OZ Bookshop bans JK Rowling novels from shelves to create 'safe space' for trans folk

[Crimson Dynamo]

https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB198Eyy.img?h=532&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=376&y=210

https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB198H2U.img?h=532&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

A book shop has announced they will no longer stock JK Rowling novels and
will "phase out" the copies of Harry Potter they currently have in store.


Rabble Books and Games in Maylands, Australia, shared their bold decision in
a post on social media on Tuesday.


They explained that this move was intended to help them become a "safer
space" for the community.


This comes after the 55-year-old author sparked outrage by voicing an opinion regarding transgender ,"rights"

https://scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.2885-15/e35/s1080x1080/80710552_1226901947504457_7172451609333762599_n.jp g?_nc_ht=scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com&_nc_cat=109&_nc_ohc=YH1Xy6ZrTdYAX_w2Ix2&_nc_tp=15&oh=3f8a89b7c84a1aa2c60b20a2e16b3f8e&oe=5F8C4F28

https://cdnph.upi.com/svc/sv/upi/9321472726314/2016/1/e4d3a49ca7a1a1d62c78ad80ab9e43fd/JK-Rowling-Amy-Schumer-have-friendly-Twitter-exchange-to-fans-delight.jpg



https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/book-shop-bans-jk-rowling-novels-from-shelves-to-create-safe-space-for-trans-community/ar-BB198EyB?ocid=msedgntp

[Beso]

Keeping the Darren's happy.

[Kate!]

This is ridiculous. Pffft.

[Ammi]

...it’s an outlet in Australia and it says that there are many books that it doesn’t stock on the shelves...(...similar to Waterstones and many other bookstores..)..but they’re happy to order...that’s often the way with books...

[The Slim Reaper]

...it’s an outlet in Australia and it says that there are many books that it doesn’t stock on the shelves...(...similar to Waterstones and many other bookstores..)..but they’re happy to order...that’s often the way with books...

Thank's for cutting through the fog.

[Ammi]

A terrible decision. If people want to censor themselves that's one thing, but bookstores shouldn't ever be making that decision. I bet I could pick up a copy of mein kampf from there.

...they’re not censoring it, it’s readily available to order from them...(...as are many other books..)...

[Ammi]

Thank's for cutting through the fog.

...I can’t recall the last time that I was able to buy a book from the shelf that I didn’t have to order...

[Swan]

...they’re not censoring it, it’s readily available to order from them...(...as are many other books..)...

I thought they just meant the'll order in the Harry Potter books after phasing them out? Maybe im wrong, it's not crystal clear.

[Ammi]

I thought they just meant the'll order in the Harry Potter books after phasing them out? Maybe im wrong, it's not crystal clear.

...actually, I think that you’re right, Swan...I stand corrected, I don’t think that the new book is available in that Perth shop at all...

[Niamh.]

Honestly I think things like this will only give more support to her :shrug:

[Ammi]

...I have no idea how her books sell in Australia....but she is worldwide so...

[The Slim Reaper]

...actually, I think that you’re right, Swan...I stand corrected, I don’t think that the new book is available in that Perth shop at all...

Bloody hell, Ammi. I'd deleted my outraged post, and now I have to be outraged all over again. :smug: :fist:

[Ammi]

...it’s still not clear whether it’ll be available to order from them or not...as Swan said, it’s quite confusing how it’s all worded...

“Whilst stocking a book isn’t an endorsement (good grief, that would be a minefield), and we will always take orders for books that aren’t in stock, there are more worthy books to put on the shelf, books that don’t harm communities and won’t make us sad to unpack them.”

[Ammi]

Bloody hell, Ammi. I'd deleted my outraged post, and now I have to be outraged all over again. :smug: :fist:

...you’re an outraged ready person, so it won’t take much effort, I don’t think...

[The Slim Reaper]

Yeah, sounds like they're skipping it.

[Swan]

Bloody hell, Ammi. I'd deleted my outraged post, and now I have to be outraged all over again. :smug: :fist:

...it’s still not clear whether it’ll be available to order from them or not...as Swan said, it’s quite confusing how it’s all worded...

“Whilst stocking a book isn’t an endorsement (good grief, that would be a minefield), and we will always take orders for books that aren’t in stock, there are more worthy books to put on the shelf, books that don’t harm communities and won’t make us sad to unpack them.”

...you’re an outraged ready person, so it won’t take much effort, I don’t think...

:joker:

Going by the * it's just a side note on her pseudonym, not that they'll stock her new book, or any other book written by her (other than Harry Potter), even to order.

[Liam-]

A private establishment has the right to stock whatever they want or don’t want to, no big deal

[Tom4784]

It's their shop, they can choose what stock to sell. To call it censorship is a bit silly, especially when you can still order the titles with them, they just won't stock 'em.

[Jordan.]

their gaff

their rules

:clap1:

[Niamh.]

Troubled Blood, the new book from Robert Galbraith aka J K Rowling, has shifted more copies in a day than Lethal White sold in its first week, according to publisher Little, Brown.

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/rowlings-troubled-blood-sells-more-day-lethal-white-week-1219476?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=Morning%20Briefing%20-%20170920

No publicity is bad publicity ...as they say :douf:

[Crimson Dynamo]

That first pic she looks amazing

[Oliver_W]

Bit pathetic really. If seeing a book by somekne who points out biological realities is that triggering for someone, maybe they just shouldn't leave the house.

But it's up to the shop ain't it, so whatever.

[Ammi]

...this is from Pink News also as well as the Australian bookstore one...Jedward and Piers Morgan in ‘furious clash’ on Twitter...

...the Tweets aren’t loading for me for some reason so I’ll just link the whole article...

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/16/jedward-piers-morgan-jk-rowling-troubled-blood-trans-rights-twitter/

[Swan]

The X Factor stars turned Twitter icons

:laugh:

Book burning though? Didn't they do something like that in the 1950's :nono:

[Niamh.]

:laugh:

Book burning though? Didn't they do something like that in the 1950's :nono:

Yes and back then they liked to tell women to shut up and sit down as well...backwards in time we're going

[Swan]

Yes and back then they liked to tell women to shut up and sit down as well...backwards in time we're going

Yep...

[Crimson Dynamo]

The German National Socialists loved a good book banning (and burning)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings

[Niamh.]

...this is from Pink News also as well as the Australian bookstore one...Jedward and Piers Morgan in ‘furious clash’ on Twitter...

...the Tweets aren’t loading for me for some reason so I’ll just link the whole article...

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/16/jedward-piers-morgan-jk-rowling-troubled-blood-trans-rights-twitter/

Piers! What’s ridiculous is you fighting JK Rowling’s battles when she needs to reevaluate her actions and be aware of the consequences and damage her fictional book is inflicting on the transgender community!

Just a couple of men telling a woman how she should and shouldn't think..........

[Shaun]

The choice of Robert Galbraith is an odd and perhaps unfortunate one in hindsight. I doubt she heard about him before choosing a pen name and thought "YES. THAT'S THE ONE." Even if she were a massive bigot, it'd be a bit on the nose and easy for detractors to point out :laugh:

[Oliver_W]

...this is from Pink News also as well as the Australian bookstore one...Jedward and Piers Morgan in ‘furious clash’ on Twitter...

...the Tweets aren’t loading for me for some reason so I’ll just link the whole article...

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/16/jedward-piers-morgan-jk-rowling-troubled-blood-trans-rights-twitter/

Morgan, whose own track record on trans rights isn’t, er, great

That's where I stopped reading. He's great when it comes to LGBT stuff tbh. The linked "article" is just stupid jokes and stuff about "nonbinary", which is nonsense anyway :joker:

[bots]

this strikes me as a calculated offering to create confrontation and publicity. A bookstore is free to stock or not stock any books they want to and that's always been the case

[Liam-]

:laugh:

Book burning though? Didn't they do something like that in the 1950's :nono:

Do we really think Jedward are aware of anything but themselves and hairspray?

[Niamh.]

this strikes me as a calculated offering to create confrontation and publicity. A bookstore is free to stock or not stock any books they want to and that's always been the case

Yeah totally their choice but it's only going to end up increasing her sales anyway so all's good for multi millionaire JK

[Swan]

Do we really think Jedward are aware of anything but themselves and hairspray?

No of course not, but they are in the public eye being 'twitter icons' n'all. They have over 600k followers (yes i googled 'jedward twitter' for the first, and last time). It's dangerous to encourage people to revert back to the 50's and 'burn books' just because they don't like the author. It's progression doing a 180.

