[Crabcakes]

JK Rowling unpleasant language to one of the most marginalised groups in society is out of order. She may have a point but I’m not listening. Nor to those shouting back.

Where does she go from here? More “testing the law”?

I suspect where she goes is into the Graham Linehan bin of self-enforced obsolescence, with a continued descent into less and less empathetic positions.

Though in Rowling’s case, her anti-trans bigotry has had the unfortunate (for her) side effect of leading to greater scrutiny of everything else she’s done, and there’s a lot of evidence she’s either very lazy or a bit of a bigot all rounder rather than reserving it solely for long-suffering trans folks (e.g. calling a black character “Kingsley Shacklebolt”, having an Irish character blow stuff up, choosing a nom de plume in Robert Galbraith that by staggering coincidence also happens to be the name of the psychiatrist who ‘created’ gay conversion therapy - and there are a surprising amount more).

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Can you show me an example of her 'bigotry' - as opposed to stating that biological facts are facts and that some men have falsely claimed trans status in order to prey on women?

[Abernathy]

Why is the name "Kingsley Shacklebolt" evidence of authorial racism?

[Crabcakes]

Can you show me an example of her 'bigotry' - as opposed to stating that biological facts are facts and that some men have falsely claimed trans status in order to prey on women?

Certainly - here’s a pattern of behaviour going back the best part of a decade.

https://www.vox.com/culture/23622610/jk ... ontroversy

Rowling is smart enough to not come out and say something like “I think trans people are subhuman”, so granted if you’re after that level of smoking gun you may remain unconvinced. But I’d suggest this is a situation very reminiscent of Corbyn and antisemitism - you won’t get him saying “I really hate Jews”, but he’s happy to hang out with and support people who absolutely will.

In both cases, there’s a clear, consistent sequence of supporting, enabling and promoting certain people and causes, turning a blind eye to or even actively promoting unpleasant behaviours, inaccurate statements, and stereotypes and cliches, while claiming any overstepping the mark to be the result of “errors made in haste” or “senior moments” and they are in fact ‘on the side’ of the very people who they repeatedly act and rail against - or at the very least empower and amplify others to act and rail against.

As for Shacklebolt - giving pretty much your sole Black character a surname directly related to slavery and being in chains is at best incredibly simplistic and indicative of a lack of sensitivity. But for further examples her Asian character being called Cho Chang has been widely criticised by Asian people as a laughably derivative generic name, and her physical descriptions of others such as a Central European character being Neanderthal-like are very racially stereotypical.

Again, any one or two instances could be put down to an unfortunate short-sighted decision or a simplistic choice. But the pattern is the key.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

So her 'bigotry' consists of her not saying something you think she might want to say but hasn't?

Like I said before, slinging epithets doesn't get us very far. And I disagree with you. I haven't seen anything from her that is bigoted, in fact a lot has been thoughtful and evidenced.

[Andy McDandy]

With the character names thing, she was kind of fucked either way. Give a character a generic name and then say that they are X, and you're accused of copping out. Give an indicative name and you're stereotyping. At that point people just want to roast you.

IIRC there were black students called Lee, Dean, and Angelina. References to their hairstyles, or comparing fantastic bigotry to what they experience among the normals. She also defended colour blind casting in the Potter stage show, saying she had never explicitly described some major characters as white.

I'm not defending her trans stance, but trying to distance that issue from everything else she has ever done. This 110% for or against crap helps nobody. I saw someone the other day accusing her of holocaust denial because she had said that the Nazis hadn't explicitly targeted trans people. They didn't. They just lumped them in with everyone else they considered perverts.

That hit me as a bit like in Life of Brian, where the rich couple complain about the social status of the people they're being crucified alongside.

[Crabcakes]

So her 'bigotry' consists of her not saying something you think she might want to say but hasn't?

Like I said before, slinging epithets doesn't get us very far. And I disagree with you. I haven't seen anything from her that is bigoted, in fact a lot has been thoughtful and evidenced.

