Culture J.K Rowling Megathread

All Articles and Discussion Regarding The English Author J.K. Rowling belong here. If you're looking to discuss the Harry Potter series itself, this thread is for you. If you know about any potential cow material in the Harry Potter Fandom, go here. If you're here to bitch about transsexuals' in general, we already have threads for that here, here, and here.

Backstory of the Author



J.K. Rowling is one of the most well known authors in the world today. She was living as a single mother on welfare in England before her first published novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone skyrocketed her to international fame and acclaim. The following six novels, movie and various video game franchises, spin off books, and merchandise, made her the wealthiest author in history. As her books gained international attention many criticized and even protested her works. With feminists claiming her novels conform heavily with gender stereotypes about men and women, and are racist, religious organizations stating that the books contain actual dangerous spells children use to hurt each other, and even a literal book burning back on February 4th of this year because the books are 'demonic'.

These examples and many others over the past two decades exemplify just how divisive even the most innocuous things can be, and how people with irrational thinking, extreme political views and a platform to spread them can cause a worldwide discussion. This is just her first seven novels however. Many people have criticized J.K. Rowling herself for her political views, which are essentially left wing, though of a decidedly less extreme stripe than those coming up. Keep that in mind.

J.K. Rowling's political views have been consistent throughout her life. She believes in social healthcare, welfare, women's rights, gay rights, ect. Her views are garden variety left-wing from the early 2000's. While she has garnered criticisms for these views a number of times, like when she donated a million British Pounds to the Labour Party, which gained some criticism from British Conservatives who felt her books were decidedly Conservative in nature. She has also spoken out against American President Donald J Trump on a number of occasions, earning her the ire of many American Conservatives, and a variety of YouTube grifters such as Paul Joseph Watson. In addition to her political views, Rowling made a number of statements to Harry Potter fans on social media, angering hardcore fans by saying that she imagined characters being different races, and one character being gay when no allusion in the books ever existed. Her pandering to the hyper left-wing, intersectional inhabitants of Twitter would lead to one of the largest and most insane public freak outs ever seen on the platform. Before this meltdown, she was a darling in left-wing circles, and quoted constanly, much like her books themselves.

In response to a woman saying that biological sex is real, and being subsequently fired for it, J.K. Rowling tweeted the following

Tweet | Article about it

This one Tweet was enough to ignite a firestorm. Transsexuals' and their 'allies' all across social media dog-piled Rowling spectacularly, and unlike every other celebrity that's been faced with this witch trial style burning at the stake for 'Transphobia' she refused to bend the knee, and argued further. This, predictably, only fanned the flames.

Excerpt from the article showing various Twitter reactions

One said: “I believe this case is a vitally important landmark. We must treat this in the same way we have treated sexism, racism, homophobia.

“Nobody is suggesting she isn’t allowed her opinion but it’s dangerous language that harms people. She should be held accountable for it.”

Freddy McConnell, who became a voice for the trans community after making his film “Seahorse”, about being a dad who gave birth, said: “It’s a dog whistle, Joanne.”
A parent said: “My daughter, who is trans, is a big fan of yours. It breaks my heart to see you post something indicating that discrimination against her is perfectly fine behaviour for an employee.

“The world’s most credible medical orgs affirm trans people. Please catch up.”

Another person said: I grew up as a trans child reading your books as an escape. I would often pick out names from characters to give to myself, before I ever felt comfortable in who I was.

After the various Twitter exchanges J.K. Rowling went quiet for a while, taking a break from the mental illness inducing website Twitter (Something she says she does occasionally, as social media in general is bad for your mental health). All the while various Harry Potter fan sites figuratively exploded, many users arguing over her statements. During her break she wrote a 3,600 word essay on her website (Children's Portal | Adults Portal) that further explains her position. Again, she refused to apologize, or change her view, which would further incense the lunatics she angered online, even cast members of the Harry Potter Films denounced her, and because of this she didn't attend or involve herself in the filming of the HBOMax documentary about the film series(This article is very salty).

Here's the full essay, spoilered for length.

Spoiler: Full Essay

This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity.

For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.

My interest in trans issues pre-dated Maya’s case by almost two years, during which I followed the debate around the concept of gender identity closely. I’ve met trans people, and read sundry books, blogs and articles by trans people, gender specialists, intersex people, psychologists, safeguarding experts, social workers and doctors, and followed the discourse online and in traditional media. On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself, but on another, it’s intensely personal, as I’m about to explain.

All the time I’ve been researching and learning, accusations and threats from trans activists have been bubbling in my Twitter timeline. This was initially triggered by a ‘like’. When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.

Months later, I compounded my accidental ‘like’ crime by following Magdalen Berns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. I followed her because I wanted to contact her directly, which I succeeded in doing. However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises, dots were joined in the heads of twitter trans activists, and the level of social media abuse increased.

I mention all this only to explain that I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called cunt and bitch and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he’d composted them.

What I didn’t expect in the aftermath of my cancellation was the avalanche of emails and letters that came showering down upon me, the overwhelming majority of which were positive, grateful and supportive. They came from a cross-section of kind, empathetic and intelligent people, some of them working in fields dealing with gender dysphoria and trans people, who’re all deeply concerned about the way a socio-political concept is influencing politics, medical practice and safeguarding. They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.

I’d stepped back from Twitter for many months both before and after tweeting support for Maya, because I knew it was doing nothing good for my mental health. I only returned because I wanted to share a free children’s book during the pandemic. Immediately, activists who clearly believe themselves to be good, kind and progressive people swarmed back into my timeline, assuming a right to police my speech, accuse me of hatred, call me misogynistic slurs and, above all – as every woman involved in this debate will know – TERF.

If you didn’t already know – and why should you? – ‘TERF’ is an acronym coined by trans activists, which stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. In practice, a huge and diverse cross-section of women are currently being called TERFs and the vast majority have never been radical feminists. Examples of so-called TERFs range from the mother of a gay child who was afraid their child wanted to transition to escape homophobic bullying, to a hitherto totally unfeminist older lady who’s vowed never to visit Marks & Spencer again because they’re allowing any man who says they identify as a woman into the women’s changing rooms. Ironically, radical feminists aren’t even trans-exclusionary – they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.

But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground. ‘They’ll call us transphobic!’ ‘They’ll say I hate trans people!’ What next, they’ll say you’ve got fleas? Speaking as a biological woman, a lot of people in positions of power really need to grow a pair (which is doubtless literally possible, according to the kind of people who argue that clownfish prove humans aren’t a dimorphic species).

So why am I doing this? Why speak up? Why not quietly do my research and keep my head down?

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

Firstly, I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.

Most people probably aren’t aware – I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly – that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said:

‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’

Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and re-reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.

The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’

The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.

When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.’

As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman, reflected in the work of female writers and musicians who reassured me that, in spite of everything a sexist world tries to throw at the female-bodied, it’s fine not to feel pink, frilly and compliant inside your own head; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.

I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria. Again and again I’ve been told to ‘just meet some trans people.’ I have: in addition to a few younger people, who were all adorable, I happen to know a self-described transsexual woman who’s older than I am and wonderful. Although she’s open about her past as a gay man, I’ve always found it hard to think of her as anything other than a woman, and I believe (and certainly hope) she’s completely happy to have transitioned. Being older, though, she went through a long and rigorous process of evaluation, psychotherapy and staged transformation. The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law. Many people aren’t aware of this.

