- Joined
- Feb 14, 2023
Those long hours awaiting the birth of his son and heir are preying on Joe’s razor-sharp mind. To occupy himself, he goes on a Twitter spray about JK Rowling. Please enjoy some hot Joe on Jo action.
TL;DR JK is wrong because sports are dumb, testosterone and not male puberty is the problem anyway, and we should abolish prisons and „all forms of legal abolition of sex and gender discrimination in law”, which is either an error in expression or this gender abolitionist wants sex and gender discrimination in law, idk.
He’s right, to be fair, in that sporting organisations should continue to arrange their own affairs, and that a prisoner’s safety should be a factor in where they’re placed. But neither of those propositions require the placing of men with women where women’s safety would be compromised, or their ability to compete fairly.
And what about other social situation? Typical Joe, really. Just handwave away physical reality and bad actors (which is JK’s actual point) because hormones are magic, and other people’s safety is irrelevant when he’s on the coom. That’s a fine set of luxury beliefs you got there, Associate Professor.
link | archive
Over the years, I’ve had a couple of colleagues express confusion about criticism of JK Rowling. Ppl discuss JKR as though she were open-minded and questioning, but her public comments are vicious, dangerous, and hateful. Please, colleagues, read this:
Some of the cases discussed below raise relevant policy questions. But the notion that this group composed of (1) violent criminals and (2) media figures against whom Rowling has personal grudges, represents the broader community of trans feminists, is inflammatory and shameful.
The policy questions are two, I think. One, should male prisoners be allowed to move into women’s prisons on the basis of a declaration of transition. The mainstream trans feminist position, I would guess, is no, prisons should be abolished.
Liberals don’t like that answer, because they like prisons as punishment for violent offenses, or sometimes because they have a restrictive sense of what kinds of political outcomes are possible. I don’t think incarceration keeps anyone safer; I think it does the opposite.
But one would not need to invent a new type of “sex-based” right in order to make decisions regarding where prisoners should be housed. The basis of such decisions should be prisoner safety; trans women are disproportionately targets of sexual assault: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/resources/NCTE_Blueprint_for_Equality2012_Prison_Reform.pdf
Policy question (2): should sporting bodies exclude trans women from participating in women’s sport? The first-rank answer is that sporting bodies should be able to convene their own competitive classes, and if one decides that testosterone enhances performance, control for that.
Sporting bodies could do so without maintaining the pretense that the controlled characteristics constitute “natural, immutable” properties of sexuation. We say “welterweight” and “featherweight”; I think we can get used to “high-T” and “low-T.”
There’s also a broader question about the forms of social relation that competitive sports generally reproduce. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that sport entails the celebration (and material reward) of normative, and sometimes dangerous, modes of embodiment.
If terfs want to have a “Terf Olympics,” they should be allowed to. I’m much more interested in a fat Olympics, a lazy Olympics, a drug addict Olympics, etc. (I am all three; clean for eight years.) Sport doesn’t encourage body-shaming—it IS body-shaming, in its essence.
Terfs pretend that all of these quite tricky marginal policy questions are all straightforward, by drawing attention only to the most monstrous (or, otherwise, most angry) trans women. Most of us, of course, are not like those in Rowling’s thread.
The actual claim that Rowling advances, here as everywhere, is that something called “biological sex” is “immutable,” and should be a “basis” of rights-claims, social policy, or both. That claim is false. “Sex” names a number of properties, some of which are not immutable.
You can’t change your chromosomes, but you can reorient your endocrine system. That fact is remarkable. The role that hormones play in the sexuation of the human species is essential, and the fact that we can now elect how to direct that role is a very good development!
More to the point, neither “biological sex” not “self-ID” should be a basis of any kind of rights claim or social policy. The state has no reason to decide how to define sexual classes, any more than it has to decide who is a real lesbian (another bizarre demand some terfs make).
Feminism has long been constituted by resistance to the creation of what are now called “sex-based rights.” I wrote about this history for the LARB last year:
Gender abolitionists like me want three things: (1) the eradication of all forms of legal abolition of sex and gender discrimination in law, (2) an end to state surveillance of bodies, and (3) an end to state restriction on transition.
