"Dumbledore is Gay" sez Rowling

Aw man, the Telegraph is now declaring the book NOT transphobic after all! What a surprise. Surely this is also JKR's fault.

i'm not sure what level of smug satisfaction you're on but it's impossible to recognize as a human response

the guardian review reads as "it's not transphobic, it just has several tropes that are traditionally used to stoke hatred towards transgender people".
which is kinda how one could summarize jkr position on transgender people. she's not transphobic. she just likes promoting many tropes that are traditionally used to stoke hatred towards transgender people.

this however..

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/jk-rowling-trans_ca_5f5fb236c5b68d1b09c60ee5

"There’s a trans character named Pippa in Rowling’s book The Silkworm, who’s described as “unstable and aggressive,” according to Katelyn Burns, a trans author writing for Them. Burns quotes one section of the book, when Pippa tries to escape the hero detective: ”‘If you go for that door one more time I’m calling the police and I’ll testify and be glad to watch you go down for attempted murder. And it won’t be fun for you Pippa,’ he added. ‘Not pre-op.’”

so, jkr, let me see if i got this right: a suggested rape won't be fun, but hey, it just might be. post op.
this is not a dog whistle anymore. it's a fucking vuvuzela.

I took a look at Rowling's twitter feed today, I didn't realize how much she's doubling down on this cause. Jesus Christ lady. I guess she truly believes this otherwise I can't imagine her risking the threat to her career like this.

thanks, scanner darkly, I'd forgotten what a vuvuzela was.

it's fucked up all these newspapers are saying that jkr's book is transphobic when her social media presence is screaming "i'm transphobic" all on its own

how dare they misrepresent her work by suggesting it contains her actual views

considering it's a 900 page volume the ratio of transphobia per page is not that high surely

i'm not sure what level of smug satisfaction you're on but it's impossible to recognize as a human response

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Thursday, September 17, 2020 6:35 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I humbly apologize for mocking Telegraph stans.

love too burn witches at the stake (criticise billionaires for their consistently shitty politics and bigotry)

By all means go for it then! Stanning for a Telegraph article clearly intended to troll the left doesn't really do that.

She's got a whole twitter feed you could critique instead of genuflecting at clickbait trolls from the worst of the UK media.

Nobody is stanning or genuflecting itt, as you well know from having read the posts itt

Do you worship the national review?

Do you masturbate over the Telegraph?

No because discussion of rowlings transphobia is not endorsement of whatever pub has covered it obv. It’s a rhetorical q I’m assuming the answer is no for both of us but getting less sure

But yes nobody itt has mentioned her twitter feed or drawn conclusions from the other reviews of this book, the last 50 posts itt didn’t happen and we are all just saying “the telegraph is good”. You are either thick or trolling.

This outrage about the book is a troll by right wing media. All the reports lead back to the one article in the Telegraph, who love to provoke the left on identity politics. A very successful troll btw and great for business. Sure, double down on trusting the now retracted clickbait review from the bullshit pape. jk rowling is frequently posting her own words on twitter which could be discussed but so far on this thread have not been.

A schism exists between feminist theory, queer theory and trans theory. Eg. gender-based rights vs. sex-based rights when applied to female-only safe spaces like prisons, rape shelters etc; how and when trans people should compete in sex-segregated sports; age of consent for minors to transition; & a couple of other topics. There are similar nuances in the BLM conversation which are beyond stating if you are for or against. It's more complicated than that.

Supporters of the Harpers article see that it's not a request by the signatories to not be flamed but that these conversations have become difficult to have in left-ish groups such as academia, the arts, non-profits, unions and so on. Meanwhile the right-wing look on & laugh.

ILX leans left and it's unlikely that there could be a thread on gender theory here. Several posts are already saying that this is a stupid thread - a reaction to some posts getting close to difficult viewpoints being aired. It's worth thinking about.

― everything, Saturday, July 11, 2020 11:34 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Love the idea that nobody would have picked up on the transphobic content in this book if the telegraph hadn’t (even tho ppl have also discussed the guardian review, which is based on the content of the book and not just that telegraph piece, and drawn the same conclusions)(also a bullshit paper tbf)

jk rowling is frequently posting her own words on twitter which could be discussed but so far on this thread have not been.

did you read any of the other posts in this thread before saying this or were you just hoping people wouldn't remember

Xpost Not a gripe - a comment. I don't think ilx is particularly "left" either but maybe i dont spend enoigh time here. I dont feel like I am defending Rowling by pointing out what I feel was a huge successful troll by a publication known for such things.

You should spend less time here tbf

You should engage with JKR's actual words tbf.

jk rowling is frequently posting her own words on twitter which could be discussed but so far on this thread have not been.

jk rowling has been a terf for years. she is also very friendly on twitter with "brian spanner" a unionist troll account that has tweeted at multiple female snp msps calling them cunts

― xmas respecter (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, December 24, 2019 6:40 AM (eight months ago)

don't want to link to wings over scotland but he details her literally @ing the brian spanner account 200 times.

