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

 

[TheNazgulKing]

View attachment 4054959
Not including troons must be illegal! REEEEEE genital inspections!!!

Because there are SO many troons out there that you couldn't clock without a genital inspection.

 

[Der weiße Teufel]

Because there are SO many troons out there that you couldn't clock without a genital inspection.

They really believe nobody can tell a (SLIGHTLY!!!) masculine woman from a whole-ass man.

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

They really believe nobody can tell a (SLIGHTLY!!!) masculine woman from a whole-ass man. View attachment 4055556

Now imagine a delusional rapist man with a wig and lipstick on, locked up in a shelter with women and girls.

 

[Al from Dadeville]

She replied “Merry Terfmas” to someone on Twitter Wednesday (A) and Reddit trannies are upset (A)

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

She replied “Merry Terfmas” to someone on Twitter Wednesday (A) and Reddit trannies are upset (A)
View attachment 4097499

HOW IN THE FUCK DID J.K. ROWLING, OF ALL PEOPLE, GET THIS BASED ON THE TROON QUESTION?!

 

[teriyakiburns]

HOW IN THE FUCK DID J.K. ROWLING, OF ALL PEOPLE, GET THIS BASED ON THE TROON QUESTION?!

She stayed still, while the bounds of acceptable speech moved past her.

 

[Clownish]

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1603815823289614336

Guys she said it.

J.K. Rowling just told a tranny to cope and seethe.

 

[Banquet Meal]

View attachment 4097979
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1603815823289614336

Guys she said it.

J.K. Rowling just told a tranny to cope and seethe.

that isnt a real tranny, its a satire account. (i have been spending way too much time on twitter as of late)
still funny though
edited because i spell like a retard

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

View attachment 4097979
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1603815823289614336

Guys she said it.

J.K. Rowling just told a tranny to cope and seethe.

it's actually real. omfg my sides.
Also archive: https://archive.vn/pacEn

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

Holy fucking hell she really did. I want to personally send her a Christmas present for that.

 

[DoubleD]

It seems JKR has been ramping up her bigotry to target the most marginalised of all the groups: trans gamers.

[Article link, Archive]

JK Rowling Mocks Trans Gamer For ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Comments​

Hogwarts Legacy WB

JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has become the most prominent face and voice in the world of anti-trans rhetoric, where she spends all day on Twitter sparring with critics and activists. Now, she’s gone after a prominent trans gamer for her thoughts on whether or not supporting an upcoming Harry Potter project like Hogwarts Legacy, the sprawling video game, is harmful because of this author’s views.

Rowling posted the following tweet, tagging Jessie Earl, accusing her of “purethink”:

Earl’s argument was actually that no you don’t need to burn the books or movies you already own, that may have comforted you long before Rowling’s recent turn, but now, buying something new like Hogwarts Legacy is knowingly supporting her directly.

WB and Portkey games have been trying to walk a fine line, saying that Rowling is not involved in the making of the upcoming game. And yet it’s obviously her world, and yes, she will be earning money from sales of the game, which as of now, are looking to be pretty massive, pushback aside, given that many people are simply excited to play what looks to be a sprawling, detailed Harry Potter game, and are content to ignore the views of the author.

Jessie is arguing you should not do that, and this is the subject of much debate in the industry right now, how Hogwarts Legacy should be covered or not covered in the wake of Rowling’s constant anti-trans rhetoric. But while to this point Rowling has not brought up Hogwarts Legacy itself much at all, these comments and the targeting of Jessie specifically will only add fuel to the fire and probably serve to reinforce the trans community’s argument to boycott the game. Rowling’s claim that the game is just “ANYTHING connected with her” is disingenuous. While we don’t know the exact terms of Hogwarts Legacy royalties, if that game is a huge hit, it is obviously going to make her a significant amount of money. Her comments about how this is the same thing as burning “anything with an owl on it and their own pet dogs” are clearly hyperbolic and leaps of logic that are not terribly coherent.

Hogwarts Legacy is due out on February 10, 2023, after a number of delays, and at least on the surface, it really does look like a Harry Potter fan’s dream. But those same fans have to reckon with Rowling who is now actively weighing into the “should you buy/play Hogwarts Legacy?” debate, and making a pretty good case that maybe no, you shouldn’t.