Fair enough Malc. I’d just ask you to extend that same repeat benefit of the doubt to people like Corbyn, Owen Jones, Galloway etc. Or not, if you see what I mean.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I would. I comment on what they do or say, not what I think they may be thinking.

[Crabcakes]

Re: the holocaust denial - this was specifically this incident:

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/15/jk-row ... st-denial/

The issue here is Rowling first appeared to claim that books on trans healthcare weren’t burned as part of Nazi ideology, then when pulled up on it revised her position to say that no one says they were the *first* ones burned and they they were the first victims or even targeted - something the original post she responded to in no way actually said.

Granted it’s not outright holocaust denial, but it is an example of not being able to be objective about a topic. Her immediate response is “I don’t believe this”, then when confronted with facts she attempts to claim she was denying something quite different.

A simple apology - even for misinterpretation of the first tweet - would have solved this. Instead there was repeated doubling down, framing of people challenging her as promoting an ideology, promotion of counter-arguments that seem to be aiming to minimalise the harm done to her group of choice, and then she simply left the conversation.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It has absolutely nothing to do with holocaust denial.

To say it has is - well, incredible.

Like I said, lose the epithets. They don't get anybody anywhere.

[Crabcakes]

See, I find this interesting because of the obvious parallels. Another person we all know of claimed something about the Nazis and a persecuted group that was demonstrably untrue. And then when challenged doubled down on it rather than accepting an error, and went on to repeatedly say he had nothing against that group overall, just a specific subset of them who are ‘bad’ based on that person’s criteria.

When it’s Ken Livingstone very openly insinuated it’s OK to hate all Jews in Israel (https://fathomjournal.org/ken-livingsto ... the-nazis/) coming off of the back of a history of insulting and insinuating about the same population, there’s no discussion from any serious person this is a bad thing. When it’s JK Rowling very openly insinuating all trans women are perverts off the back of a history of insulting and insinuating about the same population, she’s…just making robust points?

Being objective, I fail to see the difference. Both people have repeatedly demonstrated bias against a marginalised, demonised group. Both people constantly claim to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. Both people through their support, actions and associations constantly exhibit they are the precise opposite of the supportive person they claim to be. Both fall back on lazy, broad-brush stereotypes. Neither has ever conveniently stated outright “I simply do not like [group]” and offered a convenient and clear statement to prove beyond all reasonable doubt their leanings.

So what level or item of evidence has Livingstone provided to pass the threshold for general condemnation that Rowling has not, which means she should be afforded the benefit of the doubt?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Can you give us a citation for your accusations against Rowling?

[Tubby Isaacs]

What Crabcakes and Mr Marlow said.

Just on the Hate Crimes Law she's played Jordan Peterson. At best, she's condoning enormous waste of Police time. At worst, she's (at one remove) flooding the zone with shit.

[Crabcakes]

OK, I've tried to cover a range of incidents across a range of time to demonstrate a pattern of behaviour.
Again, almost any of these as a one-off? OK. As a collection, I believe it paints a clear picture. Apologies for length.


Here's Rowling implying all trans women are 'violent, duplicitous rapists':

The context being she is laughing at people who have said they can't support her/ the recent Hogwarts Legacy video game over her position on trans rights. Given obviously no one has ever suggested she should support actual rapists, and she gives no details, this is openly inviting people to conflate a vanishingly small number of genuine cases with the entire trans population.


Here's Rowling getting caught liking a critical tweet comparing antidepressants to hormone therapy (insinuation - neither are needed if you 'heal people's minds'), then denying she'd done it, then clumsily going on to say antidepressants are fine because she uses them but hormone treatments could cause lifelong damage before pivoting to compare hormone treatment to gay conversion therapy (basically, a clusterfuck of tweeting and then digging down)

https://www.vulture.com/2020/07/jk-rowl ... -lazy.html

I cite this one as an example that she's disingenuous, unable to back down, and will take any opportunity to get a kick in at her pet subject. Apologies for the tone of the article, nevertheless the facts in it are clear as to the sequence of events.


