That turning of the tide has been slow
James Kirkup points out that many people have been staying quiet despite concerns, some even despite having plenty of money and clout.
Yet slowly, slowly, things are starting to change. More people are starting to talk, calmly and sensibly, about a matter of policy and culture that needs more discussion. Bit by bit, more people are starting to see that this is an issue that can and should be talked about.
That turning of the tide has been slow and modest, but today the pace quickened, a lot. The gender debate has seen an event that many people have been waiting for. JK Rowling has spoken.
In a single tweet, the woman who gave us Harry Potter, has quite deliberately entered a debate that many people have avoided for too long.
And she did so why? Because of the outrageous ruling in Maya Forstater’s case, that we are required to refer to other people by their special chosen reality-contradicting pronouns, or risk losing our jobs.
In narrow terms, the judgment might well have a chilling effect on that debate. But the broader effect of the Forstater case is that issues of sex and gender, the implications of transgenderism for society and individuals, are now going to be talked about by more people.
Because JK Rowling, lovely JK Rowling, is involved. JK Rowling who has 14 million followers on Twitter and a good claim to being one of the most popular and even beloved women in the world today. And as a result, people are going to talk about this, and about her.
I do not underestimate the courage it has taken for Rowling to do this. It’s easy to say ‘well, she’s got billions and a huge platform – what took her so long?’ but I think that’s unfair. With that fame comes pressure and scrutiny that the rest of us cannot imagine. By entering this arena, she is exposing herself to significant risks, volumes of criticism beyond anything most of humanity will ever experience. I applaud her.
Words matter, and with just a few words, JK Rowling has changed the gender debate for the better. The tide is turning, the waves are getting bigger. Thank you, JK.
Words matter, and truth matters.
Rowling has previously been sympathetic to gender-critical points of view as of a couple of years ago, so this news isn’t a surprise to me. Of course Rowling got grief for it back then from the usual TRAs, so the fact that she’s being outspoken about it now when the chips are down shows she does genuinely care about this.
Yeah, one of the first things that tipped me off to The Terror of the TRAs when I started looking into the issue was Twitter-snooping. Of JK Rowling. For following TERFs. That struck me as too reminiscent of Soviet Russia for comfort. But then, I’ve actually read Orwell. Most people haven’t, even those who reference or allude to Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Yes, I’m pretty sure I posted about Rowling’s previous forays too.
Yes, just last June. Oh noes, she followed Magdalen!
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2019/oooh-she-follows-a-wrongthinkist/
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2019/then-she-persisted-to-do-the-same-things/
O.T., but thinking of George Orwell, the book I recommend to those wanting to know what informed his writing of both Animal Farm and 1984 is his autobiographical “Homage to Catalonia”, where he went to fight the fascists but became an enemy of the Spanish communists backed by Stalin. Not because he *was* their enemy but because he was in a group of anarchists that didn’t toe the party line. I’ve always thought Homage to Catalonia would make a great movie, as Orwell’s account of his time on the front lines and in Barcelona is full of arresting moments, like when Orwell was shot through the neck or when he arrived back in Barcelona being immediately grabbed by his wife and told to immediately hide from the communists who were purging the anarchist faction. There was a movie, “Land and Freedom” that was released in 1995 that obviously draws on Orwell’s experiences, but I’m a purist and would like to see the real thing done, along with Orwell’s afterword where he offers insight into what the “truth” is which gives a hint of what is to come in his later work. Of course I’m probably one of the few people who would actually go see it, but I can dream.
Last January, again quoting James Kirkup.
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2019/sauce-for-the-goose-is-more-sauce-for-the-goose/
Homage to Catalonia was one of my formative books, decades ago. This whole Thing often reminds me of Stalinists v Trotskyists.
@ Ms. Benson, #7 – Stalinists v Trotskyists? Weak sauce. When I lived in Chicago, there existed a revolutionary group dedicated to the teachings and political lessons of Enver freaking Hoxha! I loved reading their stuff, it was almost, but not quite, as out there as Chick tracts.
Hahahaha.
I know. I developed a deep fascination for the politics of the 30s in my yoof that lasted for several years. Strange perhaps, but quite educational.
I’ve been trying to find some form of accommodation – this is the best I could come up with. At least everyone is treated equally.
https://farcornercafe.blogspot.com/2019/12/modern-adaptation.html
The horror of Catalonia to Orwell was that history could be made up of whole cloth. Battles were invented. Heroes created out of nothing. Good people turned into villains. That’s the horror of 1984 – not just the 2+2=5, but Winston Smith’s job of making up historical events. The weariness of living under constant propaganda with forced enthusiasm. Either you become one of the believers and lose your soul, or you have to lead a double life.
Rowling is not going down at all well on WHTM. Some of the commentariat there are particularly deranged on the subject of TERFs and it’s mildly disorienting to read comment threads on that subject. It comes across as a bunch of people desperately trying to score woke points by using outrageously broad and bewildering claims about what and how people they call “TERF” think.