We’re living through the most misogynistic period I’ve experienced. Back in the 80s, I imagined that my future daughters, should I have any, would have it far better than I ever did, but between the backlash against feminism and a porn-saturated online culture, I believe things have got significantly worse for girls. Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.

I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much. It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.

But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive. Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.

Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she’d feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.

I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.

I managed to escape my first violent marriage with some difficulty, but I’m now married to a truly good and principled man, safe and secure in ways I never in a million years expected to be. However, the scars left by violence and sexual assault don’t disappear, no matter how loved you are, and no matter how much money you’ve made. My perennial jumpiness is a family joke – and even I know it’s funny – but I pray my daughters never have the same reasons I do for hating sudden loud noises, or finding people behind me when I haven’t heard them approaching.

If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.

I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who’ve been abused by men.

So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

On Saturday morning, I read that the Scottish government is proceeding with its controversial gender recognition plans, which will in effect mean that all a man needs to ‘become a woman’ is to say he’s one. To use a very contemporary word, I was ‘triggered’. Ground down by the relentless attacks from trans activists on social media, when I was only there to give children feedback about pictures they’d drawn for my book under lockdown, I spent much of Saturday in a very dark place inside my head, as memories of a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties recurred on a loop. That assault happened at a time and in a space where I was vulnerable, and a man capitalised on an opportunity. I couldn’t shut out those memories and I was finding it hard to contain my anger and disappointment about the way I believe my government is playing fast and loose with womens and girls’ safety.

Late on Saturday evening, scrolling through children’s pictures before I went to bed, I forgot the first rule of Twitter – never, ever expect a nuanced conversation – and reacted to what I felt was degrading language about women. I spoke up about the importance of sex and have been paying the price ever since. I was transphobic, I was a cunt, a bitch, a TERF, I deserved cancelling, punching and death. You are Voldemort said one person, clearly feeling this was the only language I’d understand.

It would be so much easier to tweet the approved hashtags – because of course trans rights are human rights and of course trans lives matter – scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow. There’s joy, relief and safety in conformity. As Simone de Beauvoir also wrote, “… without a doubt it is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one’s liberation; the dead, too, are better suited to the earth than the living.”

Huge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists; I know this because so many have got in touch with me to tell their stories. They’re afraid of doxxing, of losing their jobs or their livelihoods, and of violence.

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

The one thing that gives me hope is that the women who can protest and organise, are doing so, and they have some truly decent men and trans people alongside them. Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women’s concerns at their peril. In the UK, women are reaching out to each other across party lines, concerned about the erosion of their hard-won rights and widespread intimidation. None of the gender critical women I’ve talked to hates trans people; on the contrary. Many of them became interested in this issue in the first place out of concern for trans youth, and they’re hugely sympathetic towards trans adults who simply want to live their lives, but who’re facing a backlash for a brand of activism they don’t endorse. The supreme irony is that the attempt to silence women with the word ‘TERF’ may have pushed more young women towards radical feminism than the movement’s seen in decades.

The last thing I want to say is this. I haven’t written this essay in the hope that anybody will get out a violin for me, not even a teeny-weeny one. I’m extraordinarily fortunate; I’m a survivor, certainly not a victim. I’ve only mentioned my past because, like every other human being on this planet, I have a complex backstory, which shapes my fears, my interests and my opinions. I never forget that inner complexity when I’m creating a fictional character and I certainly never forget it when it comes to trans people.

All I’m asking – all I want – is for similar empathy, similar understanding, to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.

The following Tweet sums up J.K. Rowling's opinions of trans people.


Tweet

Anyone who isn't insane can see that her views are milquetoast at worst. Her criticism on transsexuality legislation and gender in general are very tame compared to even some of the most accepting people who browse the Farms, 4Chan, 8Chan, etc. Her blog garnered a mass of more criticism, including hundreds of articles from online publications that claim she's a hateful bigoted TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist), attacking her further for 'doubling down' on her bigotry, and a variety of similar screeching diatribes. These articles are written constantly, with some published within days of this thread being written.

Even with all this negative publicity however, J.K. Rowling has received a plethora of support from women across the Western world. One even got fired from her job due to her saying that 'J.K. Rowling is my woman of the year'. Not just women support her either. The actor of fan favorite character from the Harry Potter series Hagrid, Robbie Coltrane, wrote in defense of Rowling. The following quote is from an article by Insider.

"I don't think what she said was offensive really," Coltrane said during an interview with the Radio Times that was seen by Pink News. "I don't know why, but there's a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended. They wouldn't have won the war, would they?"

He added: "That's me talking like a grumpy old man, but you just think: 'Oh, get over yourself. Wise up, stand up straight, and carry on.'"

Coltrane then continued to say he did not want to speak on the issue any further "because of all the hate mail and all that s--- which I don't need at my time of life."

Rowling's blog post even won the Russel Prize for Best Writing from the BBC. This, shockingly, caused immense online backlash and further articles were written about it. Rowling's next book, about a serial killer pretending to be a woman to get close to victims, incited more backlash. Over the last two years J.K. Rowling has had trans activists show up to her house and dox her (Much like Dear Feeder, actually), received a plethora of death threats, and even had people telling her they hoped her house would be bombed.



Tweet

As shown above, Rowling's refusal to bow to the mob has made her a much hated figure in transsexual and adjacent circles, even though she is widely supported by women across the world who find trans activists and their aggressive, misogynistic actions terrifying. With her stance on the issue unchanging, it brought her into contact with one of the best known pedophile, and horse fucker, with a Kiwi Farms thread.


Vaush Thread (Plz don't shit it up with anymore Rowling talk, that's what this thread is for)

Being the enlightened son of Silicon Valley tech employees, Vaush has been championing the rise of Socialism for years, in addition to lowering the age of consent and wanting to fuck horses. Various screenshots, and audio and video clips show Vaush holding these views, and the thread has archives of them for those curious. The Tweet that got him involved with Rowling is below.



This Tweet did not go well for Vaush, as soon after Rowling responded, and clips of his support for child pornography and fucking horses have been widely circulating across Twitter and other social media sites.


Tweet

The sudden mass attention has been bad for Vaush, whose disturbing takes on children have led to notable publications exposing it to a much wider, normal audience rather than the sycophant's who constantly defend him. One article from the Post Millennial even states in it's title that he's a 'Suspected Pedophile'. Predictably, grifters from the right wing sphere of Twitter hopped in and sent more clips to these publications. Ian Miles Cheong sent clips of Vaush to the publication and it was featured in the article itself.

Despite him being a freak, Vaush is correct about Rowling in his first Tweet. All she had to do to avoid this was bend the knee to the trans mob. She could have just gone on as is with no issues for her personally. She's immensely wealthy, is re-married and her children are doing very well in their respective fields. She could have just said nothing and avoided this shitshow from the start, but she didn't, and the meltdowns and tantrums have been a near constant for going on three years now. Rowling is, however, heavily invested both financially and personally with children's charities in the UK, and it seem that she genuinely sees the problems arising from the cascade of gender affirming nonsense that has absolutely plagued public life in the last half decade. She stated her views, and unlike so many other people she refused to back down. Perhaps it's only because she's in a position of immense financial privilege, and unlike many others whose lives have been utterly destroyed by this same mob she is immune from their attempts at de-platforming and public stigmatization. Regardless of what her wealth affords her to do, many are glad she's taken the stance she has.

If you have any material that concerns J.K. Rowling herself post it for discussion. This includes news articles, YouTube videos and vids from YT alternative sites like Odysee, livestreams, social media posts, etc. If the last couple years are anything to go by there won't be a drought in content anytime soon.

