By David Futrelle
In a series of tweets, followed by a sprawling, combative blog post, J.K. Rowling has gone full TERF on us. There’s a lot that’s wrong about the assorted arguments she sets forth in her post — and others have started dissecting its flaws and its dishonesties already in everything from magazine articles to Reddit posts to Twitter threads.
But there is one small part of her essay that I haven’t seen addressed so far, and I think it desperately needs some critical attention.
In the passage in question Rowling uses a simple but effective bit of rhetorical sleight of hand meant to demonize critics of TERFy transphobia and claim the mantle of true womanhood for those on her side.
While the basic rhetorical technique she uses is crude, she pulls off the execution with flair. She sets up her magic trick deftly with a (well-deserved) rhetorical attack on the misogynist backlash of the past decade. But then her argument takes quite a turn.
“Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now,” she writes.
From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating, men across the political spectrum seem to agree: women are asking for trouble. Everywhere, women are being told to shut up and sit down, or else.
What just happened? Let’s break it down.
Rowling is doing three things here. First and most obviously, she’s putting those who fight against transphobia in the same category as the pussy-grabbing president and the murderously misogynistic incels. It’s a rhetorical move that’s breathtaking in its dishonesty, as trans activists, far from being bigots, have been some of the most dedicated and effective fighters of misogyny I’ve run across over the last decade.
Second, she’s erasing trans women speaking for themselves, dismissing them as “men” trying to talk over women. And third, she’s more broadly claiming the mantle of true womanhood not just for cis women but for a particular subset of cis women, those who oppose trans rights, whom she’s claiming are being shut down by an army of men.
But Rowling and her TERF allies don’t speak for all women, or even all cis women. Far from it. In fact, on many of the issues transphobes have fixated on — from bathroom bans to trans people serving in the military — a clear majority of women disagree with them.
Numerous surveys have revealed that cis straight men are considerably more transphobic than their female counterparts. On the bathroom issue, a TERF obsession which Rowling specifically cites, one study of online comments found that cis men were far more likely than cis women to speak negatively about trans women using women’s bathrooms; 72 percent of the male comments in the study’s sampling were negative, as opposed to only 46% from cis women. A survey by pollsters PPRI found a similar (if somewhat smaller) gender gap, with roughly “half (51%) of men support[ing] requiring transgender individuals to use bathrooms corresponding to their assigned sex at birth, compared to four in ten (40%) women.”
In other words, TERFs not only don’t represent all cis women; they don’t even represent half of all cis women. By using the rhetoric she does, Rowling not only erases trans women; she erases most cis women as well — making me wonder who exactly is trying to make whom shut up.
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Lovecraft is dead though, so he’s done advocating for hatred.
Tired: TERFs
Wired: Feminism-Appropriating Reactionary Transphobes (FARTs)
Not mine originally, but now part of my lexicon.
So, the Sun has published an awful headline for an interview with JK’s first husband, saying “I slapped JK and I’m not sorry.” This is a horrible headline that trivializes domestic abuse. The controversy about it really show whose company JK is in. Trans* people have almost universally condemned the headline, while the “gender critical” feminists have either been silent or blamed trans* people.
The “autistic people don’t have emotions” stereotype is so bizarre.
It’s true that many autistic people have trouble regulating or expressing our emotions, but that often means we get overwhelmed by them, quite the opposite of the stereotype.
What do these people think the stereotypical “autistic meltdown” is, if not intense emotions?
I suspect that it is mostly just another way to dehumanize us.
TERFs are beyond parody:
https://twitter.com/KonstantinKisin/status/1271219597514027008
Although the original tweet was not posted by a TERF, the replies are a mix of trans* people mocking them and TERFs talking about how happy they are to welcome a new “ally” (who appears to actually be an MRA).
@ Catalpa
Tamora Pierce is now my favorite author from my childhood. I got introduced to her in the Keladry books, and tbh, Kel’s “ignore the haters” attitude got me through a lot more bullying than the HP books ever did. Also, as an aro ace, the fact that she’s recently* said that Kel is also an aro ace is a huge point in her favor.
*recently being within the last few years
@Ohlmann at least with Lovecraft his being an utter arsehole even by the standards of his time appears near universally acknowleged and considered horifically problematic.
Bathrooms, *again*! Do you know how many times I’ve heard this ridiculous argument? Back in the days of (more overt) racial segration in America, it was that white people would be attacked if anyone non-white used the same bathroom.
Then, it was that lesbians and gay men *couldn’t* use the same bathrooms as straights, because they’d sexually assault other women and men (yes, the exact same arguments now made by TERFS were also used to try to exclude and demonize lesbians.)
Now it’s trans people who are threats in bathrooms. What is this fixation on bathrooms? I’m trying to recall even a single instance in my entire life that I’ve ever felt the least threatened in a bathroom, but I am not succeeding.
In the Potter world, the people who are special who want to live openly show the world their collective powers are the BAD. GUYS
Think about what that really tells adolescents who are different; shut up and stay in the closet
@Miri and Nanny Oggs Bosom
The Kel books are my favorites as well! (Probably followed up by The Circle Opens, I quite like the Emelan books). I still reread them from time to time, they always make me feel warm. Kel’s strength and willingness to stand up for others who were being hurt was something that got me through a lot of dark times when I was growing up.
