JK Rowling getting cancelled over “TERF-y” twitter comment

[legend]

2 hours ago, sblfilms said:

@legendI’m not sure they she is disagreeing that gender is a social construct, more so that gender is inherently changing while biological sex is not. She does indeed overstate things in the regards to the existence of only two district sexes with those notable edge cases, but those are so far outside the norm they seem to fall perfectly into the realm of “exceptions that prove the rule”.

 

It seems her contention is that issues regarding the treatment of the sexes being different is not based in personal gender identity, but in biological sex. Basically, a female isn’t more likely to be the victim of domestic violence because she identifies as a woman, even if gender roles play a part. She is at heightened risk because she is a biological female.

 

That point certainly could be debated, but I THINK that is what she is getting at as I’ve tried to read and understand what this fight is about  

 

I think sex does absolutely play a significant role in how society and people respond to each other. The very fact that trans people get treated differently by society also supports that fact being true.

 

It's where she then starts insisting on word choice "man/woman, he/her, etc." onlying refer to biology and that anything else is a courtesy and wrong that is weird and unnecessary.

[Jwheel86]

Somewhat related, where's the line between something being trans and something like black face? Reason I ask is more and more people with Body Integrity Identity Disorder are now labeling themselves as "'transabled" and demanding to be accepted into the disability community. 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Jwheel86 said:

Somewhat related, where's the line between something being trans and something like black face? Reason I ask is more and more people with Body Integrity Identity Disorder are now labeling themselves as "'transabled" and demanding to be accepted into the disability community. 

Why does Rachel Dolezal get mocked for claiming to be black? Obviously these various issues have their own nuances to navigate, but they have far more in common than they do different.

[Kal-El814]

16 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Why does Rachel Dolezal get mocked for claiming to be black? Obviously these various issues have their own nuances to navigate, but they have far more in common than they do different.

Black people and white people have more alike than they do different. Come on now.

[fuckle85]

On 12/19/2019 at 7:31 PM, Jwheel86 said:

Somewhat related, where's the line between something being trans and something like black face? Reason I ask is more and more people with Body Integrity Identity Disorder are now labeling themselves as "'transabled" and demanding to be accepted into the disability community. 

In highschool I would often tell my dominican/korean girlfriend that I'd do anything for her.  There was a exchange a few times where she'd be like "ok wear brownface!" And I'd jokingly respond, "as you command!"  Even though it gave us a laugh, whether or not it's considered too edgy or stupid will depend on the person and also how well you can carry the weight/own what you're saying.  There can be a time an a place for edgy humor (ideally in reaction to absurdity) , but also, depending on our personal experiences humor tends to get softer as we age anyways.  

 

Segueing to your question, pretty sure that line is mostly historical context.  Can't speak with total certainty to what extent trans women should claim sharing same the same pain of born women's sufferage (though as they are women I would say it's fine), and even that discussion can vary across racial, religious, cultural and geographic lines, but it seems pretty clear by now that knowing political, subjective and objective truths regarding history, culture, etc both explain why anyone genuinely wanting to be transracial is considered delusional and in bad taste at best, regardless of whatever your personally defined subjective truths are. Ultimately pursuit of objective truths should probably be prioritized when administering justice.  Also, a quick google search shows why comparing the horror of blackface/minstrels to gender transition is pretty far removed from reality and explains why you only see recent jokes about it in entertainment via earned satirical commentary, and even that's arguably considered bad taste by today's standards due to how society and culture always change unexpectedly in reaction to various political situations both micro and macro, etc etc.

 

Transdisabled is a new one to me lol, but seems like an easy enough case to crack (Can't help but think right now of the episode of the Simpsons where homer gained like 200 pounds so he can legally work from home).  Unless there's a sexual fetish component to it as well?  Not sure. 

