Let’s pretend not to understand the presumption of innocence
Willful, determined stupidity from David Futrelle:
Does J.K. Rowling believe that trans people — or at least trans women — don’t deserve the presumption of innocence? That seems to be the clear implication of an op-ed she wrote for the Times (UK) today. But she is cagey enough in her wording that she can and probably will figure out a way to say, my goodness, I wasn’t saying anything of the kind.
Or to put it another way, she’s precise enough in her wording that she is in fact not saying anything of the kind.
Before we get to her wording – presumption of innocence isn’t a magic talisman that applies to everyone on all occasions in all contexts. It’s a legal term – defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. That doesn’t translate to some magic formula that applies to everyone everywhere.
Here’s the relevant quote in context. She is — in the midst of a longer attack on First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon – insinuating that men routinely pretend to be trans women in order to get easier access to women to abuse:
No she’s not. What an idiotic thing for Futrelle to claim. What she does say:
The third argument Sturgeon uses is that it’s transphobic to suggest any man would fraudulently claim a female identity. This claim is extraordinary. Nobody but the very naive can fail to be aware that predatory men are capable of going to great lengths to gain easy access to victims, and have often sought out professions or special status that offer camouflage for their activities. Sex offenders have historically been found among social workers, teachers, priests, doctors, babysitters, school caretakers, celebrities and charity fundraisers, yet no matter how often the scandals break, the lesson appears never to be learned: it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence.
She’s comparing trans people to priests, social workers, doctors – and the point is not that they’re not entitled to the presumption of innocence in court, the point is that they’re not entitled to it in advance in situations that would be a honey pot for predators. It’s extremely sad and infuriating that it’s necessary to take precautions against predators, but it’s true all the same. This is not an insult to all priests or doctors or social workers, nor is it a call to remove their right to a fair trial: it’s a reminder of why we can’t just assume that no predatory male would ever pretend to be a trans woman for greater ease of predation.
Futrelle’s distortion of this is appalling.
It’s such a shame. I used to have respect for him.
More pedantically, she says that no category of people deserves a presumption of innocence. Categories are the sorts of things about which statistical analyses are made. We track rates of house purchasing, marriage, income, travel, fecundity, health, vices, and crime for different categories of people. We use these data when speaking about categories of people and when determining policy regarding them. By the way, that’s precisely what TRAs do when making arguments about the suicidality of those who identify as trans and the health benefits of so-called affirmative care. When JKR writes, “it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence,” that literally means that it is dangerous to ignore statistical data regarding a demographic’s behavior and experience.
Like, isn’t that exactly what “intersectionality” is supposed to be about?
(Except that it’s not, because intersectionality is de facto about redefining the terms of analysis so as to privilege the categories of people the ideologues prefer and render everyone else impotent.)
Ya I was going to go into the category aspect too but then decided to zero in on the one point.
As many others have pointed out, this is another thing that many (most? all?) of these same people used to know less than ten years ago when so many of them were pushing the “Schrödinger’s Rapist” argument.
There is a certain Kantian logic involved here: If I’m alone with a woman in a vulnerable position, I see it as my moral duty to ask myself the following question: “In the absence of telepathic abilities, and while being consistent, is there any logic/method/set of criteria this woman could use to decide that I in particular deserve the benefit of the doubt without reaching the same conclusion for lots of actual predators, and thereby putting herself at increased risk?” Unless the answer is an unambiguous yes, she is right not to give me the benefit of the doubt, and if I still insist she does, I will have revealed something very important about myself: That my own selfish desires matter more to me than her physical safety. In the Bayesian analysis I just became a bigger threat.
I actually always struggled to warm to him. I just found the vibe at WHTM a bit too ‘bro’ for my taste and I wasn’t actually surprised when it became apparent that he was just as misogynist as the incels and MRA’s he’d been fighting.
My first visit to WHTM in years, and I see a definite predisposition to hate JKR in both the article and in the comments.
It’s infectious, an in-group justification without examination.
And there’s the obligatory comment, sans awareness, that only men and not Transwomen would ever assault a woman. Or that men will assault in a women’s room no matter what the sign on the door says, so why would they bother waiting 3 months for a GRC?
“Laws don’t stop people from committing crimes, so why even have them? “
Rob, I presume you mean incels, not incense? Probably auto-correct…I doubt it likes incels any more than I do.
The question about why would a man bother waiting three months for a GRC is not difficult to answer. Any man would like to ogle women without fear of being charged with a crime would bother. If all that’s required to avoid being charged with a crime is to self-ID as a woman, it’s that much easier for them then.
About Futrelle, he’s more than a little full of himself. I’m not at all surprised to see a man who strikes a pose against misogyny doesn’t care to listen to what Rowling is saying here. Irony wept.
