J.K. Rowling is a disgusting TERF

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Thank you!

In you can't see the irony of that comment, I have no idea how to teach you. You're basically saying that if everyone doesn't walk lockstep with trans ideology, they will be rightfully smeared with a derogatory label.

You are promoting bigotry far more that J.K Rowling, I'm afraid. She was simply saying that nobody should lose their job for stating a biological reality. I'm not a big fan of coercing people to go along with group think. It's utterly fascist.

Maybe it is the pain I have been finding myself in for the last several hours, but I just want to post that I am sorry if I have come across as too hostile. Despite the side I have been on, I don't think J.K. Rowling as disgusting, I love her work, the Harry Potter franchise means a lot to me including in themes of social matters.

I actually came across an interesting post on Reddit that drew comparisons on this topic with some lines from the novels. Specifically along the lines the Hogwarts houses, where it is noted that the sorting hat may at first lean towards a house they think the kid would fit, but then takes into consideration the feelings of the kid who believes that it does not match them and something else might. You could compare that to concepts of gender. An interesting line in regards to this is Dumbledore questioning if perhaps they sort students too early.

None of the theme is intended to be related to gender, but some trans people were saying that they were on the cusp of something great, yet no follow through on say cases of students changing houses to something they might be more comfortable with, handwaving the elsewhere as the sorting hat always being right. Which reminds me of other places where it seemed Rowling put in themes later on that were meant to break assumptions of Gryffindor always good and Slytherin bad, where bonus material she has added or questions answered have had her put all hero characters as originally in Gryffindor and all bad guys being from Slytherin, like she fell back a bit on an ideology she built for her series instead of something more complex.

I for one have gotten into a number of discussion fights with my brother over which house Hagrid would have been in. My brother think that Hufflepuff would be the most fitting, since he is loyal and a bit of an awkward person, a good comparison to Newt. I on the other hand think that Hagrid would have best fit into Slytherin, for one I think it is a good explanation for how Tom Riddle knew him and the location of his pet, creating a certain question for Tom if a another half breed had become part of the house loved by purists. And I think Hagrid actually contrasts to Newt in not just caring for beasts, but dangerous beasts in particular, where Hagrid gets kind of reckless in his ambition of getting such monsters, and rather than feeling for the emotions of them he just kind of empathises with their not harmless nature. But along the lines with what I said above, Rowling apparently declared that that Hagrid was a Gryffindor, which we both think does not fit and just is sort of pandering to the all heroes are from Gryffindor.

I don't know how accurate, but apparently a lot of people think things she added post finishing the books has been kind of inconsistent, random, and in general something a number of people would rather ignore her changing after the fact that does not mean anything. The big example being that Dumbledore was apparently gay, and I actually like it in concept if it goes a way flesh out the relationship he had with Grindelwald, which I think may have been hinted with the statement. But the Fantastic Beasts movie have entirely shied away from this point, losing credibility further that it might have been a baseless attempt to seem woke without having the general audience have to face that the great Dumbledore was into men.

^ J.K. Rowling has always rubbed me the wrong way.

After the books and movies were out, she claimed that the stories were super "diverse," but that didn't mean diddly if she didn't actually show any of that in the material.

It's like trying to have your cake and eat it too. She wants to be "woke," but not "woke" enough to possibly damage her empire.

I'll pass.

It can only mean derogatory if you find what it implies as offensive. If you are a feminist and think that trans women are excluding from being real trans people, then the shoe fits. How it has earned the status of being something awful to be called is that a lot of trans people have had their call to accepted halted by people who squarely fit the term, using the feminist movement to attack transwoman as men trying to sneak into women spaces, while also handwaving trans men as maybe some sort of weird kind of lesbians.

The feminist movement as a whole has disavowed trans exclusionary people within their ranks as radicals, which does seem to have been taken poorly by a lot of older feminists that had to use things like biological differences to make their case for feminism. It is kind of awful that people that championed the movement have now found themselves at odds with the movement as it is now. Against what someone was thinking earlier, I myself as a "biological" male am a feminist, what was once a movement that primarily for those born as women to get equal rights, now also targets things like toxic masculinity as also a means to help men not be burdened by toxic expectations. I for one believe that the namesake in addition as fighting for women, aims to share feminine aspects through society to match masculinity that has dominated. Masculinity in itself is not bad, but feminine should not be seen as weak, and bot natures should be available to all the genders.

Slippery slope arguments can earn a lot of distrust as possibly ignoring certain logic in making leaps. But a number believe that some belief in an inherent right nature of femininity that is owned by being born with female sex, is itself a fascist view of feminism, that can seem as a contributing factor where men feel like feminism is anti men. And allowing people in the movement to try and spread their beliefs like allowing fascist to do so without being tested, is itself allowing fascism to bloom. I know the logic can seem shaky, like responding to being called fascist like by calling the other side the real fascists, which is a childish argument. But lets be real here that if Rowling was just allowed to defend someone that an organization decided not to work with because what she said was making people feel unsafe, untested, everyone ignorant of the harm that a lot of people are feeling from those beliefs, would be more likely to believe that trans women are not real women.

