# J K Rowling and the trans furore
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795
**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:** 36
### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/703 "2020-06-30T16:01:30Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_Go](#):
>
> Right. What’s the problem with that? Honest question. Because I honestly still don’t see the correlation here.
I have spent the last two weeks putting my thoughts to words on this subject in this very thread. If you haven’t been able to figure why I have a beef with that ideology, I can’t help you. Sorry. I’m not about to spoonfeed you, though.
This is not rocket science and I’m tired of people acting like it is…
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### Author:  [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_Go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_Go)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/704 "2020-06-30T16:02:24Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> I’m not about to spoonfeed you, though.
Great. Well. Sure.
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### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/705 "2020-06-30T16:11:04Z")
> [@YWTF](#):
>
> Posters in this thread are saying there are a ton of women that are trans-supportive and have no qualms with where dthings are headed. _Most women start with this position_ . I was certainly one them. My assumption for the longest time was that trans women were limited to transsexuals struggling with gender dysphoria. While I don’t think a transsexual necessarily loses their birth sex, a male who has gone through therapy, hormones, and bottom surgery has jumped over a lot more hurdles than a male who does none of these things. I believe most women who consider themselves strong allies are assuming the same thing that I used to assume. They aren’t envisioning male people who are physically indistinguishable to other adult males (unaltered penises and all) insisting on being recognized and treated as women.
It was the same for me. I didn’t want to hurt trans people and what they were asking for seemed very reasonable. I heard of TERFs as some bad thing and never really looked into it. But the more I learned, the more what they are saying made sense. The idea that anyone who doesn’t conform to gender norms must be ‘really’ the opposite gender is incredibly regressive, and the new definition where anyone can be a woman makes the concept essentially meaningless.
Reading other women’s stories and reflecting on my own experiences makes the hollowness even more obvious.
And seeing how similar the reactions of trans activists to J K Rowling are to MRAs’ and other misogynists’ reaction to any woman who dares to have an opinion on the internet - right down to the rape threats - really makes it clear what is happening here.
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### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/706 "2020-06-30T16:14:17Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_Go](#):
>
> Right. What’s the problem with that? Honest question. Because I honestly still don’t see the correlation here.
Read the rest of the thread if you want to learn more. There are lots of great posts above answering exactly the question you asked.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/707 "2020-06-30T16:21:42Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> It’s closer to a religion. “A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman,” which is the usual new definition, doesn’t mean anything; it’s circular nonsense, and the expectation of people who trumpet “Trans Women Are Women” is that it will be accepted without question, in part because the questions become pretty hard to answer and because the sad fact is that a lot of men who trumpet it are sexists who don’t want gender nonconforming men in their spaces.
We’re also told that if someone says they are a woman, _they’ve always been a woman_. Even before they knew they were a woman, they were one. Women aren’t just people who identify as women today. They are also people who will later identify as women at some later time, even if they also identify as _something else_ at some later time.
With such a definition, anyone literally could be a woman. They can get knocked on the head and claim a changed “mental state” that is now “woman”, and women must go along with the farce unless we want the “woke” police to get us.
This really wouldn’t be a big deal if gender itself wasn’t a big deal. But it is. We don’t make gender not a big deal by making “woman” meaningless. We just create an environment where misogyny can fly under the radar but we can’t talk about it because all the right words have been taboo’ed.
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### Author:  [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/708 "2020-06-30T16:30:58Z")
**monstro**
> We’re also told that if someone says they are a woman, _they’ve always been a woman_ . Even before they knew they were a woman, they were one. Women aren’t just people who identify as women today. They are also people who will later identify as women at some later time, even if they also identify as _something else_ at some later time.
Only ten years ago, everyone would’ve universally recognized a person espousing this as a 100%, unadulterated edgelord troll.
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### Author:  [@mistymage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mistymage)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/709 "2020-06-30T16:32:20Z")
This thread really makes me sad for my daughter.
