The Witch Trials, anyone else?

[Varysblackfyre321]

23 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

The only evidence that would be accepted is if jk Rowling said she would like to skullfuck all trans people to death.

And that would only be accepted after a lengthy discussion of the definition of skulfuck

 

Oh you’re saying J.K Rowling wanting to make love with trans people’s heads makes her a bigot. Scoff.

If anything that sounds like she’s a massive ally.

/s

I’m honestly reminded a self-described National socialist and leader of a Nazi party getting really flustered in a debate at being called racist and insisted on being called a race realist

Oh and Dave Chapelle describing Terfs as not bigoted—they just see trans women as being something akin to black face.

Edited April 19 by Varysblackfyre321

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Aja Romano at Vox did a pretty good documenting it.  I don't know if I agree 100%, but it's hard to read that entire article and not come to the conclusion that Rowling is transphobic.  You yourself have repeatedly noted that she's become "entrenched."  So this seems to acknowledge that she looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, don't really see the big deal in calling that behavior a duck.

Thanks. Yeah, actually what I take from that is she also hates/fears transvestites. Which is something I didn't know about the situation.

[Zorral]

12 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

what I take from that is she also hates/fears transvestites. Which is something I didn't know about the situation.

If I'm recalling this correctly, the prominent woman who started this was perpetually determined to never age out of enfant terrible status -- or is it more accurately the state of épater le bourgeois --  is Germain Greer?  Also, again, if I'm recalling correctly, GG did this when her media attention was way waning, and her declaration that anyone who never worried about blood in one's pants was undermining the reality of being a woman blew up for about an hour?

Edited April 19 by Zorral

[Heartofice]

9 hours ago, DMC said:

Not sure how demonstrating her own tweets, writings, and behavior as evidence over the past decade is "weak."  Alternatively, perhaps this is a position in which not only Rowling but you have become "entrenched" upon.  Would you at least acknowledge that after reading that article it is reasonable for an objective person to conclude she is transphobic?

No because as I said before the content of the article is incredibly weak. It's almost entirely 'she liked a tweet'. Other than that she is mainly just stating pretty standard gender critical beliefs and concerns about self ID being abused by men. 

What I think the article is a very good illustration of, as is the contrapoints video actually, is of how entrenched and bad faith most gender ideology advocates are. Both come across as fair and level headed, but only if you already agree with them. If however you start to think about it for even a moment or for instance you think the concept that 'sex is real' is not transphobic then it becomes pretty obvious that these are not people giving a neutral dispassionate appraisal of the situation, its very biased commentators trying to fit facts to make their case. 

ETA. In addition to the banal nature of the article, it is also either purposefully dishonest or so closed to the consideration of other possible meanings that it's hard to see how anyone can see it as a fair piece of journalism.

Take for instance this from the end of the article:
 

Quote

January 2023: Rowling tweets that she is “Deeply amused by those telling me I’ve lost their admiration due to the disrespect I show violent, duplicitous rapists.” The most immediate context for this comment is presumably both the backlash to Hogwarts Legacy and the ongoing backlash over Rowling’s views writ large regarding trans women being dangerous predators. So a reasonable implication of Rowling’s words seems to be that she considers trans women, by default, to be “violent, duplicitous rapists.”

Saying the meaning of this statement is she considers trans people to be rapists is either totally dishonest or ignorant. I find it baffling. If you have any knowledge of JKRs position or concerns you can understand she is worried about male rapists taking advantage of lax safeguards to attack women. She openly states many times she is not referring to trans people in this regard. Yet somehow the author of the article omits this idea and puts forward only the most bad faith interpretation of what was said, which flies against what is clearly Rowlings stated position.

 

Edited April 20 by Heartofice

[Varysblackfyre321]

24 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It's almost entirely 'she liked a tweet'.

Hmm I’m guessing if Megan Markle liked a tweet from someone saying “white British men are a danger to the youth”  you’d be cool with it?

24 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

standard gender critical beliefs a

Please—the appropriate descriptor is terf beliefs—Which are inherently transphobic to likely anyone doesn’t see transphobia as some silly made up thing. 

Edited April 20 by Varysblackfyre321
Ha posted before finishing question

[Varysblackfyre321]

7 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Also, it’s probably best we leave all this dictionary talk in the previous thread, t

That’s a reasonable request but I hope you recognize people were joking right?

