JK Rowling's latest 'hurtful, hateful' transgender tweet prompts outrage from HP fans

Seems Ms Rowling has angered the twitterati again :rolleyes:

Again though, not for anything overly controversial, outside of certain political loons anyway, stating an abject fact apparently being quite beyond the pale these days.
Then again, who is one to argue with certain twitter devotes whose raison detre seems to be to broadcast their rage to the globe

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2021/12/jk-rowling-s-latest-hurtful-hateful-transgender-tweet-prompts-outrage-from-harry-potter-fans.html

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Reply 1

tazarooni89

She’s got a perfectly valid point. Scottish police are intending to allow rapists to self-identify as women (without the need for gender recognition certificates or anything like that) and record their crimes as committed by women.

It’s absolutely absurd. It will result in us putting males who are convicted of raping females in prison with other females. How on earth can this possibly be a good idea? It defeats the whole purpose of having separate male/female prisons in the first place.

But no, let’s endanger the physical safety of lots of women, that’s no big deal at all because God forbid we acknowledge someone’s biological reality - that might hurt their precious feelings.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 2

anarchism101

Original post by tazarooni89

They're intending to have the same policy for anyone they arrest or question for any reason.

Reminder that police do not determine whether someone is guilty of committing a crime, courts do.

It’s absolutely absurd. It will result in us putting males who are convicted of raping females in prison with other females.

Why will it result in that? Prison allocation for trans prisoners is determined on a case by case basis, and that isn't changing. Rank and file police officers don't get any say in where a convicted criminal that they initially arrested is sent to serve their time.

Reply 3

miser

What's the effect of recording rapists as women? Will they be treated more leniently?

I think it shouldn't matter what a person's gender is - they should be treated the same - so I think it's questionable to record someone's gender at all. Biological sex on the other hand is important for medical reasons.

Reply 4

Napp

Original post by anarchism101

They're intending to have the same policy for anyone they arrest or question for any reason.

Reminder that police do not determine whether someone is guilty of committing a crime, courts do.

Why will it result in that? Prison allocation for trans prisoners is determined on a case by case basis, and that isn't changing. Rank and file police officers don't get any say in where a convicted criminal that they initially arrested is sent to serve their time.

Not being intimately familiar with who sends whom where, but who exactly is responsible for sending remand prisoners to which prison then? I would assume it isnt the courts given, by definition, they havent had a trial yet?

Then again, the above seems rather beside the point, given this is more an issue of people trying to cyber-bully an author for an inoffensive remark. After all, if we're to consider her remarks 'hurtful and 'offensive', then what shall we consider the mirror comments, this is hardly a case of black and white.. as the intolerably ignorant protestor crowd are apt to view it. This is not, pardon the cheesey pun, a game of quidditch where people are expected to chose a side. That is, despite all attempts to prove the contrary.

Reply 5

Surnia

Original post by Napp

Seems Ms Rowling has angered the twitterati again :rolleyes:

Link not working.

Reply 6

Napp

Original post by Surnia

Link not working.

Possibly an error with your browser, its working fine for me?
At any rate, here's a UK based link to it:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/harry-potter-jk-rowling-transphobic-terf-b1974984.html

Reply 7

Surnia

Original post by Napp

It's still the courts who decide this, because they have made the ruling at a pre-trial hearing that a prisoner should be held on remand.

Reply 8

Napp

Original post by Surnia

It's still the courts who decide this, because they have made the ruling at a pre-trial hearing that a prisoner should be held on remand.

Ah okay, so for those who are held for days/weeks before said pre-trial hearing can be held then, i presume theyd merely languish in the local station?

Reply 9

tazarooni89

Original post by anarchism101

They're intending to have the same policy for anyone they arrest or question for any reason.
Reminder that police do not determine whether someone is guilty of committing a crime, courts do.

Yes - but the fact remains that those guilty of raping and sexually assaulting women will go on record as being "women" themselves solely on the basis of self identification. They may be applying the same policy for everyone else too, but that fails to recognise that this is a particularly inappropriate thing to do in the specific case of males who have committed rape or sexual assault against women.

It de-emphasises the fact that it's a "male on female" crime where sex is a major factor in its motivation and facilitation (not just a "person on person" crime like car theft or something), and it reduces the apparent scale of that problem. It's the equivalent of taking racially motivated hate crimes and incorrectly reporting what race the perpetrators and victims belong to, or disregarding them and just presenting them as run-of-the-mill crimes like any other. It's a huge disservice to those victims, in favour of tiptoeing around the feelings of the perpetrators, which makes absolutely no sense.

