Somehow not women
The reversal of reality aspect is soooooooo gaslighty. Daily Beast asked Stephen King about a falling out with JK Rowling.
King said: “Jo cancelled me. She sorta blocked me and all that. Here’s the thing: She is welcome to her opinion. That’s the way that the world works.
“If she thinks that trans women are dangerous, or that trans women are somehow not women, or whatever problem she has with it – the idea that someone ‘masquerading’ as a woman is going to assault a ‘real’ woman in the toilet – if she believes all those things, she has a right to her opinion.”
This is what I mean by the reversal – this “or that trans women are somehow not women” – that “somehow.” Come on. He’s not mystified about what kind of how it is that trans women are not women. I also strongly doubt that he’s clueless enough to think it’s impossible that any man would ever pretend to be trans in order to lurk in the women’s toilets, especially now that all anyone has to do to pretend to be trans is to say “I’m trans.”
He knows all that perfectly well. It’s the world he grew up in and lived in for decades. It’s only in the last 5 minutes that we’ve been ordered to agree that men are women if they say they are.
In some places, they don’t even have to do that. The school where I work has a bathroom policy that says you can’t even ask. Just assume when you see someone in the bathroom that they know what bathroom they should be in, and are in the correct one.
So any ‘macho’ man that wanted to invade the women’s room doesn’t even have to pretend. He just has to walk in to a place where women are extremely vulnerable.
Then why are there two bathrooms at all? Hmm. A mystery.
Oh, you know, for the same reason there were segregated buses and lunch counters and so on, but now we know better so ALL THAT IS OVER.
So has he read her actual words, or is he going off what someone has told him she wrote, ’cause we all know how well the latter usually pans out, don’t we? It doesn’t sound like he really knows what her position is. I know that he posted some support for her a not so long ago, then walked it back. Maybe someone explained to him how his support would look “bad,” without being completely honest about Rowling’s actual position. I’m guessing both his initial show of support, and its withdrawal, were equally uninformed and unconcerned.
He’s a writer for fuck’s sake. He knows words are important. But maybe only his own.
He’s not a very good writer though. Successful but not very good. Or to put it another way he’s a good story-teller as opposed to a good writer. I think he doesn’t really know that words are important, I think he thinks they’re just a neutral vehicle for stories. Mind you, I think the same of Rowling…except for that essay on why she thinks it matters that women are women. That was really written.
GW #2
And why only two? And which one are those of us who don’t think or feel in any of the ways required to qualify as either “man” or “woman”, or any other “gender” for that matter, supposed to use?
Wait, no! We need to bring back segregated lunch counters, so that transracial blacks can have more opportunities to affirm their blackhood.
Bjarte:
Since we are all working from home post- or during-COVID, maybe we can convert all that unused office space into a myriad of special bathrooms. I hope they include one uniquely for the lego people
Last I heard, King has not been cancelled, why would JKR even bother to try. Must have been a rough draft of a tweet, surely that one could have been revised and polished up a bit.
The idea that King thinks that transvestites are not superficially ‘masquerading’ as the opposite sex, then differentiates them from ‘real’ women to make his point tells the story.
Another kneejerk who doesn’t know what JKR actually wrote or said on the subject.
Brian #8
But haven’t we been told that there are infinitely many genders (since there is only a finite number of people, that’s a lot of genders per person)? I’m afraid all the office space in the universe is not going to cover the demand.