Do you think people like J K Rowling are queerphobic or just ignorants?

J.K.Rowling is a talented writer but a subpar human being.

Look, it's 21-st century, nearly all the combined knowlege of all humanity is readily available at your fingertips, unless you're in a really bad place in life (which Rowling certainly isn't), there is no excuse for being ignorant. And even disregarding all that, there is no excuse for a functioning adult human being not to have basic manners and decency - you can have any opinion you want on any topic you want, but that doesn't mean you should go and talk s..t about people.

I might not be completely impartial or objective on the topic, but see where you're coming from, but, erm... Since when did restrictions actually stop anyone keen on commiting a crime? Yes, such a thing does seem to have happened at least two times, as far as I've gathered from the news during a quick Google search, and in one of those cases the assailant claimed to identify as a woman, in order to justify their presence in the women's toilet; but the odds of such thing happening are very, very low.
You're right that women are absolutely right to be wary of unknown men, especially when they are in a private space, and that goes for all women. If that matters, I say this as a parent of two girls.

Well, after transitioning her 500 freestyle PB was atleast 15 seconds slower than before. She also lost competitions to cis women and a trans man on multiple occassions.
There was also quite a fuss about a cyclist named Austin Killips, the first transwoman who have won an UCI race. During her career she won 7 races. Seven races out of 31. She's good - but certainly not unbeatable for a trained cis female athlete.

 

It is a difficult one, I don’t deny it. I have nothing but love for people who feel they’re born in the wrong body and just want to be accepted. But you can’t deny the advantages that a male puberty brings to competitiveness in sport. Even if it were two transwomen competing, and one had been on puberty blockers from being a young kid and the other had developed naturally into adulthood first, my money would be on the one who had been through male puberty every time.

You know, if you are a white guy you pretty much can be sure you are never gonna win the Olympic gold 100m sprint no matter how hard you train. It’s been won every time by someone from Afro-Caribbean or African American descent for decades now. That’s a genetic advantage for you. East Africans like Kenyans and somalians have similar advantages in distance running and they dominate. But if you’re a white guy, you can be competitive in ~95% of events and you’ll dominate strongman. But if more and more transwomen come out and compete internationally, it is going to knock all women off podiums almost across the board in any sport where speed or strength matters because biological males are significantly better than women in almost every event. We don’t want cis women to be disincentivised to play and compete in sport because the benefits of it are very clear. I think it great more people are living their authentic lives but women’s sport is going to be collateral damage if the number of transwomen competing goes up.

 

I’m 24, if I’d started taking testosterone at 14 and stopped at 20 I would be far stronger than I am now, irrespective of whether I took those drugs because of my gender identity or just to make me more competitive. 4 years on from stopping taking them, my hormone levels would be back to normal but my body would not look & perform the same as it does now. That’s why it is potentially unfair. It’s the same reason why we ban athletes that take performance enhancing drugs.

Transwomen are not a problem to women across almost all parts of life, it really is only elite sport because you are talking about the tail end of the distributions of human performance, where a single elite trans woman will likely mean a cis woman’s gold becomes silver, or the girl who would have e just scraped a place going to the commonwealth games ends up being out of the team. You can’t say that’s zero damage to the individual affected.

I’d happily take on anyone at distance running. I’d be willing to compete against a transwoman in the under <50kg weightlifting, but I suspect I’d lose. But I wouldn’t get in the ring against a transwoman in kickboxing because pound for pound she’d be far more capable of doing damage to me.

 

Yes. As long as her testosterone and oestrogen levels are in the range of that of a cis woman. She's a woman so she should be able to compete as a woman.

Those were the rules until very recently and were, to my mind, fair. Those of us who have been watching this stuff over the last few years have been VERY aware of the part the global anti-trans backlash, fomented by Rowling and her ilk, has played in influencing sporting bodies to move the goalposts and exclude us from competitive sport.

Even if you regard the science surrounding the supposed advantage puberty plays as conclusive (and to me it is very inconclusive) then as others have said surely this is just a case of the built in advantage of genetics and the lottery of birth? Like East African athletes in distance running.

People think the ban is only a matter for elite Olympic-level athletes. It ain't. It excludes all trans women, right down to the grass roots. Even those of us who have been through SRS surgery. Just because we went through a puberty we had no choice but to endure because we were frickin' kids.

As far as I'm concerned it's very simple. If you think trans women are women, then we should be allowed to compete as the gender we are.

If I sound angry, it's because I am. I don't mind the odd bit of unconscious misgendering you get as you go about your day, but it really hurts to be deliberately misgendered by an official body and be excluded from running as the person I am: a woman.

And it hurts to read ignorant, misinformed comments about 'men who declare themselves female and compete in women's sports'. That's the sort of transphobic sh**e that belongs on Fox News, not EC.

Beth

 

100% agree!