― xmas respecter (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, December 24, 2019 6:42 AM (eight months ago)

to me it seems unlikely that an angry entitled millionaire soft Tory would be a terf

― a very powerful woman in the dog world (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, December 24, 2019 8:06 AM (eight months ago)

can’t wait for my wee girl to be old enough to want to read these and then spend years trying not to yell about how all harry does is defend his elite private school and the horrible racist status quo it supports from having to make any sort of change and then grows up to be a cop so he can do it some more

and also that rowling is a blairite terf

― hot nuts (small) (bizarro gazzara), Saturday, December 28, 2019 11:56 PM (eight months ago)

You know, I don't really think whoever wrote this bit was purposefully aiming at Rowling, but I think they hit her pretty well with it:

https://entertainment.theonion.com/frozen-2-creators-confirm-that-elsa-gay-but-also-tran-1839981134

― revenge of the jawn (rushomancy), Monday, December 30, 2019 1:19 AM (eight months ago)

I certainly agree that tokenism is mockable.

The Telegraph is trash. Pink News is trash. That's where the story came from. None of us here have read the book. I remember JKR getting burned at the stake over Scottish Independence. I remember getting burned at the stake for Brexit. What's new?

― everything, Thursday, 17 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

What's this burned at the stake for Brexit? You a Brexiteer?

'crossdressing serial killer' is still a transphobic trope even if that character isn't really the focus of the novel

like, congrats to rowling on managing to write a book that isn't as hateful as her public comments (but still very much reflective of her worldview) or one of her previous galbraith books ('the silkworm', as mentioned earlier)

lmao @ the idea the torygraph is "trolling the left" by pointing out transphobia in the works of a writer who agrees with the torygraph on Scottish independence, Corbyn, neoliberalism....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/20/making-a-demon-of-jk-rowling-is-a-wretched-sport-born-of-misogyny-and-resentment

Observer columnist says the JKR controversy is all about misogyny against JKR. Personally I am not convinced by that.

There’s a real vein of wealthy white terfs saint any criticism of them whatsoever is misogyny, and they’re not shy about using it against other women either. They’re also not shy about calling women who disagree with them handmaids, men, or just straight up predators ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My colleague Nick Cohen’s reading is supported by early reader reviews on Amazon

lmao oh reader reviews on amazon you say?????

Citing Nick Cohen 😬😬😬😬

I have to agree: if your two supporting sources are a dire fellow writer at the same paper and Amazon reviews -- that's as weak as it gets.

Hey Nick Cohen knows misogyny when he sees it in the first person

The worst thing is that when The Observer dies all the worst ppl will just start writing for The Spectator or cow mag (the Jenny Turner -- in her latest for the LRB -- essay is quite good at covering these fault lines)

Definitely misogyny yeah

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-graham-linehan-fell-foul-of-the-transgender-mob

I love that use of "fell foul", just innocently skipping along, Tweeting transphobia 24/7, and suddenly this horrible mob who are just looking for a fight set about you

GL of course no stranger to telling women who disagreed with him that they were misogynists

I love the balls on these guys. 2M followers too.

Transphobic creator J.K. Rowling 'not involved' in new Harry Potter game. https://t.co/I9FaT64vRv pic.twitter.com/JsWG3A8iHJ

— Kotaku (@Kotaku) September 17, 2020

As people used to say of Linehan 'What's the end game here?', has to be said i'm baffled. Whatever her intention is or was it's not working. Deliberate anti-marketing or something?

One comment I would hazard on that, without knowing too much about any of it, is:

JKR is used to people agreeing with her, buying her books, worshipping her and supporting everything she says and does, treating her like a cultural queen (a bit like a multi-million-selling Marina Hyde in a sense) - so she never expected many people to challenge her.

I feel like this is what happened with Linehan, what started as being mocked or corrected for ignorance rapidly hardened into outright war because he couldn't handle being owned on the Internet

Entitlement plus underlying previously unexamined bigotry

does her end game have to be any deeper than affecting public/political attitudes towards transgender people? she's already a gazillionaire, now she's found her passion

Tbh I am hesitant to point out the actual reason as both are extremely litigious

As people used to say of Linehan 'What's the end game here?',

Linehan now does a daily newsletter pointing and screeching at trans people on twitter, since his main account for abusing them directly was banned, and mocking people who turn the replies off on any given tweet. (He charges 8 quid a month for the ability to post comments on the blog version of his newsletter.)

The worst thing is that when The Observer dies all the worst ppl will just start writing for The Spectator or cow mag (the Jenny Turner -- in her latest for the LRB -- essay is quite good at covering these fault lines)

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 21 September 2020 4:13 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

its already happening - hadley freeman, one of the guardian's many transphobe writers, wrote a piece in it the other day to complain about the oscars and then tell an anecdote where she explained to a friend how transphobic she is

I've become radicalised about gender, says Hadley Freemanhttps://t.co/09hOkimPxp

— The Spectator (@spectator) September 19, 2020

I don't think Rowling holding awful transphobic views and her receiving misogynistic abuse are in any way mutually exclusive.

it's problematic when it's used as a tool to shut down discussion that is specifically calling her out for being transphobic.

Neither justifies the other, obviously. But women in the public space with controversial views - good or bad - always get pushback that is more virulent, more personalised and more sexualised than men do. I don't know why this situation would be any different.