Presumption of innocence is a legal principle, not a way of life. Why in the hell should we trust anyone who has been convicted of a crime, or has been abusive in the past, or pretends not to know the difference between males and females? Fuck that. Trust is earned, not given. A person without a healthy sense of precaution is an easy target for abusive or otherwise mentally unstable suspects. In court, regarding accusations of individual actions, presumption of innocence is warranted, but in the real world, carefulness and discretion are what keep us safe. I, for one, am not going to automatically assume some bozo dressed as a woman is in his right mind or someone to be trusted. Color me skeptical.
iknklast, yes, you’re correct. Is it just me, or has autocorrect been getting more intrusive in recent months? A case of smart-not-smart.
Futrelle’s mischaracterization seems willful. He employs a funny two-step of overgeneralization followed by unwarranted singling out. He implies that Rowling is attacking the rights and dignity of all the groups she mentions as not deserving a blanket presumption of innocence, and then immediately ignores the vast majority of individuals implicated and focuses on the smallest group.
Has Rowling impugned the dignity of all “social workers, teachers, priests, doctors, babysitters, school caretakers, celebrities and charity fundraisers?” That’s a lot more people than the tiny number of trans-identifying men in the world.
We’re left with the sense that Futrelle has a double standard. He doesn’t care if you badmouth “ social workers, teachers, priests, doctors, babysitters, school caretakers, celebrities and charity fundraisers,” but if you bring the holy people – trans people – into it, he will cackle and lay an egg.
I went ahead and changed “incense” to “incels” before I even read the comments. Lordy, auto-correct, get a grip.
“It’s such a shame. I used to have respect for him.”
Same here. Another person for whom support for gender self-identification seems to have broken his brain.
Thanks Ophelia!
Papito, I think there is a lot of mischaracterisation of JKR and other prominent GC women from all sorts of places I wouldn’t expect to see it.
Bjarte
I was active on the internet dating scene for a couple of years. When suggesting a meet-up, I always asked the woman to choose the place and time, giving her the chance to feel safe. I knew I wasn’t a predator, but how would anyone else?
Several times a woman invited me to meet at her house before we’d had a previous meeting. That shocked me to my core. (No, there was no payment required).
——-
I am always amused at how clear and concise JKR is and how many ever-decreasing circles her critics run in trying to prove she said everything they wish she had said, rather than engaging with the substance of her thoughts. With every tweet, and every article, my respect for her rises. She truly is The Woman They Cannot Silence.
Presumption of innocence used in the standard way applies when a crime has been committed. What JKR talks about is safeguards to stop people from committing crimes. For those, there is no assumption of innocence, but rather an assumption of possible guilt: We we lock our doors, we set up traffic controls etc, although every single person can claim “innocent until proven guilty” if actually accused of a crime.
Possibly JKR should have used another term to make it less easy to twist her meaning, but to anyone reading without malice it is clear what she is talking about. Wilful misunderstanding as usual.
I ended up arguing with a few people yesterday who took the same stance, insisted they’d read the article and (of course) plainly hadn’t. Uninterestingly, every one of them characterised what JKR said as:
Dishonesty all the way down.
I agree re Futrelle. He used to provide an important (and funny) spotlight on the manosphere. I’m fairly certain he’s aware of his duplicity.
Also, he blocked me on Twitter, which is unforgivable. (I asked him for evidence of his libellous claims about the LGBA).
(OK, technically I asked him about a dozen times, that might have been what did it)
Wow, that comment section is a mess. Right out of the gate we have “Men fraudulently claiming a female identity in order to assault someone are not trans women. They are cis men.” Okayyyy… how do we tell the difference in a way that is not the No True Scotsman fallacy, i.e. before something happens?
I don’t think I agree that Rowling should have used a different term to make it less easy to twist her meaning. I think her inclusion of the category “priests” was enough to do that. The reminder of the groping god-botherers makes it quite clear what she’s talking about: priests got away with it because everyone presumed that, being priests, they were Good and thus would never do anything like raping children. It’s a mistake to presume that kind of thing about any category of people, not least because the very fact that people do make such a presumption creates the opportunity for predators to get away with their predations.
@ latsot, I get the feeling you have made the choice of arguing with these people over playing chess with pigeons for the sole reason that you don’t want to clean up droppings and feathers. Me, I’m shopping for chessboards and taking a break from twitter.
And of not only that, but the idea that any man would ever “fraudulently claim a female identity in order to assault someone” is an evil transphobic lie. Anyone who claims to be a woman is a woman, and the only reason anyone could possibly consider that anything less than the truest statement ever made is 100% pure and infinite evil for the sake of evil.
Reverend, I spent some time in the dating service scene. They always selected the place to meet (the service) and it was always very public.
latsot, great to see you’re around. Hope everything is well as can be.
@21 – made me laugh.
Hi Rob,
I’ve been lurking, just busy.