The Guardian decides today would be a good day to treat “JK Rowling” as just another political issue people disagree on, and by the way she’s the wrong side to pick.

It seems they have a series called Dining across the divide: two people eat something and talk about how they disagree. Catchy subhead for this one:

One voted Labour, the other Tory, and they disagreed about Brexit. Can they find common ground over JK Rowling?

Can they? Can they? Can they agree that she’s a bitch and a Karen who has no right to say that men are not women?

Of course they can.

John The subject where I felt I was educated is the storm that has engulfed JK Rowling. To my knowledge, I’ve only met two trans people. And he said: “You’ve probably met plenty of others; you just didn’t know it.” And that’s probably true. I didn’t know enough about it; I wanted to know what the fuss was about.

No it isn’t probably true. That’s not probable at all. It’s part of the mythology that trans people are undetectable.

Dan He seemed to have taken a surface-level view, that JK Rowling is just standing up for women’s rights, as someone who’s experienced domestic violence. I tried to explain that you have to disregard a trans woman’s womanhood to be able to even say that this is an issue. While I have a huge appreciation for people who have been through domestic violence, and understand how you might have a fear of the opposite sex because of that, it doesn’t mean you get to oppress already oppressed people.

How nice of Dan to dig beneath the surface to find out that women (women – notice he doesn’t even say the word) who have experienced male violence (euphemistically called “domestic violence”) have no right to dispute men’s claims to be women.

What a lot of deceptive bullshit there is in just that one paragraph. Surface-level view is one, domestic violence is another, a trans woman’s womanhood is another, a huge appreciation is another, might is another, the opposite sex is another, oppress is another, oppressed people is another.

People have trained themselves to do this – to use generic words to avoid admitting that you’re defending men who bully women, to flip perpetrator and victim, to treat arguing for women’s rights as “oppressing” men who pretend to be women. And the other guy lapped it all up. One dude explains to another dude why it’s fine to brush off Rowling’s experience of a violent husband and pretend she’s “oppressing” men by not believing they’re women.

John He knows a lot of trans women, and because of his circle, he has a lot of insights, which I enjoyed listening to. He made a good point, which is that there isn’t really a threat from trans women – it’s the media blowing things out of all proportion. He made very, very strong arguments to convince me that it’s a bit of a storm in a teacup.

Awww, that’s just heartwarming, John, thanks for sharing.