 

TLDR: as long as it a) harms nobody unfairly and b) doesn't mock current understandings of reality itself, it's probably ok.  This is why being transgender and changing nationalities is more acceptable than being transracial or that one where you're an adult who wants to literally identify as a child or something (forget what it's called).  So yeah, it comes down to subjective and objective truths and how they effect society/become political truths. Prioritizing what is least harmful and most progressive is the balance I would say

[Keyser_Soze]

Gender stereotyping is bad mmkay

[skillzdadirecta]

8 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Saying you don't know who she is is like saying you don't know who George Lucas is. I didn't watch Star Wars until my mid 20s and I still was well aware of the guy all my life. 

 

Being outraged all the time can get really exhausting. There's so much to be angry about, I have to try to put things in perspective. 

I can't speak for @SFLUFAN but I definitely know who she is. I was agreeing with him in saying that I didn't pay any attention to the Harry Potter books and movies. Of COURSE I know how she is.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

7 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I can't speak for @SFLUFAN but I definitely know who she is. I was agreeing with him in saying that I didn't pay any attention to the Harry Potter books and movies. Of COURSE I know how she is.

It was more directed at Wade, since he outright said it, but it can also be applied as a general statement. 

[Jason]

10 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Of COURSE I know how she is.

 

Are you low-key bragging about having her digits?

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Speaking of changing nationalities and such, I had a patient last week who was just the typical southern American and when I met her daughter, she spoke with a pronounced British accent. Kinda threw me off, and the patient told me(with disapproval) that her daughter was born and raised in Louisiana but “decided she needed an accent that fit her better.”

 

I've never heard of someone training themselves to speak in an accent from a country they’ve never been to. First time for everything, I guess. 

[skillzdadirecta]

9 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Are you low-key bragging about having her digits?

Lol no!

[Ricofoley]

 

[Scott]

This uber progressive sensitivity is great in theory, but in actuality there are a lot of transgender folks who do not make it easy for strangers in public to address them appropriately. I’ve treated patients who wear lipstick, a skirt, a low cut shirt revealing breast implants, and a fairly healthy beard. Not exactly sure how best to address them, especially if they haven’t explicitly spelled it out on their patient intake form. And I can be as sensitive and accommodating as possible, but it still doesn’t help individuals like this fit into our more traditionally understood cultural norms. 

The Rachel Dolezal case seems like an appropriate parallel for which I haven’t heard a great explanation yet. Why can a white woman be lambasted and shamed openly for wanting to assume the identity of a black woman, but if you criticize a biological male for wanting to assume the identity of a woman, you have to forfeit every good thing you’ve ever done or said in this world?
 

And as far as JK Rowling, does defending an employee’s right to express her opinion about the transgender discussion automatically equal “putrid TRANSPHOBE!!!!”? Are we such reactionary extremists that anyone perceived to be even slightly on the other side of the aisle is automatically considered to be the worst member of that opinion group?

[johnny]

 

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, johnny said:

 

 

 

[fuckle85]

In b4 Rowling starts retco...I mean revealing some Harry Potter characters were trans all along 

[skillzdadirecta]

2 hours ago, Scott said:

The Rachel Dolezal case seems like an appropriate parallel for which I haven’t heard a great explanation yet. Why can a white woman be lambasted and shamed openly for wanting to assume the identity of a black woman, but if you criticize a biological male for wanting to assume the identity of a woman, you have to forfeit every good thing you’ve ever done or said in this world?

I asked that question a couple of times myself and never got a good answer. Not only did she identify as black, she worked for the NAACP and was raising Black children on her own, including her adopted brother and sister. My point is she was walking the walk and wasn't just appropriating blackness on a shallow, surface level. There was a great documentary on her on Netflix.... not sure if it's still there.

[legend]

5 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I asked that question a couple of times myself and never got a good answer. Not only did she identify as black, she worked for the NAACP and was raising Black children on her own, including her adopted brother and sister. My point is she was walking the walk and wasn't just appropriating blackness on a shallow, surface level. There was a great documentary on her on Netflix.... not sure if it's still there.

 

It's a good question and I don't think it's as clear cut as people's gut repulsion.