J.K. Rowling Socials and General Information
Her Official Website
Twitter
Facebook
Wikipedia

Thank you so very much @Pyre for the new OP

 

[Ratzinger]

Spoiler

Dumbledore and Grindelwald meet to talk about the upcoming events and their past. D says he had to leave because "I was in love with you." G says that's not the real reason and then he leaves.

That's it.

Nobody should get offended or mad at this, all the opposite, we should laugh at the cheap attempt of pandering.

With shit like this I always assume it's done with the chinese market in mind. Usually it's a small scene that can entirely be cut or it's ambiguous enough to not matter. In this case they just have to translate "I loved you" into the chinese for "you were my best friend" and they don't have to cut a second of actual footage.
People who critizise this practice on woke grounds never seem able to utter the C word though, it's always just individual creatives being homophobic for no reason.
For all we know JK might have wanted to make this a bigger deal, but someone told her how much that would hurt performance and she relented.
It's like when she gets critizized for that Star of David thing as if she personally ordered that shot composition.

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

The actual gay scene btw, it's very blink and miss. If you didn't know Dumbledore was gay (and if you're someone who only reads the books and doesn't follow media interviews), you're probably gonna miss it.

The kids were watching, I was doing something else, I will probably watch it later with more attention in case I missed any other reference, but it goes like this:

Spoiler

Dumbledore and Grindelwald meet to talk about the upcoming events and their past. D says he had to leave because "I was in love with you." G says that's not the real reason and then he leaves.

That's it.

Nobody should get offended or mad at this, all the opposite, we should laugh at the cheap attempt of pandering.

People should be more mad on how fucking boring the movie was. The script was awful overall. Could've been a nice 1 hr 40...instead of a 2 hour plus slog fest

 

[Positron]

 

[CatParty]

https://california18.com/jk-rowling-created-the-potter-saga-and-with-her-hatred-of-trans-people-she-destroyed-it/4291382022/

JK Rowling created the Potter saga and with her hatred of trans people, she destroyed it​

At a press conference back in 2007, JK Rowling, the then universally adored creator of the Harry Potter saga, revealed that she always thought one of the most beloved characters in her books and movies, Albus Dumbledore, was gay. We had to wait 15 years, until the new movie from the Potter universe, the recently released Dumbledore’s Secrets, to see how the mighty great wizard confessed his love for another man.

The scene in question, like the film itself, was a major disappointment, running so short that, in an act of betrayal on the part of the producers, it could be removed from the version shown in China without the dramatic progression of the film would be altered By this time, however, Rowling’s – and by extension, the Potter brand’s – problems with the LGBT+ community were much more serious.

Before continuing, a confession. Throughout my adolescence I fervently read the Harry Potter novels, and I secretly wanted to find characters who were LGBT+ in one of the installments of that story that I loved and felt as my own. Being a trans and bisexual man in the closet, not only could I not inhabit my own world freely, but I also felt that in that other world there was no place for people like me either. In the Potter universe, the most fanciful and imaginative scenarios are commonplace, but when it comes to gender and identity, everything was conservatively cis and straight.

However, despite the absence of direct representation, many members of the LGBT+ community saw themselves in that boy who comes out of a cupboard under the stairs – first with his family and then with the world – he faces dark forces and finds others who live the same on his way than him, all while trying to understand what those changes are that he is experiencing.

But that world, which was such an important part of my life and helped me feel less alone for a long time, is now destroyed. I’ll always treasure the memories I made with other LGBT+ fans of the series, but I just can’t help but think of all the author’s violent comments about trans people every time something related to the Potter universe comes up. The magic ran out, and it was Rowling herself who was responsible for destroying the enchantment.

It is easy to talk about separating the work and the author when we are speaking from the theory. It is much more difficult to do it when the author in question reproduces hate speech that threatens your existence. And it is that in recent times, the views of Rowling, once considered a humanist, have become increasingly conservative – although disguised as radical feminism.

The peak of this radicalization -until now- occurred at the beginning of April this year, when in the United Kingdom the prohibition of conversion therapies for LGB people, excluding trans people, was being debated. A few years ago, when the first accusations against her began to appear, the British writer categorically rejected being transphobic and promised that she would always raise her voice in defense of trans people.

The marches that took place regarding the exclusion of trans people from the conversion therapy ban were the ideal moment to demonstrate that, as she had sworn, she was not a transphobe. Rowling, however, had nothing to say.

Not only that. While this was happening, the writer organized a lunch at the River Café, an exclusive restaurant in west London, together with a group of outrageous activists and critics of “gender theory” (sic). One of the participants, Helen Joyce, author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, anti-trans bible, shared the photos of the meeting saying that she had celebrated her “sisterhood” with Rowling.

Many of us wonder how things could have gotten to this point, but the truth is that Rowling’s public displays of transphobia did not start overnight. “It was a mistake, a moment of clumsiness of a great person” an assistant of hers excused her at the time in statements to the newspaper The Sun after his followers noticed a like from his Twitter account to a post that treated trans women as “men in dresses.” It was curious, because Rowling’s allegedly accidental likes were increasingly destined for transphobic comments.

Many fans wanted to ignore what was happening, trying to exaggerate the trans people who warned about these signs, while others claimed that their books had actually been written by ghost writersattempting to conjure up an alternate universe where Rowling had not created the wizard boy, and therefore the stain of her hatred of trans people could not touch Harry Potter.

While we readers hoped this was the end of his TERF era, what followed was the complete opposite. In June 2020 and in the midst of the pandemic, the final break occurred. The writer shared an article about the post-Covid world that talked about the need to create an equitable environment for “people who menstruate”. It was that inclusive term for women that infuriated her, writing on Twitter: “’Menstruating people.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Somebody help me. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?

According to Rowling, when talking about people who menstruate, women are erased (“women”, in English), instead of incorporating other groups. The magical world that I loved so much was falling apart while I verified how the favorite author of my adolescence was annoyed that I, as a trans man, was included in something as basic as a term to be named in public and health policies. What Rowling does not understand is that making someone visible does not mean eliminating another, and that our lives are not numbers in a zero-sum game.

From that moment on, her contempt for trans people became increasingly explicit, and her fixation with the subject reached the level of obsession, causing, among other things, that she was not invited to the special reunion of the cast of the films. from Harry Potter that aired earlier this year on HBO Max (Daniel Radcliffe himself, who played Potter, said that trans women were women, and that any statement contrary to that idea denied the dignity of trans people). Rowling, who was portrayed in some reactionary corners as a victim of “cancel culture” (Putin himself recently came to her defense) had become a toxic asset.

As depressing as it has been to watch her spend her spare time tearing down trans rights as a hobby, I don’t think I have enough authority to say that someone can’t see his movies anymore, or that his works should be boycotted.

But those who continue to support Rowling, that is, helping her to continue generating an economic profit and therefore to continue being a person with power, They must be clear that they are collaborating with the dissemination of hate speech that misinforms and puts us in danger.

The Potter universe may be damaged – the lackluster box office Dumbledore’s secrets This seems to indicate it – but the real problem is that its creator, a woman with still great influence, does not respect the right to live of trans people. And history has given us enough examples that hate speech is not limited to mere rhetoric, and that it is only the prelude to more violence and death.

The author is a journalist and writer. In June he will publish his first book, “I was always there”, by the Aguilar label.

