23 Comments
User's avatar
Rachel's avatar

Rowling may call herself a feminist. She may claim to support LGB (but not T) rights. Her women's shelter may even do some real good for the cis women who use it.

But she is a tool of the patriarchy, just as surely as any white Christian evangelical hate preacher.

Joel W. Crump's avatar

That's the right take, Rowling is making it about sex over gender, that's the reality, she probably knows it consciously and is obfuscating it, lying, she's a fiction whiz after all, deception is second nature to people like her ...

ES's avatar

Rich people buy their own reality

Mike Gelt's avatar

Once again, we see wealthy individuals or misguided organizations using their money and influence to attack medical organizations and marginalized transgender communities. They ignore established medical science and, too often, substitute ideology or religious beliefs for evidence.

Organizations that rely on credible medical research to support transgender communities are not the problem. They are providing care based on science and the well-being of their patients.

Those funding these attacks should take a hard look in the mirror and ask themselves a simple question: Are we truly helping people, or are we causing unnecessary harm? History has repeatedly shown the consequences of allowing prejudice and misinformation to outweigh science and compassion.

Pamela Rhodes's avatar

Throughout the years, I have continued to hear rumblings of JKR’s active opposition to the LGBTQ+ community, especially the transgender population. Reflecting, I believe she is revealing a part of her underbelly, her dark side which actively focuses on inflicted harm to other human beings. Through her most notable literary work, she created the character of Voldemort, which now appears to highlight the true nature of this individual. More than one thing can be true at the same time. Rowling gave the world a brilliant and delightful depiction of hope, magic, mystery, survival, transformation for millions making profits that changed her life. Now, those privileged profits are funding campaigns to directly and deliberately inflict harm on others. Perhaps we all outlive our usefulness. Not exactly the legacy many would want to leave….

Jaimie Hileman's avatar

Voldemort was always a mirror of Rowling's own heart.

Don Jackson's avatar

She follows in the proud tradition of Roald Dahl...good author, terrible person

Jaimie Hileman's avatar

Where are all the civil rights groups and left leaning groups speaking out on this travesty and on behalf of we beleaguered Trans folk?

I hear fucking crickets.

Democrats don't have our backs in the US, and NOBODY has our backs in the UK. The UK is now basically Texas but with better landscaping and tea and crumpets instead of Big Red and Moon Pies.

We are being eradicated not because the anti-Trans Right is the new majority or the moral center of gravity.

No.

We will have been eradicated because the left and the fence sitters and bothsidesists LET IT HAPPEN, through inertia, lack of compassion, or sheer crepulence. Genocide by laziness? Won't be the first time.

I wonder if they'll even bother remembering us after we're gone. Will anyone come by on any November 20th and drop a white rose on the unmarked ground of our mass graves?

I fucking doubt it.

BUT KNOW THIS: when we're gone, we'll only be gone a bit.

We are an integral component of the human experience, genome, epigenetics, and culture. They can kill us but in a generation, there will be a Trans population once again. In two generations, we will have rebuilt community. In three generations, we will have begun the fight for freedom once again.

So... they can kill us. They probably will. They'll erase our communities and voices. For now. They will murder and exile us.

But my friends, the one thing they cannot actually DO, is get rid of us for good.

They'll have to kill everyone to kill US.

We Trans and queer folk were almost 99% born to and raised by cis het folks.

We were raised in THEIR schools, THEIR churches, THEIR institutions, yet here we ARE. No one intended for us or wanted us to BE, yet here we ARE. We came into ourselves and built power in a world not made by us nor for us, yet here we ARE.

So take heart in these dark moments.

They can kill us.

But they can never, NEVER defeat us.

Sherry Anderson's avatar

She is a despicable person. I have never read any of her books nor would I EVER read one of them.

K. Lines's avatar

I am always befuddled by this obsession of hers. The people who she says abused her were cisgender men. Never a trans person.

Evelyn Belle Scott's avatar

If it weren't for a handful of very rich people, like Rowling and Elon Musk, who seem to be obsessed with trans people, our existence would look very different in many places. This is not a grassroots, organic backlash, but a moral panic fostered by the most powerful people in our society to distract the majority while they loot the world.

M. Kelly's avatar

They love being anti-trans, LIVE for being anti-trans, so where's the lie? Why are they so offended to be called exactly what they are for the work they do? Does Beria's Place allow trans women? Did For Women Scotland not bring a case to have the UK specifically write trans women out of the legal protections? If they're so proud and so sure of their "cause," what's the objection?

Destiny Davis's avatar

Wish she would just sod off...

Talia Perkins's avatar

While I sincerely thank you for the reporting, I hope this is not the big story Erin mentioned in her vacation announcement. JK being a child abusing brainless bigot is a day ending in "Y".

I'm trying to collate the times of the athletes Pepper beat to win that state championship, I think there may have been skullduggery.

Erin Reed's avatar

The big story was our collaboration with the nation on Reem. Our first major collab.

monica ostby's avatar

How the fuck does she not understand she is The Dursley’s to the tranworld’s Harry Potter? Fuck off Madam!

LLF's avatar

She is the thing who can't be named.

Melissa's avatar

Ahh, the billionaire TERF bully. Need I say more. Using her plagiarized writing $$$ to get her way and to demonize if not actively working to genocide an oppressed minority.

Letters From a Trans-American's avatar

Thank you, S. Baum, for another excellent bit of reporting.

Do we know the source of Rowling's anti-trans sentiment? I suspect that it was something very personal. Regardless, now it seems as if she is simply on a crusade. A rich person on a crusade can be a very dangerous thing. And, if that crusade is centered around hate, it is also a very sad thing.

Jordan's avatar

It's like a Pinky & the Brain skit, "What are we going to do today, Brain?.. The same thing we do every day, Pinky, try to [ruin the lives of a vulnerable group of people and work against the groups that are trying to help them]."

Imagine having that much money, having all of the capacity in the world to do good (because your stockpile of cash), but instead of fixing problems (poverty, disease, housing, etc.), you choose a group of people that aren't affecting your existence and decide to try to make them miserable or dead.

Good people don't do this sort of thing. Rowling is not a good person, yet her wiki says she's a 'philanthropist'. Nonsense. It's just sad.

LLF's avatar

Joanne, Joanne, Joanne, if you're in opposition against Amnesty, you're on the wrong side of history.