Originally published at: Graham Norton said we should listen to trans people, so JK Rowling accused him of supporting "rape and death threats" and her fans hounded him off Twitter | Boing Boing
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Time to recognize that JK Rowling is a garbage human being, sorry Harry Potter…
Primarily because she knows she’s been exposed for being a bigoted asshole.
“Bringing in trans youngsters and their parents confronts abstraction with humanity, and it’s easier to dismiss people you’ve never really met.“
She wants to enforce the view that we’re not fully human. And we all know where that leads.
I note the “Cernovich Retweeted” part of Rowling’s reply.
Because of course he did.
She’s certainly showing us who she is, as are her supporters.
I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly.
I’m probably late to the game but it seems it’s time to throw out her books and DVDs and never buy anything associated with her ever again.
There’s something weird and/or ironic about a woman who publishes under her initials or a whole other gender-bent persona being so militantly transphobic.
The TERs here are now saying the quiet bits out loud, whether is is Petunia Dursley repeatedly doing what she did in this article, Graham Linehan coming out as an antivaxxer climate change denialist, or Posey Parker/Kellie-Jay Keen inviting far right groups to her protests.
Fan fiction and piracy still exists.
There was also her this week stating [paraphrasing, on trans people being abusers] “no one group deserves the right to presumed innocence” so she can fuck right off with that.
I’m not throwing out my Harry Potter books — I enjoyed the books, read them to my kids, and we even went to the theme park in Florida many times. That’s all water/money under the bridge.
But now that my kids are older, I’ve had conversations with them and asked them questions like:
- House elves are slaves, and only Hermione seems to notice, and everyone else mocks her for it — what do you think about that?
- Rowling has said Dumbledore is gay, but does that show up in any way in the books?
- Why are Goblins portrayed with a bunch of anti-Semitic stereotypes (manage money, greedy, bloodthirsty)?
Basically, Rowling has revealed herself as a bigot, and if you read the books critically, it’s all over the place.
Yes, this all comes from a British tradition of gender-bending in various contexts, from ambigious initialization to the openly-feminized “macaroni men” of 18th-century proto-gay london. Though at one level enlightened, the rule is that it’s all drag and there is no greater challenge to the proprieties at hand than to say it is something else.
When I was about high school age, trans people were first explained to me (in the sense of something beyond the basic 20th century tropes of ‘sex changes’ and ‘trapped in a man’s body’ and such) by analogy with illusionists, using the language of skepticism. ie: Gay men in drag are illusionists, while transgender people are psychics, i.e. crooks and liars pretending that it’s real. This would have been 1996 or so and is mostly the undergirding mentality brought to the subject now by that generation of media liberal types.
I’m not gonna blame her for that, given the long-standing misogyny in publishing. Both her and NK Jemisen were both advised to use initials when they were getting into writing fantasy, for good reason- far too many men will not read women, especially in genre fiction.
We can both acknowledge the reality of misogyny faced by all women and fully condemn Rowling’s utter shitty transphobia. It’s not either or and we really should resist that shit, because it helps no one and merely provides assholes like Rowling cover for their bigotry.
yes but then why would she double down at every given opportunity?
Because she’s a fucking bigot, that’s why.
What @anon59592690 said.
[Derp… sorry… just saw which one you were replying to]
what i meant was, as @anon61221983 said, her antagonistic reaction to Graham Norton’s comment was because she was exposed as a bigoted asshole. then why, if she was so sensitive about being called out, would she just dig in? seems self destructive to me.
Because she believes that she’s right, and that the existence of trans women is somehow a threat to her… because she’s a bigot.
Her continued support from some quarters and her ability to continue to pump out harmful BS about trans folks says otherwise. She’s still getting support for her bigotry, so she’ll continue on until she faces some consequences for her actions.
She’s not completely wrong. Everyone has the right of presumption of innocence. Presuming group blame violates the Geneva Convention and is a war crime.