I’ve never read a book by JK Rowling, mainly as I was a grown up when Harry Potter came out. I watched the first film as part of my second undergrad degree and thought it was ok for kids. That was the extent of my interest in JK Rowling before the scandal.
As this site describes, I am aware of how social media can be cruel and take things out of context etc… So JKR tweets some stuff and then writes an ‘essay’ with the intention of explaining things and clearing her name. What she actually managed to do was insult more people and put herself up for ‘cancellation’ for being a TERF.
I don’t follow JKR so the first I heard was when she started to trend on twitter. I had no horse in the race when I read her essay. After I read it I took to twitter to try to explain to neurotypical people without gender issues why it was so insulting to trans people and autistic people. Since then I’ve received so much abuse. I’m logging on to find 20+ notifications, usually from one or two people, demanding to know why I find it insulting but telling me (sometimes in the same tweet) that my feelings about it don’t matter.
So as far as I can see this creates a paradox… A person who makes their living by writing has written something that insults huge groups of people yet the main defense is that she’s not a prejudiced transphobe. So why does what she wrote make her sound like she’s a transphobe that thinks autistic people are changing sex because it’s so hard to be a woman?
I’ve had many requests to provide evidence to prove that myself and others find her essay offensive. Other than my saying it’s offensive to me and other people agreeing, I’m not too sure what evidence I can supply. So I’m going to copy and paste bits and critique them for the benefit of a bunch of bored housewives who think they are feminists whilst actively putting the cause back decades by ostracising large groups of women because of the possible actions of men!
This is not something I take on lightly, the essay is full of triggers but hopefully proving my point will shut up a few bigots.
- The title is written in the third person which is designed to give it more weight than it would have if in the first person. A subtle writer trick but effective none the less.
- “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.” She is distancing herself from the toxicity that she created with her words. Her claiming to not want to add to the issues appears heartfelt, adding evidence to the idea that she’s not a good writer.
- “…I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets.” The case had already been through the courts therefore they were deemed transphobic tweets, no ‘ ‘ necessary!
- The next bit is just an attempt to make her sound like an expert in “trans issues”. I’m yet to hear what books she’s read or what experts she spoken to as there are no references, leading many to suspect the majority of this is rubbish. Any psychologists I know would love a shout out by a world famous author but none of them are willing to put their name to JKR’s ‘research’…
- “…my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself…” I’m going to have to come back to this one because… well, what’s it actually saying? What is an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues?!
- This is where it starts getting very worrying. Her attempts to explain liking something instead of screenshotting are bizarre to anyone who’s used social media. The fact that she starts the paragraph with mention of the abuse she received before explaining the context, why people might be abusing her (not that they should be but if you’re insulting people’s identity, you might expect some flack). Again, it’s a simple trick used by journalists but I’d expect better from a famous author.
- Mention of wrong-think – a badly referenced psychological concept to reinforce her ‘expertise’.
- I’m not sure what to make of the mention of Magdalen Berns, I don’t know enough about her to comment other than people can date who they want. It feels like it’s being mentioned to show JKR’s support of lesbians, leading us into her bizarre feminist defense.
- “I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then.” I’ve no idea what this means but the only reason for it (in that professional writers only write sentences that have a purpose, don’t forget) is to inspire pity for JKR. I find this pretty distasteful directly after talking about someone who is dying.
- I’m glad she expected the abuse, the internet is a harsh place and if you’re going to be on social media, even if you aren’t a transphobe, you’re going to get abuse. I like the fact that she specifically mentions a tweet that I think is quite nice, I’d much rather people composted stuff than burned it, because it’s from a man… this is going to become much more relevant as we go along. She’s starting to build her underlying narrative.
- “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.” So she’s admitting that she knew how upsetting her views were? To put this into context, people still support Trump.
- “They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people,” shout out to your fans who will support you through thick and thin. Did they really send their IQ scores?
- “…some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people” Interesting, who are these people? I’d much rather be hearing from them than JKR but they don’t have the platform. I’m sure I’ll come across them somewhere, sometime…
- “…who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding.” Sorry, what? What socio-political concept? I’m going to need some details here!
- “They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights.” As any decent person would be, unless of course she’s referring to specific dangers that she hasn’t explained yet…
- “Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.” What climate of fear? The fear JKR had when getting abuse on twitter that she expected even though she was entirely innocent? Are young trans people fearful of twitter? JKR? This all means nothing!
