There’s a good article in Quillette showing how one person, the notorious but (to me) highly admirable J. K. Rowling singlehandedly undercut Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act that came into effect on April 1. I explained this law on March 27, also showing how the Scottish Police published as an example a woman named “Jo” (Rowling’s nickname) who said that people who didn’t identify as one of the two genders “should be put in the gas chambers.” That is, of course, an oblique swipe at Rowling by the government, and I suspect she could have sued for defamation. But she got her revenge in another way.
Rowling has been attacked by gender activists for two of her stands: that trans women remain (biological) men (and vice versa), and that certain positions should be reserved for natal women, including participation in women’s sports, incarceration in women’s prisons, and rape and sexual-violence counseling. I agree with both of these positions, and also with Rowling’s insistence that with these exceptions trans people should be treated with respect and dignity, and afforded all other rights.
That, of course, is not enough for gender activists, who have demonized Rowling as a transphobe. But she refuses to be demonized, and has fought back against her detractors as well as against the new law, which basically equates trans women with biological women in all respects, and also penalizes those who oppose this view.
Click below to read, and I’ll show how Rowling took down the law. She did it with tweets.
You can see the new law, which I’ll call the HCPOA, at the first link above. It’s basically a blasphemy law that wouldn’t stand in America since it violates the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech. Here’s how I described it before:
Note that it is a crime to make statements about age, disability, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, transgender identity, or “variation in sex characteristics”, stuff that a “reasonable person” would find “threatening”, “abusive”, and even “insulting”. You don’t even have to have the intent of stirring up hatred.
Further, look at (2)aii above. You are committing a crime even if you “communicate to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive”. So, for example, if you email a friend that a guy you don’t like “must have a small dick” (a common insult for males, but also abusive because it makes fun of “variation in a sex characteristic”), or say to someone “Jack is a dotty old codger”, which insults someone on the grounds of age, then those might be offenses.
Also, as one reader said, “Part of the reason why people are so worried is that the guidance that Police Scotland have issued seems to be somewhat different from what the law itself says. It’s a download document 29 pages long.” Looking at it briefly, I find two things extra worrying.
First, even if what you do doesn’t amount to a “crime,” it’s supposed to be reported and the coppers will investigate it, probably putting your name on the record,
Indeed, they DO put your name on the record, even if you haven’t violated the law. And employers and others can get access to your record. Note too that women are not included in the protected class, so you can spew all the misogyny you want. Here’s one example from the article:
Most of us wouldn’t regard mocking someone’s “non-binary” identity as deserving of a “hate incident” marker, but that’s what happened to a Conservative MSP, Murdo Fraser, after he shared a post on X ridiculing the Scottish government’s “non-binary action plan.” Every “community” has to have its own action plan these days, leading to a proliferation of oppressed groups with confusingly similar titles. “Choosing to identify as ‘non-binary’ is as valid as choosing to identify as a cat,” Fraser wrote. “I’m not sure Governments should be spending time on action plans for either.”
He was aghast when he discovered that Police Scotland had logged an NCHI on his record for this joke, but hadn’t done the same in relation to the complaints against Rowling and Yousaf. He accused the force of “double standards” while SNP MP Joanna Cherry, a rare sensible voice within the party, suggested that senior officers were revising policy “on the hoof” to avoid the embarrassment of recording an NCHI against an internationally famous author. (This sequence of events became even more absurd when the force suddenly changed its tune, telling Fraser his personal details hadn’t been logged in relation to an NCHI after all.)
Further, application of this law is subjective, particularly because the determination of “hate” depends not at all on the violator’s intention, but on the subject’s interpretation of the violator’s motivation. It is, in other words, an “I’m offended” law.
That’s insane. As you might expect, the Scottish coppers are being flooded with complaints, many of them probably designed to undercut the law. They’re coming in at the rate of one per minute, and the cops are complaining that investigating every report (which they must do) distracts them from investigating more serious crimes. Finally, if you don’t want to deal directly with the cops when reporting an offense, the government has designated some weird “third party reporting centres” where you can register your offense. These include a sex shop (!) and a salmon and trout farm, presumably where you can buy some lox without being doxed.
Enter Rowling, my hero. She simply issued a series of tweets, the last one of which completely undermined the law by demanding that if anybody is arrested for misgendering (e.g., “going after a woman for calling a man a man”) she would simply repeat what got the person arrested so Rowling could be charged, too. And of course the Scottish police are not going to charge J. K. Rowling!
To show her devastating attack, delivered with with and humor, I’ll show all of Rowling’s tweets, as some will make sane people laugh.
First, her pinned tweet laying out her views. It’s long and you can click on it to read the whole thing, but note that she starts with the biological definition of the (two) sexes:
I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes. It’s irrelevant whether or not her gametes have ever been fertilised, whether or not she’s carried a baby to term, irrelevant if she was born with a rare difference of sexual development that makes neither of the above possible, or if she’s aged beyond being able to produce viable eggs. She is a woman and just as much a woman as the others.
You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes.
I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes. It’s irrelevant whether or not her gametes have ever been fertilised, whether or not… pic.twitter.com/X6mbdJ0YVm
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 6, 2024
And then the devastating series of ten tweets followed by her admission that she was “just kidding”, and then her big challenge to the legal system..
