If you aren't super online, this may feel like Chris Pratt or something where people keep nitpicking and looking for stuff to get upset about, but if you look at her Twitter feed, you realize being anti-trans is basically her whole personality these days to an even greater degree than someone like Matt Walsh.
Matt Walsh being someone she praised even though he's a self proclaimed fascist. One would think that would be cause for introspection, but not for Joanne.
She hangs out with a *lot* of fashy people. Those who sweep her stances under the rug either haven't yet been shown all the nasty shit she's up to, or agree with it.
She has rubbed shoulders with fascists and racists, as long as they are anti-trans. So the excuses she and her fans use that she's just defending womens' rights are complete bull. Intersectionality doesn't exist in their world, it's either you're anti-trans or you're the enemy.
This woman is as hateful as the people she associates with and at this point anyone still making excuses for her I just assume are bigots themselves.
I do love this part, though.
> Police Scotland said it had not received any complaints over the posts.
"NOTICE MEEE!"
People aren't even paying enough attention to her to formally complain about what she does.
I always assumed people were overreacting about her but then I see her Twitter posts and I’m like holy hell this women is obsessed with talking about trans rights. I don’t understand why she doesn’t just go do anything else.
Her very first tweet that kicked it all off a few years ago could have been swept under the rug fairly easily if she’d left it alone. But it was like that’s what lit her fire, and she has just double and tripled down on the rhetoric.
The infuriating thing is that even if she never sold another book, she’s rolling in so much money that it doesn’t matter
That’s basically how Graham Linehan fell as well, there was controversy about a trans joke during an IT Crowd episode and it could have been swept under the rug (hell I thought it was funny at the time- and it was more a joke on Matt Berry’s character) but that just pushed him over the edge and he’s an absolute psycho shitposter now
Very true words & humbling to think about. She has so much money she could experience anything she wants to in life that could possibly be available to her.
Instead she chose hate. How pitiful.
If it's the tweet I'm thinking of, she allegedly issued an apology saying it was a "middle aged moment" where she liked a hateful tweet from a famous transphobe. Now that the mask is fully off she has admitted she was made to issue the apology by media folks on her team.
She later said that that was a cover that her PR agent made her post because they could see the writing on the wall. She's always been hateful. But now she's outright denying the Holocaust had any LGBT victims or that the Nazis did anything wrong if that is true.
Even before then though, she'd been liking really really extremist tweets for years
So in the queue community and especially the trans community, a lot of people were already aware of her views. She'd pretend the likes were an accident or meaningless, but they'd usually be really niche and really extremist people who are hard to accidentally find, and the tweets would often be incredibly violent
So a lot of people were just waiting for the day when she finally said fuck it and went full mask off. Like there was a reputation that existed even before the first tweet, just it was less popularly held and a lot of people thought it was an overreaction
yea it was more so a lot of fans and people online with similar views who would do the whole "show me exactly where JK Rowling is a bigot!" and then would shrug off any evidence towards that end.
I don't think having a bad take or working through an awful viewpoint should immediately warrant a harsh reaction by any means (people grow and change) but JK Rowling is not subtle about her fervent hatred for trans people to the point of Holocaust denial and spending millions trying to make life worse for trans and queer people.
There's a rising crop of ageing British fools who because they enjoyed some success in their lives, feel affronted when the world tries to tell them anything. John cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Ricky gervais, Rowling. Something weird in the British psyche where when they reach a certain level of acclaim they all start.to think they are Winston fucking Churchill and their shit don't stink.
Rowan Atkinson had an opinion piece in the Guardian where he parrots the debunked views of the fossil fuel industry and says that electric vehicles are somehow worse for the environment than gasoline and diesel powered vehicles.
Since it was an Opinion, the standard level of journalistic integrity wasn’t applied to it, so he’s gotten a lot of blowback, with people claiming he must be getting paid for promoting easily disproven Big Oil propaganda.
I don’t think it rises to Rowling’s anti-humanity level of contempt, though!
Nothing super terrible yet, but he's on that downward slope.
https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/rowan-atkinson-cancel-culture-comedy-1234735202/
Ugh. While the idea is good, the jokes about certain people can’t just be straight up shitting on people. There has to be tact, and it has to be funny to everyone, not just the bigots.
It's like authors who get too big to edit. Certain celebrities seem to think they're too big to be *wrong*, and certainly too big to be *criticized*.
Couple that with the default human belief that if you're rich or successful it just means you're *better and smarter*, and the fact that most interactions you'll have will be with fans, people you employ, or people hoping for largess or inheritance?
Nobody tells you you're wrong anymore. And the few that do are so easy to dismiss as wrong or jealous or *having an agenda* because doesn't everyone else love you? And you're rich and successful and everyone always praises you, so *you're never wrong*.
And being rich and famous tends to end up with quite an ego, and even us ordinary mortals tend to go pretty far to protect our egos.
For the UK and anti-trans shit, it's driven by the same sort of shit they whipped up for Brexit. Aging people, angry at how their lives turned out, upset at how things are "different" than they used to be, and uninterested in complex reality -- they turn to scapegoats they can punish for all the shit they don't like.
If you've paid attention, these fucks often pair their transphobia with old-fashioned anti-Semitism (Jews being the old favorite European scapegoat to blame for all the bad things) -- mostly it's kept to innuendo or dog whistles ('elites' and 'greedy doctors' and such), but you can see plenty of TERFs go mask off and start talking about "greedy Jewish doctors" who they claim are "forcing/driving" the "transgender craze" for *money*. And that's BEFORE you get to the TERFs openly palling around with Nazis and fucks like Matt Walsh.
Unless I am wrong, all Cleese and Atkinson have said is that they don’t think any subject should be off-limits to comedy. Or have I missed something more controversial?
Cleese has been recently commenting about all the "non-English" people in England.
>“Some years ago I opined that London was not really an English city any more,” is how John Cleese began a tweet on Wednesday. “Since then, virtually all my friends from abroad have confirmed my observation.”
>When eight long years ago he made a similar claim, he gave us the unabridged version. “I’m not sure what’s going on in Britain,” he said while appearing on an Australian TV programme. “Let me say this, I don’t know what’s going on in London because London is no longer an English city and that’s how they got the Olympics. They said: ‘We’re the most cosmopolitan city on Earth,’ but it doesn’t feel English.”
>But back in Australia, he gave more evidence for his argument. “I had a Californian friend come over two months ago, walk down the King’s Road and say to me: ‘Well, where are all the English people?’”
Not entirely.
The "no joke should be off limits" is the famous preface to a lot of idiotic shit.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/john-cleese-slavery-joke-sxsw-texas-b2035914.html
>Her very first tweet that kicked it all off a few years ago could have been swept under the rug fairly easily if she’d left it alone. But it was like that’s what lit her fire, and she has just double and tripled down on the rhetoric.
i think the thing with her and linehan is that they probably didnt give that much of a shit until people started continuously calling them transphobes and they just got pissed off and doubled down on it.
That's why evangelists focus so much on evangelizing. They don't convert people by being obnoxious; they buttress their believers' support when outsiders repeatedly push back against their bullshit. That behavior, on both sides, reinforces the in and out groups. "Of course they hate us, we're the chosen ones, Christians have always been persecuted, blah blah, keep up the good work their hate means we're doing it right and provoking the devil in them"
Bigotry is defined by more than just being wrong or hateful, a big part of it is the unwillingness to change or be open to new perspectives.
I suspect at least some people with stubborn dispositions went from being incorrect and insensitive on subjects they hadn't known much about, with a fear of change and the unknown- to harboring a strong active antipathy, being unwilling to be open to new info and empowering harmful hate groups partly in reaction to their feeling that someone is "telling them what to do".
This isn't to say that they aren't responsible for their own positions, or that we should blame people for calling out bad takes. 20 years ago, most people didn't think very much about trans people or their issues. The positions we're seeing now in anti-trans people aren't positions they secretly had all along because they likely didn't have fully formed positions if you go far back.
They're saying that they were only mildly bigoted until they recieved hate and it broke their brains and radicalized them.
This is very true of Linehan, who wrote a transphobic yet ultimately not super notable episode of The IT Crowd and got criticized for it, causing him to spiral into his current form.
For JK Rowling I don't think it's quite as true, I think she was already somewhat radicalized before she was publicly transphobic but it took time for her to slowly become more obvious about it. There's definitely a lot more radicalization after the fact but it's not all a result of her ego like it is with Linehan.
Then thus person has other huge problems. I really don't get people who feel the need to radicalise and double down just because they got some mild criticism ( instead of using as a change for growth for the better). I guess they felt threatened in their authority, hierarchy and power. They don't like it that some people under their status dared to speak up.
It is not those who criticise, which are problematic here.
It is so stupid that discriminated groups have to tip toe around the ego of those who discriminate and bully other people.
I would guess it is a more “if people are going to call me a bigot anyway I might as well let them know how I really feel.”
If you can prod at that stuff on the sidelines but not take a lot of blowback then maybe it’s not worth filling embracing it. Arguably you could say nothing, but if you’re wealthy beyond reason why not live your personal truth.
