Does J.K. Rowling believe that trans people — or at least trans women — don’t deserve the presumption of innocence? That seems to be the clear implication of an op-ed she wrote for the Times (UK) today. But she is cagey enough in her wording that she can and probably will figure out a way to say, my goodness, I wasn’t saying anything of the kind.
You can decide what you think she meant.
Here’s the relevant quote in context. She is — in the midst of a longer attack on First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon –insinuating that men routinely pretend to be trans women in order to get easier access to women to abuse:
The third argument Sturgeon uses is that it’s transphobic to suggest any man would fraudulently claim a female identity. This claim is extraordinary. Nobody but the very naive can fail to be aware that predatory men are capable of going to great lengths to gain easy access to victims, and have often sought out professions or special status that offer camouflage for their activities. Sex offenders have historically been found among social workers, teachers, priests, doctors, babysitters, school caretakers, celebrities and charity fundraisers, yet no matter how often the scandals break, the lesson appears never to be learned: it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence.
In the next paragraph, she backtracks a little, if only a little:
This shouldn’t need saying, but in the current climate, it does: literally no feminist I’ve ever met claims all trans women are predators, any more than we believe that all men are predators.
As @Bronwen85 puts it on Twitter,
Seriously if you can tell me how any of this is different from Trump’s “they’re murderers, they’re rapists…and some, I assume, are good people” speech you’ll be a liar, because it’s not
It’s the same fucking thing.
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Men fraudulently claiming a female identity in order to assault someone are not trans women. They are cis men. That’s why they are fraudulently claiming an identity. If they actually were trans, their claim wouldn’t be fraudulent. But, of course, trans people do not have the right to assault people either. So being that this is the case, what exactly is J. K. Rowling worried about that can’t already happen now? Does she think that seeing someone is marked a a woman on a birth certificate is going to lull a victim into complacency? Outside her fevered imagination, people don’t often whip birth certificates out of their pockets to prove they are safe. If a man is going to try to pass themselves off as a woman for nefarious purposes, they can already try to do that now with a disguise and make-up. This idea that giving trans people rights is going to make that easier is insane.
No one is suggesting giving any category of people a blanket presumption of innocence. But blaming an entire category of people for the mostly imagined crimes of people not in that category is pretty much the textbook definition of blood libel.
Her supporters on the internet are doing a lot of linguistic gymnastics to argue that she didn’t’ say what she plainly said, but also that if she had said it it wouldn’t be a problem.
Dammit, Jo.
So that includes the category of authors of beloved children’s franchises, right?
And the favored tactic of male-on-female restroom harassers is simply to barge or sneak right in—they’ve already decided that one rule is for people who aren’t them, so why should another be a magical barrier?
(True Crime Fun Fact, and notorious Criminal Profiling Failure: Mexican authorities assumed that El Mataviejitas (“The Old Lady Killer”) was a man who’d used a female disguise to gain the trust of victims who might not have opened the door to a strange man; the crime scenes—the choice of refreshments and such—suggested that the victims had been entertaining a female guest, but the M.O. involved immense brute strength and ferocious overkill. The police straightaway began targeting AMAB transvestites and trans women, because of course they did.
El Mataviejitas turned out to be La Mataviejitas: Juana Barraza, who’d been a pro wrestler under the name La Dama de Silencio:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juana_Barraza)
I thought the presumption of innocence was the founding block of English-speaking jurisprudence? Fought for by thousands of people throughout the centuries, arguing against a star chamber, for trial by jury, etc.
“Innocent until proven guilty” has been one of the best concepts in human history. We may not be good at doing that, but we try.
Except her, because apparently she’s a medieval king with divine right power?
Let me say this in words our medieval ancestors would recognize:
FUCK YOU.
Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.
PS Compare Nicola Sturgeon to any of the last N prime ministers coming out of England, male or female.(Generally supported by the Times UK) She looks pretty damn competent next to them.
Dave: nobody ever did this, that happended in your head
But blaming an entire category of people for the mostly imagined crimes of people not in that category is pretty much the textbook definition of blood libel.
GSS ex-noob= JK agrees with you, youre misinformed or Dim, you choose!
A famous writer said:
I seem to recall a few writers once asserting, instead, that it was dangerous to assert that any category of people did not deserve a blanket presumption of innocence. You may have heard of a few of them … some of their names were Franklin, Hancock, Paine, Jefferson, and Washington. Their works of short prose include some that do not, precisely, languish in obscurity, despite their age: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights … the Fifth and Sixth Amendments in the latter may be of particular interest here.
There’s also Article 11 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the EU’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (probably no longer binding on the UK after Brexit, but the UK’s own legislation to adhere to that convention has likely not been repealed).
And it’s not really a new, Enlightenment Age thing even. Back in the Bronze Age, the authors of the Talmud had something to say about presumption of innocence …
Well, this sure is bleak.
And as many people have pointed out, the law she’s complaining about has nothing to do with “women’s spaces”. It’s obvious she just believes that any law that lets trans people live as they are is a threat to the “safety” afforded to in-group women by in-group men in the patriarchal status quo she and the other GC ideologues support.
@magnesium:
If they support “the patriarchal status quo”, then they are not feminists, and certainly not radical feminists, despite any and all protestations to the contrary. Just feminism-appropriating reactionary transphobes …
I’m just going to leave this here—surely she can’t object to a gesture of puerile humor of her own creation?
http://i.imgur.com/Ov61dH4.gif
So let me just check I’ve got this. Because abusers frequently seek out positions of power and influence that will facilitate access to victims, abusive behaviours and the hiding of their abuse, it is reasonable to assume that:
Watertight logic there, Jo. [/sarcasm]
@GSS ex-noob,
Came here to say similar, yeah. Presumption of innocence is a central element of due process, ffs.
