Addressing The Claims In JK Rowling’s Justification For Transphobia
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Recently JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter, tweeted some transphobic statements and dogwhistles on Twitter that I have addressed here. After a few days silence she wrote a lengthy post trying to justify her position on her website. Here I will address the main claims and explain why they are either false or at best half true.
As is the problem with all misinformation, it’s easier and quicker to spread than it is to refute. JKR’s original post was long and it contained so many falsehoods it is very tricky to address concisely, therefore this article is very long. Please do your own research and don’t blindly trust either me or JKR, however all my sources are linked throughout.
Contents
- The Maya Forstater Legal Case
- Support for Magdalen Berns
- TERF — Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist
- Biology
- Education and Safeguarding
- Freedom of Speech
- Lisa Littman and Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria
- Desistance, Detransition and “If I Were a Kid Today I Would Have Been Transed”
- Misogyny and Women as a Political Class
- “Trans People Think Being a Woman is a Costume”
- Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault
- Trans Women in Women’s Bathrooms and GRA Reform
- Fear
- Conclusion
The Maya Forstater Legal Case
For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.
Firstly, this plain misrepresentation is a common Gender Critical (read anti-trans) talking point. The claim usually goes that “someone lost their job just for saying sex is real” or “for calling a man a man” or even “for thinking the wrong thing”, with the implication that someone just innocently spoke a thought aloud and then lost their…
