JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.
The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.
She said “freedom of speech and belief” was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.
Earlier, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a “rising tide of hatred”.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.
…
Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
I am so fucking sick of these bigots pretending the science of “biological sex” is on their side.
In recent years, multiple studies of the brains of trans people have revealed areas of differentiation from those of cisgender people. And unless these bigots are prepared to argue that brains are not part of biology, they only have two choices: Deny the science somehow or accept that they’re just bigots who want to hate, regardless of the science.
And because unlike bigots, I like to back my shit up:
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-0666-3
- https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2804855
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955456/
On top of that, there’s some indications of oligogenic causes resulting in various allele differences that wouldn’t necessarily show up on a brain scan.
In conclusion: Fuck bigots and their attempts to co-opt science in order to support their bigotry.
I’m glad you’re backing it up, but honestly, the answer to this whole “biological science” bullshit is simper- it’s none of their fucking business how someone else identifies. I don’t care what “science” says is a man or a woman. If someone says they’re a woman, it’s not my fucking business to tell them they aren’t.
Absolutely agreed. I only bring it up because the bigots like to claim science is on their side (while usually rejecting science to back up some kind of religious nonsense). So it’s nice to be able to throw actual science in their faces.
I’m glad to now have it for myself, so thank you for that, but I don’t know that showing them real science will work because they are not coming at this from a rational position. All they see is “man = penis, woman = vagina” and no amount of science will change their mind. Even bringing up basic things like people born with both sets of genitalia doesn’t phase them. “Well that’s just the exception to the rule,” as if that’s a thing in science. So when they say that they have science on their side, what they mean is that they’ve found some scientific studies that agreed with their preconceived, unscientific notions.
As they say- you shouldn’t play chess with pigeons.
What I’ve heard a lot of people do is not make a whole show to convince the other person but to convince people who may be on the fence or uneducated on the subject. Any third party observer who might just be learning about stuff.
Would you rather trust a random screeching about people birth genitals or someone who is posting scientific evidence to back up their claim and being calm and knowledgeable about the subject.
I get it though, fuck em.
The issue at stake is people’s own fragile identities
Let me clarify: JK Rowling’s childhood learning of “boys have penises and girls have vaginas” runs so deep into her understanding of how she understands being a human that giving it up is scary and threatening.
Everything new to a conservative is scary and threatening.
Tbh I think her hate comes down to two things: she was raped by a man and is paranoid because she never dealt with that trauma in a healthy way and she recognized the right wing as a crop to be harvested. She’s an ideological predator.
Sad that she was raped but immediately declaring all trans people rapists just makes her an asshole. It’s a shame that people actually listen to her crap too.
Thanks foh dah tip
Except it is important in competition where lines must be drawn if we are to enact protected classes. If we don’t need to then that is a different discussion, but for now there are many segregated competitions of all types that exist, which means you’re wrong.
By “competition,” do you mean sports? A form of entertainment?
Why should I even care? Sports are not important to the way the world functions.
Deny the science
Sure thing Bob, let me just stack that in-between “Evolution” and “climate change” on my shelf of “Things that don’t fit my bigoted, hateful, and selfish worldview, so I just conveniently ignore them.”
They will always find a fallacy to argue you that they are right. It’s a belief. You need to bring them to realize they are wrong.
Hard fact, evidence based fact isn’t the bast practice to change these beliefs.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but why would you link to an article that mentions “biological sex” in the first sentence when trying to prove that there is no such thing as “biological sex”? I’m almost certainly missing something, so please excuse my ignorance.
You are misunderstanding. They are saying that biological sex is not the same as gender and it’s clear that a trans woman’s brain is much closer to their identified gender than the one assigned to them at birth.
So biological sex is real then? I keep being told that I fell for a lie that there is a such thing as “biological sex” and that there is no such thing as male and female humans. Is this not the case? Is “biological sex” a real thing?
It isn’t binary or nearly as easily defined as transphobes claim; there’s more to it than just chromosomes and genitalia.
I’m not sure how you think reproduction works…
I’ve always been under the impression that there are males and females. I know that sometimes they feel like they are in the wrong body, but I thought they were still males and females. I am repeatedly told by people in the trans community that this is a lie and that sex is not male and female and that this idea is part of their systemic oppression. I’m just trying to get a solid picture of what is going on exactly.
sex != gender
Biological sex determines the bits you have in your pants - gender on the other hand is the social construct we humans have created, on top of that, to assign social roles and expectations to individuals.
The main issue TERFS (or FARTS) have, is that they argue the only thing that matters is what bits you have in your trousers. Which completely ignores the reality of people everywhere that are societally expected to behave in certain ways because it aligns with what society has deemed “manly” or “girly”. They argue that by wanting rights for trans people, that means, we, as a society, end up entrenching the gender norms feminists have fought so hard to dismantle.
However, that fully relies on the idea that gender has already been abolished and everyone presenting the way they truly feel is just “men” co-opting the feminist movement for their own “deviant” benefit.
Which
A. Completely misses the point about equality and solidarity (why does it matter if AMABs present as women if we all have equal rights?)
B. Disregards the reality of transmasc, transfemmes, enby and anyone else that just wants to live life in a form they feel comfortable with (feminine women and masculine men are just as valid as the opposite)
C. Absolutely dismisses the experience of transmasc individuals as “confused girls” - which is not only bigoted but extremely sexist, it implies that AFABs have no agency and are fully controlled by society - “you see they’re not smart enough to understand social constructs and how their lives fit into them - no! they’re just trying to pass as male so they get the patriarchal benefits the current system provides!” - again completely missing the point of equality.
You may think these are strawmen but if you’re familiar with JKs rethoric you’ll see these are genuine beliefs she holds.
This way, the “Trans Movement” (ie. people presenting and behaving in ways not directly assigned to their birth sex) becomes a hill to die on.
