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Wil jij een financiele bijdrage leveren aan Nederlandse jongeren? Dan is Transgender Netwerk Nederland een goede organistie. Deze stichting zet zich landelijk in voor de emancipatie van transgender personen en hun omgeving.

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Wil jij een financiele bijdrage leveren aan Nederlandse jongeren? Dan is Transgender Netwerk Nederland een goede organistie. Deze stichting zet zich landelijk in voor de emancipatie van transgender personen en hun omgeving.

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Hier kun je via IDEAL doneren.

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Draag jij TNN's idealen een warm hart toe? En zou jij financieel een steentje willen bijdragen aan een van onze projecten? Zoals één van onze vele voorlichtings- en bewustwordingsactiviteiten, onze inzet om discriminatie op de arbeidsmarkt te bestrijden en politieke lobby voor wetswijzigingen? Of wil je aan het Corine van Dun fonds bijdragen om activiteiten van lokale initiatieven voor maatschappelijke acceptatie te bevorderen: Word dan nu donateur of neem TNN op in je testament.
Steun het Corine van Dun fonds
Met dit fonds wil TNN kleinschalige initiatieven en groepen ondersteunen die activiteiten willen ondernemen die direct gericht zijn op het bevorderen van maatschappelijke acceptatie in hun eigen regio. Wil je aan dit fonds bijdragen? Vermeld dan bij je donatie: Corine van Dun fonds.
Donaties
Doneren kan éénmalig of periodiek, zonder minimum bedrag. TNN heeft een ANBI-Status (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instellingen). Giften en donaties zijn aftrekbaar van de inkomstenbelasting, wanneer de hoogte van uw gift (alle schenkingen aan verschillende organisatie samengenomen) tussen 1% en 10% van uw bruto-inkomen behelst. Op de site berekenhetnu.nl vindt u hier meer over. Doneren kan met een overboeking op de bankrekening van TNN. IBAN: NL79RABO 0121 8819 46 of via IDEAL.
Periodiek doneren
Periodieke schenkingen met een looptijd van minimaal vijf jaar zijn wel volledig aftrekbaar. Daarvoor is wel een onderhandse schenkingsovereenkomst nodig of een notariële actie. Wil u hiervoor meer weten neem dan contact met ons op.
Nalatenschap
Ook kan je TNN in je testament opnemen. Daarmee laat je de trans gemeenschap extra middelen na om meer en beter te werken aan een volledige genderdiverse samenleving. In een testament kan je opteren om TNN een specifiek legaat na te laten voor een specifiek bedrag of om TNN als een erfgenaam op te nemen.

TNN heeft een ANBI status (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instellingen). Dit betekent dat TNN geen erfbelasting hoeft te betalen. Dat betekent dat elke
euro van jouw nalatenschap besteed zal worden aan de emancipatie van de trans gemeenschap in het algemeen, en de doelstellingen van TNN in het bijzonder.

Wil je meer weten? Neem dan contact met ons op via info@transgendernetwerk.nl, of bel ons op 020-2050915.

Wij bedanken je alvast hartelijk voor je interesse bij te dragen aan de werkzaamheden van TNN!

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TNN zet zich in voor de emancipatie van transgender personen en hun omgeving en de erkenning in de samenleving van het bestaan van genderdiversiteit. Dat doen wij mede dankzij jouw gift, schenking of donatie. Draag jij TNN's idealen een warm hart toe? En zou jij financieel een steentje willen bijdragen aan een van onze projecten?

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Wil jij een financiële bijdrage leveren aan Britse jongeren die direct geraakt worden? Mermaids, voor genderdiverse jeugd, is een goede organisatie. 

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Wil jij een financiële bijdrage leveren aan Britse jongeren die direct geraakt worden? Mermaids, voor genderdiverse jeugd, is een goede organisatie. 

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Hier kun je alleen doneren via credit- of debit-card.

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Opnieuw wordt schrijfster J.K. Rowling beschuldigd van transfobie, ditmaal naar aanleiding van haar nieuwste boek, Troubled Blood. In het verhaal staat een moord centraal op een vrouw door een mannelijke, als vrouw verklede moordenaar. Of, zoals een boekrecensent in The Daily Telegraph concludeerde: 'Vertrouw nooit een man in vrouwenkleren.' Het idee dat trans vrouwen eigenlijk mannen zijn die zich als vrouw voordoen om vrouwen kwaad te doen, is een vaak terugkerend stereotype.

Al snel ontstond de trending hashtag #RIPJKRowling, gebruikt door mensen die vinden dat Rowling haar carrière de das om aan het doen is. Het is niet lang geleden dat Rowling onder vuur lag om uitspraken over sekse en transgenderidentiteiten. 'Realiseert Rowling zich wel dat ze letterlijk de levens van trans personen op het spel zet?' vroeg journalist en transactivist Imara Jones zich af.
Dit artikel verscheen eerder op OneWorld.nl op 12 juni 2020.
Harry Potter-auteur J.K. Rowling haalde zich deze week de woede van een deel van het internet op de hals met berichten over geslacht en transgenderidentiteiten. Vijf vragen over transfobie onder zelfbenoemde feministen, en waarom hun ideeën schadelijk zijn.

Wat zegt J.K. Rowling precies?

'Was er maar een woord om mensen die menstrueren te beschrijven', schamperde J.K. Rowling, auteur van de 500 miljoen keer verkochte Harry Potter-boeken, deze week op Twitter. Mensen die menstrueren zijn gewoon vrouwen, bedoelde ze. Naar aanleiding van de weerstand die haar tweets opriepen, publiceerde ze woensdag een uitgebreide verklaring op haar website over de vraag waarom zij zoveel met thema's als geslacht en transgender zijn bezig is, een onderwerp waar ze de afgelopen jaren vaker over schreef. Rowling vindt dat geslacht iets biologisch en fundamenteels is, dat cis personen wezenlijk anders zijn dan transgender en non-binaire personen, en dat het schadelijk is dat verschil te ontkennen: 'Vrouw zijn is geen kostuum, of een idee in het hoofd van een man.'

If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth.

- J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020

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Volgens Rowling zijn trans pubers slachtoffer van een modeverschijnsel en zullen ze spijt krijgen

Rowling stelt in haar verklaring dat trans pubers slachtoffer zijn van een modeverschijnsel en later spijt zullen krijgen. En dat wettelijk van gender veranderen makkelijker maken, een aanval is op de realiteit en fysieke veiligheid van cis vrouwen. Activisten zouden proberen 'de politieke en biologische categorie 'vrouw' uit te hollen en daarmee op een zelden eerder vertoonde manier seksuele roofdieren rugdekking geven'.

Daniel Radcliffe, de acteur die Harry Potter speelt in de films, nam maandag afstand van Rowling: 'We moeten trans en non-binaire mensen steunen, in plaats van verdere schade veroorzaken', schrijft hij. Tegenspeelster Emma Watson tweette woensdag: 'trans personen zijn wie ze zeggen dat ze zijn en verdienen het hun leven te leiden zonder dat dat voortdurend in twijfel getrokken wordt'.

Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren't who they say they are.

- Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) June 10, 2020

Wat zijn TERFs?

Activisten noemen iemand als Rowling een TERF: een 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist', iemand die zich als feminist ziet maar de identiteit en rechten van trans personen ontkent. TERFs zien sekse (toegewezen geslacht bij geboorte) als een biologisch gegeven, en gender (hoe iemand zich voelt) als minder of niet relevant. Daarbij zien ze het bestaan van trans personen als een aanval op hun eigen identiteit en positie.

Dat zie je niet alleen terug in de verklaring van de schrijfster, maar ook in de reacties op haar tweets: iemand reageert op Rowlings statement dat 'mensen die menstrueren' gewoon 'vrouwen' zijn met: 'Ja, wij vrouwen willen gewoon vrouw genoemd worden in plaats van 'cis vrouw' of 'menstrueerder'!' Een ander stelt dat als mensen zelf hun genderidentiteit kunnen bepalen, (cis) vrouwen daarmee alle mogelijke wettelijke rechten verliezen (zoals het recht om zonder mannen bij elkaar te zijn, inclusief het recht om zich te organiseren voor abortus of tegen seksueel geweld door mannen).

Transgender personen worden daarbij vaak valse motieven toegedicht. Trans mannen zouden eigenlijk vrouwen zijn die slachtoffer zijn van het patriarchale idee dat mannelijkheid te verkiezen is boven vrouwelijkheid. Trans vrouwen zouden eigenlijk mannen zijn die vrouwenkleedkamers proberen binnen te komen.

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In werkelijkheid lopen juist trans vrouwen een hoog risico verkracht of mishandeld te worden

Een dergelijk geluid komt in het Verenigd Koninkrijk veel voor, maar je ziet het ook in Nederland. Sophie Schers uitte vorig jaar haar onvrede over Trouw-columniste Leonie Breebaart, die in een kortzichtige column vrouwenrechten tegenover transrechten stelde. Diezelfde krant publiceerde in januari nog een opiniestuk waarin een soepelere Transgenderwet gepresenteerd werd als een fundamentele aantasting van de rechten van vrouwen, omdat iedere 'man in een jurk' op een vrouwentoilet zomaar een verkrachter kan blijken. (In werkelijkheid lopen juist trans vrouwen zelf een hoog risico verkracht of mishandeld te worden.)

Het uitsluiten van trans personen - in het bijzonder trans vrouwen - door feministen heeft een lange geschiedenis. Bekend is het boek The Transsexual Empire: the Making of the She-Male uit 1979, waarin de Amerikaanse radicale feminist Janice Raymond transseksualiteit beschrijft als een slinkse poging van het patriarchaat om het feminisme te koloniseren en te ondermijnen. Vanaf daar gaat het door tot tweedegolf-feminist Germaine Greer, die trans-zijn in 2015 een 'waanvoorstelling' noemde en zelf beschikken over je genderidentiteit 'oneerlijk' vindt.

Hoe zit het met 'sekse' en 'gender'?

Vrijwel iedereen wordt bij geboorte een van twee biologische geslachten (of sekse) toegewezen. Dat betekent niet automatisch dat je het daar zelf mee eens bent. Iemand wiens geslacht volgens diens geboorteakte 'vrouw' is kan zich als vrouw identificeren, maar ook als man of non-binair persoon. Die eigen ervaring noemen we gender: hoe je jezelf voelt en door de maatschappij gezien en behandeld wilt worden. Voor trans personen is het laatste bepalend voor wie ze zijn.

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Biologisch geslacht is net zomin binair als gender

Rowling maakt geen onderscheid tussen sekse en gender, en lijkt alleen het eerste als relevant en absoluut te beschouwen. Biologisch geslacht is echter, in tegenstelling tot wat vaak gedacht wordt, net zomin binair als gender. Zo worden intersekse personen geboren met zowel vrouwelijke als mannelijke kenmerken. Er bestaan mensen die geen XX- of XY-chromosomen hebben, maar bijvoorbeeld een combinatie van beide of XXY-chromosomen. En er zijn zelfs mensen die twee X-chromosomen hebben en toch mannelijke geslachtsorganen ontwikkelen.

Daar komt bij (nu wordt het wat ingewikkelder en worden TERFs écht boos): ook biologisch geslacht staat niet los van culturele interpretatie, en wat als de essentie van sekse wordt gezien verandert met de tijd. Een voorbeeld: in de negentiende eeuw stelden wetenschappers dat alleen witte mensen een binaire geslachtsindeling in 'man' en 'vrouw' hadden bereikt met alles wat daarbij hoort. En dat dat een kenmerk van beschaving was, terwijl andere 'rassen' daar te primitief voor zouden zijn.

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Geslachtsdelen worden in het Westen vaak gezien als bepalend voor wat iemand 'echt' is

Anno 2020 worden geslachtsdelen in het Westen vaak gezien als bepalend voor wat iemand 'echt' is. Het dominante denken over sekse en seksualiteit is al sinds Freud fallocentrisch - het al dan niet hebben van een penis is hét bewijs of iemand 'man' is (al zal een trans vrouw met een penis die vaak niet zien als mannelijk kenmerk, maar als onderdeel van haar vrouwelijke lichaam). Nu ook genitalia soms kunnen veranderen, wordt steeds vaker gepraat over chromosomen als de essentie van geslacht. Zo is ook wat sekse 'maakt' aan verandering onderhevig, en kan steeds een nieuwe grond worden gevonden om trans personen buiten de groep te plaatsen waarmee ze zich identificeren.

Zijn cis personen meer man of vrouw dan trans personen?

'Mensen die menstrueren', waarom zou je die niet gewoon 'vrouwen' noemen? Omdat ook sommige trans mannen en non-binaire personen menstrueren en een inclusievere term daar recht aan doet, legde Nanoah Struik hier haarfijn uit. Omgekeerd betekent het bestaan van trans vrouwen en non-binaire personen die zich in zekere mate met vrouwelijkheid identificeren, dat een baarmoeder niet langer de essentie is van vrouw zijn.

Het bestaan van trans personen dwingt zo ook cis mensen na te denken over wat hen wel tot man of vrouw maakt, bij welke aspecten van mannelijkheid of vrouwelijkheid ze zich wel of niet thuis voelen, en zich bewust te zijn van hun eigen genderidentiteit. En daarmee ruimte te maken voor een bredere definitie van hun gender. Voor velen lijkt dat nog een stap te ver.

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Cis personen dicteren de voorwaarden waaronder trans personen geaccepteerd worden

Transfeminien kunstenaar Alok Vaid-Menon beschrijft dat zo: 'J.K. Rowling zegt wat veel cis vrouwen geloven: dat zij echter, natuurlijker, organischer zijn dan wij. Cis vrouwen dicteren de voorwaarden waaronder wij geaccepteerd worden en we ons met vrouwelijkheid mogen identificeren. Net zoals cis mannen eeuwenlang claimden dat zij beter weten hoe vrouwen in elkaar zitten dan zijzelf, claimen cis vrouwen dat zij ons beter kennen dan wij onszelf. Volgens hen zijn wij man, puur omdat zij dat zeggen. Dat is seksisme en trans-misogynie."

Trans mannen zijn evengoed man zoals cis mannen dat zijn. En trans vrouwen evengoed vrouw als cis vrouwen. Dat betekent natuurlijk níet dat hun realiteit en ervaringen compleet dezelfde zijn als die van cis personen, en het is goed daaraan recht te blijven doen. Maar dat moet in de eerste plaats omdat trans personen een kwetsbare groep zijn die aandacht verdient. Velen kampen met jarenlange genderdysforie, krijgen te maken met discriminatie en geweld, en een sterk verhoogd zelfmoordrisico.

Waarom zijn uitspraken als die van Rowling schadelijk voor trans personen?

Mensen met ideeën als Rowling beweren dat trans en non-binaire personen en activisten eropuit zijn de ruimte voor cisgender personen in te perken, door bijvoorbeeld de realiteit van het leven als vrouw te ontkennen. Daarbij appelleren ze aan al lang bestaande schadelijke beelden, zoals het idee dat trans vrouwen een fysieke bedreiging zijn voor 'echte' vrouwen. Het gevaar is dat ze daarmee het draagvlak voor transrechten in de maatschappij verkleinen, en de kans vergroten dat trans personen te maken krijgen met discriminatie en geweld of intimidatie.

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Trans zijn is een allesoverheersend, doorleefd niet anders kúnnen - en dat is even echt als hoe cis personen zich voelen

Bovenal pretenderen ze beter te weten wie trans personen zijn dan zijzelf. De realiteit is dat trans en non-binaire personen zijn wie ze zijn. Dat toelaten en accepteren kan voor henzelf al lastig genoeg zijn, zonder dat anderen de legitimiteit ervan betwisten. Trans zijn is meer dan hoe je je vandaag voelt of aankleedt: het is een allesoverheersend, doorleefd niet anders kúnnen - en dat is even echt als hoe cis personen zich voelen.
Dit artikel verscheen eerder op OneWorld.nl op 12 juni 2020.

Vrouwen van wie de seksuele identiteit overeenkomt met het biologische geslacht waarmee zij geboren zijn. ↩︎

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J.K. Rowling en de Orde van de TERFs - OneWorld

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Opnieuw wordt schrijfster J.K. Rowling beschuldigd van transfobie, ditmaal naar aanleiding van haar nieuwste boek, Troubled Blood. In het verhaal staat een moord centraal op een vrouw door een mannelijke, als vrouw verklede moordenaar. Of, zoals een boekrecensent in The Daily Telegraph concludeerde: 'Vertrouw nooit een man in vrouwenkleren.'

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OneWorld                                                Nederlandstalig            

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OneWorld                                                Nederlandstalig            

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Het is in Nederland bon ton om lacherig of zelfs hatelijk te doen over het idee van genderneutraliteit. Niet alleen de toiletten, taal en kleding en de organisaties en bedrijven daarachter moeten het bekopen. Transgender personen zelf worden op sociale media en in rechtse (online) media lichtzinnig weggezet als 'gestoord', 'knettergek' en 'mierenneukers'. Daar deed Trouw-columniste Leonie Breebaart in haar column van 27 oktober met liefde nog een schepje bovenop.