Lovely Scottish lass and convicted double rapist Isla Bryson found her true authentic female self shortly before she was due to be sentenced. Misgendering is hate, so respect Isla’s pronouns, please. Love the leggings! 2/11 pic.twitter.com/aKgOWRdb4K
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2024
“Love the leggings!” LOL.
Samantha Norris was cleared of exposing her penis to two 11-year-old girls. Hooray! Unfortunately she was then convicted for possession of 16,000 images of children being raped and sexually assaulted. Be that as it may, Sam’s still a lady to me! 4/11 pic.twitter.com/GG2kLql3Ea
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2024
But most women aren’t axe-toters or sex offenders, so let’s talk role models! Guilia Valentino (in red) wanted to play on the women's team 'because of sisterhood, validation and political visibility'. Naturally, she was given some boring cis girl’s place. Yay for inclusion! 6/11 pic.twitter.com/zl5i41RqBG
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2024
Munroe Bergdorf isn’t just a pretty face! Public campaigner for a children’s charity until safeguarding concerns were raised, she was appointed UN Women’s first ever UK champion. ‘What makes a woman “a woman” has no definitive answer,’ says Munroe. Great choice, UN Women! 8/11 pic.twitter.com/za6GG5q2Oo
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2024
Last, but least, TV’s India Willoughby proves we women can call a black broadcaster a ‘nasty bitch’ who ‘wouldn’t be anywhere without woke’, dub lesbians men, insult the looks of a female Olympic swimmer, ‘joke’ about kidnapping feminists, and STILL get airtime! What a gal! 10/11 pic.twitter.com/gShqbEvO5s
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2024
The last tweet is her admission that she’s violated the HCPOA. Click screenshot to read the whole thing.
And, at the end:
It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal. I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment. If you agree with the views set out in this tweet, please retweet it.
Yes, ma’am:
Retweeted per JKR's request: "if what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment. If you agree with the views set out in this tweet, please retweet it." https://t.co/kY4dmB8XXT
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) April 12, 2024
The ten tweets above, with the eleventh as a finale, is one of the great takedowns of virtue-signaling activism of our era, featuring transwomen who, says Rowling, are “men, every last one of them.” Clearly an offense!
But the cherry atop this Cake of Snark is this:
If they go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I'll repeat that woman's words and they can charge us both at once. pic.twitter.com/s9OcsgHr5j
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 2, 2024
As Quillette noted, “Feminists hailed the novelist as a heroine, understanding that she had thrown the protection provided by her wealth and status over thousands of other women.” And don’t you doubt that if anybody is charged for a hate crime by calling a transgender woman a “man”, Rowling will simply repeat it. The cops would have to charge Rowling, too, and what are they chances they’d do that?
The new law, as an “I’m offended” blasphemy law, is unnecessary, unworkable, and impossible to apply. It is not needed and should be repealed. I have no idea what brought this dumb law onto the books, but Quillette hazards a guess, involving the Scottish drive for independence from Britain:
The ruling Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) lost a crucial referendum in 2014, failing to persuade enough Scots to vote in favour of independence, and it has seemed rudderless ever since. Much of what has happened in Scotland in the last decade can be traced back to that crushing disappointment, as the SNP struggled to establish its purpose and identity. In an irony that’s hard to miss, a party built on the supposedly indelible differences between the English and Scottish has sought to solve its problem by embracing a faddish ideology, transgenderism, which proposes that anyone can be whatever they like. And that includes an apparently unshakable conviction that men can become women and vice versa.
Indeed identity politics has become as central to the SNP’s creed, if not more so, than taking Scotland out of the UK. In a reversal of Whisky Galore-type stereotypes, in fact, the Scots have now taken on the role of witch-finders, sniffing out heretical thoughts under the cover of a supposedly liberal ideology. A vast amount of parliamentary time has been wasted on bad and unnecessary legislation advocated by trans activists, including a bill to remove all safeguards from the process that allows people to change their legal gender. The UK government salvaged the day by blocking the reckless Gender Recognition Reform Act last year, but the SNP had another trick up its sleeve.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into effect on April 1—April Fools’ day, as critics were quick to point out. It’s been on the statute books since 2021, but implementation was delayed because no one could say with any certainty what it actually criminalised.
Well, who knows? But I do know that J. K. Rowling, despite her fame and wealth, has risked something more valuable—her reputation—by standing up for her principles.
What yu talking?
JKRowling IS a highly admirable person
JKRowling chose doing the right thing over doing the easy thing.
The tweets about trans-identified male criminals are exactly the sort of “hate” the bill was designed to go after. The Trans Rights argument is that bringing up predatory trans people is an attempt to smear all trans people as predators — and this will inevitably lead to violence and laws which forbid them from leaving the house. The counter argument, of course, is that we don’t test a law by thinking of easy examples (“the majority of transwomen aren’t criminals”) but by looking at the hard cases (“we’re putting dangerous male criminals in women’s prisons.”)
Absolutely. Three dangerous male murderers are currently in the women’s prison estate in Scotland. Why? Because they murdered men, so don’t pose a risk to women! You couldn’t make it up.
As, indeed, are some of the biological women in the prison system. While murder is a sex- (or “gender-“, and possibly “hair-colour-“) associated trait, it’s hardly exclusive to any of those groups. (The commonest reason AIUI for women to go to prison in Scotland, and the other UK countries/ jurisdictions, remains non-payment of fines.)