 

However, I would say declaring yourself black is more of an issue because any social expression associated with blackness shouldn't have existed in the first place if there wasn't a horrible history (that still exists even though less so) with the treatment of black people that led to more insular communities developing said expressions. Ideally, we should be breaking those barriers down and being black should be socially treated no different than a hair color, and anything else should become a remnant of the past.

 

The fact that so much of the trans movement has focused on the social gender construction, rather than sex, seems more appropriate. But to be fair, I do worry that *some* transwomen do a similar kind of damage. For example, I think Caitlyn Jenner in the past has said and reinforced stereotypes about women as a whole that I think is counter productive. I don't have links on hand, I just remember this being my reaction to things she's said before.

 

We should be moving to a place as society where you can express however you want, without sterotypes of how people should express. Transwomen generally seems fine in this regard. Declaring yourself black and then acting a certain way, less so.

[Guest]

@legend, I’m really not sure what you’re getting at. Gender as we see it today, divorced from biological sex, is wholly about stereotypes of how people express themselves. What is fundamentally different about stereotypes based on gender and stereotypes based on race?

[Kal-El814]

16 hours ago, Reputator said:

I don't know if this is the place for this but I've ALWAYS had a hard time accepting transgenders on a fundamental level. At least I recognize this is my problem and not theirs. It's not that I refuse to refer to people how they want to be called — obviously that's their right alone to decide. But there have been very embarrassing situations where I've used male pronouns to refer to a trans-woman (who, frankly, did a really poor job of "dressing the part"), and my only moral salvation is that the person was a complete lazy nimrod that treated everyone else like shit. But it was an accident, and the problem rises from a deep-seeded, hardwired mental code for how to identify genders, and when someone identifies the opposite of that, my brain stumbles over itself quite often.

 

So I wanted to comment on this, with the caveat that I'm a cis guy myself and am probably not the right person to provide competent education on this topic.

 

That said... the text I bolded is stuff that I know would be offensive and hurtful to my trans friends. Not everyone that's trans tries to pass (again, I don't even know if the terminology I'm using is current), and reading that someone messed up their pronouns because they did a bad job is really damaging. It's often a double edged sword; they'll get misgendered for not conforming to stereotypes closely enough, or if they pass and they're outed, they get told they were being deceptive.

 

This isn't intended as a callout on you at all, and again I'm swimming in someone else's pool... but it's come up often enough that I felt compelled to say something. No criticism intended.

 

10 hours ago, Scott said:

This uber progressive sensitivity is great in theory, but in actuality there are a lot of transgender folks who do not make it easy for strangers in public to address them appropriately. I’ve treated patients who wear lipstick, a skirt, a low cut shirt revealing breast implants, and a fairly healthy beard. Not exactly sure how best to address them, especially if they haven’t explicitly spelled it out on their patient intake form. And I can be as sensitive and accommodating as possible, but it still doesn’t help individuals like this fit into our more traditionally understood cultural norms. 

 

I challenge this in general. If you're in a medical field that obviously provides different context than meeting someone in public. But in most "public" situations it's just... not relevant enough to matter to the point where you're making assumptions. If I meet someone with dark skin I don't need to know whether or not they're African American or Colombian, it's just not relevant. If there's someone not conforming to gender norms, I don't need to know whether or not they're trans, non-binary, or cis... it's just not important enough to make assumptions.

 

But of course, a clinical setting makes this meaningfully more complicated.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

But in most "public" situations it's just... not relevant enough to matter to the point where you're making assumptions. If I meet someone with dark skin I don't need to know whether or not they're African American or Colombian, it's just not relevant. If there's someone not conforming to gender norms, I don't need to know whether or not they're trans, non-binary, or cis... it's just not important enough to make assumptions.

In the context of trying avoid offense, it kinda does, right?

[Kal-El814]

4 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

In the context of trying avoid offense, it kinda does, right?

I don't think so? Most of what I'm saying to someone I'm meeting isn't dependent upon knowing that person's background. If I see a guy, I'm not saying, "bitches, am I right?" If I see a dude I think is Colombian I'm not popping off about how delicious arepas are. I dunno. I know where you're coming from (I think  , I got in from RoS at like 1:00 am so who knows) and I think I get it, I just don't know how relevant it is when you're meeting someone.

