Strict supervision
Another man bravely steps forward to tell JK Rowling what she should be doing instead of what she is doing.
Scrolling through J.K. Rowling’s Twitter page is a surreal experience.
The Harry Potter author is currently celebrating the success of her new children’s book, The Ickabog, engaging her young fans by retweeting and praising their artwork.
Well, it’s more that she’s taking the time and trouble to make a lot of her young fans extremely happy by retweeting and praising their artwork.
In between these adorable, enthusiastic retweets, Rowling will, randomly, offer her opinion about trans people. Much of it can be described as “politely worded bigotry,” rhetoric that recklessly harms the trans community, seemingly innocuous on the surface.
Randomly. Yes, she’s just some bit of fluff who has no reason to have opinions about the way women are being redefined. It’s all so random and inexplicable and puzzling.
Despite constant, vocal pushback from trans activists and medical experts, Rowling continues to post her strange screeds, nestled right next to the artwork of young children, who will likely be exposed to her opinions while exploring her Twitter page, searching for fan art.
Medical experts? What medical experts? I haven’t seen any vocal pushback from medical experts. Is being trans a medical issue now? I thought it was a matter of self-definition? What could medical expertise have to say about self-definition and the absolute right to be “validated” as whatever you identify as which?
Is Rowling’s Twitter page a place where her young, impressionable fans can browse artwork, or is it a place to debate trans rights? Because this bizarre blend of trans-exclusionary talking points and children’s fanart is deeply, almost hilariously, inappropriate.
Is it any of this guy’s business what Rowling’s Twitter is for? Is Rowling not allowed to decide for herself what her Twitter is for? Not if she’s using it to abuse or harass, but she’s not, so in the real world, can’t she decide for herself what to tweet about? Without journalists correcting her?
“Nobody asked for this” was the joke behind the meme, and considering how Rowling now spends an embarrassing amount of her time passionately engaged in a debate that doesn’t even concern her, it’s as though the meme has manifested itself into reality.
Dude. The debate concerns us.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you’re an obscenely wealthy and influential author, constantly using your massive platform to punch down on the marginalized isn’t just stating an opinion – it’s pure entitlement.
The wealthy part comes from the popularity of her books, not from grinding the faces of the poor. She sold millions of books. She didn’t grow cotton with slave labor or mine coal with child labor or market tobacco while lying about its health effects; she wrote books. The obscenely part is questionable given the fact that she’s given a lot of it to good causes. As for the marginalized…women are marginalized. Men who say they are women are not the worst-off people in the world.
Where have I seen that face before?
Oh, right:
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I really question people’s priorities. At the risk of entering Dear Muslima territory…. if JK Rowling’s tweets are even in the top 10 list of Things That Are Hurting Trans People, then I’m tempted to say that trans people must be doing pretty damn well.
Bigotry, reckless, screed, embarrassing, obscene, entitled.
Dude, you left out shrill and hysterical.
Screechy, it seems that JK Rowlings’ tweets may be the top 10 list all by themselves. But really, when you look at what the trans lobby talks about as harm:
Tweets saying men aren’t women
Tweets saying women don’t have penises
Being called sir by a clerk
Being asked to leave a women’s room
Being told they aren’t really a woman just because they’re wearing a dress
Feminine hygiene products bearing the woman symbol
Women’s health clinics being called women’s health clinics
Not being able to get bustiers in their size (I haven’t actually heard this one, but I have heard some related)
Women writing books that say women are vulnerable to men
Women not liking to be called cis
Lesbians deciding on their own terms who they want to have sex with, and who they don’t
Every now and then, we will hear about something that might be a problem, a serious one, such as high suicide rate and high homicide rate, but this comes with mostly hand-waving and some mumbo-jumbo statistics which don’t seem to support their case, but you’re not allowed to point that out, and some statistics that encompass the entirety of the LGBTQ++++++++++ spectrum, and seem to be mostly LGB statistics that they pretend are totally T statistics. They throw words at you, emotional words, words appropriated from other vulnerable groups, and don’t give you a chance to process the reality that those words do not apply to this group of uber entitled men who want to be women, but don’t seem to want to be treated like women are treated. When they do receive treatment like women are treated, they assume it is because they’re trans, and never realize that, at least in some cases, they are actually being validated by being treated like a woman. They think women have it great, and they have it badly, and since they do not recognize the treatment they receive as misogyny, they assume they are more oppressed than women, because they assume we don’t experience any of that.