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/harry-potter-trans-rights/

Why I’m picking trans* rights over Harry Potter​

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K.Rowling describes the worst punishment that exists in the Wizarding World – the Dementor’s Kiss. The procedure involves the removal of your soul from your body, leaving you with nothing but corporeal reality. Your essence, in other words, is destroyed. Rowling wrote that the human body in and of itself is worthless, that it is nothing without the soul, that it is a fate worse than death: a life merely existing in a body without an identity is not worth living.

During childhood I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the overwhelming discomfort one feels in the sex they were assigned at birth. This isn’t something I talk about often – certainly not publicly, because it’s part of my private medical history. The current climate around gender and sex in Britain, especially ‘gender critical’ campaign groups, no longer respects that privacy and has forced trans* [trans* is inclusive of a wide spectrum of gender identies including gender-fluid, agender as well as transsexual and transgender] people to be open about their identities when their rights are under threat to protect themselves and others.

View more

While I have never seen the Harry Potter books as works of great literature, what they offered to me as a child was a story through which I could explain my feelings. Like many children of my generation, I tried to find myself within the Potter world. Of course, I was Hermione – a girl unafraid to be clever and to show that off to others, to be bookish despite it not being ‘cool’.

Hermione was a ‘mudblood’, someone who didn’t come from magical privilege, and had to prove that she belonged as much as her ‘pureblood’ classmates, which she does through academic excellence. This is one way Harry Potter resonates with young people – the books offer reassurance that you can come to terms with your identity later in life, and that you can find a community of similar people who understand you.

I believe that everyone who feels a disconnect between their gender and their sexed body should be supported in transitioning to whatever degree is right for them. I believe that we as a society should not distinguish or discriminate between those who have undergone processes of transition and those who have not. To paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir, we all become, rather than are born, a man or a woman.

This is not a belief that J.K. Rowling shares. In 2018 she liked a tweet that described trans women as “men in dresses”, which her spokesperson claimed was a mistake made in a “middle-aged moment”. At the end of 2019, she voiced her support through Twitter of Maya Forstater, whose work contract had not been renewed after she claimed “men cannot change into women”. Since then she has criticised gender-neutral language, endorsed gender critical activists and organisations, and reprimanded members of the Labour party for including trans women within their definitions of, well, women.

Every time you buy a Harry Potter book or pay to see a Fantastic Beasts film, you contribute directly to the growth of Rowling’s power.

Rather than a single incident, it is the persistency and aggression of Rowling’s tweets and actions that have made her a threat to trans* people. I sympathise with Potter fans who struggle to let go of the world Rowling created because it has been one into which people have projected themselves and felt represented. This has been felt on such a scale that many fans believe Rowling should leave her work behind, and stop creating new stories in her Wizarding World.

That day may come, but while Rowling remains financially and creatively tethered to the franchise, it is impossible to distinguish the art from the artist. Every time you buy a Harry Potter book or pay to see a Fantastic Beasts film, you contribute directly to the maintenance and growth of Rowling’s power.

As an adult, I have identified with Rowling herself, as a fellow survivor of sexual assault. My own trauma has left me with anxiety and depression, and a complex distrust of men. When I was diagnosed with complex PTSD, it transpired that I could not even begin processing the abuse I had suffered until my transition was complete because the dysphoria itself was traumatic.

As a result, spaces apart from cis males are important for me, as they are for many women, non-binary, and trans* people. I have felt sympathy for Rowling when she has voiced concern at the apparent intention to dissolve these safe spaces, something she has written about at length.

What I cannot sympathise with is the move from a rational fear of abuse to an irrational fear which sees all people, or in Rowling’s case pre-operative trans women, as potential abusers. That because you have been abused by a “penised individual” – to use a phrase from one of Rowling’s own tweets – does not mean all people with penises are going to abuse you.

We have to decide which side of history we are on and impose boycotts and sanctions on those who oppose trans* rights. That includes J.K. Rowling.

In recent weeks, Rowling has made repeatedly clear her connection to the gender critical movement – which promotes the view that sex is biological and immutable – that continues to grow and gain momentum. Earlier this month, Rowling dined with the figureheads of this movement on the same day thousands protested against the government’s announcement that trans* people would not be protected by an upcoming ban on conversion therapy in the UK. In 2020 Rowling had said that she would march for trans* rights if they were being discriminated against.

It has been argued that the words Rowling has used are confined to Twitter, and therefore cannot do any real harm. However, reports have been published proving that the mental health of trans* and cis people have been affected by ‘gender critical’ rhetoric, including most recently in The Guardian. Moreover, the citation of Rowling by leaders such as Vladimir Putin, as well as others in America, as they target discriminatory policies against trans* people only reinforces the direct line of connection that exists between her words and real-world actions.

The fact is that trans* people at all stages of transition are currently living in an intense state of fear. Where reform and progress had been promised and enacted over the past decade, we now see violent backlash akin to the ‘gay panic’ of the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher. As this climate intensifies, we have to decide which side of history we are on and impose boycotts and sanctions on those who oppose trans* rights. That includes J.K. Rowling.

When I transitioned, I made a definitive break with the past. The most recent stage of that process has been to let my connection to Rowling and her works die with it, while making my peace with the significance they once held for me. I invite you to do the same – after all, to use Rowling’s own words, one cannot live while the other survives.

 

[Phimosis Jonisis]

Its incredible how quickly this bitch went from peak cringe rich celebrity to the one of the most based famous people around

 

[teriyakiburns]

Its incredible how quickly this bitch went from peak cringe rich celebrity to the one of the most based famous people around

She barely changed her position, too. That should scare anyone with even the smallest amount of sense, because what was mainstream, vaguely left-wing thought just five years ago makes you a nazi now.

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

jesus fucking christ, those 2 articles are some whiney bullshit

But those who continue to support Rowling, that is, helping her to continue generating an economic profit and therefore to continue being a person with power, They must be clear that they are collaborating with the dissemination of hate speech that misinforms and puts us in danger.

Hope whoever wrote this article is self sustaining themselves because with their idiotic logic, they'll need to live off the grid without anything but their mental illness thoughts.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Probably nothing, but it gave me a chuckle.

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

delusional

 

[Troonologist PhD]

But those who continue to support Rowling, that is, helping her to continue generating an economic profit and therefore to continue being a person with power, They must be clear that they are collaborating with the dissemination of hate speech that misinforms and puts us in danger.

Best reason to be a Rowling fan.

 

[CatParty]

Vandals trash London restaurant after JK Rowling attends event at sister eatery

A restaurant in London has been vandalised after the owner voiced his support for JK Rowlingduring a transgender row.

The Harry Potter author attended a charity fundraiser with journalist Suzanne Moore at the Pino restaurant in Kensington earlier this week.

Both have voiced gender-critical opinions but raised £18,500 for the Ukrainian children’s charity, Lumos during the week and were thanked by owner, James Chiavarini, 42.

However, just days after the fundraiser, Il Portico, the sister restaurant of Pino, was vandalised in the early hours of Friday.

Mr Chiavarini, who owns both eateries, tweeted: “In the same week as the online accusations of [me] being a homophobe for sticking up for J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Moore, someone has smashed in the windows at Portico and ransacked the place.

"Could obviously be a coincidence, but what a few days!"

In the same week as the online accusations of being homophobe for sticking up for JK Rowling and Suzanne Moore, followed the fake bad reviews, now someone has smashed in the windows at portico and ransacked the place. Could obviously be a coincidence, but what a few days! pic.twitter.com/b1PXOvEnEU
— James Chiavarini (@ilporticolondon) June 3, 2022

In a tweet following the image, Mr Chiavarini clarified that the glass was tempered and smashed from the outside.