 

Even though the sports issue has been weaponised by right-wing media, I do think more liberal types do themselves no favours by pretending that sport is not a unique case. From what I've read, there's a clear retained advantage from the effects of testosterone in puberty, even if testosterone is later lowered. So those advocating for the inclusion of trans women in elite sports are effectively prioritising inclusion over fairness - which is fine if that's your position, but I do think that the position should be stated honestly, without dismissing anyone with a different view as bigoted or secretly transphobic.

 

Yeah I agree with all of that. I don't think that either side is immune to thinking that their way is the only way, though. The internet seems to encourage this extreme polarisation, unfortunately.

 

Of course, when you feel that someone is personally attacking you or failing to imagine themselves in your position, it's difficult not to get defensive or angry.

 

Didn't JK Rowling say she once thought she was lesbian? I don't think she is queerphobic.

 

In the context of someone who has a picture of Harry and Draco kissing as my avatar, I am so, so disappointed in JKR. I get the feeling her stance is formed from true concern for a group she perceives as under threat, but makes no room for the thought that she might be misguided in her inflexibility. She gets less leeway because she was basically the voice of a generation to say "Recognize the value in meek and underserved people." Half the characters in Harry Potter were abused in some form or another and almost all are written as sympathetic characters. Voldemort and a few of his allies who are totally unrepentant are the only true evil people in the series, and their crime was fascist-style ethnic cleansing. Why can't JKR practice what she preaches and stand with trans people instead of insisting on a horrible stereotype that came out of a transphobic nightmare?

 

I used to respect the author in question as another author but one who made it big with her books, but once she came out as transphobic, I lost all respect, admiration and more for her, even though I never read her stuff. Her stuff is not welcome in my house or on my property. I will burn it if anyone tries giving her crap to my son or me. Transphobia of any kind is not wanted or welcome around me, my son, or anyone else in my family.

As for people like her, I think part of it is a deep fear of the unknown. They don't know the truth of trans people, notably trans women, so they listen to the conspiracy theorists and other fear mongers and come to the conclusion they are "bad" in some form or another because someone on YouTube "said so".

Others have the same fear, but use religion to hide behind. "It's against the Bible" is the main excuse I hear. In one former friend of mine though, she's using religion as an excuse to crap on a gay friend of mine, and I think it's because they dated in junior high, and she can't handle the fact he's now married to a man (I think he ended it with her, and she's still upset over it). But that's my theory, I could be wrong.

I was too but as I grew older, I could see my parents - especially my father - were wrong in their way of seeing the world. We kids were taught that anyone who wasn't white, straight, Christian, and English speaking were "below us" and we had every right to treat them horribly - even though there is Indigenous Canadian on my mother's side. My father was one of the most bigoted, racist and sexist people in the world, and I know now he was absolutely wrong. I wish he was still around, just so I could wave my newfound pride in my Indigenous heritage in his face, and show him that he was wrong about everything from different races to our community, and beyond.

My oldest sibling says they are a trans woman, but loves JK Rowling and agrees with her beliefs of trans women (hypocritical much?), and my younger sister follows my father's beliefs to a T. I am the only one of the three who accept people as they are, and believe in kindness, no matter their race, sexuality, gender identity and more.

I don't know... I think people like JK Rowling only spread hate. Elon Musk to me, is an idiot who refuses to be educated. The other bigots out there are either stupid or scared of us and scream hate...

The only thing I know is that all of us are at risk because the ones who love these celebrities are listening to them, and sometimes they take action... People like JK Rowling are not the ones to get their hands dirty. She's laughing her way to the bank while her cult members are the ones dirtying their hands with our blood.

 

When I see people who seem otherwise intelligent doubling down on a hateful stance, I see something uncomfortably familiar. It's an intellectual panic that I became familiar with during a male adolescence that I had no business having. I can't speak for anyone else's subjective experience, but here's mine: It starts with wanting to stand out. To be seen, and noticed. This desire comes before the maturity and confidence needed to be noticed for something positive. So I got attention however I could, and worked hard to keep it. Eventually, I fucked up. I'd blurt out a comment that I hadn't rehearsed in my imagination first. Everyone who'd hear it, myself included, is disgusted. Here's where it gets really bad. Chemical reactions occur, and fear kicks in. Fear of lost status, fear of lost social standing, fear of lost self. Fight, flight, or freeze sets in. If the hormonal and psychological response favors "fight", then that disgusting comment is going to get defended into the ground. It doesn't matter if I never meant it, my desire to "win" and appear strong was greater than my desire to strengthen my community ties.

I won't speculate into anyone else's subjective internal experience, but this is the personal experience I recall whenever I find myself baffled by someone's choice to defend an untenable stance. I'd never say this of anyone else, but every time I've acted like that in the past, it was my hormones.

 

"There are a lot of weirdos out there and they will use the "I'm self identifying as female excuse" to access female only spaces for their own gratification and worst case, some of them are actual predators likely to harm women."

Real predators, regardless of sex, don't care about a label on the door or self identifying... they are predators and are going to do what they want. Labels on the door isn't going to stop a predator from walking through a door...they don't care about the law...that's what makes them predators. It blows my mind when people think a label on a bathroom door is going to stop a predator from walking in.