[RD] JK Rowling and Explicit Transphobia

[Cloud_Strife]

You make this sound like a bad thing

I parsed it wrong; Hormone blockers give children that extra time, without having to endure a dysphoric puberty, but the study you linked, as well as the concept of ROGD is being used to block access to hormone blockers.

Like seriously, go into the transcommunity and engage with them rather than remaining aloof, it might help your perspective.

 

[Inhalaattori]

You're arguing in bad faith and from a position of ignorance, because you continue to insist on using terminology that the transcommunity is trying to distance itself from.

Must be language thing, because English is not my first language. I didnt mean to use offensive terminology.

Another example; who is denying that i was born a male, assigned male at birth? Have i done that in this thread?

See i think you're hung up on the biological "facts" because you're a biological determinist and can't concede the fact that gender is not rooted in biology, but expression, identification, appearence etc.

I mostly agree with you. I guess I misunderstood some posts you made earlier. I would although add that the common idea that appearance should be automatically seen as a way to define gender or sexuality can also be harmful. If girl wears so called boys clothes it doesnt make her transgender or gay. Im not saying you think this way, but some seem to think this way. Things usually are rather complex.

You want to know what's nonsense? Giving you the benefit of the doubt, you clearly haven't read my previous posts because i even went so far as to say that transwomen don't have the same experiences when it comes to medical care, when it comes to biology and i'll even go so far as to ay upbringing, childhood experiences pre-transition.

I read your first post in this thread and I felt you demonized J. K. Rowling and her opinions. I personally think so called CIS women should have a right to express their opinions even if it means it offends some transwomen. You can disagree with her, but I felt your reply was pretty extreme.

 

[Crezth]

Currently transpeople in Rowling's country have to wait years before they can begin transitioning. There's a definite purpose in keeping transpeople down here.

I read your first post in this thread and I felt you demonized J. K. Rowling and her opinions. I personally think so called CIS women should have a right to express their opinions even if it means it offends some transwomen. You can disagree with her, but I felt your reply was pretty extreme.

It's not just offensive. It's deadly hate speech. She's the one demonizing trans people. The transperson whom you're lecturing about this has every right to be mad. Hatemongers deserve to be demonized.

 

[aelf]

We're inferring her platform is influencing them, and that includes both bullying and asserting that bullying is bad. Sure, some young folk are going to miss this incongruence, but are those same people then going to arbitrarily cherry pick aspects of JKR's message to be influenced by in significant numbers?

Maybe.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

The problem I have with TMIT's argument is that he acts like morally wrong acts are only problematic if they lead to bad outcomes. Which is just obviously not true. You could be a twitter account with a single follower and spread anti-semitic drivel and it would still be morally wrong. You do not have to personally cause the next Holocaust for it to be wrong. Anyone who normalizes hate speech is doing a morally wrong act, completely irrespective of whether or not anyone is affected.

Assume for a second someone plans a murder, but because of some freak of nature incident his gun won't fire. It's great that no one was (physically) harmed, but his murderous intentions are just as bad.

Of course the faulty assumption is that people do not actually care about a middle aged Karen's twitter antics, which is simply wrong. Even if not a single person adopts Rowlings views, then she is still guilty of platforming hate speech, spread irrational fears and normalizing this disgusting way to talk about other people. I think TMIT's view of this issue completely ignores that what people consider "normal" vs "taboo" (which Foucault calls "the framework of what one is allowed to say") is largely just a cultural product, and everyone's behavior around us affects it. Most old people don't have bad intentions when they use racial slurs, they come from a time when those slurs were utterly normalized. They can't even see, often times, what's wrong with those slurs. Rowling is doing the same thing, but instead of slurs, Rowling tells you it's okay to openly go out and say that transwomen aren't women. She wants that to be a normalized, acceptable opinion for anyone to hold, if they so chose. You can agree with her or not, that's your choice, but you cannot act like she isn't 1) affecting the public discourse, both her followers and transpeople 2) doing this intentionally. These are not debatable.