Not because of the purported “safety of girls” in bathrooms, sports and prisons (which JK will gladly demonize in her own fictional worlds of trans criminals and rapists (spoilers - people of any sex or gender expression can be awful human beings - saying they’re the reason sex crimes occur just dismisses the reality of abuse perpetuated by hurtful people))
But because it’s an ideology of absolute societal constructs (how can a man pretend to be a woman if the only thing that makes a woman is her genitalia?)
And look, I too am a gender abolitionist - if we lived in a genderless society that didn’t have gender reveal parties or gendered shoes or clothes or interests or literally anything that divides people into binary groups - I’d be on that shit - but that’s not what folk like JK are fighting for.
They see sex as this immutable quality that not only determines your reproductive organs - but how society should perceive you. You have a penis - you are a man. Oh, you don’t like being perceived as a man and you feel you relate to women in a way that other men don’t? Well, too fucking bad, in the man-bin you go. Rooster between your legs says you’re not allowed to sit in a female-only cubicle - get the fuck out.
That’s why this type of thinking is harmful, the goal isn’t to see who gets the “most rights”, the goal is for everyone to get the same amount of rights, always - so it doesn’t matter if you call yourself a man, a woman or any other label you may choose - what matters is that if you give out love and respect you should receive the same in return.
Edit: Sorry for the massive essay, but assumed you might be interested in the context around sex and gender
Thank-you so much for writing this. I really, really appreciate the time you took to lay this out for me. It is amazing how hard it is to get clear answers on this topic. It seems like it is just constant insults and name-calling for anyone who wants to try to understand. You’re so wonderful for putting so much effort into explaining this. I can’t thank you enough.
Are there any books or recommended reading that you would suggest to go any deeper?
Thanks again!
No, they’re telling you that gender is not sex.
Of course biological sex is real. It’s just a lot more complicated than ‘male’ and ‘female’ because biology is not that simple. So yes, there are XY and XX humans and they can generally, but not universally, reproduce with each other. But that’s not all there is. For instance XXY and XYY are both possible, although often come with a host of other genetic problems (but not always). There are also people born with both types of genitalia, sometimes functional and sometimes not. On top of that, there are conditions like Swyer Syndrome, where someone with XY chromosomes has female genitalia and maybe even a functional female reproductive system.
If trans people are telling you that biological sex is not male and female, that is what they mean.
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this. It is refreshing to get answers when I ask about this stuff instead of just slurs and attacks.
Is it definitionally correct to say that male and female are two of the biological sexes, but there are more? Or is it not even the case that male and female are biological sexes at all? If not, then what is the proper term for xx and xy people?
Do you know what the reason is for the down votes I am getting for the question i asked you? Obviously I don’t care about the score or whatever, I just want to know what it is about my question that is offensive.
Trans people aside, there are people who are purely biologically not XY-male or XX-female. You can have X, Y, YY, XYY, XXY, and XXYY. And more, but the further you get from a pair, the lower the viability. Not to mention things like hormone insensitivity, where you may not develop primary or secondary sexual characteristics, or having sensitivity and developing too much in a certain way.
It’s all very complicated, and honestly when it doesn’t affect me I don’t worry about it. Let people live their lives the way they want in peace and everyone will be much happier.
Thanks, I appreciate the information.
Something I’ve learned that complicates it further is that a single person doesn’t always have consistent chromosomes throughout their entire body. It is entirely possible to have an XX liver or brain or any other organ while the rest of you is XY. It is called microchimerism, it can happen when some stem cells from a baby get into the mother and start to develop as one of her organs. It can also go the other direction, so anyone who formed in a womb can have it. Generally, people have no reason to be tested for this, so most people have no idea if they have organs like this or not.
Quick correction, you cannot have just Y or YY. The only full monosomy you can have and survive is Turner syndrome (just one X). Not having any X chromosome is 100% fatal, the X chromosome is necessary for development regardless of sex. Additionally, while you can have XYY (Jacobs syndrome), you cannot have YY for the same reason you can’t have monosomy Y.
Biological sex exists, it’s just not binary, and the mental part of this has a massive psycho-social component to it that few take into consideration. Brain research on this is still in the chicken vs egg stage it seems based on those papers.
“It’s basic biology” mfers when they see advanced biology 😣
OR, and hear me out, you could just not be a total asshole? Maybe have a baseline of tolerance and respect for the people who made you a billionaire? No? Then fuck right off and accept the consequences of your hatred.
It seems billionaires have really wacked out midlife crises. Instead of buying expensive cars and cheating on their partners, they come out as terfy nazis, build hate platforms, and crash companies. I mean to be fair, at this point the sample size is only two, JKKK Rowling and Musk, but it’s still surprising that it’d happen twice.
Bill Gates started a charity.
Steve Jobs killed himself because he thought he knew better than his doctors. Well, that’s wacked out too, but at least it’s not being a Nazi…
These guys need to get on John McAfee’s level
John McCracked
McAfee is not worth cracking
That dude’s videos are extraordinary.
John McAfee’s poop hammock is perhaps the best story about him.
For the uninitiated:
Have you seen the (censored) GoPro footage he released?
Oh you son of a…
At last this guy was entertaining, not only disgusting like these modern “billionaires”. Pff.
Bill gates didn’t start the charity as a midlife crisis.
It’s a tax dodge and a lot of other ways of protecting his money while also doing a little reputation washing/ morality banking
Wasn’t he 45 when he started the charity? That sounds like a perfect candidate to be a midlife crisis, haha
Just because it was midlife doesn’t mean it’s a crisis.
He started the charity as a shelter for his obscene wealth. That is all.
I’m not obscenely wealthy, so I don’t have the experience…but it seems plausible that a billionaire midlife crisis could be “Where am I going to put this ridiculous amount of money that I’ve earned through less-than-ethical means?”
It’s plausible that a man who made his billions fucking everyone over who was even remotely near him….