Mr Chiavarini added: "The organised pile on from extremist TRAs [trans right activists] is real for everyone to see. They have slandered by business and my character with false accusations in an attempt at vengeance because I (proudly) stand with Suzanne Moore and JK Rowling, both of whom I admire and respect greatly.

A massive thank you to James Chiavarini (@ilporticolondon) who hosted a fabulous fundraising dinner at Pino for @lumos’s Ukraine appeal last week, raising £18,500!
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 29, 2022

"The ransacking of my business happened the same week as the pile on. As things stand, it is impossible to prove that the two are related.

"I suspect that I will never know for sure. For now, there is no hard evidence, only a coincidence."

The restaurant has been hit with a string of bad online reviews since the fundraising dinner.

“If you’re trans, you’re not welcome here,” states one review, while another accuses the restaurant of being ‘a supporter of transphobia.”

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

And with that the sister restaurant became famous and more people are going to eat there because it's now associated with JK Rowling.

Also any restaurant where troons aren't welcome is worth a visit. These insane fuckers & their braindead asskissers really think the rest of the world cares about them.

If I see a restaurant near me with bad online reviews by troons I would eat there.

 

[Troonologist PhD]

But transgenderism absolutely isn't a mental illness and has no correlation with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That's just hateful TERF lies

 

[Xolanite]

https://twitter.com/catgraffam/status/1542506206983426049?s=21&t=-kMeOBgd68InIWSy72QcvQ

Cat Graffam on Twitter: "I created this week’s cover of POLITICO Euro…

archived 1 Jul 2022 13:43:25 UTC

archive.ph

https://t.co/SBWDcJzREn
[The Metamorphosis of JK Rowling - Politico]

The metamorphosis of J.K. Rowling – POLITICO

archived 1 Jul 2022 13:46:56 UTC

archive.ph

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

https://twitter.com/catgraffam/status/1542506206983426049?s=21&t=-kMeOBgd68InIWSy72QcvQ

Cat Graffam on Twitter: "I created this week’s cover of POLITICO Euro…

archived 1 Jul 2022 13:43:25 UTC

archive.ph

https://t.co/SBWDcJzREn
[The Metamorphosis of JK Rowling - Politico]

The metamorphosis of J.K. Rowling – POLITICO

archived 1 Jul 2022 13:46:56 UTC

archive.ph

EDINBURGH
WHEN IT COMES TO J.K. ROWLING, even some of the children’s author’s biggest fans are finding it increasingly necessary to separate the work from the creator.
Join the Potter Trail walking tour in her adopted hometown of Edinburgh, and you’ll learn that Rowling wrote much of the first Harry Potter novel at Nicolsons Cafe. The establishment was co-owned by her brother-in-law — so as a broke, recently divorced single mother, she could nurse cheap espresso all day without guilt for taking up a table.
You’ll also be told how, as a bestselling author 12 years later, Rowling treated herself to exclusive luxury while finishing her last novel, at a suite in the five-star Balmoral Hotel just half a mile up the road. On a cold, blustery Wednesday in February, a Potter Trail guide named Alex recounted how Rowling downed a bottle of champagne by herself to celebrate the triumphant moment, “because she’s a legend.”

The tour is free, but wizarding fans are encouraged to provide an optional “donation” (£10 to £20 recommended, cards accepted). A proportion goes to the Scottish Trans Alliance, an activist group promoting rights for transgender people.
“Many of you may be aware of JK Rowling’s recent tweets concerning transgender issues,” reads an explanation on the tour group’s website. “It’s a difficult time to be a Harry Potter fan for many but we sincerely wish JK Rowling’s views not to diminish our appreciation of the books and their messages of inclusion and tolerance.”
The disclaimer is a quiet but unambiguous protest against Rowling’s buzziest body of work since her blockbuster series of schoolboy sorcery. It’s also a tiny but telling example of how, in a few short years, the author has gone from being an unobjectionable matron of the political left to one of its most hated villains.
Rowling’s views — and her willingness to exchange biting blows with her online critics — have been denounced by fans as transphobic, a betrayal of the values of tolerance they learned from her books. Stars of the Harry Potter movies have disavowed her statements; celebrities have taken their distance; major websites devoted to the wizarding world have said they’d stop writing about her. (On the other side of the spectrum, Russian President Vladimir Putin has bemoaned that she’s been “canceled.”)
None of this seems to have given Rowling pause — or done much to put a crimp in her commercial prospects. Twenty-five years after the publication of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” her books continue to fly off the shelves. The third installment of the Harry Potter spin-off “Fantastic Beasts” hit theaters in March. If anything, as the criticism has mounted, Rowling has only become more combative, cheerfully retweeting her detractors to trigger pile-ons from fellow thinkers.
What’s more: When it comes to driving the debate, she seems to be winning. Asked earlier this year by an anonymous poster whether her battle was a hill she wanted her legacy to die on, she answered tartly:
“Yes, sweetheart. I’m staying right here on this hill, defending the right of women and girls to talk about themselves, their bodies and their lives in any way they damn well please,” she tweeted. “You worry about your legacy, I’ll worry about mine ”
* * *

FOR MOST OF HER CAREER, Rowling sat politically in the milquetoast center left.
In a speech to Harvard graduates in 2008, she described her first job out of university, at Amnesty International, where the personal testimonies of African political prisoners and victims of torture stirred her soul. She told the Ivy League graduates that their elite status and influence is “your privilege, and your burden” and exhorted them to use it “on behalf of those who have no voice.”
In 2010, she wrote movingly of having relied on the welfare state when her “life hit rock bottom,” explaining why she was happy to keep paying British taxes: “This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.”
Indisputably, Rowling has been extraordinarily generous. She famously gave so much to charity in 2011 — 16 percent of her net worth — that she was knocked off the Forbes billionaires list the next year. Most recently, she pledged to match up to £1 million in donations to her charity Lumos for its work helping vulnerable children in Ukraine.
When it comes to politics, Rowling hasn’t hesitated to invoke her fiction to talk about her real-world views, or to issue post-hoc clarifications in defense of the moral legacy of the world she created.
In October 2007, a few weeks after the seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter series was published, Rowling announced that Hogwarts’ beloved headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is gay and had fallen in love with a fellow wizard. In 2015, when the Black British actor Noma Dumezweni was cast to play Hermione Granger in a play, Rowling tweeted “Rowling loves black Hermoine,” noting that the text had never specified the character’s skin color. The following year, she said she had made a popular character a werewolf as a metaphor for the stigma of HIV.
Rowling’s views have, until recently, been unambiguously left-leaning. However, when she has waded directly into electoral politics, it has typically been in defense of the status quo. It’s a fact that has caused increasing tension with her younger, more progressive fan base.
During the debate over Scottish independence — predominantly a left-wing cause — Rowling fell behind those advocating to remain in the United Kingdom. One hundred days before the 2014 independence referendum, she donated £1 million to the effort — which was run by her personal friend and neighbor, the Labour Party politician Alistair Darling — and wrote an essay on her website to explain her position.
The gist: The imagined rewards weren’t worth the very real risks (including to the Scottish medical research that she’d heavily invested in). And to any nationalists who would deem her inadequately Scottish to merit an opinion, she wrote that was “a little Death Eaterish for my taste.”
The response on Twitter was venomous; Rowling later remembered being called a “‘traitor,’ ‘whore’ and ‘bitch,’ told to go back where I came from.”
Two years later, with another referendum on the horizon, she waded into the Brexit debate, in defense of staying in the European Union. Saying that she’s not an expert in much but does “know how to create a monster,” she compared the villainous specter of the EU evoked by the Leave campaign to Hannibal Lecter, Big Brother and her own Lord Voldemort.
After the Brexit result, she turned her fire on Jeremy Corbyn — the bearded, professorial hard leftist who as leader of the Labour Party had declined to take a clear stance on the issue. Responding to a tweet by a fan who described Corbyn as a “political Dumbledore,” she answered, “I forgot Dumbledore trashed Hogwarts, refused to resign and ran off to the forest to make speeches to angry trolls.”
A month later, as it became clear that Corbyn would fend off a post-Brexit-vote leadership challenge, she followed up with another tweet: “Corbyn. Is. Not. Dumbledore.”
In a preview of the slugfests she would later engage in on trans rights, she spent much of the following hours responding to attacks from Corbyn supporters with blasts of her own. “I’m going nowhere!” she tweeted in response to one piece of criticism. “Little known fact about filthy bourgeois neoliberal centrists – we’re tougher than you’d think ”
Rowling’s interactions that day also foreshadowed another aspect that would become apparent as she engaged with her online opponents: a willingness to use the power of her platform against relatively powerless detractors. By directing her then-8 million followers toward “fairly anodyne critics,” Rowling “behaved irresponsibly,” Guardian columnist Ellie Mae O’Hagan wrote in 2016.
* * *