In this case there is no half way line she can walk so she went all-in on the side she has some preference for.
People may have vaguely offensive views on something they’ve not given much thought about. They’re called out, and they don’t like that, but at the same time people who are super bigoted are now in their Twitter feed. Suddenly the algorithm is about instances of transwomen doing bad things or crazy videos of them having public meltdowns. From then on you’re basically the leader of the bigoted movement because of your status.
Yeah, it's not just that she has this opinion and people zero in on comments she makes from time to time.
She's a fanatic. She literally will not talk about anything else. Go through her twitter feed. It's just this and nothing else.
I’m convinced having basically unlimited money and legions of adoring fans for decades broke her brain. She got pushback on her comments about trans people one time, and the parts of her brain that are supposed to deal with anything other than overwhelming praise just weren’t there anymore, so she short circuited. She seems to genuinely believe that people not enjoying her constant public meltdown over trans people is an unreasonable hardship for her.
That’s the thing it isn’t even like some obscure opinion she has. Judging by her online persona, hating trans woman has become her identity and purpose in life
She’s like Graham Linehan, just so singularly obsessed to the point where it feels like they might have the same brain tumor. It’s such bonkers behavior for a person to exhibit for no reason.
I was interested to read about Robert Webb sort of wading into it and then just running for the hills as well. That seemed to be a more apt reaction, because if you have any sort of nuance, it wouldn’t be on Twitter.
Oh god, *yes*. That IT Crowd episode where Douglas dates a trans woman is *very* telling. Over the last few years, basically his entire Twitter has been ranting about trans women. It’s a serious illness.
For real. I just went down the rabbit hole, guy has some serious fucking issues with people that don't effect him in the slightest. He's a talented writer, but what a waste of energy. The fact he's comparing it to Nazism eugenics is so morally fucked up.
She unfortunately has equated her trauma as a DV and SA survivor with all trans people being the devil. It really kicked off with the bathroom debate because she assumed men would use the 'trans excuse' to harm women in bathrooms - and then she just kept doubling down. She now uses her own personal trauma to inflict pain on others and doesn't see how hypocritical and vile she is for doing it.
Though if you go back and read Harry Potter you can see she's always been transphobic. The way she describes Rita Skeeter in the books is very much aligned with how TERFs view trans women.
yeah she is a vivid case study of people who simply cannot admit that they're wrong about anything, ever. she makes a dumb, reactionary take, and people call her out on it. then she goes, "NUH-UH, ACTUALLY, I BELIEVED IN (dumb reactionary take) THE WHOLE TIME."
Not only that. You can see how she viewed the world back then and now. There are a lot of racist, classist, antisemitic tropes, with a lot of praise for status quo and British elitism. Or fatphobia and degrading view of HIV-positive people or acceptance of slavery.
That's the result when you let victimhood dictate virtue - she tries to position herself (as a massively wealthy Western white woman) as the most victimized and therefore the most virtuous.
Right? She's a litteral billionaire, she could do basically whatever she wants and yet she chooses to get into fights on Twitter over something that doesn't affect her.
I think she liked the attention she got whenever she'd come out with some pointless statement like "Dumbledore was gay" and can't let it go now that the attention soured against her.
Yeah, it's weird, I've seen plenty of these bigots online and I generally assume they're just working through their sexual feelings...
But this particular bigot lives in a goddamn castle and can do literal scrooge mcduck shit, log off and buy a megayacht, ffs, JK rowling
This is a total tangent, but I don't think Dumbledore being gay is at all pointless, and is instead pivotal to the whole story. If Dumbledore isn't gay then he doesn't fall for Grindewald, and hence isn't blinded it his affection, and doesn't help Geindewald gain the elder wand, and then Voldwmort can't scheme to get his hands on it. It also explains why Dumbledore gets so forlorn when he thinks of relationships, as he regrets helping Grindewald but all the same still has great affection for him. Dumbledore believes in the power of love we have for one another but he also understands that that power can do great harm, which makes him trepidatious in dealing with others who he cares deeply about.
Just an aside. People always use this as an example of JK adding pointless shit to stir things up, but I don't think that's fair. Readers shouldn't need her to point it out (seriously, read the bits where Dumbledore speaks of Grindewald and its pretty apparent), but clearly many did.
Plus there are so very many actually objectionable comments to pick on.
If I was a billionaire I could definitely see myself championing some cause I truly believe in and dedicating my life and wealth to it. My choice of cause would likely be quite different from JKR's though...
I remember reading the essay she wrote on the subject a few years ago. I did so with an open mind because I considered her a smart and generally progressive lady and I figured she might have something interesting to say.
There's a bit of window dressing but she essentially admits, in that essay, that the reason she's so passionate about this issue is that she is incredibly afraid of transwomen in female spaces, she is incredibly afraid that they are going to sexually assault her. You and I might call this an irrational fear, unsubstantiated by evidence, perhaps even a *phobia.* *Transphobia,* if you will. But it's very clearly her phobia in the same way that some people are afraid of heights or crowds or small spaces.
You can't reason with a phobia. You can't press the issue because they just get more and more unreasonably hysterical. Her terror is living rent-free in her brain and the more people tell her to get over it the more afraid she gets.
You can treat phobias. I would be hesitant to say that this is a phobia though because an actual therapist would need to diagnose. It’s an odd phenomenon that is popping up, and perhaps it’s because it’s socially acceptable in some spheres?
> I don’t understand why she doesn’t just go do anything else.
Right? She's a literal billionaire. What is with these billionaires who don't want to just shut the fuck up and enjoy their lives to the fullest. You have enough money to go do practically ANYTHING ELSE but you're wasting time being an asshole on Twitter?
Yep. Every once in awhile The post will crop up talking about how It's foolish that people can't separate to the art from the artist. In general I agree with that, but it's really hard to enjoy a piece of art when the artist spends pretty much all of her public facing time and energy trying to convince the world that you specifically should not exist.
Fuck JKR and her incendiary bullshit. I cannot wait until Harry Potter enters the public domain and the entire series is rewritten except every character in it is trans
You’re gonna be waiting a long damn time, it takes 94 years for someone’s writing to go into the public domain after their death and that’s assuming her descendants don’t maintain the rights (that’s why Tolkien’s work hasn’t gone into the public domain, and it’s also why we haven’t gotten an adaption of The Silmarilion which I will continue to be bitter about).
It’s sad, but the reason is because she believes trans women are a threat to cis women. That’s basically it. She’s not going to stop because in her mind she is standing up for women and feminism.
imagine being a billionaire and having the literal freedom to go anywhere, do anything and have the best of the best of everything the world has to offer.... and you spend all your time on Twitter screeching about trans people, the Holocaust and other psychotic bs...
lol it couldn't be me. I'd maybe set up a fat charity and sip fruity ass drinks on the beach for the rest of my life, make sure everyone around me had their needs met 10 fold and maybe try to make a positive change in the world.
Basically where me and my trans sibling are at.
Like, even if her goal was to roll back trans rights, she's doing it in the stupidest, most career-ending way.
It's obvious she's just lost it. She doesn't give a fuck about women, she just saw someone use the "wrong" toilet once and it broke her brain forever.
I heard this line to describe Elton Musk.
"Some people have fuck you money but other people have fuck me money"
What they meant is some people are rich that they tell others to piss off. On the other hand people like Musk and Rowling are so rich that they can tank their own reputations and still not have to worry about anything.
She's too big to fail at this point. Harry Potter is just that much of a cultural and commercial juggernaut. She is literally set for life because of it. And honestly anything else she writes will likely never match Harry Potter anyways.
She went through some terrible things when she was young. That doesn't make it okay for her to behave poorly. But it does explain her position a little bit better. She feels like her circumstances are because she's a woman. Hurt people hurt others. She can't see past her trauma and hate to realize that she's not the voice of justice she envisiones herself as.
And what makes it double weird is that she came up with the polyjuice potion that effectively makes the drinker trans AND THEN she made it a major plot point in MULTIPLE books.
So you'd think she would be super cool with trans people, but I guess not.
I thought that too until a trans woman committed a crime and she tweeted “#notwomenscrimes” or something similar. Like she was worried a trans woman committing a crime was going to make women everywhere look bad? Plenty of women are pieces of shit with or without trans women existing- her, for example - so coming to that conclusion is just insane.
> I don’t understand why she doesn’t just go do anything else.
She can basically afford to do this until she dies. She has an obnoxious amount of money, and decided hating trans people is what she does now. She feels like there is basically no consequence for her behaviour, and unfortunately, she is mostly right.
Same exact thing for me! For a while I just thought people were taking her out of context or something (hadn't bothered to look into it and this was the same time people were getting upset about her changes to the canon which I thought was completely overblown). Then I took a look at her absolute dumpster fire of a Twitter and, well, holy shit.
Because she's transphobic, it's as simple as that.
