JKR’s Claims Part 2: Support for Magdalen Berns

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. This is part 2 of my series addressing the claims in her piece. You can see the full thing here.

Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises

One of the most frustrating things about GC views is they are always wrapped in several layers of dogwhistles and misdirection. What does “A believer in the importance of biological sex” mean? As I said in my previous post, trans people are often more keenly aware of their biology than anyone else, having often spent their whole lives dealing with the dysphoria that their various sex characteristics cause them. But also because they often must be their own experts in order to get adequate healthcare from professionals who aren’t experts, and from a system that is set up for a binary that their bodies don’t fit into. What this is code for is “a great believer that trans women are men and should always be treated as such in all cases”, which clearly does not reflect how trans men and women are treated in society. What chromosomes you have doesn’t determine how people interact with you, what sexism you face or who finds you attractive.

If you are not attracted to someone because of their genitals then you are not attracted to them. You do not choose who you are attracted to, and no one should be called a bigot for it. Of course it is possible to find trans people who disagree with this, as it is usually possible to find someone who disagrees with any given view, but this is the mainstream position by far. Every single trans person I know and interact with agrees with me on this, and often very publicly. So why bring this up at all? It is part of the GC emotional hook. The idea is to present trans women as predatory and as forcing women into sex, that there is some inherent problem with trans people that they are a danger to gay people. Half of trans people are women, half are gay, this doesn’t make any sense.

The reason JKR received such a backlash for supporting Magdalen Berns wasn’t because she “believed in sex” or because she observed how sexuality works, it was because of Berns’s very openly transphobic, antagonistic and often conspiratorial views on trans people

Trans people aren’t actors, they don’t get “sexual kicks” from being trans. Clearly trans people, a chronically poor and unemployed demographic the world over, aren’t receiving secret money from a Jewish billionaire. Women can be polite or rude, transphobic people usually have absolutely no issue being rude to trans people, as shown here, so the idea that every single person who encounters you is being polite is ridiculous. It is an undeniable fact that some trans people pass.

Full post | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10