of attaining that goal. Another way of viewing this is people have made a choice about what they want to do with their bodies, a pretty basic principle of bodily autonomy. Those people are understandably frustrated when other people that are not them are choosing to undermine that right and dictate to them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.
Yes, that’s also at the core of it, I think there has been a shift in culture around that recently. I see the argument, and sympathise, maybe that’s how things will change, but it goes against the existence of the prescription and licensing system for medications which exists in most developed countries. We could sell all drugs over the counter for instance. Beyond that general question, you also have the issue that the debate is largely about children, where there is an additional duty of care. And also that ultimately we’re deciding what to fund in a public healthcare system which is built around decisions about which are the most effective choices on where to spend money.
> I think there has been a shift in culture around that recently. For the worse in my opinion, people want their opinions about what other people do with their bodies enshrined in law so that it is illegal for said people to do said thing. Most recent example would be the law banning all future generations from ever legally buying cigarettes. I don't smoke and never will but I don't think banning it is a good idea, although my opinion is clearly in the minority. It's disappointing we want to make so many unnecessary things illegal, banning anything and everything and removing peoples choice. > It goes against the existence of the prescription and licensing system for medications which exists in most developed countries. We could sell all drugs over the counter for instance. Well yes and it's effectiveness is questionable, many of these countries have huge black markets for said drugs which have a raft of negative effects. It's now a popular opinion that the war on drugs was a pretty big failure but people want to double down on the policies that caused it, baffling imo. > Beyond that general question, you also have the issue that the debate is largely about children, where there is an additional duty of care. I don't think that is true though, yes the CASS review was focussed on children but they've immediately announced another one for adults and also one of the recommendations was to bring 18 to 25 year olds into similar rules for the children. So the debate is expanding well beyond just children. The outcome of the review was a complete ban for all under 18s, I'm not trans and much older but I can tell you I would have been more than capable of consenting to a treatment such as puberty blockers at 17, it's kind of insulting to suggest that I wouldn't be. I don't think the outcomes from the review have got the balance right. > And also that ultimately we’re deciding what to fund in a public healthcare system which is built around decisions about which are the most effective choices on where to spend money. Well sure except the rules also ban private providers from doing the same thing, it's not really about money, indeed transgender healthcare is a drop in the ocean and doesn't move the needle at all in terms of government spending. It's all politics and people imposing their views on others.
Are you arguing against the prescription and licensing systems for drugs?
Given the outcome of the current system has lead to 2 million brits regularly turning to drug dealers as well as a raft of other consequences (eg drug gangs etc.) I do not think the UK's current implementation of it's prescription and licensing system is fit for purpose no. People already import things like testosterone illegally (a class C drug) and now there is a defacto ban, this will increase imo which is not a desireable outcome.
You’ve fallen for the straw man/woman/person. Sex and immutability is not what is being discussed. Consider Humza Yousef. When he explained why the proposed misogyny law in Scotland would cover transgender and cisgender women he did not make any claims about biology. Instead he pointed out that the threats made against a woman walking down a street is “because the perception of that person as a woman”.
[удалено]
Looking at the link it seems to me that “sex is immutable” was being read as you supporting discrimination against trans people. This is fair because this is what most people who use that phrase are meaning too. So there is dishonesty here but only in the first part (it is reasonable to assume support for discrimination because it is so often used that way). How to respond to the dishonesty of the first part is where people differ. The situation is somewhat similar to discussions in the past about gay people. There were many offering reasons why some people are gay. The point of this however was not to have a debate about the science of human sexuality. Rather it was to justify various discriminatory laws that targeted gay people. It’s interesting to note that today we don’t see so much about why some people are gay despite it still being something that is not completely understood. I think this is because the debate about how to treat gay people has been resolved (equally I’m glad to say) and that’s what it was really about all along.
> Looking at the link it seems to me that “sex is immutable” was being read as you supporting discrimination against trans people. This is fair because this is what most people who use that phrase are meaning too. I seem to recall somebody mentioning a strawman somewhere a little higher in the thread??
Tbf the British state doesn't help much either, on your passport you can change your sex.
The pro-trans people as far as I know generally consider biological sex to be something that is both ill defined and ultimately mostly meaningless in practice. The common definition of biological sex is chromosomes. But you right now could have the opposite chromosomes of what you expect and there be the opposite "biological sex". What does that mean in practice? Not a lot. Even if you were to discover you were the opposite biological sex you'd keep living your normal life. But the mantra of "biological sex" is commonly used to say that trans people are their birth sex so they should be treated like their birth sex. I've seen people argue, for example, that trans women that look completely like women and have had sex changes should be carted off to male prisons if someone discovers their birth certificate actually says M because they're a "biological male" and therefore should be in the "male" prison. Something that I hope we can both agree would be ludicrous. And that's sort of the key point. Even if biological sex is immutable there's sort of implication behind it. It's rarely just "biological sex is immutable", it comes with extra implications. It's similar to crime statistics. When someone with no prompting starts loudly telling you about crime statistics of certain demographics you need to wonder why they decided to do it. Even though what they're saying could be technically true it's a bit weird that they want to go on national TV and make a big deal of saying it. And well when someone does that you know what they're actually saying. They might not explicitly say it, but if a politician goes to the papers and starts rattling off crime statistics you know exactly what they're really saying yeah?
Yup, nail on the head.
Depends, if you are prominent enough and you criticize Joanne, you might get a letter from her lawyers forcing you to apologize on twitter for voicing your honest opinion, lest you face bankruptcy. She\`s pretty notorious for doing this.
