# J K Rowling and the trans furore **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 16, 2020, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795 "2020-06-16T18:05:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 162
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3225 "2020-08-27T15:17:00Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s not been where you or RickJay have been drawing the line. Yes it is. I’m fine with relaxed restroom restrictions but I object to allowing self-identifying transwomen in other single-sex spaces. I’ve said this multiple times in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3226 "2020-08-27T15:28:45Z")
> [@YWTF](#): > > > [@MrDibble](#): > > > > That’s not been where you or RickJay have been drawing the line. > > Yes it is. So you never said " I don’t think legal sex should be changed if a male hasn’t had sex reassignment surgery." ? Because that’s a different line. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3227 "2020-08-27T15:37:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > So you never said " I don’t think legal sex should be changed if a male hasn’t had sex reassignment surgery." ? Because that’s a different line. Different line from what? I was only talking about access to spaces, irrespective of what is on government records. But yes, I believe that changing one’s legal sex should mean there are permanent changes to ones sex organs. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3228 "2020-08-27T15:40:32Z")
> [@YWTF](#): > > Different line from what? Requiring surgery is a different line from policing locker rooms. And requiring surgery is very much about access as things stand now. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3229 "2020-08-27T15:45:53Z")
Which is reasonable, IMHO. Sex is not gender. Gender is gender. Sex is sex. Ages ago in this thread, I got chastised by a trans rights ally for conflating these two things. So Imma need for allies to be logically consistent and not step on each other’s arguments. Either gender is just a ‘mental state’ thing totally divorced from biological sex. Or gender indicates biological sex. Both of these things cannot be true. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3230 "2020-08-27T16:07:24Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Requiring surgery is a different line from policing locker rooms. And requiring surgery is very much about access as things stand now. I’m not requiring surgery for anyone. _Sex_ reassignment surgery and a legal _sex_ change are not necessary for someone to live as their intended _gender_ identity. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3231 "2020-08-27T16:22:39Z")
> [@YWTF](#): > > But yes, I believe that changing one’s legal sex should mean there are permanent changes to ones sex organs. I am also in this line of thinking although not necessarily requiring surgery. Someone’s legal sex automatically confers a lot of gender specific legal rights and privileges. I don’t have a problem with trans people getting those rights, but I think the “I’m an F” trump card should be something reserved for the most highly committed trans people. I would think the line should be somewhere around having undergone gender-related hormone therapy for a significant amount of time. Surgery has a lot of health risks and high cost, so it’s not always a viable option even if someone really wants it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3232 "2020-08-27T16:34:15Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Which is reasonable, IMHO. Sex is not gender. Gender is gender. Sex is sex. And if humans had only gender or sex, you’d have a point. We all know neither of you are naive enough to believe that because it says "legal sex’ on the tin, it isn’t _also_ about gender. > [@YWTF](#): > > _Sex_ reassignment surgery and a legal _sex_ change are not necessary for someone to live as their intended _gender_ identity. Not _necessary_, but frequently strongly desirable. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3233 "2020-08-27T16:35:16Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > Someone’s legal sex automatically confers a lot of gender specific legal rights and privileges. And we can rewrite some of those to instead refer to only ciswomen, if that is the problem. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3234 "2020-08-27T16:42:33Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > And we can rewrite some of those to instead refer to only ciswomen, if that is the problem. I’m not sure that would necessarily fix the situation. I feel that transwomen who have undergone significant medical transition should be allowed in traditional cis-women spaces. I’m not sure where the line is, but I would think that someone who was on hormone therapy for 10 years is going be very gender aligned so that they would be able to go to gender-specific shelters, prisons, etc. without any major issues from their previous gender. The only place I feel that should be strongly cis-gender would be sports. I wouldn’t necessarily want all other spaces to be labeled as cis-gender. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3235 "2020-08-27T16:47:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Not _necessary_ , but frequently strongly desirable. Yes but just because something is desirable doesn’t mean that society should ignore the risks that come with making it easy to change one’s legal sex. We know that people detransition and their existence shouldn’t be ignored or downplayed. Making it easy to get a legal sex change means increasing the number of people out there whose official sex is discordant with their actual sex _and_ gender identity. This will lessen the information value that M and F provides us. Crime statistical data, public health surveillance, social trends, the study of sex-based discrimination patterns…all of this is impeded if the information collected on individuals doesn’t match with reality. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3236 "2020-08-27T16:48:59Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > And if humans had only gender or sex, you’d have a point. We all know neither of you are naive enough to believe that because it says "legal sex’ on the tin, it isn’t _also_ about gender. Do you consider folks like @Kimstu naive? Because she also gave us a lecture on the difference between gender and sex. Apparently a lot of trans rights allies share my belief that these things should be kept separated. Are all of us naive or do we just have a different opinion than you? Just because it might break a transwoman’s heart that their “woman dick” keeps them from being considered female under the law does not mean some horrible injustice is occurring. It breaks my heart that I am not 5’9" tall. But I don’t expect the DMV to redefine inches so that my driver’s licenses affirms my newly discovered statueseque identity. It’s OK to tell some transwomen “Sorry, but you must do X to be officially recognized as female, and you don’t meet that standard.” Every legal category has eligibility requirements. Without them they become meaningless. We shouldn’t have meaningless legal categories. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3237 "2020-08-27T16:54:38Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > And if humans had only gender or sex, you’d have a point. We all know neither of you are naive enough to believe that because it says "legal sex’ on the tin, it isn’t _also_ about gender. How could it mean gender? When I was born, the doctor looked at my genitalia and marked me as female based on what he saw. At no point in time has anyone official followed up to ask me whether I feel like a female, dress like a female, think like a female, or act like a female. The government has shown an extreme indifference to my gender identity, but it has never shown indifference to my sex. ---