A number of people in here already had to look up what the term TERF meant, I guess clueless of the fact that it has been considered a problem where feminists are attacking trans women. I am going to agree that some of this anti-TERF stuff can get out of hand in regards to the likes of cancel culture, where people react to strongly to certain things. The trans community itself has trans people that say that non binary people do not really exist, and are either repressed in going the whole way in gender, or something called transtrenders (fake trans people). These trans people that deny non binary are being called Truscum, and are being seen as a problem of now getting some recognition are doing the same thing to NB people. To be honest there can be people who are still repressed from going the full distance in identifying the gender opposite to what they were assigned, and it seems transtrenders are a thing of people trying to just be special. But the majority of the trans community wants to make it clear that they are against trans people trying to say that non binary people do not exist.

As a new Enby myself, I do believe that I should be standing up for acceptance. But I also admit that I have seen some troubling behavior within people fighting for this, such an example being people harassing and trying to cancel a prominent trans and BreadTube (it is a thing) figure, Natalie Wynn, after people misinterpreting a statement she made about a scenario where she was asked her pronouns, flared up her gender dysphoria, something she admitted was something unavoidable in a space that was trying to accommodate NB people. People were calling her Truscum and trying to cancel her, after she has been an incredibly useful person for Left causes, and herself taught people on NB people. It had been made worse where she had a figure who had been a prominent trans icon, I believe he did porn that included him having a vagina, but had kind of become ostracized by many in the community as truscum not believing NB people are real. He himself found that he was someone that fought for the cause of trans people being accepted, who now found himself hated by many in the cause that he apparently did a lot to help. And that is a case that his generation of trans advocates had to use evidence of a binary that can exist separate from what one is assigned or matches their sex, but is now being found outdated.

It is unfortunate that people that did a lot of good for a cause, can then find themselves in a lot of conflict with newer people to that cause. And I accept that people can go too far with trying to call out people that they think are a problem. But causes evolve, and those causes cannot accept people that risk damaging it by lagging behind. Someone could have claimed that they can't be racist because they fought to remove black people from being slaves, but should be still criticised if they believed that black people were inferior. Or the same, but they fought for the rights of black people, yet still don't a black man marrying their daughter. I know this comparison to racism has not landed a whole lot, but I think that you might eventually see them as surprisingly similar, as we may one day wonder why a trans woman would not been liked to enter a women's changing room, just as now people would be looked down on for refusing their child to marry someone of a different race.

It must be biological, surely, if gender dysphoria is a real condition (I believe it is).

I don't even see why anyone uses twitter...

Its like something about it makes people want to create incriminating posts under their real name with a real picture so everyone knows who they are moreso than other social media.

Interesting analysis, Bradleigh, thanks for that.
I can't really disagree with anything you've said, except that we have different interpretations of Rowling's intent and motivations in that tweet. Unless she says more, we'll probably never get any resolution as to whether or not she is justifiably labelled TERF.
(But Hagrid surely ought to be a Hufflepuff )

That is fair.
I think there has been a bit of an extra reasoning why some people were so quick label Rowling, and it was that this had not come out of nowhere. Apparently for some time people had been taking notes that she had been liking posts of notable anti-trans feminists.

I am sure Rowling feels she is doing the right thing, protecting a woman who lost her job for speaking her mind, in what that women felt was in the best interests of women. As much as I am open to question Rowling and Forstater's points of view, I will be against any movement that might try to harass them, and I think troubling points of view can be pushed back without things like threats, which I could see as a real possibility be done against them. They are entitled to their belief, but not free from criticism of those beliefs.

Unfortunately it is worse than that. In one of the Robert Galbraith novels, the main character notices that a woman is trans and jokes about her being raped in prison.

https://www.them.us/story/is-jk-rowling-transphobic

Rowling is a TERF unfortunately and this just reinforces that.

^ And again no clarification in that article.

What do you mean?

No evidence word for word of what was said.

Joking about rape in prison is awful in general so until I learn the full context (e.g. presenting the character as awful?) I can't form any opinion on this.
I need to read the book myself because from what I've read of JK Rowling and Robert Galbraith, there is nothing radically feministic about them.
So, maybe TEMF (Trans Excluding Moderate Feminist) would fit better.

How about she isn't anything until there is actually proof, rather than anecdotal evidence that she is transphobic?

Who said about what?

Because the first page of this topic shows the Tweet of Rowling saying that "sex is real". It is a transphobic whistle to nullify the gender of trans people. That does not mean that sex is not a real thing, but it is not generally relevant in whether one should be treated as a particular gender.