Also, I suspect that all of the prisoners requesting such a transfer would already have chosen to be “under the Rule” (isolation from other prisoners for their own safety). That’s an administrative function which is (nominally) exercised at the governor’s discretion, so somehow I suspect that they’d remain under isolation – or isolation with other prisoners “under the Rule” – whichever branch of the Estate they’re held in. Making rather a nothing-burger of that question. Certainly a nothing-burger for the second and subsequent persons to make such a transfer, since they wouldn’t even get a solo cell.
Certainly in New Jersey and California, off the top of my head, trans-identifying male prisoners have been transferred to the female prison estate and placed in cells with female prisoners, leading to the expected consequences.
One problem is that female prison officers are expected to conduct body searches on these biological males when they are transferred. Either these prisoners are male (which, of course, they are) and so this is a violation of the female prison officers’ rights or they are female (which they are not) and so getting a male officer to conduct the searches would be a violation of the trans-identifying prisoners’ rights. For some reason, the rights of the trans-identifying males always come out on top.
My local police force in the UK is one of several that continues to allow male officers who claim to be female to conduct searches of women, despite the national guidance saying that they shouldn’t.
[SHRUG] The level of common sense one would expect.
Ditto [shrug]. When performing intimate searches, at least one “chaperone” officer of the same gender as the person being searched is required. Otherwise, restricting the actions of an officer because of their anatomy (or, indeed, preferences or “identification”) is unwarranted discrimination against the officer. They’re required to do these tasks, per TFmanual (including chaperones, and most likely these days, with body- and wall-cameras ON). The preferences of the prison officers don’t count – it’s a work task. Failure to conduct the tasks duly ordered by management is a disciplinary offence.
[SHRUG] Chaperones and body-cams. One assumes (rolling around on the floor, helpless with mirth) that prison (or police) officers (sorry, I can hardly type straight) are vetted for deviant sexual practices before employment? No? Oh well, the lawsuits and settlements will eventually correct that behaviour of police management.
I assume your local police force – like all the rest – are struggling with retention and recruitment of female (and non-white) officers. In no small part because of the behaviour of existing officers (see PCA reports passim). Oh well, that problem might die off, one retirement at a time. Which seems to be how they’re “trying” to “address” it.
Complaining about one of many duties which were described in training is a failure of training and recruitment practices (so, HR’s problem) and discipline (ditto, HR’s problem). The police (and I think, in England) prison officers have an exclusion from the right to withdraw their labour, don’t they? (No “right to strike”. No rights anywhere in our glorious constitution, but in particular, not that one.) So they read and think about their contract very carefully before accepting it?
Good for Rowling. The business that this law allows police to keep track of complaints against you, even if they are not crimes, and allows others to see them is particularly egregious. Undoubtedly, when someone is charged, they will use prior statements to pile on the severity of the offense. (Didn’t we see that with complaints systems at US universities? I feel like I’ve typed that before.)
Also, people in Scotland are apparently flooding the police with complaints. The Telegraph says there were 8,000 in the first week:
Many complaints were made regarding First Minister Humza Yousaf, in relation to a speech he gave in 2020. He has characterized complainants as “far right,” which would, in itself, seem to be a cause for complaint.
It’s absolutely in line with other provisions for keeping track of (for example) allegations (not convictions, allegations) of assault, including sexual assaults, including parental (or in loco parentis) assaults on children, even if not prosecuted. Or just plain neglect/ poor living standards, where the social services organisations will almost always share information with the police as an arse-covering exercise, triggering a “multi-agency assessment”.
You seem to be under the misapprehension that the only reports that the police keep track of, from cradle to grave, are prosecutions ending in convictions. That is not, and never has been, the case.
Exactly as happens every time such a law is introduced. I remember well the flood of “historical” cases of hate crime when racism was formally added as an aggravating factor in assaults. I also remember stones through the windows and people abusing at me when I was working in the garden for being a “fucking English bastard” when I’d live in that house for nearly a decade, and in Scotland (by choice) for 20 years (and consider myself Irish ; though I don’t carry an Irish passport, I am entitled to hold one). Having a new law always produces such a flush of both historical, and freshly-provoked, complaints.
Of course they would. The far right are considerably less popular in Scotland than they are in the main part of the UK. Note the lack of abundance of Conservative MSPs and M(W)Ps (I had to look up the (W)Westminster numbers ; Westminster doesn’t get much reporting outside it’s realm of influence. Odd, that.). It’s one of the distinguishing characteristics that separate (and increasingly so) Scotland from England. When Scotland secedes from England, that’ll be one of the fundamental reasons.
’bout time women got their heroine status back!!!
If you read her Cormoran Strike books you wouldn’t be surprised with her inability to not call out b.s.. She had a trans character in one book which was sensitive to the trans situation but the character herself didn’t come out looking good. She does the same with all her characters, they are there warts and all. One can learn a lot about oneself, reading her books. She should not be bothered by this crap as it takes away from her writing time and just makes waiting for the next book that much longer.
I’ve not read any of the books but I stumbled across the TV show a year or so ago and quite liked it. At the time I was not even aware of the books, until many episodes in I noticed JK Rowling’s name in the credits.
I buy each new CS book as it comes out. JR is a wonderful story teller. (I’ve also read the Harry Potter series 2.5 times; and I didn’t pick it up until I was in my 50s.)