Update (12/19): Some additional context for all this, as this is what Portkey Games says on its official website, given how often the “what is JK Rowling’s involvement in Hogwarts Legacy?” question comes up:

“J.K. Rowling is not involved in the creation of the game, but as creator of the wizarding world and one of the world’s greatest storytellers, her extraordinary body of writing is the foundation of all projects in the Wizarding World. This is not a new story from J.K. Rowling, however we have collaborated closely with her team on all aspects of the game to ensure it remains in line with the magical experiences fans expect.”​

It’s a small amount of distance they put between them, but not much, and again, the question of royalties is not addressed. The exact revenue Rowling earns from Hogwarts Legacy will likely not be disclosed unless she herself discloses it. Meanwhile, the developers have confirmed that you can be a trans wizard within Hogwarts Legacy. Like many modern character-design systems, you can chose your body, voice and pronouns (in this case witch/wizard) independent of each other. This feature is often brought up during the debate which centers on whether the specific developers at Portkey making the game should be “punished” for Rowling’s views when they themselves don’t hold them. It’s caused many fans to wrestle with the question. Some like Jessie have made their positions clear, and Rowling’s new comments again are not really making the opposite case very compelling, even if yes, Portkey is separated out from her and she’s not writing the script here.

Quoting myself from Jessie's thread with the full context and Jessie's reaction:

So back in March of 2022, Jessie wrote this 4800-word piece for Gamespot [archive] on why you should wrestle with the moral complexity of playing a Harry Potter video game. He stopped short of recommending a boycott (probably because GameSpot earns a commission from the $60 purchase link at the top) but that is the message any would-be trans ally will take from it.

Spoiler: Long article is LONG

JK Rowling's Anti-Transgender Stance And Hogwarts Legacy​

With a brand-new Harry Potter game on the way, now is the time to unpack and try to understand the impact of franchise creator JK Rowling's discriminatory behaviour.

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At a glance, the Harry Potter series would appear to be in a healthy place. The lucrative Wizarding World franchise has a third Fantastic Beasts film coming, a TBS game show, an ongoing Broadway play, two theme parks, a potential live-action streaming series, and, most notably to gamers, a highly-anticipated return to the AAA gaming world with Avalanche Software's Hogwarts Legacy.

However, the franchise has, sadly, remained in the ever-present shadow of a larger conversation: creator JK Rowling's public support of anti-transgender rhetoric, as well as her support for the people and groups that spread it, all expressed on social media, her website, and in her activism. This has not been an isolated incident, but a continued stance for Rowling dating all the way back to 2018 and continuing into March 2022--at the time of writing--when she tweeted out misinformation around an upcoming vote in Scotland on gender identification issues, among numerous other tweets targeted at trans people.

While the conversation around trans issues may not directly affect most outside of the trans community, Rowling doubling down on trans issues has forced the topic to the forefront of many people's minds when it comes to the ongoing Harry Potter franchise. It has required many of us to think about whether we can still support the Harry Potter franchise in light of Rowling's discriminatory words and actions. What does supporting Rowling even mean? Furthermore, is supporting the Harry Potter franchise, which has grown beyond books written by a single author, still worthwhile given there are writers, producers, filmmakers, and developers who also contribute to the franchise, and many of them directly oppose Rowling's positions? Some of you may also be questioning if Rowling's words are harmful at all, given the intense politicization and seeming contradictory information being discussed around trans issues.

That's what I want to unpack, as much as I can. The goal of this article is not to provide a complete timeline of everything Rowling has ever said about trans people, but to touch upon some of the most important notes in Rowling's connection to these issues, as well as provide the larger context around transgender rights that Rowling's words sit within--specifically in the United States and the United Kingdom, and to investigate what all this means for those of us still excited for Harry Potter works like Hogwarts Legacy. The objective is not to provide you with an answer about how to feel, but to give you the tools needed to consider the questions yourself. There are no easy answers to be found here, outside of the necessity to support and protect those most vulnerable to harm.

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The course of the discourse​

Rowling's words have garnered her the support of "gender critical feminists" (GCF)*, who are sometimes known as "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" or TERFs. GCFs are a small but vocal movement defined by their opposition to what they term as "gender ideology," the denial of trans and nonbinary people's identities, opposition to legislation supporting trans people, and arguing that trans women, in particular, are simply men coopting womanhood in order to invade "women-only spaces" such as bathrooms, leading to what they believe is the erosion of cisgender** women's safety and rights. However, GCF's actions are not only misinformed about trans issues, but they also wield misinformation and rhetoric with an explicitly vitriolic and damaging intention, and do so towards the entire trans community, which itself is considered to be one of the most marginalized communities right now.

