Left Turns on JK Rowling After 'Harry Potter' Author's Trans Comments
Author J.K. Rowling ignited another battle in the gender wars Saturday insisting on Twitter that gender is more about biology than a philosophical construct.
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction,” the author of the Harry Potter series of novels tweeted. “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”
If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020
Not surprisingly, given the controversy over transgenders, the post immediately drew blowback on Twitter.
You’re a smart person. How do you not yet understand the difference between sex and gender? The only way I can possibly explain your ignorance at this point is willfulness. It’s incredibly disappointing.
— Brad Walsh (@BradWalsh) June 6, 2020
Rowling stood her ground.
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“The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women – ie, to male violence – ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences – is a nonsense,” she wrote in a follow-up Twitter post.
“I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.
“At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so,” she said.
I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020
She also mocked the confusion created by sensitivity to the concept of transgender individuals.
‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?
Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate https://t.co/cVpZxG7gaA
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020
“‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” she wrote in a Twitter post with a link to an article about “girls, women, and gender non-binary persons” who menstruate.
But Rowling was attacked for her comments.
WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A BLACK LIVES MATTER UPRISING AND YOU FEEL LIKE THIS??? IS THE TIME TO GO ON A TRANSPHOBIC SCREED ABOUT BIOLOGICAL GENDER?????? HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT RESPECT
— Molly Knox Ostertag (@MollyOstertag) June 7, 2020
JK Rowling continues to align herself with an ideology which willfully distorts facts about gender identity and people who are trans. In 2020, there is no excuse for targeting trans people.
— GLAAD (@glaad) June 7, 2020
That’s not really what you said, though. To act as if you were just remarking on how connected you feel to being a female is disingenuous. You fully know why saying “people who menstrate” are or should be considered women undermines trans people and non-binary people.
— Meghan Tonjes (@meghantonjes) June 7, 2020
Outside the transgender issue, Rowling has long toed the liberal line. In 2015, for instance, she branded then-candidate Donald Trump worse than her fictional ultimate villain Voldemort, as HuffPost reported. But her dissent from liberal orthodoxy on transgender matters has an army of liberal critics.
It’s not the first time, either.
Rowling was at odds with the transgender community last year, according to Fox News, when she defended a researcher who lost a job after publicly insisting that men cannot change their biological sex.
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