I think J Rowling is wonderful.
I read the whole series from Philosopher’s Stone to Hallows II out loud to my kids at bedtime. At least twice. Did my worst Scottish accent for the McGonigle character. Loads of fun.
To be honest, the later books in the Strike series would probably benefit from some judicious editing. But then JKR’s the best-selling author and I am not, so my opinion isn’t worth very much!
The Strike books contain a lot of subplots that are missing from the TV adaptations, and the relationship between Strike and Robin Ellacott comes across much better in the source material. The next instalment is going to be called Hallmarked Man according JKR’s tweets – the Isle of Man looks likely to feature, too.
Re Jim Blilie +1
When natal women are raped or killed by trans-women in prison, gawked at in the locker room, maimed on the sports field, and eliminated from the winners circle across all sporting events where they are outcompeted by the musculature and speed of natal men, the lawsuits will come. Sadly, this is what it will take to fix this mess—deaths, injuries, losses of opportunity in sport—proven to be true in courts of law. How many women will be hurt in the meantime? We simply don’t know.
Everyone should be treated with respect and dignity, including women.
I’ve wondered if that is only way to really turn the ship around. Let the injustices happen, in full daylight, and only then will the tide of activism turn. But there will be heavy prices that some pay, unfortunately. But the current activists will simply walk away and not even say they are sorry and were wrong, of course.
We have had “deaths, injuries, losses of opportunity in sport”. We’ve had rapes by men in women’s hospital wards and prisons, even sexual assaults by a man on 10yo girls in a women’s toilet. We’ve had a man in a women’s Korean (naked) Spa, exposing his semi erect penis to a 9 yo girl in a jacuzzi and men gathered to attack the women who complained. We’ve had a women’s football team with 5 men on it.
We’ve had TV shows ‘celebrating’ kids being mutilated. Jazz Jennings brain damaged by blockers and saying he had no idea if he is het, bi or gay because he has no sexual feelings whatsoever as he was put on blockers at Tanner Stage 2, so his brain didn’t mature properly. His health is getting worse and I think they will cancel his show soon.
We’ve had loads of detransitioners like Ritchie and Sinead going public about how they were pushed into transitioning even though it wasn’t right, and how they were mutilated and will never recover.
Most of he press hasn’t covered ANY of this. In fact many papers claimed the spa incident was a gender critical hoax. It’s been so frustrating that no one has been listening to us, i could weep for the children.
It’s made me so cynical that we’ll ever escape this ideology. How can the media ignore the study in this link. Puberty is essential for “development of frontal cortical circuits, and hippocampal and amygdala connectivity.” It should be in EVERY newspaper.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.17150
I hate feeling cynical, but we’ve been fighting this for 5 years here in ‘Terf Island’ and I’m running out of energy.
If the Cass Report doesn’t trigger some sanity then nothing will. 😢
Absolutely, Joolz – it’s hard to know what more can be done.
Tickle vs Giggle in Australia might have peaked some more people, although as far as I can tell the coverage has been muted and one-sided. Maybe Kellie-Jay Keen’s lawsuit against Liberal leader John Pesutto will achieve something?
Tickle vs Giggle has potential to affect the whole world. If Sall loses, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, is scrapped and the definition of a woman as an adult human female ceases to exist. Her interview here explains how critical this is.
https://x.com/andrewdoyle_com/status/1777714025452671057
Absolutely! I followed the proceedings via Tribunal Tweets – the Australian Human Rights Commission basically explaining how women have no rights was a shocker. Hopefully the judge will have paid attention to Sall’s legal team stressing how legislation should be interpreted using the ordinary meaning of words as understood when CEDAW was adopted.
1+
>”. . . with these exceptions [exclusion from protected spaces for women and girls], trans people should be treated with respect and dignity and should be afforded all other rights.”
1) How far do you allow the state to go in punishing private individuals (or enabling individuals to engage in civil lawfare against each other) who don’t get the message and instead treat trans people (or any other people) with disrespect and indignity? Not at all? (Free speech and all that?) Or like Scotland?
2) What rights do trans people not currently enjoy that need to be beefed up, or are under threat from the state? Habeas corpus? Due process? Freedom of speech and assembly (no sign of abridgement there!). Coerced medical treatment? Freedom to marry and procreate?, or have sex with whomever will have them?
Where this rights quest comes into conflict with the rest of us is that trans activists say that enjoying “all other rights” is inseparable from the right of a man to be regarded as a woman if he says he is. “Transwomen are women.” It’s not a metaphor. It’s central to the struggle. So you can’t arbitrarily exclude any woman from women’s spaces just on the specious ground that she was erroneously identified as a boy at birth. What’s important is that she is now a woman. All of JKR’s despicable (and real) trolls are indeed women under an “all other rights” framework. If you enshrine the right to self-identify one’s gender in civil/human rights codes to protect trans people from discrimination at work or in public accommodation, you can’t say, “but only insofar as it doesn’t inconvenience us cis people.” (Try that with race.). Instead you have to deny those “all other rights” that apply to trans people as trans people and leave them with all the non-identity rights that we all have as individuals now…but won’t under laws like Scotland’s.
In 3 of the UK nations, trans people already have equal rights. In Scotland they have more rights than women. But they don’t really want equal rights, they want to be granted *extra* rights.
