So yesterday I got into a conversation about J. K. Rowling’s books, under both that name and her other pen-name “Robert Galbraith”. I’ll admit that I wasn’t fully informed when I brought up her offensive views on transpeople, but now I’ve done some research, and because I can’t explain myself concisely enough for a social media post or even a dm, I’ve dug up the old wordpress blog in order to publish my views for anyone interested to see.
A friend sent me the link to Rowling’s blog post of the 10th of June this year.
I found it interesting to read her side of the story. She clearly doesn’t actually intend to hurt people, but there are still a few issues with her views.
1. Her support of Maya Forstater. Rowling doesn’t explicitly state in her blog that she supports the intentional misgendering of transpeople, but she does misgender hypothetical people in the blog: “…any man who believes or feels he’s a woman…” (a person who believes or feels she’s a woman is not a man). Rowling suggests Forstater was fired due to “a couple of tweets”, but that is not what the employment issue, or the following employment tribunal hearing, was limited to. Forstater certainly insists on calling transwomen “men”. Regardless of the speaker’s views, this is a deeply hurtful practice, and the law upholds that a person’s views do not give them the right to ignore the rights of transpeople.
2. Sex is not binary. Rowling and Forstater are both concerned that sex and gender are being confused. Fair enough. Again, Rowling doesn’t directly state her view on the binary nature of sex, but Forstater does. She suggests that there are men and there are women, and that’s it. She claims this is a fact. A scientist on twitter broke this down in easy-to-understand terms here: https://mobile.twitter.com/sciencevet2/status/1035308112780189698 (you may need to click on the link that says “view more replies” or “6 more replies) or something similar). If you don’t trust a guy on twitter (again, fair enough), there are a number of other explanations online from scientific publications. This is before we start talking about transpeople, and whether or not they’ve transitioned.
3. The issues surrounding the huge increase in afab (assigned female at birth) people identifying as transgender and wanting to transition is concerning, especially if you believe, as most people do, and it seems safe to assume Rowling does, that gender identity is fixed or permanent. Four things arise from this:
i) it’s not a problem with teenage girls “wanting to be boys”, it’s a problem with how our society treats girls and women in general, and teenage girls in particular. If I’d thought it was an option, I would have chosen to be a boy as a child and teen, simply because being a girl meant I was treated as inferior to my brothers. Not intentionally, but that didn’t make my hurt and confusion any less. Teenage girls bear the brunt of most of our society’s judgment, scorn and mockery, from the music they like and the way they present themselves, to the way they think and the emotions they feel. Let’s not blame transactivism for making these girls not want to be girls.
ii) The more this is touted for the reason afab people want to transition/identify as non-female, the harder it becomes for those afab people who genuinely need the identity of non-female (“real” non-binary people or transmen).
iii) Given our society’s misogyny, how many men are going to choose to legally or otherwise identify as female if they don’t feel like they need to? The argument that “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” suggests that predatory men are lining up to get gender confirmation certificates for the sole purpose of gaining access to women-only spaces. I haven’t seen statistics on this, but that’s kind of irrelevant. The point is, if a man wants to intimidate or abuse women, he’s going to do so until he’s stopped. The fact that he can get a gender confirming certificate isn’t going to make him hurt more people or more frequently. A female-only space should be safe, yes. But excluding transwomen and transgirls will not make them safer. There is no evidence, statistical or anecdotal, to suggest otherwise. If evidence arises, I will gladly revisit my opinion. (And iii.a) a transwoman is a woman regardless of whether she’s undergone surgery or hormone treatment. Just because you think someone looks, acts, or seems like a man doesn’t make it so.)
iv) Gender is fluid. Rowling points out that 60-90% of children and teens with gender dysphoria grow out of it. She implies that this means those people can be easily duped into transitioning, only to regret it later in life. Therefore the acceptance of transpeople in society is the same as promoting transition as a lifestyle choice, which is harmful. I simply disagree with this. While I understand that children and teenagers can often be more easily manipulated than adults because their brains aren’t fully developed and their sense of identity is still evolving, I don’t see why that means they shouldn’t be allowed to experiment with gender expression. It should be accepted that a child might want to present as a girl for a a couple of months or years, then maybe switch to presenting as male, or try non-binary presentation. Those who identify as gender-fluid report that whether they feel male, female, or other, can change multiple times in a day, or remain static for years at a time. It’s society’s misogyny that wants everyone to be one thing or another and stay that way forever that is the problem, not transactivism.
There is the issue of non-reversable hormone treatment and surgery, which I think can be a problem (but can also be a solution) for young people. I’m simply not qualified to argue one way or another, and I don’t have the spoons to do the necessary research. I have heard personal acquaintances in the medical profession say that they don’t endorse children or teens transitioning because they’ve seen too many people regret their decisions later. My view is that fully informed consent is of the utmost importance. And that making decisions as teens that we later regret is normal. That knowledge, along with the fluidity of gender, should be part of “fully informed consent”.
4) Okay, let’s say Rowling and other trans-exclusionists (radical feminists or not) get their way. If we do decide that only afab or cis-women are actually women, how are they supposed to prove it? Will you have to provide a doctor’s certificate when escaping domestic violence in a refuge? Will broad-shouldered or deep-voiced women, or girls with short hair and “boys clothes” be bullied out of public toilets? It sounds absurd because it is. And you’ll notice I didn’t suggest showing your genitals to a stranger as an option, because just wtf?
Finally, I want to say that Rowling is not alone in her views. She has received more attention for them than some others for two reasons: firstly because of the unique position of power she holds in so many young people’s lives. The world she created, combined with our celebrity-worship culture, means that what she says and writes is considered pure genius by many, many thousands of people, and especially by young people, who may not yet have developed the critical thinking capacity required to assess her message adequately and apply their own reasoning. This isn’t her fault. Personally, I think this type of celebrity-worship culture is a huge problem for our society and is one of the things that troubles me on a daily basis. The other reason so many people are outraged by Rowling’s views on transpeople is that she is generally considered progressive, tolerant, or left-leaning politically. To those who have come to see her as an ally or reliable role-model, this exclusionism feels like a betrayal. Again, I think we all need to be able to assess the things other people say critically and rationally. But humans are highly irrational beings and emotions are nearly always (and not necessarily negatively) intertwined with our thinking.
Would I even be aware of what an author on the other side of the world thinks about an issue that doesn’t directly affect me if it weren’t for our celebrity-focused media? Would the media have made a thing of it if it weren’t for the online backlash? What I do know is that anyone who has threatened J.K. Rowling personally or made violent or disrespectful comments is just as much in the wrong as she is. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect. Everyone should live without violence, intimidation, or threats of violence. I know that’s not how our world works, especially for the most vulnerable (children, females, transpeople, people of colour, etc), but that doesn’t mean it’s right.
And that’s what I have to say about that.
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