 

[innonimatu]

Quite frankly it's foolish to suppose Rowling's speech is harmless. Speech is a powerful weapon, Rowling is a powerful woman, and transwomen are a vulnerable group. "Ignorance," which you keep trotting out, is not the enemy, it's hatred, and hatred has motivated millions over the years to perform the most heinous murders. There is every reason to suppose Rowling is stoking the flames of an engine which is currently and actively killing people. With the fact being that transwomen are themselves targeted and murdered, a person who takes the podium to spread anti-trans propaganda knows exactly what they are doing, even if unconsciously. She's picked her side. And contrary to what you might think, it is not a small and meaningless side. It is a side that wants transpeople dead, is armed with weapons, and has put its money where its mouth is time and again.

And you're still stuck in the same rut. Censorship for the sake of "protecting from harm". It cuts both ways. Or rather it can cut any way. Can't you see that?

Why was the Index Librorum Prohibitorum created? To protect people from the bad influences that might lead them to sin, harm them in losing their eternal souls... Why did the victorians lock away anything to do with sex and criminalized many until then accepted sexual practices? Why to protect the "vulnerable morals" of the plebs, only the gentlemen were allowed to see "obscene" works. Harmful practices such as masturbation gut described as sicknesses and severely repressed!

This "you can't let them harm others by talking about ideas! Oh my, it's bad bad! Must be repressed." Is not new. Juts the most recent incarnation of the same crap that has plagued societies for ages. Now the method of the prosecutors is "hate speech" legislating against it, the new term for an old practice. And of course we have a new crop of gatekeepers who decide on what is and is not hate speech. Here we see quite a few self-appointed ones. Proof that the instinct to persecute fellow humans for though-crime and daring communicate their thoughts with others is strong still! You're successors of the holy inquisition.

Look at what you're invoking to justify this little persecution of Rowling. "Terror killings"! "Anti-semitism"! While you're at it, why not satanic rituals? Child abuse? Witchcraft? Oh right, that was the 1980s and 90s, now the fashion has changed. The attitude hadn't. It's all about "Protecting the weak", you can both have that warm feeling of virtue and prosecute the public enemies of the day. Anyone who says the wrong thing can be targeted, and the internet makes it easy, no need to lift stones to throw.

And of course you don't just judge the offenders. You also presume to judge the current "weak" plebs who cannot be exposed to "hate speech", because they're obviously so incompetent and morally inept that they will fall for it. Hell, suppress their right to vote while you're at it, clearly you don't trust those people to make their own judgements!. Only the virtuous - those on your own group - should rule, huh? You're the league of modern gentleman, discussing whom to censor and whom to praise. Yourselves, mostly, doing god's work that way...

Tl:dr: you suck.

 

[Crezth]

If only you could offer such strident opposition to hatred and killing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

"all gamers are manchildren" can offend, for example. But it doesn't have any stake in ongoing discussions about basic legal rights afforded to people in any country in the world.

Even though it's misgendering a substantial proportion of people in the category?

Part of my argument is that JKR also doesn't have any apparent stake in basic legal rights afforded to people. The posts discussed in this thread don't seem to be having significant policy implications. Perhaps I missed some though.

It has no practical consequences. A world-renowned author putting forward a statement in support of transphobes and TERFs has actual consequences in that it both normalises the opinions put fowards, and has been repeatedly presented in a way that doesn't seem idiotic on the surface.

It's those consequences I'm doubting. Stating it again doesn't give any extra support for the notion.

Like what's the cut-off?

That's a good question for policy in general. That we need a cutoff at some point is not controversial (numerous laws already disallow death threats/riot incitement/etc, and nobody seems to argue against these here), the question is where the cutoff should be.

Quite frankly it's foolish to suppose Rowling's speech is harmless.

I didn't claim otherwise. I asserted her harm is not clearly greater than another random person on the internet doing the same thing, and that she is being given undue attention.

Maybe you need a little bit of context, because it's not for nothing this is called hate speech.

The link does not make any reasonable causal link between "hate speech" and murders in this context.

Though if you want to play this game, let's play. Compare the trans murder rate per 100,000 people to the average murder rates per 100,000 people. The article falsely claims it is clear the rate is "disproportionate", but it doesn't bother to actually cite the numbers. There are well over 1 million people who identify as trans in the US (a 2014 survey had it at 1.4 million I think, looking again I see various numbers from 1.3 million in 2016 to 700,000 in much earlier surveys). 26 confirmed deaths very likely doesn't capture all trans murders, but even if the trans population hasn't grown at all since 2014 we should expect more than double that number just to reach the baseline average murder rate for existing in the US. Of course, if you're a man you're significantly more likely to be murdered than the average rate. If you want to demonstrate bias against the transgender community (which can be reasonably demonstrated to exist in other contexts), murder rates are not a useful example.