Here's Rowling's Strike novels being critiqued by, for one, that bastion of left-wing thought, the Telegraph as being (to put it generously) 'a bit on the nose':

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/15/ente ... index.html

Quote:

“One wonders what critics of Rowling’s stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress,”

Here's Rowling taking a single incident and implying because this happened, no trans women should be allowed in women's bathrooms/toilets.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220307163 ... 597747716/

Context being discussion of her opposition to the Scottish equality laws. I would argue that a single incident being used to justify any other blanket ban/restriction of freedom based on a personal characteristic would be rightly frowned upon on this forum. And also (and more importantly), as a legitimate concern it's horse shit based on zero evidence: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out ... ds-n911106


Rowling supported - and encouraged her followers to financially suppport - Maya Forstater, a woman who's contract was not renewed because of her stance on trans and non-binary people. While a lot of articles give some detail and imply Forstater was simply not comfortable with trans women in women's spaces, the full reality of what she said and went on to say is quite different:
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/j ... cna1105201

In brief, she compared use of preferred pronouns to the date rape drug rohypnol, and defended deliberately using trans people's pre-transition names and genders in public.

A quote from the article:

as part of her complaint, Forstater submitted the following statement: “I believe that it is impossible to change sex or to lose your sex. Girls grow up to be women. Boys grow up to be men. No change of clothes or hairstyle, no plastic surgery, no accident or illness, no course of hormones, no force of will or social conditioning, no declaration can turn a female person into a male, or a male person into a female.”

This, then, is what Forstater wanted the courts to uphold: Her right to make her co-workers uncomfortable; her right to place her nonprofit organization in an untenable position vis-à-vis potential donors (like Credit Suisse senior directors); her right to be, even as she defines it, rude and disrespectful in social and professional contexts; and her right to disrespect U.K. law, which defines transgender women as women and transgender men as men if they jump through the right legal hoops. (As Judge James Tayler noted in his ruling against her: “If a person has transitioned from male to female and has a Gender Recognition Certificate that person is legally a woman. That is not something that the Claimant is entitled to ignore.”)

This is all public knowledge and was at the time, and the sort of person Rowling thinks is deserving of strong, unwavering support.


Here's a breakdown of the misinterpreted/disingenuous stats in Rowling's 2020 open letter/essay on why she holds the views she does (breakdown taken from a reddit post, hence quote) that are used to imply trans activism is a fashion/fad/being forced on kids - in particular, the first point is similar to the data on the 'sudden explosion of left-handed people after the Victorian era' that I'm sure we're all aware of the absurdity of:

1. She says there has been a 4400% increase trans-identifying youth in the UK. This sounds shocking. The actual numbers we're looking at is an increase from 97 in 2009–2010 to 2,510 in 2017–2018. <my note for clarity - Rowling only gives the headline percentage in her letter> Yes, when you start with such a low figure as ninety seven (in a country of 67 million) a small rise can come across as a shocking percent. Rowling here is using the fact that a still extremely small portion of the youth now considers coming out as trans something that is possible and (to an extent) comfortable to make it appear as though trans identity is a rampant, uncontrolled plague ballooning out of proportion and targeting unfortunate, misfit cis kids. This is an echo of panic against homosexuality.

2. She says that 60-90% of trans-identifying children later desist, a figure which comes from studies which include any gender non-conforming behavior. Yes, little girls who play with bugs often grow up to identify as cis women. This is not a surprise, she wasn't claiming to be trans in the first place.

3. She refers to a "study" by Lisa Littman on "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" which was a poll conducted on websites for parents who were opposed to or struggling to accept their trans children. This "study" uses the parents perception of an explosion of trans-identifying youth (again, the actual figure is still infinitesimally small) and presents it as though it depicts an actual, measured phenomena for which she's even created a scary name. This is not just bad science, it isn't science. It's pearl-clutching gossipers spreading tall tales.