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Breebaarts uitgesproken afkeer van genderneutraliteit is allesbehalve onschuldig

In haar column wierp Breebaart zich op om Nederland te waarschuwen voor een 'golfje genderneutraal denken' van overzee dat vrouwen in de sport zou bedreigen. Voor de onoplettende lezer zal het hebben gelezen als de zoveelste column waarin genderneutraliteit onder vuur wordt genomen, maar Breebaart ging veel verder: als zij het heeft over 'vrouwen', bedoelt zij uitsluitend 'cisgender vrouwen'. Het gevaar dat hen bedreigt komt volgens haar van transgender vrouwen af. Breebaart plaatst transgenderrechten niet alleen buiten, maar ook tegenóver vrouwenrechten. Dat is natuurlijk makkelijk, wanneer je transgender vrouwen niet als vrouwen ziet, maar als 'mannen die vrouw willen zijn'.

Transfobie is allesbehalve onschuldig

Breebaart stelt dat het openstellen van sportcompetities voor transgender scholieren de deur openzet voor jongens om mee te doen in meisjescompetities, wat oneerlijk zou zijn. Eenzelfde argument gaf de Nieuw-Zeelandse actiegroep Speak up for women, toen die met een evenement op de Massey Universiteit wilde demonstreren tegen het inclusieve beleid van de Victoria Universiteit in Wellington. Studenten, feministen en transgender activisten pikten dat niet, en overtuigden de Massey universiteit ervan de bijeenkomst niet toe te staan. Breebaart haalt het aan als een voorbeeld van het inperken van het vrije woord van vrouwen. Een opgeklopte angst voor mannen in de vrouwensport en tirannie tegen het vrije woord worden zo aan de lezers van Trouw gepresenteerd als logische gevolgen van genderneutraal denken.

Breebaarts uitgesproken afkeer van genderneutraliteit is allesbehalve onschuldig. In de VS brengt de agenda van zogeheten 'radicale feministen' gelegaliseerde discriminatie van trans personen steeds een stap dichterbij. In het Verenigd Koninkrijk is het aantal meldingen van haatmisdrijven tegen trans personen met 81 procent toegenomen tot bijna 2000 meldingen in het afgelopen jaar. Tegelijkertijd is er een grootschalige verspreiding van anti-transgenderartikelen zichtbaar.

Doordat het anti-transgendergeluid in Nederland vooral uit de hoek van het Reformatorisch Dagblad en de SGP komt, lijkt het in ons land op een achterhoedegevecht. Het eind is echter zoek wanneer het idee meer draagvlak krijgt dat de emancipatie van transgender personen een bedreiging zou vormen voor de rechten van cisgender vrouwen.

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Breebaart ziet cisgender vrouwen als slachtoffer en beschuldigt trans personen van tirannie

Anti-transgenderactivisten, die zich ook wel eufemistisch genderkritisch noemen, scharen zich in de VS tijdens congressen van rechtse actiegroepen letterlijk aan de zijde van streng-christelijke organisaties. Transgender personen, met name vrouwen, krijgen daar al volop met discriminatie te maken. Anti-transactivisten treuren niet om de haatmisdrijven tegen zwarte en Latina trans vrouwen die er aan de orde van de dag zijn. Zij zien liefst zoveel mogelijk anti-transwetten aangenomen worden. Dat dezelfde senatoren achter zulke wetten net zo graag abortuswetgeving inperken en Trumps seksisme verdedigen doet er voor hen niet toe.

Die dubbele standaard kenmerkt de anti-transgenderlobbyisten. Zij houden vast aan hun idee dat transgenderrechten de deur openzetten voor geweld van 'mannen' tegen 'vrouwen'. Het geweld dat mannen tegen transgender vrouwen plegen is voor hen geen onderwerp. Breebaart laat zo'n context in haar column ook gemakshalve achterwege; zij ziet cisgender vrouwen als slachtoffer en beschuldigt trans personen en hun medestanders op Twitter van tirannie.

Support your sisters, not just your cis-ters

Vanuit het 'genderkritische' kamp klinkt veel sympathie met transgender personen vanwege hun 'worsteling', maar die wordt altijd gevolgd door een 'maar'. Het komt erop neer dat cis vrouwen mogen bepalen wie echt vrouw is en wie niet. Deze ontkenning van hun identiteit zouden trans vrouwen als makke lammetjes moeten accepteren. Trans mannen en non-binaire personen die bij geboorte als vrouw zijn aangeduid worden gezien als verward of verleid door het patriarchaat om te denken dat het verkeerd is vrouw te zijn. Feministes van de tweede golf die nu nog worden bewonderd, zoals Germaine Greer en Fay Weldon, geloven zelfs dat trans vrouwen onderdeel zijn van een complot van het patriarchaat.

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Conservatieve groepen smullen van de onderlinge twisten tussen feministen en lhbti+'ers

Echte sympathie en solidariteit met transgender personen komt van intersectioneel en queer feministen. In hun kringen is 'Support your sisters, not just your cis-ters' een veel gedeelde slogan, maar wie opkomt voor trans en intersekse personen, ook zij die non-binair zijn, krijgt inmiddels ook vrouwen en lhbti+'ers over zich heen die in het anti-transkamp zitten. Conservatieve groepen smullen van de onderlinge twisten tussen feministen en lhbti+'ers. In hun strijd tegen emancipatie van vrouwen en lhbti+'ers zijn diezelfde vrouwen en lhbti+'ers de ideale bondgenoot.

In Ierland laten feministen en transgender activisten zien hoe onderlinge bondgenootschappen juist zowel conservatieve als anti-transgendergeluiden kunnen bestrijden. In aanloop naar het referendum voor abortuswetgeving in Ierland lieten trans activisten van zich horen als voorstanders. En in de aanloop naar wetgeving voor zelfbeschikking over de geslachtsvermelding klonk de steun van Ierse feministen luid en duidelijk. Anti-transgroepen kregen geen voet aan de grond en abortus werd gelegaliseerd. Dat neemt niet weg dat anti-transgendergroepen onder cisgender vrouwen sympathie weten te kweken.

Valse bondgenoten en welkome tegenstanders

Je eenmalig uitspreken voor de rechten van transgender personen maakt je nog niet gelijk een bondgenoot. Harry Potter-auteur J.K. Rowling mag Donald Trump dan op Twitter onder het tapijt vegen, dat maakt haar nog niet solidair met trans vrouwen. Het is niet onopgemerkt gebleven dat ze tweets van anti-transgenderaccounts likete en deelde. Andersom is niet elke criticus onwrikbaar: oud-tennisster Martina Navratilova was in het Britse debat over sportdeelname van trans vrouwen wel uitgesproken (valsspelen noemde ze het), maar een met argusogen ontvangen documentaire van Navratilova over dat onderwerp verraste transgender activisten in Engeland.

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Trans vrouwen zijn vrouwen, ongeacht lichamelijke kenmerken, net als cisgender vrouwen dat zijn

De Brits-IJslandse activiste Owl Fisher schreef over de documentaire dat die weliswaar problematische meningen verkende, maar dat Navratilova's conclusie ook onverwacht was. Navratilova sprak voor de documentaire met diverse trans vrouwen, waardoor ze de invloed van het giftige debat beter is gaan begrijpen. De oud-tenisster had meer empathie voor transgender personen ontwikkeld en concludeerde dat trans vrouwen op alle niveau's mee horen kunnen sporten en de binaire indeling in veel sporten opgeheven kan worden.

Trans vrouwen zijn vrouwen, ongeacht lichamelijke kenmerken, net als cisgender vrouwen dat zijn. Vrouwenrechten zijn ook transgenderrechten. Genderneutraliteit betekent niet dat vrouwen of mannen worden uitgewist. Geslacht is namelijk geen publiek bezit maar een persoonlijk besef, en niemand is erop uit om dat van je af te nemen. Wc's en maandverband hebben geen geslacht, dus waarom wijzen we dat er dan wel aan toe? Maak daar geen ophef van, maar verdiep jezelf daarin.

De Leonie Breebaarts in Nederland zouden hiervoor een voorbeeld aan de Navratilova's kunnen nemen. Juist zij zouden Nederland kunnen laten zien dat afkeer van genderneutraliteit en het weren van transgender personen uit de vrouwensport giftige standpunten zijn waar ze op terug durven komen. Het zou van hen onverwachte, maar zeer welkome bondgenoten maken.

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Hoe kun je nou feminist zijn én transfoob? - OneWorld

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Vanaf vandaag is discriminatie van transgender en intersekse personen expliciet bij wet verboden. Dat zo'n toevoeging aan de wet nodig is, werd nog geen week geleden bewezen in een ronduit transfobe column in Trouw. Sophie Schers ziet een zorgwekkende trend.

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De Correspondent leest voor

Valentijn de Hingh - Ik ben trans en snap J.K. Rowlings zorgen over de positie van vrouwen

Weet jij nog waar je was op 22 juli 2007?

Ik wel. Ik zat te janken in een tram in Den Haag.

Een dag eerder was het laatste boek uit J.K. Rowlings zevendelige Harry Potter-serie uitgekomen. Ik was het met mijn vader gaan kopen in een boekwinkel in Scheveningen, waar ik met mijn ouders op vakantie was. Daarna nam ik in mijn eentje de tram richting het centrum van Den Haag, met de bedoeling het boek op een willekeurig terras in één ruk uit te lezen en daar mijn jeugd achter te laten.

Het moge duidelijk zijn dat het een tranendal zou worden. Vanaf mijn tiende was ik als zovelen betoverd geraakt door Rowlings verhaal over Zes keer eerder was ik met Harry in de Zweinsteinexpres gestapt, en vanaf perron 9 ¾ vertrokken naar een wereld vol avontuur, toverkunst en zwerkbal. Aan die reis zou nu - op mijn zeventiende - een einde komen.

Pas in de tram daalde dat besef in. Uit nieuwsgierigheid had ik het boek op mijn schoot al opengeslagen. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is opgedragen aan zeven personen, las ik: aan Rowlings dochter, haar man, haar moeder, aan andere familieleden of vrienden. En tot slot: aan de lezer, die tot het einde aan Harry's zijde is gebleven.

Om dat laatste moest ik al huilen, zo hard dat verschillende medepassagiers me meewarig aanstaarden. Het was natuurlijk ook wel wat pathetisch. Maar Rowlings opdracht voelde als de ultieme erkenning. Heel even voelde ik me gezien door een schrijfster die geen idee had wie ik was, maar wier boeken voor mij en miljoenen anderen zo enorm veel betekend hadden.

Hoe anders is het nu.

Rowlings kritiek op transgenderactivisme

Zoals zo vaak tegenwoordig, begon het allemaal op Twitter.

Daar 'likete' J.K. Rowling in 2017 een tweet die verwees naar een artikel vol kritiek op de transgenderrechtenbeweging van de afgelopen jaren.

Het gevolg: verwarring, ongeloof, en een storm van kritiek en negativiteit. Want door die ene 'like' ontstond het sterke vermoeden dat de kinderboekenschrijfster - - zich had verbonden aan een beweging die bekendstaat om haar openlijke vijandigheid tegen de transgendergemeenschap - een beweging die zichzelf 'genderkritisch feminisme' noemt, maar die ook wel bekend staat als

'JIJ BENT VOLDEMORT', beet een fan haar toe op Twitter. Maar aan Rowlings kant bleef het stil.

'JIJ BENT VOLDEMORT', beet een fan haar toe op Twitter. Maar aan Rowlings kant bleef het stil.

Tot 2018. Want toen volgde een nieuwe 'like', ditmaal van een tweet waarin trans vrouwen 'mannen in jurken' genoemd werden. Opnieuw volgde een stortvloed aan haatberichten en doodsbedreigingen van transgender twitteraars aan het adres van de schrijfster. Én een reactie van Rowling dit keer, die bij monde van een woordvoerder liet weten dat de 'like' te wijten was aan een 'middelbaar momentje' - ze had haar telefoon verkeerd vastgehouden en per ongeluk op de 'like'-knop gedrukt.

Maar in 2019 begon Rowling zelf over dit onderwerp te twitteren. Eerst betuigde ze steun aan (een Britse belastingadviseur wier contract niet werd verlengd vanwege transfobe uitspraken op sociale media), en later had ze kritiek op een ngo die de term gebruikte om, nou ja, mensen die menstrueren aan te duiden.

Voor velen werden hun vermoedens over Rowlings transfobie met deze tweets bevestigd. Dit jaar bekende Rowling eindelijk definitief kleur: begin juni publiceerde ze een waarin ze niet alleen schrijft over de storm van negativiteit die haar Twittergedrag haar de laatste jaren opleverde, maar waarin ze ook haar zorgen uitspreekt over wat zij 'het nieuwe trans-activisme' noemt. Door haar blog is er geen twijfel meer mogelijk: volgens JKR heeft de strijd voor wettelijke, juridische en maatschappelijke erkenning van transgender personen zorgwekkende gevolgen voor vrouwen als zij.

Rowlings essay is vooral verlammend en verwarrend

Bovendien maakt ze zich zorgen om de enorme toename van jonge vrouwen die zichzelf man voelen en in transitie gaan. Dat geboren vrouwen zich man zouden voelen, is volgens haar lang niet altijd het gevolg van maar van de vrouwenonderdrukking waar het feminisme tegen zou moeten strijden. Onder de verderfelijke invloed van het patriarchaat is vrouw-zijn immers elke vrouw weleens tot last.

Zelf zit ik niet op Twitter. En hoewel ik hier en daar wel iets las over JKR's dubieuze 'likes', klonk het vooralsnog als een storm in een glas water - precies het soort ophef waarvoor ik Twitter altijd angstvallig gemeden had.

Maar toen ik Rowlings blog las, voelde het alsof er een behaaglijke deken van mijn naakte lijf getrokken werd. Tegenover de warme nostalgie van de magische wereld uit haar boeken, stond ineens de bijtende kou van de politieke realiteit. Volgens het 'feminisme' waar JK zich met haar essay achter schaart, is het activisme dat vecht voor mijn identiteit een gevaar voor de hare.

Sindsdien prikt een stuk over JKR in mijn vingers. Maar ruim twee maanden later kost het me moeite om er iets zinnigs over te tikken. Noem het writer's block, maar Rowlings essay maakt me moedeloos, verontwaardigd en angstig tegelijkertijd.

Moedeloos, omdat in dit 'debat', waarin feitelijk mijn bestaan als trans persoon ter discussie wordt gesteld, niets wat ik kan zeggen voldoende lijkt te zijn om genderkritische activisten van mijn menselijkheid te overtuigen.

Verontwaardigd, omdat een geliefde jeugdheldin zich zo openlijk tegen mij en mijn gemeenschap keert, en dat als begenadigd schrijver ook nog eens brengt op een manier die respectvol en bezorgd klinkt, maar bevooroordeeld en onverdraagzaam is.

De twee constanten van mijn jeugd: transitie en Harry Potter

Ik was tien toen ik voor het eerst een Harry Potter-boek in handen kreeg. Mijn moeder had de eerste drie delen voor mij gekocht om mee te nemen op vakantie. Als kind met leeshonger en een levendige fantasie zou ik de boeken over een toverschool wel kunnen waarderen, dacht ze. And boy, was she right. In de eerste week verslond ik alle drie de boeken, en de rest van de vakantie speelde ik zwerkbal in de rivier naast de camping, een schepnet tussen mijn benen als Vuurflits.

Misschien is het gepsychologiseer achteraf, maar ik denk dat ik mij aangetrokken voelde tot Rowlings boeken omdat er zo veel parallellen te trekken zijn met de worstelingen van transgender personen.

Ga maar na: een jongen die eigenlijk een tovenaar is, groeit op bij zijn verschrikkelijke oom en tante, die dreuzels (niet-magische mensen) zijn. Diep vanbinnen voelt hij dat hij anders is, maar hij weet niet goed waarom. Tot hij erachter komt dat hij een tovenaar is. Met dat besef gaat er een nieuwe wereld voor hem open - een wereld waarin lang niet alles makkelijk is, maar die wel past bij wie hij is.

Harry Potter is een verhaal over transitie, over thuiskomen in een identiteit die je nog niet kent, maar die onmiskenbaar van jou is.

Als tienjarige wist ik al een tijd dat ik transgender was. Ik was altijd al anders dan andere jongetjes van mijn leeftijd, en vanaf mijn vijfde had ik daarover regelmatig gesprekken met een kinderpsycholoog die gespecialiseerd was in het werken met genderdysfore kinderen.

Harry Potter is een verhaal over transitie, over thuiskomen in een identiteit die je nog niet kent, maar die onmiskenbaar van jou is.