[Oliver_W]

No of course not, but they are in the public eye being 'twitter icons' n'all. They have over 600k followers (yes i googled 'jedward twitter' for the first, and last time). It's dangerous to encourage people to revert back to the 50's and 'burn books' just because they don't like the author. It's progression doing a 180.

Especially when said author is openly feminist and has been a major progressive voice for god knows how long..

[user104658]

this strikes me as a calculated offering to create confrontation and publicity. A bookstore is free to stock or not stock any books they want to and that's always been the case

Indeed, a cynical publicity grab, they can stock whatever they want of course but choosing to do it loudly isn't about making an ethical stand... is it... it's about drawing attention. These days it seems like people are generally OK with people hijacking their cause for self-publicity, though, so long as the message fits the tribal zeitgeist.

On a personal level I wouldn't be interested in a bookshop that is anything other than politically neutral. Half the point of GOING to a physical book shop would be to see if something outside your usual sphere of influence catches your eye :facepalm:... if you know what you're looking for you buy online for a fraction of the price like everyone else :joker:.

Quite seriously though this trend towards some variant of revisionism and book-burning is a bit concerning. If we started burning the books of every author we disagree with or even those who have a blatantly murky personal history we'd be going round the shelves with a supermarket trolley FULL of books for the pyre. Imagine thinking you can only consume content made by squeaky-clean people who are on your personal and political page :umm2:. What does a generation of people living in that sort of intellectual closed-system look like? Not a world I'm ever going to advocate, really. And no I'm not saying the Harry Potter series is top tier intellectualism - but once you start stripping one set of books from the shelves (and dousing them in lighter fluid along the way)... that's a pandoras box that it would be very naive to assume you can close.

What happens if other book stores or chains start stripping LGBT literature from their shelves because of their personal beliefs? Is that difficult to imagine? How will anyone who champions this action be able to say one word about it? If you say "taking books off the shelves is fine... burning books is fine..." it becomes very, very difficult to then say "hold on, I didn't mean THOSE books!!"

[user104658]

The choice of Robert Galbraith is an odd and perhaps unfortunate one in hindsight.

That part did stand out to me to be fair, but it's something I'd have to dig around before jumping to "social media conclusions". I agree that it would be a pretty clear piece of political banner waving if it was a deliberate choice, and therefore it seems quite unlikely. But also a bit of an unusual name. Hm.

[Liam-]

Indeed, a cynical publicity grab, they can stock whatever they want of course but choosing to do it loudly isn't about making an ethical stand... is it... it's about drawing attention. These days it seems like people are generally OK with people hijacking their cause for self-publicity, though, so long as the message fits the tribal zeitgeist.

On a personal level I wouldn't be interested in a bookshop that is anything other than politically neutral. Half the point of GOING to a physical book shop would be to see if something outside your usual sphere of influence catches your eye :facepalm:... if you know what you're looking for you buy online for a fraction of the price like everyone else :joker:.

Quite seriously though this trend towards some variant of revisionism and book-burning is a bit concerning. If we started burning the books of every author we disagree with or even those who have a blatantly murky personal history we'd be going round the shelves with a supermarket trolley FULL of books for the pyre. Imagine thinking you can only consume content made by squeaky-clean people who are on your personal and political page :umm2:. What does a generation of people living in that sort of intellectual closed-system look like? Not a world I'm ever going to advocate, really. And no I'm not saying the Harry Potter series is top tier intellectualism - but once you start stripping one set of books from the shelves (and dousing them in lighter fluid along the way)... that's a pandoras box that it would be very naive to assume you can close.

What happens if other book stores or chains start stripping LGBT literature from their shelves because of their personal beliefs? Is that difficult to imagine? How will anyone who champions this action be able to say one word about it? If you say "taking books off the shelves is fine... burning books is fine..." it becomes very, very difficult to then say "hold on, I didn't mean THOSE books!!"

You’d have more of a point if we weren’t already told as a community to get over it when companies refuse service for things like gay weddings because it falls under ‘freedom of choice’ so we can’t demand that private business cater to us

[Liam-]

That part did stand out to me to be fair, but it's something I'd have to dig around before jumping to "social media conclusions". I agree that it would be a pretty clear piece of political banner waving if it was a deliberate choice, and therefore it seems quite unlikely. But also a bit of an unusual name. Hm.

I can’t imagine that she fell into the name by accident and it’s all just one big coincidence, it’s a very specific name and she’s admitted to apparently doing a lot of research, I don’t see it as anything but a very deliberate choice

[bots]

That part did stand out to me to be fair, but it's something I'd have to dig around before jumping to "social media conclusions". I agree that it would be a pretty clear piece of political banner waving if it was a deliberate choice, and therefore it seems quite unlikely. But also a bit of an unusual name. Hm.

what's the issue with the pseudonym, she has used them in the past

[Niamh.]

That part did stand out to me to be fair, but it's something I'd have to dig around before jumping to "social media conclusions". I agree that it would be a pretty clear piece of political banner waving if it was a deliberate choice, and therefore it seems quite unlikely. But also a bit of an unusual name. Hm.

Her explanation for the name choice is Robert after her political here Robert Kennedy and Ella Galbraith was her fantasy name as a child. Who is Robert Galbraith?

[Liam-]

what's the issue with the pseudonym, she has used them in the past

Robert Galbraith was the person who invented gay conversion therapy

[bots]

Robert Galbraith was the person who invented gay conversion therapy

oops

[Niamh.]

Robert Galbraith was the person who invented gay conversion therapy

Why do you think JK Rowling is anti gay though?

[Liam-]

Why do you think JK Rowling is anti gay though?

I don’t think she’s necessarily anti-gay, I think she’s a fake ally that likes using the community when it suits her personally, no true ally would be happy making money using the name of someone that was the direct cause of such mental and physical torture for countless members of said community, personally speaking

[Crimson Dynamo]

Im sure what ever name she came up with someone would have found some link to diss her

[Ammi]

...this is an interesting article actually, so I’ll just leave it here if anyone wishes to read it as it’s quite long...


We Should Have Known About J.K. Rowling's Views, Thanks to Her Under-the-Radar Book Series...

A lot of valid criticism has already been written about J.K. Rowling and, by extension, Harry Potter, particularly in light of the author's recent, vastly misinformed anti-transgender comments via blog post, Twitter, and elsewhere. Like so many Potter fans, I'm wrestling with my disappointment and personal relationship to the series in light of all this. Many intelligent articles explore the misinformation she uses to defend her perspective and how insensitivity around gender and race was already evident in her wizardry canon. For the original seven books (1997-2007), though, some fans have argued that they were "of their time" and subject to increasing criticism after the books were completed. But what about Rowling's other series, the whodunit mysteries she's actually still writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith? Unlike Harry Potter, this story takes place in the real world—one in which Rowling directly explores issues of race, gender, and sexuality. It's really bleak.

For a long time, I loved the Strike series. I preordered the books. I read them the day they came out. I loved her representation of her secondary protagonist, Robin Ellacott, who's a rape survivor with PTSD—made even more poignant because Rowling shared she's a sexual assault survivor in her latest blog post and has since claimed to have received rape and death threats. I'm also a rape survivor; I felt so seen by Robin's depiction that I wrote a Medium blog post devoted to it in 2018. It was perhaps because of my own connection to one of the characters that it took me much too long to acknowledge what else was staring me, a cisgender white woman, directly in the face.

There's a strong moralistic undercurrent in the Strike series. Exploring some similar themes as The Casual Vacancy, there's no patience for people who are lazy, greedy, gossipy, fame-seeking, cheating, or deceitful. Among others, she presents unlikeable characters who take the form of conservative, hypocritical politicians; radical leftists; wealthy elite who rub elbows with royalty; publishers, editors, authors—especially the misogynist ones—in the literary world; and journalists, particularly those who work for the Daily Mail and Sun chasing salacious stories and hacking phones. By contrast, protagonist Cormoran Strike is an impoverished, disabled veteran who lost half a leg to an IED in Afghanistan. As a private detective, he serves as the sometimes caustic voice of reason as he seeks justice for his clients.