WHEN SOMEBODY IS AS FAMOUS AS ROWLING, even the smallest online gesture will be parsed over, reacted to and criticized.
The Harry Potter author’s first foray into the trans-rights debate was ambiguous: a “like” on a tweet she later described as accidental. The March 2018 tweet in question was by a Labour Party activist, and it referred to trans women as “men in dresses.” Rowling’s liking of it was set upon by LGBTQ+ activists as evidence of transphobia.
It was just a “clumsy and middle-aged moment,” a Rowling spokesperson told PinkNews, saying the author hit “like” while holding her phone incorrectly. Rowling later acknowledged this wasn’t the complete truth — she’d meant to privately screenshot the tweet to research it later, rather than visibly “like” it.
Her official entrance into the debate came about a year and a half later, when Rowling came to the defense of Maya Forstater. An obscure global development expert, Forstater had lost her contract at a think tank after a series of tweets her coworkers felt were transphobic, including one that stated “that men cannot change into women.”
“Dress however you please,” Rowling tweeted in December 2019. “Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotaDrill.”
Rowling’s message blew what had been a small, national story into an international furor, with people on both sides quick to weigh in, sometimes aggressively. When someone sent Forstater the tweet over WhatsApp, she thought, “Somebody made that to cheer me up. And then I saw that it was real. And, you know, the Internet was going crazy… just all these likes and retweets.”
The media started showing up at Forstater’s doorstep, and the glaring coverage was often hostile. “It was a complete shock,” she said.
Yet she wasn’t “averse” to the attention Rowling drew to her.
“She didn’t really know anything about me,” Forstater said. “But she must have looked and gone, ‘Is this person going to crumble if I do this?’ Because that is a huge thing to shine that light on somebody.”
Rowling herself was at first cowed by the blowback. She stayed relatively quiet — later citing the need to protect her mental health from the abuse — until June 2020, when she posted another missive: a tweet linking to an article headlined “Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate,” an example of language intended to be an inclusive catchall for both biological women and trans men.
“‘People who menstruate,’” Rowling mused. “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
A few days later, she followed up with a 3,700-word essay laying out the reasons why she was so “worried about the new trans activism” and the effort “to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.
“The ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning,” Rowling wrote. “I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.”
She was concerned, she added, about the “huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning.” She described her own struggles with feeling “mentally sexless” as a youth. “I too might have tried to transition,” Rowling wrote, if she’d been born 30 years later. Given a supportive online community, Rowling mused, “I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.
“Transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people,” she wrote. But she worried that too many checks were being removed too quickly. “The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass.”
Specifically, Rowling cited her concern about a proposal by the Scottish government to allow people to self-identify as a new gender, rather than get a medical diagnosis. Doing that, she said, would make women less safe. “When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman,” she wrote, “then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.”
Rowling said she could understand why trans women seek safe spaces. “At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe,” she said, by letting men declare themselves legally women.
In support of her argument, she revealed her history as a survivor of both sexual assault and domestic violence. “I managed to escape my first violent marriage with some difficulty,” she wrote. (“I’m not sorry for slapping her,” her ex, Jorge Arantes, later told a U.K. tabloid, insisting that there was no “sustained abuse.”)
* * *

ROWLING COULDN’T HAVE WADED into a more bitter battle, or a more intractable one. Both sides see themselves as battling bigotry — and the other side as unwittingly supporting reactionary forces seeking to roll back decades of progressive advancement.
Heightening the tension is an explosion of referrals for gender-dysphoria services for children and young people in the U.K., which have gone from 50 in 2009 to 2,500 annually by 2020. The spike first started in 2014-2015, according to an interim report NHS gender services made public in March; the backlog now totals 4,600 people, who can expect about two years on the waitlist.
For trans-rights activists, those numbers reveal undercapacity in British health care. Growing caseloads are a welcome sign that more kids are comfortable seeking the help they need — and the system needs to respond with more resources and training for GPs, not moralizing or efforts to limit people’s choices.
Those on this side of the debate describe women like Rowling as “trans-exclusionary radical feminists,” or TERFs, an acronym that is deployed as a slur. In their view, references to sexual violence like Rowling’s are a textbook “dog whistle,” casting trans people as an insidious enemy to be feared — while sounding perfectly reasonable to the untrained ear.
They say that evocations like Rowling’s of bathrooms and changing rooms are a scare tactic and that phrases like “natal woman” and “single-sex spaces” undermine trans peoples’ legitimacy and fuel the idea that trans women are a threat. Efforts to block so-called gender-affirming care, they warn, could fray at laws that give women and girls control over their own bodies and gay people freedom to love as they please.
Rowling and other so-called gender-critical feminists (the more neutral term) see things differently. For them, the spike in reported gender dysphoria is evidence of persistent misogyny and homophobia. Fueled by TikTok, girls who hate their bodies can be persuaded that they are actually men, and men who desire men are given a chance to become straight women.
Efforts by trans activists to shut down any attempt to question whether so many people should be seeking to transition, their thinking goes, not only puts young girls at risk of making choices they’ll regret; it puts women in danger of men who adopt a trans identity in order to gain access to spaces that were previously off-limits.
The push to replace sex-based rights with gender is “the biggest threat to feminism that we’ve seen,” said Julie Bindel, the author of “Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation,” a book Rowling called “timely, necessary and important.”
After four decades in the activist trenches, Bindel said the toxicity of the debate is “exceptional,” because it creates a politically acceptable path for left-wing men to attack women — particularly older women. “The ideology has enabled men … to say that they are standing up for women, when in fact, what they’re doing is attempting to strip away all of our rights,” said Bindel.
“They’re screaming at feminists, ‘TERFS,’ when they want to say, ‘cunts,’” she said.
* * *