Het hele proces nam jaren in beslag. En gedurende diezelfde jaren werd de rest van de Potter-reeks gepubliceerd. Mijn tienerjaren kennen zo eigenlijk twee grote constanten: mijn transitie, en het smachten naar het volgende Harry Potter-boek.

Uiteindelijk zou mijn Potter-manie ook na mijn tienertijd nog voortduren. Ik werd volwassen, verhuisde naar Amsterdam, en ging Literatuurwetenschap studeren - een opleiding waar ik oneindig veel betere boeken dan Harry Potter te lezen kreeg. Maar zelfs toen ontsnapte ik nog met regelmaat naar zijn magische wereld. Dan zat ik in de universiteitsbibliotheek te zwoegen aan een paper over Madame Bovary, en luisterde ondertussen heimelijk naar de Potter-audioboeken, voorgelezen door de onvolprezen Stephen Fry.

Maar zoals Harry Potter me toen terugbracht naar de mooie, veilige gedeeltes van mijn jeugd, zo herinnert Rowlings blog me nu aan de lelijkste stukjes - aan de identiteitscrisis die bij trans-zijn hoort, aan de twijfel en onzekerheid die de transitie met zich meebrengt, aan de onverdraagzaamheid van mensen die het niet begrijpen.

Is Rowling nou echt wel zo transfoob?

De argumenten die Rowling in haar blogpost te berde brengt, zijn inmiddels al lang en breed in andere artikelen onderuitgehaald. Zoals de politieke agenda van genderkritische activisten er vooral een is van stropoppen, zo worden ook Rowlings standpunten voornamelijk gestut door desinformatie, verdraaide feiten, en moedwillige leugens die met gemak te weerleggen zijn.

Wie geïnteresseerd is in een nauwgezette analyse waarin de onjuistheden in JKR's essay stap voor stap worden doorgenomen, en haar transfobe hondenfluitjes worden blootgelegd, raad ik met klem aan voor Medium te lezen, of deze video te bekijken van

Het zou gemakkelijk zijn een herhaling van zetten te plegen, door hier met bronnen te zwaaien die Rowlings argumenten weerleggen, te concluderen dat ze transfoob en een TERF is, en mijn laptop tevreden dicht te klappen.

Maar zo'n stuk zou geen recht doen aan het gevoel dat me bekroop toen ik haar essay las. Hoewel ik weet waar haar argumenten een loopje nemen met de werkelijkheid, kreeg ik tijdens het lezen van haar blog meer en meer begrip voor Rowling.

Om dat toe te geven voelt enorm kwetsbaar. Ik weet dat ik woedend zou moeten zijn. Dus waarom voel ik dat dan niet? Ik krijg mijn vinger er maar niet achter.

Ik weet dat ik woedend zou moeten zijn. Dus waarom voel ik dat dan niet?

Misschien komt het door de respectvolle toon waarmee JKR over transgender personen schrijft. Waar andere genderkritische feministen opzettelijk trans personen agressie tegen de transgendergemeenschap downplayen, of suggereren dat met name trans vrouwen haast zonder uitzondering verkrachters zijn, toont Rowling zich opvallend empathisch.

Voor de goede orde: dit zijn dingen die andere genderkritische activisten nooit zouden zeggen. Hun aanval op transgender-identiteiten begint steevast met de gladde ontkenning ervan, en eindigt vaak in rücksichtslose demonisering. Kunnen we daarom echt zeggen dat Rowling, die in haar essay kiest voor een sympathiekere strategie, net zo transfoob is als haar genderkritische collega's?

Ik wil ook een samenleving waarin vrouwen veilig zijn

Volgens Rowling en andere genderkritische activisten is de veiligheid van vrouwen sterk afhankelijk van heersende gendernormen - normen die bijvoorbeeld regelen dat mensen met piemels niet in vrouwenkleedkamers en -toiletten komen. Transgender personen zetten die gendernormen op hun kop. En dat is gevaarlijk, vinden genderkritische feministen. Want: als iedereen over zichzelf mag zeggen dat ze vrouw zijn en vervolgens zomaar - penis en al - een vrouwenkleedkamer binnen mogen wandelen, dan is het slechts een kwestie van tijd voordat verkrachters dit gaan misbruiken om vrouwen aan te randen.

Rowlings 'zorgen' berusten vooral op een valse tegenstelling

Maar transgender personen gebruiken al tientallen jaren de faciliteiten die overeenkomen met hun gevoelde genderidentiteit, zonder problemen. Er is zelfs onderzocht of het toelaten van trans personen tot de kleedruimtes en wc's van hun gevoelde gender leidt tot een toename van geweld tegen vrouwen. Spoiler alert:

De veiligheid van vrouwen en de rechten van transgender personen zijn dus geen zero-sum game - het is niet zo dat de ene groep verliest als de andere wint. Rowlings 'zorgen' berusten vooral op een valse tegenstelling.

Maar de oorzaak van haar zorgen begrijp ik wel.

De veiligheid van vrouwen in onze samenleving is precair. In het Verenigd Koninkrijk, waar JKR vandaan komt, Rowling zelf is hier nota bene een voorbeeld van: in haar essay vertelt ze openlijk over het misbruik dat zij meemaakte in een eerdere relatie.

En toch: gaan we dit probleem écht oplossen door trans vrouwen de toegang tot vrouwentoiletten te verbieden? Want laten we wel wezen: een pictogrammetje op een wc-deur houdt een verkrachter die kwaad wil echt niet buiten. Dus als de veiligheid van vrouwen valt of staat met de integriteit van sekse-gesegregeerde ruimtes, dan is er iets grondig mis met hoe we het probleem van seksueel geweld tegen vrouwen aanpakken.

Net als Rowling wil ook ik leven in een maatschappij waarin vrouwen zich veilig kunnen voelen.

Maar een aanval op de transgendergemeenschap zal niks oplossen.

Mijn kleedkamerdilemma

Dat wil overigens niet zeggen dat ik zelf nooit scrupules heb gehad over het gebruik van female exclusive spaces. Die toiletten en kleedkamers waren nogal een dilemma toen ik naar de middelbare school ging.

Mijn genderidentiteit was op dat moment nog volop in beweging. Ik droeg bijvoorbeeld al 'fulltime' meisjeskleding, maar werd wel nog 'hij/hem' genoemd, en bezocht als ik aandrang voelde nog altijd het herentoilet. In het traject van jongen naar meisje bevond ik me ergens halverwege. En binnen de kortste keren wist de hele school ervan.

Dus wat te doen met die sekse-gesegregeerde ruimtes? Want een genderidentiteit die ergens tussen man en vrouw in hangt, daar had mijn school geen kleedkamers of toiletten voor.

Met de toiletten was het gauw opgelost. Nadat ik op mijn eerste dag twee keer uit het herentoilet gestuurd was door andere behoeftigen, besloot ik voortaan maar voor het vrouwentoilet te kiezen. Maar met de kleedkamers heeft dat nog een tijd geduurd. Want anders dan in het toilet gaan hier in het bijzijn van anderen kleren uit en worden lijven die bang zijn voor spiedende ogen ontbloot.

De eerste anderhalf jaar kleedde ik me daarom toch maar bij de heren om voor gym, bang dat er meiden zouden zijn die het misschien onprettig zouden vinden, zo'n half jongetje, half meisje in dezelfde kleedruimte als zij. Totdat ik zelf borstprotheses ging dragen en ik me ook niet meer prettig voelde bij de jongens.

Als oplossing kreeg ik van mijn gymdocent de sleutel van een invalidentoilet, waar ik me alleen kon omkleden. Een goede tussenweg, vond ik toen, maar ook behoorlijk eenzaam.

Op zulke momenten van twijfel dacht ik vaak aan de betoverde trap naar de meisjesslaapzalen van op Zweinstein, de tovenaarsschool uit de Harry Potterboeken. Vrouwelijke Griffoendors hebben vrij toegang tot de jongensslaapzalen, maar als een jongen de trap naar de slaapzaal voor de meiden betreedt, verandert die in een onbeklimbare

De onvrijwillige vraag die af en toe door mijn hoofd spookte, als ik met mijn klasgenoten de vrouwenkleedkamer binnenliep: had deze ruimte mij wel binnengelaten als ik op Zweinstein had gezeten?

Nu weet ik het antwoord: volgens Rowling hoor ik niet in haar kleedkamer thuis. Zoals een bekend genderkritisch adagium luidt: een vos hoort niet in het kippenhok. Ook niet als hij zich als kip identificeert.

Ik ben Voldemort niet. Echt niet

En zo rakelt Rowlings essay oude gevoelens van onzekerheid op. Een tienertijd lang heb ik geprobeerd mijn identiteit in te passen in een wereld die fundamenteel niet op mij is ingericht. En net als ik denk dat ik er ben, staat er een beweging op die roept dat ik vrouwen in gevaar breng. Door simpelweg te zijn wie ik ben, en te strijden voor een waardig bestaan.

Ondertussen zie ik online een collectieve woede-uitbarsting ontstaan die me evengoed wanhopig maakt. Al sinds het 'liken' van haar eerste transfobe tweet ontvangt Rowling dagelijks doodsbedreigingen en rape threats. Het is een woede die ik begrijp, maar die me ook beangstigt. Want hoe hoger de gemoederen tussen transgender-activisten en genderkritische feministen oplopen, hoe verder we van een oplossing verwijderd raken.

De verontwaardiging die JKR met haar blogpost en tweets losmaakt is overigens niet altijd onproductief. Soms levert het sterk en doorwrocht verzet op. Zoals van Laurie Penny voor Medium, waarin ze beargumenteert waarom transfobie niet in het feminisme thuishoort. Of dat collega OluTimehin Adegbeye schreef voor The Correspondent, waarin ze laat zien hoe opzettelijke onwetendheid over de transgendergemeenschap Rowlings machtspositie in stand houdt.

Rowling trapt vanuit haar relatief geprivilegieerde positie als witte, cisgender vrouw naar beneden

OluTimehin kreeg naar aanleiding van haar verhaal veel kritiek, bijvoorbeeld omdat ze Rowling een noemt. En eerlijk gezegd: Rowling gedraagt zich ook wel alseen Karen - vanuit haar relatief geprivilegieerde positie als witte, cisgender vrouw trapt ze naar beneden, naar een gemeenschap die het vele malen slechter heeft dan zij.

Maar hoewel die trap verkeerd terechtkomt, snap ik wel waarom Rowling trapt. Ze heeft aan den lijve ondervonden hoe gevaarlijk onze patriarchale samenleving voor vrouwen kan zijn. Om dat trauma een plek te geven, kiest ze een zondebok. Haar pavlovreactie is misschien onterecht en oneerlijk, maar dat staat los van het medeleven en de compassie die zij ook verdient.

Laten we zacht zijn voor elkaar

Hoewel Rowlings angst voor trans personen nauwelijks rationeel is, herken ik haar angst voor seksueel geweld, en deel ik haar strijd voor een veiliger wereld voor vrouwen. Maar voor haar ben ík de spreekwoordelijke vos in het kippenhok. De wolf in schaapskleren. De Voldemort in een jurk.

Ik zou tegen haar willen zeggen: ik ben Voldemort niet. Echt niet. En ik geloof zelfs dat jij geen Voldemort bent. Goed en kwaad zijn in het echt lang niet zo binair als in je boeken.

Zoals Albus Perkamentus - schoolhoofd van Zweinstein, en naar ik begrijp óók jouw favoriete personage - in Harry Potter en de Vuurbeker zegt: 'Onze kracht is even groot als onze eensgezindheid, onze zwakte even groot als onze verdeeldheid. [...] We kunnen onenigheid en vijandschap alleen bestrijden door een even grote mate van vriendschap en vertrouwen te

Laten we daarom beginnen met zacht te zijn voor elkaar. Want pas als we de handen ineenslaan wordt de wereld een betere plek voor ons allebei.

Meer lezen?

Hoe voed je je kinderen op tot feminist? (En drie andere belangrijke vragen voor feministen) Vier correspondenten denken na over wat het betekent om feminist te zijn anno 2020 - en stellen de vragen die elke feminist zichzelf zou moeten stellen.

Lees het artikel hier

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Ik ben trans en snap J.K. Rowlings zorgen over de positie van vrouwen. Transfobie is alleen niet de oplossing

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Weet jij nog waar je was op 22 juli 2007? Ik wel. Ik zat te janken in een tram in Den Haag. Een dag eerder was het laatste boek uit J.K. Rowlings zevendelige Harry Potter-serie uitgekomen. Ik was het met mijn vader gaan kopen in een boekwinkel in Scheveningen, waar ik met mijn ouders op vakantie was.

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The Harry Potter author is being criticized for comments she made about the trans community.

Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling came under fire in early June 2020 for controversial tweets she posted about the transgender community. Her stance has caused fans and stars of the wizarding world like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne to speak out against the author. Here's everything you need to know:

What did J.K. Rowling say, exactly?

On June 6, 2020, Rowling retweeted an op-ed piece that discussed "people who menstruate," apparently taking issue with the fact that the story did not use the word women. "'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" she wrote.

That initial tweet garnered a lot of backlash, but the Harry Potter author did not relent and wrote about her views in more detail. "If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth," she tweeted. "The idea that women like me, who've been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they're vulnerable in the same way as women-i.e., to male violence-'hate' trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences-is a nonsense."

She continued, "I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so."

Then, on June 10, 2020, Rowling published a lengthy post on her website and sent out a tweet that read "TERF Wars." (TERF is an acronym that stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist.)

"This isn't an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it's time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity," she wrote. "For people who don't know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who'd lost her job for what were deemed 'transphobic' tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn't."

Rowling explains that she became interested in trans issues while researching a character she's writing. Rowling also outlined "five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism."

The fan backlash:

Rowling's initial tweets and her subsequent doubling down have drawn a lot of ire from trans activists and Harry Potter fans, many of whom had found comfort in the story of an outsider finding a place where he belonged.

The celebrity and industry's initial response:

Radcliffe, Harry Potter himself, was the first star from the franchise to release a statement ( via The Trevor Project) about Rowling's comments.

"I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between J.K. Rowling and myself," he said, "but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what's important right now. While Jo is unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken, as someone who has been honored to work with and continues to contribute to The Trevor Project for the last decade, and just as a human being, I feel compelled to say something at this moment. Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I. According to The Trevor Project, 78% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity. It's clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm."

He continued, "To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished. I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don't entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you.... And in my opinion, nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much."

Watson, who played Hermione Granger, also spoke out in support of the trans community. "Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren't who they say they are. I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you, and love you for who you are," she wrote in a series of tweets. "I donate to @Mermaids_Gender and @mamacash. If you can, perhaps you'll feel inclined to do the same. Happy #PRIDE2020 Sending love x."

(Watson has not been without controversy lately, either. She was criticized by some for originally just posting black squares on Instagram in early June 2020 in support of Black Lives Matter but failing to provide any information about the cause.)

Grint, who portrayed Ron Wesley, issued a statement in response to Rowling's essay as well.

"I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers. Trans women are women. Trans men are men," Grint said, according to the Sunday Times on Friday, June 12, 2020. "We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment."

Also, Bonnie Wright, the actor who played the onscreen sister of Grint's Ron, Ginny Weasley, spoke out via Twitter. "If Harry Potter was a source of love and belonging for you, that love is infinite and there to take without judgment or question. Transwomen are Women. I see and love you, Bonnie x," she wrote.

Redmayne, who appeared in Rowling's Fantastic Beasts franchise and played a transgender woman in The Danish Girl, released a lengthy statement to Variety.

"Respect for transgender people remains a cultural imperative, and over the years I have been trying to constantly educate myself. This is an ongoing process," he said. "As someone who has worked with both JK Rowling and members of the trans community, I wanted to make it absolutely clear where I stand. I disagree with Jo's comments. Trans women are women, trans men are men, and nonbinary identities are valid. I would never want to speak on behalf of the community but I do know that my dear transgender friends and colleagues are tired of this constant questioning of their identities, which all too often results in violence and abuse. They simply want to live their lives peacefully, and it's time to let them do so."

Warner Bros., which produced the Harry Potter films, released this statement about Rowling's comments:

Wait, how is Stephen King involved?

J.K. Rowling reportedly deleted a gushing tweet about Stephen King after the renowned horror writer tweeted in support of trans women.

Here's what apparently went down: King retweeted a message from Rowling's account. "Andrea Dworkin wrote: 'Men often react to women's words-speaking and writing-as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women's words with violence,'" Rowling tweeted on June 28, 2020. "It isn't hateful for women [to] speak about their own experiences, nor do they deserve shaming for doing so."

In response, Rowling sent a now-deleted tweet praising the best-selling author. "I've always revered @StephenKing, but today my love reached-maybe not Annie Wilkes levels-but new heights," she reportedly tweeted, according to Us Weekly. "It's so much easier for men to ignore women's concerns, or to belittle them, but I won't ever forget the men who stood up when they didn't need to. Thank you, Stephen."