If you’re pro-trans you’re a medical expert.
Or it probably works more like this: If you’re a medical expert who happens to be pro-trans, you’re to be respected as a medical expert and used to pens credibility to trans activism. But if you’re a medical expert who isn’t pro-trans, you’re a misguided bigot who has nothing important to say about the topic.
Despite the fact that being trans has nothing to do with medical issues at all, because it’s all about your ‘authentic inner essence’ and isn’t related to your biology at all.
Get it?
How thoughtful of him to be concerned about the poor impressionable children who might be exposed to opinions, and not to the dick picks, profanity, threats and violent imagery that trans advocates seem to think it’s appropriate to add to the Ickabog tweet threads.
” and considering how Rowling now spends an embarrassing amount of her time passionately engaged in a debate that doesn’t even concern her, it’s as though the meme has manifested itself into reality. ”
That J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have a moral center to them that shows her commitment to justice, whether it directly concerns her or not. That she would choose to be forthright about it on twitter rather than only care about what’s in it for herself seems lost on some of her critics. This subject does affect women’s lives and Rowling is doing a very good job of showing why it does. She’s a very good writer!
It looks like “penning a nasty put-down of that uppity Rowling” has become a required badge that a dudebro must earn on his way to the status of Eagle Brodude Misogynist Woke Scout.
@southwest88, yeah, I think that’s enough to get a young beardo laid these days.
As long as he doesn’t ask too many questions.
I’m thinking it’s also something that a lazy journalist can phone in because it’s about someone famous so the headline will still get attention.
SW@8 LOL!
It’s so demoralizing how it quickly became an article of faith that Rowling “hates trans people” and “won’t stop tweeting about it.”
But she didn’t—
Shut up, transphobe!
But Rowling never said—
I can’t believe you’re defending her.
What did she say that was—
I can’t even talk to you.
Q: How many Trans Rights Activists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
.
.
.
.
A: Shut up, you transphobe!
Just one to hold the bulb and wait for the world to revolve around him.
“The correct lightbulb-changing procedure is explained on pages 693-825 of Whipping Girl. If you can’t be bothered to do the reading and educate yourself, I’m not going to do it for you.”
[…] a comment by iknklast on Strict […]
iknklast @ 4
YESSSSSSS. That.
And why don’t they recognize it? Because they have no fucking clue. Why do they have no fucking clue? Because they’ve never had to, because they didn’t grow up female. So if they have no fucking clue why don’t they listen to us? Because they think they know better. Why do they think they know better? Because that’s who they are. Why is that who they are? I wish I knew!
That was my first thought when all this nonsense started, but I’ve had second thoughts since then, for two reasons. First, they’re not fooling anyone, people know they’re men and treat them like men–and unstable and potentially dangerous men as well. Second, no woman has the power to adapt institutions and organisations, and social relations, to suit their individual requirements.
Here’s a recent example:
https://twitter.com/uicengl/status/980968243170086918?s=21
It can be some of each though? Don’t you think? People know they’re men but girly men, so the hostility is at least in part misogynist. “Sissy” men and boys must be punished type of thing.
Yes, there have been some really good sources (and some not so good ones, too) that have argued that homophobia springs from misogyny and the hatred of all things girly. I find that argument to be solid and believable, and when men are treated crappy for putting on a dress, it isn’t the exact same bad that women get (the men aren’t groping them, perhaps, or stalking them) but it is still being treated as a woman. It’s often the same treatment ugly women get, or old women (the last of which I have been experiencing for myself as I approach 60 very rapidly).
How ‘punished’ are middle class white TIMs, though? They seem to be more likely to get awards, gold medals, positions of authority, and columns in the Telegraph. If a middle class white man ‘presenting as a woman’ detects even the slightest hint of bewilderment or mockery in anyone he interacts with, he’ll report it to HR, or to the police, and that person will be punished. If a woman gets raped, she’ll be lucky to get HR or the police to even acknowledge her existence. That’s why I have a hard time classifying any perceived slights to TIMs as ‘misogyny.’
Excellent stuff. The internet is yours.