[Jason]

Just now, Kal-El814 said:

I don't think so? Most of what I'm saying to someone I'm meeting isn't dependent upon knowing that person's background. If I see a guy, I'm not saying, "bitches, am I right?" If I see a dude I think is Colombian I'm not popping off about how delicious arepas are. I dunno. I know where you're coming from (I think  , I got in from RoS at like 1:00 am so who knows) and I think I get it, I just don't know how relevant it is when you're meeting someone.

 

This was specifically about getting pronouns right though. 

[Reputator]

1 minute ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

So I wanted to comment on this, with the caveat that I'm a cis guy myself and am probably not the right person to provide competent education on this topic.

 

That said... the text I bolded is stuff that I know would be offensive and hurtful to my trans friends. Not everyone that's trans tries to pass (again, I don't even know if the terminology I'm using is current), and reading that someone messed up their pronouns because they did a bad job is really damaging. It's often a double edged sword; they'll get misgendered for not conforming to stereotypes closely enough, or if they pass and they're outed, they get told they were being deceptive.

 

This isn't intended as a callout on you at all, and again I'm swimming in someone else's pool... but it's come up often enough that I felt compelled to say something. No criticism intended.

 

I don't disagree with you. Someone as feminine looking as....I don't know, Princess Peach could call themselves a man and that's their choice. It's not an obligation to do otherwise. But my point is that it messes with people's programming like mine, and it takes a great concerted effort to "override" that programming. Again, my problem, not theirs.

 

I never want to offend anyone that doesn't deserve it, and I certainly never want to be tacky or rude if I can help it. But I can't deny there's a low-level primitive part of the brain that constantly tries to stand in the way of that. I've noticed this affects my tone of voice and conversational approach in subtle ways as well. Working at a themepark, there are a number of trans people I've worked with over the years. One was a trans-man, and quite honestly we hit it off really easily. He did cut his hair short and refrain from wearing make-up, and just in the way he carried himself I could tell that deep inside he was wired more like a man than a woman, so I actually had a pretty easy time with him. Another person is a trans-woman, and I knew them before the change, so that made it more challenging. But she's the sweetest person so I'll cut my tongue off before I say something that would hurt them.

 

I can't imagine what these people go through. We have it so easy being cisgendered, and even moreso if we're straight. Any struggles with identity and sexuality are basically lost on me. I can only read about and observe what it's like, and everything trans people go through just seems horrible. There are more people in the world that aren't considerate like us, that blame trans people for making things "too complicated" on them, or worse, claim they have some sort of mental disease and that trying to accept them for who they are is akin to reinforcing a delusion. Trans and others in the LGBTQ community people walk through a societal minefield everyday the moment they step out their door, and what's admirable to me is that they keep pushing forward. I'm very certain that I would not have the courage to do that.

[Bloodporne]

I just started typing and realized I have no business chiming in on this topic. It would've been one of these moments:

 

[TheGreatGamble]

I just don't see the big deal. All she said is a woman should not have been fired for her beliefs. 

I just have no outrage to give for this stuff. It seems like everyone wants to be offended, and that's just weird to me. 

 

JK Rowling didn't insult anyone, she said a woman was wrongfully fired. That' her opinion. She didn't say trans people should die, she didn't denigrate anyone, and still the outrage police are at it. She just disagreed with a decision to fire a woman for her belief that men can't be women, and vice versa. 

 

This is why the Right seems to be winning, because there' so many teams on the left that are happy to fight each other over every progressive belief, many of which the center just does not care about, and are getting annoyed with. It's like the democrats are two parties, fighting each other more than the other side. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

13 minutes ago, TheGreatGamble said:

This is why the Right seems to be winning, because there' so many teams on the left that are happy to fight each other over every progressive belief, many of which the center just does not care about, and are getting annoyed with. It's like the democrats are two parties, fighting each other more than the other side.