However, when a fan asked King to respond to Rowling's transgender statements, the author replied that, "Trans women are women."

According to Hogwarts fans on Twitter as well as to Us Weekly, Rowling deleted her tweet about King shortly after.

Almost one year later, King spoke about what went down, adding that Rowling also blocked the famous author on Twitter after his tweet. "Jo canceled me," the 73-year-old told The Daily Beast in an interview published on May 20, 2021. "She sorta blocked me and all that.

"Here's the thing: She is welcome to her opinion," King added, specifically referencing Rowling's statements on transgender women. "I just felt that her belief was, in my opinion, wrong. We have differing opinions, but that's life."

What about the rant in July 2020?

On July 5, 2020, Rowling went on another social media rant after a Twitter user called her out for liking a tweet that compared hormone therapy to antidepressants.

"I've ignored fake tweets attributed to me and RTed widely. I've ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art. I've ignored death and rape threats. I'm not going to ignore this," Rowling wrote. "When you lie about what I believe about mental health medication and when you misrepresent the views of a trans woman for whom I feel nothing but admiration and solidarity, you cross a line."

She continued, "Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests. Many, myself included, believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function."

She once again seemingly called into question the use of hormones. "The long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones have been now been tracked over a lengthy period," she tweeted. "These side-effects are often minimised or denied by trans activists.... None of that may trouble you or disturb your belief in your own righteousness. But if so, I can't pretend I care much about your bad opinion of me."

Her new books aren't helping: Part one.

On September 14, 2020, her book Trouble Blood sparked another round of outrage after an early review began making the rounds. The book reportedly follows a detective on the hunt for a cis male serial killer who dresses as a woman in order to hunt and murder cis women. The Telegraph's review describes it as a "book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress," per Pink News.

Of course, people had thoughts. In fact, #RIPJKRowling quickly began trending. "She's convinced she's a martyr and this is her suicide mission," one user wrote.

Robbie Coltrane defended J.K. Rowling.

The man who played Hagrid was one of the few actors from the Harry Potter-verse to defend Rowling. "I don't think what she said was offensive, really. I don't know why but there's a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended," he told Radio Times, per the Standard. "They wouldn't have won the war, would they? That's me talking like a grumpy old man, but you just think, Oh, get over yourself. Wise up, stand up straight, and carry on."

He continued, "I don't want to get involved in all of that because of all the hate mail and all that shit, which I don't need at my time of life."

Pete Davidson had the perfect response to the whole thing on Saturday Night Live.

Davidson, who has a Harry Potter tattoo he now seems to regret, joined SNL 's "Weekend Update" on October 10, 2020, to discuss that summer's controversy.

"I long for a few young years ago when the worst things she did were those Fantastic Beasts movies," he joked. "No discrimination there-those films harmed us all equally."

Watch his full remarks, below:

Eddie Izzard comes to Rowling's defense.

The comedian, who announced in December 2020 she's gender-fluid and identifies with she/ her pronouns, said in an interview with The Telegraph, "I don't think J.K. Rowling is transphobic. I think we need to look at the things she has written about in her blog. Women have been through such hell over history. Trans people have been invisible too. I hate the idea we are fighting between ourselves, but it's not going to be sorted with the wave of a wand. I don't have all the answers. If people disagree with me, fine, but why are we going through hell on this?"

A new Harry Potter TV show might be happening-and some fans aren't happy.

In January 2021, rumors started swirling that a Harry Potter TV show was in "early development" at HBO Max. The streaming platform and Warner Bros. shot this down in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, but still fans are chattering. And not all of them are happy about the idea of Rowling profiting off a hypothetical show.

Rowling says she has received death threats.

In response to one person who said, "I wish you a very nice pipebomb in mailbox," she said, "To be fair, when you can't get a woman sacked, arrested or dropped by her publisher, and cancelling her only made her book sales go up, there's really only one place to go."

"Hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me I've realised that this movement poses no risk to women whatsoever."

Dave Chappelle came under fire for defending Rowling.

In Dave Chappelle's Netflix special, which premiered on October 5, 2021, the comedian declared he was a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) like Rowling. "Gender is a fact," he said. "Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. This is a fact." He continued on to make several jokes at trans people's expense, which we will not repeat here. Following the special's release, many Netflix users are calling for its removal from the streaming platform while creators-like Jaclyn Moore, a writer and co-showrunner on Dear White People -declared they will no longer work with the company.

She did not return for the HP films' 20th anniversary special on HBO Max.

Though J.K. Rowling only appeared in Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts through archival footage, she denies being left out by Warner Bros.

In an interview with Graham Norton for Virgin Radio UK in August 2022, she corrected the host when he mentioned she was "excluded" from the special. "I wasn't, actually-I was asked to be on that, and I decided I didn't want to do it," she said, per Vanity Fair. "I thought it was about the films more than the books, you know? Quite rightly, as that is what the anniversary was about, so no one said, 'Don't come.'"

When asked if she's still in touch with any of the "young" Harry Potter actors, she replied, "Yes, I do, some more than others, but that was always the case. Some I knew better than others."

The new books aren't helping: Part two.

In August 2022, Rowling began promoting her new novel, The Ink Black Heart, published under her pen name Robert Galbraith. In the book, which is over a thousand pages long, a YouTube-based cartoonist's work is accused of being racist, transphobic, and ableist; she's then doxxed, threatened with rape and death, and is ultimately stabbed to death in a cemetery. According to one reviewer's take, the book "takes aim" at "social justice warriors."

But the book is not based on Rowling's own controversies...says Rowling. "I should make it really clear after some of the things that have happened the last year that this is not depicting [that]," Rowling said to Graham Norton in an interview. "I had written the book before certain things happened to me online. I said to my husband, 'I think everyone is going to see this as a response to what happened to me,' but it genuinely wasn't. The first draft of the book was finished at the point certain things happened."

Tom Felton dismissed her involvement in the films.

In an interview with The Independent about his memoir, the Draco Malfoy actor said he is "pro-human-rights across the board" and suggested Rowling "wasn't part of the filmmaking process as much as some people might think."

"First of all, I don't know enough about the specifics of what anyone said," he said of Rowling's infamous statements, per Variety. "My dog takes up far too much time for me to go into such matters. I mean, the obvious things to say are that I'm pro-choice, pro-discussion, pro-human-rights across the board, and pro-love. And anything that is not those things, I don't really have much time for."

The actor continued, "It is also a reminder that as much as Jo is the founder of [these] stories, she wasn't part of the filmmaking process as much as some people might think. I think I only recall seeing her once or twice on set."

Helena Bonham Carter came to her defense.

Bonham Carter, who played Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter films, defended Rowling in a November 2022 interview with The Sunday Times Magazine.

"It's horrendous, a load of bollocks," she said of the Rowling backlash. "I think she has been hounded. It's been taken to the extreme, the judgmentalism of people. She's allowed her opinion, particularly if she's suffered abuse," Bonham Carter continued. "Everybody carries their own history of trauma and forms their opinions from that trauma, and you have to respect where people come from and their pain. You don't all have to agree on everything-that would be insane and boring. She's not meaning it aggressively, she's just saying something out of her own experience."

A trans artist resells Harry Potter books with new covers that omit Rowling's name.

Canadian printmaker and book artist Laur Flom, who is trans, garnered major attention when they began a project of buying secondhand Harry Potter books and replacing the covers with redesigned versions that don't have J.K. Rowling's name. Flom then resells the books for £140, according to Yahoo! News. In a TikTok from February 2022, Flom said, "My aim with this project is to engage critically and give an option to people who do still want to enjoy Harry Potter without supporting J.K. Rowling."

Hogwarts Legacy, a video game based on the franchise, seemingly introduces a trans character.

Per Entertainment Weekly, the hotly anticipated Hogwarts Legacy, a video game set in the Harry Potter universe, introduces a new character, Sirona Ryan, who is seemingly trans. Though Sirona, a barkeep at Three Broomsticks, is not explicitly labeled as transgender, a line of her dialogue is highly suggestive. Referring to her friendship with a goblin, she says, "Hadn't seen him in years when he came in a few months ago. But he recognized me instantly. Which is more than I can say for some of my own classmates. Took them a second to realize I was actually a witch, not a wizard."

Warner Bros. Games has already faced criticism over Hogwarts Legacy, which creates a new revenue stream for Rowling. When asked about the concerns by IGN, game director Alan Tew said, "We know our fans fell in love with the Wizarding World, and we believe they fell in love with it for the right reasons. We know that's a diverse audience. For us, it's making sure that the audience, who always dreamed of having this game, had the opportunity to feel welcomed back. That they have a home here and that it's a good place to tell their story."

Rowling compares the trans rights movement to Death Eaters....

Yeah, you read that right. In episode five of the podcast The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, the author describes the trans rights movement as "dangerous." Here's an excerpt of her statement from March 2023, per Vox:

[S]ome of you have not understood the books. The Death Eaters claimed, "We have been made to live in secret, and now is our time, and any who stand in our way must be destroyed. If you disagree with us, you must die." They demonized and dehumanized those who were not like them.

I am fighting what I see as a powerful, insidious, misogynistic movement, that has gained huge purchase in very influential areas of society. I do not see this particular movement as either benign or powerless, so I'm afraid I stand with the women who are fighting to be heard against threats of loss of livelihood and threats to their safety.

Daniel Radcliffe lays down the gauntlet.

In late March 2023, the Harry Potter star moderated the first episode of Sharing Space, "a new video series from the nonprofit The Trevor Project that features roundtable conversations with LGBTQ youth moderated by adult allies." Per The Hollywood Reporter, Radcliffe spoke to six transgender and nonbinary youth for the premiere episode, which is set to air on The Trevor Project's YouTube page on March 31, the Transgender Day of Visibility.

"We listen to so many people talk about trans youth and hear them talked about so often in the news, but very rarely do we actually hear from these youth directly," Radcliffe said in a statement. "It was an absolute privilege to get to meet and listen to this incredible group of young people. At the end of the day, if you're going to talk about trans kids, it might be useful to actually listen to trans kids."

Fans on Twitter and TikTok widely praise Radcliffe for his allyship in the wake of Rowling's consistent transphobia.

She's developing a Harry Potter TV series with HBO Max.

In April, news broke via Bloomberg that HBO Max was reportedly in talks with Rowling to produce a multiseason TV series wherein each of the seven Harry Potter books would have its own season. Despite her offensive, transphobic remarks, Rowling would be directly involved in the series to keep the storyline faithful to her books. However, the outlet noted that she would not hold a major production role.

David Zaslav, the CEO of HBO parent company Warner Bros Discovery, "has met multiple times with Rowling and has spoken up in support of the author" amid her ongoing controversies, per Deadline.

It was then confirmed by Variety that a series is in the works at Max, the combined streaming home of HBO Max and Discovery+ due to launch in the spring. The series will feature an entirely new cast and Rowling as an executive producer. "Max's commitment to preserving the integrity of my books is important to me, and I'm looking forward to being part of this new adaptation, which will allow for a degree of depth and detail only afforded by a long-form television series," said the author.

ContraPoints calls Rowling a "useful idiot" for the patriarchy.

Natalie Wynn, a popular trans YouTuber and political commentator who posts under the username ContraPoints, started trending on Twitter on April 17, when she dropped her explanation of why there is no "witch hunt" against Rowling. It's worth taking the time to watch Wynn's two-hour analysis in full, which she concludes with two important points. The first: "Is the backlash against J.K. Rowling a witch hunt? Unequivocally no," Wynn says.

But she also adds that Rowling is still "not the final boss of transphobia." Wynn explains, "A movement can't get along without a devil. And across the whole political spectrum, there's a misogynistic tendency to choose a female devil. Whether it's Anita Bryant, Hillary Clinton, Marie Antoinette, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or J.K. Rowling." The real threat to trans people, Wynn says, is the Republican party. Rowling and other TERFs are "useful idiots who put a concerned female face on the patriarchal violence against trans people that will ultimately be enacted by right-wing men."

Rowling mocks TV show boycotters.

With news of the HBO Max reboot, all eyes are on J.K. Rowling-and she keeps giving her critics something to talk about. The author responded to fans' calls to boycott the show on Twitter on April 21: "Dreadful news, which I feel duty bound to share," she wrote. "Activists in my mentions are trying to organize yet another boycott of my work, this time of the Harry Potter TV show." The sarcasm speaks volumes.

To add insult to injury, she remarked that she would stock up on champagne to celebrate, then admitted in the replies that she doesn't even really like champagne.

Professor Slughorn, played by Jim Broadbent, weighs in.

The original cast members are divided in their response to Rowling's TERF rhetoric. Jim Broadbent, who played Professor Slughorn, revealed where he stands in an April 23 interview with The Telegraph.

"It's really sad," the actor said. "I think J.K. Rowling is amazing. I haven't had to confront [the criticism] myself, but I would support her in that, I think, if it came to it." Broadbent is among Rowling's supporters, who include Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter.

Rowling insists she'd take prison time rather than correctly use a trans person's pronouns.

Yes, you read that correctly. Per Deadline, the author appeared to respond to an October 14 report in the Daily Mail which suggested that Britain's Labour movement is working to make gender identity attacks criminal offenses. Such offenses, critics insisted in the report, would carry a two-year sentence.

"I'll happily do two years if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex," Rowling wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Her comment was in response to a follower who said she could receive jail time for her views. "Bring on the court case, I say," she added. "It'll be more fun than I've ever had on a red carpet."

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J.K. Rowling Says She'd 'Happily' Take Prison Time Rather Than Use a Trans Person's Correct Pronouns

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"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling is under fire after posting a series of controversial tweets about the transgender community.

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Addressing The Claims In JK Rowling’s Justification For Transphobia

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Recently JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter, tweeted some transphobic statements and dogwhistles on Twitter that I have addressed here…

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Nothing caused me greater culture shock when I moved from New York to London than the British media's hysterical obsession with trans women.

I'd turn on the Today Programme, the BBC's flagship morning news show, as I made my coffee and hear debates over whether trans women were actually just men who thought they were women. On the weekends, I'd read headlines in both the liberal Guardian and the conservative Daily Mail questioning whether trans women have the right to identify as women. Then there were the protests: women diving into men's bathing pools wearing fake beards and "mankinis," yelling "dykes not dicks" at Pride parades, wielding graphic post-surgery posters at LGBT youth conferences. I was confused to find that the protesters were often middle-aged, middle-class women, some of whom wore mysterious badges proclaiming they had been "Radicalised by Mumsnet."

Of course, I'd witnessed virulent transphobia in the U.S. But there, it takes a different public form - its most vocal proponents are Republicans who want to ban bathroom access to trans people, or contrarians who might call themselves liberal but derive their credibility from criticizing oppressed groups seeking equality. TERFS, short for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, don't get as much airplay. TERFs believe that women are defined by their biological differences from men. They want liberation from gender stereotypes, but don't think it's possible to be freed from biological sex, and argue the latter goal is not just naive but hurts efforts to combat sexual violence and discrimination. That was exactly the type of messaging I was regularly hearing in the U.K. media, which more frequently than not cast women's rights and trans rights as diametrically opposed.

Some of the women wore mysterious badges proclaiming they had been "Radicalised by Mumsnet."

There are many theories as to why TERFism is more prevalent in the U.K. than in the U.S. Critics have cited everything from Britain's imperialist history (the empire promoted laws criminalizing homosexuality and enforcing the gender binary) to the influence of the broader U.K. "skeptics" movement, which dogmatically opposes any claims based on faith or "anecdotal" evidence. Meanwhile, British TERFs wonder whether American feminists are so busy dealing with right wing attacks that they don't have the time to wade in. Everyone agrees the issue heated up around the time I moved in 2018, when Theresa May's Conservative government proposed measures to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (that the Tory government proposed these progressive reforms added to my culture shock).

The original GRA gave trans people the right to change their legal gender. The reforms would have allowed them to do so without a medical diagnosis, a step that "would have simply brought England into line with Argentina, Ireland and Portugal, among others," journalist Juliet Jacques wrote at the time. Instead, "it became a rallying point for a minority of feminists strongly opposed to trans rights."

I was baffled to learn these feminists were finding each other on Mumsnet, a collection of message boards I'd previously turned to for advice on how to descale my dishwasher and associated with smug, bougie mums comparing high-end strollers and complaining about the neighbor's dog eating their begonias. How wrong I was to underestimate Mumsnet.

Mumsnet, which celebrated its twentieth birthday last year, claims to be the U.K.'s most popular online community "for parents," but research shows, unsurprisingly, that nearly all Mumsnetters are women. More specifically, they are believed to be mostly white, middle-class, heterosexual women, and Mumsnet's top trending discussions reflect that demographic's interests: Recently they were concerned with whether a woman should deny her "DH" (Dear Husband) his "greatest wish" of getting a puppy, and how to successfully treat head lice.

