J.K. Rowling defends speaking out on trans issues

[Gagaloo911 12,959]

8 minutes ago, Hurem said:

I wonder what percentage of the world identifies as something other than one of the 2 genders.  

Yea, because the percentage of people identifying that way is totally what matters in the end and what makes it real 

You clearly know absolutely nothing about culture and anthropology especially as it relates to this topic.

[Hurem 17,797]

4 minutes ago, Gagaloo911 said:

Yea, because the percentage of people identifying that way is totally what matters in the end and what makes it real 

You clearly know absolutely nothing about culture and anthropology especially as it relates to this topic.

It absolutely matters though. It's as if I make up my own set of pronouns and want my country to make it hate speech if someone misgenders me.

[StrawberryBlond 13,476]

33 minutes ago, GagaSine said:

You’re off base in every way but I don’t have the energy or time to say more. Create more barriers for trans people is not the answer and being inclusive to other people with uteri who are not women is in no way dehumanizing. 

It's not about creating barriers for transpeople, it's about confirming their identity as genuine and I didn't say being inclusive to non-transitioned transpeople was dehumanising but not being allowed to use the word "woman" was. Transpeople are so rare but biological females are the overwhelming majority, yet our terms have to be erased to include to appease a really small amount of people. Are you really telling me that I can't talk about my experiences as a biological woman while using the word "woman?" It's funny, with all the recent race-based discussion, what repeatedly mentioned is that white people have no right to tell black people what to say, think, feel or act. Yet, you go over to another oppressed group, women, and find that it's still not the generally accepted wisdom not to tell them what to think, say, feel or act. Clearly, woke ideology is not a equal street, there's still huge double standards and women are still repeatedly silenced in so many ways. Sad thing is, people don't even realise they're doing it, right down to Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne, cisgender straight males, talking over a woman's opinion and apologising on her behalf based on her reasoning behind issues that they will never have or relate to. They were widely hailed as progressive for this. Irony is a foreign concept to many people.

[NewUsername 10,436]

2 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

It's high time all women's views got heard and we stopped using language that seems to remove certain expressions of womanhood. Menstruation is a biological process. It's a physical reality. It's not a social construct. Menstruation only knows your physical sex, not your gender identity. When we say "menstruating women" people should automatically know what we mean by that phrase and know it is not hateful.

I think you're missing the point here. Trans people are not saying that "menstruating women" is a hateful term, it's JK Rowling who pretended that "people who menstruate", a term that was used in the article to include FTM trans, was hateful.

[Thaniel22 1]

30 minutes ago, Gagaloo911 said:

Two Spirit people of the indigenous Native American peoples, and countless other cultures in history with more than 2 genders found dead in a ditch and nonexistent.

Or at least your own ignorance on the topic is showing considering more than 2 genders has essentially always existed in cultures 

According to Plato,Ancient Greeks believed that each was the half of a complete person,and they spent their lives seeking their other half (their 'soulmate',if you will). Some of the men found that their soulmate was also a man (the Ancient Greek explanation for the existence of male homosexuality if you will). That kind of love, (the gay variety, that is) was considered by some to be the purest and most wholesome of all (compared to male-female and female-female),exactly because in Greek antiquity males where considered the perfect humans devoid of the weaknesses and  faults found in the female body and constitution-so of course the union of two men was considered the perfect union (ironically,they considered male penetration anathema-so much for consistency).

So,if we are to believe the validity of the existence of non-binary people because of the beliefs of some ancient peoples,should we also give credit to the belief that women are inferior (which practically the 99% of human civilizations believed at some point or another) and male homosexuality is the ideal for the same reason?Mind you, I do personally believe non-binary people exist (to some degree-the whole claim that there are over 100 gender identities is utter nonsense to me), I just don't think that bringing up ancient beliefs to prove the issue is the way to go-people used to believe some crazy **** (racist,sexist and homophobic too) back in the day...

[StrawberryBlond 13,476]

Just now, NewUsername said:

I think you're missing the point here. Trans people are not saying that "menstruating women" is a hateful term, it's JK Rowling who pretended that "people who menstruate", a term that was used in the article to include FTM trans, was hateful.