… developed a conscience?
https://apnews.com/article/business-philanthropy-b8acb10f529ac2dbaff7631021d823c9
It’s a tax dodge
Have you ever worked with the Gates foundation? Because calling it a “tax dodge” like that is completely baseless, they’re a really reallyngood charity, like honestly one of the best in the world, and also that’s very ignorant of how taxes work.
and also that’s very ignorant of how taxes work.
You could just google it and alleviate your own ignorance of all the scummy ways both the foundation and the trust are used to avoid taxes (and other expenses.) here’s a forbe’s article with the stuff they’re actually allowed to talk about. The “good work” you’re so keen to point out… is part of the grift.
Specifically so schmucks like you pounce whenever some schmuck like me says “they’re not that nice.” That’s the part about “reputation washing”. he gives some money - literal pocket change for somebody that makes nearly 11 million per day.
you don’t get that fucking rich by being “nice” or “decent” or even human, really. this is about Bezos, but it puts their wealth into perspective. Decent humans, with that kind of wealth could solve global housing. Or they could solve the food shortage. he hasn’t even come close to that. No. The foundation isn’t a force for good, even if it occasionally does good shit.
for example, the Rich Douche exploited the pandemic to make money, by investing in vaccine companies. And refusing to release the IP on the Vaccine. Because that would hurt
histhe foundation’s profits.My dude, I have worked with the foundation to help create diagnostic tools for deseases that would otherwise gone unnoticed in developing countries.
The work we have done has saved thousands and thousands of peoples lives. So you can take your.
The “good work” you’re so keen to point out… is part of the grift.
And shove it right up your arse. If saving peoples lives is a “grift” to you because bill Gates didn’t sell his shares in Microsost before he gave them to his trust, because obviously the shares will keep increasing in price, then honestly I don’t fucking care.
And yes I know Bill Gates did shitty things and screwed a lot of people over in his early carrier to become so rich and I’m not excusing that. But the Gates foundation isn’t part of that and has done way too much good for humanity as a whole for some ignorant chucklefuck with no first hand experience of what they do to dismiss it as a “grift”.
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They do good work and help people? That’s great! They do the best work out of all charities worldwide? That’s even better!
Still a tax dodge. You really want to help the world, donate. The money being out of their control is kind of the point…
How is the money being out of their control the point?
The point is to save lives and help people, which the Gates foundation does incredibly well.
And it’s not a tax dodge, he’s literally just not selling his Microsoft shares for cash, getting taxed, and then giving the money to the foundation and instead just giving the foundation the shares directly.
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All that may be true, but it does a lot of good too.
Steve Jobs killed himself because he thought he knew better than his doctors. Well, that’s wacked out too, but at least it’s not being a Nazi…
Steve Jobs was always a piece of shit, and he had that diet well before he got cancer. But yeah the fact he continued to double down in the face of death shows how much of a narcissist he was.
You can add Markus Persson to that sample group
Oh yeah!
So you would like it to be enshrined in law that it is acceptable for whoever holds power to arrest people whom they believe to be assholes?
No, not even a little bit. There is a difference between being an asshole and committing a hate crime. Hate crime laws, when properly crafted and enforced, are an important component of a functional society. They can act as a deterrent, but they are also a way for those materially harmed by a hate crime to get justice. Free speech is never a universal right, anywhere in the world. There are always legitimate restrictions to ensure the public’s overall health and safety.
What is the difference?
No, not even a little bit. There is a difference between being an asshole and committing a hate crime.
I’m not sure there is a difference with this law.
Hate crime laws, when properly crafted and enforced, are an important component of a functional society.
I’m not sure that’s true. Freedom of speech is an important component, and sometimes that means tolerating distasteful speech.
They can act as a deterrent, but they are also a way for those materially harmed by a hate crime to get justice.
What constitutes harm though? The UK tends to include offense (or offence) as a harm.
Free speech is never a universal right, anywhere in the world. There are always legitimate restrictions to ensure the public’s overall health and safety.
Absolutely, but being offended by a bigot probably shouldn’t be criminal without some component of advocacy for violence.
A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive,” with the intention of stirring up hatred based on protected characteristics.
You know it doesn’t work that way but spout nonsense anyway.
That’s already the law. Look at Florida.
Are you seriously arguing against hate crime laws??
It’s becoming harder and harder to be a Harry Potter fan nowaday.
I don’t really understand what it is about X Formerly Known as Twitter that turns previously respectable people into, well, this.
Everybody should take a break from social media once in a while, it’s better for your health.
It doesn’t turn these people, they were shitty all the time, they just get a platform on X so it becomes visible
Part of it is that having a large captive audience hanging on to your every word really starts to amplify toxic characteristics in those with the predisposition for shittiness. Like Musk or Trump, their descend only came when they became active on social media.
Twitter is a horrible thing.
Trump thought the day the Twin Towers fell was a good time to mention his property was closer to the tallest building in New York. That very evening, on the news, in 2001. Here’s a link.
Honestly he did so many “Career Suicides” for Politicians that it broke the system, I get that’s why he won, but… still how the shit did he not get sunk by his 9/11 response, I mean, yeah he said stupid shit ages ago… but the dude straight up got 9/11 and 7/11 mixed up.
The fuck did we go from “A weird yell will disqualify you!” to this!?!?
Because the journalists didn’t do their job. They should have been blasting the “tallest building” and his weird infatuation with his daughter, but he was profitable, so they let it slide.
I really dont think Rowling started off this shitty. From what I’ve heard it sounds like she has baggage regarding men she hasnt dealt with and its led her down this incredibly shitty path
The books have some really problematic themes that add up over time. If HP ended with the first book, they would be a curiosity, but they add up and JK had a really crooked world view when she wrote them. It’s likely her editor soften them in the beginning, but they had less control as they got more popular.
Not to challenge, just don’t remember the later books, what are some good examples of that?