Extremist (ie not all) trans identified men want the ‘right’ to access spaces where little girls and women undress. That tramples over women’s right to safety and dignity under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Men have also said they want their right to pee without women watching. This affects both sexes. Some rights are sex based. Gender woo cannot change that.
“Extremist (ie not all) trans identified men want the ‘right’ to access spaces where little girls and women undress. That tramples over women’s right to safety and dignity under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
No it doesn’t, Joolz. (Yes, of course it does. But let me pretend to be an extremist for a moment.) Transwomen are women. Saying otherwise incites hate against us. Why would you bar any woman from a space where little girls and women undress, just because her body is different? Why would you force a woman to enter the male side of a locker room (or a prison)? That tramples her right to safety and dignity under the UDHR. And since we all know — you transphobes never stop saying it — that men have athletic advantages over women, why would you arbitrarily make us women compete in men’s events and deny us the chance to win anything? Look to Canada and emulate us.
[/Extremist mode off.] This is why you have to get legislatures to remove all references to gender identity and expression from laws that govern human rights (called civil rights in America.) Gender is like putting fog in a bottle.
These laws that create gender-based rights for some people at the expense of harm to other people have to be rescinded as political mistakes that come from listening to activists. Roll them back.
I have been debating this with actual extremists for several years. I know all their ‘arguments’. You don’t need to play devil’s advocate. I realise you are doing it to make a case, but many women find this debate very distressing. It’s really not a fun debate topic to us.
You argument falls because 225 million years of mammalian evolution shows that mammalian sex is immutably binary male or female. No human has EVER changed sex. Your sex is determined when your father’s sperm hits your mother’s egg and it stays the same until you become dust.
Trans women are men. That’s basic biology. No argument can be made against that. Speaking the truth is NOT incitement to hate. If someone takes offence at facts that’s a ‘them’ problem to get psychiatric support, it’s not for everyone else to pander to their delusion.
You posit transwomen are ‘women’, a further issue is that you have NO way of identifying WHICH men are actually ‘transwomen’, and ‘feel like’ women, and which men are just lying to perv. You cannot let TW in to sleep beside us in hospital without allowing every single man in.
*I* have a human right to safety and dignity. 25 years *after* I was perved on by a male while I was a teen and naked, I discovered I have PTSD from it when a male face appeared under the shower door of my gym a couple of years ago. I took a huge panic attack before I even realised what I had seen. My primal instinct had kicked in. It scared the living daylights out of me. I can’t imagine the terror that would cause in a woman who has been raped.
1 in 4 women in the UK has been raped or sexually assaulted by a man. We have a right to safe spaces. Every single decent man already respects women’s spaces. Any male who doesn’t is, by definition, a predator, regardless of how they id.
I’m sick fed up with autogynephiles telling me their ‘feelz’ override my human rights to safety and dignity. I would campaign with them for 3rd spaces so they feel safe, but they refuse that because they demand that women ‘validate’ them. They are hypocrites. They claim to feel ‘unsafe’ in spaces with other men, but they don’t care about women feeling unsafe in spaces with men. Cognitive dissonance.
Sorry for the rant, but, as you can see, I feel very strongly about keeping girls, and women, safe. A blog isn’t the venue for nuanced debate, and I’ve already commented too much. Sorry Jerry. I’m on twitter as @joolzzt and am happy to discuss more there.
#NotAllMen
#NotAllTW
Joolz, please forgive me. I’m sorry for making you feel that what you said was a rant. I’m not being the Devil’s advocate. I agree with you fully. I’m trying to show to others why there is not room for recognizing “full civil rights for trans people (except what we deny them!)” because as soon as we do, they corner us into accepting their self-identification and then we can’t deny them anything. We might like to protect them legally from discrimination at work, say, but as soon as we do that, we have to count them as women for the purposes of, for example, measuring our success in fast-tracking promising women. People who advocate for the “women’s spaces carve-out” for trans rights don’t have an answer for this conundrum.
Unique in civil rights, eliminating discrimination against trans people means embracing discrimination against people who are naturally born the sex the trans person claims falsely to be. (No matter what you think of outlawing discrimination by race, at least a white man can’t game the system by dissembling as a black man, and stealing his racial emolument.) Which is why references to gender identity and expression must be removed from civil/human rights laws.
Respectfully,
Leslie
Nothing to forgive Leslie. I love the cut and thrust of debate, it’s just that I’m feeling low as I thought the Cass Report would end this nonsense, but I see the activists are still ranting.
“at least a white man can’t game the system” They can. Well, a woman did. Google Rachel Dolezal. She lived as a black woman and was eventually found out. I’d better not start on the topic of those who self id as disabled. I’ve probably stretched Jerry’s limit for comments too far already.
Best wishes
joolz
Joolz.
Do women really want to watch men “peeing”? Seems very unlikely but what do I know?
Don’t give up the fight, you are not on your own.
They don’t. Men are just as uncomfortable as women with “gender-neutral” toilets, according to research by Sex Matter..
Funnily enough, this time last weekend I visited the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, where the toilets were female only or gender-neutral, which is an improvement on the usual arrangement where the men retain their own facilities and it is the women’s ones that are open to all.
I don’t know how many women want to watch men peeing but there are heterosexual females who identify as gay men who want access to male-only spaces such as gay saunas.
