Well the reason I liked her originally was her work with women, way before this issue and the fact that she wrote books that made my son read.
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Staying on topic- threads in general
(639 Posts)Do you mind if a thread de-rails after it has been running for a while and extends into other areas? I would have thought this was a natural progression of any discussion and sometimes the original subject returns with new light cast on it. It certainly seems in my opinion an odd reason for deleting any thread.
Galaxy
Violet. We all know this. No offence but most of us followed the JKR debate very closely. You are as entitled to dislike her as I am entitled to think she is brave.
Ah but the reason I dislike her didn't start with her views on trans people, it started when she said that demographics existed in her books that weren't there
Sometimes they have tea as well.
Er transpeople have these conversations with feminists all the time.
Violet. We all know this. No offence but most of us followed the JKR debate very closely. You are as entitled to dislike her as I am entitled to think she is brave.
Doodledog
It's made a competition by the constant claims that transpeople are 'the most oppressed group in our society'. On what evidence is that based? What does it even mean?
Yes, Galaxy - JKR is very brave, and it's good to see her getting support.
Well it's hard to measure becaus of the way records are kept but given the small number of transpeople in the population, the numbes of assaults is very high.
If you are assionate about something "had to" is relevant if you want to break am association that may be made if you say nothing
doodledog Read my comment again, I explained why I dislike her the first time
Erm, the evidence is everywhere trans people are spoken about.
Or would you sit and sip tea with trans people and tell them everything that has been said in this thread and others then tell them they shouldn't feel oppressed?
VioletSky
I have a perfect right to dislike her and so do those who have spoken against her whether they have to do so or not
That's not what you said, though. You said that she had alienated her readers, and that the actors (who have been made rich and famous as a direct result of her books, and didn't dislike her then) had had to speak against her.
It's made a competition by the constant claims that transpeople are 'the most oppressed group in our society'. On what evidence is that based? What does it even mean?
Yes, Galaxy - JKR is very brave, and it's good to see her getting support.
I have a perfect right to dislike her and so do those who have spoken against her whether they have to do so or not
Rosie51
VS that link slings figures around purporting to show that transwomen are far more at risk of violence than women. Jess Phillips read out in parliament a list of women who had been murdered in the previous year. There was not one transwoman on that list because not one transwoman had been murdered. That's a good thing, but would seem at odds with the dangers alluded to in what was a very biased and unsubstantiated piece. There was deliberate misreporting of J K Rowling, and not one mention of the disgusting vile abuse, including death threats she was subjected to by some transpeople and their allies. Articles like that do nothing to advance any reconciliation.
Given that transpeople are a very small minority of the population if the figures for murder even approached those for women it would be truly shocking. As it is the real figure is probably around one murder a year. The figures for hate crime and violence are much higher.
I know that many women are subjected to unacceptable violence everyday. I just don't understand how this is some sort of a competition and not something that women and transwomen should stand against together. www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-how-many-trans-people-murdered-uk
You should see the messages of support she gets from women, its endless, I think she is secure enough to know that some people will like her and some wont and not care either way. I think her courage is again beyond words.
No one should be subject to bullying and death threats over their opinion but I do think it's a shame that JKR has alienated so many of her readers and its been left in a position where the actors in the films have had to publically oppose her views.
It's a shame that readers (most of whom are children) have been poisoned against JKR because of her opinions on something that has nothing to do with her books.
As for the actors - nobody has forced them to publicly oppose her views. If they are fighting shy of TRA bullying, that says more about the climate surrounding these issues than it does about JKR, and if they genuinely don't support her views they can say so if they want to - they don't 'have to' if they don't want to.
How many actors have been called to account over the views of the author of the book on which a film they acted in was based? None at all, that I can think of.
No one should be subject to bullying and death threats over their opinion but I do think it's a shame that JKR has alienated so many of her readers and its been left in a position where the actors in the films have had to publically oppose her views.
I also dislike her for claiming that some demographics were in the books after the fact... She should have been brave enough to make that clear at the time, if it were true.
I don't like her honestly but I'd never wish any harm on her and I do think that needs to be taken very seriously by authorities because people should not be allowed to use the Internet or anonymity to make threats.
Articles like that do nothing to advance any reconciliation.
No, I agree. What would be good, if we could get past the climate of fear in universities, is proper research. Apart from the No Debate agenda, though, is the fact that as long as anyone can identify as anything, accurate and useful data is impossible to collect.
I've never known such censorship and oppression of freedom (whether academic or more general) in my life.
VS that link slings figures around purporting to show that transwomen are far more at risk of violence than women. Jess Phillips read out in parliament a list of women who had been murdered in the previous year. There was not one transwoman on that list because not one transwoman had been murdered. That's a good thing, but would seem at odds with the dangers alluded to in what was a very biased and unsubstantiated piece. There was deliberate misreporting of J K Rowling, and not one mention of the disgusting vile abuse, including death threats she was subjected to by some transpeople and their allies. Articles like that do nothing to advance any reconciliation.
Exactly Galaxy.
The fact that some women are fearful, whether or not there is any evidence to support that fear should be enough to maintain the places that until now, they have felt safe.
I think that what gets lost in a lot of the arguments is that the reason women needed the safe spaces in the first place was that they felt threatened by the presence of men. This is not about wanting women-only bars, or excluding men from anywhere other than places where women are vulnerable. That could be because they are ill, because they are in a state of undress, because they are locked in a cell, because a man has just raped them, because they are running away from male violence, or similar circumstances. It's not something that most of us would ask for very often - the cases are exceptional rather than usual.
It's not about unfounded prejudice or misandry - as you say, Smileless, it is based on fear. IMO it doesn't matter whether that fear is justified in every individual case. It matters that for generations women have been aware that there are times when even the strongest of us are vulnerable, and IME most men understand that, and are respectful of our choices not to have them there on those occasions.
I suppose it depends on your idea of what number of women raped or assaulted is ok to make men feel better, mine is 0.
"There is no evidence that trans inclusive laws lead to a rise in criminality -assaults, stalking or harassment in single sex spaces" and there's no evidence that trans inclusive laws don't.
Women are fearful. Fear is a natural, powerful, and primitive human emotion. It involves a universal biochemical response as well as a high individual response. Fear alerts us to the presence of danger or the threat of harm whether that danger is physical or psychological (the emphasis is mine).
The fact that some women are fearful, whether or not there is any evidence to support that fear should be enough to maintain the places that until now, they have felt safe.
I think that's one of the strengths of the gender critical approach is that we all have slightly different positions and are mostly able to thrash that out. I remember when Mayas court case came to the fore there was quite a lot of criticism of the approach being based around a protected belief. I must say I was not clear if that was the right approach and wondered about the reasoning behind it. I was completely wrong and she was much more far sighted than I was. What she has achieved has such wide implications way beyond her individual case.
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