Obviously this isn’t implying that legal systems are perfect or neutral (lol) – but to assert that a group of people doesn’t deserve presumption of innocence is basically saying that they’re outside the legal system, and don’t get the protection others do. JKR has absolutely lost it.
Oops, meant to add that Shaun’s latest video “JK Rowling’s new friends” is very good (and also very short, for him). Probably not a lot that Mammotheers don’t already know, but a great source of detail on who she’s close to, and the causes they represent. Not just transphobic which is bad enough, but also homophobic, anti-abortion, and unapologetically fascist in some cases.
Somewhat related, I believe George Takei posted something to the effect of “It’s not about bathrooms, any more than it was about water fountains.”
Look. I was assualt by a cis male in a bathroom. He didn’t put on a disguise. He didn’t pretend to be a woman. He just walked in and did it. If a cis male wants to assault someone. They will just walk in there and do it. No gendered sign is going to stop them from doing it. They don’t need something to make it easier because it is literally as easy as opening a door and doing it.
She just keeps getting worse and worse
@Dave
Sadly, logic is lost on her… see exhibit A in the article above.
@FMO
I also wondered if she realized her own logical fallacy to notice her… let’s call it argument for the sake of this discussion… could fall back right onto herself, but then I remembered that people like never seem to be able to come to that logical conclusion. That’s quite interesting (and scary) with that female wrestler-turned-serial-killer. It also demonstrates how little people think women are capable of.
@Elaine
I am very sorry you had to go through that. I hope that POS got the court sentence he deserved. Sadly, you are absolutely right and the complete lack of reason in JKRs statement baffles me. She knows they already have all those gateways to it. Why the everliving hell does she think it gets any easier for them by pretending they are trans? It makes absolutely no sense!
@ Surplus to Requirements
Indeed. In the olden days the terf monicker was fair, I think, because it denoted a group of incorrect feminists who still came from feminism and we’re the responsibility of better feminists to deal with. At this point, though, most of them seem to be conservatives who slapped a “feminism” sticker on themselves the way forced birth orgs often do. They see women as immutably, naturally inferior to men. And believe feminism is when those men provide “protection” and other cookies to the inferior ladies.
I’ve settled on calling them GCs, since that’s what they call themselves. But I replace “GC feminism” with “GC ideology” as its more accurate.
So according to JKR, we should stop allowing people to become “social workers, teachers, priests, doctors, babysitters, school caretakers, celebrities and charity fundraisers,” right? Because any role that predators might assume in order to pray on women must be prohibited, right? Also, all existing social workers, teachers, priests, etc. should be barred from public restrooms. Sounds legit.
@Magnesium: update the names whenever they change them, and keep the receipts. They keep rebranding themselves whenever the name they picked gets recognized as the label of a hate group.
I second the recommendation of the Shaun video for JK, and also hightly recommend Caelan Conrad’s thorough ‘Inside a Cult’ series about GC’s in general.
Trans people are not presumed innocent because they are trans. They are presumed innocent because they are people.
Not that complicated, really.
For example, the “believe women” comment in regards to sexual assault of women is not there to claim a blanket “everything a woman says is true”, but to address the fact that there is well evidenced discrimination against women when they testify to their own assault/abuse. Are there women who lie? Yes. Are there trans people who are dangerous/abusive? Yes.
So what?
The qualities of the whole are not dictated by the actions of individuals, nor vice versa. I wonder if Ms Rowling would accept that women claiming sexual abuse should be treated with inappropriate scepticism because some of this class of people have lied, and thus they do not deserve a blanket presumption of innocence.
(BTW, there is no goddamn way I would propose such antiwoman guff! Ms Rowling is not proposing “trust but verify”, she’s proposing “distrust and persecute”.)
What others here said. Also, I don’t know the larger context about what Nicola Sturgeon wrote/said, so I can’t say for sure that Rowling is misrepresenting Sturgeon’s arguments, but she definitely seems to be starting from false premises. I doubt anyone was saying “trans women should always be considered innocent of everything because they’re trans.”
I didn’t want to be the one to do this (cuz I’m tired and have a cold) but I’m gonna have to add a racial element to this discussion!
As far as presumptive innocence goes could she possibly be talking about the kind of presumptive innocence that has always been given to white men and women, and allowed white people in the US to be able to make claims against people of color that have gotten them lynched, profiled by the police, arrested on nothing, or vilified in the court of public opinion.
I think it’s really precious how women who look like her have always enjoyed being given the benefit of the doubt (the presumption of innocence) in cases where they have falsely accused men of color of criminal acts, while at the same time, she argues that an entire class of people should NOT be presumed innocent which is the exact same argument that white supremacists make against Black and Brown men.
Another precious note is that she is a member of womanhood that is considered the default standard of womanhood while women of color (especially Black and Asian women) are judged to be women by those same standards that are based on women who look like her. All that has to happen (in fact has happened) is that a cisgender woman of color be non-gender conforming (or in some cases simply show up) for her to be deliberately misgendered (witness the behavior towards Asian female runners, Serena Williams, and even Michelle Obama).
This woman is sitting at the height of white western privilege and yet is completely oblivious to it in her zeal to believe she is somehow protecting cisgender women like me. How the f*ck is she benefitting our lives by attacking transgender women?
She isn’t and I’m slowly developing an abiding an utter hatred of this woman and her bigoted jackassery!
Uh yeah, “some people in X group are criminals so all of them should have their rights curtailed” is Nazi logic. Quite literally. Just as with Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/02/adolf-hitler-also-published-a-list-of-crimes-committed-by-groups-he-didnt-like/