Yes, and we know that transgender activists will claim that she is targeting transgender men rather than the courts, the police, and rapists who find it easy to use the system.
Just because someone is a shitty person doesn’t make it OK to misgender them; in doing so, you become the aggressor, and you know what, you probably deserved to be raped. Misgenderers and other aggressors definitely deserve to be punished, and in such situations, rape is a valid punishment.
Especially if your rapist was not only trans, but BIPOC. And remember, you can never know who’s BIPOC just by looking, as we saw in the video that Holms just posted in the Miscellany Room.
So, more than four times as many people are complaining online that people misrace them as White as people that complain that people misrace them as Black.
It’s very hard to identify out of being Black. Much easier to identify out of being White (and then complain that people don’t recognize that).
I for one welcome our new trans overlords. I’d like to remind them that I could be useful in rounding up others, to toil in their underground gender mines.
It’s very hard to identify out of being Black. Much easier to identify out of being White (and then complain that people don’t recognize that).
You can’t change your appearance via identity. To the extent that “being Black” has to do with appearance, no, you can’t identify out of that. But it’s more complicated than that.
Unlike sex, there is not a definitive objective set of criteria that cleanly separates “Black” from “not Black”. I think something can be said about appearance, too, in that someone who looks Black is likely to face discrimination on that basis regardless of identity, but I can’t quite get straight in my head how this analogy would look in regard to sex.
A Penised Individual is male, by objective criteria, regardless of appearance, regardless of how well he passes.
The whole issue of race, who can claim it, who can’t, and how to attempt to avoid racist assumptions is really fraught. We don’t have to look back very far in history to find laws that defined whether or not you were black, or coloured, or white. Many indigenous tribes set %blood criteria to define who can claim the privileges of being a tribal member (where such benefits exist – which is rare). But as others have noted, people make subjective assessments based on appearance alone all the time. Those often seem to support/arise from their in built bias for better and especially worse.
It’s not just skin colour and facial characteristics though. There has been quite a bit of reporting around bias in job applications where people with “black” names have their CV’s viewed much more negatively than those with “white” names. I know that here in NZ where we have had a huge increase in immigration from Asia in the last couple of decades, pretty much everyone of Chinese descent seems to adopt an English name, while with Japanese and Indian do not for instance. New Zealand is by no means free of racism and we have a bad history of treatment of Chinese from way back in the 1800s.
Yes. And as usual, she has worded her tweet carefully so that gender identity enthusiasts tie themselves in knots trying to explain why it’s transphobic. It would be hilarious to watch if I hadn’t already had half a dozen trying it out on me this morning.
latsot, saw your twitter convo this morning. I was impressed with your patience and ability to stay on point while your opponents imploded. :D Well done.
It’s been interesting seeing the response of many US lawyers on twitter. Many of them seem to view the issue of ‘trans rights’ through the sense of a social justice, 1A, be kind lense. They seem curiously unable to understand or value the potential effect on women’s rights. It strikes me as weird for intelligent and obviously compassionate people.
This morning Akiva Cohen took a shot at Rowling’s tweet. Many of the replies support him, but a surprisingly large number do not. Interestingly, he engaged at least a couple of those people and it gave a window into his thinking. Clearly full of compassion and concern for the marginalised trans person and unable to see the harm to women. In one discussion about whether a rapist should be recorded as male or female, he asked where the harm was in recording them as they wished to be. No recognition that policy, laws and resources are based in part on crime statistics. In the same thread he queried why a trans woman who has had bottom surgery shouldn’t be recorded as a woman, entirely missing the point that under UK law, that person couldn’t be charged with rape, because they don’t have a penis to put in a vagina. his point was in fact a non-point.
Greg Doucette had a similar exchange, and when it was pointed out to him that UK law differed from US, his response was that under UK law the penalty for assisting in a rape, or penetration with an object or fingers was the same, so what’s the deal.
As I say, weird how otherwise intelligent and compassionate people don’t see this.
Yes, and we know that transgender activists will claim that she is targeting transgender men rather than the courts, the police, and rapists who find it easy to use the system.
