JKR’s Claims Part 9: Sexual Assault, Trans Women in Women’s Bathrooms and GRA Reform
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 9 of my series addressing the claims in her piece. You can see the full thing here.
Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault
I truly extend my sympathy and empathy to JKR on her experience of domestic violence and sexual assault. There is no “but” to this. I unconditionally extend my love and support on this. I too survived an abusive relationship and I too stand in solidarity with those who have. I am glad she has felt she can speak up and I am sure that doing so has given strength to some survivors who felt they couldn’t, and for that I thank her. The recent attack by the Sun Newspaper on her for this, and platforming of her abuser, was unambiguously disgusting, and rightly called out by the wider trans community.
Most of the trans women I know, including myself, have experienced sexual assault for being women, and I am grateful that JKR extends empathy and solidarity to the women who experience this:
If you could come inside my head and understand what I feel when I read about a trans woman dying at the hands of a violent man, you’d find solidarity and kinship. I have a visceral sense of the terror in which those trans women will have spent their last seconds on earth, because I too have known moments of blind fear when I realised that the only thing keeping me alive was the shaky self-restraint of my attacker.
But with her comment on this there is a “but”…
Trans Women in Women’s Bathrooms and GRA Reform
So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman — and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones — then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.
As I pointed out in my last piece; in the UK — where both JKR and I live — trans women have used women’s spaces longer than either of us have been alive, and have been legally protected to do so since 2010 (before that there was no clear law either way, though there were some protections for trans people, it has never been illegal). A Gender Recognition Certificate is not necessary to use women’s spaces and it never has been, in fact using women’s spaces for some time is required to obtain a GRC! If there was going to be a problem the moment that people were allowed into the facility they know is best for them then it would have already happened. It hasn’t. All of the problems GC people propose with “Self ID” are always hypothetical, if it was going to happen, why hasn’t it been happening for over a decade?
This is one of the most worrying pieces of misinformation put forward by her and by the GC movement as a whole. I, and many British trans people, are living in fear that the UK government is building up to trying to ban us from using public facilities. The reason they are claiming that trans women don’t already use women’s facilities is so they can frame taking away the rights trans people have today as “defending women’s rights”. Where do you think trans women have been weeing for the last 50 years?
Political parties seeking to appease the loudest voices in this debate are ignoring women’s concerns at their peril.
There are constant cries from the GC movement that “women’s concerns aren’t being listened to”, but what they really mean is “you aren’t agreeing with me”. Scotland held a public consultation for the GRA reform. The majority of women and women’s groups supported it (also see here). The Scottish government specifically addressed the concerns in a response. England and Wales recently admitted that over 70% of the responses to their consultation were positive. It is plainly clear that it is Gender Critical people who are not listening to the concerns of women.
I was recently made aware of a woman in the USA who had endured months of extreme domestic violence culminating in her husband throwing her through a glass coffee table. She escaped, but he had control of her finances and car. She was turned away by at least two women’s shelters because she is a trans woman and her only ID said “M” on it. Luckily a kind cis couple two whole time zones away, who I am now in contact with, took her in. One lady I talked to was raped by a gang of men and she said that while it happened she prayed they wouldn’t realise she was trans in case they killed her.
As I have said above, trans women face misogynistic sexism and sexual violence for being women. Not just the unbearably horrible and extreme acts described above, but the same relentless everyday sexism that all women face. I have been sexually assaulted several times and get greasy men shouting at me on the street all the time. One time I was sitting on a bench, literally writing a Twitter reply to a GC person who claimed that no trans women know what misogynistic sexism is and a guy slowed down and shouted some misogynistic garbage at me out of his car about my legs.
This isn’t theoretical, these are real women struggling with these things today. Some of my trans friends have endured unspeakably horrible things for being women, and we are supposed to treat them as men when it comes to helping them or giving them space from it? To treat them as second class citizens because of how they were born? I can already hear the bad faith GC reply to this “You think men are second class citizens?!”. No. I think women who are abused for being women, but then denied support because they are trans, are.
We cannot also forget that fear mongering around trans people makes things less safe for cis women too. There are countless examples of cis women being thrown out of women’s facilities because they “look like a man” from countries and states that have tried implementing bathroom bills (most have repealed them). There have even been incidents where cis women have been sent to the men’s jail because they can’t prove they are a “real woman”. I also invite you to read rape survivor Kelly Lawrence’s article on how she fears GC people more than trans people here.
I do not know how anyone who claims to have done any research on trans people could not know trans women already use women's spaces in the UK, and always have. This idea that it’s new or we need to ban them because of something that might happen in the future is completely fabricated in the minds of people who fear trans people.
Full post | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10