To an extent, this is the job of the crime writer—to create characters that read as seedy, given that they're all potential suspects. But this element makes it all the more upsetting that, as with Harry Potter, problematic racial undertones exist throughout: describing a seamstress as "oriental" in book one, The Cuckoo's Calling, and calling a multiracial man a "masterpiece produced by an indecipherable cocktail of races." A homeless Black woman, "uncompromisingly plain" with "greasy skin...the color of burned earth...covered in acne pustules and pits" is a covetous blackmailer, killed for her shortsightedness. An Italian Briton in book four, Lethal White, is "swarthy" and ultimately sociopathic. There's an offhand use of the n-word via a Jay-Z and Kanye song in the background. An investigating Strike resorts to taunting a Muslim man about his family's disownment because of their mistaken belief in his homosexuality.

Rowling's not the first crime writer to use racist stereotypes, but the problems don't stop there. There are even fewer LGBTQ+ representations, but we actually don't have to go far to see her depict a transgender character: book two, The Silkworm, which won the Gold Dagger Award in 2015 from the Crime Writers' Association. A potential suspect, trans woman Pippa Midgley is a pitiful, high-strung, violent character with no sense or self-preservation. She stalks and attacks Strike with a Stanley knife. When Strike defends himself and drags her into his office, references are made to Pippa's assigned sex at birth: her "prominent" Adam's apple, voice "as rough and loud as a docker's," and the vocal exercises she may have done, as she explains she's transitioning. Strike threatens her when she attempts escape. "If you go for that door one more ****ing time I'm calling the police and I'll testify and be glad to watch you go down for attempted murder. And it won't be fun for you inside, Pippa...not pre-op."

Here, the protagonist, the hero you're meant to be rooting for, is making a pretty clear threat—an allusion to prison rape. This is particularly callous in light of Rowling's admission she's a survivor, and seemingly flying in the face of her blog comment that "[t]rans people need and deserve protection." It's also transphobic to taunt Pippa about her transition—a grossly inappropriate remark that wouldn't be made if he were treating her simply as a nefarious woman—and highlight how that will lead to more violence. Other characters respond with pity, rather than scorn, to Pippa, but her attempts to form a new family after disownment and honor her experience via memoir are treated glibly. At one point Strike calls her a "self-dramatizing twat."

In 2019, Vice noted the book's transphobic nature as preexisting evidence of Rowling's beliefs. Trans writer Katelyn Burns wrote for Them in 2018 that "[i]t’s an entirely common though insulting trope about trans women—that they are aggressive and unable to overcome their masculine nature, not to mention villainous—that has become all too common from cisgender authors with only a passing knowledge of trans people."

It doesn't stop there. Book three, Career of Evil, spotlights and heaps scorn on two characters with body integrity identity disorder (BIID), in which sufferers "reject" healthy body parts and seek amputation or paralyzation. The disorder garners significant controversy; Researchers categorize it as rare, extreme, and debilitating. It may originate as a psychiatric disorder and/or a neurological problem that produces abnormal brain scans. And some conservative writers incorrectly conflate people who have this agonizing disorder with people who are transgender.

And in fact, some readers have already noted that Rowling's depiction of BIID in Career of Evil comes off as a coded criticism of being transgender. There are similarities in the language, like, "People have died trying to do it themselves," and one of the characters proudly announcing, "It's a need...I've known ever since I was a child. I'm in the wrong body. I need to be paralyzed." This garners a response from the disabled Strike: "Get some ****ing help. With your head." Rowling hasn't spoken specifically about her feelings about BIID, but the violent, derisive depiction fetishizes and pathologizes the characters in the same way as Pippa. Worth noting: BBC apparently cut both Pippa and the BIID storylines from the C.B. Strike TV series.

Not as many people read the Strike series—it would be almost impossible to replicate the insane success of Harry Potter—but the first two Strike books hit 1.5 million copies in 2015 and Rowling's been steadily chugging along ever since (book five is set to debut September 29). The decision about what to do with the series depends on what an individual needs to process and heal: Some walk away, some work to separate the art from the artist. Some fans have already said they won't purchase more Strike books. Two Harry Potter fan sites, MuggleNet and Leaky Cauldron, have issued statements condemning her remarks—particularly that she chose to tweet during Pride Month. Some argue that Rowling has made herself irrelevant. Many, myself included, have committed to listening to trans writers when they call out prejudice the first time. Burns posted a thread that encourages readers to pivot from Rowling to the intersection of race and transphobia:


It's still true that the Strike series helped me reckon with my own trauma and feel seen. But, I'd rather be a true ally. If there's one small silver lining, then, it's that Rowling inspired transgender and nonbinary people—in some cases, to write more inclusive books of their own. "If the root of Rowling’s books is the constant miracle of overcoming considerable odds with love and courage to negotiate hatred," explains writer and transgender woman Charlotte Clymer, "trans people, who leave our homes every day into a world full of discrimination and violence against our bodies and souls, are the closest thing this world has to magic."



https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a33012556/jk-rowling-robert-galbraith-books/

[Niamh.]

I don’t think she’s necessarily anti-gay, I think she’s a fake ally that likes using the community when it suits her personally, no true ally would be happy making money using the name of someone that was the direct cause of such mental and physical torture for countless members of said community, personally speaking

I think that name is very well known though is it? I never heard of him anyway

[Liam-]

I think that name is very well known though is it? I never heard of him anyway

Whether you personally have or not isn’t the point, she’s claimed to do a lot of research and considering she once compared forms of transitioning to conversion therapy, I think it’s very much safe to assume that she probably knows who he is, I mean, if you were an author and wanted to use a pseudonym, wouldn’t you check to make sure said name didn’t have connections to something off?

[Niamh.]

Whether you personally have or not isn’t the point, she’s claimed to do a lot of research and considering she once compared forms of transitioning to conversion therapy, I think it’s very much safe to assume that she probably knows who he is, I mean, if you were an author and wanted to use a pseudonym, wouldn’t you check to make sure said name didn’t have connections to something off?

She claimed to have done research into trans issues not gay issues though, whether they're under the same umbrella group or not they really aren't that similar. I actually have no idea whether or not I would check a name or not tbh, I couldn't say for sure either way having never been in that position before. I really don't believe JK Rowling would champion a man who introduced gay conversion therapy though and JK Rowling has never given any indication that she was anything but a supporter of gay rights

[Josy]

Yes and back then they liked to tell women to shut up and sit down as well...backwards in time we're goingUnder his eye

[arista]

...it’s an outlet in Australia and it says that there are many books that it doesn’t stock on the shelves...(...similar to Waterstones and many other bookstores..)..but they’re happy to order...that’s often the way with books...



Should be in the title

[Niamh.]

Under his eyeMmhhmm

[Oliver_W]

JKR doesn't seem anti anything, but her brand of feminism is female-centric ... as revolutionary a concept that apparently is :joker:

backwards in time we're going

http://cdn2.creativecirclemedia.com/sealy/original/20190904-152740-090519%20Grammar%20Guy%20Yoda.jpg

[Crimson Dynamo]

:laugh2:

[user104658]

Robert Galbraith was the person who invented gay conversion therapyI mean... With a brief half hour having a look into this earlier I can already tell you that this is a massive exaggeration. He definitely didn't invent it, he want even a prominent figure in it, nor was it his main area of focus.

He was a (pretty brutal) "psychiatrist" who engaged in DBS (deep brain stimulation) experiments, seeking to prove that it was possible to psychologically alter people by physically altering their brain (with electrodes). In one experiment seeking to prove that, he claimed that he had successfully "turned a gay man straight".

His goals weren't even anything to do with wanting to convert gay people, he wanted to prove his DBS hypothesis and did a whole load of unethical **** in the process.

[Marsh.]

:joker: A pathetic move tbh.

[Crimson Dynamo]

I mean... With a brief half hour having a look into this earlier I can already tell you that this is a massive exaggeration. He definitely didn't invent it, he want even a prominent figure in it, nor was it his main area of focus.

He was a (pretty brutal) "psychiatrist" who engaged in DBS (deep brain stimulation) experiments, seeking to prove that it was possible to psychologically alter people by physically altering their brain (with electrodes). In one experiment seeking to prove that, he claimed that he had successfully "turned a gay man straight".

His goals weren't even anything to do with wanting to convert gay people, he wanted to prove his DBS hypothesis and did a whole load of unethical **** in the process.

yep, as i said use any name and you can link it to a twitter "omg did you know that that name is also the name of a man whose cousin once knew a homophobe in Zimbabwe...THE ABSOLUTE BITCH"

[Liam-]

I mean... With a brief half hour having a look into this earlier I can already tell you that this is a massive exaggeration. He definitely didn't invent it, he want even a prominent figure in it, nor was it his main area of focus.