- “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.” Does it make me a bad person if I have less sympathy for the mental health issues of people who can afford all the treatment in the world when I’ve never been able to get any?
- “I only returned because I wanted to share a free children’s book during the pandemic.” Almost irrelevant sentence designed to make anyone who disagrees into a person who hates free kids books! Also, why not get a social media team to publicise your book? Maybe that bloke who was abusing me because JKR is rich (! that’s not the worst of it) was wrong and times are hard but if that’s the case she probably should try writing books she can sell.
- “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.” Classic othering and more of the men versus women narrative. This sentence is so much more dangerous than people realise as has been evidenced by the recent debate where Femi Oluwole was branded an ‘activist lawyer’, along with lawyers who are helping asylum seekers. Use of words like ‘progessive’, ‘swarmed’ and ‘policing my speech’ is deliberate. These are loaded terms that carry emotional weight. She gives no examples of these misogynistic slurs so we only have her definition of what’s misogynistic, which is interesting given the reliance on definitions that informs most of her supporters in their horrifically offensive twitter rants (we can all use emotion!). Finally, the ‘including all the women’ tactic, implying all women should agree with her because it’s us against them.
- “…and why should you?” Why should you know a term coined by the people you’re referring to? Why should you have any knowledge of both sides before reading hers? This is patronising and highly offensive especially considering TERF is not inherently offensive.
- I actually agree that the term TERF is over used and not always in the right way but such is the nature of language. In practice terf is slang for people who don’t believe that trans women are women and if you’re someone who just identifies as a woman you’re clearly just doing it to abuse women.
- There follows a list of examples of people who JKR thinks have been incorrectly labelled TERFs. It’s nice to see some examples but without context we can’t really comment on whether these people are TERFs or not. I mean, mums are allowed to worry about their kids but is she actively denying her child’s identity? Is the bullying really homophobic? Is there any scientific causality between sex changes and bullying? The older lady doesn’t sound particularly terfy, just a bit stupid, but the casual way JKR tells us that any man is allowed in M&S female changing rooms is surely libelous? I feel the need to point out something quite fundamental about abuse but I don’t want to get distracted but these claims are misleading at best, dangerous at worst.
- “Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.” That’s why TERFs are TERFs, not radical feminists! Maybe JKR is just a bit dim. Or maybe she put in comments like this to try to devalue these evil trans women who were angry with her for claiming they aren’t women. It just makes me think that radical feminists include everyone other than trans women, which is just rude and nasty and worth doing something about in my mind. It’s worse than someone who moved to England as soon as they were able to, spent years learning the language, customs etc… only to be told they’re not English because they weren’t born here!
- “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.” Yes, too right! Of course people don’t want to be transphobic, it’s not a nice quality however you spin it. Calling it playground tactics is just bitterness. Imagine being treated like this and not being JKR, imagine being a girl trapped in the body of a boy and being told by someone you admire, someone whose books took you away from the bullying and the headf**k, that you’re not a real woman and you will never be a real woman. That you’re only thinking you’re a girl because of the men in your life and the misogyny they perpetuate. Call me a snowflake but I don’t know if I could handle that.
- “‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas?” Flippantly likening damaging transphobia to having 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).” Childish attempt to other trans women while defusing attention to the fact that most companies aren’t transphobic regardless of their perceived genitalia. Note the sexist against women insult, slipped in in a totally unfeminist way. Not the smartest move considering the feminism narrative!
- “Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.” Weren’t you saying earlier that this all happened by accident on twitter? The only alleged “new trans activism” that you’ve mentioned is people being called TERFs on twitter, which isn’t really the end of the world. What exactly are you worried about?
- Semi-quote “I’m a martyr!” None of this automatically makes you any kind of authority on either the charities you support or this trans activism you keep mentioning but failing to explain sufficiently to express a reason to worry.
- “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.” Starting with an obvious contradiction and finishing with a totally unsupported claim of another causes intentions. That alone should be enough to shut up anyone who supports this woman. I have never met anyone (with at least a basic level of education) who doesn’t understand the difference between sex and gender. Who is trying to change their definition? The small minority of trans activists that you’re so scared of? In a world where Trump is president and the UK is currently committing the worst act of self sabotage in history? I didn’t mean this point to turn into a get your priorities in order rant but seriously! To my knowledge this last bit of JKR’s essay is not true or greatly misrepresented or misunderstood and I’m going to need primary evidence to change my mind.