I stopped reading about halfway though and that was when they were being released. I’d say my mounting issues at the time was the weird pettiness of the good characters, the cheapness of Harry(why didn’t he pay for the car he helped wreak? Why didn’t he pay rent to the Weasley family?), and books ending with cheap drama(how many times did Harry loose a positive father figure?). If you want a larger breakdown, here’s a good one that goes into a lot of detail.
They were always awful. They just needed a platform where they could blossom into the terrible people they always were.
Oh yeah it was definitely Twitter that made her a bigot. She was an upstanding and progressive citizen before a website made her bad! /s
That’s like saying “I don’t really understand what it is about alcohol that makes people racist”
If I remember correctly, it all started when she retweeted something that was a bit ignorant and was called out for it on Twitter, but then she kept doubling down until it got to this point, when she could have just stopped talking about it.
It’s not that Twitter suddenly turned her into a bad person, but it definitely brought out the worst in her.
No it just revealed her beliefs to a wider audience. Twitter like all social media doesn’t bring out anything - it’s just a lens that gives the viewer a perspective they might never have seen and these view are then amplified by others who share them. Rowling was always this person, social media just allowed her to share and amplify her views.
I disagree. Social media and the “contrarian” attitude they carry, especially Twitter, can help consolidating and radicalizing your opinions. You get exposed to a very toxic way to carry out conversation (especially on Twitter, where you have constant dogpiling and wannabe famous people who try to “blast” others) so that if they are the only places you discuss about certain subjects, can bring you to shift your views as well.
I am not saying this is the case for J.K. Rowling (I don’t know), but I don’t think we can immediately discard the idea that the dynamics of the medium also affected the result.
I see your point but there are about a hundred or so thoughts I have a day that I am way way cowardly to record. The position she is in with a large fanbase, lots of money, and interacting with pixels probably contributed to her lack of filter.
So right she might have been intrinsically not a very good person prior but all this stuff hasn’t helped her keep a lid on it.
I think the mistake we make is thinking that people are better than they are. I probably have some hidden bigotry that I am unaware of right now but given a space to be exposed to it someone would notice and point it out. If you only know of someone from one thing they did you can form an opinion of them based on very limited information. Get to know them better and you find that hidden awful. Twitter is a tool of constant broad interaction and it preserves bad takes long enough to see them. Add a culture of never admiting to being wrong and filtering by who you agree with and you have a cycle of awful that turns perfectly boringly not great but OK people into monsters defending genocide. Maybe we shouldn’t know anything about the author, replace their name with a serial number or pseudonym and let the art stand on it’s own. Though the racist jewish, wait no goblin, bankers was fairly intense tbh.
sorry to join the little dogpile, but its not X, those are her beliefs.
There are a LOT better books out there then childrens books about wizard school, which she absolutely lifted from Jill Murphy.
Jill Murphy
The worst witch right?
I see the movie has Tim curry in it. I’m sold. Appreciate the recommendation
Dude… my friend’s and I get together (video conference) to watch the film every year in late October. It also features Charolette Rae (the matriarch on Facts of Life) Dianna Rigg (Queen of Thorns on Game of Thrones) and Fariuza Balk (The Craft, Waterboy etc.)
The Worst Witch was a series of books though that Rowling absolutely read before “coming up with” a boarding school for magic using students, but get this: In Rowling’s imagination its BOYS instead of girls who are the main focus, and the protoganist is the messiah instead of a girl screw-up with a heart of gold. Its not in the film but there are houses with colorful characteristics, the protoganist is from a non-magical family and the scary, raven haired potion teacher seems to hate the protoganist while the kind, grey haired headmaster is patient and understanding. She has two friends in the invisible (to non magic users) castlesque boardings school thats surrounded by a forbidden forest where she hangs out with two friends, one who’s straight laced and academically sharp and the other who’s a bit goofy.
Anyway Tim Curry does a musical number
Have you read the books as an adult? If that wont kill your fandom, I don’t think anything will.
I mean tbf, the books were written for children. If you don’t like them, then maybe it’s because they’re not for you anymore. Or are you referring to something else?
As a kid in the target age range, I bailed after the second or third time Harry gained and lost a positive father figure. There were mounting little issues and the longer the books got, the less rewarding the payoff got. But even I assumed that setting up normalized slavery in your world would lead into a story line that denounces it. Instead, JK didn’t address it in a positive manner and we ended up with HP Adults writing essays defending House Elf Slavery.
Fair enough. Probably also doesn’t help that the civil rights organization that Hermione founded, or rather attempted to found, was called SPEW. As in, synonym for “vomit”
My first time reading them, at the age of like, 10? 11? I was so excited for Order of the Phoenix because it was coming out soon and I’d loved the first one that I got as a birthday gift. I slammed through 2 and 3, then 4 just kept going and felt so bad that by the end I wasn’t excited for Order anymore and didn’t finish the series until Order was releasing as a film. They weren’t even that good as a kid if you read anything else
They weren’t even that good as a kid if you read anything else
Here’s an excellent analysis of how and why the Harry Potter hype of the late 90s was very intentionally manufactured and sold to kids.
I don’t like Harry Potter to begin with, but I don’t really have a huge problem separating the artist from the art if the only thing they did was be hateful.
Roald Dahl was a major antisemite, but I still think he wrote great children’s books and suspense/horror stories. H. P. Lovecraft was bigoted about pretty much anyone who wasn’t a white man. Again, a really good writer.
Where is becomes hard to separate them is when they actually do something about their disgusting ideas. Roman Polanski and Woody Allen are pedophiles. I will never watch either of their movies. And I think both have made very good movies. I feel that I was wrong to watch the ones I did.
So yeah, Rowling is an utterly contemptible piece of shit, but if you like Harry Potter, it’s okay.
There were always questionable elements from the books, like the depictions of goblins and elves. But knowing what we know now, these elements cannot be brushed off any more.