Just because someone is a shitty person doesn’t make it OK to misgender them; in doing so, you become the aggressor, and you know what, you probably deserved to be raped. Misgenderers and other aggressors definitely deserve to be punished, and in such situations, rape is a valid punishment.
Yep. Misgendering is worse than wearing provocative clothes.
Especially if your rapist was not only trans, but BIPOC. And remember, you can never know who’s BIPOC just by looking, as we saw in the video that Holms just posted in the Miscellany Room.
43,000 Google hits for “people think I’m black”.
179,000 Google hits for “people think I’m white”.
So, more than four times as many people are complaining online that people misrace them as White as people that complain that people misrace them as Black.
It’s very hard to identify out of being Black. Much easier to identify out of being White (and then complain that people don’t recognize that).
Love it. JKR rocks.
I for one welcome our new trans overlords. I’d like to remind them that I could be useful in rounding up others, to toil in their underground gender mines.
You can’t change your appearance via identity. To the extent that “being Black” has to do with appearance, no, you can’t identify out of that. But it’s more complicated than that.
Unlike sex, there is not a definitive objective set of criteria that cleanly separates “Black” from “not Black”. I think something can be said about appearance, too, in that someone who looks Black is likely to face discrimination on that basis regardless of identity, but I can’t quite get straight in my head how this analogy would look in regard to sex.
A Penised Individual is male, by objective criteria, regardless of appearance, regardless of how well he passes.
The whole issue of race, who can claim it, who can’t, and how to attempt to avoid racist assumptions is really fraught. We don’t have to look back very far in history to find laws that defined whether or not you were black, or coloured, or white. Many indigenous tribes set %blood criteria to define who can claim the privileges of being a tribal member (where such benefits exist – which is rare). But as others have noted, people make subjective assessments based on appearance alone all the time. Those often seem to support/arise from their in built bias for better and especially worse.
It’s not just skin colour and facial characteristics though. There has been quite a bit of reporting around bias in job applications where people with “black” names have their CV’s viewed much more negatively than those with “white” names. I know that here in NZ where we have had a huge increase in immigration from Asia in the last couple of decades, pretty much everyone of Chinese descent seems to adopt an English name, while with Japanese and Indian do not for instance. New Zealand is by no means free of racism and we have a bad history of treatment of Chinese from way back in the 1800s.
Michael,
Yes. And as usual, she has worded her tweet carefully so that gender identity enthusiasts tie themselves in knots trying to explain why it’s transphobic. It would be hilarious to watch if I hadn’t already had half a dozen trying it out on me this morning.
latsot, saw your twitter convo this morning. I was impressed with your patience and ability to stay on point while your opponents imploded. :D Well done.
It’s been interesting seeing the response of many US lawyers on twitter. Many of them seem to view the issue of ‘trans rights’ through the sense of a social justice, 1A, be kind lense. They seem curiously unable to understand or value the potential effect on women’s rights. It strikes me as weird for intelligent and obviously compassionate people.
This morning Akiva Cohen took a shot at Rowling’s tweet. Many of the replies support him, but a surprisingly large number do not. Interestingly, he engaged at least a couple of those people and it gave a window into his thinking. Clearly full of compassion and concern for the marginalised trans person and unable to see the harm to women. In one discussion about whether a rapist should be recorded as male or female, he asked where the harm was in recording them as they wished to be. No recognition that policy, laws and resources are based in part on crime statistics. In the same thread he queried why a trans woman who has had bottom surgery shouldn’t be recorded as a woman, entirely missing the point that under UK law, that person couldn’t be charged with rape, because they don’t have a penis to put in a vagina. his point was in fact a non-point.
Greg Doucette had a similar exchange, and when it was pointed out to him that UK law differed from US, his response was that under UK law the penalty for assisting in a rape, or penetration with an object or fingers was the same, so what’s the deal.
As I say, weird how otherwise intelligent and compassionate people don’t see this.
It’s always been weird. I’ve never understood it. Never never never.