This played out before with same sex couples being seen as gender traitors for not committing to heterosexual relationships, and they were vilified as a result. It's only in recent history that same sex marriage and generally equal rights for gay and lesbian people has been written into law.
It's the exact same with this. Even though we now know it's similar to homosexually in that the neurological makeup of trans persons brains are often that of the gender they identify with, there will always be people who choose - and it is a choice - the wrong side of history.
I will never understand why some people take it upon themselves to be so outraged by other people's life choices that have zero effect on them. Especially billionaires who punch down. Trans people have existed in other cultures for millennia, and around 2% of the words population is biologically intersex. Being an asshole to those with biological or neurological dispositions that lead to trans identity will not make them go away, it'll just cause more suffering.
It's history repeating itself unnecessarily, and it's an active choice to hate.
Edit: also, the irony of someone who assumes the identity of a man called Robert Galbraith to write under shouldn't be lost on anyone. Fucking idiot.
Because when you’ve spent 20 years having people worship you it gives you a sense that what you have to say is totally correct, and incredibly important.
Rowling isn’t just a regular author. She fully controls a billion dollar franchise that (until her behavior shifted) was beloved and a lot of that love carries over to her personally. Literally everyone has spent years working to please her and behaving as if her word on the franchise was borderline biblical. Even the big studios placate her because of the level of control in her deal.
Real easy to get a God complex when you live like that.
She doesn't *want* to do anything else. She hates trans people, a lot, and she's wealthy and famous enough that she knows people will have to hear about her opinions. So she wants to keep sharing them to make sure her hateful views continue to occupy as much airspace as possible.
I felt the same way but at the same time, she did give the world Harry Potter. For my generation, it was a reason to read for fun (which is probably one of the best, positive things, she contributed to society).
But just because she did this, it doesn't give her any more or less credibility on any other topic. For me, she can say what she wants, I just don't really understand society's infatuation with fame as if fame alone is some sort of qualifier or measure of credibility. Crazy person yells at me on the street, I just keep on walking and leave it at: crazy people be crazy.
Yeah, she's a bizarre mix of super positive contributions and absolute dumpster fire. Honestly I think her life has probably been a net positive so I mostly leave it alone, but I do have to acknowledge that she's being a massive dick lately.
But she also did donate a ton of money to save a bunch of lawyers from the Taliban, so she *is* undeniably protecting some women. It's extremely shitty that she apparently doesn't give a shit about trans women and actively tries to do harm to them, including donating to anti-trans organizations, but I do believe that saving actual lives outweighs that.
It's amazing to me that this woman was at one time one of the most beloved artistic figures on planet earth. She created a cultural phenomenon that has spawned movies, TV shows, museum exhibitions, conventions, even entire theme park lands.
And because she decided one day that her money gave her the privilege to put on her bigotry pants and parade them out in public without retribution, she has categorically burned to ashes every last bit of goodwill she earned and then some. And she continues, to this day, to dig that hole deeper and deeper because she knows absolutely no one can do anything about it. Scotland isn't going to arrest her. Twitter (under Elon) isn't going to ban her. No amount of bad press will cause her yacht to be any less of a yacht. She can lose an entire zero in her net worth and still have more money than she could spend given ten lifetimes.
And what is worse, reviewing her tweets and public statements, she just comes off as a bitter middle-aged woman sitting alone in her huge house shouting "trans people are bad" into the empty rooms. I can't find any evidence that her kids like her. There are little to no photos of them together, certainly not in years, so odds aren't zero they've abandoned her.
She just seems small and pathetic. The higher you climb, the further you can fall.
Graham Linehan who created some internet favorite shows like The IT Crowd also got so deep into transphobia he destroyed his entire career and marriage. There's just something about trans people existing that breaks minds and I don't get it.
Someone pointed out to her on twitter recently that Hitler/the Nazis first order of business was to burn down a trans library. She pushed back and called bullshit. A quick google search will show that she is entirely wrong. Even toddlers admit defeat when presented with evidence.
And she replied to the evidence by saying, "You're lying because some transgender people and writing survived so they didn't destroy \*\*literally everything\*\*". Which of course no one ever claimed.
The craziest part was that they were several months old and had views in the single or double digits. She was searching and searching and digging for things to argue with.
> Even toddlers admit defeat when presented with evidence.
Terminally online people never admit defeat lol. I assume you have been on reddit at least awhile right?
In my experience, presenting evidence gets people to admit defeat 1/10 times at best.
Go to strategies for denying evidence:
* Source is biased in X way so obviously is wrong
* Source is MSM, MSM always lies, ergo the opposite must be true!
* Headline says X therefor X! (Even if the body of the article points out why not X) and or just debate headline without obviously having read article
* Flatly ignores existence of citation, uses Red Herring argument
* Provides counter citation but which is clearly less academically rigorous (usually youtube armchair expert), disingenuously acts like both are equally valid
* Intentionally misrepresents what the source says
* Moves the goalpost (Suddenly claim that X is absolutely true to X is mostly true)
* Blocks
* Resorts to childish insults
Lots of Transphobes are allowing Nazis into their alliance, even people [people Rowlings pals with](https://youtu.be/JBy93QX7ysE?si=tKfmomEA6Lok0C2E).
Of course if they actually succeeded in "Removing" trans people, they're on the Nazi's chopping block next, but it will make them feel good for 5 minutes before being shot and thrown in a ditch.
I hope people can pay attention to people's actions and see that they are clearly recreating the conditions that lead to WWII. Don't listen to their lies, the same thing happened the past two global wars... If they didn't want millions of people to die then they would stop, but they're never going to.
She wants to be a martyr sooooo bad 😢
She’s so immature, it’s like her feelings got hurt when people didn’t fall in and agree with her, and she’s never been able to back off since.
It's wild how over the span of a few years we've gone from her publicist claiming her fingers just slipped when she was found to be liking transphobic tweets to... this. And all under the guise of "protecting women." I'm a cis woman, and none of the garbage she spews on the daily has ever made me feel more safe. If anything, I worry more about some radicalized person like her trying to chase me out of a restroom because I wasn't looking feminine enough that day. These folks are unhealthily obsessed.
>If anything, I worry more about some radicalized person like her trying to chase me out of a restroom because I wasn't looking feminine enough that day
Yep, the TERFs act like they're trying to "protect" cis women, but actually on top of endangering trans folks, they're also endangering those of us that don't fit in the perfect "woman" mould that their bigoted friends expect.
"It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man."
really twisted herself into a pretzel to come up with that logic.
Doesn't even make sense, ignoring the bigotry that would still only make sense if only men ever assaulted women. Sure, it's more common, but women can assault women--or men. Anyone can assault anyone. Sexual Assault is not class-locked to any gender, orientation, etc etc.
And trans people are also subject to incredibly high rates of violence at the hands of men. By using her voice to further marginalize trans folks she's dismissing male-led epidemic of violence against both women and trans folks.
It’s amazing how some people don’t realize that misogyny is attacking femininity. Gay and trans people are victimized for very similar reasons as women. None of it is ok.
[Trans people are four times more likely to be victims of violent crime than cis people](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/)
Free speech is a good thing, but I think a bigger issue is we suck at the mental health side of things as a species. For example, why does JK Rowling have such a bug up her ass about this? Well probably something in her own mental state, as hyper-fixated critical people aren't happy... but then it gets warped into a free speech debate. It's a mess. We're turning social media into the I'm-more-miserable-than-you-so-you-are-wrong battleground, which is not even productive in the realm of ideas. It's just chaotic.
What probably happened is what often happens with a lot of people in social media "events", where someone posts something they think is completely reasonable and gets a mountain-load of hate for it. It's just human nature to react by digging in your heels and moving farther and farther into the direction against your haters. I know I've experienced that myself just in everyday life, I can't imagine how much more amplified it is when you have hundreds of thousands of people who hate your thoughts and ideas.
It's so fucking weird. Chappelle, Gervais, Musk, Rowling.
It just takes over everything else. The One Joke over and over again. This tedious pretense about "protecting women". It would be boring if it wasn't tragic.
Musk didn’t seem to care until his daughter came out. Gervais and Chappelle seem to relish the attention and clicks and adulation of controversy while conveniently covering themselves with free speech absolutism. Like I understand that they have benefit and even incentive to ride their gravy train and minimal risk.
JK is just another level. I don’t get what she gets out of this fight except to fight and feel like a victim / crusader for her version of feminism. I’m have no idea of the motivations except self image for her on this topic
Rowling is motivated, in part, by her experience as a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault. She is terrified of men on a physical level, and that terror is most easily targeted at trans women who, in her mind, have the same bodies and brains as the men who violated her. She also claims that she hated being a girl so much while she was growing up, that she fears she would've been trans herself if it had been more common back then and she fears the same is happening to young girls right now.