It may not be a hateful term, the term had good intentions, but it was ultimately female erasure. You know how black people have been trying to educate white people about how certain terms offend them? When they get the response of "but we don't mean it in a bad way when we say it," they get told "but it feels negative to us and you don't get to decide how we feel." Why can't the same respect from the woke crowd by granted to women when we get dehumanising terms like this thrown our way? If a woman finds a term dehumanising, please listen to her and do not brush off her concern as hateful or exclusionary. Women have been fighting for too long to have the most basic things like terms about our womanhood denied to us.

[auburn 1,072]

Not only did she completely miss the point on what a TERF is but also she did not listen to any criticism and is doubling down on her transphobia. Good to know. 

[Gagaloo911 12,959]

3 minutes ago, Regina George said:

First of all you’re saying you didn’t read the whole thing which tome says that you cannot judge the full text by 3 paragraphs you wrote. 

The ONLY message she is trying to communicate is: “Changing sex/gender was proven to work for some people and they ended up being happy which I support BUT there is majority of people who regretted it and I am trying to find out why and how we can help those people.” 

That’s literally the summary of her text. 

Everything can be interpreted as hateful if we try hard to make it something that it’s not.

I’m not protecting her, I’m trying to say that people need to read and actually understand her text and by doing that they will make a final judgement that it’s actually not transphobic at all. 

Did I say I didn't go through all of it? Nope, just that I lost my patience with parts of it because they're so clearly full of privilege and completely without any understanding of the trans perspective. 

And I definitely did not come away with that as the main summary. Yes, that was a finding but if you could read between the lines even a little you can easily see that another goal here was to present cherry picked research that made her own opinion look correct, and to delegitimize the trans community, particularly as it relates to trans women.

I stated my concerns and reasonings for this this, most notably the fact that she's way too caught up in her own definition of womanhood that she's erasing an entire community of people and attacking them, all under the faux guise of public saftey concerns for women, which if you actually read it she only sees women as those assigned the female sex at birth. This erases all trans women and effectively tells them they don't matter and they don't get to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender.

[GagaSine 7,464]

14 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

It's not about creating barriers for transpeople, it's about confirming their identity as genuine and I didn't say being inclusive to non-transitioned transpeople was dehumanising but not being allowed to use the word "woman" was. Transpeople are so rare but biological females are the overwhelming majority, yet our terms have to be erased to include to appease a really small amount of people. Are you really telling me that I can't talk about my experiences as a biological woman while using the word "woman?" It's funny, with all the recent race-based discussion, what repeatedly mentioned is that white people have no right to tell black people what to say, think, feel or act. Yet, you go over to another oppressed group, women, and find that it's still not the generally accepted wisdom not to tell them what to think, say, feel or act. Clearly, woke ideology is not a equal street, there's still huge double standards and women are still repeatedly silenced in so many ways. Sad thing is, people don't even realise they're doing it, right down to Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne, cisgender straight males, talking over a woman's opinion and apologising on her behalf based on her reasoning behind issues that they will never have or relate to. They were widely hailed as progressive for this. Irony is a foreign concept to many people.

First of all, I really didn’t want to ‘out’ my gender when I signed up for this site but I am a cis woman so please stop pretending I am oppressing you when I am asking you to not use transphobic concepts. Menstruator is a clunky word no one but transphobes are using as a stupid ‘gotcha’, the term ‘people who menstruate’ is not dehumanizing it is inclusive as it is including cis women and other genders who menstruate. 

Please don’t use the fight for black liberation as a crutch for your argument, that is deeply insensitive as black women are black AND women so it is hardly comparable.

if you identify as a woman of course it is fully within your right to use that term and no one is asking you not to use it. It’s just when you talk about things like pregnancy, periods, etc and only use the term woman you are excluding trans people of various walks of life. There are trans men and nb people who menstruate and are pregnant and do not want to be called women, it is painful and invalidating for them. It is painful and invalidating for trans women (and women who are infertile) because they don’t get pregnant or menstruate. So equating woman with wombs, periods, etc is hurtful. (And reductive and misogynistic! I am more than my ability to procreate!)

and it doesn’t matter if the intention is not to create barriers because you are creating barriers for trans people who are poor, suffer from mental illness or otherwise struggle to access the proper healthcare to be medically ‘validated’ by a therapist, doctor etc and forcing them to fully medically transition in order to have their rights recognized is a form of forced sterilization and is unethical. Not all trans people want to get surgery or fully transition and many do not have access to it as it is very expensive and also physically traumatic. 

Saying trans people need to have their identities ‘confirmed’ as genuine is very transphobic. 