The story of popular politics since the French revolution

[Kal-El814]

19 minutes ago, TheGreatGamble said:

JK Rowling didn't insult anyone, she said a woman was wrongfully fired. That' her opinion. She didn't say trans people should die, she didn't denigrate anyone, and still the outrage police are at it. She just disagreed with a decision to fire a woman for her belief that men can't be women, and vice versa. 

Saying you stand with someone who's going out there saying, basically, that "real" women in locker rooms and bathroom need to be protected from trans people is certainly insulting. Yes it's her opinion, but come on now. She absolutely denigrated people.

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Saying you stand with someone who's going out there saying, basically, that "real" women in locker rooms and bathroom need to be protected from trans people is certainly insulting. Yes it's her opinion, but come on now. She absolutely denigrated people.

I could have missed this, but I think in regards to Maya and her supporters, there insistence the certain spaces be reserved for biological women is not because trans women themselves pose a risk. That seems to be a mischaracterization of their point of view.
 

I think it’s helpful to understand the backdrop of this conversation is a change in law in England that has been proposed (not sure if passed) that would allow gender to legally be changed immediately based on self identification, as opposed to the previous law which required 2 years living as that gender and the affirmation of two doctors.

 

I don’t think it’s crazy to suggest that women could be harmed by such a lax standard. If you’re a boy who is struggling to make the varsity team in a sport, just say you’re a girl now and go get that sweet scholarship as you unfairly dominate the girls.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

3 minutes ago, BlueAngel said:

There are only two genders, Male and Female. If you get offended you obviously have mental issues because you think you're something that you're not. Science is amazing!

There's seriously no excuse to still be this ignorant. 

[legend]

3 hours ago, sblfilms said:

@legend, I’m really not sure what you’re getting at. Gender as we see it today, divorced from biological sex, is wholly about stereotypes of how people express themselves. What is fundamentally different about stereotypes based on gender and stereotypes based on race?

 

Saying "people of this sex (physical trait) behave this way, so I'm going to express myself as that sex" is counterproductive and the transwomen like Jenner who sometimes lean that way are when I have problems. But a lot of the trans movement is not taking that stance.

 

Similarly, saying "people with black skin (physical trait) behave this way, so I'm going to make myself look black and call myself black" is also counter productive.

 

Another way of putting it is the racist or sexist position is to assert dependence of a social trait on a physical trait.

[Jason]

19 minutes ago, BlueAngel said:

grr grr lbrlz

grr grr

grr

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, legend said:

 

Saying "people of this sex (physical trait) behave this way, so I'm going to express myself as that sex" is counterproductive and the transwomen like Jenner who sometimes lean that way are when I have problems. But a lot of the trans movement is not taking that stance.

 

Similarly, saying "people with black skin (physical trait) behave this way, so I'm going to make myself look black and call myself black" is also counter productive.

Transgender by definition means that your physical body doesn’t correlate to your internal gender identity. It by necessity involves acting in ways that are stereotypical of the sex to which you weren’t assigned at birth, or at least the desire to.

 

Sorry, I’m really struggling to understand your point here but please don’t feel like you must keep responding if you feel you’ve been clear enough  

[legend]

6 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Transgender by definition means that your physical body doesn’t correlate to your internal gender identity. It by necessity involves acting in ways that are stereotypical of the sex to which you weren’t assigned at birth, or at least the desire to.

 

Sorry, I’m really struggling to understand your point here but please don’t feel like you must keep responding if you feel you’ve been clear enough  

 

It means it doesn't correlate with what people would expect of someone with your physical body. It does not entail an assertion that people of that sex should behave with that expectation, nor that the two are necessarily linked such that you cannot have one without the other.  The majority of the trans movement is explicitly to break down the idea that they're necessarily linked; as is the related non-binary movement. This is precisely why so many in the trans community do point out the distinction between sex and gender.

[Anathema-]

Nobody was fired, wrongfully or otherwise. Rowling defended someone who was judged in court to have said plainly discriminatory and hurtful things.