Given the complexity inherent within discussing gender issues and the misinformation spread about the transgender community, coupled with the current politicized discourse surrounding trans issues and attacks on trans rights within the United States, United Kingdom, and around the world, the discourse surrounding GCF and Rowling has often remained intensely polarized and opaque to the greater public. If Rowling's sentiments on trans people are brought up, people outside of the trans community can find themselves unsure how to explain why her words are harmful--with some arguing that Rowling is only "defending women" or "raising questions" about transgender issues, inadvertently downplaying the very real negative impact they have.

The intricacy within these conversations is often to the benefit of those spreading misinformation, as the complexities can be used to prevent an overt defense of or basic discussions surrounding the marginalized trans community. People instead are forced to sift through the rhetoric, as well as weed out misinformation, before being able to genuinely engage with the issues and feel able to commit to a viewpoint. This may be where most of you currently reading this find yourself in the discussion on transgender issues: unsure of what to believe or how best to approach these topics out of concern over what is correct. Or, potentially, given the politicized discourse surrounding these topics fueled by fear-mongering misinformation, someone may even find themselves actively hostile towards trans rights discussions, believing trans issues to be directly at odds with wider women's rights or even children's safety. Ironically, while Rowling's statements have been controversial in their platforming of much of this misinformation, they also provide a unique starting point to begin cutting through the discourse.

Gender critical feminists​

After several months of more indirect hints of anti-trans views, in June 2020 Rowling published an essay that directly reflected prevailing views and arguments of the gender-critical movement, thus garnering her a reputation as an anti-transgender influence. While the essay contained numerous misinformative statements that have been thoroughly debunked, there are a few noteworthy topics.

First and foremost, Rowling pointed toward the concept of "rapid onset gender dysphoria" (ROGD), which postulates that there has been a sudden influx in young girls suddenly identifying as transgender, seeing it as fashionable due to trans influencers on social media or in popular culture. This is a theory given scientific backing from a research study by controversial former Brown University assistant professor Lisa Litman. However, Litman's research methods (such as only surveying parents from online forums already explicitly concerned with rapid onset gender dysphoria) were immediately questioned by fellow researchers upon publication. While ROGD has been credibly debunked in numerous studies after the fact, many prominent GCFs continually cite Litman's work, such as in the 2020 book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier.

Shrier's book, alongside Rowling's essay and other GCFs discourse, use ROGD to inform their next concern: the detransitioner narrative. The argument is that many young girls who experience ROGD will pursue surgical intervention, such as breast reductions, only to later learn they are not transgender and regret making irreversible changes to their body, leading to depression or even suicidal thoughts. While this can happen, it is not common. First, children are rarely if ever given surgeries until they are of the age to consent, typically 18 or older, and often these surgeries require doctor and therapist authorization and one year of consideration before being performed. Most children below the age of consent are typically given access to a therapist or, if they are near puberty, sometimes prescribed safe puberty-blocking drugs with their doctor's oversight that simply delay their puberty long enough for them to consider if surgery is the right path for them. Additionally, the National Center for Transgender Equality found that only 0.4% of trans people detransitioned due to believing transition wasn't right for them, with most never having had surgical intervention; several other studies have found similar results. In fact, most detransitions were due to trans people facing discrimination, not a lack of desire to transition. While work should be done to prevent transition regret, doing so would require better and more knowledgeable gender-affirming care so doctors can better assess the correct path for trans patients. Indeed, this would also help the over 90% of trans people who find their lives improved both mentally and physically after transitioning. Many GCFs disingenuously frame detransitions as the most important issue in trans-related health care, presenting it as active and intentional child abuse, and using it to justify the removal of all access to trans health care.

“While GCFs will often publicly state they only believe "some" trans women will target cisgender women, their language implicates all trans women, often only discussing trans women in such contexts. It subtly frames all trans women as sexual predators and nothing else.