He was a (pretty brutal) "psychiatrist" who engaged in DBS (deep brain stimulation) experiments, seeking to prove that it was possible to psychologically alter people by physically altering their brain (with electrodes). In one experiment seeking to prove that, he claimed that he had successfully "turned a gay man straight".

His goals weren't even anything to do with wanting to convert gay people, he wanted to prove his DBS hypothesis and did a whole load of unethical **** in the process.

https://www.history.com/news/gay-conversion-therapy-origins-19th-century

‘Some LGBTQ people were given electroconvulsive therapy, but others were subjected to even more extreme techniques like lobotomies. Other “treatments” included shocks administered through electrodes that were implanted directly into the brain. Robert Galbraith Heath, a psychiatrist in New Orleans who pioneered the technique, used this form of brain stimulation, along with hired prostitutes and heterosexual pornography, to “change” the sexual orientation of gay men. But though Heath contended he was able to actually turn gay men straight, his work has since been challenged and criticized for its methodology.‘

He pioneered the electric shock therapy used in conversion therapy, being an awful crazy scientist to other people doesn’t take away that fact.

[Oliver_W]

I googled this: robert galbraith -book -rowling -potter -cormoran -bookstore -penguin which found search results for Robert Galbraith, but missed out anything to do with the terms which follow a minus, which means it'd probably show something similar to what JKR would have found when she googled her prospective pen name.

Dr Heath isn't on the first page. The results show William Robert Galbraith, a civil engineer; Robert Galbraith, a painter; and Rob Galbraith, a photographer.

If she's never looked into gay conversion therapy, she'd have no reason to know about one of her penname's partial namesakes. Any harm and distress the name caused to the, ah, "community" (lol) is unintended and coincidental.

[Liam-]

Robert Galbreith Wikipedia comes up on the first page and he’s on there, does anyone really believe a supposedly smart woman like JK wouldn’t cover all bases to secure her own back? there are too many different pieces to the story for me to ever believe it’s a coincidence

[Oliver_W]

She's never shown homophobic views though.

I'm pretty sure the Twitterverse had randomly decided she was transphobic before the first Strike book came out? So why would she play into their hands by using a name with that history?

[Liam-]

She's never shown homophobic views though.

I'm pretty sure the Twitterverse had randomly decided she was transphobic before the first Strike book came out? So why would she play into their hands by using a name with that history?

She’s been writing under that name since 2014, she used the name of a man who pioneered a brutal gay conversion technique, to write books with thinly veiled discriminatory tropes towards all sorts of minorities, including gay and trans, littered through them, she then came out publicly with her ham fisted ‘concerns’ about the trans movement, stirred up hatred, all just in time for a new book to be brought out about a straight men pretending to be a woman, so he can kill women, nothing will ever convince me that she’s anything but a fake ally at best, or an out and out bigot at worst.

[Niamh.]

Robert Galbreith Wikipedia comes up on the first page and he’s on there, does anyone really believe a supposedly smart woman like JK wouldn’t cover all bases to secure her own back? there are too many different pieces to the story for me to ever believe it’s a coincidenceWhy on Earth do you think she's homophobic though? She's only ever spoke about trans rights affecting womens rights.

[Liam-]

Why on Earth do you think she's homophobic though? She's only ever spoke about trans rights affecting womens rights.

I haven’t said I think she’s homophobic though? I tend to believe that she’s a fake ally that uses the lgbt community when she sees fit

[Oliver_W]

nothing will ever convince me that she’s anything but a fake ally at best, or an out and out bigot at worst.
What has she ever said that's bigoted?

I'm also interested in the "fake ally" stuff. That's very internet buzzwordish. I've never once considered that I need allies, and I doubt she ever referred to herself as such. Being in favour of gay rights is pretty normal these days, and I have no reason to think she's against them.

[Niamh.]

I haven’t said I think she’s homophobic though? I tend to believe that she’s a fake ally that uses the lgbt community when she sees fitI just mean this Robert Galbraith guy did something that was homophobic not transphobic so unless you think she's a secret homophobe what relevance would her picking that name have?

[Shaun]

It's a valid comparison in the terms of defaming her character, or rather, questioning her awareness of LGBT issues. Everything mentioned about Hermione being a different race to what everyone expected, or Dumbledore's homosexuality being referenced to in the loosest of terms and the faintest of whispers, did stink a little of tokenism and point-scoring on her part. When you throw in the criticisms she's received for the depiction of goblins in Gringotts as having strong antisemitic vibes, and the whole 'Cho Chang' mess, it does paint a broader picture of her as a clumsy, awkward writer and someone who isn't great at presenting various cultures accurately or in a good light.

I just don't really think she'd be as foolish or as callous as to deliberately set out and steal the name of some obscure conversion therapist as a little "bigotry easter egg" for us to work out, lol

[Liam-]

I just mean this Robert Galbraith guy did something that was homophobic not transphobic so unless you think she's a secret homophobe what relevance would her picking that name have?

Conversion therapy affects trans people too

[Niamh.]

It's a valid comparison in the terms of defaming her character, or rather, questioning her awareness of LGBT issues. Everything mentioned about Hermione being a different race to what everyone expected, or Dumbledore's homosexuality being referenced to in the loosest of terms and the faintest of whispers, did stink a little of tokenism and point-scoring on her part. When you throw in the criticisms she's received for the depiction of goblins in Gringotts as having strong antisemitic vibes, and the whole 'Cho Chang' mess, it does paint a broader picture of her as a clumsy, awkward writer and someone who isn't great at presenting various cultures accurately or in a good light.



I just don't really think she'd be as foolish or as callous as to deliberately set out and steal the name of some obscure conversion therapist as a little "bigotry easter egg" for us to work out, lolRegarding your last paragraph- Well yeah it seems pretty far fetched [emoji28]

[Ammi]

...going back to the original story of the bookshop ‘banning‘ in Australia...?....it’s obviously felt very strongly by the shop that the book is representative of something very negative ...and it’s completely their prerogative to not stock it on the shelves, of course...but in doing that it’s just adding another layer of negative, which will surely only serve to give more publicity to the book JK and any publicity can be good, as they say...so it seems very counter productive in supporting their trans community...

...the profits for any sales the store has of Harry Potter are already donated to the trans and gender diverse support service, TransFolk of WA, the article states...so any profits from sales of her new book...(...which could be quite substantial..)..could also be donated by the shop, which to me would be a possibly better alternative in countering with a positive, rather than adding another negative on top of etc...because their support would have a more directly beneficial and positive value...

[Tom4784]

I do think we're erring towards dangerous territory here by suggesting that anyone who criticises JK is anti-feminist or is pro-Handmaid's Tale. It's kind like the whole 'you can't criticise Israel or you're an anti-semite' state of mind.

I wouldn't support her if she was a man and I've been critical towards anyone who has views like hers. The sad thing is that, at one point, she had some valid points. Self ID should not be a thing and if we lived in a perfect world, people could transition instantly and live their best lives right away but the reality is that transitioning is a process and unfortunately there can, and should, be limits (within reason) as to what you can do regarding certain things (women's/men's refuges, sports, etc). I think once someone has finished transitioning, they are simply the gender they transitioned to, after that I think they are free to live life as they please as the gender they transitioned to, with the only problem area being sports. Trans men likely won't have a career after transitioning since they can't typically compete against cis men who have had an endless supply of testosterone flowing through their bodies all their lives and trans men can't compete and shouldn't compete against women. Trans women simply have too much of an advantage over cis women. It's a difficult one really.

JK's problem is that she got some valid criticism and then doubled down in response to the point I don't really want to support her work anymore. She's free to think and say what she will but there are no such thing as opinions that come without consequences.

[user104658]

I actually agree that her rhetoric has strayed slightly away from her original valid points and into a tribalistic mindset. The response to her initial comments from (I would hope) a small but very focal subsection of the trans rights movement was vicious, aggressive and threatening with threats/wishing of sexual violence etc. and I think, sadly, instead of just criticising those extreme elements she "went defensive" and started playing into the classic polarised social media game. But then I also still think that anyone who wants to simple say "meh, transphooobe" or go down the route of miscellaneous name calling is doing exactly the same.

She should have stuck to writing opinion pieces about the issue if she wanted to raise awareness of the valid concerns... She should (in my opinion) have steered well clear of a social media back-and-forth. It's not just "unsurprising" that it descended into something a hundred miles from the original point - it's basically inevitable.

[Marsh.]