[DaveSumm]

3 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

That’s a reasonable request but I hope you recognize people were joking right?

Of course, but it’s still snark based off the assumption that its presence in the dictionary was a slam dunk for their side of the argument. But we both appear to think that, hence it being a case of poor communication. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

46 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

course, but it’s still snark based off the assumption that its presence in the dictionary was a slam dunk for their side of the argument

 Eh I saw dmc’s rebuttal as a slam dunk against the side who scoffed at the use of the dictionary as an authority and proceeded to refrence it inaccurately.

I’m of the opinion  ‘woke’ is whatever pisses off a conservatives or someone’s conservatives sensibilities.

Like trans woman getting paid money to drink beer is woke because trans  woke.

46 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

we both appear to think that, hence it being a case of poor communication. 

Edited April 20 by Varysblackfyre321

[Heartofice]

Listening to the 6th episode of Witch Trials and I want to say that Natalie Wynn comes across far better than in her own video. 

She makes some good points that I agree with:

• Rowling overplays the danger posed by things like bathrooms and women's spaces
• Overplaying the danger puts focus on trans people unfairly
• Raging tweets is not the best way to voice your concerns on the issue

I think these are all totally valid concerns and criticisms of Rowling, who absolutely turns up the volume on issues and isn't able to see the wood for the trees on a lot of things, and it's unhelpful to the debate.

My own takeaway from the episodes so far is something MPR says about her still being the same person that said terrible things in the past. I think JKR is the same person she was in her teens and her 20s and 30s. She might be richer and more famous but she still sees the world from the view of a terrified victim of violence, and so she over states the dangers in the world. 

I don't think I've heard anything in the podcast so far that makes me think she is transphobic and there is plenty of evidence in there that she isn't. Her position seems pretty clear and it takes a lot of bad faith to misunderstand it so completely. But I do think she is a dick, she is over emotional, reactive and scared and it makes her do things which are unwise.

[Larry of the Lawn]

11 hours ago, Heartofice said:

No because as I said before the content of the article is incredibly weak. It's almost entirely 'she liked a tweet'. Other than that she is mainly just stating pretty standard gender critical beliefs and concerns about self ID being abused by men. 

What I think the article is a very good illustration of, as is the contrapoints video actually, is of how entrenched and bad faith most gender ideology advocates are. Both come across as fair and level headed, but only if you already agree with them. If however you start to think about it for even a moment or for instance you think the concept that 'sex is real' is not transphobic then it becomes pretty obvious that these are not people giving a neutral dispassionate appraisal of the situation, its very biased commentators trying to fit facts to make their case. 

ETA. In addition to the banal nature of the article, it is also either purposefully dishonest or so closed to the consideration of other possible meanings that it's hard to see how anyone can see it as a fair piece of journalism.

Take for instance this from the end of the article:
 

Saying the meaning of this statement is she considers trans people to be rapists is either totally dishonest or ignorant. I find it baffling. If you have any knowledge of JKRs position or concerns you can understand she is worried about male rapists taking advantage of lax safeguards to attack women. She openly states many times she is not referring to trans people in this regard. Yet somehow the author of the article omits this idea and puts forward only the most bad faith interpretation of what was said, which flies against what is clearly Rowlings stated position.

 

If you can see that, then how about her actual words?  Does she really think it's the "duplicitous rapists" that people are defending?  That is itself a bad faith interpretation of her critics' arguments.  I think she is quite well aware that people are not upset about the disrespect she has shown "violent, duplicitous, rapists".   Ignore the article if you want, but please consider the actual words that she is saying.

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

Does she really think it's the "duplicitous rapists" that people are defending?

Yes I think it is. It’s the rapist bit she is concerned about. 

[Zorral]

One wonders ... because Reasons, including that I knew her quite well for a while ... what JRR would say about Rachel Pollack.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/17/rachel-pollack-obituary

 

[Week]

7 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

If you can see that, then how about her actual words?  Does she really think it's the "duplicitous rapists" that people are defending?  That is itself a bad faith interpretation of her critics' arguments.  I think she is quite well aware that people are not upset about the disrespect she has shown "violent, duplicitous, rapists".   Ignore the article if you want, but please consider the actual words that she is saying.

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. Similarly, you can't force someone to see something that they actively don't want to.