While these narratives mainly dealt with adolescent children assigned female at birth, Rowling and GCFs also focused on a different framing of transgender women: those assigned male at birth. In her essay, Rowling argued,"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."The argument made by Rowling and GCFs is that trans women, who they continually frame and misgender as "men appropriating womanhood," will use their status of being seen as women in order to "invade" women's spaces such as restrooms or women's prisons in order to assault and harass cisgender women.

GCFs also argue that trans women attempt to pressure lesbians into having sex with them. A BBC article citing a gender-critical organization presented this as widespread, despite the fact that the study on which it was based was only able to conclude "ultimately, it has been difficult to determine the true scale of the problem…" Despite that, the article framed the topic entirely around trans women's potential to sexually assault cisgender lesbians. The article itself led to widespread outcry against the BBC, including a protest led by trans activists.

While GCFs will often publicly state they only believe "some" trans women will target cisgender women, their language implicates all trans women, often only discussing trans women in such contexts. It subtly frames all trans women as sexual predators and nothing else.

The power of rhetoric​

While there are many more arguments used by GCFs, these narratives highlighted and spread by Rowling herself underscore the two biggest themes in all discourse surrounding trans people from these groups: that transgender childen, specifically "young girls," are victims of child abuse and trans women are simply male sexual predators. On top of that, they also often ignore nonbinary identities, simply referring to nonbinary people based on their assigned birth genders. While these narratives have the effect of infantilizing and ignoring the agency of transgender men in their own health care, the ramifications for transgender women are often directly dangerous.

GCFs often spread misinformation about trans women not because they're actively aware it's misinformation, but because they genuinely believe it to be true. Many GCFs, who are often women, will cite a traumatic history with misogyny or even sexual assault. Rowling herself includes a story in her essay about having faced abuse by an ex-husband. You'd be hard-pressed to find any woman, trans or otherwise, who has not felt the worry of harassment or assault in our world today. Many GCFs are parents worried about their transgender children and fall into these spaces seeking support and affirmation that their child isn't really transgender. Then, by connecting their histories of trauma or parental worries with seeing trans women as sexual predators and child abusers, it creates an emotionally powerful desire to lash out against trans women, who they see as directly causing harm.

This is reinforced further by the tendency of gender-critical groups to form deeply insular communities and echo chambers in online spaces and in groups like the LGB Alliance. Reporter Caelon Conrad infiltrated these communities to study how they often create cult-like spaces, often continually ramping up their rhetoric against trans women to vitriolic levels, and continually focusing on trans people as their largest concern. Rowling herself showcases this exact radicalization pipeline, with her tweets continually becoming more and more focused upon transgender issues to the exclusion of much else.

Eventually, this hyperbolic echo chamber leads to real-world ramifications. Individually, GCFs will frequently harass and attack trans women online and in real life. For example, one trans woman at an anti-trans LGB Alliance conference was harassed, called a "mentally ill pervert," and physically surrounded just for being in that space. GCF Maya Forstater was accused of, among other things, harassing and misgendering trans people in her workplace Slack, leading to her not being rehired and a subsequent appeals case that became a rallying call for GCFs including Rowling herself. Further, many prominent GCFs have worked to doxx trans people and our allies, many of whom were platformed by Rowling herself.

However, the problem escalated to a political stage. The LGB Alliance successfully campaigned for the removal of LGBTQ workplace group Stonewall from the BBC, hurting not only trans protections but protections for gay, lesbian, and bisexual folks as well. GCF groups helped to fund a UK court case, Tavistock v Bell, that led to the denial of access to puberty blockers and gender-affirming care for trans kids. Rowling and other GCFs have continually campaigned against gender-affirming laws in both the US and the UK if they also protect trans people, such as the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) sending a brief to the US Supreme Court arguing against workplace protections for trans women, that if removed would also erode workplace protections for all women. Further, several guidelines attempted to be enacted in the US and the UK would require gender certificates, which are often hard to acquire, for trans people to use a public restroom. That would make many trans people feel unwelcome in public spaces, as well as cause many cisgender but more masculine or butch-presenting women to also face the same ire as their transgender counterparts, despite not being the target of the ire.

This rhetoric caused by the echo chamber can become so heightened that it can lead to literal death threats, or worse. In 2018, Australian GCF Shelia Jeffrey described trans women to UK parliament as "parasites," language that frames trans people as subhuman. One of the UK's most prominent gender-critical voices, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (who goes by the alias Posie Parker), called for men with guns to enter women's bathrooms to protect cisgender women from trans people. One gender-critical feminist who was platformed by the BBC, Lily Cade, even went on to call for the lynching of all trans women. The stakes for GCFs have been made so high that they will lash out at anything that appears to support trans people, regardless of the collateral damage that may hurt broader women and LGBTQ rights as well.