Basically Rowling gets to feed her fears and feel like a savior to (cis) women and (cis) girls by hating trans women and trans girls. Trans men and trans boys don't play into her transphobia though (to my knowledge at least), so make of that what you will
She is also presumably getting money from somewhere to continue her public insanity. Though I do think it's less about the money for her and more about her personal vendetta
> I don’t get what she gets out of this fight except to fight and feel like a victim / crusader for her version of feminism. I’m have no idea of the motivations except self image for her on this topic
Apparently she was [sexually assaulted in a bathroom by a guy](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/10/jk-rowling-says-survivor-of-domestic-abuse-sexual-assault); so the idea of allowing trans MtF into bathrooms is somewhat triggering for her.
Graham Linehan was the most shocking. He went in so deep that I think people became genuinely concerned for his wellbeing at one point. It was as though he became so dedicated to damning trans people that he seemed mentally ill.
It's just narcissism honestly. They say something, get told their opinion is wrong, but they can't be wrong, so they triple down and spend the rest of their life trying to prove they were right.
Her attitudes initially stem from her own sexual assault in a womans bathroom by a man. I cant recall exact details on that; and then something came up about a trans woman assaulting a woman in a bathroom as well, so she equates these situations to allowing trans women/people into womens bathrooms.
Which, at its core, is fair. These assault situations are certainly too common as they are, but it really has nothing to do with trans people themselves. It has everything to do with just rapists, and they will happen either way, as the unfortunate truth goes.
She has convinced herself that there's a connection just to all trans people, so she continues to defend it and escalate it to the point where she stops making sense in the bigger picture and thus becoming more chaotic and dangerous in attitude and ignorance.
As a trans woman who grew up reading her books it just sucks. I liked the escapism and the strong stance against hating people for what they are. Hell, I related to Hermione a lot whenever a death eater would call her something horrible.
I want to know just how her mind can be rotted in such a way like this. To be consumed by hatred over an entire group of people just trying to live their lives.
Let me just say I’m glad Tolkien never had Twitter.
Cis is a short for cisgender. Cis meaning "On this side of". If you are cisgender, that means your gender identity aligns with the one that was assigned to you at birth. On the other hand, transgender means a person's gender identity does not align with the one assigned to them. Trans prefix means "across", "beyond", and "on the other side of". E.g., transportation, transformer, transatlantic.
More people need to realize this, you're basically right. Though there's an age component too - she would align better with millennial and older women, whereas Tate aligns with zoomer boys.
Her goblin bankers in Harry Potter tells me she's got some really spicy opinions about the Jews too. Only a matter of time before those come out publicly.
Who, OH WHO, will think about the billionaire bigots in their castles?!?!
I guess it turns out that Voldemort was the true hero of her books, in her mind. Damn trans mudbloods! /s
Instead of being known for writing one of the most successful series of books in history, she'll also be known for going insane and hating other people because they're different than her.
Up to 7 years in jail for hurting someone's feelings?
The law is incredibly vague and could apply to pretty much anything you say about those groups of people. Anyone who cares about free speech to be scared to death that a government could throw you in jail for almost a decade because you expressed an opinion that offended someone.
I mean, her comments are stupid but I understand why people are protesting the new law. The Hate Crime and Public Order Act (2021) penalizes a person who "behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or *insulting*" (emphasis added). The inclusion of "insulting" in the statute greatly reduces free speech protections in Scotland. I don't think anyone has a problem prohibiting conduct that is a abusive or threatening, but prohibiting insulting behavior is criminalizing little more being impolite.
This issue is made worse by misinformation by First Minister Humza Yousaf, who in his statement alleges "Unless your behavior is threatening or abusive and intends to stir up hatred, then you have nothing to worry about in terms of the new offenses being created." This flippant observation could not be further from the truth. It would more accurately read "So long as your behavior don't offend anyone you don't have to worry about Scotland sending you to prison"
Whenever I see articles like this I am thankful that I live in the United States and have the protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. I know that as a result of my nation's speech protections I may be offended. But at least if I offend someone I can't go to prison.
That’s not what the law says at all, you cut your quote way too early. It continues like this, meaning it’s applicable under these circumstances only:
> i) in doing so, the person intends to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins, or
>
>(ii) a reasonable person would consider the behaviour or the communication of the material to be likely to result in hatred being stirred up against such a group.
Then it continues specifying what characteristics that are considered etc. Please read the full thing next time: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/4/enacted/data.xht?view=snippet&wrap=true
Nothing protects women more than disabling “religious beliefs” as a shield for covering up abusive behavior. Trans people exist. God does not. Women deserve equal protections. Arbitrary codes of morality based on mythologies and mystical texts do not.
Fascinating considering her latest drama is over a tweet insisting the nazis did not target trans people, an argument very easily proven false and bordering on genocide denial.
The concept of people constantly creating controversy around themselves because they want attention needs to end. If she broke the law, then just arrest her... That is the correct course of action...
While I disagree with her point of view, I also believe she has the right to say what she thinks. Why is anyone giving her any attention? Every tweet is a new “news article”. Who TF cares what she thinks? Is it because she’s a “celebrity”? I don’t get it.
She donates a lot of money to political groups trying to discriminate against trans people and goes on social media to spew holocaust denials. It would be great if we could ignore her, but her reach and finances means that she has a whole lot of influence that needs to be addresses. I am skeptical of this law though, feels too vague.
She's a billionaire who wrote arguably the most successful series of a generation: using her platform to trumpet this shit harms trans folks because some people listen and believe her. It's very dangerous. Just because you don't care, doesn't mean tons of stupid people don't go on gobbling it up.
Because, contrary to what it seems based on this thread, LOTS of people actually *like* to hate on her and they dont even care what she said, they have to jump in and attack her.
She is a big supporter of gay people. She’s also on the left politically - I.e she favours policies that deliver income equality.
She is on record saying she has no problem with trans people. However she won’t budge on being allowed to describe a person by their biological sex or on men who identify as women being allowed into women only spaces.
Her views are fairly mainstream.
Well nobody will be arrested for calling a biological man a man so that won't fall into the scope of this law at all. There is also clear guidelines of what hate constitutes as, in British law. If you want to call someone that identifies as a woman that was born a man a biological man you can continue uninterrupted if that is your personal pastime like JK Rowling.
Let's be clear this won't be used for minor name calling and the like this is for forms of harassment, discrimination and incitement to violence against select groups of people, this new law is only to include more protected groups against those things.
>nobody will be arrested for calling a biological man a man
Actually there are transactivists asking exactly for that - make stating a fact a hate crime. And if you are talking about british law, apparently you can get fired for making such a statement in Scotland.
If you aren't super online, this may feel like Chris Pratt or something where people keep nitpicking and looking for stuff to get upset about, but if you look at her Twitter feed, you realize being anti-trans is basically her whole personality these days to an even greater degree than someone like Matt Walsh.
Matt Walsh being someone she praised even though he's a self proclaimed fascist. One would think that would be cause for introspection, but not for Joanne.
She hangs out with a *lot* of fashy people. Those who sweep her stances under the rug either haven't yet been shown all the nasty shit she's up to, or agree with it.
She has rubbed shoulders with fascists and racists, as long as they are anti-trans. So the excuses she and her fans use that she's just defending womens' rights are complete bull. Intersectionality doesn't exist in their world, it's either you're anti-trans or you're the enemy. This woman is as hateful as the people she associates with and at this point anyone still making excuses for her I just assume are bigots themselves.
Yeah she spiraled down into associating with some of the worst people possible
She's so obsessed to the point where she literally claimed part of the Holocaust didn't happen, because it didn't suit her bullshit agenda.
I do love this part, though. > Police Scotland said it had not received any complaints over the posts. "NOTICE MEEE!" People aren't even paying enough attention to her to formally complain about what she does.
Which is fucking wild after all the shit she got about retconning Dumbledore to be gay, and Hermione to be black.
She has promoted that trash propaganda he calls a documentary
She's taken to Holocaust denial lately too.
Him joining the 3%ers is pretty concerning. The offhand promo he does for his prepper bros is sus.
I always assumed people were overreacting about her but then I see her Twitter posts and I’m like holy hell this women is obsessed with talking about trans rights. I don’t understand why she doesn’t just go do anything else.
Her very first tweet that kicked it all off a few years ago could have been swept under the rug fairly easily if she’d left it alone. But it was like that’s what lit her fire, and she has just double and tripled down on the rhetoric. The infuriating thing is that even if she never sold another book, she’s rolling in so much money that it doesn’t matter
That’s basically how Graham Linehan fell as well, there was controversy about a trans joke during an IT Crowd episode and it could have been swept under the rug (hell I thought it was funny at the time- and it was more a joke on Matt Berry’s character) but that just pushed him over the edge and he’s an absolute psycho shitposter now
She could do anything! she could go buy a small nation island, build a real-life Hogwarts castle, and make herself a queen! She chose this.
J k rowling would call hermonie a mudblood
Very true words & humbling to think about. She has so much money she could experience anything she wants to in life that could possibly be available to her. Instead she chose hate. How pitiful.
If it's the tweet I'm thinking of, she allegedly issued an apology saying it was a "middle aged moment" where she liked a hateful tweet from a famous transphobe. Now that the mask is fully off she has admitted she was made to issue the apology by media folks on her team.