[DaveSumm]

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

January 2023: Rowling tweets that she is “Deeply amused by those telling me I’ve lost their admiration due to the disrespect I show violent, duplicitous rapists.”

I read this as her saying that her detractors have misidentified her target; she is worried about violent, duplicitous rapists, not trans people. Twitter does seem to bring out the unnecessary snark in people, it’s basically the same tactic thrown back at them; “oh so you think trans people are dangerous?” / “oh so you’re defending rapists then?”

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The most immediate context for this comment is presumably both the backlash to Hogwarts Legacy and the ongoing backlash over Rowling’s views writ large regarding trans women being dangerous predators.

This is an embarrassing bit of writing, in a piece intended to help us decide if she’s transphobic. ‘Given that we know JKR thinks trans people are predators…’

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

So a reasonable implication of Rowling’s words seems to be that she considers trans women, by default, to be “violent, duplicitous rapists.”

And so the author concludes, based on his supposition that she’s transphobic, that she is indeed transphobic. A flawless piece of logic.

I appreciate that someone put this together and it’s handy to have it all in one place, but fuck, they could have tried harder with this. It’s incredibly sloppy and doesn’t even attempt to be impartial.

(Not really quoting HoI, just quoting a quote for convenience)

[Heartofice]

I think the context of the tweet is the Isla Bryson case and Scottish law, so not sure what the relevance to HL is.

 

[Heartofice]

On 4/19/2023 at 12:47 AM, Larry of the Lake said:

I just listened to episodes 5 and 6 of the podcast.  I guess my biggest question to those who listened to it, but didn't find Rowling's comments and writings on the topic to be transphobic, what to make of Natalie Wynn?  I thought she stated her position very clearly, despite being a victim of a couple of online pile-ons.  In my opinion she dismantles any argument JKR made about the [alleged] danger presented to women by trans people.

I'd be interested in your opinion when you have listened to the rest of the podcast, though curious as to why you chose to just skip to those episodes.

IMO Rowling addresses some of the criticisms Wynn makes in the 7th episode. I'm not sure there is agreement from JKR and Wynn on the scale of the issue when it comes to something like the number of girls going into clinics with gender dysphoria (there's plenty of data to suggest the numbers have increased enormously in the last 10 years,https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/24/an-explosion-what-is-behind-the-rise-in-girls-questioning-their-gender-identity) and so I think Wynn is simply wrong on that issue.

On single sex spaces, I think this gets characterised as toilets but Rowling doesn't really talk about toilets in the podcast and instead her focus is on rape shelters and changing rooms and womens prisons, again while the numbers are small there is certainly enough evidence to suggest that there have been cases of dangerous men going into female prisons because they said they identified as female, and the idea that it could happen even once is enough to upset her.

I think the big criticism from episode 6 that I think Wynn had a point on was that the method and manner of Rowlings tweets and communication might bring harm to trans people by a reaction from other people. Rowling sort of addresses this and I partly take her case here too.

Yes there are elements of the right who absolutely love all the trans stuff because it feeds their hatred of anything that goes against their moral position. But I think there is a tendency on these matters to mix in someone like Rowling with the right wing conservatives and see them as some amorphous block. Rowling doesn't help herself as I said before by liking tweets by people who go on to say shitty stuff and definitely fit into that conservative category.  But she is pretty clear of her position and her disdain for the right. 

Her rebuttal is that what is really giving fuel to the right is the hardcore elements on the left who are introducing ideas that seem extreme and unhelpful and then demanding retribution for anyone who doesn't follow along 100%. Of course people are going to be protective of children and if you want to question why the events around Tavistock and 5000% increases in female girls reporting as trans is happening and you are being called a bigot for even mentioning it then you probably are more likely to look towards the right.

You could point to things like Drag shows for kids. It might be totally innocuous and the whole groomer thing is mental but you have to question why would anyone think that was a good idea, it absolutely just feeds the right. If you are going to be walking around in a thong in front of kids, twerking and gyrating sexually of course its going to provoke outrage. It seems so counter productive to a cause, and when people get forced into defending them it makes them seem even more deluded.

Anyway, I finished the podcast. I've still yet to see a single thing within it, or in this thread or any of the links that have been provided that suggest Rowling is anti trans or transphobic. Actually listening to what she has to say makes her position incredibly clear, and I would struggle to understand how anyone who actually listened to her position could come away from it still convinced of her bigotry.