I mean, it depends what was said, wasn't it? I remember one person having to to post an apology but that was someone who took her words out of context to make it seem like she was okay with sending porn to children.
> you might get a letter from her lawyers forcing you to apologize on twitter for voicing your honest opinion, lest you face bankruptcy. Slandering somebody isn't something you can do no. If you want to accuse somebody of something that they've never done, then you're going to end up in court for it and for good reason.
> If you want to accuse somebody of something that they've never done For example, accusing Rowling of wanting to erase trans people.
What does "erase" mean in this context?
She attacks them in the streets with the soft end of a 2B pencil
You should look into what a SLAPP lawsuit is, that’s essentially what Rowling threatens to people.
Stop remixing news stories
No, it isn't. You're just twisting SLAPP because you don't like Rowling so want her to be guilty of all the things the talking points say she is. Show evidence of her using SLAPP rather than acting against slander/libel.
Her recent acts of threating action against Jewish people calling out her mockery of the claim Nazi's targeted Trans people. Something they factually did and the denial of has seen people get in trouble in Germany for.
This isn't evidence. Try again.
Links plz. Edit: very odd of people to downvote asking for evidence of a claim.
>Depends, if you are prominent enough and you criticize Joanne Why exactly is it that all of you people vehemently against Rowling call her Joanne?
They're trying to be condescending.
Luckily its so obvious it just embarrasses them instead and tells everyone else to ignore their upcoming drivel.
In group dynamics. People with low intelligence can't separate appealing to/signalling to their in group and making a good argument.
Yep, they think they're patronising her. I'm sure they are all incels / "furries" who can't speak to any woman at all in real life, in a patronising tone or otherwise.
I think in this context it was largely popularised by the YouTuber Contrapoints who made a few very good videos regarding JK Rowling's anti-trans views, wherein she refers to her as Joanne mostly as part of her satirical tone. The videos are very well done. Although while I think they are persuasive, and well thought out in a way that might change some peoples minds, they are long-form videos over an hour in duration - so I doubt many who disagree with her from the onset would bother to take the time to watch them.
Strong recommendation for all sides of this debate. Contrapoints makes excellent thought provoking content, even if it doesn't always convince me.
So the rest of us know upfront that they don't have an argument. The same as when people used to refer to George Osborne as Gideon.
Or Starmer as "Keith"
That one was also somewhat antisemetic since Osborne is technically Jewish, and Gideon is an Old Testament name
It's her name?
Of course, and as we all know, everyone also refers to our wonderful nature presenter as "David." Come off it.
Is it the name that she prefers to go by?
I mean, if you attack her personally, sure. And that's fair. She's not sued anyone just for disagreeing with her though
I agree and also feel that Rowling like anyone else should be able to speak their mind in the subject without being hounded. That goes for those who agree and those who don’t agree with her views.
> That goes for those who agree and those who don’t agree with her views. You're fully able to do so. What you're not able to do is to lie about, slander and harass Rowling.
The issue is that she doesn’t just speak her mind. She uses her platform to sick her army of mad dogs on anyone that disagrees with her, and she uses her wealth to fund anti-trans causes. She’s become rather explicit about it nowadays, too. She’s a multimillionaire, near-billionaire, who uses her mass following and exceptional wealth to promote a hateful ideology (and like it or not, Rowling has gone *far* beyond questioning whether a trans woman is actually a woman) and to silence those who disagree with her, via legal threats or exposure to her lackeys.
>She uses her platform to sick her army of mad dogs on anyone that disagrees with her Never seen her call on her followers to attack people, I have however seen her haters do that, I've seen groups on twitter and here on reddit that will ask people to mass report her profile, or to mass reply to her tweets, I'd like to see an example of her asking her followers to attack people. Most of the time when I've seen people that hate JK, they can never actually source any of the stuff they say she's done.
So someone who has a platform isn’t allowed to voice an opinion is what you’re saying ? You talk about her “army”, what about those that hound her, try and get people to stop buying her books, abuse her online etc etc. It’s fine for them to do it but not if it’s the other way round right ?
As always, its fine for them to do it, but not her.
But of course, don’t you know that unless you agree without question with everything someone who is trans says you are anti trans, hateful and a bigot.
If a trans woman is a woman, that’s very simple and easy to answer. No they are not and no amount of mental gymnastics is going to change that. Just because you are offended does not make her wrong, that’s what trans people seem unable to accept when anyone does not see things their way.
> should be able to speak their mind in the subject without being hounded That hounding falls under the same principle of freedom of expression as her expressing herself does.
No it doesn’t. Expressing yourself is one thing. Harassing and threatening violence is exempt from freedom of expression
Who has threatened violence ?
The people who keep showing up at her house for a start?
I know l agree, l think maybe l misunderstood the above comment. I thought it was aimed at JK as if she had threatened violence.
I think so, I think they mean violence towards JKR
My bad
Who is harassing and threatening violence? No one has mentioned that until now in this conversation.
Sorry I’m not following ? Just so it’s clear l agree with her. What l take issue with is people thinking they can harass and hound her. The same way l take issue with anyone who does the same to people who oppose her view.
Her views are trans woman and woman are not that same thing. That’s literally it. Anyone who thinks she hates trans people has more than likely never heard her speak on the subject but just watched a YouTube video from their favourite vlogger. https://spotify.link/t6bEbDZ83Ib Here is a podcast series by Megan phelps about this controversy. In it she interviews jk Rowling and she interviews some of her most famous critics. In it, it becomes painfully obvious that jk Rowling is one of the most unfairly maligned people in the world right now.