Plus, I’m also another aroace who’s so fucking jazzed to have such a great character being representation for me.
@Garnetstar
I remember a time in school when I was in a gendered bathroom and got to listen to other students say nasty things about me (as far as I know) without realising I was in a stall. I’m not sure how threatening it was, since I just remember waiting for them to leave and then some to make sure they wouldn’t see me exit the bathroom, but it sure did not cross my mind how much worse it would have been if there had been trans* people in the bathroom. /s
Other than that, I can think of some places where I’ve felt apprehensive about going to a restroom, since it’s been a new or strange environment or in a secluded area or whatnot. But the main thing that has made me anxious about gendered bathrooms is people asking me if I’m in the right bathroom. It happens really infrequently, and so far everyone seems to have believed my “uh, yeah?”, but every time there is the unpleasantness of wondering if this is the time it becomes a whole thing.
Despite this, I manage my life without going on rants about bigots needing their own bathrooms.
The only times I’ve ever felt apprehensive about bathrooms was when I had to go into the ‘wrong’ one for work. I worked at a club and the core of my job description was collecting empty glasses and bottles (including those from the restrooms) to bring them back to the bars and wash them for reuse (not the ones from the floor or inside the urinals, obviously). And the apprehension there was less ‘I’m going to be attacked’ and more ‘this is super fricking awkward’.
Hm. This has been a bit of a learning experience for me.
Frankly, I’m not very plugged into Twitter or trans activism, and I saw something on Facebook about “the JK Rowling trans controversy.” I clicked over at Rowling’s blog (before reading anything else about the controversy or the people involved, eg Magdalen Berns or the Forester woman), and I have to admit that on a first reading her post seemed reasonable. It’s well-written and with the exception of the bathroom stuff (which has always struck me as fear-mongering), she did a good job framing herself as someone with good-faith “concerns” about trans activists and politics, in part w/r/t their impact on trans people themselves. (Who she knows, loves, etc etc blah blah).
Context, however was not so kind to her – especially after looking into some of the people that she’s defending, and some of the dogwhistles she appears to be deliberately invoking. But how many people will go that far? How many of them will just read Rowling’s post and accept her perspective, dismissing her critics as a hysterical mob?
I don’t know. I think the Rowling post is a big deal. Because she is a good writer and her post will be persuasive to many people not immersed in these discussions – like me.
@Aaron
As someone who did notice the dogwhistles quickly, that is my greatest fear in this—that people will just take her at her word, either because they’re uninformed, or they like her books, or they trust her as an authority figure. I do worry about the radicalization potential. Even if people do explain the dogwhistles and fearmongering away (and there is no shortage of blog posts and threads debunking JK piece by piece), it’s easy for someone who is convinced to dismiss us as hysterical (or “testerical,” the new favorite TERF insult for trans* women).
In related news, the actors for Harry, Hermione, and Ron (aka Ralph) have all come out in support of trans* rights and condemned Rowling. There has been an outpouring of celebrity support, but I do still fear the damage that Rowling, who has a much broader platform (9 3/4?), has done.
@Aaron:
Yeah, taken out of context several of Rowling’s statements in that blog post sound reasonable: “trans people need and deserve protection”, sometimes gender dysphoria in adolescents is a temporary phase, people shouldn’t make death threats, misogyny is bad, womanhood shouldn’t be defined by conformity to traditional norms of femininity, and so forth.
But it’s all mixed up with her deeply obstinate vein of irrational conviction that the category “woman” is “a political and biological class” that transgender-rights activism is somehow “eroding”. WTF?
Women have always comprised multiple political and biological classes: liberal women, conservative women, straight women, gay women, pregnant women, postmenopausal women, women who are mothers, intersex women, and so on and so forth. Why should we now be expected to take up the cudgels for a demand to regard women as a single “political and biological class” defined solely by whether or not they were born with a vagina?
The part about Rowling’s peroration that really offends me is her histrionic insistence that she is somehow a brave speaker of truth to power.
It’s reminiscent of the fascist trope that the enemy is simultaneously contemptibly weak and terrifyingly strong.
I don’t comment too much but mostly read so I’m not up to snuff on some terminology.
What does AMAB and AFAB stand for if anybody is willing to answer that?
Please/thanks.
@Battering Lamb:
It is my understanding that radfems who weren’t TERFs originally came up with the term as a way of saying “#NotAllRadFems are gender essentialist”. Some gender essentialists eventually claimed the label as their own, only to dump it later when they discovered that it was largely viewed negatively.
The whole “TERF is a slur” phrase seems to have originated as “TERF is a slur against lesbians“. During the time just before the term started going mainstream, there were arguments within the lesbian community over whether the fundamental definition of ‘lesbian’ was “likes women” or “likes vagina”. Supporters of the latter view started getting called “TERFs”, a term which most of them had never heard of. (Note that the ‘likes women’ side got called “not really lesbian, but bisexual” in return. The idea was that bisexuals and transwomen were using the term as a bludgeon against ‘real lesbians’ for not liking penis. There was a lot of hostility and misunderstanding all around.)