- “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.” You don’t have to be an ex teacher or the founder of a charity to be interested in education and safeguarding but it’s nice of her to imply it to add weight to the next sentence. As she then admits!
- “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.” So she’s aware that freedom of speech is actually freedom of expression and it doesn’t allow for hate speech.
- “The fourth is where things start to get truly personal.” Why? She makes a point of telling us that she’s a biological woman so why is the subject of sex changes so personal for her? Is it perhaps because she is going to go to say something that would be unpalatable without a bit of emotion?
- Spoiler alert – Yes! I’m concerned about the number of rich people using their platforms to preach rubbish but I’m not going to essentially deny their identities. For the people of twitter; “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.” I think this part is what a lot of people have a problem with. To break it down; “huge explosion” is a loaded term that is completely irrelevant without figures and context and, most importantly, reliable sources; “young women” again, no numbers, context or sources; “increasing numbers that SEEM to be…” context, why seem?; “some” could mean two or 200,000, I’d imagine every procedure like sex change surgery has a risk of regret, taking away the opinion isn’t going to change that; to say people have sex changes partly because of homophobia is like saying something really obvious that’s all linked, I’d imagine there’s a link between perceived homophobia and self esteem but I don’t want to get distracted. A major point being JKRs solution of denying trans women their womanness isn’t going to help any of this, in fact I think it would much easier to find evidence that it makes it worse.
- “The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.” Do you maybe think the two are connected?! This phenomena is easily explained and I will hopefully be adding to the research soon. Autistic people think differently, I believe we have fewer barriers like racism and homophobia. This leads to a more fluid sex and gender, most autistic girls are either overtly girlie or typical tomboys because we create our identities in a different, perhaps more purposeful way. I am offended by this part of the essay because it highlights JKRs lack of research or lack of honesty. Neurotypical people do not have the right to tell me it’s not offensive because they simply think in a different way. (This is where Catherine Crompton’s research comes into play!) As it stands, this part of the essay implies that autistic people are unsure of their gender or we’re all desperately trying to be men because it’s too hard to be women.
- I’ve not read Lisa Littman’s research so I can’t comment on the content or JKR’s representation thereof but I can say that any academic paper should be open to criticism, it’s the fundamentals of science. People that make unfounded claims and get them published can do a lot of damage, even if the paper is subsequently unpublished (vaccines causing autism, if you needed an example). One paper does not a point prove.
- “Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.” I’m not a fan of the other side telling me what their opponents are insisting, especially when the ‘activists’ aren’t a homogeneous, organised group. I’ve never seen anyone insist that but that’s not to say it’s never happened. It’s a bit superfluous at this point though.
- “The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves.” Hey, if I’m not allowed to tell her supporters why I’m offended by this, JKR’s not allowed to tell us what the other side’s argument is! Also, is the flippant mention of suicide really necessary? It’s not hard to imagine that an autistic kid who feels like they don’t belong in their body might feel suicidal.
- “…explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England)…” The Tavistock is actually a mental health clinic with a gender clinic. Not exactly a lie but not the entire truth.
- “…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.’” Nice use of “stated” and “claims” adding legitimacy to the ‘expert’ and doubt to the idea that gender dysphoria has a detrimental effect on a person’s mental health. Again, one person does not a fact make!
- “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…” but she was just claiming that it doesn’t lead to suicide! So it’s ok because it only causes a load of other problems! Or is it just the problems of trans men that worry her?
- This is another biggie “…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.” This basically pisses over the experiences of so many people. If you think people change their sex to escape womanhood, 30 years isn’t the issue, the fact that you clearly do not suffer from a very real illness is why you didn’t become a man. It’s frankly disgusting that someone could compare their experience to one that is clearly different and think it’s the same. What would she do if she was autistic, let’s hear about that next because I really want to know what an NT thinks they could do better about my experiences! The rest of that paragraph is too wrong to read again, let alone quote but I think it sums up a great deal of the problem here. People with relatively easy lives feel the need to stick their noses into other’s business and can’t accept when they’re told it’s none of their business.
- I’m skipping past her self pitying nonsense because it’s entirely irrelevant. Offending people because you have problems is childish and not defendable.