The Elves were directly based off of “Brownies”
It’s also highly unusual that elves were depicted this way, considering most fantasy stories hold them in high regard as being magical beings seeing themselves above humanity for reasons that are normally geniunely sound (Better moral compass, natural magical talents… Whereas in Harry Potter it’s the exact opposite, humanity seems to be the highest creature and Elves feel like to squabble before them…
There’s no way the “Brownie” similarity is unintentional
So what’s a Brownie? Well it was a way of explaining slaves to young children back in those days, to brush off the casual cruelty by lying to kids. Essentially the myth of the “Brownie” was to re contextualize the suffering of the black slave as a magical event, a beautiful mysterious thing to be observed not with horror, but with wonder. A big part of the myth claimed that you can’t give a Brownie anything nice like proper clothing, or else this “breaks the contract between Man and Fae” and they run back into the woods never to be seen again.
“No it’s okay children, they’re magical forest people called Brownies! And they LIKE doing that work for us! Oh and we can’t give them anything nice, or they’ll disappear forever! And you wouldn’t want that to happen! No no, really, they’re faeries, and they like being whipped like that!”
Feeling disgusted? Good, that sickness in your stomach is proof that you’re a better person than JK Rowling.
tl;dr Harry Potter elves are a resurrection of Pro-Slavery Propaganda used to indoctrinate children into thinking it’s okay to treat people like shit. They had to GASLIGHT LITERAL CHILDREN into thinking that black people were magical elves, in order to stop them from feeling bad about slavery… and JK decided to bring that back for her kid’s book.
As much fun as Hogwarts Legacy is, I hope she rots in hell and then is reborn as a transgender woman to learn basic empathy.
It’s also highly unusual that elves were depicted this way, considering most fantasy stories hold them in high regard as being magical beings seeing themselves above humanity for reasons that are normally geniunely sound (Better moral compass, natural magical talents… Whereas in Harry Potter it’s the exact opposite, humanity seems to be the highest creature and Elves feel like to squabble before them…
Have you never heard of Santa’s elves? Or Elves in Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’?
Well, there’s elves, then there’s Elves.
I’ve been meaning to read the latter, and we’re all aware of the former, but there’s a lot of conflicting legends of Santa’s Helpers
most fantasy stories hold them in high regard as being magical beings seeing themselves above humanity for reasons that are normally geniunely sound (Better moral compass, natural magical talents…
Oh sweet summer child… You better not know about elves in folklore…
I’m guessing they watched the LOTR movies and said, “yep. That’s what people thought elves were.”
I’m very torn on this issue, like I 100% agree on Polanski and Allen(especially Woody not that Polanski isn’t incredibly shitty too but most of his work isn’t about sexualizing minors, whereas the primary and ultimate love interest for Woodys stand in character in Manhattan is a child). I might, and big emphasis on might watch Chinatown or the Ninth Gate again after he’s dead and in the cold cold ground, but I damn sure won’t pay for any of them if I decide to make that call.
And I only say this because there have been so many shitty people in Hollywood and the movie making business in general I think it’s impossible to watch most without supporting someone awful. Weinstein produced a ton of great films, Brando anally raped Maria Schneider in Last Tango and the scene we see is the one and only take if memory serves(I don’t watch that film anymore but I still watch the Godfather every few years), Kevin Spacey and Brian Singer are predators but I’m sure I’ll watch the Usual Suspects again at some point in my life.
I obviously don’t besmirch anyone that simply can’t bring themselves to engage in art by people we know to be bastards. But I kinda look at it the same way as buying a pair of Nikes, there is certainly a lot of profit from suffering that produced those shoes but I don’t necessarily think anyone is a bad person for wanting some new Jordans
Honestly learning everyone in Hollywood is a fucking creep explains a lot about how genuinely disturbing the actions of male leads in “Romantic Comedies” tend to be
Try half the shot in a “Romance” movie in real life and even at the time most of them originally came out, you’d go to jail and no one would feel sorry for you.
My bigger issue with Polanski is that he should have been extradited decades ago.
100% agree, he should be locked up
Edit: the following isn’t what I think about him, but I do think he’d have been more likely to suffer the proper consequences had the Manson family not murdered Sharon Tate, it in no way should give him any sympathy or protection and it’s pretty fucking gross that it does, but I don’t think it’s a non factor
Yeah honestly if history remembering who Edison and Dahl were didn’t sink GE and Wonka, Harry Potter will be fine… but fuck, she did suicide her own legacy
I don’t think you can ethically separate art from artist when the artist is still alive, profiting from their work, and using those profits to further causes that you abhor. JKR doesn’t limit herself to expressing her views on social media.
Even there, I think it’s a grey area. I was already in middle school when Roald Dahl died and I’m Jewish, but my dad (who was remarkably sensitive to antisemitism in almost every other case) still read me his children’s books. He did profit off of them and he shouldn’t, but it’s hard to deny that books like James and the Giant Peach or The BFG aren’t amazingly good children’s books which don’t themselves have any bigotry issues (Willy Wonka not so much re the original Oompa Loompas) and it would be hard to say that children shouldn’t have been reading books that good just because the guy who wrote them was horrible.
I just don’t know how to feel about such things. At what point is a work so good that it transcends how horrible the person who made it is? I don’t have an answer there.
As I said, I’ve never been a fan of Harry Potter, so this particular issue does not apply to me in this case and I honestly do not know what I would do about it if I did.
I don’t know the extent of Dahl’s antisemitism, and am not currently inclined to research it. I also enjoyed his stories growing up, as well as Lovecraft’s, and lots of other authors who held views that I strongly disagree with. I don’t think all art created by deeply flawed people is worthless, by any means.
