Easy for Ryan to say
And in come the sneery “wtf is her problem” think-pieces on JK Rowling’s astounding baffling incomprehensible move to open a women’s space in Edinburgh. Why would she do such a thing??? A smug young guy called Ryan Coogan wonders for the Independent:
…up until about a year ago, I held out hope that Rowling was somehow misunderstood or that I just “read her out of context”, as her defenders keep insisting. But I’ve given her the benefit of the doubt, and I’ve seen the context, and if anything it just makes things worse as time goes on. It’s a shame, because she gave me a lot of great memories as a kid, but for me at least, a point has been reached where her stance on trans people makes her pretty much irredeemable.
Yes, the “stance” that men are not women makes women irredeemable. Ok boy but then they won’t be making you sandwiches any more.
I think Rowling’s latest venture more or less solidifies her heel turn: Beira’s Place, a women-only service for victims of sexual abuse that will be located in Edinburgh. The service is described as being “set up by women, for women”. Its website reads: “There are a number of services in Lothian, and indeed across Scotland, that provide support to male survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. However, there are few, if any, that are strictly women only.”
And this matters because women who are survivors of abuse at the hands of men may need and/or want services that are women only. Smug young Ryan is so busy showing off his Approved View of the matter than he can’t be bothered to try to think about what that would be like.
Imagine smug young Ryan has a very bad experience with a huge dog – imagine he’s knocked down, bitten in several places, has bled heavily, lost consciousness, nearly died. Imagine he needs therapy once his physical injuries have healed. Imagine he shows up for therapy and his therapist has a huge dog in the room. Would we accuse Ryan of being a horrible evil irredeemable person for not wanting to be around a huge dog?
But women are expected to just suck it the fuck up – by callous young shits like Ryan. Women are subject to abuse in the broadsheets by smug young shits like Ryan if we don’t obey his orders to pretend men are women.
For context, Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre has been run by a trans woman – Mridul Wadhwa – since May 2021. Other rape crisis centres throughout Scotland welcome trans women. While Beira’s Place could very easily have been a way for Rowling to counteract the accusations that she is discriminatory towards the trans community, to me, it seems instead to be a shallow attempt to shield herself from further criticism by doing something which is nominally good, but in reality actually further segregates and disenfranchises vulnerable people.
Here’s smug young Ryan saying women who have been abused are not vulnerable, while men like Mridul Wadhwa who force themselves on women are.
But by closing its doors to the trans community, in my view, it instead becomes a huge step backwards for equality and a monument to hate, instead of the valuable service it could have been. I’m sure I’ll get some pushback for saying this about a service designed to help women (which in either scenario, I have no doubt it will). But it’s like opening a whites-only orphanage…
No, it’s not, smug young Ryan.
What possesses the Indy to publish shit like this?
“For context,” Wadwha took the job, which was advertised as a position to be filled by a woman, without so much as a GRC. He self-IDed his way into it.
Imagine the dog is dressed in human clothes and the therapist insists on Ryan addressing the dog as “Mr. Ruff.” At the same time the therapist maintains that “There is no dog in the room.” If Ryan gets upset or angry at this, he’s told his prejudices will be challenged, and that he must learn how to reframe his trauma before they can continue. “Woof! Woof!” agrees Mr. Ruff.
(Of course Roger Pielke would claim I’m comparing trans people to dogs. Or maybe e-bikes.)
I don’t believe defenders have been telling him he’s “read her out of context”. They’d be saying either you haven’t read her, like so many who can’t provide a single example of her transphobia, or you’re wilfully misreading her, which his article is a prime example of. That’s what he’d be hearing if he was listening. I doubt he’s even been asking.
This would actually be an incredibly ineffective form of transphobia, if they actually had JKR’s motives correct. Opening up an additional rape crisis center in Edinburgh, without a dime of public money, simply means more spaces for all sexual assault victims
If women who want women-only spaces flock to the new locale, then the trans-accepting rape crisis center will have its own beds freed up, making life better for actual transwomen victims of sexual assault. And Rowling is, of course, smart enough to know this. She isn’t spending her money on lobbying efforts to keep transwomen out of the existing locale; she’s creating a parallel system for women who agree with her on this issue, taking strain off the existing system.
The only ‘harm’ that comes from this is NOT to transwomen victims of sexual assault, but rather to TRAs who have not been assaulted, and who are willing to throw actual TW victims under the bus in order to protect their own feelings.
No, Ryan, it’s not like opening a whites-only orphanage. It’s like opening an orphanage that is only for children who have no adults to look after them, because the existing orphanages are pretending not to know what an orphan is, and allowing all and sundry to pop in any time they like to eat the food and play with the toys and sleep in the beds that are meant for the orphans.
“But it’s like opening a whites-only orphanage…”
No it’s not. It is like opening an orphans-only orphanage, as opposed, say, to an orphanage that welcomes both orphans and large predatory animals that like to eat orphans.
Bitterly funny.