Unfortunately, this hyperbolic heightening of gender-critical rhetoric and attacks is intentionally stoked and weaponized by broader right-wing movements to justify attacks not only against trans people, but other marginalized groups as well. For example, the Heritage Foundation, which has campaigned against abortion rights for women in the United States, platformed several gender-critical feminists in 2019. Fox News has also done the same. Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch himself championed gender-critical feminists in the UK and US. Similarly, the Heritage Foundation and US-based evangelical-right legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom, which has a long record of opposing women's and LGBT rights, had strong ties to the Bell v Tavistock case in the UK. JK Rowling in March 2022 tweeted support for Caroline Farrow, the director of CitzenGo, which campaigns not only against trans rights, but gay marriage and abortion rights as well. Anti-transgender bills have cropped up around the US that use rhetoric similar to those originating in gender-critical spaces, such as the recently proposed Texas and Idaho laws that labeled parents seeking trans-affirming care for their children as "child abusers" and even threaten felony charges, despite seeking informed medical care for one's child being the direct opposite of child abuse. Even more dangerously, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene recently called for violence against trans people, citing gender-critical rhetoric as justification. The alt-right terrorist group The Proud Boys have fought alongside GCFs at rallies against trans people, leading to the stabbing of several people.

The reason gender-critical rhetoric has proved so effective by right-wing groups is that it frames the discussions as trans women versus women, utilizing the language of these movements to promote division to bolster their arguments. This is a long-standing tactic of weaponizing internal divisions inside feminist movements to support continued marginalization. White suffragettes in the 1800s of the United States were often supported by white supremacists seeking to perpetuate slavery, framing white women's right to vote as endangered by black women's enfranchisement. Many white suffragettes would even deny that black women were even really women--rhetoric all too familiar to many trans women today. Further, this link between racism and gender-critical rhetoric still exists, exemplified by gender-critical feminists holding "I <3 JK Rowling'' banners clashing with Black Lives Matter protesters during the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020. Some gender-critical groups also wield anti-Semitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories as well, further tying them to white nationalist movements.

By framing trans people as a danger to women's rights, right-wing movements create a moral panic that asks you to "think of the children" or worry about dangerous "child groomers," echoing prevailing homophobic narratives of the 1980s and '90s, that justifies political and physical violence.

All this is done in hopes of bolstering right-wing movements. In an article in The Guardian, famed philosopher Judith Butler pointed to numerous fascist and totalitarian movements around the world, such as in Poland and Germany, citing gender-critical arguments to support their politics. If you want to learn more about this form of radicalization and co-opting of gender-critical rhetoric by the right-wing, I did a long-form analysis of it on my YouTube channel.

The false frame​

This framing of trans women versus women is a false one. While GCFs may believe that trans women are just men who cannot understand womanhood, the opposite is true. The conversation surrounding what it means to be a woman and trans women's access to it is a complex one that I encourage you to further investigate with videos like these, the most overt way GCFs deny trans women's womanhood is to argue that trans women can never face the same levels of misogyny that cisgender women face.

Yet, this is categorically false. While one's womanhood shouldn't be defined solely through the oppression one faces, trans women often face similar assaults to our safety. Trans women are four times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime and often face discrimination in health care and housing. Numerous studies have found that one in three trans people are victims of sexual assault and up to 50% have faced domestic abuse. Even more concerningly, transgender women of color continue to be one of the most at-risk groups for being victims of violence or murder.

These issues are not unrelated to the same systems that cisgender women like Rowling face, but are instead directly related. The whole intent of gender-critical rhetoric is to frame the issue as trans people versus women, positioning misogyny as the singular concern that women face, without recognizing the intersection of how trans women face both transphobia and misogyny, and that the latter presents itself differently from how a cis white woman would experience the same thing. This isn't to say that the misogyny that Rowling and other GCFs like her have faced isn't legitimate or shouldn't be fought against, but it's important to recognize that trans people, like myself, have also been sexually assaulted, face higher degrees of assault in general, and also have added transphobic harassment and attacks on our rights and physical bodies for being trans. The framing shouldn't be "trans women versus women," but how all women--trans and cis--should come together to push back against the same marginalization that affects us all.