This is a fantastic podcast series and really one of the only ways to get a full understanding of Rowling or gender critical feminist viewpoints in relation to trans issues. Her views are nuanced, and although I disagree with some aspects of her views, pretty reasonable. I’d wager if they were made by anyone but her people would largely agree. Interestingly, contrapoints (who people have been posting above) was also interviewed for the pod and asked why she thought JKR was transphobic, and couldn’t provide any concrete answers other than “the subtext”. JKR even offers to sit down and speak on contrapoints show which contrapoints refuses, and then makes a long hour video giving JKR no right of response.
> Like if you think Rowling's views are terrible you should be able to say so. It's the constant harassment of Rowling that's an issue. Yes, you can criticise somebody's views, but the constant lying, hyperbolising, threats and so on that she receives is not okay.
Why is it a danger to women if she is actually with women in this?
This is the same person who gave support to the people who protested against a school for giving lgbt lessons which went against their religion https://labourlist.org/2019/03/shabana-mahmood-under-fire-for-comments-on-lgbt-lessons-in-schools/
Well, Justice seems like a uniquely unsuitable place for her then.
Seems like a shoo-in for LGB Alliance chair. Yet the wider "LGB drop the T" crowd will still never see [where this leads.](https://i.redd.it/ufac4sb6a09b1.jpg)
I mean she already supported protests that restricted telling students that a man can marry another man
Children not being preyed on by the mentally ill? Women having their hard fought sex based rights being respected? The biological basis of homosexuality continuing to be recognised and protected? Oh no that’s all trans genocide, I see.
I'd love to hear her opinion on whether a racist should be stigmatised for "standing up for what they believe in".
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> She goes on to argue that the parents were “focussed not on prejudice, but on process” Don't know about everyone else but I remember that slightly differently...
This needs to be higher up. It's not about 'protecting women', it's not about 'respecting religious beliefs', it's any excuse for transphobia or homophobia that these people can get away with. It's just not socially acceptable to be directly homophobic anymore, so they've shifted tactics and use dog whistles and other causes that look palatable to the public.
Do you genuinely think JK Rowling's underlying motivation includes homophobia?
Imagine my shock that the gender critical person is homophobic as well...
Hey you know what would be great for our election chances? Let's drive head first into a culture war the Tories have been desperate to drag us into for years.
Bizarrely though, it seems to be to agree with the Tories.
> That which is allowed within the law you shouldn’t be stigmatised for, or prevented from saying, and you certainly shouldn’t feel that you might lose your job for holding perfectly legal views. I think the vast majority of people agree with this. It thankfully isn’t really a Labour/Tory dividing line.
I was just thinking how we were getting overdue for a completely avoidable and unnecessary act of Labour self-immolation. Sunrise, sunset.
I have a feeling that most people who say stuff like this don't realise how deep JK Rowling is into the anti-trans narrative and are basing it off headlines. Just about a month ago Rowling launched an attack on a woman who runs a rape crisis center for the crime of being trans, despite working for over a decade campaigning for womens issues on domestic violence and rape for over a decade. Rowling also supports Posie Parker, who openly assosiates with some very unsavoury characters, including having Nazis attend her protests against trans people, and has had people attending her protests do dramatic readings of Mein Kampf to attack trans people.
Can you offer some direct quotes and sources? I see this a lot ‘you have no idea how extreme she is’ etc but always without actual substance.
Rowling attacks Mridul Wadhwa ofer her gender identity in her list attack at the start of april. This list includes Murders, Rapists, and various sex criminals alongside rugby players, UN abassadors, and activists with little to no separation. https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1774749262934356448?lang=en Rowling retweets Posie Parker (aka Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshull) occasionally and offered to support her financially during legal procedings https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1663267564443631616
The level of "off the deep end" is close to, if not equal to Graham Linehan. Reaching a point where most of the community of her written works, and the cast who starred in the films consider her "persona non grata" should be telling.
Yep, Jk Rowling isn't just 'gender critical' in her philosophy. Everyone has the right to their own view. But JK has actively harassed people just for existing and being trans.
Logically, if the argument in defence is that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, then that also applies to the people with the opposite opinion to JK. It's not a great line if the intention is that JK should be above criticism or disagreement.
>The Labour shadow justice secretary has said she agrees with JK Rowling that “biological sex is real and is immutable”. I'd be a bit worried about anyone that *doesn't* agree with that, if I'm honest. It's perfectly fine to say that gender is more important than sex, obviously, and therefore what we should refer to most of the time - that's an opinion rather than a cast-in-stone fact, after all. But that doesn't mean that sex isn't real or is now mutable.
The thing is, because the protected characteristic in UK law is sex, and a person can change their legal sex, sex is not immutable in UK law. As you say, we can argue about what the best version of the law is, but when someone says that sex is immutable the point of that is to argue that a trans person should always be considered to be their sex and laws that don't align with that such as the GRA or the EA should be repealed or amended. And yes, you can argue that there are better ways to implement the law, most trans people would agree with you, but do you think those will ever be implemented? Particularly given the current state of discourse on the topic, what'd likely happen is Labour and the Tories compete to paint themselves as the party with the correct position on how brutal they can be to trans people and there is no world that any law produced would actually be of benefit to trans people.