**Author:** ![Delayed\_Reflex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/delayed_reflex/32/3172_2.png) [@Delayed\_Reflex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delayed_Reflex)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3238 "2020-08-27T16:59:02Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It’s not “erasure” when a term of greater specificity is used instead. So would it not be erasure to always refer to transwomen as transwomen (as opposed to women), since it is a term of greater specificity? > [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@DemonTree](#): > > > > Yes, I mean just internal identity. > > I can’t say. I’ve never interacted with a trans person who wasn’t in some way presenting. > > All the people I know who don’t are explicitly genderqueer, not trans. > > > [@](#): > > > > And I think it’s rather different to the black/white thing because even without any history or society, physical differences between the sexes will still exist and make a difference to our lives. > > I think they will still exist, but I don’t think they need make much of a difference in our lives (outside sport, it seems). At least, I don’t think women should live in fear of men, and I think that’s achievable even with the sex differences. > > Although not to sound like a kook, but I don’t think those kind of not-easily-mutable physical differences between the sexes are going to last more than a couple more centuries. I think easy and reversible sex change will be an option in the posthuman future. A noble goal, certainly, but about as realistic right now as hoping that black people will be able live without fear from the police in America. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3239 "2020-08-27T19:06:31Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Just because it might break a transwoman’s heart that their “woman dick” keeps them from being considered female under the law does not mean some horrible injustice is occurring. If only wealthy trans women can legally become trans women, and poor trans women are locked out because they can’t afford a costly medical procedure, that strikes me as at least a bit of an injustice. So, to, for any trans women who have medical issues which make surgery inadvisable. ---
**Author:** ![Boudicca90](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boudicca90/32/16818_2.png) [@Boudicca90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boudicca90)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3240 "2020-08-27T19:17:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > If only wealthy trans women can legally become trans women, and poor trans women are locked out because they can’t afford a costly medical procedure, that strikes me as at least a bit of an injustice. So, to, for any trans women who have medical issues which make surgery inadvisable. Yep, surgery should absolutely not be required for being considered legally a woman, and that is one of the things that does need to change. In my case, I’ve been trying to get breast augmentation done for over a year now with no luck. I’m poor, so I can’t afford it myself, and even with Medicaid I found a lot of difficulty in just finding a reputable surgeon that accepts it. I have pretty bad anxiety, so the idea of surgery frightens me a lot, but hormones can only do so much, so I feel like it’s my last option. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3241 "2020-08-27T19:36:29Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Oh, and FYI, the trans sports thing has been brought up in ways that aren’t transphobic, like separating groups into high and low testosterone instead of by sex/gender. > > If you actually do care about their feelings, you can actually try to navigate a way to deal with any actual problems. So new sports categories for everyone separated into High and low T what about the inbetweens and outliers? How many categories you think? Can cispeople tweak their T if they want to play sports? How about handicaps to level the field? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3242 "2020-08-27T19:55:30Z")
If an individual with intact male anatomy and physiology is legally recognized as a female and then uses this recognition to demand entry into women’s shelters and prisons, do the females who are forced to live with this individual and others like them evoke any sympathy? Is a male individual’s right to be considered female under the law more important than the right of women, both cis and trans, to be safe? Yeah, it’s sad that poor trans folks can’t live their best lives. But 99% of “legal females” are burdened by biological realities they can’t escape from. They can’t live their best lives either. I wish I could have equal amounts of sympathy for both sides, but this is an area where I just can’t. We can fight for universal healthcare so that poor trans folks who can get SRS. We can set up foundations to help folks pay their hospital bills. We could even set up clinics that will perform surgeries on a sliding scale. But once we set the precedence of calling fully intact males “female”, we can’t take that back. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3243 "2020-08-27T19:59:54Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > If only wealthy trans women can legally become trans women, and poor trans women are locked out because they can’t afford a costly medical procedure, that strikes me as at least a bit of an injustice. So, to, for any trans women who have medical issues which make surgery inadvisable. So are you not in favor of any requirements other than self-attestation? The rich will always have an easier time accessing things. We don’t let poor kids self-identify their way into college even though richer kids can afford SAT prep, quality schools, and costly extracurriculars. Because the negative consequences of doing that would outweigh the benefits. We may allow some variance for socioeconomic status when determining who to admit, but those students are still expected to meet requirements to show they are good students. Do you think it’s unreasonable for transwomen to be held to any kind of standard before allowing them unfettered access to female-reserved spaces? ---
**Author:** ![Boudicca90](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boudicca90/32/16818_2.png) [@Boudicca90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boudicca90)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/3244 "2020-08-27T20:04:39Z")
Ha! Sympathy? You have constantly reduced us to mere statistics in your weird super-utilitarian ideology and have demonstrated no sympathy despite your insistence that you care about us at all. I sympathize with ciswomen who are uncomfortable with sharing facilities with someone who may not share all the same anatomical features, but you are constantly lumping us in with men who possibly may try to game the system, despite this not becoming a problem in all the countries and states that have adopted self-ID laws. Self-ID laws simply help to streamline a process I have found to be frustrating and draconian in the past and I welcome them with open arms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795.md?page=161) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795.md?page=163)