If JKR wanted to be taken seriously, she would address the actual claims that trans feminists make. Instead she points at monsters (and some perfectly fine people who have said some intemperate things) to produce fear and hatred. It is a shameful display. Stand up, fight back.
Some of the cases discussed below raise relevant policy questions. But the notion that this group composed of (1) violent criminals and (2) media figures against whom Rowling has personal grudges, represents the broader community of trans feminists, is inflammatory and shameful.
The policy questions are two, I think. One, should male prisoners be allowed to move into women’s prisons on the basis of a declaration of transition. The mainstream trans feminist position, I would guess, is no, prisons should be abolished.
Liberals don’t like that answer, because they like prisons as punishment for violent offenses, or sometimes because they have a restrictive sense of what kinds of political outcomes are possible. I don’t think incarceration keeps anyone safer; I think it does the opposite.
But one would not need to invent a new type of “sex-based” right in order to make decisions regarding where prisoners should be housed. The basis of such decisions should be prisoner safety; trans women are disproportionately targets of sexual assault: https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/resources/NCTE_Blueprint_for_Equality2012_Prison_Reform.pdf
Policy question (2): should sporting bodies exclude trans women from participating in women’s sport? The first-rank answer is that sporting bodies should be able to convene their own competitive classes, and if one decides that testosterone enhances performance, control for that.
Sporting bodies could do so without maintaining the pretense that the controlled characteristics constitute “natural, immutable” properties of sexuation. We say “welterweight” and “featherweight”; I think we can get used to “high-T” and “low-T.”
There’s also a broader question about the forms of social relation that competitive sports generally reproduce. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that sport entails the celebration (and material reward) of normative, and sometimes dangerous, modes of embodiment.
If terfs want to have a “Terf Olympics,” they should be allowed to. I’m much more interested in a fat Olympics, a lazy Olympics, a drug addict Olympics, etc. (I am all three; clean for eight years.) Sport doesn’t encourage body-shaming—it IS body-shaming, in its essence.
Terfs pretend that all of these quite tricky marginal policy questions are all straightforward, by drawing attention only to the most monstrous (or, otherwise, most angry) trans women. Most of us, of course, are not like those in Rowling’s thread.
The actual claim that Rowling advances, here as everywhere, is that something called “biological sex” is “immutable,” and should be a “basis” of rights-claims, social policy, or both. That claim is false. “Sex” names a number of properties, some of which are not immutable.
You can’t change your chromosomes, but you can reorient your endocrine system. That fact is remarkable. The role that hormones play in the sexuation of the human species is essential, and the fact that we can now elect how to direct that role is a very good development!
More to the point, neither “biological sex” not “self-ID” should be a basis of any kind of rights claim or social policy. The state has no reason to decide how to define sexual classes, any more than it has to decide who is a real lesbian (another bizarre demand some terfs make).
Feminism has long been constituted by resistance to the creation of what are now called “sex-based rights.” I wrote about this history for the LARB last year:
Gender abolitionists like me want three things: (1) the eradication of all forms of legal abolition of sex and gender discrimination in law, (2) an end to state surveillance of bodies, and (3) an end to state restriction on transition.
If JKR wanted to be taken seriously, she would address the actual claims that trans feminists make. Instead she points at monsters (and some perfectly fine people who have said some intemperate things) to produce fear and hatred. It is a shameful display. Stand up, fight back.
TL;DR JK is wrong because sports are dumb, testosterone and not male puberty is the problem anyway, and we should abolish prisons and „all forms of legal abolition of sex and gender discrimination in law”, which is either an error in expression or this gender abolitionist wants sex and gender discrimination in law, idk.
He’s right, to be fair, in that sporting organisations should continue to arrange their own affairs, and that a prisoner’s safety should be a factor in where they’re placed. But neither of those propositions require the placing of men with women where women’s safety would be compromised, or their ability to compete fairly.
And what about other social situation? Typical Joe, really. Just handwave away physical reality and bad actors (which is JK’s actual point) because hormones are magic, and other people’s safety is irrelevant when he’s on the coom. That’s a fine set of luxury beliefs you got there, Associate Professor.
link | archive