Another issue inherent with this framing was also highlighted by the BBC. When criticized by the trans community for its aforementioned article as well as accusations that the study did not meet the BBC's own guidelines about using surveys as sources for claims in coverage, as it is self-selected, the BBC compared the situation to flat-Earthers, arguing that "...it might be appropriate to interview a flat earther. And if a lot of people believed in flat Earth we'd need to address it more."The issue here is that flat Earth is a clear bunk conspiracy theory, so to place it alongside actual scientific evidence frames both as equally legitimate. It's this very approach that contributed to the growing popularity of the flat Earth movement--if everyone knows the sky is blue but a few argue it's red, you don't give both sides a platform or argue that the sky is purple to appease everyone. The same goes for GCFs. By consistently platforming GCFs in opposition to trans people, it frames them as having equally valid views of trans issues, despite the proven harm and misinformation GCFs push.

Sadly, however, while many cisgender women and LGBTQ people stand in allyship with trans people, GCFs like Rowling find themselves further radicalized into their beliefs, utilizing their platforms for continued hatred and bigotry towards the transgender community. While their vitriol often stems from an understandable but unfortunate intersection of trauma, fear, and misinformation, the way it has been weaponized and wielded by not only themselves, but by larger totalitarian movements, sadly makes their harm inexcusable. GCFs may be a direct threat to trans people, but their actions damage us all.

View attachment 4113645

Returning to Hogwarts​

I'm sure most of you are wondering why all this dry information about trans people is appearing on a gaming website of all places. Certainly, while transgender issues are topical around the world, it's a subject, along with many others in our anxiety-filled world, that many people try to escape from, with games being a primary outlet to do so. Yet, while many of our peers can ignore it without personal consequence, for many transgender people, it's a conversation we can't avoid.

I'm a nerd first and foremost, and gaming is one of my biggest passions. Yet, as a trans person, I've been forced to learn everything you see in this article. The above isn't the product of research that I did specifically for this article; it was research I had done over the course of the past few years for my own safety. The constant stream of misinformation and targeted attacks on the trans community force me, and many in the trans community, to constantly be ready to research, understand and push back against narratives used against us. Honestly, I wish I never had to learn a single part of any of this, that my time and energy could remain focused solely on being a giant nerd. That so much must be said just to deconstruct the narratives surrounding trans people is continually exhausting and demanding.

It cannot be ignored that JK Rowling has placed herself at the head of this active hate and discriminatory movement, to the point that her name has become synonymous with anti-trans hate. Gender-critical groups have paid for "I <3 JK Rowling" ads to be displayed in Canada, used to dog-whistle support for anti-trans movements and to make trans people feel uncomfortable in public spaces nearby. One of the people who put the signs up was unsurprisingly arrested for being antagonistic to trans people and attempting to punch someone. I have seen numerous comments on my work for GameSpot and elsewhere be targeted by transphobes with statements of "I stand with JK Rowling'' alongside active misgendering, transphobic language, and hate directed at me and trans people in general--all used to give plausible deniability that they were "just standing up for an author" or "defending the rights of women," apparently ignoring the irony that they were actively attacking a writer and a woman in the process. This occurs to many public-facing trans women. Rowling, along with many other celebrities who face backlash, has wielded cancel culture narratives to dismiss trans people and our allies (who have legitimate criticisms and grievances against their rhetoric) as merely being misogynistic harassers. While Rowling has received said harassment, and that is categorically wrong, it should not be used as an excuse to dismiss all criticisms of Rowling's statements. Two wrongs, especially when one of them has vastly larger implications for a whole community, don't make a right. It also ignores how trans people themselves are more likely to be victims of harassment both online and off, often with less emotional, physical, and financial support than Rowling has to push back against it.

All of this finally brings us back to the Harry Potter franchise and Hogwarts Legacy. Rowling is not directly involved in the game, and although WB Interactive's president failed to condemn Rowling's words, the developers inside the company have worked to let you create a transgender character in the game. However, it's still difficult for any trans person to look at any element of the Harry Potter franchise and not see the harm that continues to be perpetuated by the woman who created it. I used to adore listening to Harry Potter audiobooks as comfort, but now I can't turn them on without being reminded of a woman who has actively argued against the reality of my existence and championed harm towards my community.