Many transmen, ie women, want to use the gents as they really believe they are men. They get skin tubes attached to their groin as they yearn to ‘pee standing up’. Google the resulting horrors at your own risk. Check out Scott Newgent on twitter. She now campaigns against surgery because they wrecked the nerves in her arm where they took a chunk of skin to make a neo penis.
There are also women claiming to be ‘gay men’ who expect gay men to date them. And men claiming to be ‘lesbians’ who get angry at lesbians who reject their ‘ladydicks’. It’s insane. No wonder your average Joe and Jane don’t see what is happening. I wouldn’t believe it myself I’d I hadn’t debated with these people.
Yup, it’s not about “Trans Rights” – it’s about unreasonable “Trans Demands”. In the UK, trans rights exist and are protected already.
Great summary.
Got to hand it to JKR. I’m not a reader of her work – just not my thing literature wise, but she’s obviously extremely talented. And sane.
Cheers to her.
D.A.
NYC
+1 on all counts, David!
Jerry Coyne has been careful to distinguish biological sex from gender, noting that the female sex is defined as producing large gametes. This definition leaves gender open to cultural variations that allows trans, intersex, asexual, and other people to have full and equal rights. The definition also clarifies the sports issue because people with biological advantages should not be classed with those that lack them where those biological distinctions produce relevant effects.
Perhaps she is not as careful with her language, but the above does not seem to be J. K. Rowling’s position. She writes, “I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes.” That definition does not distinguish sex and gender, but conflates them.
She says that “What makes her a woman is the fact of being born in a body that … is geared towards producing eggs as opposed to sperm, towards bearing as opposed to begetting children…” Such thinking is biological determinism more fitting of right wingers obsessed with bathrooms. In reality, we see people defining themselves and their genders in myriad ways. And in a free and liberal society, we welcome them and ensure their rights are protected.
Some of her examples are just speech, but some may be valid, but not because the people involved aren’t women, but because these are situations where biological sex development and differences matter.
Rowling’s definition does not conflate sex with gender. It’s simply the biological definition of sex (and sex is a biological phenomenon).
As Najma Sharif might have said, what did y’all think gender meant? vibes? papers? essays?
+! to Mike. No way does that definition conflate sex with gender. Her thinking may be biological determinism, but sex IS biologially determined. As far as the right-wing stuff goes, you’re way off the mark.
Yes, it’s the biological definition of sex. But not of gender. Gender is a fluid, cultural concept. Sex does not equal gender.
I thought the above has become commonly understood and accepted. My read is that the current controversies are being caused by activists now trying to remove the biological/cultural distinction and try to own all definitions. Doing so leads to bad science and politics, as Jerry has been pointing out here in WEIT.
While activists may wish to blur the terms, it seems much more informative I think to keep the two separate:
– Let people define themselves anywhere on the gender spectrum they like. As they do, culturally or otherwise.
– But where sex differences exist, based on biological genetics or development, we can and must make distinctions where they matter, such as in sports safety to protect women from competing against people with biological, sex-based advantages.
When you say, “Let people define themselves anywhere on the gender spectrum they like”, are you saying they don’t/can’t already do that now, because we punish men trying to shrink their genitals or women growing beards? What does “Let them . . .” really mean?
Does “let them” mean, “Pass laws that make it illegal to discriminate in employment and public accommodation on the basis of gender identity or expression”? Does it mean, “Require schools to operationalize gender claims made by children keeping them secret from parents and require doctors to prescribe ‘gender-affirming’ medical care according to a child’s feelz about his gender”?
If you do that, you will find (as Canada has) that your attempts to apply common-sense segregation based on sex differences will be rejected as transphobic gender-identity discrimination. The gender advocates don’t buy your claim that sex matters sometimes. Central to their truth claim is that only self-declared gender matters.
If biological sex is to be distinguished from gender, we have “man” and “woman” as sex terms (designating adult members of the human species) — and then we’d have people whose gender is “masculine” or “feminine” or “neither particularly masculine or feminine.”
I’m not sure how useful those gender categories are. Personally, I’d worry that a society which is hyper-vigilant about gender and designating and separating which behaviors and roles are masculine or feminine would be inclined to frown on masculine women or feminine men (gender nonconformity.)
Pointing out that women are female isn’t biological determinism. We all need to be careful of equivocating.
“… a society which is hyper-vigilant about gender and designating and separating which behaviors and roles are masculine or feminine would be inclined to frown on masculine women or feminine men.”
You hit the nail on the head as usual, and we are already seeing the effect of transgenderism, as a movement, “owning” the discussion on any aspect of gender: the effective erasure of gay men and (especially) lesbians, who are now thought of as people who have simply failed to take the next logical step and transition.
DrGary:
Please provide a concrete of description of what a woman (the gender if I’m reading you right) is that is not just a set of sex stereotypes.
Your post is just empty and vacuous, devoid of anything that clarifies and does nothing to further the issue.
“Biological determinism fitting of right wingers” is a meaningless throwaway that can be dismissed with nothing more than that.
If you can define gender in a way that has any useful social purpose I’ll respond, if all you can do is give sex stereotypes can call that cultural gender then you already have my response. That definition is nothing but regressive nonsense that should be abolished and pushed against.
> Please provide a concrete of description of what a woman (the gender if I’m reading you right) is that is not just a set of sex stereotypes.