Anyway I am not wasting any more of my day on this. Peace. 

[GagaSine 7,464]

6 minutes ago, Thaniel22 said:

According to Plato,Ancient Greeks believed that each was the half of a complete person,and they spent their lives seeking their other half (their 'soulmate',if you will). Some of the men found that their soulmate was also a man (the Ancient Greek explanation for the existence of male homosexuality if you will). That kind of love, (the gay variety, that is) was considered by some to be the purest and most wholesome of all (compared to male-female and female-female),exactly because in Greek antiquity males where considered the perfect humans devoid of the weaknesses and  faults found in the female body and constitution-so of course the union of two men was considered the perfect union (ironically,they considered male penetration anathema-so much for consistency).

So,if we are to believe the validity of the existence of non-binary people because of the beliefs of some ancient peoples,should we also give credit to the belief that women are inferior (which practically the 99% of human civilizations believed at some point or another) and male homosexuality is the ideal for the same reason?Mind you, I do personally believe non-binary people exist (to some degree-the whole claim that there are over 100 gender identities is utter nonsense to me), I just don't think that bringing up ancient beliefs to prove the issue is the way to go-people used to believe some crazy **** (racist,sexist and homophobic too) back in the day...

You have to recognize this logic is deeply twisted right... it’s also derailing the topic of hand. We were talking about NB identities being real and pointing out that non binary is not some kind of new trend but a part of human culture for a long time. Misogyny and racism also have existed for a long time and are real but that is in no way morally equivalent to someone’s gender identity, weirdo.

[Regina George 59,387]

2 minutes ago, Gagaloo911 said:

Did I say I didn't go through all of it? Nope, just that I lost my patience with parts of it because they're so clearly full of privilege and completely without any understanding of the trans perspective. 

And I definitely did not come away with that as the main summary. Yes, that was a finding but if you could read between the lines even a little you can easily see that another goal here was to present cherry picked research that made her own opinion look correct, and to delegitimize the trans community, particularly as it relates to trans women.

I stated my concerns and reasonings for this this, most notably the fact that she's way too caught up in her own definition of womanhood that she's erasing an entire community of people and attacking them, all under the faux guise of public saftey concerns for women, which if you actually read it she only sees women as those assigned the female sex at birth. This erases all trans women and effectively tells them they don't matter and they don't get to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender.

You said “I did read a good amount of it but honestly parts of it were so questionable and problematic I lost my patience with it.” A good amount is not a full thing so maybe you worded it poorly which is okay. 

I think she was pretty objective on the matter and she couldn’t really give you are trans side of story because she is not trans. She thinks as a cis woman and that’s the reason she has her thoughts on this a little messed up. I did originally say that I don’t agree with her in this statement but AGAIN I didn’t (don’t) think there is anything, even slightly, that could be interpreted as necessarily transphobic. 

Regarding the last thing you wrote about her views on women and that she is erasing the trans women.. I don’t feel like she is doing that. I think it’s pretty poorly worded but I don’t think she made the statement out of transphobic reasoning. 

[Gagaloo911 12,959]

9 minutes ago, Thaniel22 said:

According to Plato,Ancient Greeks believed that each was the half of a complete person,and they spent their lives seeking their other half (their 'soulmate',if you will). Some of the men found that their soulmate was also a man (the Ancient Greek explanation for the existence of male homosexuality if you will). That kind of love, (the gay variety, that is) was considered by some to be the purest and most wholesome of all (compared to male-female and female-female),exactly because in Greek antiquity males where considered the perfect humans devoid of the weaknesses and  faults found in the female body and constitution-so of course the union of two men was considered the perfect union (ironically,they considered male penetration anathema-so much for consistency).

So,if we are to believe the validity of the existence of non-binary people because of the beliefs of some ancient peoples,should we also give credit to the belief that women are inferior (which practically the 99% of human civilizations believed at some point or another) and male homosexuality is the ideal for the same reason?Mind you, I do personally believe non-binary people exist (to some degree-the whole claim that there are over 100 gender identities is utter nonsense to me), I just don't think that bringing up ancient beliefs to prove the issue is the way to go-people used to believe some crazy **** (racist,sexist and homophobic too) back in the day...

Not by any means. I did not bring up this fact of multiple genders in other cultures to prove it, but rather to demonstrate to that user that it wasn't something just made up in the 21st century in the age of Tumblr, which is the ignorant claim they made.