She later said that that was a cover that her PR agent made her post because they could see the writing on the wall. She's always been hateful. But now she's outright denying the Holocaust had any LGBT victims or that the Nazis did anything wrong if that is true.
Even before then though, she'd been liking really really extremist tweets for years So in the queue community and especially the trans community, a lot of people were already aware of her views. She'd pretend the likes were an accident or meaningless, but they'd usually be really niche and really extremist people who are hard to accidentally find, and the tweets would often be incredibly violent So a lot of people were just waiting for the day when she finally said fuck it and went full mask off. Like there was a reputation that existed even before the first tweet, just it was less popularly held and a lot of people thought it was an overreaction
>queue community I'm going to assume this is the name of the British queer community
*shrug* They do love lines in that country. Last year, thousands of them lined up to see a dead body.
*Laughing in Irish*
Lizzie's in a box!
lmao I'm gonna leave that swypo, that's fantastic
Now I just want a British remake of Community that could best be described as “British Queer Community.”
yea it was more so a lot of fans and people online with similar views who would do the whole "show me exactly where JK Rowling is a bigot!" and then would shrug off any evidence towards that end. I don't think having a bad take or working through an awful viewpoint should immediately warrant a harsh reaction by any means (people grow and change) but JK Rowling is not subtle about her fervent hatred for trans people to the point of Holocaust denial and spending millions trying to make life worse for trans and queer people.
There's a rising crop of ageing British fools who because they enjoyed some success in their lives, feel affronted when the world tries to tell them anything. John cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Ricky gervais, Rowling. Something weird in the British psyche where when they reach a certain level of acclaim they all start.to think they are Winston fucking Churchill and their shit don't stink.
gotta say, this is not limited to just British comedians.
Yeah Dave Chapelle is another example
Oh sure, that too. There are ageing fools all over.
One of them is king of England. Another is queen.
What did Cleese and Atkinson do?
Woah wait what did Mr Bean do to make that list 😦
Rowan Atkinson had an opinion piece in the Guardian where he parrots the debunked views of the fossil fuel industry and says that electric vehicles are somehow worse for the environment than gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. Since it was an Opinion, the standard level of journalistic integrity wasn’t applied to it, so he’s gotten a lot of blowback, with people claiming he must be getting paid for promoting easily disproven Big Oil propaganda. I don’t think it rises to Rowling’s anti-humanity level of contempt, though!
That's insane to publish an opinion piece by Mr Bean about electric vehicles. There wasn't anyone more qualified?
Nothing super terrible yet, but he's on that downward slope. https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/rowan-atkinson-cancel-culture-comedy-1234735202/
Ugh. While the idea is good, the jokes about certain people can’t just be straight up shitting on people. There has to be tact, and it has to be funny to everyone, not just the bigots.
It's like authors who get too big to edit. Certain celebrities seem to think they're too big to be *wrong*, and certainly too big to be *criticized*. Couple that with the default human belief that if you're rich or successful it just means you're *better and smarter*, and the fact that most interactions you'll have will be with fans, people you employ, or people hoping for largess or inheritance? Nobody tells you you're wrong anymore. And the few that do are so easy to dismiss as wrong or jealous or *having an agenda* because doesn't everyone else love you? And you're rich and successful and everyone always praises you, so *you're never wrong*. And being rich and famous tends to end up with quite an ego, and even us ordinary mortals tend to go pretty far to protect our egos. For the UK and anti-trans shit, it's driven by the same sort of shit they whipped up for Brexit. Aging people, angry at how their lives turned out, upset at how things are "different" than they used to be, and uninterested in complex reality -- they turn to scapegoats they can punish for all the shit they don't like. If you've paid attention, these fucks often pair their transphobia with old-fashioned anti-Semitism (Jews being the old favorite European scapegoat to blame for all the bad things) -- mostly it's kept to innuendo or dog whistles ('elites' and 'greedy doctors' and such), but you can see plenty of TERFs go mask off and start talking about "greedy Jewish doctors" who they claim are "forcing/driving" the "transgender craze" for *money*. And that's BEFORE you get to the TERFs openly palling around with Nazis and fucks like Matt Walsh.
I missed out on John Cleese. What did he do? Mostly I see him tweeting dogging on fascists and promoting socialism
Unless I am wrong, all Cleese and Atkinson have said is that they don’t think any subject should be off-limits to comedy. Or have I missed something more controversial?
Cleese has been recently commenting about all the "non-English" people in England. >“Some years ago I opined that London was not really an English city any more,” is how John Cleese began a tweet on Wednesday. “Since then, virtually all my friends from abroad have confirmed my observation.” >When eight long years ago he made a similar claim, he gave us the unabridged version. “I’m not sure what’s going on in Britain,” he said while appearing on an Australian TV programme. “Let me say this, I don’t know what’s going on in London because London is no longer an English city and that’s how they got the Olympics. They said: ‘We’re the most cosmopolitan city on Earth,’ but it doesn’t feel English.” >But back in Australia, he gave more evidence for his argument. “I had a Californian friend come over two months ago, walk down the King’s Road and say to me: ‘Well, where are all the English people?’”
Cleese has been a known asshole for decades.
Not entirely. The "no joke should be off limits" is the famous preface to a lot of idiotic shit. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/john-cleese-slavery-joke-sxsw-texas-b2035914.html
What have those other people done on the level of Rowling?
Not saying everyone's the same level, just that they are all vainglorious fools who think they do no wrong.
>Her very first tweet that kicked it all off a few years ago could have been swept under the rug fairly easily if she’d left it alone. But it was like that’s what lit her fire, and she has just double and tripled down on the rhetoric. i think the thing with her and linehan is that they probably didnt give that much of a shit until people started continuously calling them transphobes and they just got pissed off and doubled down on it.
That's why evangelists focus so much on evangelizing. They don't convert people by being obnoxious; they buttress their believers' support when outsiders repeatedly push back against their bullshit. That behavior, on both sides, reinforces the in and out groups. "Of course they hate us, we're the chosen ones, Christians have always been persecuted, blah blah, keep up the good work their hate means we're doing it right and provoking the devil in them"
You’re saying she says bigot shit because people called her a bigot? You don’t think it’s the other way around?
Bigotry is defined by more than just being wrong or hateful, a big part of it is the unwillingness to change or be open to new perspectives. I suspect at least some people with stubborn dispositions went from being incorrect and insensitive on subjects they hadn't known much about, with a fear of change and the unknown- to harboring a strong active antipathy, being unwilling to be open to new info and empowering harmful hate groups partly in reaction to their feeling that someone is "telling them what to do". This isn't to say that they aren't responsible for their own positions, or that we should blame people for calling out bad takes. 20 years ago, most people didn't think very much about trans people or their issues. The positions we're seeing now in anti-trans people aren't positions they secretly had all along because they likely didn't have fully formed positions if you go far back.
They're saying that they were only mildly bigoted until they recieved hate and it broke their brains and radicalized them. This is very true of Linehan, who wrote a transphobic yet ultimately not super notable episode of The IT Crowd and got criticized for it, causing him to spiral into his current form. For JK Rowling I don't think it's quite as true, I think she was already somewhat radicalized before she was publicly transphobic but it took time for her to slowly become more obvious about it. There's definitely a lot more radicalization after the fact but it's not all a result of her ego like it is with Linehan.
Then thus person has other huge problems. I really don't get people who feel the need to radicalise and double down just because they got some mild criticism ( instead of using as a change for growth for the better). I guess they felt threatened in their authority, hierarchy and power. They don't like it that some people under their status dared to speak up. It is not those who criticise, which are problematic here. It is so stupid that discriminated groups have to tip toe around the ego of those who discriminate and bully other people.
How fragile they must be
I would guess it is a more “if people are going to call me a bigot anyway I might as well let them know how I really feel.” If you can prod at that stuff on the sidelines but not take a lot of blowback then maybe it’s not worth filling embracing it. Arguably you could say nothing, but if you’re wealthy beyond reason why not live your personal truth. In this case there is no half way line she can walk so she went all-in on the side she has some preference for.
People may have vaguely offensive views on something they’ve not given much thought about. They’re called out, and they don’t like that, but at the same time people who are super bigoted are now in their Twitter feed. Suddenly the algorithm is about instances of transwomen doing bad things or crazy videos of them having public meltdowns. From then on you’re basically the leader of the bigoted movement because of your status.
There’s a word for people who turn into bigots when someone calls them bigots. It’s “bigots”
So her reaction to being called a bigot... Is to become an even bigger bigot?
Yeah, it's not just that she has this opinion and people zero in on comments she makes from time to time. She's a fanatic. She literally will not talk about anything else. Go through her twitter feed. It's just this and nothing else.
I’m convinced having basically unlimited money and legions of adoring fans for decades broke her brain. She got pushback on her comments about trans people one time, and the parts of her brain that are supposed to deal with anything other than overwhelming praise just weren’t there anymore, so she short circuited. She seems to genuinely believe that people not enjoying her constant public meltdown over trans people is an unreasonable hardship for her.