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### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/710 "2020-06-30T16:38:17Z")
Sorry. ☹ This society makes me really sad for mine.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/711 "2020-06-30T16:43:23Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> You have no problem castigating JKR for using a badly chosen word, but you don’t feel it’s your place to criticise trans people sending her rape and death threats? What the hell is wrong with you?
This isn’t at all what I said, and I’ve specifically criticized any and all threats again and again. If you want to reply to the specific words I wrote, feel free and I will read it.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/712 "2020-06-30T17:45:54Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> Strictly from a power dynamic standpoint, if all gendered language is inherently problematic and oppressive, then we need to focus on cleaning up all the “men” stuff first.
Have we not been doing that for, like, fifty years now? Firefighter has replaced fireman as the common term for people who put out fires. “Server” has replaced gendered “waiter/waitress.” Mostly we call people who star in films “actors,” regardless of gender. What areas do you think we are deficient in?
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### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/713 "2020-06-30T17:57:49Z")
A nice article on the problems with cancel culture here:
> **[Why won't liberals defend liberalism?](https://unherd.com/2020/06/why-wont-liberals-defend-liberalism/)**
>
> Don’t kid yourself, the woke crocodile is coming for you too
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/714 "2020-06-30T18:01:33Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> We’re also told that if someone says they are a woman, _they’ve always been a woman_ . Even before they knew they were a woman, they were one. Women aren’t just people who identify as women today. They are also people who will later identify as women at some later time, even if they also identify as _something else_ at some later time.
I didn’t realize I was queer until my late-20s. Up to that point, I’d always considered myself straight. Did my sexuality suddenly change when I was coming up on my third decade? Or was I always queer, and just didn’t know how to handle it until I was older?
I know quite a few trans women socially. Stories they have in common involved resisting admitting that they were trans because they didn’t want to be a “freak.” Not being able to transition because they didn’t have the money. Not being able to transition because they couldn’t afford to lose their job. Not being able to transition because it wasn’t physically safe. The women I know were all eventually able to come to a place where they were able to be their genuine selves, but all of them knew who they were even well before they had the means to actualize it.
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### Author:  [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/715 "2020-06-30T18:05:21Z")
**iiandyiiii**
> Some are definitely overreacting (the threats), but who am I to tell some trans person who might have been beaten by their dad, stomped by cops, fired from their job, kicked out of their apartment, raped in prison, etc., not to be angry at JKR for saying some inaccurate and (IMO) hateful (“contagion”) things about trans people?
I’m going to make a few observations about what you have written.
1. “Beating by their dad”
2. “Stomped by cops”
3. “Raped in prison”
These are acts of violence perpetrated by males (cis men) against other males (trans women).
_But JKR was not talking about trans women when you mentioned concerns about “contagion”._ It was young women (trans men) that were the subject of her concerns. She believes females are wanting to abandon womanhood because of a growing climate of misogyny.
It is extremely telling that you are pointing to males— and the problems that males suffer from at the hands of other males—as the basis for criticizing a _woman’s_ observation about _females_ transitioning. It’s almost as if males must be the center of everything, all the time, no matter their relevance! Even though women aren’t the ones abusing them, it is women who are paying the price for this abuse. It is women who can’t even say “hey, look at this pattern among female human beings”, without instantly incurring the wrath of an angry male mob.
I’m not expecting you to affirm that there is something to this observation. But I’m sharing it anyway just in case it gives you food for thought.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/716 "2020-06-30T18:15:13Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> I didn’t realize I was queer until my late-20s. Up to that point, I’d always considered myself straight. Did my sexuality suddenly change when I was coming up on my third decade? Or was I always queer, and just didn’t know how to handle it until I was older?
>
> I know quite a few trans women socially. Stories they have in common involved resisting admitting that they were trans because they didn’t want to be a “freak.”