>The thing is, because the protected characteristic in UK law is sex, and a person can change their legal sex, sex is not immutable in UK law. Why does it matter if the thing is immutable or not? Religion is also a protected characteristic and people change their religions all the time.
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> Sex is immutable in mammals. The legal fiction created by a GRC does not change this (and is not trying to). It wouldn’t matter if we actually passed a law claiming mammals could change sex, any more than it mattered when laws claimed the earth revolved around the sun and those pointing out it wasn’t true were persecuted. Because the law does not determine reality. The point I made does not conflict with this. We have a system whereby people in the UK are protected from discrimination based on sex, and at the time there were also other issues where "sex" mattered in law such as who you could marry and pensions. Rather than rework the law so that it more accurately represented the position that gender rather than sex was what was being used, we ended up with a system whereby you can change your sex, but also there were a number of exceptions written in to the GRA around contexts such as sports, gender specific offences, and peerage(?) inheritance. A lot of trans people don't think that how the law currently is is optimal, for reasons such as this all being confusing and leaving grey area for people to misrepresent the law, the notion that it is wrong that you need to go through a bureaucratic process in order to gain legal recognition that takes years, or that non-binary people don't feel they're adequately covered by the GRA. But would I support any attempt to amend the GRA or EA, given our current climate? Absolutely not, I have no faith at all in our government and public consciousness at large to treat the matter seriously and carefully. > The point of stressing that sex it’s immutable is because some activists seemed to think shouting “trans women are women” constituted a policy, and continually sought to blur the lines on sex and gender, demanding that trans women be treated as women for any and all circumstances (sport, shelters, prisons, etc) when this was never the intended purpose of a GRC to begin with. > Of course we have to consider how to compassionately treat those with gender dysphoria, but the starting point for any discussion of how we do this has to be reality. Not imported American slogans demanding we suspend it. That was never going to work. The intent of the GRA was to give trans people privacy and legal recognition, while specifying that there _may_ be circumstances that trans people can still be lawfully discriminated against but they must be justified and proportionate. That position is unrecognisable, and as much as you want to decry "activists" for muddying the waters and claim that trans people should be treated compassionately, there is a disconnect between you and either your fellow GCs or your own actions. The notion that trans people should have privacy is gone, trans people must be identifiable in society, or it's a threat to safety and/or dignity. The notion that trans people should be treated with compassion is so dead and buried at this point that it's currently in the process of fossilisation. You additionally decry what you view as slogans without substance, yet the endless chants of "sex is real" has both the Tories and Labour eyeing up the EA for an amendment that would carelessly invert how it was originally written, and necessitate a rewrite or repeal of the GRA. No matter how strongly you feel it was wrong to do so, the EA was written with the understanding that trans women could be treated as women, and attempting to "clarify" it by defining sex as immutable and "biological" would cause more issues than it solves. If there is supposedly confusion about the exceptions for single sex spaces and services that mean it can be lawful to discriminate against trans people, saying it's instead meant to be about excluding trans men from women's spaces and there is no lawful access for trans women still has the glaring question of what altered or denial of service to trans men is acceptable within the law. If you take the view that trans people and activists have been insincere and shallow in approaches to policy making, the answer to that isn't for you to turn around and be the same.
Excellent response.
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Firstly, I'm not saying it is purely the fault of GC people. There are a lot of people that are hostile to trans people, but less for philosophical reasons and more because they have personal biases against trans people or just a willingness to throw trans people under the bus for their own benefit. I would never consider someone like Piers Morgan to be any flavour of feminist, never mind GC, yet he is at the very least content with stoking conflict about trans people for the benefit of his personal brand. I don't think it's the necessarily the point, since just flinging shit about who said what and why they were wrong is a waste of time, what matters principally is legislation and public attitudes _now_. As for the topic of trans people that are less "traditionally" (for lack of a better word) trans, I don't particularly understand them but don't think it much matters. I don't think the average person in the general population really understands what it feels like to have dysphoria but it's not required in order to go about your day to day life, often because it doesn't really affect you. Not even just as it pertains to trans issues, I don't understand what it is to genuinely believe there is a God, what attraction to women feels like, or how someone can be in such pain that they want to seek the end of their own life. All of those you might understand on a conceptual level, but society contains a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds, and for something to be something I personally don't understand doesn't meant it's inherently wrong. I don't understand non-binary people, the notion that your gender can be wrong is something I know personally is a thing, but the notion that you have _no_ gender or something along those lines is beyond my understanding. But I also feel I know better rather than to get mad at them for feeling as if they are being trans "wrong", and my perspective is not universal. You can point to Drummond and say that people like them are the reason that "real" trans people are getting shit on routinely, but I don't agree and also they've not really done anything wrong, their only crime is being weird and I don't feel the need to seethe that there are people out there that aren't hurting people but while they aren't hurting people they're _weird_. I also don't believe that people like Drummond are the problem, given the zeal out there for coming down on the more typical trans people and the ever present urge to make life worse for all trans people. Hell, even the most upstanding of trans people aren't beyond reproach, I remember when Brianna Ghey got murdered and we had MPs that felt the need to make snide posts about how having effeminate interests doesn't matter and that if you're born male you're never going to be a girl/woman, as if a murdered teenager needed to be dunked on by people with more power and privilege than she'd ever have had in her life.
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>Of course we have to consider how to compassionately treat those with gender dysphoria, but the starting point for any discussion of how we do this has to be reality. Not imported American slogans demanding we suspend it. That was never going to work. And what would you consider "compassionately treat those with gender dysphoria" to be?
