Or: A desire to coerce uniformity under the guise of liberality. And why have 150 writers signed this open letter? https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
If you have not read JK Rowling’s essay in full, (opens in new tab) or have never investigated this topic, then this headline might offend you. Indeed, that is the reason for Rowling’s essay – explaining why people taking offense at her opinions are contributing to self-policing and censorship on an issue which poses harm and danger to women, and trans alike.
Rather than reading her words in full, people are content to receive the headline, “JK Rowling Makes Transphobic Tweet” ! Oh no – shock! Horror! Insensitive Moron! -
and subsequently jump straight on the (Psuedo) Equality Express without forming their own opinions based on personal research and critical thinking.
If you have never previously discussed trans activism, then I recommend you either read Rowling’s essay in full, or prepare to read this essay by first leaving judgement at the door. To begin, I will categorically state, and quote:
“ ‘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.”
I firmly stand by this, but this is not my sole issue with the current trans movement.
If you have never discussed trans activism with anyone, and engaged in open discussion with different opinions, then you most likely have never heard differing opinions on the subject and will be inclined to think that these different opinions are wrong and transphobic. That is cultural manipulation having done its work on you.
The hijacked “left wing” and its devout followers of “freedom” (freedom for some, not for all, clearly) have once again begun a witch hunt on an individual expressing their opinion. And almost everyone, including the actors whom thanks to her, are multimillion dollar celebrities with platforms, have come out on these platforms to insult, shame and ridicule her.
These people, who are tweeting about “freedom” and “equality” and most laughable of all – acceptance!– come out to shame someone – (someone who they know! no benefit of the doubt?)- without first offering that person the chance to explain their perspectives and information.
A person who is not a parrot, on the other hand, and who is not intent on making a statement to ensure they maintain their fans and clean PR, would react differently.
A truthfully kind, understanding, open and non-judgmental person, would rather ask for an explanation than to immediately shame and condone.
These “celebrities” with huge platforms, touting “acceptance of all” and equality, should instead accurately promote that, by demonstrating understanding. “Well, I am not sure what JK Rowling is saying, but perhaps we should wait and hear her side before we start name-calling and labeling.”
Not one person came out to say this.
What's worse, after she released her essay – nothing but silence on the issue! So, do they still disagree with her? They don’t feel compelled to make a statement about her essay? Can they not even say that they at least understand where she is coming from?
Emma Watson, is it cool to pretend you care about women’s rights, whilst simultaneously shutting down a woman who gave you the platform you have? And whose only crime is a differing opinion to your own? Just how much do you sincerely care about practicing what you preach?
Or is saving face more important than personal beliefs?
The need to quickly cement one’s position on the perceived “right” side wins out over true equality and acceptance. This is all out of a misled and urgent desire to seem progressive and be seen as liberal, which continuously propagates mob mentality and the censorship of opinion.
This is not happening by accident, but through a desire to coerce uniformity under the guise of liberality.
Say what’s “popular” and accepted, or be wrong.
Emma Watson, who parades herself as a feminist and advocates for women’s rights daily, said, “Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.”
What an absolutely politically correct, unfeeling, judgmental, and inaccurate statement to make about what JK Rowling is saying. Political correctness has long ago become the new censorship, and it has now evolved into a dogmatic, one way of thinking, where you either align with the party or "suffer the hate and alienation!" angry face angry face.
Wait…does that sound like someone? That we were taught was bad? Mustachey guy? Lots of red and black symbols?
JK Rowling is Frankenstein and the “progressive” “free thinking” “liberal” “individuals” (they are hardly individuals when they all think alike) need hardly any incentive to get their pitchforks out – or keyboards, these days.
They need no incentive to come out and lay their supposed “stake” on the right side of the dirt to let everyone know that “they stand for equality, freedom and rights” – what they don’t tell you is that this comes at the expense of everyone else’s freedoms and rights.
Rowling has received immense backlash with every single parrot repeating the same words:
“Trans women are women. Trans men are men.”
Get. Over. Your. Selves.
If JK Rowling was against trans, she would not be spending time writing about it, researching it, and sharing information demonstrating how there is an aspectof the trans movement which is dangerous for women, and an aspectof the trans movement which is medically harmful – for trans youths!
To reply to everything she spoke about with a simple “trans women are women” is the absolute epitome of misogyny. What a hateful way to completely diminish everything she is expressing, by answering with the text equivalent of “K”.
And this is coming from people who claim to believe in equality and rights? Only insofar as it applies to themselves, clearly.
It is a full-fledged assault on her ability to reason and to have opinions.Rather than openly discuss what she is saying, she is basically slandered with a simple phrase, which realistically translated into: “sit back down woman! Don’t embarrass us with your unnecessary opinions. You clearly don’t understand what is happening here.”
“Trans women are women”. This is just the PC statement everyone parrots.
So, attached are her tweets, explaining one of the aspects of trans activism which she – and I agree – has a problem with:
Second: (from Rowling's essay)
“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.”
Third:
“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 slursand, 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.”
