According to The Guardian, the Maya in question is Maya Forstater, a UK citizen who was fired from her job for a series of tweets that included such nuggets as Men cannot change into women.
Rowling would seem to support such sentiments.
IMO the sentiment “men cannot change into women” qualifies as transphobic, just as “two men cannot have a real marriage” is homophobic, or “a black woman and a white man can’t have a real marriage” is racist.
I will never understand that woman (and so many other rich successful people). Why doesn’t she just take her billions and ride off into the sunset? Why does she comment on twitter?
Based on the tweet? I’d say no. Who knows what’s in her mind? The idea that words should have meaning shouldn’t be controversial.
Evidently, there was some similar dustup in June.
Two points. First, if anybody had said a few years ago that “Men cannot change into women”, the response would have been to scratch our heads and wonder why that person was stating something so obvious.
A man is an “adult male human being” and a woman is an “adult female human being”. The definition of female is “belonging or relating to women, or the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs” and the definition of male is “used to refer to men or boys, or the sex that fertilizes eggs, and does not produce babies or eggs itself”. (All definitions taken from Cambridge Free English Dictionary and Thesaurus .) It is true that a member of the sex that fertilizes eggs cannot change into a member of the sex that can give birth to young and produces eggs. A very short time ago, there was nothing controversial about stating this anywhere.
Second, J. K. Rowling did not say whether or not she agrees with “men cannot change into women”. She said that a woman should not be punished for saying that. Saying that someone should not be punished for making a statement is different from endorsing the statement.
You will never understand why people who have gotten themselves into a position where lots of people listen to what they have to say, say things?
You’ll never understand why people who have a bully pulpit use it?
So?
Merriam-Webster gives a better definition of female: “of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs.”
Granted.
I had to look up who wrote this famous quote (it was English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall):
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
And, as you say, lacking any other evidence that Rowling has made transphobic statements (especially given the first two lines she wrote in that same tweet), this would be how I’d interpret what she’s saying.
While I agree in principle, a supervisor who says a bunch of bigoted things is likely to take a long walk to HR. In the US, anyway. Dunno the law in the UK.
Thank you for this.
I shared the common misconception that it was Voltaire’s saying. I now know these are Hall’s words, summarizing Voltaire’s belief.
Ignorance fought.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but she’s simply stating the obvious. A man who surgically transitions into being a woman may socially be a woman, but from a biological standpoint, is not and won’t be the same. An M-to-F person still isn’t going to undergo menstruation, pregnancy or childbirth. The bone structure, muscles, are still that of the male body. There are a dozen different things that **ciswomen **experience that an M-to-F won’t have, or wouldn’t have, experienced.
What she said is better described as “double-plus ungood.”
I knew a vapid 1984 reference was coming sometime, so thanks for getting that out of the way early.
TERF
Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. That group of feminists that claims that trans women aren’t really women, as biological determinism is only a fallacy when it used against them, not when they use it against others.
Isn’t it mindboggling that the Royal College of Psychiatrists would invite a TERF like Julie Bindel to come talk at a study day on transgenderism and transsexuality? That’s like inviting Fred Phelps to come deliver the keynote at a gay pride.
Do you think that Maya Forstater was making a neutral, purely descriptive biological observation in her tweets, with no ulterior motivations and implications? If not, or if you just don’t know, then what relevance is this to the current discussion?
I’m not a trans gender person, but from what I’ve gathered speaking to a few of them is that for many of them getting treated “socially” as a woman is the vast majority of what they want, and they’re quite aware that no matter what they are not going to be exactly the same as a ciswoman due to medical/technological limitations.
There are a dozen different things that a cis woman who has become pregnant and given birth has experienced that I never will, but that doesn’t make me any less female in our society.
Given that I did not reproduce biologically quite frankly I would have been happy to miss the whole menstruation thing. What a nasty, bloody, unpleasant mess that was, I’m glad I’m past it now.
From reading her works I get that to transmogrify into a cat is jolly clever. However, turning into a snake isn’t something proper people should want to do.
Vapid or not it’s appropriate.
I’m not surprised in the least that you’d believe that.