I’ll tell you who’s “deeply troubling”
A new consignment of evil crap. Kerry Kennedy is president of a human rights outfit named after her father Robert Kennedy, the nepotistic Attorney General in his brother’s administration. Earlier this month she issued A Statement on…JK Rowling. You know what it says.
Writer J.K. Rowling is best known as the author of the Harry Potter books. In 2005, she founded Lumos, an international nonprofit NGO with a mission to move children worldwide out of orphanages and institutions and into loving family care by 2050. For her dedicated work on behalf of children, she received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award in December 2019.
But! But, sisters and brothers – she committed wrongthink! She must be SHUNNED. She must be shunned especially by anyone who has made the mistake of bestowing an honor on her in the past.
So Kerry Kennedy proceeds to talk shit about JK Rowling.
Over the course of June 2020—LGBTQ Pride Month—and much to my dismay, J.K. Rowling posted deeply troubling transphobic tweets and statements… Almost a week later, she wrote a series of tweets that had the effect of degrading trans people’s lived experiences…I have spoken with J.K. Rowling to express my profound disappointment that she has chosen to use her remarkable gifts to create a narrative that diminishes the identity of trans and nonbinary people, undermining the validity and integrity of the entire transgender community—one that disproportionately suffers from violence, discrimination, harassment, and exclusion and, as a result, experiences high rates of suicide, suicide attempts, homelessness, and mental and bodily harm
And much more in the same stale mindless formulaic vein.
So naturally Rowling had no choice but to give the medal and award back. She too issued a statement.
Kerry Kennedy, President of Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, recently felt it necessary to publish a statement denouncing my views on RFKHR’s website. The statement incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people. As a longstanding donor to LGBT charities and a supporter of trans people’s right to live free of persecution, I absolutely refute the accusation that I hate trans people or wish them ill, or that standing up for the rights of women is wrong, discriminatory, or incites harm or violence to the trans community.
…
RFKHR has stated that there is no conflict between the current radical trans rights movement and the rights of women. The thousands of women who’ve got in touch with me disagree, and, like me, believe this clash of rights can only be resolved if more nuance is permitted in the debate.
In solidarity with those who have contacted me but who are struggling to make their voices heard, and because of the very serious conflict of views between myself and RFKHR, I feel I have no option but to return the Ripple of Hope Award bestowed upon me last year. I am deeply saddened that RFKHR has felt compelled to adopt this stance, but no award or honour, no matter my admiration for the person for whom it was named, means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience.
What an absolutely filthy thing for Kennedy to do.
What mealy-mouthed yet poisonous rubbish from KK.
To be read as really saying:
JKR:
“it’s a pity, but in light of your stance on women’s rights, I don’t feel that I can keep your meaningless ‘human rights’ award”
Just when I thought I couldn’t love her more.
She is absolutely my hero. Wonderful woman.
Kennedy also says that sex is not binary and that the science for that is “clear and conclusive”, and then cites an opinion piece that does nothing clear and conclusive to determine that, except to use marginal intersex instances to justify wishful thinking categories devoid of biological facts. There is, by the way, no coherent way to even describe ‘intersex’ without using binary terms. In biological science there is no other, only male, female, or an extremely uncommon mixture of both, with all the indicators of this rare condition being binary. Trans is not that.
@3&4:
Myself when young did eagerly frequent anything anything which might make sense of the world I had been born into. I thought Enid Blyton’s fantasy The Magic Faraway Tree was a wonder to read, but after that I decided to make what sense I could of the reality around me rather than escape into a world of her or anybody else’s imagination.
So I have not read any Harry Potter books, or for that matter any other Enid Blytons, but what I have read of Harry Potter tells me that they are OK for those who are into that fantasy stuff.
Further, I support Rowling 200% when she takes a stance against those born with male genitalia using womens’ rest rooms, conveniences, dunnies, thunderboxes; call them what you will. There are some lines that no amount of bullshit fashioned into a bridge can cross, however fancy and imaginative the bullshit may be.
I heard the 10am news update on Radio 4, and they had a pretty reasonable bit about this. Something like “JKR has returned an award after comments she made in support of women’s rights were described as transphobic” or something like that. I know it’s tragic that I’m pleased that they reported the facts without being weasely about it, but that’s the world were in now.
Women: Giving extra rights to trans people without considering the impact on women’s sex-based rights is going to cause problems.
TRAs: We aren’t threatening women’s sex-based rights, and it is transphobic to say we are.
Also TRAs: Women having sex-based rights is transphobic!
Not so uncommon for certain types of worms. Just saying…
(Not meant to be a crack about genuinely ‘intersex’ people; more about TRAs)
*in humans
;)
At least one of the reasons they bring up intersex is by way of analogy.
Case #1: An XY Male fetus with Complete Androgen Sensitivity Syndrome will be born looking female, will be raised as a girl, will have the self-knowledge of being a girl, and will only find out their “real” sex as an adult.
Conclusion #1: This individual is a woman, and should be allowed to choose to remain a woman.
Case #2: An XY male fetus with a female Gender Identity will be born looking male, will be raised as a boy, but will always know they’re a girl, though they may suppress this self-knowledge.
Conclusion #2: This individual is a woman, and should be allowed to choose to remain a woman.
Argument:
1.) The first case and second case are rationally connected. It is inconsistent to agree with one conclusion, but not the other.
2.) Therefore, people who argue against the second conclusion are also arguing against the first.
3.) Meanies.