And to finish, do you believe this is ok? Do you believe this progressive? Do you believe this is kind?
“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.”
Fourth:
In my research for this essay, I read a popular blog by a trans woman, who was replying to Rowling and explaining why Rowling is transphobic.
The blogger said that anything and anyone claiming that sexual biology exists – as in, by birth you are either born female or born male – is transphobic. She states categorically that it is transphobic to state this, and it is transphobic to believe that biological sex is real; she says believing in biological sex is "transphobic" because biological sex is "in fact" (her word!), actually just a set of ideas and characterisitcs.
This is exactly what is wrong with the trans movement. Biological sex is erased in favor of identity sex, and this is a very troubling farce.
This person asserts in her blog:
“Sex isn’t just a M/F tickbox in your DNA somewhere, it’s a hugely complicated set of characteristics that can have all kinds of variations that mean all kinds of different things to different people. “
No my love – that’s sexual identity. Not biological sex. And to state that biological sex is a real thing, proven by science, shouldn't be a crime.
Sex is real, and trying to confuse it and muddy it up with “all kinds of variations” is actually invalidating the entire prospect of his own existence. Why would you want to be a “woman” when you are saying that to be a woman (or a man) is actually nothing determinate, but "all kinds of different things"?
How can you say that you are a woman when you yourself describe being “a woman” or “a man” as nothing concrete? You say that to be a “woman” or a “man” is something that means “all kinds of different things to different people.”
“It often doesn’t take more than 30 seconds on Google to find a clear set of counterexamples to any strict definition they try to give you. Trans people, intersex people, feminists, medical professionals and experts across the world aren’t saying “sex isn’t real” they are saying “sex is more complicated than what they taught you at school”, and that is a fact.”
Sorry love, not a fact. Biological sex is not complicated. The sex of the human species is either male or female. However, your idea of sex and sexual identity, -- a very different thing to biological reality and the two can not be mixed -- is quite clearly, very complex.
However, not even that is a “fact”. That is simply his personal reality.
That is his need to try and identify with something. Personally, I believe I am energy living in a human shell, but that we must define ourselves with terms to exist within society – such as woman, and man.
And we can not invalidate biological sex, or term any discussion of it as transphobic. This is wrong. Wrong because it silences open debate on a topic that existed long before the transgender community appropriated it. Biological sex is not a topic or a reality that exists only to trans people/activists.
Biological sex is not a topic that only one category of people can claim ownership to, or only one category of people can define. How is this open, free, and liberal?
That even goes against their own reasoning. They are saying sex can not be defined, even biological sex, but they are still defining it as something undefinable. Ergo, they are defining it as simply something that suits their narrative.
But we also can not invalidate biological sex, aside from the important reasons just mentioned, because doing so then invalidates the history and the oppression of women. Women have been oppressed for centuries simply for being female; biological sex is a reality. And in many cases, this reality continues to be detrimental to females.
Since when is biological sex an excuse to label people transphobic?
As a simple result of being a woman – having a female shaped body – we have been discriminated against and abused: not allowed to vote, thrown in trunks of cars, have to walk ten steps behind men (muslim countries), need a man’s permission to leave a country, not given equal pay, and much more – and all this continues today.
As Rowling states in her essay:
“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.”
Lastly:
“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.”
It doesn’t matter how much karate you know or how strong you are – sexual assault carries lingering fears – or, for some, depending on the person and their healing, maybe only hesitations. The reality is that most women don’t feel safe at night, or on their own. Most women have had negative experiences in these situations.
Just the other day I ordered chinese food and the woman who delivered it felt the need to justify why she had her daughter and two dogs in the car with her: She doesn't feel safe on her own.
Most women feel trepidation in certain situations. This seems to be quite a universal feeling. I wonder, would that young lady calling Rowling transphobic, include the innate fear that comes with being a woman, something most women feel, as one of the "many characteristics" that "define woman"? Is this something that people who claim they feel like women, also feel? Or is womanhood - for the most part - reduced to something far more mysoginistic and boxed in?
I also believe most women would feel uncomfortable with men in their spaces – such as changing rooms and bathrooms. And there should be nothing wrong with women feeling that way. A woman's right to feel safe in a space that we have had to fight for centuries to obtain, can not possibly be labeled as transphobic. This is hugely, hugely mysoginistic and harmful. A woman's desire to feel safe should not be belittled and twisted into something insidious.
That is not to say that there may be some genuinely transphobic people who may indeed hide behind this "excuse". Definitely. But the reality is, most women will not want men having access to their spaces, and to think this way is not a crime. And remember - the keyword is men, not "trans". Like Rowling explained, all you need to do these days to gain access, is to say you identify as a female, and you can get a certificate. Is it wrong to want to challenge that?
But is understanding these issues and this perspective, reserved only to those women who have experienced abuse?
Is logical reasoning, critical thinking, and understanding of women’s rights reserved only to those women who have suffered at the hands of men? Is this the world we want to live in?
Thankfully it seems there are many people who support her, and understand that these are real issues she is advocating for. And I am one of them.