Robert Galbreith Wikipedia comes up on the first page and he’s on there, does anyone really believe a supposedly smart woman like JK wouldn’t cover all bases to secure her own back? there are too many different pieces to the story for me to ever believe it’s a coincidence

Why would she change a pen name she's come up with out of the pairing of two names that have meaning to her because it may be similar to someone with a dubious history on the earth? You'll not find many names that don't have some "link" with someone unsavoury sharing a similar name.

It's grasping straws to label any and all of her actions as anti-LGBTQ.

If there was any truth to this.... she chose a pen name after someone involved with gay conversion therapy (or whatever), for what reason? The Comoran Strike series features one paragraph (out of 5 books so far) that describes a serial killer as wearing a "wig and a woman's coat" and that is literally it.

So, she's gone to all this trouble to choose that name for what reason? A private joke? The Strike books are hardly promoting a new wave of anti-LGBTQ opinions are they? It's almost like people are outraging themselves over something that is not there.

[Ammi]

...with ‘allies’ it’s really complex anyway in itself, because we’ll all decide ‘who our allies are’...within our own individual views and mindsets, as above all else, we are all individuals...I consider myself a feminist but I might not completely agree with certain mindsets of other feminists on specific things etc...someone who considers themselves an ‘ally’...may be someone that I consider... you’re no ally of mine, baby ...because our thoughts don’t align...someone will be their own version of ally as someone will be their own version of feminist..?..but ‘anti’ is much easier to define...an ally is someone that we would individually consider to be as such...and someone can be quite sexist or quite anti feminist, for instance...but they may be more anti transgender so feminism/female becomes more something they support in specific things...it’s all so complex..and then along comes social media like Twitter...And stuff like mumsnet which just adds to the complex because complex starts to become more a ‘battleground’....trans and feminism have so far to travel and the only way forward in progression for both is to travel together...obviously, the right discussions are so important and equally, the ‘the right listening’ is essential as well...those two simple and obvious things can be so difficult to achieve on the Internet because we’re in the ‘instant comment and response’ age...and also because of the interference as it were, of those who prefer and try to encourage ‘battleground’, rather than listening to views and giving views etc...

...anyways, We’ve had so many of these type of topic discussions on TiBB before and I found this, this morning...which I’m surprised, hasn’t been posted before because it was written in June of this year by JK Rowling...

...a long read, I’m afraid...but progression always required and always will require, time taken...there is a warning that her words may contain language inappropriate for children...so any much younger members of 13yr/14yrs etc On TiBB...please close your eyes and ears right now.../..thank you..



J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues

This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.

For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.

My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya’s case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I’ve met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal, as I’m about to explain.

All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.

Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Berns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.

I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called **** and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.

What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.

I’d stepped back from Twitter for many months both before and after tweeting support for Maya, because I knew it was doing nothing good for my mental health. I only returned because I wanted to share a free children’s book during the pandemic. Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all – as every woman involved in this debate will know – TERF.

If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.

But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species).

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

Firstly, I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.

Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’

Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.

The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’

The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.

When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’

As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.

I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.

We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.

I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much. It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.

But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she’d feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.

I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.

I managed to escape my first violent marriage with some difficulty, but I’m now married to a truly good and principled man, safe and secure in ways I never in a million years expected to be. However, the scars left by violence and sexual assault don’t disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you’ve made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke – and even I know it’s funny – but I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven’t heard them approaching.

If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

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. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.

Late on Saturday evening, scrolling through children’s pictures before I went to bed, I forgot the first rule of Twitter – never, ever expect a nuanced conversation – and reacted to what I felt was degrading language about women. I spoke up about the importance of sex and have been paying the price ever since. I was transphobic, I was a ****, a bitch, a TERF, I deserved cancelling, punching and death. You are Voldemort said one person, clearly feeling this was the only language I’d understand.

It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow. There’s joy, relief and safety in conformity. As Simone de Beauvoir also wrote, “… without a doubt it is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one’s liberation; the dead, too, are better suited to the earth than the living.”

Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They’re afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence.

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

The one thing that gives me hope is that the women who can protest and organise, are doing so, and they have some truly decent men and trans people alongside them. Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women’s concerns at their peril. In the UK, women are reaching out to each other across party lines, concerned about the erosion of their hard-won rights and widespread intimidation. None of the gender critical women I’ve talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth, and they’re hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply want to live their lives, but who’re facing a backlash for a brand of activism they don’t endorse. The supreme irony is that the attempt to silence women with the word ‘TERF’ may have pushed more young women towards radical feminism than the movement’s seen in decades.

The last thing I want to say is this. I haven’t written this essay in the hope that anybody will get out a violin for me, not even a teeny-weeny one. I’m extraordinarily fortunate; I’m a survivor, certainly not a victim. I’ve only mentioned my past because, like every other human being on this planet, I have a complex backstory, which shapes my fears, my interests and my opinions. I never forget that inner complexity when I’m creating a fictional character and I certainly never forget it when it comes to trans people.

All I’m asking – all I want – is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.

[user104658]

Meh, vile TERF hag Ammi, I won't waste one second of my time reading her toxic transphobia. Boooo, etc.

[Ammi]

...well, comments like that will never get anyone out of that ‘battleground’ and toward that starting point of discussion, TS, and you know it/..be better...and I know that you know and have understanding of the ‘other side‘ of ‘both sides now’ so who knows if you’ve felt those very words/thoughts yourself but they only apply to a minority, I would say...any thoughts/concerns etc, expressed here...come from very genuine places of feeling let down./...while she’s explaining her perspective.../..some are trying to give theirs in the same way...

...anyways, internet discussions tend to be ‘instant response’ by nature and not allowing for thought time ...so it’s not a place/way that I tend to discuss many things that I like to give thought to when there are a most definite ‘both sides now’ to...

[user104658]

..while she’s explaining her perspective.../..some are trying to give theirs in the same way...



I have abundant time for anyone who is of course Ammi, my flippant comment above was to illustrate that far too many people are happy to just tweet or post something quick n snappy and will never bother to give any sort of reasoning (if they have it in the first place).

[Beso]

I have abundant time for anyone who is of course Ammi, my flippant comment above was to illustrate that far too many people are happy to just tweet or post something quick n snappy and will never bother to give any sort of reasoning (if they have it in the first place).

It's not easy typing out big long drawn out posts on a mobile .

It takes me longer to correct all the spelling and grammar errors than it does to type out the post half the time

[Ammi]

I have abundant time for anyone who is of course Ammi, my flippant comment above was to illustrate that far too many people are happy to just tweet or post something quick n snappy and will never bother to give any sort of reasoning (if they have it in the first place).

...I agree on social media/type sites, TS...because they’re more the sites that don’t strive for a discussion, but more a ‘battleground’...and of course, we all have to individually determine where we would apply an ‘abundant time’ to, in regards to listening and talking with etc...but for me, there are very individual and personal ways of how we do things/.. how we discuss etc...and ‘mocking’ in any form is not helpful at all, especially when a discussion of something so important is hoped for...

[Niamh.]

I think most people will have read that by JK Rowling Ammi, this is what they say is her being transphobic, she posted that after the people who menstruate tweet

[Oliver_W]

I'm yet to see why people take such offense to JKR - women are the only people who can menstrate #saytheirname

Moreover, I find the term TERF a bit ... pointless? Like, why would feminism include male people, it's meant to be about females :joker: expecting feminism to include males is like expecting a support group for eunuchs to help women, as they don't have balls.

[Niamh.]

And after she wrote that essay her abusive ex was in the paper saying "he's not sorry for hitting JK Rowling" He was so emboldened by her "cancellation" suddenly domestic abuse is a-ok....

[Crimson Dynamo]

There is a lot of "i am going to criticise a major celeb and make myself feel important..and because there are lots doing it i feel safe from backlash"

"also she is old and white so i see her as fair game in the current climate"

[Liam-]

And after she wrote that essay her abusive ex was in the paper saying "he's not sorry for hitting JK Rowling" He was so emboldened by her "cancellation" suddenly domestic abuse is a-ok....

And that story was rightly universally condemned, even by those horrible trans people and activists people say are mean to her

[Niamh.]

And that story was rightly universally condemned, even by those horrible trans people and activists people says are mean to her

Horrible trans people? I hope you're not trying to put words in my mouth there Liam.