THERE’S LITTLE EVIDENCE that Rowling has suffered financially from her cancellation, but her stance has come with a personal cost.
Six days before Rowling tweeted her message in support of Forstater, she had been awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award for Human Rights for her work helping institutionalized children. The award, which was also bestowed on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was “one of the highest honors I have ever been given,” said Rowling as she accepted it.
If her youngest had been a boy, Rowling added, she’d have named him Robert, after Robert Kennedy. She said she picked the pen name she uses to write mystery novels, Robert Galbraith, “in tribute to my political hero.”
That’s according to a tweet that’s since been deleted by RFK Human Rights. After criticism from Kennedy’s daughter, who said Rowling’s “deeply troubling transphobic tweets and statements” represented a “repudiation of my father’s vision,” Rowling voluntarily gave up the prize in August 2020. No award “means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience,” she wrote.
The cascade of divorces by die-hard fans was just beginning.
“Transgender women are women,” proclaimed Daniel Radcliffe, schooling the woman, 25 years his senior, who created the character that launched his acting career; other Harry Potter stars piled on with similar messages. Obsessive fan sites MuggleNet and Leaky Cauldron announced they would stop posting fan art with her likeness and avoid coverage and purchase links not directly related to the “Wizarding World,” in a statement crafted with the LGBTQ+ advocacy groups GLAAD and the Trevor Project.
Just last week, during a junket at Warner Brothers Studios promoting a new Harry Potter-themed display, Britain’s Sky News was asked by the company’s press handlers not to bring up Rowling during an interview.
Rowling said she’s received “so many death threats I could paper my house with them.”
* * *

IF ANYBODY KNOWS WHAT IT’S LIKE to follow Rowling’s path from popular progressive to pariah, it’s Suzanne Moore. A former leftist columnist for the Guardian, she underwent a similar saga after she wrote a piece in March 2020 sticking up for a historian whose speech to a feminist conference was canceled due to links to a group opposed to gender self-identification.
Moore’s underlying message was a plea to focus on a shared mission: Fuck the patriarchy. “The materiality of having a female body may mean rape or it may mean childbirth — but we still seek liberation from gender,” Moore wrote. But it was also a defiant call to arms: “You can tell me to ‘die in a ditch, terf’ all you like, as many have for years, but I self-identify as a woman who won’t go down quietly.” She concluded, “There are more of us than you think.”
Apparently, Moore had fewer sisters in arms than she hoped for. Within a week of the column, 338 of her colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic signed a letter accusing the Guardian of being “hostile to trans rights and trans employees.” Moore left the Guardian voluntarily in November 2020.
With a CV that includes street activism on AIDS, bylines in Marxism Today and decades in journalism devoted to confronting the liberal Oxbridge elite on their failures toward the working class, Moore has always considered herself “radical and left” — now she’s accused of being “funded by Christian rightwing evangelicals,” she said.
Moore now writes a regular column in the Telegraph, a right-leaning newspaper. Between that and her Substack, she’s making more than she was before. Yet she’s still adjusting to the idea that the debate about trans rights has become “totemic” and may define her legacy.
“It doesn’t matter what I say or do,” she said. “I’m transphobic, I’m a TERF, I go around murdering trans people in my spare time. You know, that’s how I’m seen by certain people.” She and her daughters have faced threats of rape bad enough to call the police — and she asked one of her daughters if she wanted to drop the name Moore, lest she face cancellation-by-association-
Asked if the trans rights issue is the most important to her, given her long history of activism, Moore responded quickly: “No!” and burst into laughter. “No, that’s the thing. It’s become important.” The trans debate, she conceded, “pushed everything else out of the way.”
But if Rowling and Moore’s positions on trans issues have cost them friends, it has also attracted new ones, and brought them together. Moore and Rowling met in person for the first time in April, when they both joined a raucous gathering of bold-faced names from the gender-critical movement.
Notoriously private, Rowling flaunted the boozy brunch at the River Café on the Thames Wharf, tweeting photos with her arms draped around butch lesbians, backbenched left-leaning politicians and prominent polemicists. With glossy red hair and a plunging neckline, Rowling out-glammed them all, even as the poses got sloppier with each bottle of wine.
Admitting her recollection was hazy, Moore later reported in her Telegraph column that the speeches “were mostly about how wonderful it was to be together having felt so outcast.”
“Her power is real and it is global,” Moore wrote a week later to her paying Substack subscribers, reminding them she was no stranger to power, having met leaders like George W. Bush and Boris Johnson. “Rowling’s soft power feels pretty damn solid and yes of course its [sic] to do with money. But it is also to do with her steel.”
* * *

FOR THOSE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DEBATE, what Moore describes as “steel” can very often look like cruelty. While Rowling’s critics haven’t held back in their attacks, the Harry Potter author hasn’t hesitated from responding in kind — at least when it involves punching down.
She’s been silent in the face of high-profile slights from the stars of her movies. She said nothing after the blasphemously irreverent director John Waters singled out Rowling for cancellation, in an interview about his willingness to “defend the worst people in the world.” Rather than pick a fight with the bestselling author Stephen King when he said “transwomen are women,” she simply blocked him. Nor did she react publicly when the New York Times broached the idea of “imagining Harry Potter without its creator” in a February advertising campaign.
However, in April, Rowling responded to an amateur music video with lyrics “J.K. hope you fit in a hearse” by tweeting a public complaint — eliciting a howl of protest from the original poster (whose video was taken down by Twitter).
“The most powerful TERF in the world (billionaire, lives in castle, 14.1M followers) sent a mob after me (broke, lives with mom, 1.1k followers),” tweeted Faye Fadem, the bedroom producer behind the video and a trans woman. “She made a conscious choice to target me because she felt threatened by a young trans woman expressing herself. If u want to come in here and say ‘but u did death threat’ I’m an artist with 0 power expressing myself.”
Last year, Rowling accused three trans activists of “doxxing” her after they posted a photo of their protest in front of her Edinburgh mansion that included her address — easily discovered information. The activists took so much heat from Rowling’s followers that they deleted the photo — and their accounts.
Trans-rights advocates say Rowling, a self-professed expert at monster creation, is using those skills to whip up a false narrative that casts trans people as a threat to women and their rights.
Fiona Robertson, a Scottish National Party activist who worked on the proposed gender-identification overhaul that Rowling objected to, called the novelist’s intervention in the debate “a perfect campaign in terms of radicalizing people.” Rowling’s essay, Robertson said, kicked off a vicious circle, as “a huge influx of people with no grounding and no knowledge on this issue” adopted language perceived as hateful by the trans community — which responded by lashing back.
Skeptics of trans rights who had cast their objections as “just asking questions” found permission in Rowling’s letter to go “full in on the cruelty,” Robertson said. “It enabled and ennobled,” she added. “People felt like they had a champion on their side, and significantly a champion with a fuckton of money.”
* * *