Fair challenge.
I cannot.
I wouldn’t try to define anyone’s gender for them any more than I would want them to define mine or that of anyone I know. It’s too fluid, too personal, too varied, too connected to sexuality, and too not-my-business.
> “Biological determinism fitting of right wingers” is a meaningless throwaway that can be dismissed with nothing more than that.
I appreciate the thoughtful commentary and analysis by Jerry here on WEIT as well as the discussion threads. It strongly contrasts the reductionist politics we see in the media, in part because of Jerry’s careful discussion of the definitions of sex from a scientific perspective.
I think all you’ve done is claimed that “woman” and “man” are terms that denote “gender” as opposed to “sex” and used that premise to find in JK Rowling what you had already felt was the case.
Dr Gary, transwomen are not women. They are males who identify as women. That’s all there is to this. The term woman has the standard biological definition (ditto for the term male).
Nobody has the right to be treated as somebody who they are not. That does not prevent anybody from pretending that you are somebody who you are not (e.g., in make-believe play). But you can’t expect that other people treat you as somebody who you are not.
I agree with the other replies to your statement: JK Rowling is not conflating sex and gender. In fact, that is what Rowling’s opponents are doing: Conflate sex and gender for a while, until the meaning of the term sex has been usurped by that of the term gender (that is, sex has become a matter of self-definition or self-identification).
As JKR noted, “Beth Douglas, darling of prominent Scottish politicians”.
When the Scottish parliament passed the equally ill-thought-through Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Act, which the UK government blocked from becoming law – the first time since Scottish devolution in which it had exercised that power – Alex Cole-Hamilton, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats stood on the floor of the parliament and said, “Beth was with us in the public gallery of the Scottish Parliament throughout all of those late-night sessions…in the really dark hours we would look up and see Beth and it was for Beth for you guys that we’re doing it.”
During those “late night sessions” , Beth had posted about trans activists using the women’s toilets in the parliament building en masse (supposedly because they felt “unsafe”, but much more likely to intimidate the women on the other side of the debate). Beth had previously responded to calls for a “sharpened shiv”- a knife or razor used as a weapon – to be used on people who misgender transwomen by saying, “shiv not needed, lets fracture the bitch’s hyoid” (the hyoid being a small bone in someone’s neck that is damaged when they are strangled).
Yes, these are the “women” that the Scottish political establishment lauds. Well done to JKR for weighing in as she did.
Remember what Hitch said regarding “Islamophobia” :
“resist it [free speech subversion/suppression] while you can.”
There’s a video of Hitch with – if I have it right – John Lennox (!).
Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” We are approaching the atrocity phase.
“. . . approaching the atrocity phase.”
We already got there with the surgical butchery and chemical castration of children, along with the uncritical euphemizing of it as “gender-affirming care.” The open question is now a matter of scale and what we will continue to allow in our supposedly enlightened societies.
Absolutely, Doug. Hopefully the Cass Review’s final report will help to draw a line under this unevidenced nonsense.
The gender establishment in the United States (and Canada) is already circling the wagons against the Cass Report, which calls out exactly what you say. This side of the Atlantic? The WPATH files blew over. This will too. We’re going to carry on with business as usual, thank you very much. We have our own self-referencing circular citations, which we quite proudly have tarted up as professional standards of care. We don’t need to listen to the English and their cultural imperialism.
Leslie, several lawsuits against medical practitioners of genderwang have been filed in North America. So we will have to wait how those turn out.
Spoken like a true Scot. If one is permitted to say this without being “hateful “
My whole childhood was spent in Scotland but I find it hard to understand what has and is happening to the Scotland I love.
Oh also, in case this isn’t known to readership :
The world of Harry Potter was created by Rowling’s extensive reading on actual genuine material anyone can find on occult, alchemy, and mysticism – etc.
Consider the title of “Philosopher’s Stone”, or the character Nicholas Flamel. Each are known from ancient writings in alchemy.
Here’s a great book to check:
The Occult, Witchcraft and Magic
An Illustrated History
Christopher Dell
Thames & Hudson
Year ?
Amazing artwork and wide coverage ; some treatment of how magic and alchemy became science – Newton, Copernicus (a professional astrologer!), and Pythagoras are in it.
Just for the record : I think the rational understand all of it to be good entertainment. I’m sure some think it’s real though.
Another in the related but similar win column: Benjamin Ryan provides a good summary of the freshly minted Cass report on transgender medicine – practices etc
It is a truly damming report which highlights how a relatively small group of activists and ideologues (WPATH and ES) captured the medical, media, government, academic and justice institutions.
https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1777834145470693643
“Indeed, they DO put your name on the record, even if you haven’t violated the law.”
Well, it depends. The law says they must, but police aren’t consistent. They seem to be clueless. Humza Yousaf hasn’t had anything recorded against him despite getting more Hate Crime Reports than JKR. Gender critical MSP Neale Hanvey had a report against him and the police contected him to say that he had one, but it wouldn’t be recorded, and a relative of an SNP MSP was told their hate report about a swastika wouldn’t be pursued because they ‘aren’t Jewish’.
The law explicitly states that you DON’T have to be in the protected group to make a Hate Crime report, so the police weren’t applying the law there either.