[user104658]

And that story was rightly universally condemned, even by those horrible trans people and activists people say are mean to herNot all of them. Not that I'm making a huge point of that; it obviously was most. But there were a significant-enough-to-be-noticeable number of people at least CLAIMING to be fighting for trans rights who were making comments along the lines of, "I wish I could punch JK Rowling too" etc.

Obviously aware that this is an extreme minority but I don't think it's helpful to pretend that those extreme minorities don't exist, or to put up blinkers to their comments and pretend they didn't happen.

[Josy]

I do think we're erring towards dangerous territory here by suggesting that anyone who criticises JK is anti-feminist or is pro-Handmaid's Tale. It's kind like the whole 'you can't criticise Israel or you're an anti-semite' state of mind.

I wouldn't support her if she was a man and I've been critical towards anyone who has views like hers. The sad thing is that, at one point, she had some valid points. Self ID should not be a thing and if we lived in a perfect world, people could transition instantly and live their best lives right away but the reality is that transitioning is a process and unfortunately there can, and should, be limits (within reason) as to what you can do regarding certain things (women's/men's refuges, sports, etc). I think once someone has finished transitioning, they are simply the gender they transitioned to, after that I think they are free to live life as they please as the gender they transitioned to, with the only problem area being sports. Trans men likely won't have a career after transitioning since they can't typically compete against cis men who have had an endless supply of testosterone flowing through their bodies all their lives and trans men can't compete and shouldn't compete against women. Trans women simply have too much of an advantage over cis women. It's a difficult one really.

JK's problem is that she got some valid criticism and then doubled down in response to the point I don't really want to support her work anymore. She's free to think and say what she will but there are no such thing as opinions that come without consequences.

I personally find it a more dangerous territory when women are unable to express an opinion to say for example that they agree with some of JKs comments or disagree that she is transphobic, show genuine concern about female erasure or generally just take offence at being labelled as 'menstruators' etc without being shut down and accused of being transphobic or TERFS themselves.

[Elliot]

Moreover, I find the term TERF a bit ... pointless? Like, why would feminism include male people, it's meant to be about females :joker:

Because trans women are women....?

[Niamh.]

I personally find it a more dangerous territory when women are unable to express an opinion to say for example that they agree with some of JKs comments or disagree that she is transphobic, show genuine concern about female erasure or generally just take offence at being labelled as 'menstruators' etc without being shut down and accused of being transphobic or TERFS themselves.

Exactly. The hypocrisy of it as well is when women say they don't want to be labelled "cis" or want to keep the term women when it comes to women's health issues, we're told we're being petty and it's only a word etc however when it comes to "just words" and trans people they are the most important thing in the world. The thing is I don't think anyone would have said a word about it if they changed the wording of sanitary products to women and transmen. The issue is being reduced to a bodily function, it's dehumanising . I see also on the HSE's website (which would be Irelands version of the NHS) information on smear tests and cervical cancer women is now gone too, it's people with cervices and transmen which is just bizarre however, when you look up prostate cancer on the same site men is all over that one, nothing else

[Elliot]

Like I don’t understand how anyone expects trans people to compromise or have nuanced discussion about any of these issues when a majority of people aren’t even willing to validate their gender identity and lived experience... (ie. jk Rowling claiming in her essay that trans people don’t experience oppression based on their identity, or people on this forum claiming hormones and puberty blockers are really easy to get a hold of)

[Marsh.]

Exactly. The hypocrisy of it as well is when women say they don't want to be labelled "cis" or want to keep the term women when it comes to women's health issues, we're told we're being petty and it's only a word etc however when it comes to "just words" and trans people they are the most important thing in the world. The thing is I don't think anyone would have said a word about it if they changed the wording of sanitary products to women and transmen. The issue is being reduced to a bodily function, it's dehumanising . I see also on the HSE's website (which would be Irelands version of the NHS) information on smear tests and cervical cancer women is now gone too, it's people with cervices and transmen which is just bizarre however when you look up prostate cancer on the same site men is all over that one, nothing else

It's the double standard that annoys me too. Major issues with the word "woman" but not so much with "man". Then you have any concern about anything remotely involving transpeople is labelled transphobia just as a blanket label but misogyny and sexism seem fair game? I've just seen the charity Mermaids have pinned a series of attempted trans suicides on JK Rowling personally (with no factual bsck up) in a piece in which they call on her to engage in peaceful discussion. :crazy: Yeah, I'll just tell you you're not allowed an opinion because it kills people (just because I said) then accuse you of not partaking in polite discourse.

Activists want trans people to be recognised by completely eliminating the biological basis of sex and invalidating the entire point of "transitioning".

The entire cause is a big mass of contradictions, misogyny and disregard for reality. I feel sorry for all of the transpeople who will be negatively affected by the radical group's appalling behaviour and morals.

[Marsh.]

Like I don’t understand how anyone expects trans people to compromise or have nuanced discussion about any of these issues when a majority of people aren’t even willing to validate their gender identity and lived experience... (ie. jk Rowling claiming in her essay that trans people don’t experience oppression based on their identity, or people on this forum claiming hormones and puberty blockers are really easy to get a hold of)

She didn't say they don't face oppression. She said the exact opposite.

[user104658]

Because trans women are women....?I can accept the premise that transwomen are a subset category of the larger group "women". I just have to be honest though and say that the idea that there is no distinction between biologically-female women and transwomen is illogical, unscientific and (to be a little more harsh) wishful thinking. I think feminism can certainly encompass transwomen, but that has to be in a form that acknowledges and addresses that there are differences, and the needs and concerns of all women. Sometimes it feels like the available options are "pretend that there isn't a difference and there's no valid issue in terms of acknowledging different wants and needs", or "Be a TERF!".

I'm trying really hard to come up with a good way to describe what my issue is with that, but eehat I keep coming back to is that it's just immature. An immature, black and white, emotion-driven mindset that I can have sympathy for but don't think has any place in a constructive conversation.

[Niamh.]

Like I don’t understand how anyone expects trans people to compromise or have nuanced discussion about any of these issues when a majority of people aren’t even willing to validate their gender identity and lived experience... (ie. jk Rowling claiming in her essay that trans people don’t experience oppression based on their identity, or people on this forum claiming hormones and puberty blockers are really easy to get a hold of)

I really don't think JK Rowling has ever said that trans people have never been discriminated against because of their gender identity, what she's saying is that women and girls are discriminated against because of their biological sex rather than a gender identity and there is a difference and perhaps a big part of the clash of rights.

[user104658]

Like I don’t understand how anyone expects trans people to compromise or have nuanced discussion about any of these issues when a majority of people aren’t even willing to validate their gender identity and lived experience... (ie. jk Rowling claiming in her essay that trans people don’t experience oppression based on their identity, or people on this forum claiming hormones and puberty blockers are really easy to get a hold of)

When did Rowling say trans people don't face oppression? And who has said that sex hormones and puberty blockers are easy to get hold of? They are still currently hard to get hold of because they SHOULD be hard to get hold of, people's issue is with pressure groups trying to make them EASIER to get hold of, by lying about them not having potentially harmful side effects, and that the effects are fully reversible, when they are not.

[Marsh.]

A big portion of her essay literally goes into detail about how she has been a big supporter of the LGBT community due to the shared vulnerability in facing violence from men. To now try to twist that into her saying the opposite is, again, ignoring the facts.

[Oliver_W]

Because trans women are women....?

Transwomen are transwomen, and are male.

How many sex-based issues faced by women also apply to transwomen? Not single wex spaces, because transwomen using female spaces goes against it being a single sex space; not abortion rights, because transwomen can't get pregnant; not to be harsh but in most cases transwomen probably don't need to worry about sexual harrassment; issues relating to what is sometimes labelled as the "wage gap" might apply - I can see bigoted employers passing them up for promotions or pay risew, bjt not for the same reasons as females.

Issues faced by transwomen are important issues, but they're not femimist issues.

[Tom4784]

I personally find it a more dangerous territory when women are unable to express an opinion to say for example that they agree with some of JKs comments or disagree that she is transphobic, show genuine concern about female erasure or generally just take offence at being labelled as 'menstruators' etc without being shut down and accused of being transphobic or TERFS themselves.

So your response to feeling like you can't have an opinion without being branded a certain way by some people is to justify doing the same to others by making out that they are anti-feminist if they disagree with someone with an XX chromosome?

JK got herself into the position she's in by doubling down when she got criticism from a minority until she alienated more and more people, and even then it hasn't even affected her since her book sales are up. It's pretty much the same deal when Piers Morgan was up on his high horse about gender, it never affected him either.