> Sex is immutable in mammals. The legal fiction created by a GRC does not change this (and is not trying to). Just to pick up on this point of yours and explore it: Maybe a helpful analogy is adoption? Biological parentage is a thing which we have rightly (or wrongly, I suppose some might argue) considered important through history. But we have another thing that says "also, if people A and B go through this legal ritual with child C, they should be treated for almost all purposes as if they *are* the biological parents of C - except where, as one example, testing for genetic disease is concerned, etc". It's not changing reality - it's just a legal fiction that's very useful. It's legal convenience, not philosophy. There's probably a similar thing here. "Person D *is* a man/woman"? That's a tricky one that gets right into what's meant by "is", to say nothing of "man/woman". There's obviously lots of scope for respectful disagreement, and a whole range of positions that can be argued. To say nothing of a lot of uncertainty and it being unclear how you even decide. But "person D should be treated for (almost) all intents and purposes as if they were a man/woman" is different and easier. It doesn't say anything about *is* (except insofar as "the law requires X to be treated as Y almost all the time" can reasonably be shortened colloquially to "X is Y").
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It's for these reasons that I think adoption *is* a useful comparator. Adoption says you treat the adoptive parent, for almost all purposes, as the parent, and most of the time it's rude and hostile to say "you're not the real parent". But there are common sense exceptions, when the distinction must be drawn, and these are basically non-controversial. This is where I think we should end up with trans people. We don't seem to be there at the moment, as you say, but I think it should be the goal.
What services and spaces are provided in society for genetic parents that lawfully exclude adoptive parents? The analogy really doesn’t hold because we don’t have spaces and services in society that exclude adoptive parents or guardians. We do have womens prisons, rape crisis centres, sporting categories, dormitories, changing rooms etc that exclude males.
There are times when it is necessary for society to recognise the difference between a genetic parent and an adoptive parent. We recognise that this is not an attack on the parental identity of the adoptive parent. There are also times when it is necessary for society to recognise the difference between a cis person and a trans person. We should recognise that this is not an attack of the gender identity of the trans person.
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On the opposite side I've seen people insist on referring to trans women's breasts as "hormone induced moobs" - something that is clearly wrong and based purely on their insistence that breasts are some kind of magic organ that only a true biological female could ever had. The simple approach is to just refer people based on the specific needs of their body and I don't see why that is particularly hard. It's not like you'd refer a trans woman with breast issues to an andrologist because "oh they're a biological male" is it?
I work in the NHS and I know staff from nurses to the most senior consultants who are firmly behind "gender is more important then sex". Even the physio society has recently put out a statement that basically means that they don't want gender critical people in their profession. You'd think physios would be reasonably clear about knowing that male and female bodies and physiology are not the same but hey ho.
There's been a sort of religious uptake of dogma in the way that Christianity had a massive revival in evangelical times that swept through society for a while in NHS management. It's really strange.
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The trouble with religion is that the message/liturgy remains the same, but diversity has a language treadmill and can always catch people in wrongthink as few ever keep up with it. Even the faithful will keep falling foul as the goalposts shift.
I spent years thinking "live and let live" but then the trans side decided that wasn't good enough and it became "we want what's theirs and if you disagree you are evil" in relation to women's spaces and services. If it had stayed "live and let live" then nothing remotely like what we've seen would ever have happened.
I sense that it worked for years as public bodies just gave in and a wave of policies just swept through unchallenged whilst legislating politicians also seemed to just duck and look like they were going to do what they were told, but now questions are getting asked and pushback is beginning. The threats and belligerence having worked for years has it seemed resulted in a hand that was overplayed as the contradictions in what has been demanded cannot be suppressed forever. Lunacy like "chestfeeders" is insane to the majority of people, but within the NHS went unchallenged. Frankly the whole thing seems to stem from the toxin of self ID and this slogan that a transwoman is a woman. Would have made more sense to have legislated* for trans people as transpeople rather than insist on both a fiction and therefore a creation of a conflict that comes up when insisting that the carve outs for woman are now open. The venn diagram would have probably overlapped very closely as most people are live and let live so the carve outs only need to narrow ones, but instead activists demanded that our entire society is restructured to suit a handful of people. *as in law or policy. I use the same term.
“Sex is real and immutable” is not a statement that most serious people, trans or ally, would disagree with. The issue is that when someone like Rowling says it, there is an unspoken implication of it - “sex is real, and is the only thing that matters. Sex is immutable, and so trans women are no different to men, and should be treated the same.” You never see Rowling recognising the gender of anyone - you see her flying in the face of it, in fact. “Sex is real and immutable” is not some innocently correct statement, it is a declaration of her beliefs surrounding trans people.
I was going to write a reply to the above comment, but I think this pretty much sums it up. It's very common for certain people like JK Rowling to mischaracterise the gender argument as being "biological sex is either not real or doesn't matter" which doesn't seem to be a point-of-view many people actually hold.
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You’re lucky they didn’t ban you. That sub is run by and for activists who can’t cope with any distinction being made between sex and gender.
Where has she said trans women are no different to men? Surely the point she is making is that there are certain environments where it’s import not to conflate sex and gender such as sports or prisons. Saying females should have a protected sporting category or protected prison wing doesn’t preclude society from also offering protected sports categories or protected prison wings for trans women in sports or prisons which recognise their need to be protected from male people.
That's not just what she's saying though and trans people aren't saying this. Trans people are acutely aware of biology, arguably more so than cis people, (especially those who seem to think that it only exists in XX and XY forms), that's why a lot of them want hormones to transition. JK Rowling is just using motte and Bailey arguments to defend her bigoted beliefs.