Rowling followed the late Magdalen Berns on Twitter and Youtube, and continued to do so even after being told what sort of a person they were - examples of Berns' output can be seen here:

(Is this 'open support' by Rowling? Granted, no. But given the vitriol of the posts if this were, say, Lee Anderson following Tommy Robinson, I think we would all reach the same conclusion about the message this sends.)


Example (and breakdown) of Rowling persisting with conflating sex and gender and persisting with the claim sex is a biological binary (with bonus points for her actually using the "in fact, I have a lot of friends who are black" defence), and why this is inaccurate. This is a stance Rowling has been told is both morally and scientifically incorrect many times and she has not modified her position

And lastly, a piece on her most recent effort where she tweeted a 10-tweet thread calling 10 trans women men, deliberately mixing in criminals with others: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 22155.html

Among these were several convicted sex criminals, as well as an athlete, the head of a rape crisis centre, and broadcaster India Willoughby. In one tweet, she details the crimes of a trans child rapist; in the next, she sarcastically praises Gaelic footballer Giulia Valentino for taking “some boring cis girl’s place” in a squad. Rowling wrote: “Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them.”

If this were a list of prominent gay people with some criminals mixed in, or prominent black people with criminals mixed in, or prominent jewish people with some of the Israeli cabinet mixed, or prominent immigrants with criminals mixed in followed by a statement that 'all these people are gay' or 'all these people are black' or 'all these people are jews' or 'all these people are foreign born', or heck - how about some of us and some of the worst, bigoted trots with the line 'all these people are labour supporters' - it would be rightly considered appalling. I see this no differently. I do not consider the 'get out' that she's saying they're all men (itself offensive) rather than all trans as anywhere even approaching acceptable. It is obvious what she is inviting you to think, and is as blatant as a Braverman rant on 'illegals', or a Johnson puff piece on tank-topped bum boys. It's deliberate and offensive and she is showing you precisely who she is.

I am satisfied that, whatever position she started out from and for whatever reasons or justifications, Rowling is now openly and deliberately transphobic.

[Oboogie]

choosing a nom de plume in Robert Galbraith that by staggering coincidence also happens to be the name of the psychiatrist who ‘created’ gay conversion therapy

Rowling has inevitably been asked about her choice of nom de plume "a name she took from Robert F. Kennedy, a personal hero, and Ella Galbraith, a name she invented for herself in childhood." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling You may not be aware that Galbraith is not an uncommon Scottish surname.

The only Robert Galbraith I'd heard of was an economist so I looked up the name. It turns out that the name of the person you're referring to is actually Robert Galbraith Heath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Galbraith_Heath.

I'm not convinced that the coincidence of the similarity between Heath's name and Rowling's choice of nom de plume is as "staggering" as you think it is.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

A lot of stretching going on here. A lot of projection. A lot of putting words into her mouth.

I think she's just a convenient target because she's rich, famous and she doesn't follow a particular herd-thought. Where dissent, or a different point of view, is automatically 'transphobia', fascism or worse.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think she was a pretty inconvenient target.

She was somebody who wrote very popular stories for kids, that were made into very popular films. She donated to progressive causes. Apart from the Cybernat wing of Scottish Nationalism, and some sneery literary people, I don't recall anybody really having a pop at her before. And that's what she's got used to trading on. "JK Rowling, the wizard book lady?! Ha ha, you can't be serious! Everyone's gulity nowadays!" It would have been easier if she were Jim Davidson.

[Crabcakes]

Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. I leave the last word, which I hope isn’t in any way controversial, to Daniel Radcliffe:

Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I. According to The Trevor Project, 78% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity. It’s clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

We'll have to agree to disagree.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I think she was a pretty inconvenient target.

I think very convenient - and it's in the PETA playbook, attack the famous and popular, because people like to drag them down...