However, I strongly disagree with the notion that a piece of high-quality art is some kind of ethical trump card; it’s a bald-faced cop-out. Providing material support to someone who habitually crusades against an oppressed minority isn’t a gray area because you(rhetorically—I don’t mean you, personally) like their stories. Art is everywhere. There’s really no dearth of excellent stories written by people that are either dead, or don’t spend their time stirring up hate.
I don’t mean to suggest that the work somehow justifies the abhorrent views of the author, just that sometimes art transcends the artist. It’s in no way a universal thing and maybe it doesn’t and/or shouldn’t apply to Rowling’s works. I only read part of the first book and I didn’t enjoy it, so I personally don’t think so.
But my post was more about not beating yourself up about liking something made by a terrible person.
Yeah, I feel like we’re mostly talking past each other. Cheers!
But my post was more about not beating yourself up about liking something made by a terrible person.
And I agree, that would be silly.
While I am not defending Twitter by any means. I feel like what actually breaks people’s brains is becoming a billionaire. You lose all empathy for other humans.
The cause and effect may be reversed there.
I mean, it is for most billionaires. But Rowling isn’t a businesswoman who got parents money to invest in a company to rob the proletariat.
She just wrote a book that happened to be a gigaseller.
But either way, billionaires have broken brains.
if you ever have a couple hours to spare, i think shaun made a really great video on this topic: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-1iaJWSwUZs
he talks about JK rowling and harry potter, and how many of JK rowlings beliefs/worldviews are embedded into harry potter. he’s very thorough.
I possess the books and movies, and never interact with the fandom or the author. There is zero need to. Let the art exist in isolation.
NEXT POINT: the stories have their own issues regarding certain portrayals but that is aside from the context of “new developments” a la the author’s modern opinions on things outside the plot of the books.
Yeah, like, I don’t know what Frank Herbert or J.R.R.Tolkein’s stances on trans rights would have been either, and it doesn’t impact me reading their work at all.
On the other hand, I do not want to give this person any money, so there’s that. I won’t be spending money on her stuff.
There are nautical ways
Frank Herbert I imagine wouldn’t have been a fan. Dune really sets up a battle between natural+religion vs. atheism+technology.
I miss when my biggest problem with JK Rowling was her desire to keep writing new material for Harry Potter, but instead of ya know… making spinoff books, maybe do a TV Show, maybe get in touch with Archie at some point for an expanded universe comic: I mean God knows they need the money after Sonic went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back… oh right Warner Bros. owns the franchise… so I guess DC could have done the Expanded Universe comic?
No instead of doing any of that she just randomly dripped out plotpoints from the internet, and always stuff that made no fucking sense… like
“Dumbledore was gay the whole time, despite the fact that I NEVER HINTED AT THIS! Also Wizards don’t have toilets! They shit themselves and magic away the poop! By the way, Hermonie was always black despite the fact I always described her as being pale skinned!”
The “Dumbledore was gay” was especially infuriating because she wrote the “Fantastic Breasts” movies, and instead of expanding upon the Dumbledore’s gay thing at all, they just use the “They’re just really good friends!” cover, ya know, the one that’s an amazing progressive way to imply that without running afoul of the “Moral Majority”… in 1992…
But the medal ultimately goes to “Hermonie is black!”, because the only reason she came up with it was to try to better canonize the “Cursed Child” play… which wound up having a black actress play Hermonie.
Instead of doing the adult thing and admitting that most writers accepted by the mainstream are white, and therefore an overwhelming majority of characters in fiction are white, and that’s… kind of not good as it shows the bias we’ve given in favor of one specific group over all others, and that maybe in the future we’ll have more racially diverse character casts… but until then, because we have more white characters than white actors, sometimes white characters are going to be played by non-white actors, and even if that’s not how we typically envision the character… Get over it.
No instead of doing that, she just felt the need to make another fucking retcon and claimed she intended to have Hermonie be black the whole fucking time! I hope they fired the moron who cast Emma Watson for the role in the movie then… that talentless hack who knew nothing of the books… checks notes Joanne Kathleen Rowling
I’m sorry but it takes a special kind of narcissim to attempt to retcon, not just a fictional work, but reality itself!
That’s squarely in the realm of “doesn’t matter”.
The works are done, anything said after never happened
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Meh it’s weird you hang your tastes on others
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This is mental illness by now! Seriously wtf? Why is this so important for her that she can’t stop talking about it? If I had some irrational hate for trans woman, I would not go on about it in public all the time.
Don’t we have more important problems then to bash people that are so unhappy with their body that they are willing to take hormones and let people operate on their genitals?
This is such a simple thought, everybody should be able to think it, right? But on the other hand, she is not the only one hating transgender women or men. I mean it is not right to hate people for that. But if I would hate trans people then I would just not invite them for dinner and would stop talking about them all the time.
It must be some form of mental illness I have no other explanation.
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have bigger problems than someone else getting bodily autonomy.
Except her problem doesn’t seem to be with people having bodily autonomy, her problem seems to be with trans women in what should be safe spaces for women.
I’m not saying I agree with her views, but it seems all nuance has been lost from public debate.
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She is so lost in her own transphobia, that she now hangs out and financially support people who are not only transphobic but openly homophobic, conservative, misogynistic and fascist, things i still believe she is against. But she is so blinded by hate that she is willing to ignore all those things to support transphobia
Hitler’s problem with Jews seemed to be was what should be done about them destroying the German economy.
I’m not saying I agree with his views, but it seems all nuance has been lost from public debate.
Ah, at last. Godwin’s Law.
Believe it or not, “Godwin’s Law” doesn’t mean “no one should ever mention Hitler during a discussion.”
https://gizmodo.com/godwin-of-godwins-law-by-all-means-compare-these-shi-1797807646
Also, Rowling is a holocaust denier. https://www.salon.com/2024/03/15/jk-rowling-trans-nazis-holocaust-denial/
Should Hitler not be brought up when people defend a holocaust denier?