Why do so many want to play in female competitions then?
How many are there? You seem to have a number in mind already? Thousands? Millions?
The answer to why somehow who has transitioned to be female would want to play in female competitions should be pretty obvious. Issues surrounding fairness and inclusion should be decided by the organisations running those competitions. (As is already the case)
Gay people would rightfully be concerned if politicians were still going around saying "two men can't have a child, it's a biological fact." It's obtuse to not see what's attached to this language. Like, say, associating innocent trans women with sex offenders, or trying to block them from using the most existing rape crisis centres.
> Gay people would rightfully be concerned if politicians were still going around saying "two men can't have a child, it's a biological fact." Everyone is still saying that, including our politicians because it's a biological impossibility for two men to have a child together. Nobody finds stating the obvious truth concerning except those who want lies to be unchallenged. Edit: Apparently saying two men are incapable of reproduction is now a controversial comment, I honestly had no idea Reddit was*this* detached from reality.
In the context of discussions around transgender issues and rights and puberty blockers and women-only spaces, the statement "biological sex is real and is immutable" is both obviously true and *clearly a dog whistle*. It's like if we were talking about black students underperforming in schools and discussing things like wealth disparity, how black people have fewer older relatives in higher educations, etc. and someone chirps in with "you know there are well established genetic differences between black and white people". The statement is true (skin colour being the most banal example), but it's really clear they aren't just sharing a 'fun fact' - they are trying to imply a statement they don't actually want to come out and say. Likewise when people say "biological sex is immutable" in this context, what they are trying to imply is that transgender people are faking it.
I don't think that's correct. When people say that biological sex is immutable, they're saying that your sex doesn't change based on how you personally identify. This is the opposite of what trans rights activists believe. The famous slogan of "trans women are women" is designed to communicate that what defines someone as a woman is whether they define themselves as a woman, not whether they are biologically female. So there are clearly-identifiable opposing positions in this argument. The argument is never really about whether transgender people are sincere in their beliefs or "faking it", the argument is more that an organism's sex isn't influenced by the sincerity of their beliefs so discussions about sex-segregated spaces, sports etc are not reliant on how sincere a person's beliefs about their gender may be. Transgender activists often make arguments like "transgender people exist!" and "stop trying to pretend we're not real!". But this is not really relevant to any of the discussion over sex versus gender. I think that even the most vehement anti-gender person would happily concede that transgender people exist, are real, and may be completely sincere in their beliefs. The point of controversy is what rights those beliefs should entitle a person to and what to do when they clash with the rights of others.
> Likewise when people say "biological sex is immutable" in this context, what they are trying to imply is that transgender people are faking it. It is not a useful superpower to be able to ascribe motivations for other people's statements.
Stating basic biology is a dog whistle now? Would saying evolution is scientific fact a dog whistle against religious communities too?
I've learned from being on social media for a while that anything and everything can be a dog whistle, it just depends on who you ask, though it's funny and intetesting how only right wing people seem capable of dog whistling.
The whole point of the comment was that it's the context of the statement that makes it a dog whistle, not the statement itself. If, for the sake of your example, the context of the statement 'evolution is a scientific fact' was one where a fictional atheist facist group was advocating for the internment of a religious group into re-education camps, then hell yes it's a dog whistle. It's all about understanding nuance and taking time to think about what people are actually saying. On an aside, my understanding was that evolution is a theory supported by facts. It's the model that best explains the facts, so it's factual, but it's more than a fact or a collection of facts.
'If, for the sake of your example, the context of the statement 'evolution is a scientific fact' was one where a fictional atheist facist group was advocating for the internment of a religious group into re-education camps, then hell yes it's a dog whistle.' This is such a disingenuous argument. You're implying that when people typically say you cannot change sex that it's often being said in the context of sending trans people to camps - no one is saying that. Likewise no one is saying 'evolution is real, let's send the religious to camps'. If I tweeted 'evolution is a fact, therefore religious people are denying reality to claim otherwise', you wouldn't (I assume) say it was a dog whistle. As such, how is it a dog whistle to tweet 'sex is immutable, therefore trans people are denying reality to claim otherwise'? How are the two statements any different? Or is it you'd prefer to think the worst in people suggesting the latter statement?
You're grasping at straws and putting them in my mouth. I was simply illustrating the previous comment's point about dog whistles was more nuanced than it was given credit as they require being taken in context not in isolation.
I don't necessarily disagree that it is immutable, pretty much by definition, but 'real' is a word that means different things to different people. Sex is a concept we use to categorise biological states that aren't 100% neat and tidy. Intersex people made this most clear, but we are even beginning to understand there are differences in brain structure that correlate strongly with sex *or* gender identity. (See https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/85/5/2034/2660626) This suggests that the immutable characteristic could be more complicated than externally presented binary or indeterminate sex. It then becomes a question of whether these differences are part of a person's biological sex, or how we refer to these other immutable characteristics.
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Do you not think that people on both sides are shouting past one another because they don't have a shared understanding here? That is, there should be agreement that sex and gender are different. But there doesn't seem to be. And I think that is why there are so many pointless fights.
There is a sort of talking past each other, but that dissolves and collides when we start talking about which level of identity grants access of which level of space. Space divided by chromosomal makeup? By hormone levels? By appearance? Or by internal identity? All are used by terfs at different times for different arguments - they align everything back to the chromosomes, except when they don’t. E.g. no trans women in women’s sports despite female level hormones for example, but Also using a nebulous idea of ‘social transition’ to control what kids wear in school (thus any cis girl dressing in masculine clothing is also targeted just as if they were trans). They’ve just created a new bogeyman with forever shifting goalposts.