Firstly on a technical point of clarification, it's not always determined on a "case by case basis"; males who have legally changed their gender are automatically sent to female prisons, no questions asked. But even in the instances where it is determined on a case-by-case basis, there are still examples of us sending males to prisons full of females, and then finding that they end up committing sexual assault in prison. Karen White is just one of many examples - "she" was found to be using a transgender persona specifically for the purpose of putting "herself" in contact with females. Overall, (allegedly) transgender prisoners are still five times more likely to commit sex attacks in female prisons than other prisoners. Our "case by case basis" approach is clearly not working. It's still failing to prevent that elevated risk from arising. It still enables people like Karen White to do what "she" did. This contradicts the whole point of prison segregation in the first place.

My point here is that we ought not to be using a "case by case" basis at all. If we're going to segregate prisons at all, then we should have male and female prisons, not "people who call themselves men" and "people who call themselves women" prisons. A simple segregation on the basis of biological sex that has nothing to do with self-proclaimed gender identity makes much more sense, considering that the former is the overwhelmingly more relevant risk-predictor, and the latter is far more easily misrepresented for personal benefit. Note that I'm not saying people's self-identifications need to be rejected or denied, but rather that they should not in and of themselves influence the type of justice a person receives. (This also applies more generally, even outside of sex/gender; self-identification should have no place in the decisions of the justice system; certainly not in preference to objective characteristics. Think what would happen if people being tried in court could self-diagnose themselves with mental illnesses that render them inculpable for their crimes, for example.)

This Scottish policy is just a step in the wrong direction. It normalises and sets further precedent for the idea that the justice system is supposed to care about self-identifications instead of relying solely on its own independent judgement or upon objective facts. The further we go down that path and the more society learns to expect it, the more difficult it becomes to recover from. I mean we've already reached a stage in society where any exercise involving recognition that a trans-man is in many ways very different from a biological male has become a minefield full of potential PR nightmares.

Reply 10

Surnia

Original post by Napp

Ah okay, so for those who are held for days/weeks before said pre-trial hearing can be held then, i presume theyd merely languish in the local station?

You asked about prisoners on remand, which will be, for example, for serious offences, breaching bail, possibility of committing another crime.

The most police can hold someone for is 96 hours, for a serious crime. That said, it's longer for suspected terrorism. However, prisons are categorised, and a pre-trial hearing can happen fairly soon, so someone can be moved out of police custody and put into a particular location quickly.

Reply 11

StriderHort

Original post by Napp

Ah okay, so for those who are held for days/weeks before said pre-trial hearing can be held then, i presume theyd merely languish in the local station?

I think you generally only spend 1-2 days at the police cells before being taken to initially appear before court if needed, and if they don't like the idea of you being out you'll be remanded to prison immediately by the court. I think police can only hold you longer for extensive questioning/terrorism stuff, beyond that their cells/infrastructure really isn't up for keeping people long term without legal problems.

(I would also expect a half baked 'I'm a woman now btw' to be given short shrift)

Reply 12

Megacent

People are always finding something to be outraged about these days and I don't think it's healthy. People are defaulting to a torrent of self righteous anger/emotional rage the moment they see an even slightly controversial opinion they disagree with. What affect will that have on society in the long term if we become incapable of discussing important issues like adults?

If someone tweets something you don't like, why not try to understand it? Post a reply and ask why they feel that way, listen to their side of the story and maybe you'll learn something. Maybe you will at least come to respect why they feel the way they do even if you don't agree.

Reply 13

imlikeahermit

What saddens me is that these twitterati are such a small number of the population. Again, I’ll pedal out a phrase I could use on every thread, anyone with half a brain can see she’s just simply stating the truth.

Reply 14

Stiff Little Fingers

How a suspected criminal is recorded during booking in does not affect anything or put anyone at risk from them... police don't determine guilt or sentencing, courts do. All her statement does is encourage the view that rape requires a penis and is exclusively a male crime (which feminist campaigners have rejected for years and campaigned against) with the result of minimising and denying the pain of victims of women and victims where their rapist did either digital penetration or with an object. That she comes out with this, having written gang rape and resultant PTSD as a punchline in a childrens book (Umbridge and the Centaurs) and had nothing to say on Sarah Everard, on the #metoo movement or on countless other high profile issues of rape in the news is entirely consistent. She does not care about victims of rape, in her writing she mocks their pain, she just wants to co-opt that suffering for her own bigotry, which is just incredibly foul and inhumane.

Reply 15

tazarooni89

Original post by Stiff Little Fingers

How a suspected criminal is recorded during booking in does not affect anything or put anyone at risk from them... police don't determine guilt or sentencing, courts do.

It fails to recognise that when a male rapes or sexually assaults a female, biological sex is typically a major factor in the motivation and facilitation of that crime; it is not just incidental. As I said above, it would be equivalent to recording a racially motivated hate crime, but disregarding or misconstruing the races of the perpetrators and victims involved to make it just look like your average public nuisance.

I don't think there's any issue in reporting what someone identifies as; it may turn out to be useful information or it may not. But failing to specify biological sex (i.e. reporting a trans-woman in exactly the same way as one reports a biological female) is to obscure facts that are highly relevant to the crime, and to portray the crime (as well as the wider problem of male-on-female sexual violence) as being not as bad as it actually is. Why not just present all the facts accurately?