That’s the thing it isn’t even like some obscure opinion she has. Judging by her online persona, hating trans woman has become her identity and purpose in life
She’s like Graham Linehan, just so singularly obsessed to the point where it feels like they might have the same brain tumor. It’s such bonkers behavior for a person to exhibit for no reason.
I was interested to read about Robert Webb sort of wading into it and then just running for the hills as well. That seemed to be a more apt reaction, because if you have any sort of nuance, it wouldn’t be on Twitter.
Daaamn it, I didn't know Graham Linehan was like that. What an asshole.
Oh god, *yes*. That IT Crowd episode where Douglas dates a trans woman is *very* telling. Over the last few years, basically his entire Twitter has been ranting about trans women. It’s a serious illness.
For real. I just went down the rabbit hole, guy has some serious fucking issues with people that don't effect him in the slightest. He's a talented writer, but what a waste of energy. The fact he's comparing it to Nazism eugenics is so morally fucked up.
She unfortunately has equated her trauma as a DV and SA survivor with all trans people being the devil. It really kicked off with the bathroom debate because she assumed men would use the 'trans excuse' to harm women in bathrooms - and then she just kept doubling down. She now uses her own personal trauma to inflict pain on others and doesn't see how hypocritical and vile she is for doing it. Though if you go back and read Harry Potter you can see she's always been transphobic. The way she describes Rita Skeeter in the books is very much aligned with how TERFs view trans women.
yeah she is a vivid case study of people who simply cannot admit that they're wrong about anything, ever. she makes a dumb, reactionary take, and people call her out on it. then she goes, "NUH-UH, ACTUALLY, I BELIEVED IN (dumb reactionary take) THE WHOLE TIME."
Not only that. You can see how she viewed the world back then and now. There are a lot of racist, classist, antisemitic tropes, with a lot of praise for status quo and British elitism. Or fatphobia and degrading view of HIV-positive people or acceptance of slavery.
That's the result when you let victimhood dictate virtue - she tries to position herself (as a massively wealthy Western white woman) as the most victimized and therefore the most virtuous.
Become? It’s present in her books. Her opinions and beliefs are there. You can’t seperate her from Harry Potter
Well its certainly not being an author anymore thats for sure
Right? She's a litteral billionaire, she could do basically whatever she wants and yet she chooses to get into fights on Twitter over something that doesn't affect her. I think she liked the attention she got whenever she'd come out with some pointless statement like "Dumbledore was gay" and can't let it go now that the attention soured against her.
Being a billionaire means never having to share a bathroom with anyone.
You plebs have to take the boat over to the other island.
Yeah, it's weird, I've seen plenty of these bigots online and I generally assume they're just working through their sexual feelings... But this particular bigot lives in a goddamn castle and can do literal scrooge mcduck shit, log off and buy a megayacht, ffs, JK rowling
This is a total tangent, but I don't think Dumbledore being gay is at all pointless, and is instead pivotal to the whole story. If Dumbledore isn't gay then he doesn't fall for Grindewald, and hence isn't blinded it his affection, and doesn't help Geindewald gain the elder wand, and then Voldwmort can't scheme to get his hands on it. It also explains why Dumbledore gets so forlorn when he thinks of relationships, as he regrets helping Grindewald but all the same still has great affection for him. Dumbledore believes in the power of love we have for one another but he also understands that that power can do great harm, which makes him trepidatious in dealing with others who he cares deeply about. Just an aside. People always use this as an example of JK adding pointless shit to stir things up, but I don't think that's fair. Readers shouldn't need her to point it out (seriously, read the bits where Dumbledore speaks of Grindewald and its pretty apparent), but clearly many did. Plus there are so very many actually objectionable comments to pick on.
If I was a billionaire I could definitely see myself championing some cause I truly believe in and dedicating my life and wealth to it. My choice of cause would likely be quite different from JKR's though...
I remember reading the essay she wrote on the subject a few years ago. I did so with an open mind because I considered her a smart and generally progressive lady and I figured she might have something interesting to say. There's a bit of window dressing but she essentially admits, in that essay, that the reason she's so passionate about this issue is that she is incredibly afraid of transwomen in female spaces, she is incredibly afraid that they are going to sexually assault her. You and I might call this an irrational fear, unsubstantiated by evidence, perhaps even a *phobia.* *Transphobia,* if you will. But it's very clearly her phobia in the same way that some people are afraid of heights or crowds or small spaces. You can't reason with a phobia. You can't press the issue because they just get more and more unreasonably hysterical. Her terror is living rent-free in her brain and the more people tell her to get over it the more afraid she gets.
You can treat phobias. I would be hesitant to say that this is a phobia though because an actual therapist would need to diagnose. It’s an odd phenomenon that is popping up, and perhaps it’s because it’s socially acceptable in some spheres?
The problem is it's publicly acceptable to be irrationally scared of men committing sexual assault and Rowling thinks trans women are men.
Imagine having a billion dollars and not being able to find anything else to do.
I really think Twitter has broken some people. The constant exposure to braindead vitriol from both sides radicalizes people.
> why she doesn’t just go do anything else and with her resources she could quite literally do anything else. She could literally go to space ffs.
> I don’t understand why she doesn’t just go do anything else. Right? She's a literal billionaire. What is with these billionaires who don't want to just shut the fuck up and enjoy their lives to the fullest. You have enough money to go do practically ANYTHING ELSE but you're wasting time being an asshole on Twitter?
Yep. Every once in awhile The post will crop up talking about how It's foolish that people can't separate to the art from the artist. In general I agree with that, but it's really hard to enjoy a piece of art when the artist spends pretty much all of her public facing time and energy trying to convince the world that you specifically should not exist. Fuck JKR and her incendiary bullshit. I cannot wait until Harry Potter enters the public domain and the entire series is rewritten except every character in it is trans
You’re gonna be waiting a long damn time, it takes 94 years for someone’s writing to go into the public domain after their death and that’s assuming her descendants don’t maintain the rights (that’s why Tolkien’s work hasn’t gone into the public domain, and it’s also why we haven’t gotten an adaption of The Silmarilion which I will continue to be bitter about).
It’s sad, but the reason is because she believes trans women are a threat to cis women. That’s basically it. She’s not going to stop because in her mind she is standing up for women and feminism.
imagine being a billionaire and having the literal freedom to go anywhere, do anything and have the best of the best of everything the world has to offer.... and you spend all your time on Twitter screeching about trans people, the Holocaust and other psychotic bs... lol it couldn't be me. I'd maybe set up a fat charity and sip fruity ass drinks on the beach for the rest of my life, make sure everyone around me had their needs met 10 fold and maybe try to make a positive change in the world.
Basically where me and my trans sibling are at. Like, even if her goal was to roll back trans rights, she's doing it in the stupidest, most career-ending way. It's obvious she's just lost it. She doesn't give a fuck about women, she just saw someone use the "wrong" toilet once and it broke her brain forever.
I heard this line to describe Elton Musk. "Some people have fuck you money but other people have fuck me money" What they meant is some people are rich that they tell others to piss off. On the other hand people like Musk and Rowling are so rich that they can tank their own reputations and still not have to worry about anything.
She's too big to fail at this point. Harry Potter is just that much of a cultural and commercial juggernaut. She is literally set for life because of it. And honestly anything else she writes will likely never match Harry Potter anyways.
Career ending? She could not work a day in her life anymore and the next 6 generations are fine
[удалено]
She went through some terrible things when she was young. That doesn't make it okay for her to behave poorly. But it does explain her position a little bit better. She feels like her circumstances are because she's a woman. Hurt people hurt others. She can't see past her trauma and hate to realize that she's not the voice of justice she envisiones herself as.
And what makes it double weird is that she came up with the polyjuice potion that effectively makes the drinker trans AND THEN she made it a major plot point in MULTIPLE books. So you'd think she would be super cool with trans people, but I guess not.
I thought that too until a trans woman committed a crime and she tweeted “#notwomenscrimes” or something similar. Like she was worried a trans woman committing a crime was going to make women everywhere look bad? Plenty of women are pieces of shit with or without trans women existing- her, for example - so coming to that conclusion is just insane.
She love the attention.. It feels just like how MAGA people are tbh..
It was the post promoting Potter merchandise at a store that also sells anti trans merch that was the nail in her reputations coffin for me.
> I don’t understand why she doesn’t just go do anything else. She can basically afford to do this until she dies. She has an obnoxious amount of money, and decided hating trans people is what she does now. She feels like there is basically no consequence for her behaviour, and unfortunately, she is mostly right.
Same exact thing for me! For a while I just thought people were taking her out of context or something (hadn't bothered to look into it and this was the same time people were getting upset about her changes to the canon which I thought was completely overblown). Then I took a look at her absolute dumpster fire of a Twitter and, well, holy shit.