I think this is complex, no doubt. But I'm not sure that it's about goalposts shifting, more that there is no agreed position by either side really. And, of course, the people who lead the discussion are terminally online folk who don't really represent normal people who are, I think, much more willing to think about this with nuance.
> I'd be a bit worried about anyone that doesn't agree with that, if I'm honest. Because it's become a dog-whistle for "trans people aren't real." The statement may be true (depending on how you define "biological sex" - as biologists will tell you there are different ways and context matters), but the only reason to bring it up is as part of dismissing trans people as not really being real - in the same way that people used to around gay people (and some still do). At the heart of the debate around trans rights is the question of "are trans people real?" - is there a subset of the population for whom there is something objective and based in biology that creates a disconnect between their assigned-at-birth sex and who they are? The anti-trans position is "no." Trans people are a mixture of people who are delusional, perverted, have been tricked or groomed into "being trans", are being forced into "being trans" to conform to social expectations and so on (same arguments we see about gay people). Hence their horror at providing treatment for trans kids to help their transition, and their insistence that something must be done to protect children from the trans agenda. To them, telling people they can be trans and helping them do so is grooming, it is abusive and oppressive. The problem with the "biological sex is real and immutable" meme (rarely said by biologists) is the next part, which is usually unsaid but implied; "any anything else isn't real." The false binary of "real and immutable biological sex" and "not real and meaningless social gender" came out of 70s feminism (and that's a whole other thing we could talk about), and was largely dropped by feminism when they figured out all the problems with it. But the "gender critical" people kept it alive (as an obscure area of distinctly-British feminist academia) and in the last 8 or so years the anti-trans movement has latched onto it to support their hate. Talking about "biological sex" - in legal and political contexts - has become a dog-whistle for arguing that trans people aren't biologically real - that they should get no support or protections, and that they should be "driven back into the closet."
> Talking about "biological sex" - in legal and political contexts - has become a dog-whistle for arguing that trans people aren't biologically real - that they should get no support or protections, and that they should be "driven back into the closet." Nobody's saying that the people aren't real FFS. Absolutely absurd. As for no support or protections, here's a direct quote from JK Rowling >I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. **Trans people need and deserve protection.** Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men. > >So I want trans women to be safe.
It *is* impossible to change your biological sex, that in no way implies that Trans people aren't real. Imagine writing that much arguing against something nobody has even said...
Shut up, free speech works both ways.
I should preface by saying I think JK Rowling has become obsessed with this subject and is tiresome on twitter but hard hat on: most of her views are pretty normie, in that she believes sex is immutable and there are specific circumstances where it’s appropriate for women to have spaces that are for biological sex only. I respect that she’s put her money where her mouth is and personally funded a rape crisis centre for women who want to have counselling provided by biological women. She’s a victim of domestic violence and this is something that’s important to her. I don’t respect her getting into spats with trans rights activists online all day and have no idea where she finds the time to do this while writing those long as fuck Strike books.
I don’t agree with a lot of what she says but I also don’t understand how people can’t see that people responding to her transphobia by sending her abuse online and saying that they want to rape and kill her is not justifiable and has just fuelled her. There’s a tendency in leftist online spaces to think it’s okay to send abuse (often misogynistic) to people you consider bigoted without realising that it’s hugely hypocritical and is ultimately going to backfire.
Because they’re ‘right’ and she’s ‘wrong’, which makes it all ok, apparently.
Also saw something last year about a campaign against the Hogwarts Legacy game, activists bullied a popular streamer out of doing a charity stream of it where he was gonna donate all proceeds to 🏳️⚧️ charities. Because the act of playing the game (which iirc had a 🏳️⚧️ character in or the option to make one) would be 'promoting genocide' or some other extreme reason. This guy apparently raised thousands for earthquake victims on a previous charity stream, so think ignoring everything else we can say these activists did the cause more harm than good on pretty much every metric... JK's on a weird hill but ffs it's pretty tame compared to some of the things I've heard irl. If those irl ppl hear about a story like this they just laugh, it's all 'lefties eating themselves again' as far as they care.
The quickest way to identify a bigot is to look at those going round calling people bigots.
Most of her views *were* pretty normie, she’s jumped off the deep end recently. As usual with people like her, once people got comfortable with what she was saying she started throwing away successively deeper masks until she went from author concerned about freedom and accuracy of speech to rabid anti-trans activist, who spends the entirety of her time finding tweets from nutcases with three followers that she can broadcast to her army of sycophants.
I agree she’s becoming radicalised. Unfortunately she’s had thousands of sexually violent threats and no doubt that’s caused a siege mentality. These started as soon as she expressed even the mildest discomfort with the expectation that TWAW in every way without exception
Yes, the community does themselves no favours at all when they flood her with rape threats, death threats and promises of violence. And there are many really awful awful examples out on show. This started with her thinking trans people could pose a threat to women. How on earth was that response supposed to change her mind?!
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If you can't be stigmatised for your beliefs what the hell can you be stigmatised for?
She should be *stigmatized* for her views. But as much as I disagree with her, she shouldn't be *arrested* or threatened with violence for them.
Oh who gives a toss. Reddit is absolutely obsessed with this woman. The average person couldn't care less about what she thinks about anything.