The site's massive user base - Mumsnet says it gets around 7 million unique visitors per month and clocks up around 100 million page views - is considered to be affluent and influential, and is a huge draw for both marketers and politicians. Mumsnet conducts its own product reviews, surveying mums on whole-meal breads and baby bottles. Once a product wins a "Mumsnet Best" award the brand can pay a licensing fee to use the badge in its marketing material. Prime ministerial candidates from both sides of the political spectrum, as well as Hillary Clinton, have hosted Q&A sessions there.

Most Mumsnetters identify as liberal, and the rest of the site reflects that bias, but when I first visited the "women's_rights" forum I felt like I had clicked on a Fox News comments section. It's a safe space for TERFs, who consider that term a slur and prefer to call themselves "gender critical." TERFism has been around for decades - the term originated in 1970s radical feminist circles - but Mumsnet has enabled it to find a new and powerful audience. Leading British journalists have admitted that their views on this topic are directly influenced by the forum. And when the proposed GRA reforms were taken off the table in September, Mumsnetters rightfully took credit for what they saw as a "gender critical" victory.

TERFism has been around for decades, but Mumsnet has enabled it to find a new and powerful audience.

Some TERFs insist that they support trans rights as long as the fight doesn't overshadow what they consider real feminist initiatives. But scratch that surface and you'll find that the core issue underlying every legitimate-sounding concern about trans rights outshining, say, domestic abuse or reproductive justice, is "simple animosity toward trans people's very existence," as American YouTuber Natalie Wynn put it in a nuanced video unpacking the subject.

Despite Mumsnet's attempts to moderate threads about gender (neither side is happy with the administrators' efforts) transphobia is out in the open there, too. The majority of posts on the woman's rights forum are based on the fearful conviction that trans women - who many Mumsnetters insist on misgendering as men - are trying to infiltrate and destroy the women's rights movement.

On a recent visit to the forum, I read about outrage over a gym that segregates changing rooms by gender identity instead of biological sex, women seeking feminist charities that haven't replaced the word "women" with "people," and criticism of the National Health Service for stating that the needs of trans patients should be attended to. At first, I was surprised to find in these threads the same paranoid and repeatedly debunked fears about trans women assaulting cis women in bathrooms and prisons that I associated primarily with right-wing U.S. senators. But as I did more research, I learned that such fanaticism had been present in the U.K. for some time. In 2017, when two members of parliament hosted a chat on Mumsnet to discuss the issue of women returning to the workplace, commenters were more interested in discussing whether the politicians believed trans women were women. The politicians tried in vain to focus on questions related to employment rights, but the posters argued that the issue couldn't be discussed unless they could first agree upon a definition of "woman."

I wanted to understand why so many Mumsnetters - women who had come to the site "for the babies" but "stayed for the feminism," as one user wrote - were invigorated by an outdated and bigoted perspective on gender.

As I read thread after thread, I noticed that many of the posters wrote about feeling newly disenfranchised and isolated after giving birth for the first time; cast out of a society in which they had previously enjoyed power by virtue of their relative wealth and education. Through organizing around this "taboo" issue (we'll get to that later) they were experiencing solidarity and a sense of purpose that had been missing in their postnatal lives.

"I'm not telling trans people they are wrong for being trans, I'm angry that women are being called transphobic for saying that their biological functions are their own," one woman wrote in a June 2020 thread entitled "Pro Women, Not Anti Trans - Why Biology Is Important." She went on: it "isn't about gender, it's about sex and anatomy and how they affect women every day, and how bloody unfair it is for others to deny our bodies, how they work or our own opinions as they're not deemed 'inclusive' for those who can't ever biologically be the same."

Weren't there more important "women's rights" issues going on in the U.K.?

"Being pregnant, giving birth and breastfeeding are the only time in my life that I felt a proper awareness that I am female," another woman wrote recently. "I don't mean in a gender identity sense, I mean in a 'I have a female body and am doing something only a person with a female body can ever do' kind of sense."

"Carrying my child and birthing my child was not a fucking social construct," another wrote.

Trans advocates and allies who don't take TERFs seriously are not just sexist but anti-mother, many women concluded. Some wrote that the survival of the women's rights forum was vital because losing the space would show a "disregard for mothers and our need to access support and information."

But weren't there more important "women's rights" issues going on in the U.K., like the widespread failure to support survivors of sexual assault, or the fact that funding for public services, including domestic violence organizations and child care centers, had been slashed by the conservatives? Those issues did pop up on the forum, but in recent years they were often prompted, or derailed, by anti-trans sentiment.

"Try being a single parent of a disabled child who doesn't have a school to go to!" one woman wrote on a thread dedicated to mocking a documentary about the lack of support for trans people.

"Can I join the documentary after being on a waiting list for 2 years to have my rectal prolapse fixed?" another asked. "Childbirth has a lot to answer for and some days it's horrendous for quality of life, but yet I still wait on the waiting list."

The Mumsnetters weren't just griping. They were organizing.

"The 'radicalised by mumsnet' slogan 'sums it up,'" one user wrote recently. "Mumsnet is such an important place to come to in order to be awakened to what is going on." She said she had self-identified as a "trans ally" until she read "an enormous number" of Mumsnet threads with "increasing horror."

"Mumsnet provides the open gateway," she wrote. "What we do outside of mumsnet is so important - talking to friends, family, effecting changes at workplaces, schools, and councils, contacting MPs, supporting legal activity, correcting incorrect representations of the equality act, challenging every substitute of 'gender' for 'sex' in every half-baked survey etc ... I have loved being part of this political movement."

"Mumsnet is the think-tank, campaign hub and archive of thinking about why #sexmatters," prominent U.K. TERF Maya Forstater recently tweeted in response to another woman who proclaimed there was "no state of invisibility more invisible" than being a stay-at-home parent or caregiver.

The more I learned about Mumsnet, the more the forum reminded me of my past reporting on the ways men are radicalized by the toxic online "manosphere," where pick-up artists (PUAs) and men's rights activists (MRAs) recruit followers by exploiting real fears (such as economic anxiety) and blaming marginalized outgroups (women, people of color, Jews) for societal failures. As people get drawn into these communities, they become obsessed with a misguided sense of victimization and start to focus single-mindedly on their newfound worldview.

It seemed to me that was exactly what was happening on Mumsnet: some of these newly "gender critical" Mumsnetters were relatively privileged women who had never felt marginalized until they gave birth and came to feel isolated in their nuclear households and (rightfully!) outraged at the lack of support for mothers in the U.K. They turned to Mumsnet for solidarity, and somehow became fixated on trans women in the process. It was so textbook that Mumsnetters even had their own vernacular, just like MRAs who famously use being "red pilled" as slang for choosing to see the ugly truth. In the forums, women use "Spartacus" as a dog whistle to reference a famous 2016 thread in which a user wrote "Men cannot become women, ever. Women cannot become men, ever," with many commenting in agreement.

Mumsnet's women's rights forum didn't just offer women a safe space to organize. By providing a platform that tolerated TERFism, it had also handed users a convenient scapegoat for all of their problems - not austerity, not misogyny, but the relatively tiny and extremely marginalized and oppressed trans population.

Of course, there are many differences between MRAs and Mumsnetters. MRAs are often stereotyped as losers hiding out in their mother's basements; Mumsnetters are more likely to discuss the best wallpaper with which to complete their basement conversion. And MRA ideology has spilled into the real world in bloody, terrifying ways, while Mumsnet's influence takes a different form: effective lobbying, time with politicians across the political spectrum, and increasingly cozy relationships with the mainstream media. But the two seemingly disparate groups have one key commonality: a sense of isolation that comes about during a vulnerable time in their lives.

Mumsnetters and Men's Rights Activists have one key commonality: a sense of isolation that comes about during a vulnerable time in their lives.

They also insist on seeing themselves as victims. It's true that the issues raised by Mumsnetters deserve attention, just as many of the issues MRAs mobilize around do, from higher suicide rates among men to sexual assault in prisons. But it's hard to argue that these voices on trans issues are in the minority right now, when practically every U.K. newspaper reports or opines on their plight sympathetically and J.K. Rowling, the world's most famous living author, is their patron saint. The Harry Potter creator regularly makes headlines on the subject, most recently calling, without apparent irony, for an end to the "climate of fear" around the trans rights debate.

In late 2020, I found someone even more obsessed with the politics of Mumsnet than I was: Sarah Pedersen, the author of a new book, The Politicization of Mumsnet. Pederson, a media studies professor in Scotland and avid Mumsnetter herself, has produced an unprecedented amount of data and analysis on the subject, so I was gratified when she confirmed my thesis from the book's start.

"Faced with the pure physical reality of precisely how much the world has been built to suit men, pregnancy and maternity is often the time when women become radicalised," Pedersen wrote. On Mumsnet, new mothers who may have previously assumed that "gender equality has arrived and that there is no longer any need for feminism or women-focused political action" are able to discuss the sudden judgment they faced over their mothering choices, from breastfeeding to returning to work, and can grapple with the cost of child care in the U.K., which is among the most expensive in Europe.

Many new mothers "find feminism more relevant to their lives than ever before" because of the changes in their own circumstances "in a society where motherhood still impacts negatively on a woman's career and earning potential," Pedersen wrote. "To put it in more explicitly feminist terms: women's oppression is innately connected to our ability to reproduce."

But while I was horrified by what I was seeing on the forums, Pedersen was excited.

Like many Mumsnetters, Pedersen finds the comparisons to MRAs preposterous. Her book acknowledged that in the past few years the women's rights forum had focused on trans women above other issues. But she credited that to the proposed GRA reforms and the lack of other spaces where women felt able to discuss the matter. Newly formed advocacy groups concerned about the reforms became "symbiotic" with the Mumsnet feminism boards, she wrote.

Past Mumsnet campaigns had covered topics such as domestic violence and sexual assault, leading Pedersen to draw historical connections between the discussion of politics on Mumsnet to the suffragettes, 1970s consciousness raising groups, and U.K. housewives' organizations that "campaigned on issues that were important to them, such as state support for mothers and better health services."

When I talked to Pedersen last fall, she assumed that Mumsnetters would move onto other issues, as they had in the past, since the GRA reforms had been defeated.

But that clearly isn't happening. Months later, the majority of posts on the "Women's Rights" forum still focus on trans women. Recent posts included dismay over a U.S. Supreme Court decision not to hear a challenge to transgender access to toilets and locker rooms, and a helpful list of "gender critical" businesses and people to buy gifts from during the Christmas season to support "the fearless women (or men) who've stuck their heads above the parapet."

If Mumsnet's women's rights forum is popular because it responds to the experience of being stuck at home without support or community, it's done so in a way that leaves Mumsnetters in a political cul-de-sac. The community isolates its members in a bubble of transphobic thought that leaves them free to develop their bigotries without needing to encounter the human beings affected by them. It also inculcates members with a tragically narrow idea of feminism, one that rejects other people fighting for gender liberation. And finally, it puts followers at odds with the broader left, which has been fighting for a world without gender oppression, as well as for benefits Mumsnetters say they care about, such as free child care and well-funded health care.

Ironically, it has long been more inclusive feminists, and queer feminists especially, who have described the anxiety and marginalization that accompany traditional domestic life and labor. But much of the feminism that would offer Mumsnetters something more has been sidelined for several decades in the U.K., beaten back by conservatism alongside the rest of the Left. Margaret Thatcher declared that "there are individual men and women and there are families," not a society. Even though intersectional socialist feminism has made significant advances in recent years, without a strong and inclusive mainstream feminist movement, Mumsnetters seem to have found privileged but uneasy refuge in the family.

If left unchecked, the consequences of Mumsnet's politics will continue beyond the defeat of the GRA reforms.

The mums on Mumsnet's women's rights forum are constantly complaining about being belittled as "silly old women" and "daft housewives." I agree with them: We underestimate them at our own peril. TERFs are unafraid to work with groups that hate women. In this sense, they're part of the lineage of 1980s anti-pornography feminists who agreed to work alongside right-wing conservative groups. One "radical feminist" group is currently helping shape anti-trans legislation in the U.S.

TERFs are unafraid to work with groups that hate women.

Mainstream media in the U.K. will likely continue to take its cues from Mumsnet, and recent studies have linked this constant anti-trans coverage to depression, anxiety and psychological distress in trans people. In December, the U.K.'s Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) reported a "dramatic" rise in news coverage of trans people with an accompanying "increase in questioning tone." The mainstream media treats "trans people as an 'issue' and trans people as a 'problem,'" said jane fae, the chair of Trans Media Watch.

Radicalized groups become more emboldened in their bigotry when they're left unmoderated, so it might be for the best if Mumsnet doesn't kick TERFs off its platform, which it doesn't seem likely to do anytime soon anyway. The Atlantic recently reported on a new forum for TERFs who were banned from Reddit called "Ovarit," noting that "getting banned from a social-media platform and creating a knockoff of it is effectively a rite of passage for toxic groups at this point."

Is there any hope for TERFs?

Natalie Wynn made a YouTube video about TERFs with the premise that there just might be. "It's not just evil bigots who are attracted to the gender critical worldview," Wynn explained in her video. Before filming, she posted an invitation on Twitter asking people who used to be "gender critical" feminists to share their stories. She received hundreds of responses, including many from women who had traumatic experiences with men and "at one time found comfort in a rigid view of gender where women and men are completely separate species, where women are safe and men are dangerous." For a lot of these women, she said, "allowing trans people into their picture of the world at first challenged their sense of stability and comfort." The same may go for new mothers who have found that mothering is an activity that British society neither supports nor values.

There are British women who have publicly abandoned the TERF perspective, such as Nora Mulready, who wrote last August about experiencing "a powerful and precious thing - a sincere change of mind" around the topic. After learning a family member was trans she read everything she could find that validated her instinct "that the increase in transgender identity was a millennial fad, mental health issue, trauma, social contagion, fashion, patriarchy, you name it, I clutched at it," Mulready wrote. Finally, she realized she had fallen victim to the "same deep-rooted conservatism that has made human beings resistant to change throughout so much of our history." How did she spit out the red pill?

She saw her family member thrive, Mulready wrote, and met with other trans people and listened to them share their experiences. "Seeing this issue unfold within my own family taught me a profound lesson: the importance of humility in the face of something you do not understand," she wrote. She took "a step back from the freneticism of the 'trans debate'," she wrote, after which "the contradictions in the trans-sceptic arguments became more apparent to me."

How do we convince more women to do what Mulready did - step out of isolation and into human connection; become not just better informed about the experience of being trans, but someone who sees trans acceptance as part of what feminism is all about?

My reporting on MRAs hasn't found many solutions. In the long run, I hope that there will be an ever-growing movement for gender liberation that sweeps up mums in its embrace, leaving the toxic forums to wither. But the only individual solution that seems to work, anecdotally, is having long conversations with family members like Mulready did.

That isn't going to be easy.

When one commenter posted that she was "at the end of my tether with my mother, who has become engulfed in the gender critical discourse mainly thanks to this website" this stated attempt at an "open discussion" garnered 1,000 comments. In the end, the original poster only responded to a few. Perhaps she was a troll, as some commenters surmised, or maybe she was overwhelmed by the Mumsnetters, who called her a "midnight misogynist" and told her to "listen to her mum."
Katie J.M. Baker is a reporter based in London.

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Nothing caused me greater culture shock when I moved from New York to London than the British media's hysterical obsession with trans women. I'd turn on the Today Programme, the BBC's flagship morning news show, as I made my coffee and hear debates over whether trans women were actually just men who thought they were women.

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One look at Rowling's Harry Potter franchise can tell you how embarrassingly undiverse it is - afterthought postscript revelations about characters do not count.

JK Rowling's latest transphobic tweets have once again highlighted her exclusionary behaviour and put her in a spot. This isn't exactly shocking because Rowling has faced ire for propagating transphobic and trans-exclusionary radical feminist opinions earlier as well. One look at the Harry Potter series can tell you how embarrassingly undiverse it is - afterthought, postscript revelations on Twitter about her characters do not count.

Declaring Dumbledore as queer and endorsing a Black Hermoine are the most prominent examples of Rowling retrospectively trying to add diversity in the otherwise white hetronormative wizarding world she first created.
Also read: 'Feel like more of a woman when you punch down?' - JK Rowling faces ire for anti-trans tweets
Queer Baiting

The Harry Potter series has been constantly accused of queerbaiting - a marketing ploy used to lure an LGBTQ+ fan base by teasing the possibility of non-heterosexual characters, without the intention of ever developing it into an actual element of the story.

Here's a classic instance of queerbaiting. Before Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - the play that tells the story of Harry Potter 19 years later - was even published, there was a tonne of fanfiction 'shipping' (when fans wish for two characters to be romantically linked) Draco Malfoy's son Scorpius with Harry Potter's younger son Albus. When the play finally came out, the bonhomie between the duo was far more intense than the relationship between Harry and his best friend, Ron, ever was.

Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin, two characters from the series who were thought to be queer by fans, were married out of the blue and made to settle down as as a typical hetronormative family. Tonks, a Metamorphmagus - a witch who can change her appearance at will, was considered to be gender fluid. Lupin's struggles as a werewolf were seen as deliberately framed to highlight the plight of HIV/AIDS patients. But even these prominently queer characteristics pointed out by Potter fans, weren't enough for Rowling to properly assert and develop these traits in later books.

It's not fair for Rowling to keep adding queer elements the Harry Potter fans root for after the books have been published in ways that suit her interest, but fail to actually bring diversity and inclusivity to her writing.

Let's wait and watch what she does with Dumbledore and Grindelwald in the upcoming Fantastic Beasts films, where she has the opportunity to explore their sexual relationship.
Also read: Daniel Radcliffe, Eddie Redmayne, Beckham bring Hogwarts home with Harry Potter readings
Culturally tone-deaf wizard world

The wizarding world first created by Rowling is of, for and by White people. I don't think there's much to argue there.

The few non-White characters she does introduce in the books are underdeveloped lazy additions that highlight her prejudice.

Take for instance the Patil sisters. Remember their agonising outfits at the Yule Ball in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - dull, unflattering lehengas, which seemed like a mockery of Indian culture. A lot of us are still and will always be unforgiving of that travesty.

Then comes Cho Chang. In a world full of fantastical names like Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore, Dolores Umbridge, Nymphadora Tonks, Luna Lovegood and so on, Rowling settled on mixing two Korean surnames to portray the only visible Asian character. Rowling may as well have introduced another Karen or Susan type character instead of creating a token Asian character she clearly put no thought into.

Many defend Rowling by begging critics to judge the series according to the time period it was written in - the first book was released in 1997.

But the late 90s weren't exactly the Victorian era. Besides, the last Harry Potter book was published as recently as 2007. Proving that time was never really the issue, Rowling was also accused of racism in her 2016 Pottermore essays about the History of Magic in North America. She was slammed for the way she wrote about 'Native American wizards', and was attacked for "using an ancient culture as a convenient prop". Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, her ongoing series, also lacks diversity. Casting a South Korean woman as Nagini - Voldemort's pet snake, and her subsequent defense of the choice, served as another example of her blatant ignorance of the issue of cultural appropriation.

For a book that highlights class struggles, centres on the battle against a Fascist megalomaniac and constantly takes on prejudice and discrimination in the wizarding world , the lack-of-diversity and cultural appropriation problems are disheartening.

J.K. Rowling's transphobic tweets don't make me question my love for Harry Potter one bit, like Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe fears. Potterverse has been shaped as much by fan fiction as it has been by the books. So, in this case, I have no qualms separating the art from the artist. Rowling may have given us the boy who lived, but we were the ones who made him immortal.
Views are personal. Also read: J.K. Rowling releases first two chapters of her new book 'The Ickabog' online for free

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JK Rowling has always been tone-deaf. Just look at the Harry Potter Universe

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Welcome! Log into your account A password will be e-mailed to you. One look at Rowling's Harry Potter franchise can tell you how embarrassingly undiverse it is - afterthought postscript revelations about characters do not count. JK Rowling's latest transphobic tweets have once again highlighted her exclusionary behaviour and put her in a spot.

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J.K. Rowling is claiming that most of her fans agree with her views on transgender people but that they are all "afraid to speak up" because of their "personal safety."

Rowling has spent the better part of this past year arguing that transgender teens are being pressured to transition and that transgender women are a threat to cis women. And now she has an interview in the upcoming issue of Good Housekeeping where she claims that 90% of the letters she has received responding to her views on transgender people have been supportive, but that they are afraid of vicious, pro-equality advocates.
Related: Unhinged J.K. Rowling fan wearing a sandwich sign arrested after harassing a trans politician
"Many are afraid to speak up because they fear for their jobs and even for their personal safety," said Rowling. "This climate of fear serves nobody well, least of all trans people."

She did not explain exactly what all of these letter-writers are afraid of. Rowling published a 3700-word essay on her website earlier this year saying she was afraid of trans women because cis men have hurt her, but she was still able to make millions per month on her books and even released a new book this year, which was about a cis man who dresses up as a woman so that he can get close enough to women to kill them.

"I believe everybody should be free to live a life that is authentic to them, and that they should be safe to do so," she continued. "I also believe that we need a more nuanced conversation around women's rights and around the huge increase in numbers of girls and young women who are seeking to transition."

"Some of the most heartbreaking letters I've received have been from young women, who regret the irreversible surgeries they've undertaken. These stories need to be told."

Rowling has been an outspoken opponent of puberty blockers for transgender teenagers, hormones given to some transgender kids to delay the onset of puberty so that they and their families can have more time to understand their identity before their bodies undergo permanent changes.

It is almost unheard of for transgender minors to undergo "irreversible surgeries." Puberty blockers, though, prevent irreversible changes that come with puberty that can result in lifelong dysphoria for transgender people; transgender people who had access to puberty blockers are one-third as likely to report suicidal thoughts as those who wanted them but didn't get them.

Rowling did not say whether their stories need to be told as well.

While Rowling has occasionally liked - and written - anti-transgender tweets over the past few years, her transphobia took center stage this past May when she liked an extreme tweet making fun of a transgender woman, tweeted an obscene and transphobic message at a nine-year-old fan, and finally in early June published a rambling, 3700-word essay about why she doesn't like transgender women.

Since then, she has spent the month defending her views on Twitter and getting condemned by celebrities who worked on the Harry Potter films while fansites cut ties with her, authors fled her literary agency, and writer Stephen King denounced her.

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J.K. Rowling says 90% of her fans agree with her transphobia but they're afraid to say so publicly

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J.K. Rowling is claiming that most of her fans agree with her views on transgender people but that they are all "afraid to speak up" because of their "personal safety." Rowling has spent the better part of this past year arguing that transgender teens are being pressured to transition and that transgender women are a threat to cis women.

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PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBT+ news

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Vladimir Putin decries ‘cancelling’ of JK Rowling in ‘book burning’ rant

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Vladimir Putin has compared the so-called “cancelling” of JK Rowling as akin to Nazis burning books in the 1930s.

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PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBT+ news

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JK Rowling sends ‘big love’ to anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-abortion activist

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JK Rowling took to Twitter on 12 March to send “big love” to anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-abortion Catholic activist Caroline Farrow.

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JK Rowling has accused Sir Keir Starmer of misrepresenting equalities law after the Labour leader said that according to statute, "trans women are women".

The Harry Potter author disagreed with the Labour leader's comments and said he had misrepresented the law, which she said indicated "the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women's rights".

Ms Rowling posted an article on Twitter about a Tory police and crime commissioner reportedly reprimanded for her comments on gender issues.

The author then said: "I don't think our politicians have the slightest idea how much anger is building among women from all walks of life at the attempts to threaten and intimidate them out of speaking publicly about their own rights, their own bodies and their own lives.

"Among the thousands of letters and emails I've received are disillusioned members of Labour, the Greens, the Lib Dems and the SNP. Women are scared, outraged and angry at the deaf ear turned to their well-founded concerns. But women are organising.

"Now Keir Starmer publicly misrepresents equalities law, in yet another indication that the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women's rights. But I repeat: women are organising across party lines, and their resolve and their anger are growing."

It comes after the Labour leader gave an interview to The Times, during which he was asked to define a woman.

Sir Keir told the newspaper: "A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view - that is actually the law.

"It has been the law through the combined effects of the 2004 [Gender Recognition] Act and the 2010 [Equality] Act. So that's my view. It also happens to be the law in the United Kingdom."

Sir Keir was also asked about controversial legislation being considered in Scotland, which aims to make it easier for transgender people to be legally recognised as their preferred gender.

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill sets out proposals to speed up the time it takes to get a gender recognition certificate (GRC), and would also lower the age at which trans people can obtain the document from 18 to 16.

While LGBTI groups have welcomed the reforms, some feminist organisations fear there could be a loss of women-only spaces - such as refuges, hospital wards, toilets and changing rooms - which could then impact women's safety.

Asked about the Scottish government's plans, Sir Keir replied: "The Gender Recognition Act needs to be reformed. And I believe in safe spaces for women - I'm very clear about those too.

"I think the 2004 act needs to be reformed, I think the 2010 act, the Equality Act, which does provide for safe spaces for women is right. And therefore I'm very straightforward about this."

Sky News has contacted Labour for a comment.

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JK Rowling accuses Keir Starmer of 'misrepresenting equalities law' on trans women

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JK Rowling has accused Sir Keir Starmer of misrepresenting equalities law after the Labour leader said that according to statute, "trans women are women". The Harry Potter author disagreed with the Labour leader's comments and said he had misrepresented the law, which she said indicated "the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women's rights".

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The challenge facing Britain's Labour and Liberal Democrat parties cannot be overstated. Political parties have no divine right to exist and progressive parties of the centre and centre left are facing marginalisation, even extinction, across the Western world. Where is the French Socialist Party of François Mitterrand or the German SPD of Willy Brandt? And dominant national parties can very quickly become small fringe parties under the hammer blows of poor leadership and social and economic change. Look at the Liberal Party of Asquith and Lloyd George, reduced from 397 to 43 seats in just 18 years in the early 20th century.

Joe Biden's victory in the United States apart, progressive politics across the globe is badly placed: four election defeats for the UK Labour Party and no one betting against a fifth; the German SPD placed behind a moderate Green Party; the French Socialists, who won the presidency in 2012, now polling at 11 per cent; the Italian left imploded and divided; the Spanish and Swedish socialists hanging on to power, but way below their earlier levels of support.

And truth be told, no sensible Democrat or democrat should overplay the Biden victory. He won against an incumbent like no other, considered by centre-ground voters to be uniquely strange and unacceptable in his behaviour. In the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, Donald Trump's actions appeared to have worsened the pandemic; and even then, Trump increased his number of votes in the 2020 presidential election from 2016, while the Republicans took seats in the House and probably only lost control of the Senate thanks to the bizarre post-election antics that ended in the storming of the US Capitol in Washington, DC on 6 January. The Biden victory was a heavy reaction not so much against the policies as the comportment of Trump. And in Biden, the Democrats nominated possibly the only potential leader who could have won.

Without Biden, and his self-evident reasonableness and moderation, there might have been no victory. Ideas matter in politics, and rightly matter a lot to progressives. But without leaders who can frame and present these ideas successfully, they gather dust on shelves, not votes in ballot boxes. Biden's manifest decency - right person, right place, right time - turned out to be vital.

Even now however, with the new president on a roll, his understated manner belying an extraordinarily radical stimulus and "build back" programme, the Democrats will not have it all their own way.

It could be that the domination of the Republican Party by the continuing division over Donald Trump eclipses any opportunity for a revival, at least for the presidency; but should the Republicans resolve their leadership crisis and identify a viable leader, they could give the Democrats a run for their money. In particular, while Biden is battling the Covid-19 crisis, his obvious competence in an area where partisan politics is regarded as stupid serves him well. But outside that domain, the Democrats may struggle, especially on cultural issues. America remains a deeply divided country.

In short, leave to one side Joe Biden, and around today's Western world there are only flickers of a progressive agenda with deep majority support.

The progressive problem is that, in an era where people want change in a changing world, and a fairer, better and more prosperous future, the radical progressives aren't sensible and the sensible aren't radical. The choice is therefore between those who fail to inspire hope and those who inspire as much fear as hope. So, the running is made by the new radical left, with the "moderates" dragged along behind, uncomfortably mouthing a watered-down version of the left's policies while occasionally trying to dig in their heels to stop further sliding towards the alienation of the centre.

The result is that today progressive politics has an old-fashioned economic message of Big State, tax and spend which, other than the spending part (which the right can do anyway), is not particularly attractive. This is combined with a new-fashioned social/cultural message around extreme identity and anti-police politics which, for large swathes of people, is voter-repellent. "Defund the police" may be the left's most damaging political slogan since "the dictatorship of the proletariat". It leaves the right with an economic message which seems more practical, and a powerful cultural message around defending flag, family and fireside traditional values. To top it off, the right evinces a pride in their nation, while parts of the left seem embarrassed by the very notion.

All this is happening against the backdrop of a real-world transformation. We are living through the most far-reaching upheaval since the 19th-century Industrial Revolution: a technology revolution of the internet, AI, quantum computing, extraordinary advances in genomics, bioscience, clean energy, nutrition, gaming, financial payments, satellite imagery - everything, every sphere of work, leisure and life is subject to its transformative power. The question is how it is used: to control humanity or liberate it, to provide opportunities for those presently without opportunity, or to put even more power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of those already well off.

This is the central political challenge of our time, and those who understand this revolution, show how it can be mastered for the benefit of the people, and harness it for the public good, will deservedly win power. It is a challenge tailor-made for the progressive cause. It requires active government; a commitment to social justice and equality; an overhaul of public services, particularly health and education; measures to bring the marginalised into society's mainstream; and a new 21st-century infrastructure.

It will require innovation, not the status quo; and the mentality of change-makers, not "small c" conservatives. It will best be done in conjunction and collaboration with other nations, not with narrow-minded nationalism. Take the Covid-19 crisis. It required active government harnessing innovation, collective effort and global coordination, balancing the needs of the economy with the need to fight the disease. The crisis has accelerated technological change, deepened inequality, put an even greater premium on creativity and shown how dedicated public service is a vital part of national survival.

Everything about the world we live in, and still more the one we are about to live in, cries out for a progressive response. In the future, those equipped for the tech revolution can succeed; those ill-equipped will almost certainly fail. This is the modern progressive cause. The 21st century technology revolution is the crux: the real-world change for good or ill.

Why do progressives find it hard to rise to this challenge? Why do they profess to see this challenge and then look past it for the place to focus their ideas and energy?

It is for the same reason that it was so hard for Labour to abandon Clause IV, and the commitment to mass nationalisation, in the 1980s and 1990s. It was a confusion of abiding values with outdated mechanisms - a failure to grasp the nature of the contemporary social and economic challenge, and a deep psychological reluctance to let go of an outdated past. It means discarding shibboleths. This new world doesn't require a Big State per se, but a strategic and active one which is good at solving problems and good at promoting social inclusion and economic dynamism at the same time. It will challenge all those who don't adapt to change, including big business with a conventional centralised mentality, or trade unions which can't get to grips with mobilising workers in the new econmy. A myriad of small firms and the self-employed will be central not peripheral to the future.

It is the same with public services. The way we teach and provide medical care and education will change dramatically, and therefore old ways of working will decline. New forms of social ownership will be needed to tackle the housing crisis. Solutions will often be practical, some more associated with traditional left thinking but some more with modern centre-right thinking. It will require steadfast adherence to values but complete agnosticism as to the means of implementing them.

The thinking of the new left radicals across the West - which is really the rediscovery of 1960s Marxist-inspired left policy by a new generation - is largely redundant to answering the challenge. Public ownership of industry, "free" university tuition, much heavier regulation - all of these traditional solutions, as well as being politically challenging, will not materially impact people's lives in anything like the manner of technological change, and may be regressive if they reduce the power of social mobility and social aspiration. They seem "radical" because they come from a traditional left which presented them as such, but politically they are mostly now museum pieces, lingering relics of outdated ideology.

It isn't that the traditional issues don't matter; it is just that they're second-order compared with those accompanying the revolution. Of course, we have to determine levels of taxation and spending, appropriate regulation and what the state does and doesn't do. And there will be political choices and trade-offs that democracy will decide. But all of these pale into insignificance beside the question of how we handle the all-encompassing vastness of the impact of modern technological change. So, we can and no doubt will require more public spending on the NHS. But a bigger reform challenge is how we use technology to alter diagnostics, prevention and public health.

Similarly, tackling climate change can only be accomplished through the application of science and technology. In particular, it will require a revolution in modes of transport and transport infrastructure to promote electrification and a switch from aviation to high-speed rail. Whether the railway system is publicly or privately owned has a fraction of the importance of the advent over the next decade of next-generation rail technology and the growth of electric, driverless vehicles, with all the secondary effects on jobs, insurance and mobility.

On education, how we utilise the possibility of online teaching and learning to change the way we educate our young people, and how as a consequence teaching skills evolve, will decide whether we are an educated nation or not in the future. And the nations which are first-movers will get a disproportionate advantage.

You can literally go through the policy catalogue, from crime to defence to the environment, and in every case the potential of technological change is enormous and revolutionary. This is the future. But you can't organise the future with a playbook from the past.

Precisely because a new younger generation are looking for radical policy, as every new generation does, and because they're not really finding it in an economic message which doesn't enthuse, so progressives have defaulted to issues around culture, gender, race and identity. Handling these issues successfully is an equally great challenge for modern progressives.

A large part of moderate progressive opinion simply wants to steer clear of these cultural and identity issues entirely. The moderates - often of an older generation - don't quite understand the strength of feeling over issues such as trans rights. They distrust their own sensors and fear tripping up or saying the wrong thing, and so have come to a position which basically says: there is no culture war, in any event we're not playing it, or if there is and we are forced to play, we will play at the back as quietly as possible.