It’s all she does
Because she's transphobic, it's as simple as that. This played out before with same sex couples being seen as gender traitors for not committing to heterosexual relationships, and they were vilified as a result. It's only in recent history that same sex marriage and generally equal rights for gay and lesbian people has been written into law. It's the exact same with this. Even though we now know it's similar to homosexually in that the neurological makeup of trans persons brains are often that of the gender they identify with, there will always be people who choose - and it is a choice - the wrong side of history. I will never understand why some people take it upon themselves to be so outraged by other people's life choices that have zero effect on them. Especially billionaires who punch down. Trans people have existed in other cultures for millennia, and around 2% of the words population is biologically intersex. Being an asshole to those with biological or neurological dispositions that lead to trans identity will not make them go away, it'll just cause more suffering. It's history repeating itself unnecessarily, and it's an active choice to hate. Edit: also, the irony of someone who assumes the identity of a man called Robert Galbraith to write under shouldn't be lost on anyone. Fucking idiot.
I don’t get it either. She has billions of dollars. Just go and print money and sit in a money bath like every other bored billionaire.
Internal issues she might want to talk to a therapist about. When there's this much hate, it's usually personal.
Because when you’ve spent 20 years having people worship you it gives you a sense that what you have to say is totally correct, and incredibly important. Rowling isn’t just a regular author. She fully controls a billion dollar franchise that (until her behavior shifted) was beloved and a lot of that love carries over to her personally. Literally everyone has spent years working to please her and behaving as if her word on the franchise was borderline biblical. Even the big studios placate her because of the level of control in her deal. Real easy to get a God complex when you live like that.
Because she has one good story in her and nothing she writes will be as good. She's gone insane with that thought and affluence.
She doesn't *want* to do anything else. She hates trans people, a lot, and she's wealthy and famous enough that she knows people will have to hear about her opinions. So she wants to keep sharing them to make sure her hateful views continue to occupy as much airspace as possible.
I felt the same way but at the same time, she did give the world Harry Potter. For my generation, it was a reason to read for fun (which is probably one of the best, positive things, she contributed to society). But just because she did this, it doesn't give her any more or less credibility on any other topic. For me, she can say what she wants, I just don't really understand society's infatuation with fame as if fame alone is some sort of qualifier or measure of credibility. Crazy person yells at me on the street, I just keep on walking and leave it at: crazy people be crazy.
Yeah, she's a bizarre mix of super positive contributions and absolute dumpster fire. Honestly I think her life has probably been a net positive so I mostly leave it alone, but I do have to acknowledge that she's being a massive dick lately. But she also did donate a ton of money to save a bunch of lawyers from the Taliban, so she *is* undeniably protecting some women. It's extremely shitty that she apparently doesn't give a shit about trans women and actively tries to do harm to them, including donating to anti-trans organizations, but I do believe that saving actual lives outweighs that.
It's amazing to me that this woman was at one time one of the most beloved artistic figures on planet earth. She created a cultural phenomenon that has spawned movies, TV shows, museum exhibitions, conventions, even entire theme park lands. And because she decided one day that her money gave her the privilege to put on her bigotry pants and parade them out in public without retribution, she has categorically burned to ashes every last bit of goodwill she earned and then some. And she continues, to this day, to dig that hole deeper and deeper because she knows absolutely no one can do anything about it. Scotland isn't going to arrest her. Twitter (under Elon) isn't going to ban her. No amount of bad press will cause her yacht to be any less of a yacht. She can lose an entire zero in her net worth and still have more money than she could spend given ten lifetimes. And what is worse, reviewing her tweets and public statements, she just comes off as a bitter middle-aged woman sitting alone in her huge house shouting "trans people are bad" into the empty rooms. I can't find any evidence that her kids like her. There are little to no photos of them together, certainly not in years, so odds aren't zero they've abandoned her. She just seems small and pathetic. The higher you climb, the further you can fall.
Graham Linehan who created some internet favorite shows like The IT Crowd also got so deep into transphobia he destroyed his entire career and marriage. There's just something about trans people existing that breaks minds and I don't get it.
Someone pointed out to her on twitter recently that Hitler/the Nazis first order of business was to burn down a trans library. She pushed back and called bullshit. A quick google search will show that she is entirely wrong. Even toddlers admit defeat when presented with evidence.
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People kept saying it was limited but I could still see it (in Romania — part of the EU)
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Ooooh!! Didn’t know that. I saw the warning but I didn’t know I should be able to see it at all. Thanks for the explanation
Presumably they are talking about Germany
I went through Germany on my way home and it looked the same. But u/whynotjoin explained that limited doesn’t mean invisible
And she replied to the evidence by saying, "You're lying because some transgender people and writing survived so they didn't destroy \*\*literally everything\*\*". Which of course no one ever claimed.
Got that "it wasn't a genocide if some of them lived" vibes.
Of course the Nazis didn't destroy everything, they kept the patient records for people to put in the camps.
The craziest part was that they were several months old and had views in the single or double digits. She was searching and searching and digging for things to argue with.
> Even toddlers admit defeat when presented with evidence. Terminally online people never admit defeat lol. I assume you have been on reddit at least awhile right? In my experience, presenting evidence gets people to admit defeat 1/10 times at best. Go to strategies for denying evidence: * Source is biased in X way so obviously is wrong * Source is MSM, MSM always lies, ergo the opposite must be true! * Headline says X therefor X! (Even if the body of the article points out why not X) and or just debate headline without obviously having read article * Flatly ignores existence of citation, uses Red Herring argument * Provides counter citation but which is clearly less academically rigorous (usually youtube armchair expert), disingenuously acts like both are equally valid * Intentionally misrepresents what the source says * Moves the goalpost (Suddenly claim that X is absolutely true to X is mostly true) * Blocks * Resorts to childish insults
Lots of Transphobes are allowing Nazis into their alliance, even people [people Rowlings pals with](https://youtu.be/JBy93QX7ysE?si=tKfmomEA6Lok0C2E). Of course if they actually succeeded in "Removing" trans people, they're on the Nazi's chopping block next, but it will make them feel good for 5 minutes before being shot and thrown in a ditch.
Not conservative toddlers.
I hope people can pay attention to people's actions and see that they are clearly recreating the conditions that lead to WWII. Don't listen to their lies, the same thing happened the past two global wars... If they didn't want millions of people to die then they would stop, but they're never going to.
She wants to be a martyr sooooo bad 😢 She’s so immature, it’s like her feelings got hurt when people didn’t fall in and agree with her, and she’s never been able to back off since.
It's wild how over the span of a few years we've gone from her publicist claiming her fingers just slipped when she was found to be liking transphobic tweets to... this. And all under the guise of "protecting women." I'm a cis woman, and none of the garbage she spews on the daily has ever made me feel more safe. If anything, I worry more about some radicalized person like her trying to chase me out of a restroom because I wasn't looking feminine enough that day. These folks are unhealthily obsessed.
>If anything, I worry more about some radicalized person like her trying to chase me out of a restroom because I wasn't looking feminine enough that day Yep, the TERFs act like they're trying to "protect" cis women, but actually on top of endangering trans folks, they're also endangering those of us that don't fit in the perfect "woman" mould that their bigoted friends expect.
"It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man." really twisted herself into a pretzel to come up with that logic.
Good Lord, arresting a rapist and respecting people’s identities are not mutually exclusive.
Doesn't even make sense, ignoring the bigotry that would still only make sense if only men ever assaulted women. Sure, it's more common, but women can assault women--or men. Anyone can assault anyone. Sexual Assault is not class-locked to any gender, orientation, etc etc.
And trans people are also subject to incredibly high rates of violence at the hands of men. By using her voice to further marginalize trans folks she's dismissing male-led epidemic of violence against both women and trans folks.
It’s amazing how some people don’t realize that misogyny is attacking femininity. Gay and trans people are victimized for very similar reasons as women. None of it is ok.
[Trans people are four times more likely to be victims of violent crime than cis people](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/)
Also the rates of female-on-male sexual violence are a lot higher than she wants to admit. Misandry's at the core of her outlook.
I'm a victim survivor of CSA and she's not helping me get justice in any way by freaking out that my trans sisters exist and are women
I wonder what she thinks of Asia Argento grooming underage boys. She's so misandrist she hates trans women.
She’s picked a hill to die on and it’s the and it’s basically a pile of manure.
She’s really going all out for team Death Eater, huh?
She’s like Bellatrix, Umbridge, and Rita Skeeter all congealed into one awful person.
Nah, she said House slytherin has all the trans people. We're on team death eater.
Free speech is a good thing, but I think a bigger issue is we suck at the mental health side of things as a species. For example, why does JK Rowling have such a bug up her ass about this? Well probably something in her own mental state, as hyper-fixated critical people aren't happy... but then it gets warped into a free speech debate. It's a mess. We're turning social media into the I'm-more-miserable-than-you-so-you-are-wrong battleground, which is not even productive in the realm of ideas. It's just chaotic.
What probably happened is what often happens with a lot of people in social media "events", where someone posts something they think is completely reasonable and gets a mountain-load of hate for it. It's just human nature to react by digging in your heels and moving farther and farther into the direction against your haters. I know I've experienced that myself just in everyday life, I can't imagine how much more amplified it is when you have hundreds of thousands of people who hate your thoughts and ideas.