For a straight, cis dude like me, it comes down to believing what people tell me about their own identity, and not caring too much about their gatekeeping for other people’s identities. I have a friend who was lesbian from the time I met her until about three years ago, and my uncle went back and forth between identifying as gay, bi, and asexual. It’s not my job to tell them that they were always one sexuality or another; if they say they changed, I have no reason to doubt them. I have a friend who identified as male when we met and now identifies as female but retained her traditionally masculine name (think like Jason). She says she’s always been female, and I have no reason to doubt her. I don’t identify as male in any real sense beyond biologically, and I have trouble grasping viscerally how else anyone identifies as male or female, so of course I understand if someone thinks their gender is linked to their biology; that’s how mine is, and if I woke up tomorrow with a different body, I’d identify as female. I hope folks don’t find a reason to doubt me.
Folks get to define their own identity as long as they’re not trying to hurt anyone else in the process, and unless I’ve got a really good reason to doubt them, I won’t. It’s the gatekeeping of _other_ folks’ identities that gets up my nose.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/717 "2020-06-30T18:15:51Z")
> [@YWTF](#):
>
> I’m going to make a few observations about what you have written.
>
> 1. “Beating by their dad”
> 2. “Stomped by cops”
> 3. “Raped in prison”
>
> These are acts of violence perpetrated by males (cis men) against other males (trans women).
>
> _But JKR was not talking about trans women when you mentioned concerns about “contagion”._ It was young women (trans men) that were the subject of her concerns. She believes females are wanting to abandon womanhood because of a growing climate of misogyny.
>
> It is extremely telling that you are pointing to males— and the problems that males suffer from at the hands of other males—as the basis for criticizing a _woman’s_ observation about _females_ transitioning. It’s almost as if males must be the center of everything, all the time, no matter their relevance! Even though women aren’t the ones abusing them, it is women who are paying the price for this abuse. It is women who can’t even say “hey, look at this pattern among female human beings”, without instantly incurring the wrath of an angry male mob.
>
> I’m not expecting you to affirm that there is something to this observation. But I’m sharing it anyway just in case it gives you food for thought.
I said trans person, not trans woman. I did not specify any biological sex or gender ID except trans. In fact, you assumed I was talking about a trans woman, not me.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/718 "2020-06-30T18:30:14Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> For a straight, cis dude like me, it comes down to believing what people tell me about their own identity, and not caring too much about their gatekeeping for other people’s identities…
>
> Folks get to define their own identity as long as they’re not trying to hurt anyone else in the process, and unless I’ve got a really good reason to doubt them, I won’t. It’s the gatekeeping of _other_ folks’ identities that gets up my nose.
Sure, these are valid points, but they’re not actually in opposition to someone a little skeptical of the “Trans women are women” mantra. What you’re describing is a matter of trust and convenience.
If you and I met at a business function (that used to be a thing!) and I told you I was a Dad, you would believe me, because
- It’s going to be the case, 99.9 percent of the time, that anyone saying that is being truthful, and
- It’s rude to challenge something like that.
However, my assertion that I am a father is NOT what makes it true. What makes me a father is that (in one sense) I actually did father a child and/or (in another sense) I support and care for a child. Those are the objective facts that make “I’m a father” true. It is possible that a person could state they are a father but in fact they are not; they could be pathological liars, or mentall unbalanced, or running some sort of grift, or perhaps English is not their first language and they are accidentally using “father” when they meant some other concept. The self identification doesn’t make truth. As it happens, though, in the great majority of interpersonal interactions, as accept a person’s stated claims about themselves as true, because it usually is and we can’t all be Hercule Poirot all the time.
So when Go\_Arachnid asks what the problem with “anyone who says they’re a woman is a woman” is, well, the reason that’s a problematic statement, at its core, is that it does not make any sense. It’s a circular definition, for one thing; if a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman (or a man is anyone who identifies as a man) then the word means nothing. You can’t define things in circles; what is it they identify as? So far literally EVERY attempt I’ve seen by the TWAW crowd to explain what the new meaning of “woman” is one of two things:
1. Hopelessly circular, or
2. A set of sexist stereotypes.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/719 "2020-06-30T18:33:32Z")
The “hopelessly circular” thing doesn’t bother me. If someone has a sense of what being a woman (or man) is, and they feel they match that, there’s just no percentage in my deciding to argue with them on the subject. Gender is weird, and complicated, and it’s not my role to say, “EXCUSE ME WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF ‘WOMAN’ SO THAT I CAN EVALUATE WHETHER YOU MATCH IT AND ALSO WHETHER IT IS BASED ON STEREOTYPES.” I’m gonna take them at their word.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/720 "2020-06-30T18:53:09Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> What areas do you think we are deficient in?