There is nothing at all wrong with having a desire to play Hogwarts Legacy; it looks to be a passion project finally delivering the wizarding RPG many, including myself, would have been clamoring for just a few short years ago. There are some who argue that Harry Potter can be decoupled from Rowling. There even seems to be a push within the franchise to lock Rowling out of her own legacy, exemplified by her lack of appearance in the recent HBO Max reunion special. Some even point to authors like horror icon HP Lovecraft, whose work has entered literary canon and gone on to inspire hundreds of works despite Lovecraft's undeniable history of overt racism (and dear heavens, don't look up the name of his cat).

Yet, the difference between Lovecraft and Rowling is that supporting Harry Potter can't currently be separated from supporting Rowling herself, despite some people's desire to uncouple the two. Rowling still sits at the head of the franchise, benefiting not only financially from every sale, but through its popularity. The more relevant Harry Potter remains, the more platform Rowling is given to perpetuate anti-transgender language. Further, while the books have finished, Rowling still works on Harry Potter, penning the scripts for the continuing Fantastic Beast franchise. Harry Potter is not only intrinsically linked with but supports the platform of a woman that used to inspire love who now uses her words to inspire hate. On top of that, Rowling herself has used the continued popularity of the franchise as evidence that people support her views, despite this not being the case.

As a result, I can't in good conscience support this game, no matter how well I wish the developers in their own personal endeavors. By buying the game, I'm not just supporting them, I'm supporting Harry Potter, which supports Rowling herself.

I wrote out this entire dissection of Rowling's words for two reasons. One, I wanted to take this opportunity provided by a game like Hogwarts Legacy to cut through the endless waves of misinformation against trans people and educate about the truth behind the damage Rowling, and more importantly, the larger gender-critical movement and right-wing groups, have caused. Secondly, I did it because I wanted to give you a chance to come to your own conclusions.

You're not a bad person if you want to play Hogwarts Legacy. Many trans people themselves are planning to buy the game despite their justified anger towards Rowling. Yet, the important thing is not to condemn the game or renounce your love of Harry Potter; it's to wrestle with the complexity of it and decide for yourself. Trans people don't get to ignore the pain the franchise has become intrinsically linked to, and those who wish to care for them shouldn't get to do so, either. Many will ignore this article and others like it in order to turn a blind eye to the harm done or seek absolution for their choice in buying the game. Some will even (and already have) proudly proclaim their forth-coming purchase in order to express their disdain for having to think about trans people at all. You don't get to defend Rowling or Harry Potter and not understand what that actually means to a trans person, or the ramification it has for all of us, not just trans people.

So supporting Hogwarts Legacy, a game about fighting magical fantasy bigots, isn't wrong, but ignoring its legacy within actual bigotry would be.

In the last few days, he wrote these tweets, which pretty much say the same thing as the article in fewer words.

View attachment 4113732
[Link to thread, Archive]

Spoiler: I read the replies because I hate myself

View attachment 4113747

It was the second of these two tweets that Rowling herself would screencap with her own flippant remarks – pointing out that, to the Trans faithful, even Jessie's stance would not be considered devout enough.

View attachment 4113789
[Link, Archive]

Jessie then went into full-on Victim Mode, bleating that JKR's quote-tweet was "sending harassment my way" and began using it as an excuse to self-promote.

View attachment 4113843
[Link, Archive]

He mentioned that he was staying off the Twitter app...

View attachment 4113954

...several...

View attachment 4113960

...more...

View attachment 4113969

...times over the next 24 hours, and made a 15-minute video about the ordeal.

Spoiler: Full statement on the day of the attack

View attachment 4114329

On the 19th, he posted receipts of the transphobic abuse he'd received, none of which was actually calling for his death, only two of which were even screenshots from Twitter (taken with an actual camera for some reason). And the rest were from Youtube – two of which were the same screenshot twice.

View attachment 4114053View attachment 4114056

After realising his mistake, he posted the receipts that he actually meant to show, some of which were unrelated to this particular incident (my guess is the two that were screenshotted without timestamps).

View attachment 4114113

Spoiler: Full thread with another self-promo at the end

View attachment 4114278

[Link, Archive]

He also shouted out the article Forbes wrote about him.