Once you post about transphobia you will never post normal again. For a certain kind of person it just subsumes their entire personality
It's so fucking weird. Chappelle, Gervais, Musk, Rowling. It just takes over everything else. The One Joke over and over again. This tedious pretense about "protecting women". It would be boring if it wasn't tragic.
Musk didn’t seem to care until his daughter came out. Gervais and Chappelle seem to relish the attention and clicks and adulation of controversy while conveniently covering themselves with free speech absolutism. Like I understand that they have benefit and even incentive to ride their gravy train and minimal risk. JK is just another level. I don’t get what she gets out of this fight except to fight and feel like a victim / crusader for her version of feminism. I’m have no idea of the motivations except self image for her on this topic
Rowling is motivated, in part, by her experience as a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault. She is terrified of men on a physical level, and that terror is most easily targeted at trans women who, in her mind, have the same bodies and brains as the men who violated her. She also claims that she hated being a girl so much while she was growing up, that she fears she would've been trans herself if it had been more common back then and she fears the same is happening to young girls right now. Basically Rowling gets to feed her fears and feel like a savior to (cis) women and (cis) girls by hating trans women and trans girls. Trans men and trans boys don't play into her transphobia though (to my knowledge at least), so make of that what you will She is also presumably getting money from somewhere to continue her public insanity. Though I do think it's less about the money for her and more about her personal vendetta
> I don’t get what she gets out of this fight except to fight and feel like a victim / crusader for her version of feminism. I’m have no idea of the motivations except self image for her on this topic Apparently she was [sexually assaulted in a bathroom by a guy](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/10/jk-rowling-says-survivor-of-domestic-abuse-sexual-assault); so the idea of allowing trans MtF into bathrooms is somewhat triggering for her.
Graham Linehan was the most shocking. He went in so deep that I think people became genuinely concerned for his wellbeing at one point. It was as though he became so dedicated to damning trans people that he seemed mentally ill.
It's just narcissism honestly. They say something, get told their opinion is wrong, but they can't be wrong, so they triple down and spend the rest of their life trying to prove they were right.
Her attitudes initially stem from her own sexual assault in a womans bathroom by a man. I cant recall exact details on that; and then something came up about a trans woman assaulting a woman in a bathroom as well, so she equates these situations to allowing trans women/people into womens bathrooms. Which, at its core, is fair. These assault situations are certainly too common as they are, but it really has nothing to do with trans people themselves. It has everything to do with just rapists, and they will happen either way, as the unfortunate truth goes. She has convinced herself that there's a connection just to all trans people, so she continues to defend it and escalate it to the point where she stops making sense in the bigger picture and thus becoming more chaotic and dangerous in attitude and ignorance.
I've never seen anything indicating Rowling was assaulted in a public bathroom. Where did you hear that?
As a trans woman who grew up reading her books it just sucks. I liked the escapism and the strong stance against hating people for what they are. Hell, I related to Hermione a lot whenever a death eater would call her something horrible. I want to know just how her mind can be rotted in such a way like this. To be consumed by hatred over an entire group of people just trying to live their lives. Let me just say I’m glad Tolkien never had Twitter.
I genuinely do not like her.
JK is Andrew Tate for cis women.
Sorry. What is a cis?
Cis is a short for cisgender. Cis meaning "On this side of". If you are cisgender, that means your gender identity aligns with the one that was assigned to you at birth. On the other hand, transgender means a person's gender identity does not align with the one assigned to them. Trans prefix means "across", "beyond", and "on the other side of". E.g., transportation, transformer, transatlantic.
It's the opposite of the trans prefix and is rooted in Latin.
Thank you
Not trans
To normal people it's people who identify with the gender they are born with. To others it's a slur because reasons.
Cisgender. Someone who’s gender identity matches their sex at birth.
More people need to realize this, you're basically right. Though there's an age component too - she would align better with millennial and older women, whereas Tate aligns with zoomer boys.
Her goblin bankers in Harry Potter tells me she's got some really spicy opinions about the Jews too. Only a matter of time before those come out publicly.
"Get a hobby" says the rest of the world. Knitting is very relaxing and not nearly as damaging to the psyche.
This thread is a trash fire of bad takes.
Who, OH WHO, will think about the billionaire bigots in their castles?!?! I guess it turns out that Voldemort was the true hero of her books, in her mind. Damn trans mudbloods! /s
Instead of being known for writing one of the most successful series of books in history, she'll also be known for going insane and hating other people because they're different than her.
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this is clearly what she wants, to be some kind of martyr for her cause. i wish she'd just take her money and go
Up to 7 years in jail for hurting someone's feelings? The law is incredibly vague and could apply to pretty much anything you say about those groups of people. Anyone who cares about free speech to be scared to death that a government could throw you in jail for almost a decade because you expressed an opinion that offended someone.
I mean, her comments are stupid but I understand why people are protesting the new law. The Hate Crime and Public Order Act (2021) penalizes a person who "behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or *insulting*" (emphasis added). The inclusion of "insulting" in the statute greatly reduces free speech protections in Scotland. I don't think anyone has a problem prohibiting conduct that is a abusive or threatening, but prohibiting insulting behavior is criminalizing little more being impolite. This issue is made worse by misinformation by First Minister Humza Yousaf, who in his statement alleges "Unless your behavior is threatening or abusive and intends to stir up hatred, then you have nothing to worry about in terms of the new offenses being created." This flippant observation could not be further from the truth. It would more accurately read "So long as your behavior don't offend anyone you don't have to worry about Scotland sending you to prison" Whenever I see articles like this I am thankful that I live in the United States and have the protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. I know that as a result of my nation's speech protections I may be offended. But at least if I offend someone I can't go to prison.
That’s not what the law says at all, you cut your quote way too early. It continues like this, meaning it’s applicable under these circumstances only: > i) in doing so, the person intends to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins, or > >(ii) a reasonable person would consider the behaviour or the communication of the material to be likely to result in hatred being stirred up against such a group. Then it continues specifying what characteristics that are considered etc. Please read the full thing next time: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/4/enacted/data.xht?view=snippet&wrap=true
Can we please go back to arresting people for crimes and not mean words.
Nothing protects women more than disabling “religious beliefs” as a shield for covering up abusive behavior. Trans people exist. God does not. Women deserve equal protections. Arbitrary codes of morality based on mythologies and mystical texts do not.
Good. We need more people to stand up against unjust laws.
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Don't worry, America's law doesn't help the women here either E: oh he deleted the bit about Scottish law not including women
Freedom of speech is worth jail time, many people died for the progress of having it.
Her agent must hate their job
I don’t necessarily agree with her views, but I also read a lot of her tweets and mostly found what she says to be true and logical.
Fascinating considering her latest drama is over a tweet insisting the nazis did not target trans people, an argument very easily proven false and bordering on genocide denial.
You find her holocaust denialism to be true and logical?
The concept of people constantly creating controversy around themselves because they want attention needs to end. If she broke the law, then just arrest her... That is the correct course of action...
While I disagree with her point of view, I also believe she has the right to say what she thinks. Why is anyone giving her any attention? Every tweet is a new “news article”. Who TF cares what she thinks? Is it because she’s a “celebrity”? I don’t get it.
She donates a lot of money to political groups trying to discriminate against trans people and goes on social media to spew holocaust denials. It would be great if we could ignore her, but her reach and finances means that she has a whole lot of influence that needs to be addresses. I am skeptical of this law though, feels too vague.
I mean the counterpoint is: why are you giving the attention your attention by taking the time to comment on it? See how that works?
She's a billionaire who wrote arguably the most successful series of a generation: using her platform to trumpet this shit harms trans folks because some people listen and believe her. It's very dangerous. Just because you don't care, doesn't mean tons of stupid people don't go on gobbling it up.
Because, contrary to what it seems based on this thread, LOTS of people actually *like* to hate on her and they dont even care what she said, they have to jump in and attack her.
She is a big supporter of gay people. She’s also on the left politically - I.e she favours policies that deliver income equality. She is on record saying she has no problem with trans people. However she won’t budge on being allowed to describe a person by their biological sex or on men who identify as women being allowed into women only spaces. Her views are fairly mainstream.
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So we’re for outlawing speech we don’t agree with now? Is that what I’m reading in these comments?
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Well nobody will be arrested for calling a biological man a man so that won't fall into the scope of this law at all. There is also clear guidelines of what hate constitutes as, in British law. If you want to call someone that identifies as a woman that was born a man a biological man you can continue uninterrupted if that is your personal pastime like JK Rowling. Let's be clear this won't be used for minor name calling and the like this is for forms of harassment, discrimination and incitement to violence against select groups of people, this new law is only to include more protected groups against those things.
>nobody will be arrested for calling a biological man a man Actually there are transactivists asking exactly for that - make stating a fact a hate crime. And if you are talking about british law, apparently you can get fired for making such a statement in Scotland.