So if we're going to use this as evidence, then Cloud's "hateful" imagery against white men specifically is something that, if Cloud were more famous, would allegedly contribute to the murder of men (and especially white men). If that argument sounds odd to you, it's time for some self-reflection, because it's the argument you're using here...except with less evidence to support it in the case of your argument.

The problem I have with TMIT's argument is that he acts like morally wrong acts are only problematic if they lead to bad outcomes.

You seem to be missing the part about people being jerks/trolls. I didn't say that being a jerk/troll is acceptable.

but you cannot act like she isn't 1) affecting the public discourse, both her followers and transpeople 2) doing this intentionally. These are not debatable.

Yet you're still not presenting why it is evident that she is capable of more normalization than a random person doing the same thing. Random people have bad tweets/posts go viral too.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

And you're still stuck in the same rut. Censorship for the sake of "protecting from harm". It cuts both ways. Or rather it can cut any way. Can't you see that?

Why was the Index Librorum Prohibitorum created? To protect people from the bad influences that might lead them to sin, harm them in losing their eternal souls... Why did the victorians lock away anything to do with sex and criminalized many until then accepted sexual practices? Why to protect the "vulnerable morals" of the plebs, only the gentlemen were allowed to see "obscene" works. Harmful practices such as masturbation gut described as sicknesses and severely repressed!

This "you can't let them harm others by talking about ideas! Oh my, it's bad bad! Must be repressed." Is not new. Juts the most recent incarnation of the same crap that has plagued societies for ages. Now the method of the prosecutors is "hate speech" legislating against it, the new term for an old practice. And of course we have a new crop of gatekeepers who decide on what is and is not hate speech. Here we see quite a few self-appointed ones. Proof that the instinct to persecute fellow humans for though-crime and daring communicate their thoughts with others is strong still! You're successors of the holy inquisition.

Look at what you're invoking to justify this little persecution of Rowling. "Terror killings"! "Anti-semitism"! While you're at it, why not satanic rituals? Child abuse? Witchcraft? Oh right, that was the 1980s and 90s, now the fashion has changed. The attitude hadn't. It's all about "Protecting the weak", you can both have that warm feeling of virtue and prosecute the public enemies of the day. Anyone who says the wrong thing can be targeted, and the internet makes it easy, no need to lift stones to throw.

And of course you don't just judge the offenders. You also presume to judge the current "weak" plebs who cannot be exposed to "hate speech", because they're obviously so incompetent and morally inept that they will fall for it. Hell, suppress their right to vote while you're at it, clearly you don't trust those people to make their own judgements!. Only the virtuous - those on your own group - should rule, huh? You're the league of modern gentleman, discussing whom to censor and whom to praise. Yourselves, mostly, doing god's work that way...

Tl:dr: you suck.

Transpeople being murdered as a result of charged rhetoric and bigoted views isn't something that's stopped, it continues to this very day, we see the results of transphobic rhetoric in the form of this current administration, so kindly do us all a favor and don't talk about something you clearly have little knowledge of, because what you're doing is playing devil's advocate for a side and proposing the idea that we should tolerate harmful and hateful rhetoric, regardless of how impolite or polite it is and equating opposition to it as a literal inquisition.

Like literally listen to yourself; you think the average uninformed person is in anyway equipped to wade into the morass that is the transrights and equality without being influenced by people with much bigger audiences than our community could ever hope to curry? Are you for real? Do you have any actual knowledge of how the conversation about transrights has historically gone? How we've been demonized by the media, by pastors, by the president?

This has been the exact tactic used by the right for decades but you expect us to just believe it's now suddenly disappeared or lessened to the point where it's no longer harmful?

You need to get a grip, you need to base your views in reality and with some humanity because all you've done so far is try to stick up for people who equate me to a child predator and it's ****ing gross, you're making excuses and propping up a shield for institutionalized bigotry and bully.

 

[Crezth]

You need to get a grip, you need to base your views in reality and with some humanity because all you've done so far is try to stick up for people who equate me to a child predator and it's ****ing gross, you're making excuses and propping up a shield for institutionalized bigotry and bully.

