#and now ‘gender critics’ (read TERF) are protected by law for having anti trans ‘beliefs’ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stfudiscoinfernoed · 4 years

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idk if u can even answer this but; is jkr a terf? like do you think she’s specifically a terf as opposed to a regular old transphobe? she seems to use feminism to excuse or justify her hatred, but i hesitate to call her a terf bc i worry about that word being used to describe things that aren’t Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism.

The semantics are “is she a terf or does she just support terfs,” but really her support really indicts her. JKR is a terf. I understand being hesitant to use that because it is often overused or used on people who are transmisogynists or transpobes but not radfems.

I’ll be taking her easy that she wrote and posted on her site called “J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues“ as evidence. I’m linking it so you can read the whole thing, but its an archive link so it shouldn’t give her hits or anything. I’ll put the analysis under a cut because it will be quite long.

JKR name drops three women in this article. The first is Maya Forstater. Forstater got fired for transphobic tweets, stating that “men cannot change into women” and implying women and girls will be harmed if trans women, calling them “male,” allowed into women’s changing rooms, prisons, etc. She went to court to try and say dismissing her over her beliefs was discriminatory and is attempting to get gender critical beliefs protected under the Equality Act 2010.

The second woman is Magdalen Berns, who JKR describes as an “immensely brave young feminist and lesbian.” Berns was a self described terf who called trans women “blackface actors” and endorsed the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Soros is funding the trans movement. Berns is likely the most vocally anti-trans of the women listed.

The third woman is Lisa Littman and JKR specifically mentions her theory of Rapid Offset Gender Dsyphoria, in which groups of adolescents seem to spontaneously come out as trans with no prior indications that they may have been trans or had gender dsyphoria. It’s important to note that the data to back up ROGD was collected from parents, not the youth in question, and from the websites 4thwavenow, transgender trend, and youthtranscriticalprofessionals, all gender critical or anti-trans websites.

All these women, including JKR, are heavily invested in criticizing the trans movement as going too far and harming women and girls as a result, though, with the exception of Berns, they may provide lip service to supporting trans people. This lip service is entirely disingenuous because it always requires trans people to transition in a fashion that makes them indistinguishable from cis people while also requiring them to allow themselves to be put in a separate category from cis people of the same gender.

Here are some select quotes from JKR’s essay:

Implying the trans movement enables predators and policing what counts as a legitimate transition: “The current explosion of trans activism is urging a removal of almost all the robust systems through which candidates for sex reassignment were once required to pass. A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law.”

Predators part 2: “But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it.”

Equating inclusive language intended not to misgender people to violent slurs: “Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning. I understand why trans activists consider this language to be appropriate and kind, but for those of us who’ve had degrading slurs spat at us by violent men, it’s not neutral, it’s hostile and alienating.”

Implying trans men and afab nb people are just mentally ill women attempting to escape the horrors of womanhood: “The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.”

part 2: “The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.”

Her particular emphasis on males invading women’s spaces and how trans activism is encouraging young girls to transition is all classic terf talking points.There is way more in her essay than these quotes, but I’d be quoting the whole essay if took every example of transphobia and fear-mongering.

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