The idea of multiple genders is not new, and has been around throughout human and cultural history. That's the extent of the point I was making. 

[Gagaloo911 12,959]

28 minutes ago, Hurem said:

It absolutely matters though. It's as if I make up my own set of pronouns and want my country to make it hate speech if someone misgenders me.

It's not that at all, here you go making things up again and fearmongering. 

Bottom line is the idea of multiple genders has always been with humans and always will. It was not made up in the age of Tumblr. 

Nothing in life is black and white, including gender. It's not that easy and gender is much more complicated than that, just as history and human culture have always demonstrated time and again.

[Bolkins 3,866]

My step mother has similar concerns to JK when it comes to trans people and women’s rights. I don’t think either ladies are evil or are coming from a place of hate, but rather a fear of the unknown. A fear of what could happen once certain rights are changed and the implications that could have in the future.

It’s struggles on struggles and it’s hard to really put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. I think we’d all agree that a cis female can’t relate to the struggles of a trans female, but would it be controversial to say a trans female can’t relate to the struggles of a cis female? That’s the point of contention for women like my step mum and perhaps JK.
 

 

 

 

[StrawberryBlond 13,476]

4 minutes ago, GagaSine said:

First of all, I really didn’t want to ‘out’ my gender when I signed up for this site but I am a cis woman so please stop pretending I am oppressing you when I am asking you to not use transphobic concepts. Menstruator is a clunky word no one but transphobes are using as a stupid ‘gotcha’, the term ‘people who menstruate’ is not dehumanizing it is inclusive as it is including cis women and other genders who menstruate. 

Please don’t use the fight for black liberation as a crutch for your argument, that is deeply insensitive as black women are black AND women so it is hardly comparable.

if you identify as a woman of course it is fully within your right to use that term and no one is asking you not to use it. It’s just when you talk about things like pregnancy, periods, etc and only use the term woman you are excluding trans people of various walks of life. There are trans men and nb people who menstruate and are pregnant and do not want to be called women, it is painful and invalidating for them. It is painful and invalidating for trans women (and women who are infertile) because they don’t get pregnant or menstruate. So equating woman with wings, periods, etc is hurtful.

and it doesn’t matter if the intention is not to create barriers because you are creating barriers for trans people who are poor, suffer from mental illness or otherwise struggle to access the proper healthcare to be medically ‘validated’ by a therapist, doctor etc and forcing them to fully medically transition in order to have their rights recognized is a form of forced sterilization and is unethical. Not all trans people want to get surgery or fully transition and many do not have access to it as it is very expensive and also physically traumatic. 

Saying trans people need to have their identities ‘confirmed’ as genuine is very transphobic. 

Anyway I am not wasting any more of my day on this. Peace. 

I never asked you to state your gender nor did I accuse you of oppressing me since I did not know your gender identity. If you'll re-read what I said, I never accused you of such a thing. You're entitled to find these terms fine but that doesn't mean all women will or should agree with you.

How is it insensitive to say that all oppressed groups should be granted equal respect? Of course I realise black women have two oppressions to deal with but they'll of course be welcome in a female space.

But I view transwomen as women and I recognise that those who identify as female are the not the only ones who menstruate but an entire term should not be stopped just because there's a very small minority who aren't part of that norm. I would like to think they understand the technicalities behind this word and just accept it for what it is. They'll have much bigger issues to deal with than being technically included in this term. And of course I'll accept anyone who menstruates but that shouldn't transpire into how I shouldn't be called a woman when I do it. And I have never encountered an infertile or menopausal women who was offended by terms like these. They were born female, they identify as female, they don't need their bodily functions (which they had once, they just don't any more) to validate that. Speaking as someone who feared that she was going through an early menopause once, it's such a harrowing feeling but at most I feared that I'd feel "less of a woman" but I never for a minute imagined that I'd stop feeling like a woman entirely. We are more than our body parts.

And I never said that all transpeople had to fully transition to be considered genuine. I'm talking about questioning men who look and talk like men but somehow, want to be regarded as women. There's a man who became somewhat internet famous called Danielle. He claims to be female but is clearly a man, has made no level of transitioning, is on no hormones, won't even so much as put on a dress or make up or shave his beard off. The only female thing about him is his name. Pardon me if I think someone like that should be questioned. This will be our new reality if we don't start seeing more evidence of truly wanting to identify as male/female before we start believing people's claims to their identity.