Miller, if someone shares their story with me and they talk about suffering from life-long gender dysphoria and gender nonconformity, you better believe I will accept them as a woman, at least if they are female-presenting.
But if someone tells me they woke up one day and realized that life would be a lot more interesting if they had a “woman” identity, then I want to be able to tell that person, “That’s nice and everything, but you will not be speaking for me when it comes to women’s issues, thxkbye.”
Do you not grok that not every transwoman has the ultra-sympathetic narrative that the transwomen you’ve met have? Some transwomen have never in their lives been dysphoric. They’ve never “always known”. And yet we are being told that their “woman” experience is just as valid and as real as the women who never had to “wake up” to know who they are, because they were born knowing who they are since society has treated them a certain way because of who they are.
Women such as myself as simply saying that women who don’t want to share a sociopolitical identity with a person who discovered their feminine side just a couple of days ago are not bigots. They aren’t TERFs. They aren’t transphobes. They just don’t want to accept any and everyone into the club, since _that’s not how it works for us_. We can’t just wake up one day and have our social and biological realities disappear. So why should we allow individuals who have that luxury to wave our flag in our faces and tell us that our realities aren’t important?
The vast majority (90%) of transwomen won’t do this. But we both know that men have their fair share of edgelords. There’s no sense pretending that there will not be edgelords claiming “woman” so that they can abuse women. Women are just asking that folks try to care about _all_ women. Not just the transwomen with the super tragic and sad stories, but the ciswomen too, because we have super tragic and sad stories too.
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### Author:  [@YWTF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWTF)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/721 "2020-06-30T19:00:16Z")
**iiandyiiii**
> I said trans person, not trans woman. I did not specify any biological sex or gender ID except trans. In fact, you assumed I was talking about a trans woman, not me.
You don’t have to specify trans women for us to know that’s whom you mean.
---
### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2020, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-furore/855795/722 "2020-06-30T19:19:47Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> The “hopelessly circular” thing doesn’t bother me. If someone has a sense of what being a woman (or man) is, and they feel they match that, there’s just no percentage in my deciding to argue with them on the subject. Gender is weird, and complicated, and it’s not my role to say, “EXCUSE ME WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF ‘WOMAN’ SO THAT I CAN EVALUATE WHETHER YOU MATCH IT AND ALSO WHETHER IT IS BASED ON STEREOTYPES.” I’m gonna take them at their word.
But I hope you realize that there is a difference between someone claiming membership to a group that you don’t belong to and someone claiming membership to a group that you _do_ belong to, especially if you belong to a marginalized group. Personally I don’t care if some straight guys want to claim they are gay so they can put on a show on the LOGO channel. Not my circus, no my monkeys. Them “performing gay” is not going to affect me in any shape or form. But if Miller were to express beef with that, I wouldn’t tell him he was a big ole bigot. I wouldn’t insist that those straight guys must be gay because why would anyone want to be gay? No, I would defer to gay men to “gatekeep” the gay label, because they own that label. They fought for that label to be recognized with dignity. _Why wouldn’t and why shouldn’t they gatekeep it?_
I will take someone at their word _when it makes sense to do so_. But there will be situations where it doesn’t make sense to do so. “Identity politics” isn’t just a buzzword on Fox News. It’s a real fucking thing. If someone is in a position of power and they are telling me they are a woman and that they are going to represent women’s issues, then they’ve made their “woman” identity fair game. If this person has a questionable claim to “woman”, then people should be able to call them out. Like I’ve said repeatedly, that’s how every other social construct works. There’s no good reason why gender identity shouldn’t work that way.
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