What did JK Rowling do wrong?

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I don't think that JK Rowling did anything really bad initially. The problem is her CONTINUAL need to fight with trans activists online. It's not helping anyone..... it's not helping women, it's not helping trans people and it's most definitely not helping her. If she had just shut up about the issue, most people would have forgotten about it quickly. But she can't let it go, and she's digging a bigger and bigger hole for herself.

I'm going to confess that this whole topic makes my head hurt. But I think that JK Rowling's approach after initial questions were raised does leave a lot to be desired. There is more here than push-back against push-back.

This article breaks down a lot of it: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complet ... ontroversy

I'm going to summarize very poorly that a lot of the thing rests on the use of terminology. And the fact that for a writer she has not been expressing some of her concerns very tactfully. But back to the terminology, she seems worried about shared experiences and women's rights, with the terminology scuffle possibly mucking it all up. She also has raised questions about how and when youth convert.

I don't find either of these concerns entirely invalid, but there are some points I think her discussions are skipping over.

IMHO, no one has the right to tell someone else who they are. So if a person sincerely and consistently tells me they are a woman, it would be harmful of me to post a position that denies the possibility. Trying to address this position in society with language has been a messy business, and I do not personally believe that most people messing it up are out to deny someone else their lived experience. But some people are actually trying to deny someone else their lived experience, and that I have no patience for. But how are we supposed to tell the difference? As far as I can tell, and I could be wrong, JK Rowling is hung up on the language and what changing it would mean for other battles women in society fight, but isn't trying to deny someone else their right to be who they are. The problem is that the words currently are the only way people have to express who they are, which creates a conundrum.

I"m not, personally, worried that allowing transgender women to use all the female terms will harm the other issues women fight for. In many ways, the trans community has been able to assertively validate some of the lived experiences of women worldwide that society has often tried to tell us are solely in our heads. By having experienced life presenting outwardly as both male and female, but otherwise being exactly the same person, they know society treats men and women differently even when everything else is equal. They know how the way they got treated changed when their visual presentation changed.

But the language is tough. Trying to write some of the sentences of the paragraph, above, without risking offense, is definitely challenging. Did I use the words right? I'm not at all sure.

The other controversy, about youth transitions, really should never have been addressed in a tweet. As a parent, my feelings on how and when a youth should transition are complex, and absolutely no part of me thinks I have a right to any opinion at all without knowing each specific individual, family and community involved. Fact of the matter is that kids can know from a very young age that they are in the wrong body. But another fact of the matter is that children naturally try on various identities as they grow up, and can hold onto them very strongly and for lengthy periods. Knowing which is which is no small feat, and calling it wrong either way risks a lot of harm to the child. Parents call things wrong for their kids all the time, choosing one side or the other based more on their own needs, beliefs and perceptions, than what they are actually hearing from their child. With transgender youth, that problem seems to currently run in both directions. Asking parents ready to jump on the bandwagon with therapies to take a breath isn't a bad thing, same as pushing a parent refusing to accept their child might be transgender to see the harm their position is causing is not a bad thing. Right now the conversation is a little one-sided and overly confrontational, which squashes out the level of nuance and sensitivity that I believe is most likely needed.

For obvious reasons, you have no idea how much harm I managed to cause to my own daughter with words I used and assumptions I made, but I will say it now: the harm was real. She is not trans, but she is LGBTQ, and various things I innocently said during her growing up years drove a giant wedge between us. I watched her struggle with no idea how to help her. It was only being stuck together during shut downs that forced some difficult and very overdue conversations. So, yes, I not just believe, but know, that superimposing your personal beliefs of who people can or should be, over another person's view of who they actually are, causes harm. Whether or not you internally believe someone else's self-image, denying them ownership of their own image in conversation is more than rude.

I'll be frank; this sounds like a hostage situation. Not that I blame you, it would be stupid to let ideology come between you and your child, but it does sort of color your thought process, doesn't it?

It isn't always bad to let someone else influence your thought process. People you know personally are going to be a lot more honest with you. Have I gotten honest information in a non-combative way that I might not have gotten otherwise? Yes. Is that going to skew my views in a harmful way? No. It is going to allow me actual empathy, and get me closer to knowing how to do right by that person. That is GOOD. We should each have ownership of our own identities, and no one's personal beliefs should be considered to be more important. Why would a right to express an opinion be more sacred than a right to be accepted as the person you were born as? I shared that story because you claimed it caused no harm, it was just manners, but I know it does cause harm. Because someone I care about was finally brave enough to tell me their full and unvarnished truth. It wasn't a sales pitch or manipulation. It wasn't being taken hostage. It's finally being let in for a visit so I could understand pain I knew existed but hadn't been able to understand.

(I myself wanted to be a boy when I was little. In my teens, I felt like I was neither a boy nor a girl; I probably would have called myself "nonbinary" had that term been around back then. By my early twenties, I came to regard myself as a gender-nonconforming woman.)

Do you ever wonder how things might have turned out had there been a community urging you towards medical intervention, even coaching you on what to tell the doctors to get hormones and blockers, and a medical establishment willing to operate on you as young as 13?

Saw this in the mail this morning: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... wling.html

Worth remembering that Rowling is richer than Satan himself most, one of the reasons she can stick to her guns is because she can take the financial hit. Others ^ are bullied and threatened out of the discussion pretty quickly.

Where is the medical establishment willing to "operate" on kids as young as 13??? Surely, not very many places, if any???

Saw this in the mail this morning: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... wling.html

Worth remembering that Rowling is richer than Satan himself most, one of the reasons she can stick to her guns is because she can take the financial hit. Others ^ are bullied and threatened out of the discussion pretty quickly.

Can't she self publish her books? There is Amazon and Hulu. She can also do a patreon and post her work there.

It's hard to tell from the propaganda, anti and pro JK Rowling, whether she stops at genuine and understandable concerns .

‘In our society right now, something is either all good or all bad. Either there should be a vending machine for gender hormones or people who prescribe them to kids should be put in jail.’

I'm surprised to learn that top surgeries (not just puberty blockers) are allowed for kids under 18, at least in some places (mostly, just coastal cities here in the U.S.A.). However, judging by these articles, it still does not appear that such surgeries (especially for kids under 15) are very common, and parental consent is still required.

it's baffling that people still hide behind "can you name one thing she said that was transphobic" like sorry I don't keep a tally, I don't take notes, I just saw them, knew they were transphobic and acted accordingly. Why is it so hard to just believe us?