View attachment 4114464
[Link, Archive]

But he added that he'd rather be called a writer or a YouTuber – heck, even a dork - anything besides that most dreaded of slurs..... gamer.

 

[1440p Curved Monitor]

Hi frens, here is a WIP on Rowling Derangement Syndrome, a thread about people that lose their shit over Rowling being Rowling. Editor on Tor keeps fucking up on me where I can't upload and I lose progress, so I will edit more in the coming days.

 

[Gorillion others]

View attachment 4097979
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1603815823289614336

Guys she said it.

J.K. Rowling just told a tranny to cope and seethe.

Do you think Rowling is secretly a farmer? Or at least; GASP, lurks around here? (huddles under blanket)

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

Or at least; GASP, lurks around here?

Who knows which celebrities are farmers or lurk here. I guess we would be surprised if we knew the truth.

Just in case: Hi JKR!

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

They really believe nobody can tell a (SLIGHTLY!!!) masculine woman from a whole-ass man. View attachment 4055556

Usually men that are feminine or women who are masculine are used to it.

 

[6 Years Ago]

Imagine being a battered woman at a womens shelter and being raped by a troon at your worst moment. Now you have two worst moments

 

[Mothra1988]

Does her face turn extend beyond trans issues to anything else? I just remember she was a standard libtard scrdeechign at Piers Morgan and stuff before this happened. It would be nice to know if she's actually been redpilled beyond what personally affects her.

 

[robobobo]

No. So far as I've ever seen, she's still pretty hardcore left on every matter except troons. Being openly despised by the rest of the left may drive her away eventually, but I haven't noted any such position in her statements.

 

[Where's Waldo?]

Imagine being a battered woman at a womens shelter and being raped by a troon at your worst moment. Now you have two worst moments

Yeah, then imagine complaining to the shelter staff that this man is making you uncomfortable in a WOMAN's shelter; and the fucking retarded shit-faces saying, "Well, we can't do anything about it, because if we do, we'll lose our funding."

 

[DoubleD]

Now that we have a thread for Rowling Derangement Syndrome (long overdue at this point), should the articles go here or in that one?

From the Independent: (Archive)

Mark Hamill explains why he ‘liked’ controversial JK Rowling post​

‘Twitter is, unfortunately, no place for nuance,’ Star Wars actor said​

Mark Hamill has defended himself after he became the centre of fan ire for liking a tweet from JK Rowling that many users deemed “transphobic”.

The prominent Star Wars actor was recently called out by a number of people who discovered he had “liked” the Harry Potter author’s reply to an earlier post made by ITV’s first trans broadcaster, India Willoughby.

“I’m more of a woman than JK Rowling will ever be,” the Loose Women host wrote, to which Rowling responded: “Citation needed.”

The Independent has contacted Rowling’s representative for comment.

“Why are you hitting the ‘like’ button for [Rowling’s] transphobic hate crusade?” one user commented, tagging Hamill, 71.

Another added: “Hey, @MarkHamill – I dunno if you realised it, but that tweet you liked from JK Rowling is extremely transphobic. Endorsing that kind of bigoted rhetoric seems extremely out of pocket for you so – before my heart breaks – please tell me that was misunderstanding or mistake.”

Following the social media pile-on, Hamill, who is known to be an outspoken Democrat, explained himself.

Spoiler: Full-size screenshot of the REEEing

(Link to tweet, Archive)

“What I ‘liked’ about this exchange was someone speaking their truth to power,” Hamill responded.

“Twitter is, unfortunately, no place for nuance. It’s imperative I make this abundantly clear: I support human rights for EVERYONE, regardless of their gender identity, PERIOD.”

Hours before his clarification, Willoughby had backed Hamill, saying: “I’m a fan of Mark Hamill. He’s a good guy. Ignore this crap from ⁦@FoxNews⁩ – typical Murdoch garbage. Mark’s totally onside with the LGBTs.”

Hamill had earlier mistakenly “liked” a problematic tweet from Rowling. In 2019, he liked her post in which she claimed women were being forced out of their jobs for stating that “sex is real”, adding the hashtags #IStandWithMaya and #ThisIsNotADrill.

“Ignorance is no excuse, but I liked the tweet without understanding what the last line or hashtags meant,” Hamill later said. “It was the 1st four lines I liked and I didn’t realise it had any transphobic connotation.”