Don't forget compare us to Nazis, as if Hitler didn't kill a bunch of LGBTQ people.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Transpeople being murdered as a result of charged rhetoric and bigoted views isn't something that's stopped, it continues to this very day, we see the results of transphobic rhetoric in the form of this current administration

Under the current administration, transpeople are murdered at a rate significantly below the average murder rate for all people. That doesn't make the charged rhetoric acceptable, but murder rates don't support what you say.

Like literally listen to yourself; you think the average uninformed person is in anyway equipped to wade into the morass that is the transrights and equality without being influenced by people with much bigger audiences than our community could ever hope to curry? Are you for real?

"Listen to yourself".

Looking down on people does not tend to garner either respect or support.

You need to get a grip, you need to base your views in reality

That is useful advice, it would also be useful if you act on it yourself .

Best to denounce JKR's statements and move on. Murder is already illegal and transpeople are already less likely to be murdered than average. That's good. Better would be to add policy that similarly irons out discrimination/unfair practices where they still exist. Nothing you say about JKR gets us that.

 

[Robo-Star]

Part of my argument is that JKR also doesn't have any apparent stake in basic legal rights afforded to people.

Beyond which spaces she is allowed in?

 

[Gorbles]

Even though it's misgendering a substantial proportion of people in the category?

Part of my argument is that JKR also doesn't have any apparent stake in basic legal rights afforded to people. The posts discussed in this thread don't seem to be having significant policy implications. Perhaps I missed some though.

I don't think I've ever met a leftist that would honestly consider the general insult "manchild" to be so specifically targeted that it misgenders people it is aimed at. If this seems logical to you (and purely from a logical perspective I can see why), then allow me to clarify that "manchild" is a stereotype based on the behaviour of (mainly) men r.e. maturity.

Is it insulting? Yes. Is it misgendering? I don't know, I welcome comments from others (Cloud perhaps), but I don't think it is. At best it's a casual ignorance of hateful women in gaming, but given that we're comparing a random tweet that is designed to offend vs. a long blog post by a famous author perceived and designed to be informative, I really think it's a false equivalence in the first place. Definitely, at least, not the best comparison to be making.

Of course JKR has a stake in the basic legal rights afforded to people. Her defense of Forstater directly relates to Forstater's job, and thus the court ruling on her ability to misgender colleagues (as well as promoting a general anti-trans ideologically, vocally, in the workplace). Her comments on trans women and how we need to protect women from abuse is direct advocacy for treating trans women differently. To not treat them as women. I don't understand why you believe her to have no stake in the issue when she's opining on trans rights (by dint of fear for "women's safety") in the UK.

It's those consequences I'm doubting. Stating it again doesn't give any extra support for the notion.

If that's the argument you're going with, then simply stating your doubt also doesn't get your argument anywhere. Your doubt isn't evidence of anything. Why do you believe that JKR's opinions have no impact on the people that consume said opinions?

I mean, this is a discussion, right? Words have power. That should be self-evident, so I again don't really understand your objection to the principle. Is the difference somehow unique to this specific case?

Best to denounce JKR's statements and move on. Murder is already illegal and transpeople are already less likely to be murdered than average. That's good. Better would be to add policy that similarly irons out discrimination/unfair practices where they still exist. Nothing you say about JKR gets us that.

As a lot of the context of this thread is specific to the UK, I did some digging to your bolded, uncited claim. The salient paragraph is as follows:

The limited data we’re working with suggests that in the UK at least, a trans person is less likely to be murdered than the average person. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the recorded number of trans murder victims is so small that it would only take one or two more murder cases every year for the UK “trans murder rate” to double or triple. And until new reporting methods come in, we are making this calculation based on unofficial figures. We should therefore be very wary of drawing firm conclusions.

I would suggest your maths and extrapolations based on numbers from over half a decade ago in the US are similarly lacking, and you should also be wary of drawing conclusions based on them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think I've ever met a leftist that would honestly consider the general insult "manchild" to be so specifically targeted that it misgenders people it is aimed at. If this seems logical to you (and purely from a logical perspective I can see why), then allow me to clarify that "manchild" is a stereotype based on the behaviour of (mainly) men r.e. maturity.

I gave a logically consistent example that follows from the discussion earlier. If you don't like it, too bad. We can pick whatever else you feel like, where ultimately people are discriminated against for preferences with no reasonable basis for said discrimination.

vs. a long blog post by a famous author perceived and designed to be informative

Vs a what now?