...how? It seems to me that it encourages nothing more than accuracy - report it as a male crime when performed by a male, and a female crime when performed by a female. How does minimising anyone's pain come into that? If anything, minimising someone's pain it going to come when you cover up the causal factors which are relevant to their case; not when you acknowledge them for what they are.

That she comes out with this, having written gang rape and resultant PTSD as a punchline in a childrens book (Umbridge and the Centaurs)

Again... how? Where do you get "gang rape" from exactly? I've read exactly the same book and this is the first I've heard of it.

and had nothing to say on Sarah Everard, on the #metoo movement or on countless other high profile issues of rape in the news is entirely consistent. She does not care about victims of rape, in her writing she mocks their pain, she just wants to co-opt that suffering for her own bigotry, which is just incredibly foul and inhumane.

This just sounds like ad hominem now. Attacking someone's character or motivation is usually what happens when it proves too difficult to find ways to critique one's actual point or argument. Best avoided really.

Reply 16

Stiff Little Fingers

Original post by tazarooni89

The sex of a person is not relevant to the crime of rape, or certainly should not be considered as such - it is in the UK because UK law around sexual assault and rape is ridiculously archaic and fails the victims, nor does correctly recording trans women as women obscure the facts around the problem of male-on-female sexual violence since trans women are such a small minority and are predominately victims, not perpatrators of sexual violence. If you want to play the idea that not recording trans women falsely as men is obscuring the extent of sexual violence, the reality is that you're still obscuring the extent of sexual violence by failing to record some victims properly.

The point of pushing the "rape requires a penis" line is to cast doubt and aspersions on the victims of non-men and the victims of any gender that uses other objects or their fingers for penetration, to dismiss their experiences as lesser.

Again... how? Where do you get "gang rape" from exactly? I've read exactly the same book and this is the first I've heard of it.

I assume you're not familiar with Centaurs in Greek mythology? Centauromachy would be the most relevant representation of them, which cast them as rapists. As Rowling has a degree in Classics, it's reasonable to suggest she would be aware of their mythology. That Umbridge is clearly described as being unmarked and yet is clearly very harmed psychologically by her responsiveness, it should be clear that she is portrayed as having PTSD. Rowling should be aware of centaurs in mythology based on her degree, and in response to the centaurs one of her characters is physically fine but psychologically has suffered great harm, it seems fairly clear that she wrote in the rape of Umbridge. I will however concede that actually, she could be argued to have said something on metoo, even if it was implicit. That thing was to stand by Jonny Depp and to say, as women started to speak out against powerful men being abusers, that "consicous is not governable by committee" - which would imply her disparaging those who spoke out.

It's not ad hominem to look at her behaviour. She publically sends presents to sexual abusers like Marilyn Manson, she stands by Jonny Depp, she writes rape as punishment in her books (both Umbridge and actually her trans character in one of the Robert Galbraith books (the silkworm) where her hero says to a trans character - "If you go for that door one more ****ing time I'm calling the police and I'll testify and be glad to watch you go down for attempted murder. And it won't be fun for you inside, Pippa...not pre-op." - a clear allusion to prion rape and sexual assault). She had nothing to say on the sexual violence of the police. Her track record is of someone who is absolutely fine with rape and sexual violence.

Reply 17

Napp

Original post by Stiff Little Fingers

Well this is clearly ******** given she is a rape victim. you just don't like her because she doesnt subscribe to your novel views on the topic of erasing gender and have resorted to a fabricated personal attack on the woman.

Reply 18

SHallowvale

Did JK Rowling straight up make a reference to 1984? Good grief... 😂

I struggle to see any purpose of her tweet other than fear mongering.

Reply 19

Megacent

Original post by Stiff Little Fingers

All her statement does is encourage the view that rape requires a penis and is exclusively a male crime (which feminist campaigners have rejected for years and campaigned against) with the result of minimising and denying the pain of victims of women and victims where their rapist did either digital penetration or with an object. That she comes out with this, having written gang rape and resultant PTSD as a punchline in a childrens book (Umbridge and the Centaurs) and had nothing to say on Sarah Everard, on the #metoo movement or on countless other high profile issues of rape in the news is entirely consistent. She does not care about victims of rape, in her writing she mocks their pain, she just wants to co-opt that suffering for her own bigotry, which is just incredibly foul and inhumane.

But rape does require a penis.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-7-key-legislation-and-offences

If it's penetration with an object then that comes under a difference offence (assault by penetration).

As for Harry Potter, I loved reading them on a night, and found the magical world of Hogwarts an enjoyable place to escape to and unwind. It's a shame to see social justice warriors trawling over it looking for things to get outraged about. Can't you stop banging on about all your "causes" for once in a while and just relax?