# 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:** 244
**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:** [October 9, 2020, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4867 "2020-10-09T06:06:50Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I don’t know why this matters. The usual places parents and kids can be found, I guess: Errm, no, I mean _where in the world_ you are. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > One thing that never even occurred to me is to have a conversation with them about anything related to sexuality or gender identity. Then you’re not friends with these people. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2020, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4868 "2020-10-09T06:41:15Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > For fuck’s sake… Hey, take that frustration up with your sister and her non-apology for calling me an abuser, not me. > [@monstro](#): > > Here: Yes, and …? Sucks to be that guy, but the idea that all trasnwomen are either gay men or autogynephiliacs is both trivial if true (most women are also autogynephiliacs per the Moser study, and hence this is just more proof that TWAW) and yet easily disproved by the existence of transwomen who are neither - the ones who are into women yet not all about their own genitalia in bed. And Shupe is clearly very angry, yet blames everyone else for - believing what he reported to them. That’s not a failing of psychiatrists, they’re _not_ magicians. > [@monstro](#): > > Because you aren’t living _everyone’s_ experience. You are only privy to certain experiences. Funny, I thought that was my point, actually. Only difference being, mine was that you seem to only be privy to negative secondhand experiences. Like I said, I’m aware of those experiences in the same way as you, I too have a functioning internet connection. > [@](#): > > You aren’t going to hear about the disillusionment and regret happening in your bubble, because social pressure is an effective silencer and no one wants to be the lone voice of negativity among friends and family. Now you’re a mind reader for knowing what is and isn’t going on in my friends’ heads? The same friends who would tell me of their suicidal ideation, or their moral quandaries, or their mental health struggles, but somehow won’t tell me about their regrets about this one thing? Yeah, sorry, no. I know my friends better than you do. > [@monstro](#): > > And what the fuck does “cherry picked” even mean in this context? That I’ve never seen you share a happy trans story. > [@monstro](#): > > Just because you know more transwomen than I do doesn’t make you an expert on women, womanhood, or feminism. Never claimed to be > [@monstro](#): > > We have different areas of expertise, but yours is not greater than mine. It is just _different_ than mine. Part of that difference is that _I know more transwomen than you_. That doesn’t make me an expert, but it does render your negative internet sleuthing rather irrelevant compared to what they actually tell me. But then you’ve already pooh-poohed an actual transwoman in this thread, so I don’t expect any better, really. > [@monstro](#): > > Jamie Shupe is a real person too. And he’s been harmed by gender ideology. It’s _James_. And he’s been harmed more by his own brain, not gender ideology. Gender ideology is neutral. > [@monstro](#): > > If we only talk about the positive stories, “If we only talk about the negative stories…” > [@monstro](#): > > It is only when people consider _all_ the stories I await you posting positive stories with eager anticipation, then. > [@monstro](#): > > shared by Dopers who have hurt our feelings. Hey, she can feel free to apologize at any time. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2020, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4869 "2020-10-09T06:42:25Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > But just hanging out is not really a gender-specific activity. We had very different HS experiences, then. ---
**Author:** ![Summerday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Summerday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Summerday)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4870 "2020-10-09T07:31:19Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > So… I am attracted to gender expression, not to biological sex. Or, at least, I’m mostly a straight cis woman, but I’ve had crushes on other women, and every one of those women has been pretty masculine in gender expression. But some of them have had traditionally attractive female bodies. (And some haven’t.) Were you ever intimate or did you ever have sex with any of those women? Sorry for being so blunt! Lol (Of course, feel free to tell me to mind my own beeswax.) I’m just curious because I find it interesting and I guess it kind of strikes me as a double standard that straight women feel free to make statements like that while a lot of straight men do not. It’s the complete opposite for me. I can admire a beautiful woman and love her personality and cherish her friendship…but that’s where it ends; I don’t want to have sex with her. It’s not her gender expression, it’s her female body. Whether she has short hair and wears guy’s clothes doesn’t change anything; it doesn’t make her sexually attractive for me. I think that’s the case for the majority of straight and gay men and women. > [@](#): > > That being said… I think a lot of people really are attracted to bodies and pheremones more than to gender expression. **My guess is that men are more likely to be attracted to bodies, and women to gender expression** , but I’m sure that varies, too. I’m not sure I agree, my guess is that bisexual people are more likely to be attracted to gender expression while straight and gay men _and_ women are attracted to bodies. And I’ll take a wild guess and say that transgendered people are more likely to be attracted to gender expression. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2020, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4871 "2020-10-09T08:50:26Z")
What do you understand “attracted to gender expression” to mean? Attracted to a particular set of clothes, comportment & coiffure? I’m bi, and I’m attracted to bodies and/or personalities. While I can be attracted to someone’s sense of style, it’s not particularly gendered - I am attracted to fashion and beauty styles that might be considered quite masculine, quite feminine and quite androgynous so I don’t know if that’s “attracted to gender expression”. I’m the same about the bodies I find attractive. In fact, the only strongly-defined taste I have is “must not be stupid”, and that’s completely gender-neutral. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4872 "2020-10-09T10:03:04Z")
I can more easily understand attraction to gender expression by thinking about it backwards. If I saw an otherwise attractive man with a feminine hairstyle, clothes and mannerisms, would that put me off? It certainly would make me suspect he was gay. But then isn’t a lot of what we call gender expression intended to highlight physical features that would appeal to the opposite sex? Not sure how to think about 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:** [October 9, 2020, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4873 "2020-10-09T10:06:05Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > If I saw an otherwise attractive man with a feminine hairstyle, clothes and mannerisms, would that put me off? It certainly would make me suspect he was gay. I have news for you about bears… ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4874 "2020-10-09T10:26:03Z")
The claim that most feminine man are gay in no way implies that most gay men are feminine. ---
**Author:** ![Summerday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Summerday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Summerday)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4875 "2020-10-09T10:51:25Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > What do you understand “attracted to gender expression” to mean? Attracted to a particular set of clothes, comportment & coiffure? Um, yes? If not that, then what? Here’s what Google says: > [@](#): > > the way in which a person expresses their gender identity, typically through their appearance, dress, and behavior. Sounds like clothes, comportment, and coiffure to me. Why don’t you define it for us since you seem positively shocked at what I’ve written. ---
**Author:** ![Summerday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Summerday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Summerday)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4876 "2020-10-09T10:57:48Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I can more easily understand attraction to gender expression by thinking about it backwards. If I saw an otherwise attractive man with a feminine hairstyle, clothes and mannerisms, would that put me off? It certainly would make me suspect he was gay. **But then isn’t a lot of what we call gender expression intended to highlight physical features that would appeal to the opposite sex?** Not sure how to think about it That makes sense to me; that’s kind of how I think about it too. I guess I divide it into what would be a stereotypical or common male asthetic vs a stereotypical or common female asthetic. ---
**Author:** ![YWTF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/d07c76/32.png) [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4877 "2020-10-09T11:52:15Z")
> [@Summerday](#): > > It’s the complete opposite for me. I can admire a beautiful woman and love her personality and cherish her friendship…but that’s where it ends; I don’t want to have sex with her. It’s not her gender expression, it’s her female body. Whether she has short hair and wears guy’s clothes doesn’t change anything; it doesn’t make her sexually attractive for me. I think that’s the case for the majority of straight and gay men and women. This is my experience too. Gender expression catches my attention, but once my brain imagines the doffing of clothes and the commencement of anything sexual, male primary and secondary sex characteristics need to be in the picture. Female ones cannot be. The character “Daddy” from the second to the last season of Orange is the New Black is someone I could see crushing on if were I jailed. But to me, a crush is not the same thing as sexual arousal. A crush is just a crush until it’s put to the test sexually. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4878 "2020-10-09T12:08:38Z")