As I said before, she had some good points to begin with, I have concerns about self-IDing and gender specific spaces for people who have yet transitioned but she's taking it further than that in response to some initial criticism she had to begin with. When you let criticism warp your message, what you're trying to say gets lost.

[Liam-]

People who agree with JK demand to be listened to and respected for their opinions, in the same breath as saying anyone who disagrees is either sexist, too emotional, doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or is a man so has no right, if a conversation is actually genuinely wanted, then it needs to go both ways, ‘we have to discuss it no matter how offensive it might be’ ‘umm, I think you’re offensive so I’m going to dismiss everything you say’

[Oliver_W]

People who agree with JK demand to be listened to and respected for their opinions, in the same breath as saying anyone who disagrees is either sexist, too emotional, doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or is a man so has no right, if a conversation is actually genuinely wanted, then it needs to go both ways, ‘we have to discuss it no matter how offensive it might be’ ‘umm, I think you’re offensive so I’m going to dismiss everything you say’

Which part/s of what she said do you disagree with?

[Marsh.]

I didn't say anyone who disagrees is sexist. I'm commenting on the radical so-called activists who do nothing but throw misogynistic slurs at her and other women with valid concerns. In those cases it seems disagreement = transphobia but misogyny = fine.

[Withano]

Fair enough. If someone sells something that will directly profit a racist, transphobe or homophobe, maybe they should consider not doing that. Each book shop owner to their own.

[Josy]

So your response to feeling like you can't have an opinion without being branded a certain way by some people is to justify doing the same to others by making out that they are anti-feminist if they disagree with someone with an XX chromosome?



JK got herself into the position she's in by doubling down when she got criticism from a minority until she alienated more and more people, and even then it hasn't even affected her since her book sales are up. It's pretty much the same deal when Piers Morgan was up on his high horse about gender, it never affected him either.



As I said before, she had some good points to begin with, I have concerns about self-IDing and gender specific spaces for people who have yet transitioned but she's taking it further than that in response to some initial criticism she had to begin with. When you let criticism warp your message, what you're trying to say gets lost.

I don't recall making out that anyone was anti feminist for disagreeing with a woman? So no justification needed.

I replied directly to a comment relating to female oppression by quoting a line from the handmaids tale which is about female oppression....

[Tom4784]

I don't recall making out that anyone was anti feminist for disagreeing with a woman? So no justification needed.

Your previous post was in response to a post I made saying that we were erring towards dangerous territory to which you responded that your scenario is more dangerous, despite really being the same view on opposing sides, thus it's pretty much justification by downplaying it.

[Oliver_W]

Fair enough. If someone sells something that will directly profit a racist, transphobe or homophobe, maybe they should consider not doing that. Each book shop owner to their own.

Thankfully there's no evidence that JKR is any of those:)

[user104658]

Fair enough. If someone sells something that will directly profit a racist, transphobe or homophobe, maybe they should consider not doing that. Each book shop owner to their own.

If we're going by such loose definitions of those words as the one used to deem Rowling a transphobe, they'd have to remove 3/4 of the books from the shelves.

On the plus side, they'd have an exciting rebranding opportunity! They could rename the shop "The Echo Chambre". Sadly, it would probably be quite popular with some demographics.

[Withano]

If we're going by such loose definitions of those words as the one used to deem Rowling a transphobe, they'd have to remove 3/4 of the books from the shelves..

If they want. Each book shop owner to their own.

[user104658]

If they want. Each book shop owner to their own.

That's fair but let's not pretend that you weren't indicating it as a "good idea".

[Oliver_W]

It is a bit odd how people seem to think that a purity test needs to be passed in order for someone to be worthy of making money from.

[Marsh.]

Yeah who knew you had to have the same political views and the same universal opinions as someone to purchase something from them/their company.

[Ammi]

...this is an interesting article as well, if anyone wishes to read etc...it’s another longer one so I’ll just leave it here...the reason that I’m sharing some of these articles is that I’m reading up a bit on the history of transgender atm, not something that I was terribly up on in any depth..and so far as specifically connecting any views of JK Rowling which have become so controversial etc...?...I’m also trying to find articles that present ‘both sides now’ more...regather than having specific leanings...and which I’m finding particularly provocative of thought...


...just off topic, one of the things that stood out to me when I was reading a ‘brief history of transgender’ in one article...?...and discussing more ‘modern transgender’ as named in the article...when referring, for instance, to a male to female specific person...the female is named, obviously...but the ‘Male name’ is still there also in brackets...and that feels so sad with such an ‘historical’ journey which was so difficult for them...


...anyway this is an article by someone who is part of the trans community who also grew up as a huge Harry Potter../..JK Rowling fan...


How trans 'Harry Potter' fans are grappling with J.K. Rowling's legacy after her transphobic comments

Hannah Yasharoff USA TODAY
Published 12:37 PM EDT Aug 4, 2020
To a younger Kacen Callender, "Harry Potter" was a lifeline.

Growing up with mental health struggles, Callender clung to a source of comfort: "The constant hope of 'Well, everything sucks right now, but if I can just wait until the next book comes out...': That's what I would tell myself," Callender, 30, recalled to USA TODAY.

Through the years, “Harry Potter,” the boy wizard book series turned cultural juggernaut, has served as a source of comfort and empowerment for countless readers of all ages around the world, including members of the LGBTQ community. Feel like an outsider? So did the boy who lived.

Series author J.K. Rowling made headlines earlier this summer with multiple posts online voicing opinions on the trans community that conflated sex with gender and defended ideas suggesting that changing one's biological sex threatens her own gender identity.

Rowling continued to double down even after the posts were widely perceived as transphobic, misinformative and hurtful, ultimately amplifying a broader conversation that had already been happening less publicly within the “Harry Potter” fandom: How do you grapple with the person who created something you love and felt comforted by expressing sentiments that directly contradict your existence?

What's a TERF and why is 'Harry Potter' author J.K. Rowling being called one?


Now an award-winning author of multiple young adult books including "Felix Ever After," Callender (whose pronouns are they/them) is a professional storyteller largely thanks to Rowling’s influence – a painful realization now for a transgender person who grew up loving “Harry Potter.”

"I'm scared to think about the people who might have loved 'Harry Potter' and thought about it the same way and then to see their idol come out and say that they're not worthy," said Callender, noting that suicide rates are higher for trans and non-binary children than cisgender children "because we're so isolated and ostracized." Cisgender refers to those whose gender identity matches the one they were assigned at birth.

A 2019 CDC study found that trans youth made up 2% of high school students and more than a third of them attempt suicide.

"I do think that giving her any sort of platform is potentially life-threatening and dangerous. ... Her rhetoric continues to push this incorrect thought and conversation around transgender people," Callender added.

Rowling’s spokesperson declined comments to USA TODAY.

AJ Solomon is another fan to whom "Harry Potter" meant everything as a kid.

"I knew without a doubt that my whole life would not just revolve around 'Harry Potter,' but was kind of defined by it," Solomon, 21, recalled. "There was never any question. My backpack was 'Harry Potter.' When I had an art assignment, I would automatically try to make it about ('Harry Potter')... When I started to realize I was trans, a lot of the solace I took in 'Harry Potter' was that if I was magic, I could just use a spell to lower my voice."


Upon rereading the series, some "Potter” fans over the past few years have perceived offensive connotations within the story they love. The books' goblins, creatures with pointed noses who control the wizarding world's banks, are widely read as having roots in anti-Semitic folklore. There are also several scenes that can be read as transphobic, including more than a few in which a male character wearing a dress is played for laughs – a trope that prominent trans voices in entertainment such as actress Laverne Cox widely concur threaten the well-being and safety of real-life trans women.

“What's so hilarious about that? This is the painful moment for me," Callender said.

'I get goosebumps': Laverne Cox on Netflix transgender history doc, landmark Supreme Court decision

As fans move to become more critical consumers, many have found comfort in making up their own ideas about what that world might look like, be it writing fan fiction for online audiences or daydreaming about how the wizarding world might be more inclusive than the real one.

“What would it look like to be trans with magic?” Solomon sometimes wonders with fellow fans. “What would transitions look like? ... Are there charms to make people forget your old name and pronouns? Is it something that they don't talk about because they don't need to because it's just solved so easily?”

“Potter,” at this point, has a life completely beyond its creator, not unlike the “Star Wars” franchise, notes Michael Bronski, an LGBTQ historian, activist and Harvard professor.