EVEN AS SHE WAGES BATTLE ONLINE, Rowling has generally declined to allow herself to be meaningfully challenged. She thrust Forstater into the spotlight with a tweet and promoted the work of Bindel and Moore — all of whom agreed to interviews — but she has personally refused to engage when she doesn’t have full control over the text. “JKR isn’t doing interviews on this subject,” her publicist said.
On Twitter, however, it’s hard to escape the impression that Rowling is having a lot of fun. In 2015, she called the social media platform an “unmixed blessing, trolls included,” and there are few signs that sentiment has changed.
That might be because her side seems to be winning. Bindel described the fallout from Rowling’s essay as a watershed moment. “The tide has turned because now regular people with no engagement in feminism, or trans politics, or gender identity or any other kind, are now recognizing that this is a mob of bullies,” said Bindel. Rowling’s intervention, Robertson agreed, “caused one of the larger tipping points.”
In Scotland, Rowling’s essay was part of a wave of political pushback that forced the Scottish government to spend another couple of years shoring up (and watering down) its legislation on gender self-identification. The bill was published in March and remains the subject of heated debate.
In the U.K. more broadly, the definition of “woman” is on its way to becoming a full-fledged wedge issue — Prime Minister Boris Johnson cited “biology” in March, while top Labour pols have waffled when quizzed on that vocabulary. Meanwhile, cases like Forstater’s and Moore’s are becoming rarer, as their once-taboo positions become increasingly mainstream among the British left-leaning commentariat. At the Guardian, Sonia Sodha and Hadley Freeman write sympathetically about the gender-critical perspective.
And as much as Rowling and her British allies are angry about being equated to the American right, the bottom line is that their arguments are being used by conservatives in the U.S. pushing back against trans rights. Democrats warn that Republicans are gearing up to use so-called bathroom bills — state-level legislation to bar trans people from single-sex spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms — as a key front in the culture wars ahead of congressional elections in 2022.
In 2020, a right-wing Republican senator quoted Rowling’s essay to explain why he was voting against a bill that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of classes protected from discrimination.
“To say in the words of J.K. Rowling this past week where she wrote, ‘All I’m asking, all I want is for similar empathy, similar understanding to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats or abuse,’” Jim Lankford said on the Senate floor.
The measure remains blocked.
* * *

ROWLING MAY PROFESS TO BE UNCONCERNED about her legacy, but it’s becoming increasingly likely that her stance on trans rights — perhaps as much as her novels — will be what defines it.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Nicolsons Cafe, where Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, changed hands several times and at one point even closed. Today, it’s once again serving coffee and a budget-friendly bite for anybody looking to write the next blockbuster young adult series — or just bask in the afterglow of the last one.
The décor is devoted to Harry, not J.K., but there are some handwritten tributes to the author on Post-It notes stuck to the wall: “HP got my now 27-year-old to read. Now she is a teacher. Rock n Roll JKR,” reads one. Another, in Spanish, thanks her for creating the “marvelous world.” But there are complaints too: “We needed more Ravenclaw rep! JK is a turf! [sic]”
When a reporter approached a group of students who were discussing a project at a big table in the corner, most of them shrugged and said they hadn’t been paying much attention to the trans debate. But one of them, Francisca Escobar, an exchange student at the University of Edinburgh from Chile, had some understandably conflicted feelings to share.
Escobar, 33, is an artist who performs as a drag king. She’s got a trans sister. And she’s a big Harry fan — but maybe no longer so much an admirer of Rowling.
“Her books talk about inclusion and non discrimination,” Escobar said. “Then, J.K. said these trans people should be excluded. And I’m like, ‘Hey, are you Voldemort, or what?’”

---

BEHIND THIS WEEK’S COVER​

This week, POLITICO explored how J.K. Rowling’s participation in the debate on trans rights has transformed her public image.
For the cover art, we commissioned Cat Graffam, an artist and a trans woman, whose own relationship to the Harry Potter author mirrors that of many of Rowling’s fans. She explains the thinking behind the illustration:
“When I was commissioned to paint the cover art for this article on the metamorphosis of J.K. Rowling, I wanted to show how she’s been transformed in the eyes of at least some of her fans. As a trans woman and a feminist, it’s been painful to watch J.K. Rowling go from being the creator of a wholesome cultural touchstone to an antagonistic opponent of trans people. As with many other millennials, the Harry Potter books were a source of comfort and escape in my childhood. Now their author is actively hostile to my disenfranchised community. With her exorbitant wealth and her platform, she could have been an ally at a critical time. It feels like a betrayal.
“To capture that, I composed a black mass that envelops her from all sides, creating a sense that she is being overwhelmed by darkness. Trans people in the United States and the United Kingdom are seeing an escalating assault on our rights, and Rowling’s rhetoric and that of those who side with her are causing genuine harm. I wanted to use the darkness as a visual device to show how her antipathy toward trans people consumes her as she becomes increasingly radicalized. The black paint can also be viewed as the tarnishing of her career. The portrait underneath remains fairly traditional, to keep the emphasis on the overlaid brushstrokes. My goal was to produce a work that communicates my perspective while also inviting the viewer to critically analyze their own relationship to the issue and the person. I hope I succeeded.”

Author looks to be a shill for the EU too.

 

[Kiwisee]

Warner Brothers has officially come to the defence of JK Rowling

I wonder if this means that either they’re trying to save face after the Ezra Miller and Amber Heard debacle for business reasons, or they’re now seeing that they bet on the wrong horse when it came to the rainbow mafia.

Either way, I love how Rowling has become a figure of contempt to the very same people who once held her up as a woke slay queen.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

Warner Brothers has officially come to the defence of JK Rowling

I wonder if this means that either they’re trying to save face after the Ezra Miller and Amber Heard debacle for business reasons, or they’re now seeing that they bet on the wrong horse when it came to the rainbow mafia.

Either way, I love how Rowling has become a figure of contempt to the very same people who once held her up as a woke slay queen.

Did WB find their balls?? Can't wait for all the tranny screeching.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Our old friends at Clownfish TV cover it

 

[Gar For Archer]

Warner Brothers has officially come to the defence of JK Rowling

I wonder if this means that either they’re trying to save face after the Ezra Miller and Amber Heard debacle for business reasons, or they’re now seeing that they bet on the wrong horse when it came to the rainbow mafia.

Either way, I love how Rowling has become a figure of contempt to the very same people who once held her up as a woke slay queen.

Harry Potter is still a major cash cow that is still making money through merchandising, even though the last actual movie is more than a decade ago. I don’t know what kind of contract they signed to get the rights, but I would have to assume that JK has the time, money and means to make things very inconvenient for them if they threw her under the bus.

Did WB find their balls?? Can't wait for all the tranny screeching.

…and there’s also the fact that Warner Bros is now owned by Trump-loving hatchet-man David Zaslav, whose prime directive is running a profitable business, rather than political virtue-signaling in either direction. So yeah, there’s a very real case to be made that maybe WB DID “find their balls”… it just wasn’t their choice.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

Warner Brothers has officially come to the defence of JK Rowling

I wonder if this means that either they’re trying to save face after the Ezra Miller and Amber Heard debacle for business reasons, or they’re now seeing that they bet on the wrong horse when it came to the rainbow mafia.

Either way, I love how Rowling has become a figure of contempt to the very same people who once held her up as a woke slay queen.

I was hoping it was a firmer stance but it isn't. They just told the reporter to move on.

Warner Bros. Defends Jk Rowling at ‘Harry Potter’ Press Event Amid Transphobic Statements, ‘Proud’ to Work with Author​

• 30 June 2022
• by Samantha Bergeson
• Indiewire

Warner Bros. is continuing to stand by controversial “Harry Potter” author Jk Rowling after her series of transphobic comments.

During an anniversary of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” press conference with actor Tom Felton, a Sky News reporter was prohibited from asking about Rowling’s involvement. Felton was interviewed as part of the Mandrakes and Magical Creatures feature at Warner Brothers Studios.

Sky News reporter Claire Gregory asked, “And you’re sort of, you’re still, you and the other stars of the film, still very much the face of the franchise, if you like. We speak and hear from you guys. Jk obviously has sort of more of a back seat now. Is it strange for her being around at things like this?”

A third party public relations representative interjected before Felton could answer, saying, “Next question, please.”

The representative later added, “Jk Rowling is not connected to Warner or Tom Felton,