> [@YWTF](#): > > This is a different question than one that is focused on scrutinizing lesbian romantic preferences. It’s not “different”, it’s simply a matter of focus. A trans woman who is attracted to women is naturally going to be particularly interested in unconscious attitudes of lesbian women. That does not justify jumping to conclusions about the group, but it’s still naturally going to be on their mind. This will be true _even if_ lesbian women are objectively the least biased group, most especially if someone’s personal experience is highly unrepresentative, for example from a different generation than the respondents or residing among an atypical group. And we are, all of us, highly unrepresentative along some dimension or another. No one is perfectly median down every single axis of human experience. > [@YWTF](#): > > I don’t take this claim at face value because it goes against available evidence. Both anecdotal and non-anecdotal. Less than 5% of women are lesbian or bi, but if a woman tells me she is, it would be a major mistake to claim it’s likely she’s mistaken or lying merely because the overwhelming majority of women are otherwise. A personal story can be untrue, either a lie or maybe more innocently the result of faulty, selective memory. Or an unusual person, living in an unusual place, among unusual people, could be extrapolating more or less honestly based on unusual, unrepresentative experience. That doesn’t justify misguided moral condemnation. But it’s still very possible that a deeply wrong-headed and damaging conclusion had its origins in a place of honest personal experience. Happens all the time. Practically everyone navigates the plausibilities around them based purely on instinct, intuition, an experience that _feels just like truth_ to them, regardless of how true it is. People can and do lie, but we are also honestly mistaken about shit all the time, lulled into error by the subjective feeling of absolute truth. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4879 "2020-10-09T12:12:32Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > most women are also autogynephiliacs per the Moser study, and hence this is just more proof that TWAW There are a _lot_ of posts like this on r/asktransgender. Doesn’t exactly make me think ‘yup, totally normal female experience’… [https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/7h2bmo/why\_am\_i\_getting\_erections\_like\_this/](https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/7h2bmo/why_am_i_getting_erections_like_this/) ---
**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:** [October 9, 2020, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4880 "2020-10-09T12:20:28Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > The claim that most feminine man are gay in no way implies that most gay men are feminine. But it does imply a distinct lack of understanding of both gays and feminine men. “Most feminine men are gay” is just a stereotype. An extremely dated one, at that. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4881 "2020-10-09T12:22:16Z")
I live in the US. Of course I’m not friends with my kid’s friends. Why would I be? ---
**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:** [October 9, 2020, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4882 "2020-10-09T12:24:39Z")
I’m not shocked, I genuinely want to know if it meant _one_ specific set of those. Like - “I’m only attracted to people who look like X” where X is _one_ gender-stereotypical set of outwards presentation? ---
**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:** [October 9, 2020, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4883 "2020-10-09T12:26:09Z")
I don’t see the relevance of that reddit post to what I posted. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2020, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4884 "2020-10-09T12:32:38Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I live in the US. …because obviously the USA is a cultural monolith, and anyone asking for location clarity for questions of cultural differences would be _automatically_ enlightened by a terse “USA” as a reply to “where do you live” type questions 🙄 “Austin, Texas” or “Rural Upstate New York” or “Corner of Haight and Ashbury” would be the kind of thing I’d be looking for. > [@](#): > > Of course I’m not friends with my kid’s friends. Why would I be? Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply I had conversations with my kid’s friends about their sexuality. I have those convos _with my kid_, who has them with her friends. I _do_ have conversations with people of _your_ kids’ age about it. Because they are my friends. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4885 "2020-10-09T12:34:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > But it does imply a distinct lack of understanding of both gays and feminine men. > > “Most feminine men are gay” is just a stereotype. An extremely dated one, at that. Address that then if you think it’s wrong; I’m not wedded to the assumption. Your reply was a non sequitur. And of course I’ve heard of bears, I don’t live under a rock. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2020, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/4886 "2020-10-09T12:38:47Z")
I am not originally from the US. I’ve lived in San Francisco, Boston, currently in the DC metro area. Why the specific geography questions? What does it tell you? You could just ask directly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795.md?page=243) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795.md?page=245)