I believe this is a mistake and merely reinforces the sense of being weak people who don't really stand for anything. And, as I know from a lifetime in politics, however successful a leader you are, you don't always decide the agenda. You can decide the answer, but you can't always decide the question. Your political opponents have a say, and most importantly, so does the public.

The right knows they're on to something on these cultural issues. They are revelling in it and setting traps for the left all over the field, which the left is falling into one by one. (Or not. A key moment for Biden was when he comprehensively disowned "defund the police", while backing police reform.)

Keeping your head down isn't a strategy. There is a big culture battle going on. Progressive folk tend to wince at terms such as "woke" and "political correctness", but the normal public knows exactly what they mean. And the battle is being fought on ground defined by the right because sensible progressives don't want to be on the field at all. The consequence of this is that the "radical" progressives, who are quite happy to fight on that ground, carry the progressive standard. The fact that it ensures continued right-wing victory doesn't deter them at all. On the contrary, it gives them a heightened sense of righteousness, like political kamikaze.

Progressive politics must disentangle this cultural question and get on to ground it can hold with public support. It isn't impossible. But it requires deep thought and political courage. Here are some principles around which such ground can be captured.

People do not like their country, their flag or their history being disrespected. The left always gets confused by this sentiment and assume this means people support everything their country has done or think all their history is sacrosanct. They don't. But they query imposing the thinking of today on the practices of yesterday; they're suspicious that behind the agenda of many of the culture warriors on the left lies an ideology they find alien and extreme; and they're instinctively brilliant at distinguishing between the sentiment and the movement. They will support strongly campaigns against racism; but they recoil from some of the language and actions of the fringes of the Black Lives Matter movement. You could go through the entire litany of modern causes and find the same - from Extinction Rebellion to trans rights to Reclaim the Streets - in the same way.

People like common sense, proportion and reason. They dislike prejudice; but they dislike extremism in combating prejudice. They support the police and the armed forces. Again, it doesn't mean that they think those institutions are beyond reproach. Not at all. But they're on their guard for those who they think use any wrongdoing to smear the institutions themselves. And they expect their leaders to voice their own opinion, not sub-contract opinion to pressure groups, no matter how worthy.

The correct course for progressives on culture questions is to make a virtue of reason and moderation. To be intolerant of intolerance - saying you can disagree without denouncing. To seek unity. To eschew gesture politics and slogans. And when they're accused of being insufficiently supportive of the causes - which is inevitable - to stand up for themselves and make it clear they're not going to be bullied or pushed around. This will lose some votes among a minority with loud voices; but it will bind the solid but often silent centre to them. And, of course, it will allow the causes themselves to be effectively pursued, as the last Labour government did with its own revolution in gay rights and the pathway to equal marriage - and the forced conversion of the Conservative Party on the issue.

The British Labour Party is the embodiment of this progressive challenge. Just 17 months ago it went to the far left and suffered the worst defeat in the party's history. It has now replaced Jeremy Corbyn, a classic protest politician completely unsuited to leadership, let alone to governing, with Keir Starmer - Sir Keir - intelligent, capable, moderate-minded. He has taken a strong stand against the stain of anti-Semitism from the Corbyn era, been generally reasonable when opposing the government's handling of Covid-19, and looks and sounds sensible. But he is struggling to break through with the public, and last week's elections are a major setback.

The Labour Party is now scratching its collective head and wondering why the replacement of an extremist with someone more moderate isn't achieving the miracle renaissance. It is even asking whether Keir is the right leader.

But the Labour Party won't revive simply by a change of leader. It needs total deconstruction and reconstruction. Nothing less will do.

At present, Labour expresses perfectly the progressive dilemma. Corbyn was radical but not sensible. Keir seems sensible but not radical. He lacks a compelling economic message. And the cultural message, because he is not clarifying it, is being defined by the "woke" left, whose every statement gets cut-through courtesy of the right. Equally, "spend more" is a weak slogan when the Tory government is already spending around record levels. And the inheritance from the 2019 Labour manifesto - a £1trn programme - is a huge albatross, accompanied by the usual misguided argument from the left that the individual items poll well (they always do, but it's their cumulative effect which is deadly).

On cultural issues, one after another, the Labour Party is being backed into electorally off-putting positions. A progressive party seeking power which looks askance at the likes of Trevor Phillips, Sara Khan or JK Rowling is not going to win. Progressive politics needs to debate these cultural questions urgently and openly. It needs to push back strongly against those who will try to shout down the debate. And to search for a new governing coalition. All the evidence is that it can only do this by building out from the centre ground.

Progressive parties must modernise their economic message. They need a unifying social and cultural message as well. The Conservative parties of Western politics have adapted and adjusted. But by and large they're finding a new economic and cultural coalition.

Meanwhile, left parties are fracturing, Green parties are rising but rarely capable of winning power, and a whole generation of talent that is not Conservative can't find a political home. For now, the Labour Party cannot fulfil its historic mission. Its limitations have been there from its inception, particularly its estrangement from Britain's great Liberal tradition - Gladstone, Lloyd George, Keynes, Beveridge. Except for the period of New Labour, it has never succeeded in being in government more than six years; and the devastating cul-de-sac it went down over the past decade has made those limitations worse, possibly endemic.

Progressive politicians open to the scale of the challenge and the change are to be found in the Labour Party, in the Lib Dems and in the ranks of the politically homeless. Without the diverting drama of speculation around new political parties, we need a new progressive movement; a new progressive agenda; and the construction of a new governing coalition.

The construction of this new progressive movement should start with an open dialogue between like-minded Labour and Lib Dem members and the non-aligned. Otherwise, we will be in the dreary business of fighting with a cause which is unclear, our hands tied behind our back, on a ground we didn't choose in a battle we can't win, against a foe which doesn't deserve to triumph; and hoping that another defeat will bring the clarity of purpose we should embrace now. It won't.

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Tony Blair: Without total change Labour will die

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The challenge facing Britain's Labour and Liberal Democrat parties cannot be overstated. Political parties have no divine right to exist and progressive parties of the centre and centre left are facing marginalisation, even extinction, across the Western world. Where is the French Socialist Party of François Mitterrand or the German SPD of Willy Brandt?

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J.K. Rowling promoted an online store that sells transphobic merchandise, including pins that say, "Transwomen are men."

The Harry Potter author plugged a T-shirt to her over 14 million Twitter followers that said, "This witch doesn't burn," possibly a reference to how she has faced criticism for her constant anti-transgender remarks over the last several months.
Related: J.K. Rowling's new book is about a man in a dress who kills women
In the tweet, she directed people to the online store that sells the T-shirt: the wild womyn workshop. She then replied to the same tweet to make sure that people got the link to that online store and told her followers to not support other stores, just this one store.

The wild womyn workshop is a U.K.-based online store that bills itself as selling "a range of unique and beautifully designed items for radical womyn." An entire section of the online store is labeled "Gender Critical," a euphemism for transphobia.

Here are some of the items for sale at that store, which include pins that are direct attacks on transgender people, like this one that says, "Transwomen [sic] are men."

"Woman is not a costume," one pin says, implying that transgender women aren't really women, they just wear women's clothes.

While most of the merch attacks trans women, this one says "Transmen [sic] are my sisters."

Many of the messages on the pins mention genitalia, since TERFs believe that genitalia defines one's gender. This one says "Sorry about your dick bro."

Although sometimes it's chromosomes that define one's gender, according to the website. This pin says "XX (female)."

This one says "F*ck your pronouns" to encourage people to misgender transgender people.

Some of the merchandise portrays cisgender women as the victims of transgender women, like this one that simply says, "Transactivism is misogyny."

It is available alongside pins that say that a woman is, by definition, a person who has a certain set of reproductive organs.

Other pins attack the LGBTQ movement, saying that including transgender people in the LGBTQ somehow takes away from cisgender women.

There are pins that say that transitioning is a form of conversion therapy, implying that conversion therapy is bad.

And pins to support conversion therapy specifically for transgender people, implying that conversion therapy is good.

Other merchandise proudly claims words like "TERF" and "transphobe," much like how racists, homophobes, and conservatives in 2016 proudly called themselves "deplorables" after Hillary Clinton called them that.

And, of course, the wild womyn workshop stands with J.K. Rowling.

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J.K. Rowling plugs disgusting anti-trans online store to her 14 million Twitter followers

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J.K. Rowling promoted an online store that sells transphobic merchandise, including pins that say, "Transwomen are men." The Harry Potter author plugged a T-shirt to her over 14 million Twitter followers that said, "This witch doesn't burn," possibly a reference to how she has faced criticism for her constant anti-transgender remarks over the last several months.

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PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBT+ news

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A new book penned by JK Rowling finds her private detective protagonist, Cormoran Strike, investigating a cis male serial killer who dresses as a woman to kill his cis female victims, according to an early write-up.

The first review for Troubled Blood describes it as a "book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress".

According to The Telegraph, the "meat" of the 900-page novel is an investigation into a cold case: the disappearance of a woman in 1974, believed to be a victim of a cis male serial killer whose modus operandi is dressing as a woman.

"One wonders what critics of Rowling's stance on trans issues will make of [the] book," writes reviewer Jake Kerridge.

Quickly, Troubled Blood was criticised on social media.

It's so incredibly ham fisted, all the lacking in originality and creativity that Rowling is famous for.

- Rosie the Mermaiden ?‍♀️ (@halford_rosie) September 13, 2020

It's impressive how fixed an idea "transvestite serial killer" is as a trope given how it's... never happened? Like, to the point where Russian police famously failed to catch a female serial killer because they'd convinced themselves they were looking for a transvestite...

- Writer of Wrongs (@onyxaminedlife) September 13, 2020

Troubled Blood is the fifth entry in Rowling's Cormoran Strike series, penned under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

The second in the series, The Silkworm, has previously been criticised over its depiction of a trans character described as "unstable and aggressive".

In the book, the woman, Pippa, stalks Strike before attempting to stab him.

After the attack the titular detective manages to trap Pippa in his office, where her trans identity and deadname are revealed. At this point, JK Rowling describes the character's Adam's apple and hands, with the Strike character warning her that prison "won't be fun for you... Not pre-op".

Trans journalist Katelyn Burns reviewed the passage for in 2018, writing: "It's an entirely common though insulting trope about trans women - that they are aggressive and unable to overcome their masculine nature, not to mention villainous - that has become all too common from cisgender authors with only a passing knowledge of trans people."

PinkNews has contacted JK Rowling's representatives for comment.

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JK Rowling's latest book is about a murderous cis man who dresses as a woman to kill his victims

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A new book penned by JK Rowling finds her private detective protagonist, Cormoran Strike, investigating a cis male serial killer who dresses as a woman to kill his cis female victims, according to an early write-up. The first review for Troubled Blood describes it as a "book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress".

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GOP senator quotes J.K. Rowling while blocking vote on LGBTQ bill

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Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma cited the “Harry Potter” author’s recent letter, which critics called a “transphobic manifesto.”

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PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBT+ news

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Harry Potter author JK Rowling has voiced her support for a woman who pursued legal action to have "gender-critical views" protected under the UK Equalities Act.

The writer, 54, hasn't tweeted since September, but made a surprise return to come out in support for Maya Forstater, who was plunged into a landmark case which tested whether anti-trans views would be considered as a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equalities Act.

Forstater's employer, the Centre for Global Development, had hired her on a series of short-term contracts as a researcher which were not renewed after a dispute about her tweet in September 2018 which said: "Men cannot change into women."

Forstater branded it as a "feminist test case" on her Twitter, yet judges ultimately ruled that such views would not be protected. A ruling welcomed by many LGBT+ activists.

Following the outcome, Rowling expressed her support for Forstater, inciting a wave of backlash from trans folk and allies alike, accusing Rowling of "transphobia" in a take dubbed by one campaigner as a "gross mischaracterisation".

What did JK Rowling write exactly?

Following the outcome of the test case today, Rowling issued a short statement on her Twitter outlining: "Dress however you please.

"Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you.

Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill

- J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 19, 2019

"Live your best life in peace and security.

"But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?"

Rowling then added the hashtags: "#IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill."

She was announcing her support of Forstater after judges stated that "gender-critical" views - a phrase often deployed to defend trans-exclusionary feminism- are "not worthy of respect in a democratic society".

Moreover, Rowling's tweet came after she came under fire for a similar situation in which she followed a "proud transphobe" on Twitter alongside when she liked a series of tweets that called trans women "men in dresses."

Her representatives told in 2018 that the latter was down to a "clumsy, middle-aged moment".

While Forstater herself also acknowledged Rowling's tweet, writing: "We are all crying.

"This is all I wanted for Christmas."

'This hurt to read': Twitter accuses JK Rowling of being a 'TERF'.

Within minutes of Rowling's message, her name quickly became a trending topic on Twitter alongside the tag "TERF".

Countless LGBT+ Twitter users shared their responses to Rowling, with many criticising her stance, calling it "unacceptable" as well as describing their own "heartbreak" at the beloved children's book author stating such views.

"This hurt to read," one user wrote.

"The implications of your statement are huge for the trans community. Hogwarts was a shelter for us weirdos and oddballs but it seems we are no longer welcome."

JK Rowling's tweet offers insights to what trans antagonist rich white cis women think trans women are all about - dressing up and trying to have sex. As if its a perversion, deviance or fetish. Its archaic as much as ignorant.

- Bolli Grinchevik (@LaSouvarine) December 19, 2019

This is SUCH a dangerous precedent to set. Especially now that white supremacism, racism & the far right are gaining power & ground...to contribute to this global culture war against progressive values and LGBTQ communities is totally unacceptable. I implore you reflect.

- Shahmir Sanni (@shahmiruk) December 19, 2019

well its finally happened. JK Rowling has taken the mask off and shown everyone what trans people have been telling you for years: she's a terf.

maybe believe us next time we tell you someone is crypto? pic.twitter.com/V17h9phGZ5

- sinéad naoimh ⚧ ?? (@sineadactually) December 19, 2019

"Trans people are real. Intersex people are real. Bigotry is very real," wrote another user.

"Denying trans and intersex people's rights and identities is dangerous and unacceptable."

Important to also note - 'Woman being fired for stating sex is real' is a gross mischaracterisation of the facts of the case. https://t.co/6IngbusEM3

- ??????? Craig ?️‍? (@kalonite) December 19, 2019

Well, she finally said the quiet part out loud.

This is really heartbreaking for a lot of folks.

If Harry Potter is ruined for you, I completely get it.

I'm going to try to hold onto the magic I've found in fandom, the original text, & the magic others have created around it. https://t.co/7beiYgJRBT

- Jeff Spirit ??❄️ (@jackisnotabird) December 19, 2019

"My daughter, who is trans, is a big fan of yours," a user said.

"It breaks my heart to see you post something indicating that discrimination against her is perfectly fine behaviour for an employee.

"The world's most credible medical orgs affirm trans people. Please catch up."

how do u live ur best life in peace and security if there are other people constantly debating ur right to exist, sneering at ur struggles and smearing u as a pedo or a rapist based on nothing but the fact ur gender identity is not ~the norm? just say ur a terf and go https://t.co/LmLS4DG06C

- G (@oneofthosefaces) December 19, 2019

Maya Forstater did not lose her job because she campaigned against the GRA. She did not lose her job because she believed in biological sex.

She lost her job because of her refusal to recognise the legal rights of people who had transitioned. https://t.co/artfU2psMS pic.twitter.com/HkLw7IZYBH

- Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) December 19, 2019

And several users contrasted Rowling with Harry Potter film star Emma Watson, who last year unabashedly came out as an ally to trans folk.

Furthermore, one of the largest LGBT+ rights advocacy groups, the Human Rights Campaign, even commented on the ensuing row over Rowling:

Trans women are women.
Trans men are men.
Non-binary people are non-binary.

CC: JK Rowling.

- Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) December 19, 2019

And, in what is Twitter's legal obligation, people made a lot of memes:

Tired: Dumbledore is gay but there's no evidence in any of the books.

Wired: JK Rowling is a full-blown TERF and she's saying it with her chest. pic.twitter.com/jC2j7UNZx6

- Camp as Christmas (@Philip_Ellis) December 19, 2019

jk rowling: expecto transphobia

- deck the halls with boughs of corry ? (@notcorry) December 19, 2019

Rowling's representatives declined to comment when approached by PinkNews.

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JK Rowling accused of transphobia - again. This time for defending 'feminist' fired for anti-trans views

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Harry Potter author JK Rowling has voiced her support for a woman who pursued legal action to have "gender-critical views" protected under the UK Equalities Act. The writer, 54, hasn't tweeted since September, but made a surprise return to come out in support for Maya Forstater, who was plunged into a landmark case which tested whether anti-trans views would be considered as a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equalities Act.