The other day, i saw someone arguing about how irrelevant Harry Potter is now, when Hogwarts Legacy was the best selling game released last year. Most people either agree with her or simply do not care what she says, and it has no influence on how popular her things are
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is apparently unparsable by the British press. Also props to a Labour figure for saying so, as a Liberal it gives me (a small) hope for the next government being less terrible for freedom of speech than the last Labour one.
Everyone who is stigmatising J.K. Rowling are also standing up for what they believe in. Rowling attacks the trans community but people who believe in trans acceptance aren't allowed to attack her back? What a moronic take.
How is she stigmatized Shabana? People saying they don't like her is stigmatizing?
Happy to see the pendulum swinging back to sanity on this. It used to be that if you defied the trans activist dogma even slightly on Reddit you’d get piled on and banned from the sub. The sooner people don’t feel bullied the sooner it will be possible to have an actual dialogue that isn’t toxic af
She isn’t being “stigmatised for standing up for what she believes”, she is being disagreed with
With these continued reasonable takes from Labour, they will absolutely smash the election.
They'll smash the election anyway, without needing to repeatedly run over a vulnerable minority to get there.
They're courting disaffected tory voters / right wingers to maximise their election gains; running over vulnerable minorities is going to be key in getting those types to spurt guff like "with these continued reasonable takes from Labour, they will absolutely smash the election".
Jk rowlings views are trans woman and woman are not that same thing. That’s literally it. Anyone who thinks she hates trans people has more than likely never heard her speak on the subject but just watched a YouTube video from their favourite vlogger. https://spotify.link/t6bEbDZ83Ib Here is a podcast series by Megan phelps about this controversy. In it she interviews jk Rowling and she interviews some of her most famous critics. In it, it becomes jk Rowling is one of the most unfairly maligned people in the world right now.
The Labour Party gleefully stabbing Trans people in the back on its path to power.
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They've gladly sacrificed us in order to get the votes. I'm voting Green in the GE The three main parties have terrible records on protecting trans people.
**Article text** The Labour shadow justice secretary has said she agrees with JK Rowling that “biological sex is real and is immutable”. Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary, expressed support for women who express gender critical views, saying that they should not be “stigmatised” for saying them. Ms Mahmood, who took up the role last September, used her first major speech to warn of the dangers of “the rule of the mob” when “the rule of law fails”. The shadow frontbencher cited the MeToo movement, saying it was “a powerful moment of liberation” but also called it a “damning indictment” of the legal system when “the only justice on offer was justice by hashtag, and not by a judge or jury”. **Hashtag movements** Asked about whether she had broader concerns about freedom of speech on social media, particularly regarding debates on gender, Ms Mahmood said: “Hashtag movements are sometimes used to shut down debate and often many women have had to go to court, usually in employment tribunals, in order to clarify their rights to free speech. “To clarify their right to believe that for example because you referenced JK Rowling, clarify their right to say that biological sex is real and is immutable – a position that I also agree with. “But they shouldn’t be in the position of losing their jobs for having views that are perfectly legal, and that they are perfectly entitled to express.” It comes after Wes Streeting earlier this month admitted that he had been wrong to say that “trans women are women” in the wake of the Cass review into NHS gender care. Last night, Ms Mahmood added: “I think that actually in this era of social media, that’s been a real challenge for people to hold onto what we would consider are normal legal norms. “That which is allowed within the law you shouldn’t be stigmatised for, or prevented from saying, and you certainly shouldn’t feel that you might lose your job for holding perfectly legal views.” The MP for Birmingham Ladywood said that “some of those issues are being resolved now” but said that she believed “it’s taken us far too long to get to this point”. **‘Toxic debate’** “I think that campaigners, like JK Rowling and others, have had to lead the fight in this area, which I know it’s become a bit of a toxic debate, but fundamentally what we should take refuge in is the laws of our land, they’re there to protect everybody.” Setting out her views on the rule of law at Gray’s Inn, central London, Ms Mahmood said that law “must change with the world, and when it fails to - it fails us. “For many women, the rise of the MeToo movement was a powerful moment of liberation. But it was also a damning indictment of our system that the only justice on offer was justice by hashtag, and not by a judge or jury.” She told members of the legal profession: “And while monsters like Harvey Weinstein would eventually, rightly, go to trial and be found guilty of terrible crimes, others, never proved guilty of any crime, were accused and publicly shamed with no right to defence or fair hearing. “The oldest principle of all – that all are innocent until proven guilty – was at times cast aside as the court of public opinion replaced the court of law.”
I'm sure we'll see her stick to her views on people not getting fired for posting legal things on social media consistentl.... hahaha, oh, no, I just fucking can't. She's such a bullshitter.
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What if i rightly believe Israel must be destroyed and Third Reich reinstated in it's place? I'm all for contructive criticism but people shouldn't be given crap just for who they are, and that's what JKR sometimes does
Ha where were all these people a year ago..such sheep.
Riiiiight, So Nazis shouldn't be stigmatised for what they believe in either?..... Sometimes your opinion is wrong. And you need to be told that.
> So Nazis shouldn't be stigmatised for what they believe in either?..... This is the hyperbole that is utter madness. Rowling is the only billionaire in the world who has willingly lost that status because she's donated so much of her wealth to help the less fortunate. She's openly donated millions upon millions to women's shelters and domestic abuse shelters. She's been an active proponent for fighting for women's rights for years. But no, because she believes that biological sex should trump gender in terms of shared spaces, she's a Nazi.
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