Offense by proxy is ridiculous. I have some TW twitter friends who know they are male. They have no issue with being called ‘he’. BUT if an extremist like India Willoughby sees me calling them ‘he’ then Willoughby can report me for hate, even though my friends are fine with it.
Of course a Tory DID have a crime logged for retweeting a news article from a major newspaper. He is currently pursuing the gov legally.
Police made no arrests for Hate Crimes at the Let Women Speak Rally in Edinburgh last Saturday. Our banners will have upset TRAs because they were truthful, but the TRA banners were very hateful, however the law allows hate against women, so no TRAs were arrested.
JKR has been an absolute hero to women everywhere on this topic from the get-go, along with people like Helen Joyce, Maya Forstater (SP?), Kelly-Jay Keen (Posey Parker) and others. And yesterday’s Cass report is hopefully another nail in the coffin of this insane ideology of allowing children to “transition.” Here in the US, the Democrats are playing a dangerous game of caving in to the trans activist playbook. I know a lot of folks who are more or less centrist, both left- and right-leaning, who can’t stand Trump & the current crop of Republicans, but are watching what’s happening on the left (trans, DEI, CRT, oppressor vs oppressed, etc.) and seriously reconsidering who to vote for in November, if at all. It boggles the mind that we’ve come to this point.
Scottish First Minister Yousef was previously the Justice Minister, and he shepherded the Hate Crimes Act into existence. Makes me wonder if it was always intended as a de facto Islamic blasphemy law.
Harry Lauder would (if he could) likely say something similar to, “Oh Lord. Here they go with a new way to produce a mess of sillyness out of nothing.” Then again, catch him on good day – he might say, ” FFS Scotland! Don’t you have bigger fish to fry?”
“Rowling has been attacked by gender activists for two of her stands: that trans women remain (biological) men (and vice versa), and that certain positions should be reserved for natal women, including participation in women’s sports, incarceration in women’s prisons, and rape and sexual-violence counseling. I agree with both of these positions, and also with Rowling’s insistence that with these exceptions trans people should be treated with respect and dignity, and afforded all other rights.” – J. Coyne
For example, there is a gay sauna in my hometown which now welcomes transmen (= transsexual women). What if it excluded them? Should transmen have the right to sue the owner(s) for discrimination?
“Should transmen have the right to sue the owner(s) for discrimination “Possibly, but we should not be diverted from the fact that the biggest problem is a relatively small number of men vociferously claiming to be women which of course they most definitely are not. The numbers of women identifying as men is small compared to these “ male” activists plus not so much “noise” emanates. Men as ever are the problem. I have a very good friend (female) and we were discussing what the world be like if women were dominant instead of men and she told me “ it may not necessarily be a lot better but it most certainly would be a lot different”
I agree.
Something I find fascinating about what Rowling has done to undermine the new law is how reminiscent it is of the way characters deal with corrupt government policies in the Harry Potter series. Corruption in the UK’s wizarding government, and their (unsuccessful) attempt to silence Harry and Dumbledore, is a major plot point in the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In the fifth book Harry never does anything exactly like this, but it’s something that very easily could have been a plot point in that book, and it would have been completely consistent with Harry’s character to do it. This is the first time I’ve ever seen an author so accurately embody the ideals depicted in their fiction.
One other aspect of the parallel also is amusing: in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when the Ministry of Magic is trying to silence Harry and he’s refusing, the only publication willing to defend him is a wizarding counter-culture magazine called the Quibbler. The publication’s symbol is a large, uppercase Q. Remember, this is from a book published in 2003!
The only thing that would make this parallel better is if, in response to someone else who’s engaging in civil disobedience about the new law, Rowling were to tweet the phrase “it unscrews the other way.” (If you’ve read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, you’ll know how that phrase is relevant here.)
JKR’s “Last, but least, TV’s India Willoughby” reference is an excellent example of her snarky humour. Willoughby, who claims to have grown a cervix since his transition (!), had attempted to get Rowling arrested for misgendering in England shortly before the Scottish law came into effect. (Northumbria Police didn’t bite.) Willoughby will have been disappointed not to have appeared in the first of JKR’s tweets, so saving him to the end and deploying the phrase “Last, but least” was the perfect way to treat the attention-seeking fool.
Definitely stealing “last, but least!”
BTW, you should know about a possible glitch: my comment above was approved, but now it says that it’s awaiting moderation again. (If you want, you can delete this present comment once the glitch is fixed.)
Oops, I meant to add that Joan Smith, who wrote the excellent Queen of the Gender Crits piece, is a former co-chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Board. It is widely believed that the current mayor dispensed with her services because of her gender critical views. She is a former dedicated supporter of the Labour Party, but like many of us is probably politically homeless because of the party’s pathetic approach to the conflict between women’s rights and transgender self-identity.
Thanks for this post. J.K. Rowling has from the outset been very clear, and, to use a phrase — right on — regarding sex and gender. She’s a refreshing voice.
Thanks for this post.
The insanity of referring to a “girl dick” or “her penis” is beyond words.
Typical that this so called “hate law” would protect men with small dicks being called men with small dicks but be totally oblivious to the misogyny and violence suffered by half of humanity at the hands and voices of the other half of humanity. Fuck Scotland. If this is how they want to play it, I won’t go there again. Same as I won’t ever go to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, or any other place where they hate and fail to protect actual women!
Me too!! Well said.