One comment on a recent story claims that the Harry Potter books are eugenicist and anti-semitic as well as (obviously, duh) transphobic. Of course, the writer hasn’t read the books or anything. The argument for the books being transphobic seems a little confused:
I’m not sure why that’s supposedly transphobic or even whether it’s true. The “as exemplified here” part presumably relates to this, from, the article itself:
Which is a quote from an alleged TERF wildly speculating about the sexual politics of Hogwarts, which became hard evidence for the transphobia of the Harry Potter books by comment 2.
Then we’re told that TERFs hate bi people and wrongly believe that (cis, of course) gay men are their allies and believe that all lesbians think like them wrt trans women. Also, one writer states that most of the TERFs they know are straight women and men, which obviously makes them extra bad.
Oh, and “TERFs don’t like it when they have to count higher than two.”
And now I see a remarkably one-sided article in the NY Times (not an opinion piece): https://nyti.ms/2r6ATmG
The story cites 4 people:
Transgender author Jackson Bird: “Well, she finally said the quiet part out loud”…”This is really heartbreaking for a lot of folks. If Harry Potter is ruined for you, I completely get it”
GLAAD spokesman Matthew Lasky: according to whom she declined an offer from the L.G.B.T. advocacy group GLAAD to have an off-the-record conversation about the controversy
Anthony Ramos, who “leads GLAAD’s engagement with celebrities on L.G.B.T. issues”: She has “now aligned herself with an anti-science ideology that denies the basic humanity of people who are transgender.”
Alphonso David, the president of the Human Rights Campaign: Demanded she should apologize and said “J.K. Rowling says she’s opposed to fundamentalism in any form, but she’s promoting a harmful fundamentalism that endangers the L.G.B.T.Q. community — particularly transgender youth,”
(Keywords: “heartbreaking”, “anti-science”, “basic humanity”, “harmful”, “endangers”)
On the other side, one of her lawyers declined to comment, and phone calls to a group representing her “went unanswered”. The clear suggestion is that her position has no merit, and that she’s trying to avoid answering for her transgressions.
The author sought multiple opinions opposing JKR, but did not seek opinions of anyone who might agree with her, other than her personal representatives. There are links to the full 26 page legal opinion (which I could hardly bear to read, and which (bonus!) contains a foray into the realm of various (irrelevant, no?) putative intersex conditions), but no highlighting of the judge’s position that Forstater’s opinion is “incompatible with human dignity”, etc. etc.
The NYT has always tended toward false balance, but the bias & dishonesty in this one is really mind-boggling. Also, check out that full legal opinion if you’re feeling an urgent need to get enraged.
To me the most memorable and useful concept from 1984 was Doublethink (I believe the closest You get to a synonym in Oldspeak is “compartmetalization”):
Gender ideology seems to be all about Doublethink (covered up by the wordmagic of Genderspeak):
• On the one hand we’re obliged to accept that being a “woman” is all about thoughts and feelings and has nothing what so ever to do with physical traits. On the other hand we’re also supposed to accept that trans “women” automatically belong in all the same groups and spaces as the people with innate physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers, many (most? all?) of whom might not think or feel the required ways (and hence qualify as “women” in the Genderspeak sense) at all.
• On the one hand gender ideologues themselves are the ones who insist that there are distinct, identifiable “male” and “female” ways of thinking and feeling, thus establishing a “gender binary” that applies to pretty much anyone other than themselves (hence their special snowflake-status). Yet those who think this makes everyone non-binary, thus basically negating that the “gender binary” is even a thing, are the ones accused of reinforcing it.
• On the same note gender ideologues themselves are the ones who insist some perfectly real and vitally important* difference in ways of thinking and feeling makes certain people “female” to the very core of their being, regardless of any physical traits, thus justifying dividing people into separate groups requiring separate vocabularies, separate dress-codes, separate toilets, separate sporting events etc. Yet those who don’t think being “female” says anything about You other than the most superficial, irrelevant and unimportant physical traits are the ones accused of “gender essentialism”.
• Etc. etc.
* So important, in fact, that being called by the wrong word or placed in the wrong box is comparable to actual violence and even murder.
I think the author of the article may need to be sent to TRA reëducation camp. If trans girls are girls, then the stairs to the girls’ dorms wouldn’t turn into slides when they use them.
@Papito:
Well, David Futrelle, who wrote the article containing the quote, is horrified that the stairs would look at the children’s genitals instead of how they present. But wouldn’t the trans girls be girls regardless of how they presented?
Another comment suggests that this might be a way for kids to find out that they are trans – the staircase will take the kid to what their “true” gender is. There are cans of worms bursting open all over the place.
Iatsot, yeah, I don’t’ see any way Futrelle’s argument works out without a whole lot of squinting. Are we to suppose that the Sorting Hat can tell infallibly whether a child is Hufflepuff or Slytherin, but the stairs are so defective they can’t even tell a boy from a girl?