I have some sympathy for JK Rowling. I can’t find it now, but I saw a tweet from her where she complained that Trans* made it impossible to discuss sex and gender because apparently “sex” was a social construct. I remember thinking the same thing. I liked the idea that sex referred to biology and gender to sociology, however there are some who claim both sex and gender are social constructs but I could never find a satisfactory explanation. Recently I have been thinking about the epistemology of “Indirect Realism” so now I feel like I understand “sex is a social construct” but I doubt that many trans* activists would frame it the same way.
I think JK Rowling wants to be progressive but deep down she still relies on the traditional “Two Genders Model” and felt that she had to draw the line somewhere. I have to wonder, if Trans* activists used different rhetoric could they have convinced her? I haven’t read JK Rowlings blog, but I know that for any movement good rhetoric is important.
“Indirect Realism” is the belief that there is an objective reality out there but humans cannot directly know about it with absolute certainty. We receive data from our five senses and create theories AKA subjective reality. Thus every idea held by a human brain is “just a theory,” including the idea that there are “only two genders.”
The problem that Trans* activists face is that they are desperate for a theory that includes everyone hurt by discrimination, but excludes the “I am an attack helicopter!” guy. Every time they identify a new group with serious pain they have to overhaul the theory. Worse they seem to become hostile to the previous theories. Apparently Buck Angel got ‘cancelled’ because they called specifically called themselves “Transgender” and activists on Twitter felt that excludes “Nonbinary” people, and then everybody who associated with him became equally cancelled, and so on and so on until Progressive Twitter cancelled all of Progressive YouTube. Though for the sake of Indirect Realism, I only believe that because of my memory of a Youtube video made by Natalie Wynn whom is also merely human.
The idea of Progressives attacking other progressives is something I have been worrying over lately.
It was unpleasant seeing her being more and more openly TERF over the years. At least for many they can safely show others that yes JK Rowling is a TERF and should cut her out of their lives.
@Snowberry
This is my understanding as well, IIRC it was coined by a trans* inclusive radical feminist named Viv Smythe. There’s a much longer history of trans* inclusive and trans* exclusive radical feminists fighting, she just came up with a name.
@QuantumInc
No, no trans* person has said this. What we have been trying to say is that sex is not binary. Because it isn’t. It’s bimodal.
No, I don’t think she wants to be progressive. I think she wants to sound progressive without having to change her views as a billionaire.
That line of logic is called respectability politics. It doesn’t work. This is similar to asking why protestors in MN couldn’t be more peaceful.
You keep talking about trans* people as a monolithic entity. We’re not, and sometimes we argue. We tend to reject theories that hurt minorities.
This is a massive oversimplification, and I don’t want to restart the fight over ContraPoints, but I do want to clarify that Buck Angel regularly attacks trans* people who don’t transition medically, non-binary people, or other people that aren’t just like him. He allies with TERFs to defend them and be their “trans* friend.” He is not good.
@QuantumInc
I’d really like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but honestly it doesn’t matter if Rowling is trying to be a progressive or not. She’s been given ample opportunities to educate herself and has responded by doubling and tripling down instead. These are real people that she’s hurting with her rhetoric, and going down the rabbit hole about how maybe in her deepest hearts of hearts she isn’t really a bad person or totally has good reasons for holding her shitty opinions is NOT helping. If she had made any real attempts to learn or explore why her mindset is harmful I might have the same sympathy, but she started off harmful and just made herself more harmful.
@ quantumInc
But wouldn’t a theory based on discrimination exclude ‘attack helicopter’ claimants anyway precisely because they’re not discriminated against? What with it just being made up to attack/mock trans rights.
Maybe I’m missing something; but I don’t see that we need to overthink this.
Some people face genuine discrimination from how they identify; others don’t.
So for example, if some ‘otherkin’ wants to claim they’re a wolf or whatever; fine, let them; but they don’t get sacked or murdered for that; so they don’t need protection.
The idea that there are only two “biological sexes” is very much a social construct, and completely ignores the existence of intersex people. There are dozens of ways that people are born which do not hew to the standard understanding of a “male sex” or a “female sex”, and this impacts as many as 1% of all births. https://isna.org/faq/frequency/
Leaving that aside, what the hell does she mean that she can’t discuss sex because sex is a social construct? Lots of things are a social construct. Money is a social construct, and people discuss economics until the cows come home.
That’s not all that Buck Angel did to deserve his reputation as being NB-exclusionary and maybe you should look into things a little more instead of hearing it thirdhand from some rando and repeating it to others.
What JKR thinks or wants deep down is irrelevant. Even if we could know it (and we can’t, because nobody can know the inner life of another), it wouldn’t matter because she’s injuring people by her actions and her actions count. I’m not a believer that motivation is completely without meaning, but it matters most in edge cases. This is not an edge case; JKR is doing massive damage to trans people by virtue of her huge platform. She’s not some backroom blogger shouting at 10 followers, 8 of whom are relatives. She has a huge international bullhorn that she’s using here. The import of her motivation isn’t high enough to make up for that.