I know what it means. And, by all means, people can and should talk about Hitler and the Nazis in their historical context. WW2 was the defining conflict of the 20th century, after all. But you used it in the reductio ad Hitlerum sense. It’s just so boring to constantly see every Lemmy thread devolve into calling people Nazis or comparing them to Nazis, which is just the former with an extra step. It becomes meaningless after a while. So, when we are faced with an actual proto-fascist like Trump, the comparison has been exhausted and has little impact.
Not a reduction at all. The beginning of the Holocaust was when the Nazis destroyed the Institute for Sexual Research and burned all the books. I used Jews as an example rather than that because people were making the same “he’s keeping Germany safe” argument about Hitler persecuting the Jews that the person above is making about “they’re keeping women safe.” And I would not be at all surprised if they made the “they’re keeping women safe” argument about persecuting trans people then too.
It is encouraging genocide while defending someone who denied the Holocaust.
Why you think that is a reduction, I don’t know. It seems like a pretty close 1:1 comparison with Germany in 1933 to me.
Hitler didn’t start the death camps the second he came to power. You know that, right?
If you are interested in a (in my opinion) nuanced look at it I would like to point you towards the YouTube Channel Contrapoints Video on the matter, in case you haven’t seen it.
Trans women are women. This is not complicated.
her problem seems to be with trans women in what should be safe spaces for women.
She claims that that is her problem, but her solution isn’t “let’s make sure that we harshly prosecute those who abuse the goodwill of other’s trusting in your own self identification to invade and attack women”, is “all trans women are really perverts trying to invade women spaces to attack women”
So, really, her problem seems to be with trans people existing at all…
I have another one.
After enough time has passed since the initial conflict, it becomes less about the subject of the conflict and more about the conflict in itself. The reason becomes secondary and instead the goal becomes winning against the other side or at least making it hurt.
Yes I think you are right. And I think this is borderline a mental illness if you can’t stop lashing out. As I understand it, she somehow thinks by bashing trans women she is doing something good for women. Trans women are somehow taking away her womanhood or something like that. I have read something like this several times from Rowling but I have no clue how trans woman could do that. But Rowling is obsessed with that, for what ever reason.
Following this train of thought, what I gathered from other comments is that she had a bad experience with a man in the past, her targeted social media experience likely concentrated the bad news in that direction and her view is now that the trans movement is just evil men looking to invade women’s personal spaces in order to abuse them.
If you look at her as someone bombarded with Fox News type of content, then perhaps that kind of paranoia and fear is what makes her so vocal in her opposition.
Yeah. And it’s important to understand that the pipeline she followed does a swap. Once she became convinced trans women were the problem she began associating with men who are misogynists and support the harm to cis women that she fears. By the time she’s standing with Matt Walsh and funding groups that also oppose abortion access protecting cis women is no longer her primary concern, it may be what she thinks is her primary concern but if so she believes that trans women are a larger threat than those who oppose the right to choose to stop being pregnant or men who want to relegate cis women back to traditional gender roles.
“Strange bedfellows” comes to mind in this regard.
f I had some irrational hate for trans woman, I would not go on about it in public all the time.
Even when I was a homophobic theist shithead I knew better than to say anything.
Or at least to say something else on occasion!
How does this cunt order soup!? Uses the t word like Morse code?
Repressed self hatred.
The whole projecting thing that people like this do.
Nah its the female equivalent of white knight syndrome. They think they’re saving womanhood from impostors.
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Why not both, M’lud?
Operative word in your post is “irrational.” If she were being rational, she would probably shut up about it. She’s not either, unfortunately.
Rowling quote from the article:
Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls.
It’s difficult to accept that someone I used to respect could say such hateful things about people like me. I’m not gonna lie, it hurts to read. What the fuck, Joanne? Is that all I am to you… just a man “performing” my idea of femaleness? Well, fuck you, then. Should I wish for you to feel the same pain you’ve inflicted on others? To be honest, judging by your “performance” in the media the past several years, I don’t think you’re resilient enough to survive it.
It sucks when your heros let you down. There was a guy I really admired and I worked with. When his wife was in the hospital he cheated on her. Couldn’t see him the same way again.
Sorry she sucks so very hard and is not only a disappointment actively hostile.
I am not sure she entirelly referes to you. It refers to people abusing transexuality to achieve other dreams or more dreams than just being themselves. At least this is how I understand her argumentations.
Absolutely nobody is doing that. Grow the fuck up, it’s so obviously a completely invented problem they use to demonize people trying to be themselves.
And if any person ends up being a sexual criminal, then they will be dealt with according to the law.
So wait, did you wish her the pain or no?
Sounds to me they were admitting to being human and thought about it, but dont really want to give in to a harmful base impulse like that…
Edit: Removed some redundancy
I’m just trying to clarify their final position.
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I would like a fine patagonia fleece. I dont like the way oakleys fit my face, but if they are free and i can sell/re-gift them then i will not turn them down.
Unless this is reference to something that i dont understand.
Think about it for a moment, dear. Who dresses that way?
I can honestly say i have no idea.
Outdoors type people? South Americans? Oak trees?
Thats as far as i can get by thinking about it. You are gonna have to spell it out, because a patagonia fleece and some oakleys are not a stereotype i am aware of.
That wouldn’t get anyone banned though.
As evidenced by me saying: ‘I wish harm to JK Rowling’.
Also I legitimately don’t understand your last question.
Why? We have no reason to believe the person you are grilling has any capability of harming JK Rowling, so you’re grilling someone who’s hurt that someone they grew up reading turned out to be shitty for no real purpose
Edit: Added “You’re”
It’s not a crime to be an insufferable piece of shit. Usually. If they make an exception for her, okay then.
Why are some people so determined to be pieces of shit?
You don’t get rich being nice.
Even if you did (like you won the big lottery or something). Being rich turns people into assholes too. Your ego inflates massively.