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PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBT+ news

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JK Rowling's reps have claimed she had a "clumsy and middle-aged moment" - after she liked a tweet that referred to trans women as 'men in dresses'.

The beloved Harry Potter author shocked fans yesterday when she liked a controversial tweet amid a row about the status of transgender women in the left-wing Labour Party.

After a surge in anti-trans rhetoric, a fringe group of campaigners have led calls for transgender women to be banned from standing on Labour's women-only shortlists for Parliament, and have threatened to resign from the party if it does not agree to their demands.

Rowling, a prominent Labour supporter who frequently engages in issues around the party, 'liked' a message about the campaign from a prominent anti-transgender campaigner.

The message read: "I was shouted at by men at my first Labour Party meeting aged 18 because I asked them to remove a Page 3 calendar. I've been told to be louder, stronger, independent. I've often not felt supported. Men in dresses get brocialist solidarity I never had. that's misogyny!"

As Twitter frequently shows people's liked tweets in users' feeds, a number of fans were shocked to see the message pop up on their timeline as being 'liked' by Rowling.

Approached for comment, a spokesperson for the author told PinkNews that she had not intentionally liked the message.

The spokesperson told PinkNews: "I'm afraid J.K. Rowling had a clumsy and middle-aged moment and this is not the first time she has favourited by holding her phone incorrectly."

A string of messages criticising Rowling had gone viral.

Trans journalist Shon Faye led the criticism, pointing out that the Twitter user who penned the message, who has since made their account private, has previously sent messages referring to transgender women as 'men'.

She wrote: "Trans culture is seeing the beloved author of your generation like a transphobic tweet from a troll account which has repeatedly called you a man."

One viral message added: "So @jk_rowling are you going to address why you're going around liking transphobic tweets or."

Another fan joked: "Wingardium transphobia... the OWLs at Hogwarts are being discontinued to make way for TERFs."

The author previously included a transgender character in detective novel The Silkworm, which she wrote under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

But anti-transgender activists on internet forum Mumsnet seemed thrilled with the author after the Twitter row.

One wrote: "Excellent news, hopefully young female Harry Potter fans might be taking note of her views on this."

Another added: "Ooh. Have thought she might be for a while. Fingers crossed!"

The message disappeared from Rowling's feed after the criticism.

Reps for Rowling did not respond to a request for comment from PinkNews.

The author also recently came under fire from LGBT fans when it was confirmed that her upcoming film Fantastic Beasts 2 will feature an area of Harry Potter history long believed to have included a gay romance - but will not address it.

The film will feature Jude Law as a younger version of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, finally addressing his relationship with dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald - with whom the Harry Potter books suggested he was in love.

But the film's director said in an interview that Dumbledore would not be "explicitly gay" in the film despite the focus on him and Grindelwald - leading fans to accuse Rowling of 'queerbaiting' by failing to commit Dumbledore's sexuality to screen.

Others accused the author of selling out by allowing the plot to be 'straightwashed' for a global blockbuster audience.

Major films that feature LGBT content frequently struggle to get a global cinema release and often take a hit at the global box office due to anti-LGBT regulations in some markets.

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JK Rowling reps blame 'middle-aged moment' for liking tweet calling trans women 'men in dresses'

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JK Rowling's reps have claimed she had a "clumsy and middle-aged moment" - after she liked a tweet that referred to trans women as 'men in dresses'. The beloved Harry Potter author shocked fans yesterday when she liked a controversial tweet amid a row about the status of transgender women in the left-wing Labour Party.

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British author J. K. Rowling, writer of Harry Potter and other Wizarding World works has garnered attention for her support of the Labour Party under Gordon Brown and her criticism of the party under Jeremy Corbyn, as well as her opposition to the Conservative Party and the Republican Party under Donald Trump. She opposed Scottish independence in a 2014 referendum and Brexit during the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.

Since late 2019, Rowling has publicly voiced her opinions on transgender people and related civil rights. These views have been criticised as transphobic by some LGBT rights organisations and some feminists, but have received support from other feminists.

United Kingdom politics

J. K. Rowling has been a long-time friend of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah Brown. In September 2008, Rowling donated £1 million to the Labour Party and commended Brown's commitment to improving the lives of poor families. Rowling praised Brown in a 2009 Time magazine essay saying she "still wanted him in charge". Rowling wrote about what it meant to be British saying, "It means a welfare state of which we should be fiercely proud and a tradition of tolerance and free speech we should defend to our last collective breath." Rowling also praised the National Health Service (NHS). Rowling was critical of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party.

Scottish politics

As a resident of Edinburgh, Rowling was eligible to vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, and intended to vote "No". She donated £1 million (US$1,694,000) to the Better Together anti-independence campaign, led by former neighbour and friend Alistair Darling, and used the " Death Eaters" characters from her Harry Potter series-who reject wizards unless they have pure blood-as a reference in her explanation of her donation: "However, when people try to make this debate about the purity of your lineage, things start getting a little Death Eaterish for my taste." In Rowling's post-donation blog post in mid-June 2014, she explained that she is "friendly" with members of both campaigns and stated a belief that "there are intelligent, thoughtful people on both sides of this question".

In June 2016, Rowling opposed Brexit and campaigned for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union, in the run up to the referendum to leave the European Union, stating on her website that, "I'm the mongrel product of this European continent and I'm an internationalist. I was raised by a Francophile mother whose family was proud of their part-French heritage .... My values are not contained or proscribed by borders. The absence of a visa when I cross the channel has symbolic value to me. I might not be in my house, but I'm still in my hometown." Rowling expressed concern that "racists and bigots" were directing parts of the Leave campaign. In a blog post, she added: "How can a retreat into selfish and insecure individualism be the right response when Europe faces genuine threats, when the bonds that tie us are so powerful, when we have come so far together? How can we hope to conquer the enormous challenges of terrorism and climate change without cooperation and collaboration?"

United States politics

Rowling told a Spanish newspaper in February 2008 that the politics of the United States had negatively impacted not only the US, but the UK as well; she stated that "it is a pity that Clinton and Obama have to be rivals because both are extraordinary."

Rowling advised the 2008 graduating class of Harvard, "the great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden."

Rowling made analogies between Donald Trump and Voldemort after the Republican presidential candidate called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States on 7 December 2015.

Amnesty International

Green values

Rowling was recognised with the Order of the Forest for demanding that 16 publishers around the world print her books using "eco-friendly" papers. The last book in the Potter series is considered within the industry to be the most environmentally friendly in publishing history.

Eating disorders

In 2006, Rowling criticised models on her website, describing that their "only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs". In response to criticism over the connotations of weight within Harry Potter, Rowling responded that Harry Potter characters who are "on the plumper side" include "several of my most important, admirable and loveable characters". She linked to a fan website - MuggleNet - that lists seven characters who are "fat and good", three who are "fat and bad" and claims there are none who are "fat and evil". However, there were skinny and evil characters in the series.

Age branding of children's books

Rowling has publicly opposed the labelling of children's books as "age appropriate".

On 22 October 2015, a letter was published in The Guardian signed by Rowling (along with over 150 other figures from arts and politics) opposing the cultural boycott of Israel, and announcing the creation of a network for dialogue, called Culture for Coexistence. Rowling later explained her position in more detail, saying that although she opposed most of Benjamin Netanyahu's actions she did not think the cultural boycott would bring about the removal of Israel's leader or help improve the situation in Israel and Palestine.

European migrant crisis

In 2015, Rowling expressed support for refugees.

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rowling has publicly expressed support for Ukraine, pledging to match funding for aid children trapped in orphanages in Ukraine. She also publicly expressed opposition to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In 2017, Rowling expressed her opposition to the Mexico City Policy, when it was reinstated by Donald Trump, and said that she supported abortion rights, especially in Third World countries.

Transgender people

Rowling's responses to proposed changes to UK gender recognition laws, and her views on sex and gender, have provoked controversy. Her statements have divided feminists; fuelled freedom of speech and academic freedom debates; and prompted support for transgender people from the literary, arts and culture sectors. Her statements have been deemed transphobic by critics and she has been referred to as a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). She rejects these characterisations. As her views on the legal status of transgender people came under fire, some performers and feminists have supported her. Figures from the arts world criticised "hate speech directed against her".

On 22 March 2018, Rowling "liked" a tweet calling transgender women "men in dresses". Reports of the comment generated accusations of transphobia. Her spokesperson later told , "I'm afraid JK Rowling had a clumsy and middle-aged moment. This is not the first time she has favourited by holding her phone incorrectly."

On 19 December 2019, Rowling tweeted her support for Maya Forstater, who lost her employment tribunal against her former employer, the Center for Global Development in Maya Forstater v Centre for Global Development (2019). Forstater's contract was not renewed after she tweeted "men cannot change into women", and at the tribunal she asserted that her " gender critical" beliefs should be protected under the Equality Act 2010. However, the tribunal judge ruled against her, on the grounds she "is absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". Forstater successfully appealed the judgement in 2021, after a High Court judge found that "gender critical" beliefs fell under the protection of the Equality Act.

On 6 June 2020, Rowling criticised a article's use of the phrase " people who menstruate" instead of the word "women". She went on to tweet, "If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased", while also saying she was "empathetic to trans people". The media advocacy group GLAAD called the tweets "anti-trans" and "cruel", and wrote, "JK Rowling continues to align herself with an ideology which willfully distorts facts about gender identity and people who are trans. In 2020, there is no excuse for targeting trans people." Several actors known for portraying Rowling's characters criticised her views or spoke out in support of trans rights, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Eddie Redmayne, Evanna Lynch, Bonnie Wright, Miriam Margolyes, and Katie Leung, as did the fansites MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron. Radcliffe responded with an essay for The Trevor Project, stating, " Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I." Actress Noma Dumezweni initially expressed support for Rowling but rescinded her stance following backlash. Actor Ralph Fiennes defended Rowling, saying of the backlash that the "level of hatred that people express about views that differ from theirs [is] disturbing".

Rowling later published an essay on her website in response to the criticism. Rowling again wrote that many women consider terms like "people who menstruate" to be demeaning. She said she was concerned that girls were transitioning in order to escape womanhood, and said that trans activism was "seeking to erode 'woman' as a political and biological class". She said she was a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault, and stated that "When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he's a woman - and, as I've said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones - then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside", while stating that most trans people were vulnerable and deserved protection. Following up into who is at risk in women's toilets, Reuters stated that it was trans women who were more vulnerable, and that 200 municipalities which allowed trans people to use women's shelters reported no rise in any violence as a result. Among those who disputed the claims in Rowling's essay were Stonewall, Mermaids, a charity organisation for gender non-conforming children, who refuted the notion that trans people are predatory, and CEO of GLAAD Sarah Kate Ellis who said it could create a dangerous environment for the trans community. Feminist gender theorist Judith Butler considered Rowling's claims as "a rich fantasy" that did not describe social reality. Warner Bros. Entertainment and Universal Studios Parks & Resorts both released statements on 10 June 2020 in response to requests for comments. Both parties emphasised their prioritization of LGBTQ+ inclusion and diversity, but did not directly mention Rowling or her comments towards the trans community. However, she has received support from actors Robbie Coltrane and Brian Cox, and some feminists such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The radical feminist Julie Bindel stated that Rowling has always been a feminist and has inspired people "to look into issues of sex-based discrimination". The essay was nominated by Amal Rajan of the BBC for the annual Russell prize for best writing. The broadcaster said it appreciated Rowling's "bravery" for writing the blog despite the reaction it caused, and added that the nomination didn't mean the BBC supported Rowling's argument.

On 19 June 2020, the Equality Act was blocked in the U.S. Senate. Republican senator James Lankford cited Rowling's essay as part of his reasoning for opposing the bill.

Following the threat of legal action, British children's news website publicly apologised to Rowling after publishing an article that suggested her comments caused harm to and attacked trans people, made comparisons between Rowling's views and those of Wagner on race and Picasso on women, and called for her work to be boycotted. The publication also agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to a charity of Rowling's choice.

In August 2020, Rowling returned her Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award, after RFKHR president Kerry Kennedy called her statements "deeply troubling" and "transphobic". She further argued that Rowling's words "had the effect of degrading trans people's lived experiences". Rowling stated that she was "deeply saddened" to be returning the award, reiterating her admiration for Robert Kennedy, but said that no award "means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience."

On 15 September 2020, her novel Troubled Blood was published receiving criticism for its portrayal of a murderous man who dresses as a woman when killing. A spokesperson for the charity Mermaids condemned the novel for "tired tropes" that demonise trans people by presenting them as a threat. A review in The Guardian stated the character was "just one of many suspects" and that he isn't "portrayed as trans or even called a 'transvestite' by Rowling."

On 22 September 2020, Rowling encouraged her Twitter followers to purchase from the Wild Womyn Workshop. The online store sells merchandise that is considered transphobic.

On 27 September 2020, a letter in support of Rowling, signed by 58 entertainers and authors, including author Ian McEwan, actress Frances Barber, playwright Tom Stoppard and actor and writer Griff Rhys Jones, was published in The Sunday Times. The letter condemned the "onslaught of abuse" directed at Rowling on social media, describing such behaviour as an "insidious, authoritarian and misogynistic trend". Actor Eddie Redmayne similarly condemned the abuse targeted at Rowling, whilst also condemning the "hideous torrent of abuse towards trans people online and out in the world". Genderfluid comedian and actor Eddie Izzard stated, "I don't think J.K. Rowling is transphobic. I think we need to look at the things she has written about in her blog." In an interview with New Statesman, philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler agreed that Rowling should not be subject to online abuse, but urged people also to oppose abuse, online and in person, against trans people.

In a 2021 essay for New Statesman, former British prime minister Tony Blair expressed his belief that Labour would never regain power if it criticised Rowling's views on trans people. In his 2021 Netflix comedy special, , comedian Dave Chappelle also expressed support for Rowling, declaring himself "Team TERF".

Rowling only featured in archival interviews from 2019 in HBO's 2022 Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts. Critics speculated that failure to record new footage with the cast was due to her views on transgender issues and "public rebuke by the series' stars in response to her views on trans people." However, Entertainment Weekly reported that Rowling had been invited to appear, but felt that the archival footage was sufficient, and denied that her decision was related to the controversy on transgender issues.

In response to backlash against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin expressed support for Rowling's views on transgender people while comparing the treatment of Russia to that of Rowling. She criticised Putin's statement in response.

Open letter on justice and open debate

In July 2020, Rowling signed an open letter published in Harper's Magazine titled " A Letter on Justice and Open Debate", with 150 other public figures, largely writers and academics. The letter states in part, "The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted", criticises "a vogue for public shaming and ostracism" and "a blinding moral certainty", warns of fear spreading in the arts and media, and denounces President Donald Trump as "a real threat to democracy". The letter sparked much debate about cancel culture (public criticism calling for censure of prominent people over their controversial actions or opinions). Rowling stated she was proud to sign the letter to defend "open debate and freedom of thought and speech".

Objections to the letter included accusations that Rowling and the other signatories had powerful means to publish their opinions, and that it was disingenuous to attempt to silence others who might offer criticism of their views. Some thought that Rowling was trying to specifically suppress criticism about her statements concerning transgender topics. After learning who also signed the letter, Jennifer Finney Boylan expressed regret over her support, and stated she would not have signed had she known who the other signatories were. Rowling then sarcastically tweeted that Boylan should incur public penance for the association with her.

Stanford Law professor Richard Thompson Ford, a signatory to the letter, stated it should not matter who signed because they do not endorse the entire gamut of viewpoints and deeds of their co-signatories. Writer Bari Weiss said she was proud to stand with Rowling and the other signatories. Several of the signers also defended their letter, saying there is a very diverse group of people supporting their stand against excessive retribution by what they called the "forces of illiberalism".

References

Journal sources

Duggan, Jennifer (28 March 2021). "Transformative readings: Harry Potter fan fiction, trans/queer reader response, and J. K. Rowling" (PDF). Children's Literature in Education. doi:10.1007/s10583-021-09446-9. ISSN 0045-6713. S2CID 233661189.

Pape, Madeleine (2022). "Feminism, trans justice, and speech rights: a comparative perspective". Law and Contemporary Problems. 85 (1): 215-240.

Pedersen, Sarah (2022). "'They've got an absolute army of women behind them': the formation of a women's cooperative constellation in contemporary Scotland". Scottish Affairs. 31 (1): 1-20. doi:10.3366/scot.2022.0394.

Suissa, Judith; Sullivan, Alice (February 2021). "The gender wars, academic freedom and education". Journal of Philosophy of Education. 55 (1): 55-82. doi:10.1111/1467-9752.12549.

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Political views of J. K. Rowling - Wikipedia

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British author J. K. Rowling, writer of Harry Potter and other Wizarding World works has garnered attention for her support of the Labour Party under Gordon Brown and her criticism of the party under Jeremy Corbyn, as well as her opposition to the Conservative Party and the Republican Party under Donald Trump.