I don't understand why you believe her to have no stake in the issue

What does she gain either way when it comes to policy on this topic? Which "basic legal rights" are specifically threatened by her nonsense?

If that's the argument you're going with, then simply stating your doubt also doesn't get your argument anywhere. Your doubt isn't evidence of anything. Why do you believe that JKR's opinions have no impact on the people that consume said opinions?

My assertion is that she's not special in this regard, not that she has no effect. Everyone has an effect. In asserting she's special, the burden of proof is not on me.

I would suggest your maths and extrapolations based on numbers from over half a decade ago in the US are similarly lacking, and you should also be wary of drawing conclusions based on them.

US has a larger sample than UK because the US has more people than the UK. It also appears that transpeople have historically under-reported out of fear of discrimination, which would further increase the denominator in this math since under-reporting on a survey would not protect someone from murder.

There is simply no basis for claims that transpeople are murdered at disproportionate rates in western countries I've looked at, at least not that I've seen or has been presented. I make no such assertion about China/Middle Eastern countries/etc because I don't know.

Beyond which spaces she is allowed in?

To what extent is this a "basic legal right"? I'm being serious here. Everything from property under construction to businesses to night clubs have different rules for who can and can't enter, when, and why. Sometimes these aren't fair, but I hesitate to call this a basic legal right.

Just as an example since it came up earlier: some businesses restrict restroom use by literally anybody but their own employees. This obviously isn't discrimination against transgender people, but the fact that businesses can do it makes it questionable as a "basic legal right"...if it were we should not expect some places to carpet ban nearly every customer from using it and get away with doing so.

You can make a fair case that discriminatory practices by such organizations can and should be called out as such, but it's not so obviously that we have a basic rights violation in this particular example.

 

[IglooDame]

Under the current administration, transpeople are murdered at a rate significantly below the average murder rate for all people. That doesn't make the charged rhetoric acceptable, but murder rates don't support what you say.

Got link for that, by chance?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Got link for that, by chance?

For which figure?

The government doesn't appear to track trans murders separately, so we're forced to use the data available to us on that such as the linked article earlier. Murder rate data can be found here: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/topic-pages/expanded-homicide

Estimates of transperson population are not consistent. Here's an example suggesting more than 1.8 million in 2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States

But if you search it you get results of 700,000, 1.3 million, 1.4 million, and more. As an example https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/

I haven't seen any figure that pins down transperson murder rate that is reliable, so the numbers cited earlier are likely too low. But the murder rate would have to be more than double the count tracked each year in the USA before it even starts getting close to the average. At best, the claim "transpeople are murdered disproportionately" is being made without basis/is conjecture. If the counts we have are to be believed, however, they are actually one of the safest demographics in terms of homicide.

Of course, more bad things can be done to a person than just homicide. It's just awkward to use homicide in this context because evidence available doesn't support it.

 

[Gorbles]

Alright @TheMeInTeam, it looks like nothing has changed here, your attitude included, hah.

Rowling is "special" in that the effect of her words is amplified by her name, her international recognition, and her social media platform. Her words will have more impact that the vast majority of Twitter users. Her name in a mainstream newspaper will have more weight than that same newspaper interviewing, say, me. This is something that has been repeatedly explained to you in this thread alone. I can't even begin to assume why you don't think such a person in-context would not be "special". It fits the meaning of the word literally. She has better and greater reach to deliver her transphobic opinions, which will have a direct correlation on how people perceive them.

Which is also why your random Twitter example is so counterproductive.

 

[Samson]

And you're still stuck in the same rut. Censorship for the sake of "protecting from harm". It cuts both ways. Or rather it can cut any way. Can't you see that?

We have been through this before. Noone here is censoring (remove, block, or interfere with the communication) JKR, we are censuring (find fault with and criticize as blameworthy) her.

 

[JohannaK]

People have repeatedly posted the 'white guy with no stakes arguing for the sake of frustration' image. We can all recognise innonimatu and TheMeInTeam aa that guy and no good can possibly come from continuing to engage them.

Smart people pretending to be obtuse are the most infuriating.

 

[aelf]

We have been through this before. Noone here is censoring (remove, block, or interfere with the communication) JKR, we are censuring (find fault with and criticize as blameworthy) her.

Oh, just let him foam in the mouth. I think it fulfills an existential need for people like him.

Moderator Action: That will be enough flaming for now, thank you. --LM