Have the libel lawyer on speed-dial
Thought for the Day: Marketing Harry Potter-themed underwear=advocating violence against “trans folx.”
An alert observer asked “So these are officially licensed, correct? Meaning that JK Rowling does profit from me purchasing them? Love the prints, but out of principle I have to pass, unless a portion of proceeds were donated to supporting trans charities.”
So this Elizabeth Tobey person is saying JK Rowling advocates violence against trans people – which of course is a defamatory lie.
Why do people do this?
It must be because the real casus belli is so weak, right? If it were strong, there would be no need to tell gross defamatory lies of this kind.
So it appears that in some sense the “allies” realize The Cause is weak. In some sense they get that it’s not all that important that Bob or Bill or Ben can’t get everyone to “validate” his “identity” as Betsy. They may think it is all that important themselves, but they spy in the distance the fact that not everyone does and that that will probably never change, because the fact is that it’s not important. It’s Luxury Grievance is what it is. It’s Grievance for people who don’t actually have any real grievance so they have to work something up. “I’m a prosperous straight white man and I’m sick and tired of acknowledging the oppression of other people – I want some of that for me!” So the Luxury Grievance is born.
So… if I wear Slytherin underwear, it’s putting trans lives at risk?
Well, as long as it doesn’t give me hog warts.
This is what comes from people not doing their homework, people mindlessly repeating unevidenced lies. I’ll bet she’s only going on someone else’s sayso. What a shock it would be for her to discover that there’s no “there” there.
I would love to see JKR take one of the sources of such accusations (Pink News, say?) to court. Not to sue for money, but to just get someone on the stand and compel them to point to the “hatred” of, and “advocation of violence” against trans people in ANYTHING she has said, done or written. To have someone unable to slough off this question by telling the questioner to “educate themselves.” Then, when the judgement goes against them, they are forced to write and publish a front page apology, to be kept online for at least a month, and appended to the beginning of every single Rowling story they’d ever published, in perpetuity
Hog warts :-))
Slytherin underwear sounds disgustingly slimy, like it could slide to the washing machine on its own.
Maybe the risk to lives is from people dying of laughter at adults wearing what appears to be children’s underwear?
Why can’t these people just say what they mean? “A woman has publicly committed wrongthink, so we demand that you deprive her of income.” Obviously, JKR has enough in the bank that the licensing fees for a line of Harry Potter undergarments are chump change to her. But vanishingly few women enjoy a similar position of unassailable financial security, and so the threat is really directed at them: “Dare to dissent and we’ll come for your career.”
Luxury Grievance sounds like one of those trendy first-world-problems to get for those who have everything. Unfortunately I already have one, I get highly defensive on behalf of JKR, and I since can’t afford two, the trans culties will just have to piss off.
Since “disagreeing with the validity of gender identity theory” is considered a “phobia” — irrational fear and hatred — then it stands to reason that someone who questions gender identity theory is advocating violence. Therefore, a gay rights activist who includes transwomen in a category with gay men instead of with women is apparently a logical impossibility.
It’s bloody stupid, it’s like the idiots who are demanding boycotts of Electronic Arts because they don’t like Game X… sure you can do it, but no one cares and it’s a drop in the bucket in any case.
The rape/death threats and similar do a lot more damage to Joanna than the lack of a teardrop in the ocean that is her fortune.
“Go do some research” she says, while ignoring the statistics. And so the secret of their selective ignorance is laid bare: it is entirely deliberate.
And just what the ever-loving fuck gives this man with a woman’s name the right to tell anybody what they need to do? Further:
Which is nothing like the answer that the entitled man with a woman’s name and over-sized, plain-lensed specs intended-but-failing to project a bookish academic image undeservedly received from somebody with far more patience and tact than I would have shown. Telling such a lie is never a good idea if it can be fact-checked, but is sheer stupidity when the thing it is lying about is included in the tweet for all to contrast and compare. Now, as for:
Maybe not, but it carries a little more weight than a random tweet by a man with a woman’s name and faux-academic image and inability to apply lipstick well.
Right back atcha, fella.
On a side note, if you know a company looking to hire a naurally diplomatic person to run their social media accounts, I’m available…surprisingly :-))
“Elizabeth” is getting absolutely rhetorically slaughtered in the twitter comments.
Sadly MeUndies now seem to be throwing JKR under the bus (though I guess they’re still selling HP-themed products?). The disproportionate amount of hyperbole and hate directed at her would be astonishing if it wasn’t for the fact that oh yeah, this is how the patriarchy always treats uppity women.