With the book series complete, the rest of the franchise (multiple theme parks, stage play and prequel films, to name a few) doesn’t really need Rowling and therefore isn’t necessarily doomed by her public perception. So if many fans have moved on from the author one way or another, how will Rowling be remembered?

“I think it depends on what her investment in this is,” Bronski said. “If (Rowling) is really invested in being beloved, this might be bad for her. But if she's happy being an independent person who can have an opinion (and) doesn't care who criticizes her, she's set.”

There are some fans who don’t find Rowling’s comments to be a deal breaker. But the many who do are left wondering how they can love something created by someone they can no longer support. Some, like Solomon, have decided to focus on the communities “Harry Potter” has allowed them to build rather than the source material. Others, like Callender, want to help ensure that YA books have proper representation for younger readers to help them feel less alone.

Callender’s latest book, “Felix Ever After,” stars a “Black, queer trans (teenager) afraid he isn’t worthy of love because he’s ‘one marginalization too many,’” Callender explains. Beyond "Felix," the past few years have brought standout YA novels starring trans and non-binary characters, including "Mask of Shadows" by Linsey Miller, "Cemetery Boys" by Aiden Thomas, "Anger is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro and "I Wish You All the Best" by Mason Deaver.

"It's time for my self-healing and to move on,” Callender said. “Part of that is to focus on the amazing number of trans stories that are coming out. ... I feel like we have a moment now to say, 'Forget her, screw her, and let's focus on our own beautiful stories and making sure that those end up in the hands of young readers who need them.'”




https://eu.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2020/07/31/harry-potter-fans-grapple-j-k-rowling-transgender-remarks/5471834002/

[Ammi]

...I have to say that before Our Vicky would say it on here...I had no idea what TERF was../...had never heard it said before...(..that’s just a by the by, not relevant at all.)...

[Oliver_W]

"I do think that giving her any sort of platform is potentially life-threatening and dangerous. ...
:joker:

Get a grip dude. If people are gonna do something stupid because they hear that women are the only people who can menstruate, they frankly shouldn't be outside of a psych unit anyway.

[Withano]

That's fair but let's not pretend that you weren't indicating it as a "good idea".

Oh right. So you just assumed my post had a different context to the way it was literally written. Jumped on your high horse and got a bit mad.

Good chat.

[Ammi]

...I think that it’s really sad that atm, females don’t seem to be able to get to a place of discussion with this../...a starting place, type thing...All females that is, both born and transitioned...for female to male transitioned people for instance, the safeguarding would be more focused on that person to feel ‘safe in a shared bathroom space with a potentially hostile Male who would be deemed as physically stronger...’....so the same issue but in reverse...?....whether a specific male body would actually indeed be stronger, it’s also for much time been a conditioning of ‘born female’ that, that is so...so it couldn’t not really be felt that a vulnerability wouldn’t be there because it just would and that really does have to have some understanding/consideration as well..we all want equality but we want to be safe, we want all of us to feel safe...because born females can’t help that they had that society conditioning of being more vulnerable to ‘Male strength’...I mean, society still seems to have a mocking thought process to things like domestic violence when it’s the female who is violent, rather than the male...because some things are so instilled from birth and specific to born gender, that so much has to be understood and considered...it’s all far too complex...I do believe that many females, both trans and born are on the same page and are supportive allies of each other...but sadly we’re just not progressing very much because of that ‘battleground’ that it seems to have become and seems difficult to get beyond...

[Ammi]

...and it is undoubtedly a ‘battleground’ situation atm...Niamh, who has always consistently been an ally in every way to LGBT, having...’well that’s not very ‘transgender friendly’ stuff ...and Liam and Dezzy, who have always consistently been allies in every way to Feminism, having...’well that’s not very feminism friendly’ stuff...when we all strive for the same thing of equality, not a ‘sister against sister’, type situation...which it all seems to more be atm because progression needs to address some things in discussions first, I think...

[user104658]

...and it is undoubtedly a ‘battleground’ situation atm...Niamh, who has always consistently been an ally in every way to LGBT, having...’well that’s not very ‘transgender friendly’ stuff ...and Liam and Dezzy, who have always consistently been allies in every way to Feminism, having...’well that’s not very feminism friendly’ stuff...when we all strive for the same thing of equality, not a ‘sister against sister’, type situation...which it all seems to more be atm because progression needs to address some things in discussions first, I think...

I think this is a big part of the issue though and a large part of why the conversation is such a non-starter. There's this generally held starting point that if anyone has concerns around the trans rights debate, why, they "must be" one of those standard issue, right leaning, "PC gone mad" bigotted types who don't understand anything LGBT related and are just puffing hot air without good cause because they're hateful -phobes. So there's a tendency for the same tactics to be used that have always been used in such situations against unreasonable, unthinking bigotted people.

Except if you then take a look at it - it just doesn't fit. A lot of the people with very well expressed, very well developed questions and concerns quite clearly do NOT fall into that category at all - many are clearly center or left leaning, many who are generally highly supportive of social justice issues, and so when the same old "you are just a bigot" tactics are used they simply fall flat... it's a starting point that simply doesn't exist and there's no justification for, and if justification or reasoning is requested, it's largely radio silence because really there's very little to point to.

The flipside, I suppose, is that as the "battle rages on" people forget to sympathise and understand that transpeople are frustrated with the situation which of course IS a sad situation. I think it should be possible to empathise with transpeople on this while still holding firm to the basic fact that "unfortunately, things are not that simple, we can't just say that everything is going to be roses over night and there are concerns that have to be looked into". That can be met with an angry response but I do understand why that is. These conversations must make exceptionally hard reading.

Until a point is reached of one side saying "We have concerns that need to be taken seriously, but we can see that your situation is difficult too" and the other saying "We would like things to be progressing faster for us but we're willing to hear your concerns without going on the attack" - I just don't see any progress being made at all - and actually a very real possibility of significant back-sliding.

[Cherie]

Their shop, their rules, it not too much different from the bakers who wouldn’t bake a wedding cake, if that’s what’s makes them comfortable then go for it, expect a lot of women will take their custom elsewhere though :pipe:

[Niamh.]

Their shop, their rules, it not too much different from the bakers who wouldn’t bake a wedding cake, if that’s what’s makes them comfortable then go for it, expect a lot of women will take this custom elsewhere though :pipe:Yeah from what I can see most people who think its a silly thing to do aren't demanding they be forced to sell it or anything if a person wants her books they will buy them elsewhere [emoji106]

[Oliver_W]

To be fair I never did see what was wrong with refusing to make cakes for gay weddings?:shrug: Anyone should be able to refuse custom from any person for any person for any reason tbh

[Tom4784]

Their shop, their rules, it not too much different from the bakers who wouldn’t bake a wedding cake, if that’s what’s makes them comfortable then go for it, expect a lot of women will take their custom elsewhere though :pipe:

Except it's quite different.

Not stocking a book is not the same as refusing someone service on the grounds of their sexuality. Not stocking a book because you think the author's a transphobe is not discrimination, refusing to serve someone because of their sexuality certainly is, as the courts agreed. The difference between the two examples is that one opposes discrimination, while the bakery attempted to enforce it.

[Cherie]

Except it's quite different.

Not stocking a book is not the same as refusing someone service on the grounds of their sexuality. Not stocking a book because you think the author's a transphobe is not discrimination, refusing to serve someone because of their sexuality certainly is, as the courts agreed. The difference between the two examples is that one opposes discrimination, while the bakery attempted to enforce it.

‘Because you think’ v religious beliefs...okay

[Tom4784]

‘Because you think’ v religious beliefs...okay

Religious beliefs is no excuse for bigotry, especially when it comes to Christianity in which people pick and choose what parts of the bible to follow. If someone chooses to hate the gays but draw the line at eating seafood or wearing different kind of fabrics in the same outfit then they are a homophobe looking for justification for their hatred.

Also, your comparison is still pretty terrible. One was a confirmed case of discrimination, the other is choosing not to stock a book in store (but having it available to order). One is denying service based on the customer's sexuality, the other is choosing not to stock a book by someone the owners believes to be a bigot.

It's just not going to work as a valid comparison, Cherie.

[user104658]

The thing is, if they still stock books by actual demonstrable bigots from throughout history (and I'm assuming they must, because the list of squeaky clean authors isn't going to be very long, especially if you go back more than 50 years) then I can't see the refusal to stock JK Rowling books as anything but bandwagon virtue signalling and a bit of free publicity grabbing. Which is a bit cynical and offensive in itself, in many ways.