Why won’t [insert bitch name] stop talking?
What an extraordinary title:
J K Rowling keeps tweeting and we keep wondering why
Given how easy and humdrum and normal it is for people to “keep tweeting,” that amounts to saying JK Rowling keeps talking and we (who’s we?) keep wondering why. A man wondering why a woman keeps talking, and calling himself “we” to boot – it doesn’t get much more smugly contemptuous of women than that.
The bonus is that the man is Noah Berlatsky, who is a [cough] controversial sort of fella himself.
Harry Potter author J K Rowling responded in strong terms today to comments by Police Scotland about their approach to gender identity. Police Scotland said that the police would respect the gender self-identification of people accused of sexual assault, and a number of media outlets published details.
Ah that’s such a nice anodyne soothing way of putting it. No mention of women, no mention of rape, just vague “people” and “respect” for “gender identity.” What he means is, Police Scotland said trans women accused of rape would still be treated as if they were women. Rape is about the most un-woman thing a man can do, and the police are surely well aware of this, especially in the wake of the abduction, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard by a cop. The fetish of “respect” for “gender identity” should not be treated as more important than a woman who has been raped.
This stupid man goes on:
Rowling has an established history of tweeting “gender-critical” views which many view as transphobic. In particular, she has embraced longstanding stereotypes which frame trans women as perpetrators of violence and especially of sexual violence.
No she has not. The point is that rapists are men, whether they are trans or not. That’s not the same as “trans people are rapists.” Not even close. This is very basic stuff. An editor should have thrown it in his face to re-do.
She’s also argued that trans women should not be allowed in women’s bathrooms because they are not really women and are therefore a danger to cis women.
We get to argue that. We get to continue to keep women’s “bathrooms” [toilets] women-only.
Rowling — through her tweets, her advocacy and her fiction — seems to imagine a world in which trans women are privileged predators working with a compliant police force to assault innocent cis women. In fact, trans women are a small, marginalized, vulnerable minority, who face terrifying rates of sexual violence from, among others, the police who are supposed to help them.
This is stupid childish drivel. Nobody claims that trans women are all predators; that’s not the issue. The issue is that they’re men, and we shouldn’t be forced to treat them as women in all circumstances and settings.
If a police captain said that their officers were not allowed to use racial slurs against Jewish or Black people accused of violence, would Rowling object? I doubt it. Should police be encouraged to use misogynist slurs against women, cis or trans, who are accused of crimes? Of course not.
Even stupider. Bargain basement. Why did the Independent commission this?
It’s my belief that if Rowling really wanted to advocate for victims of violence, she would advocate for trans women, who are disproportionately victims.
As opposed to women?
What an utter fool.
So the word “man” is the moral equivalent of a racial slur?
Curious about the scare quotes around “bathrooms” and the bracketed explanation. As far as I can tell, Noah Berlatsky (who I don’t think I’d ever heard of before) is an American, even though he’s writing for a British publication, and “bathroom” is the standard American euphemism for “toilet”, which in itself is a euphemism.
Women are a large, marginalized, vulnerable majority, who face terrifying rates of sexual violence from, among others, the police who are supposed to help them.
There. Fixed it.
@ WaM #1:
Berlatsky is most notable for his membership in the dubious “Paedophiles against paedophilia” group Prostasia and for writing pamphlets against those on his enemies list (which is quite broad). He’s a bit player who’s probably more notorious than well-known.
Bathroom seems like more of a euphemism to me though, since we don’t take baths in the toilets. “Toilet” isn’t really a euphemism in American English now – it names that naughty piece of plumbing.
My mother always insisted on restroom for public toilets, because we don’t take baths in them. She didn’t believe in using bathroom for any room without a bathtub. We had a house when we were in Maine that was shower only; she called it the restroom.
Yeah, but we don’t normally use “toilet” for the room itself. I think “bathroom” has pretty much lost its status as a euphemism in American English as well: if I say I’m going to the bathroom, most people’s first thoughts probably don’t go in the direction of a bath.
I know, but on the other hand a lot of people who read & comment here speak UK or NZ or Canadian or Australian English so…I don’t know, I tweak my American English now and then.
My bathroom doesn’t contain a bath either, just a shower, toilet and hand-basin. I have been showing it to prospective flatmates and apologise for the misnomer every time.
I have definitely encountered people that believe this, sadly.
Yup, we’ve come a long way from when doing one’s toilette meant putting on clothes, personal grooming, and a spot of perfume. That’s humans though. Reduce everything to bodily functions.
Hmmm, bath. I can’t actually remember the last time I had a bath. I don’t actually like lying in hot water. Must bring out my inner lobster.
My bathroom has a bathtub in it. Call me old fashioned. :P But seriously, when I ask, I usually refer to them as ‘facilities’ and sometimes ‘the loo’ but this causes confusion for the unworldly. Maybe just for fun I should start asking where the shithouse is, but I don’t want to be directed to Mar A Lago.
@7, My dear Ophelia, you tweak American English more than a little. I wouldn’t know much of English elsewhere, or investigated it on my own if it weren’t for you. I do appreciate it. :)
Yes the argument that JKR is rich and famous and therefore should become a recluse and disengage from social interaction is a lame one. Jealous, petty people make this argument all the time. I think that’s what the selfish, small minded critics of her imagine they would do if they, by some miracle, were in her shoes. Good luck with that, dipshits. She has a right to voice her opinion like anyone else.
I don’t know why anyone still pays any attention to the Indy. It stopped publishing actual papers in 2016 and went all-in on the pure plagiarised (uh, I mean “researched”) clickbait format. The switch to online-only came with the more salient firing of all* the remaining journalists and editors.
* – may be slight exaggeration – but who could tell?
Obligatory.
I’d forgotten that it’s not a paper paper any more. I still absent-mindedly think of it as One of the Qualities.
‘Slurs?’ Have the grooming gang scandals been so effectively erased from memory?
Does anyone actually suggest that ALL trans women are predators, any more than we would expect ALL Catholic priests to be pedophiles? It is the brass-browed refusal to admit the issue exists that distinguishes the TRAs. Like Bill Donohue dealing with Cardinal Law…or refusing to even consider that he might need to.
Recording “man” for an adult male is not any different from recording an accurate height (“4 foot 10, but claims to be 6 feet”) or weight (“at least 250 pounds, but claims to weigh 110”). We also take their photograph, we don’t allow them to supply a profile picture. We don’t take people’s words for such things in general, there is objective information that can be recorded.
And this is true for those accused of shoplifting, trespassing, or being involved in a motor vehicle incident, not only those accused of rape. It’s just that sex is particularly important in cases of sexual assault.
Yeah, well for half of them that would be a cute yet slutty 14 yo anime schoolgirl.