- “I want to be very clear here:” more than half way through an essay where you’ve repeatedly mentioned trans activists and the fear we all have of them…
- “…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.” Being clear by immediately backtracking with some more unreferenced ‘information’.
- “Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people…” And she expects them to tell her how deeply and profoundly her transphobia hurt them or did she just meet the ones who are huge Harry Potter fans?
- “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.” When I first read this I assumed it was pure fabrication as most things that start with ‘I happen to know…’ tend to be (if in doubt google the youtube video of a FBI lie expert going through tapes of the McCann’s interviews). But if it’s true it kind of contradicts everything she’s saying. It’s ok for her friends to become women but sod everyone else?
- “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.” I’m still not aware of this as I don’t have any reason to trust JKR based on previous points. Let’s have some evidence, how did JKR find this out?
- “…I imagined that my future daughters…” Way to piss all over her point about how she might have wanted to transition.
- “…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,…” Likening people whose only crimes seem to be wanting bad things to happen to their oppressors to a pretty universally common enemy.
- “Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.” Yes, currently by rabid JKR fans, male and female, that have completely misread this and believe that JKR is telling them people can’t change sex. My favourite was the bloke who told me I couldn’t be a woman if I disagree with JKR!
- “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.” So what?
- “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.” WTF is this about? What’s clear? To whom? This is what I call a nothing sentence – when you break it down it doesn’t actually mean anything, it’s a sad attempt to make the author look smarter than they are.
- “hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion” A hundred emails does not a point prove!
- “…other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive” by whom? (I missed the end of the previous paragraph and this one starting with “But…” and going on to talk about things that aren’t in contradiction with the previous paragraph where she admits there’s no material difference between women and trans women… it feels weird even making the distinction!)
- “…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.” This needs to be changed to “… but for some of us…”. Yet again, JKR thinks she can talk for all women, sorry, all biological women, whilst complaining that nobody can talk for her or all other women.
- “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.” How comes I knew about it before reading this? I’m cautious of this point as I don’t know much about JKR’s experience but the #metoo thing made a clear point that we’re all victims of male perpetrated abuse of some form. Trans women also experience misogyny and abuse from men so let’s see where she’s going with this.
- “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.” Oh, so she’s making the point that she has solidarity for abuse victims who agree with her but not those of us who have suffered unimaginable abuse but still believe trans women are women… TBH I’m confused as to what the argument is at this point.
- The whole triggering mention of abuse was just to prove that she’s not a monster because unsurprisingly she’s about to contradict the idea that trans women are women and particularly vulnerable.
- “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.” Repeating the same unsubstantiated claim, reinforcing it then declaring its validity. Signs of lying!
- There then follows a paragraph where she admits to projecting her bad memories onto something unrelated. She then admits to having a twitter rant when angry and emotional and instead of just apologising she denies any wrong doing and carries on digging a deeper hole. She mentions nothing worse than the abuse I’ve received from her fans who have clearly either misread or misunderstood this essay to the point that I’m having to spend hours writing this to stop (or try to stop) said abuse.
- Then there’s some quoting which I’m too tired to quote! It might make JKR look a bit smarter to some of her less educated fans but I’m fading fast.
- “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.” So I’m sure she can imagine how bad it is for the likes of me who are the minority being abused by the majority being led, whether purposefully or not, by an international celebrity.
- “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.” I’d like to see those polls as a woman who doesn’t fit into those categories.
- “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.” I’m putting this in mainly because it reminds me of the classic brexit argument that those of us who voted against it are the cause of it. It’s total rubbish and unsurprisingly there’s no evidence offered to back her claim up. Maybe academia has spoiled me in that I now expect evidence for disputed claims but it’s the only way.
- “I’m a survivor, certainly not a victim” I feel that using your bad experiences to justify fear in something that just isn’t a thing is quite victimy. It makes me feel like I’m a better survivor because I try to not let bad experiences rule my life. Sorry to be a survivor snob!
- “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.” I’ve run out of words so I’ll just say this comment urks me.
Edit: As my screen refreshed back to my twitter homepage after posting the link to this I saw that JKR is trending. It turns out that this was all for her new book that features a CIS man dressing up as a woman to kill people! And people are still defending her!
Also, someone that demanded evidence of offense numerous times is yet to read these 66 reasons… well 67 now because offending minorities to sell a book is just disgusting.
The Lost Generation of Autistic Adults 
Reblogged this on Autism Candles.
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