Theres actually a body of research here, abd its so much fucking worse. Researcher I remember is named piff, look some up; its fucking wild.
She likes the attention. She had it once. But she blew her load and now there’s no more creativity. So she gets it in other ways.
The rich aren’t people, dear.
Because its the only way they know how to relate to others or have any concept of themselves, being wealthy makes you a vicious sadistic piece if shit¹, and picking on the weak gives a slight emotional high, especially if you’ve got an audience.
¹not just humans; all apes suck like this.
What are you going to do about it?
Well…nothing, lol.
Pirate her works?
Trans people exist and deserve, like anyone, to be treated with dignity and respect. Get the fuck over it.
Ugh.
If only they would get over it and agree that trans people have the right to exist or believe they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have an issue with there being (at least) two classes of homo sapiens, one lesser than the other and thus not deserving of any dignity or respect.
There is, of course, homo superior, but I don’t foresee Professor X swooping in to settle this argument, what with the whole “saving the world” shtick.
Although, to be honest, the world could use a bit of saving right now.
PS: I hope you’re doing well, and getting through Sophie‘s Choice. I’ve heard it’s a tough read, especially after surviving a game of Presidential Election Scrabble…💋💋💋
I’m surviving somehow. I could tell you some crazy mother stories, but I don’t want to write a novel.
you totally wanna write a novel about your mom
Not unusual. Most men have a Freudian streak.
I’m glad you didn’t say Oedipal, because right now, all I want to do is murder her.
We had this conversation not too long ago-
“I thought the Mayo Clinic was going to be like the ER, where a whole team of doctors works on you at once.”
“Mom, I’ve been in the ER four times in the last year. They don’t do that there.”
“Yes they do, I’ve seen the shows!”
I have epilepsy. A special type of epilepsy. A type of epilepsy they didn’t know existed when I was “diagnosed” with it.
For the doctors - teams of neurologists and neuropsychologists - to treat me, the best option in 1991, after my drowning accident and subsequent TBI was a new study at Boston Children’s Hospital. For months, almost a year since the “accident”, doctors had run me through a course of medications meant to control my seizures, but none worked. I was desperate. My parents were desperate. We were willing to try anything.
For two weeks in March, during spring break, in 1992 and 1993, I went to the long-term monitoring unit at Boston Children’s Hospital and participated in a study where I had over 100 EEG leads glued to my head and they tested various different drugs on us to determine which ones would - or even could - control our seizures.
They discovered that, quite logically, that when someone has damage to a particular part of the brain (in my case, the frontal temporal lobe), seizures can be managed by giving the patient medication made to treat problems endemic to that region of the brain— in my case, either mood stabilizers or meds for migraines/cluster headaches.
I learned a long time ago that my time in a hospital, around doctors, going through a lot of uncomfortable and even scary procedures can really pay off in the end— and can even help countless others for the effort.
So don’t fret, buddy. You’re in good hands. I know the strain and pressure of being in a tough place with medical issues. Just be glad it’s 2024 and no time before.
Best wishes!
Thanks! I’m glad I didn’t go through something like that as a kid. It must have been super rough. I can handle it a lot better in my mid-40s I’m sure.
Friendly reminder that Scotland’s freedom of speech laws are different from those in the US.
And the US laws should be more like Scotland’s. Hate speech is implicitly violent and should be treated as such.
I live in Canada where we have hate crime laws, they don’t affect 99% of us in any way, because 99% of us aren’t walking around calling for the death of groups of people, based on race, gender, etc. Hate crime laws only affect the people who are truly beyond hateful. Nobody is gonna arrest you for being an anti trans asshole, but that will if you start inciting violence or calling for blood
I learned this one the hard way while being the victim of hate. but it wasn’t until my harasser slipped and threatened physical harm that the police finally did something.
She won’t get arrested and she knows it.
Yeah, I’ve seen people criticize Germany’s freedom of speech laws because we are not allowed to show the Hitler salute or wave the Nazi flag. Like why would I care?
Can we just hold one big public figure accountable to the law? Please?
No.
Sigh. Yeah. Thought so. 😭
Chances are they don’t want to try this on someone with money for the good lawyers. Authorities never try the more questionable laws that way.
You want her to go to jail for her tweet?
People who use biology as an excuse to hate on people have no grasp on how biology even works. You should know that gender disphoria, gender transitions and other genders as well come in fact with small noticeable differences, such as the way the brain is wired and even the many mechanisms inside your body. Unfortunately, such differences are not noticeable right off the bat. But they exist. Also FFS, she could have just enjoyed her harry potter money, maybe she could go silent after the first tweet but come on! There’se no reason to go any further, no reason. She now dwells with the likes of her conservative friends - She’s no victim. There’s more money there than many of us could see in a lifetime. She actually has too much -
Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism
That’s a particularly odd way for the BBC to characterize her behavior.
Because the BBC is also a “critic of some trans activism”. They actually have a Mastodon instance that immediately got defederated by a few other instances due to their transphobia.
The British media in general seem to be fillled with TERFs, like the UK Guardian (the Australian paper doesn’t seem to have the issue that I’ve noticed).
If I had her money, I wouldn’t spend my time bullying people and starting fights with the police. She’s clearly insane in the most fundamental way.
The more I know about rich people, the less inclined I am to think that they’re usually well adjusted.
I’ve become convinced that power, including wealth, causes brain damage.
Why not start fights with police/government?
Why would anyone want a high drama life?
A lot of people seem to
But strange enough, her insanity mostly damages others and has no negative impact on her life. How comes?
Money.
Correct
It’s not money, money makes you get out of situations easily, it doesn’t create the situations. And she is creating those situations in ways that don’t require insanity. They only require bad intentions.
Scotland was literally willing to leave the UK over this. I wouldn’t be putting money on Joanne to come out on top here.
She probably has more surplus cash for lawyers than the Scottish Government.