It seems Futrelle and other TRAs have taken their argument from Humpty Dumpty.
Consistently, contemporary references mislabel 1984 as a ‘dystopian prediction’ rather than what is IS, a savage satire of contemporary events. My step-kids read it as a school assignment, and no mention was made of the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
The blatant erasure of the immediate past: ‘we have always been at war….’
Papito,
Yeah, it’s a little sad. I admire Futrelle’s writing on other subjects. He’s hard working and tenacious on the various breeds of MRAs/incels and the like but like many others we’ve seen is maddeningly myopic when it comes to trans issues. So much so that I’m sometimes cynically inclined to suspect that he’s pandering to an audience. If he is, it isn’t just extreme trans ideology adherents, though. There are lots of things you’re not allowed to say in the comments there, including calling an idea – not a person – “crazy” or “crazed” because it’s ableist and also wishing violence on another person…. unless that person is accused of TERFidity, of course, in which case all bets are off and you can threaten any violence and diagnose any mental condition you desire. It’s encouraged. Not by Futrelle, to be fair, but by a number of his readers.
David is obviously smart, witty and observant until it comes to trans issues, where he is bewilderingly locked into the transparently inconsistent ideology we’ve come to know and gape uncomprehendingly at. He’s at least as guilty as any of his readers of insisting that there is such a thing as a TERF and that all examples are the most depraved, unthinking and terrible of humans, capable of any and every horrible act.
I don’t know how a sensitive, intelligent person manages to tie themselves in such knots but David is pulling the strings tighter and making the knots more difficult to untie with every post on trans issues. It’s a shame.
latsot, you also aren’t allowed to make any comment about millennials as a group; you will be lectured about how “millennials are not a monolith”, usually by someone who has just scathingly dismissed “boomers” as being all horrible and should all die type of trope.
[…] a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on That turning of the tide has been […]
WHTM used to be one of my go-to blogs, and I used to financially support it, until the ‘anti-TERFing’ got out of hand. I just went over there this morning to look up something for someone else, and noticed, among the ‘anti-TERFing’ posts, something I’d never seen before–a post saying that the latest pledge drive is failing to raise enough money to cover David’s expenses. I wonder if he’s driven off the more affluent/generous segments of his audience? One thing we’ve been made aware of about the ‘woke trans’ segment is that they’re perpetually short of cash–they can’t hold down regular jobs due to the oppression they face, and they require substantial funds to pay for the surgery and wardrobe essential for their mental health. (Not sure how this squares with the fact that so many are in IT, which afaik pays pretty well–maybe someone else knows the answer to this paradox.)
Guest:
As I understand it the site went ad-free so David needs to make up the difference through donations and he also has some medical expenses to cover, has lost freelance work through illness etc.
The anti-TERFing there is pretty awful, so I don’t usually read the comments. You can guarantee that if David writes a post about MRAs or incels or nazis or whatever, one of the first comments will be about how TERFs are just like them. Everyone there (including David) is so over the top that they sound like they’re trying to convince themselves rather than anyone else.
The whole “crazy” thing drove me off WHTM. David was always awesome to me. He even contacted me in private once, responding encouragingly to some pushback I did in response to the crazier claims TRAs were making on his blog, in particular that transwomen are LIDERULLY female. No. That’s just silly. He agreed.
When the commentariat started claiming the word “crazy” oppressed people with mental illness, I was done. It became readily apparent the populace there WANTED something to be offended by and enjoyed playing the victim in their game of constant false outrage. David pushed back against the “crazy harms mentally ill people” crowd, saying that was highly personal and lots of mentally ill people don’t have a problem with the word at all. I included myself in that group. I was told if I had REALLY struggled with mental health issues I’d be in agreement with them. I had recently been discharged from the hospital following a psychiatric episode but, yeah, OK. Obviously, no one could have mental health issues AND disagree about the impact of the word “crazy”. Sure. You guys got me.
Enough of the commenters did take issue with “crazy” and “nuts” and I wasn’t going to fight it. I’ll modify my behaviour if I consider it reasonable and the people worth my time. Otherwise, I’ll move on. That’s what I did.
The place really descended into a hive of radical transactivism after that.
It’s sad because, in general, I think highly of David. I don’t think he meant for his blog to become a TRA hangout. It did though and he doesn’t hear a diversity of opinions in the comments. That’s now his audience. I have total confidence he would treat me, as an individual, well. His treatment of everyone who can be accused of TERFery though is reactionary and thoughtless. It’s very disappointing.
Interesting that David himself has expressed at least privately that he’s not fully onboard with ‘woke’ gender ideology. Thanks for sharing that. It’s a shame he doesn’t realise, or acknowledge, the material harm that ideology is doing to actual vulnerable people.
marinerachel @24
I had an almost identical experience at WHTM and I flounced from the comments for the same reason. I still sporadically read the posts (with grim fascination when it’s an anti-TERF post) but I rarely look at the comments. I just don’t want to talk to those self-righteous people.